Category: revising

I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)

Monday, and back to the office with me this morning! I didn’t want to get up, of course–I never do when I have to go back to be woken up by an alarm, but my brain is waking up and my body’s little aches and pains are starting to fade as my heart rate increases. I feel rested this morning, which is nice, and always a good way to start the week. The Olympics ended yesterday, which means I can get back to writing again now and so we’ll see how that goes tonight, won’t we? I have an errand to run after work tonight, and a to-do list to make, and dishes to take care of. I made pepper steak for dinner last night, and it turned out pretty well; with lots left over for lunches this week. We are also not, apparently, in a heat advisory for the day; the high will be 95, and there will be rain this afternoon. How heavenly! It hasn’t rained in several days. The storm that may become Tropical Depression (and worse) Ernesto is out there in the middle of the Atlantic heading this way. Eight days from tomorrow is my birthday, so I have a long weekend in store for me coming up. (I am taking my birthday and Monday off next week, for a four day holiday for me. Huzzah!) Soon enough it will be football season–my first one with medications to handle anxiety–so I am curious to see how that will go, too. School will also be starting soon, so there will be more traffic in the morning and in the evening, and more busses to deal with. Yay.

I am kind of excited to be able to write again, and I think letting my batteries recharge on the creative front during the Olympics (as well as giving myself permission to not write) had helped me somewhat. I’ve noticed my brain going off in creative tangents over the course of the weekend, and scribbling a lot of notes in my journal. We did manage yesterday to watch American Fiction (superb) and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which was interesting. I used to be, a long time ago, a Planet of the Apes fan; I watched the original series and enjoyed it very much. I had read the (very) short novel by Pierre Boulle that the original film was loosely based on; it was very different from the movie as they basically took everything out except the conceit of American astronauts landing on a planet where apes were the dominant species and humans animals who couldn’t speak or think. It did occur to me that I could write an essay on Planet of the Apes, but I’ve also not seen many of this new series. I saw the original film remake, with Mark Wahlberg and Helena Bonham Carter, and I think I may have seen one or more of the sequels1, but am not entirely sure. I did find it interesting–I am always interested in dystopian futures for Earth and humanity–and it was quite visually stunning. We also finished streaming the new season of the Rob Lowe show (Unstable), which was enjoyable, and started the Lou Pearlman documentary.

Obviously, we did very little yesterday. I did make the pepper steak and did a load of dishes (the dishwasher needs emptying this morning), and I did head over to Midcity for a minor making groceries run. I feel good this morning, and capable of getting things done today, which is always a rather nice feeling. It’s been lovely not feeling any self-imposed pressure on myself to write; plus I’ve been sleeping really well, which is great. I’ve also got some medical things to get taken care of–a dermatologist and an arthritis specialist (I don’t remember what kind of doctor that is) to see if there’s anything that can be done about this wretched eczema/psoriasis, which is, granted, better than it used to be; I had those dry flaky patches all over my body while now it is limited to right elbow patch and a few very small flaky parts in places like toe and finger joints.

I also like Monday mornings because it’s not a clinic morning so I don’t have to get there as early as I do the rest of the week, so I can take my time and not rush, which is always nice. I have a lot of Admin duties to get done today, and so I need to really plan my day so I can be as productive as possible. I think I have a training to go to this morning to plan around as well–a long overdue training, I might add–but that shouldn’t be an issue. I also have to get my desk at work figured out; I changed desks on Friday (well, I had IT move my computer stuff to a different desk) so I have that to get used to; all these years I’ve sat on the right side of a two cubicle space, so the wall is right there to my immediate right…and being right-handed, that’s always bothered me, as does sitting right in front of the printer. Being moved to the desk beside puts the edge of the desk to my left while the space spreads out to the right. We’ll see how that adjustment goes today, won’t we?

I have finally decided how to use this blog as well as the Substack. I am going to continue to cross-post my longer, single issue essays/posts here for a while, as well as there, until I grow the audience there more. After that happens, I will make this the blog still while the other stuff–reviews, essays, etc.–will go there. That’s the plan, at any rate. It’s growing nicely, I think; “I’m the Only One” has been seen by more people than the previous entry, and my subscribers doubled since July 15th (well, from five to ten). I’m going to give it until next summer to decide whether or not to start making it paid or not; any income is income, after all. I also need to start focusing more on raising my profile and getting my name out there more, and selling/moving more books. I also have to get the ebook for Jackson Square Jazz going, and possibly both it and Bourbon Street Blues to print-on-demand. It’ll be nice having the entire series available again, won’t it?

And maybe, I don’t know, start taking myself more seriously, as a writer and (dare I say it?) an artist.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Monday; I may be back later, and if not, I’ll be here again in the morning.

  1. Although I am not sure if they are, indeed, sequels to the remake. ↩︎

Downtown

Sunday morning has rolled around again, and I am feeling pretty good. I slept well again before Sparky decided it was time for me to get up, and he let me sleep later (after he started) without much of a quibble. (I like to pretend he cuddles with me in the mornings before I get up because it’s nice; I know it’s because he wants to know the minute I get up so he can start meowing at me to come downstairs with him.) The closing ceremonies for the Olympics are today, which is a shame, as I always love the Olympics. There really is nothing more patriotic-feeling like rooting for young athletic Americans on the wolrd stage, is there? The fact that this was going on while the tides of our election have seemingly all turned to the positive has really been something. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what patriotism is and what it means to be patriotic–and not in the least little bit because the Right has made patriotism so distasteful and embarrassing. I am seeing the crowds at the Vice-President’s rallies moving to take patriotism back from the Christian Nationalists (the flag, the USA chant, etc.) because what they call patriotism is actually anything but. But the Democratic National Convention is going to be pretty thrilling this year, methinks, reminiscent of another dark period coming to an end–the 2008 election ending the nightmare of the eight years of right-wing control and endless wars and lies. I know I am actually excited about the election now, and while the fear and dread are still there, there’s a lot of joy and optimism.

And what an amazing Olympiad this has been, the haters and agents of darkness aside1! so many great stories, so many redemptions, and so much fun to watch and enjoy as always. It also felt different; maybe the fucked up 2020 Tokyo Olympics caused a reset; it didn’t feel like an Olympics and now, all I did was (besides root for our athletes) be happy for the all the competitors and medalists–I finally developed the proper Olympic spirit that doesn’t villainize great athletes from other countries. I never liked that whole xenophobic need for the US to win the most medals to prove our superiority as a nation; I do not want to be anything like the Nat C’s. Probably twenty years ago I might have hated, for example, Rebeca Andrade as Simone’s biggest competition–but this time around I simply enjoyed her skills and abilities and applauded for her just as I did for our gymnasts. I think I have finally unpacked and emptied the last of my conditioning as an American.2

I had a lovely relaxing day yesterday. Paul and I watched Challengers, which was interesting, and then caught up on House of the Dragon, The Serpent Queen, and started watching the second season of the show with Rob Lowe and his son on Netflix, which is cute and funny. I can’t think of the name of the show, but the first season was pretty pleasant and fun, so I hope the second season isn’t a disappointment. Watching these shows about royals struggling over the throne and power put me to thinking, again, about actual history, and of course the Catherine de Medici story, which I’ve always enjoyed. The banker’s daughter who became queen of France and mother herself of three kings and two queens. The show jumped from actual history to nonsense toward the end of the first season, and this second season is diverging dramatically from what actually happened; Queen Elizabeth never visited the French court, nor did Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (who actually abdicated and died before Catherine’s husband, Henri II) and likewise, his son Philip II did actually marry Elisabeth de Valois, but it was at her wedding celebration that Henri was killed. And they are starting to set up her daughter Margot’s story, which is also endlessly interesting to me. I’m still reading Rival Queens, the story of the mother-daughter relationship during one of the most treacherous periods of French history. I was also thinking about how people always say George R. R. Martin based A Song of Fire and Ice on the Wars of the Roses; but there’s another series of French histories called The Accursed Kings by Maurice Druon, focusing on the years 1310-1337, about the end of the main branch of the Capetian dynasty and the rise of the Valois branch–and the Hundred Years’ War. This aspect of French history–the lead up to that epic war–isn’t as well known, and I tore through that series when I discovered it at the Emporia Library as a teenager. It’s a great series, a fascinating time in French history (there are many fascinating periods in French history), and you can probably see why I love French history (and France) so much.

I’ve also been thinking, not only about the book I’m writing now but the next Scotty, too. I’ve renamed it Hurricane Season Hustle (saying party instead of season seems like asking for it, frankly), and started coming up with ideas for the plot. I have also been thinking about my short stories in progress, and I think I’ve come up with any number of ways to fix the ones I want to get fixed. My goal is to finish the short story collection this month and get it out of the way while working on the new book. Football season will be here before you know it, which will start taking up my weekends, so I need to be starting to get back to the grind of everything. I did do some cleaning yesterday around the house, too, and plan to do some more this morning before I go make groceries at Rouse’s. I can’t decide if I want to make steak fajitas for dinner, or pepper steak.

I did read a short story yesterday, “The Amateur of Crime,” by Stephen Vincent Benet. It’s an old story, Benet is a famous writer not known for his crime stories, and it was interesting, if a bit…I don’t know, unrealistic? I have found that non-crime writers who write crime short stories for whatever reason always seem to go for the “huh?” solution to crimes. In this case, the amateur detective on the spot is helped by any number of coincidences that also happen to give him the knowledge to solve the crime (there was a Faulkner crime short story that’s solution had to do with cigarette smoke trapped beneath a radiator…again, not realistic), which seemed contrived to me. But it was an interesting story, and again, reading it gave me some ideas how to fix some of my own in-progress drafts, or the ones that are finished but need revision.

There’s always so much writing to do.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines for the day. I do need to make a grocery list before running over to Rouse’s today; nothing major, a little run to get stuff for lunch and to make dinner a few nights this week. But for now, I am going to get cleaned up and do some filing and so forth, so I bid you adieu for now, Constant Reader, and I hope you have a marvelous Sunday.

  1. Hilariously, a while back when I did one of my Pride posts about how white women have always been the worst homophobes, a friend asked me why I didn’t mention the Chatelaine of Castle TERF, and I replied “she gets her own.’ But she is so evil and awful and horrible so regularly that before I can finish writing about her, she’ll do something even worse. Her behavior during these Olympics, along with the haters she’s embraced, was especially egregious and awful. ↩︎
  2. I sometime want to write about this, and the American mythology I was raised to believe that wasn’t the truth but something taught to justify white supremacy. ↩︎

Wooly Bully

Friday and working at home. I have a team meeting at ten on-line this morning along with other various work-at-home duties; I also have errands to run later on when everything is finished. I feel rested this morning, despite getting up so damned early (Sparky was very insistent this morning), and so while I swill my coffee and wake up, I can hopefully do some things around here, too, before I get to work. The kitchen isn’t nearly as bad as it usually is on Friday mornings, so I don’t have to start there this weekend to straighten up the house, which is very exciting. I’m going to try very hard this weekend not to succumb to the temptations of doing little to nothing. The boil water advisory was lifted yesterday, and today’s heat index will max out at 109. I was able to come straight home after work yesterday, which was really nice, and I spent the evening getting caught up on the day’s news before switching over to the Olympics. I always hate when they come to an end, and they really are uplifting and fun to watch; inspiring. (I bet there will be a lot of Olympic romances published next year.)

I do have that figure skating short story…it’s kind of noirish. Maybe I should revisit it?

The next Olympics will be in Los Angeles, just like in 1984. I lived in California then, and to this day I regret not applying to work at the games. But…it was a different time and a different world, too.

I came to the conclusion last night that part of the problem I am/was having with writing Never Kiss a Stranger was that old one-two punch of writer’s brain: fear that I’d fuck up telling the story, and fear that it won’t be the book that I want it to be. Which is absurd on its face; and haven’t I felt that way about every book I’ve written more than once during the process of creating the story? Maybe it’s different for the big names, but I am never fearless when I am writing something. I’ve never heard any of my friends who are writers I deeply admire and respect ever feel a lack of confidence in their work, or in their ability to tell the story they want to tell. I think that is definitely something I need to work on, and I don’t feel afraid about writing the book now, so hopefully that is progress. I think taking this Olympic break from writing was perhaps one of the smartest things I’ve done as an adult. I am itching to get back to it, I let my mind rest and heal, and my body had settled into my routine at long last. Likewise, I have to get back to reading every day, so I can get caught up on my reading, at least from this year. I am so far behind on so many of my friends’ and favorite authors’ books; but at least I know that I have some great books to read through the end of the year. And yes, I think I am going to do some reading this weekend.

I kind of feel good about things. I like that I am establishing boundaries, and enforcing them. I like that I am digging out of the hole and rut and everything else of the last few years. I like my life now that I have time to kick back and enjoy it, and relax without guilt. I like my job, I love writing, I am finally getting the apartment into a nice, comfortable living space by clearing out the clutter so no one will have to after I depart this world. I am back learning how to cook new recipes, and having quite a good time doing so. The heat is tiring, of course, and that also affects how I get things done after I get home, but the summer will be ending fairly soon and then I can get back into the swing of some other things, like regular workouts and things of that nature. I am making progress on my debt, which is also pretty great.

So, on that cheerful and hopeful note, I am going to head into the spice mines. You go on and have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later on.

Mary, Mary

Hey there, Tuesday. How are you today? Yesterday wasn’t bad. I didn’t feel awake completely for most of the day, but I also think that had a lot to do with calorie deficits. I didn’t eat a lot over the weekend because my mouth was sore, which made biting and chewing hard. It wasn’t so bad yesterday, but I was so hungry all day, and I am sure that had a lot to do with feeling run down and tired. My mind was sharp, though, for the most part. I just felt like I needed to lay back down for another half-hour or so, if that makes sense? I did have a productive day at the office, though. I also managed to get the book outlined up through where I’ve written, and I also reread the most recent two chapters. Chapter Three needs a sex scene at the end, and Chapter 4 needs a strong revision before I move on to Chapter 5; but I didn’t know that until I reread and outlined, so we are ahead of the game for the moment right now.

The question about the sex scene is how to write it. From the very beginning, I’ve written very explicit, matter of fact sex scenes, because I wanted the reader to experience it in the same way the characters are experiencing it. My sex scenes are too graphic, athletic, and sweaty for most readers; it’s why I never tried writing a romance novel. They want prettier, frillier, more romantic sex scenes rather than the graphic depictions of what it’s really like, which is how I write them. I’ll probably write it graphically, and then tone it down and make it more palatable to modern tastes, I suppose.

Which reminds me, is mary still a gay slang term? I’m never sure about these things, and now that we’re more aware of how problematic things we took for granted are once we unpack them, I have to wonder about things like this. Mary was always a kind of slur for gay men, but we took it back and reclaimed it…and it became a kind of shorthand for gay men–“muscle Mary,” etc.–and sometimes you’d use it to address someone (“let it go, Mary”) but I was never sure where that came from in the first place, in all honesty. Hamburger Mary’s is a very well known queer restaurant chain (I love eating at the one in Palm Springs). Gay men always called each other “gurl” or “she” and so on; I’m not sure if that’s still okay or not. I don’t see anything offensive in it, but I am also not trans, and so not the best judge of that sort of thing. I don’t know where mary came from and why gay men used it with such abandon, but it has something to do with blurring gender lines with gay men–and since we weren’t “men” the way society defined them, so we started using female pronouns and adapted other non-masculine language for use. Gay men often use gendered slurs for each other without offense–slut, whore, bitch, hooker, skank–or second thought.

At least, we used to. I don’t know if we still do. Like I said, it may be problematic, and if people see it that way, then we should let it die and never mention it again.

But I will say this: it was never, ever intended to mock or insult women, just like drag wasn’t and still isn’t. It was mocking masculinity, if anything. Drag mocks and critiques gender roles, the same thing feminists have fought from the very beginning, and if you think gay men are your enemies1… I’m not going to tell women what is or isn’t misogynist, but lumping gay men in with straight men as misogynist sexists is also misandrist and homophobic. And you don’t get to tell me you’re not, either. See how that works? If you get to tell me I am a misogynist, I get to call you a homophobe when you’re homophobic. (Some allyship only goes as deep as free drugs and drinks at the gay bar.)

And how awesome was it that the US Men’s Gymnastics team won the first team medal at the Olympics in who knows how long (Okay, it was 2008, but it seemed like longer)? (The women, of course, still have a shot at gold) They also were a lot closer to the gold and silver medalists, too–so it’s entirely possible the men’s team is going to start climbing and getting better the way the women did all those years ago. We certainly can hope, and that kid on the pommel horse is phenomenal. GO USA!2 Their joy was infectious, and that young man with the glasses (Stephen Nedoroscik) was absolutely adorable in a geeky kind of way; I think we all fell a bit in love with him after he positively nailed that pommel horse routine to lock up a medal.

And that is why I love the Olympics, and will never boycott watching them. I love seeing the pride and joy of the athletes, even the ones who don’t medal or make the finals in their discipline: because the goal is always to make it there, the dream is to get a medal. Naturally, America’s pathetically weak-faithed Christians got their panties in a twist over something they completely misunderstood, and had their anchors actually been given the proper information from their producers, could have explained the Dionysian panorama to narrow-minded morons like Candace Cameron Buré (just as much trash as her fucking weird-ass brother) and Rob Schneider.

I slept really well last night, and feel more rested and alert and energetic today than I did yesterday, which is awesome and great. The coffee is really hitting this morning, and I feel like I am going to have a really good day. Go figure, right?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines.

  1. It’s so much easier to attack gay men, who aren’t the ones who’ve spent millennia oppressing women, isn’t it? It’s always the gays who are at fault with straight white women for their oppressive tactics, isn’t it, and not their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons? ↩︎
  2. Unlike some of my “patriotic” fellow citizens, I intend to continue watching the Olympics and rooting for our young athletes. Call me weird, but punishing the young athletes for something they had nothing to do with doesn’t sound particularly patriotic or American, but I’m gay so what do I know? ↩︎

Tear Drop City

Monday! A new week, full of options and possibilities. Isn’t that the best way to look at Monday, rather than groaning about having to go back to work after the weekend? I suppose it’s easy for me to say that because Monday is my administrative day at the office, so I ease back into my job and don’t see clients until Tuesday. It was a nice weekend, to be honest. I didn’t get as much done as I had planned–I never do–but I got what needed doing done. It was a weekend of watching the Olympics, which I always enjoy, and relaxing and hanging out with Paul and Sparky, which is always my favorite thing to do. I need to shave this morning, both my head and face, but overall, it should be a relatively easy and stress-free day for the most part. Huzzah!

I can’t believe it will be August soon, too. I did not work on that short story this weekend whose deadline is Wednesday, but I may be able to get some of it done this week. I forgot all about it, to be honest, and that’s why I need a to-do list to reference. (Note to self: do that today, or else you’ll be floundering all week.) I guess the first thing on the list is to actually make one? Smart, because that way I can cross something off the list to begin with and feel like I’ve accomplished something already. Now that I think about it some more, that’s what I always used to do, too. It’s weird not remembering things like that, and then having it pop back into my head. That’s been happening with my writing lately, too–I’ll remember something that I used to do, or always do and have forgotten about. I remember that with Murder in the Rue St. Ann I started using Tennessee Williams quotes to open my books with, and that I gradually moved away from that over the years to using other quotes to kind of coyly suggest what the theme of the book might be to readers who are paying attention, or are simply marvelous quotes about either being gay, or New Orleans. I have a quote or two for the opening of the next Scotty–I changed the name of it yesterday, not wanting to play with fire–and yesterday I was thinking about the book, and what it was going to be about going forward, and I found another way to involve Scotty’s family, which will be interesting to play out, since he and the boys are staying at his Diderot grandparents while the renovations are being done on their Decatur Street home–so I can also riff on how different it is to live in the Garden District as opposed to the Quarter, where he’s lived most of his life. (I am calling it Hurricane Season Hustle now; which doesn’t seem to tempt fate quite as much as the previous title did, plus I was going to use that title for the fourth Scotty that fateful summer of 2005….)

Pretty cool.

I think this is going to be a good week, or at least this morning feels like it’s going to be one. I think I should probably keep getting up early on my weekends so I can get more done; the sleeping late always seems to give me a more lackadaisical approach to my weekends, and I inevitably end up losing track of time and suddenly it’s after twelve and I haven’t gotten anything done that I wanted to get done, which is never a good thing. And while I don’t like the idea of getting up every morning at the same time–I guess on weekends I could push it back from six to seven, so it’ll feel like sleeping late but really isn’t that much–if I want to get things done on the weekends efficiently I’ll need to get up early. Maybe I’ll let myself sleep late on Saturdays? I don’t know. But I need to shake things up in my life and get back on my regular horses again–writing and the gym. Both will make a difference in my life, won’t they?

I also need to read more. It’s weird that I have reader’s block, which I didn’t even know was a thing. But if I get up early on weekends, I can get the blog done early and can repair to my chair to read for a few hours over my coffee in the mornings. Perhaps if I look at sleeping late as cutting into my reading time, that will get me out of bed on the weekends…or I could continue using my weekends as down time where I mostly futz around the house. And the books continue to pile up around here while I let them go and don’t read. Heavy sigh. And I have so many marvelous books to read around here, and more coming in on the regular, too. And maybe there’s a connection between my not reading and not writing, too. Hmmm. They do kind of go hand in hand, don’t they?

Something else to unpack.

Story of my life, really.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday; I’ll most likely be back later, and if not, I’ll be here again tomorrow morning!

World and Olympic gymnastics champion Daiki Hashimoto

Porpoise Song

In order to honor the Olympics1, I’ve decided that my “hot man” daily image will be Olympic athletes, mostly present day but also including gorgeous men from past Olympics as well, through the course of these Games. I always loved the Olympics, even as a kid who wasn’t all that interested in team sports–I was always interested in individual sports (probably the introversion caused by the anxiety and ADD) more and the Olympics are nothing if not about the individual sport more so than the team efforts–and naturally, I gravitated to the ones where the athletes either wore very little, or something incredibly skintight. We did get to watch some of the Olympics yesterday, with the swimming relays and so forth, which was terrific and fun.2

It rained most of the day yesterday and as such I didn’t run my errands yesterday. (I’m going to Fresh Market this morning to get some things and will hit the grocery store again on the way home from work on Monday.) I didn’t write yesterday, either. The rain made me lazy, as it always does, but at least I got some of the chores done. We also finished watching the first season of Those About to Die, which was fun if not fully engaging, and certainly entertaining enough on its own. The final season of Elité also dropped, and there are several other things out now that I want to watch (Lady in the Lake being one) but this morning I need to get things picked up around the office space, finish some chores that got started, and then I’ll probably settle in for some Olympic enjoyment. Yay! I do love the Olympics. The first ones I remember are 1972, in Munich–Olga Korbut and Mark Spitz and the murders of the Israeli athletes. (They actually allowed us to watch the coverage of the hostage situation at my junior high because “it’s history.”) Paul and I were laughing about the Christian Nationalist response to them last night, and trying to remember opening ceremonies of the past. Athens and Beijing were the two that stood out the most to me (ironically, Fox News didn’t turn Athens’ celebration of Greece’s pagan past into a boycott, go figure, and the fact they were outraged this year because they were too stupid to understand what they were seeing is all anyone really needs to know about them: they get mad about things they don’t understand–and the French are now laughing at their ignorance). I do need to write today, and after I get this done and the kitchen organized, I am going to settle in to doing just that very thing.

I feel much more awake and alive this morning than I did yesterday, which is a lovely thing. It’s also very bright and sunny outside this morning, as opposed to yesterday’s gloom. I don’t really have to get much at the store today, just something for tonight’s dinner and a few other things, too, so going to the store shouldn’t be a tiring thing for me today. I am also going to make a to-do list this morning, and hopefully, that will keep me on track this week, and getting things done and accomplished. I want to get back into the old routine where I was a determined writer who got a lot done every week. I do have a ridiculous amount of down time now, and it’s taking some getting used to–I still feel guilty when choosing a down day or an evening off, but the book is really the only thing I’m getting behind on, which is also fine, you know? My emails never take long to get caught up on, and it’s so nice to not be buried in emails every fucking hour on the hour. I’ve been on social media a little too much lately–it’s hard to believe that it was only last Sunday afternoon that President Biden dropped out of the race. It seems like it’s been weeks, so much has rapidly changed over the course of this past week, that’s it hard to believe it’s been a mere seven days. It’s also lovely not seeing anything on social media from the pro-fascist mainstream media anymore. I do not miss the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, or MSNBC3, and will continue to live without them until I am in the grave.

My coffee is hitting perfectly this morning too, and I am so hungry! I didn’t eat a lot yesterday, like a fool, and so of course this morning I am starving. I didn’t really have much to make for dinner, so I had a turkey sandwich and Paul got a frozen pizza for us for dinner, but obviously, that wasn’t filling–as I am finding out this morning.

I spent a lot of time yesterday cleaning up files (partly because my brain was too fogged yesterday so I knew I wouldn’t write) and oh my God, the essay file. SO many essays, so many drafts of them, so many with different names, so many different essays that are thematically the same as so many others. I had to file some new essay drafts yesterday, and that led me to realize how hard those folders were to navigate because of the lack of organization. It’s better now, but still needs some more work–and I also realized yesterday that I can post my old essays on writing and other things on Substack to keep the content going on a weekly basis so I don’t ever have to really worry about coming up with content; there are so fucking many, really. I wrote so many articles and columns, and they are just sitting in my files. There are also so many that I started and never finished, too. I doubt that the fitness ones would ever come in handy for anyone or anything, but the ones about self-esteem and work ethic and mind/body/spirit could work still. I could also rewrite them, because I am sure now I would read them over and cringe.

And maybe take some boxes down from on top of the cabinets. I think one is just filled with other packaging debris, and I kept it in case I wanted to send the vaccum (which I’ve hardly used) back.

And on that note, I need to get something to eat before I shrivel up. Have a great Sunday, and I may be back later. If not, till the morrow, Constant Reader.

Nathan Adrian, past Olympian in swimming
  1. Plus, this title is another shot at trashbag Just Douchey Vance, which will never get old. ↩︎
  2. I would also like to point out that the Olympics are supposed to rise above everything else to celebrate sport and athleticism. I was a little bummed to see an American athlete being mocked yesterday and his bad day celebrated by people on my political side. Sure, I am not a fan of MAGA and love mocking them every chance I get, but we should rise above that nonsense for the Olympics. I’ve always reviled the politicization of the Games, and always will. All that matters is they are repping our country, for better or for worse. ↩︎
  3. MSNBC’s “excitement” over the new ticket–which they think they are responsible for–doesn’t negate the fact that the Democratic resurgence was not what they were trying to do. They were hoping for a repeat of 1968 (also a Chicago convention) which would leave the party in disarray and the door wide open for a MAGA takeover, for their ratings. Fuck them, now and forever. ↩︎

D. W. Washburn

Saturday morning and we’re looking ahead into a lovely weekend. How lovely! I stayed up later than I should have, and woke up later than I would have like this morning (thank you for getting me up this morning, Sparky). I think it’s going to be another wet day–I woke up to thunder, and it rained all night, too–which will make running my last errand of the weekend today a challenge, but nothing I can’t live with. I did get most of the errands done yesterday, which was wonderful and lovely because I was able to do it all before the rain got too heavy. The rain started when I was leaving the grocery store and I managed to get home before it turned into le dèluge.

I also spent some time watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, which was very diverse and naturally, pissed off MAGA who are now not going to watch the Olympics (watch them demand tickets and do lots of selfies with Olympians in Los Angeles in 2024, though; hypocrisy is their primary value), since nothing says “patriot” quite like not supporting American athletes…until their sexuality or gender identity or race plays into it. Or they dare to have thoughts about anything other than their sport, because that’s all they are there for–but will boost groupthink that aligns with theirs, like Harrison Butker–the piece of shit Serena Williams ended at the ESPY awards. I do love the Olympics, and while I wasn’t completely wild about the boat parade, at least they tried something new.

In fact, the entire broadcast was way too diverse for MAGA. There’s no one quite like the French when it comes to flipping off authoritarianism. It’s also looking like we have finally learned the most important lesson when it comes to this sort of thing, and ironically, we learned it from the French once again; it was France that was able to unite against Fascism and halt it in an election, and now it seems like the American left–Democrats, liberals, moderates, and progressives–are uniting against an existential threat and putting our differences aside to save democracy. We also need to learn the lesson of the Obama administration–don’t let the Fascists even get a toe in again. The Tea Party evolved into Trumpism and MAGA; populist movements on the right inevitably descend into Christofascism. And seriously have you ever seen such a joyless movement as MAGA? It’s all about nastiness and being mean, and leaning into that, and trying to stomp out joy for others so we can all be as miserable and bitter as they are. They stand for nothing except cruelty, and cosplay as Christians (there are few things less Christian than deliberate cruelty and a lack of compassion) to mask their nastiness in some kind of moral pretense that it’s not them, it’s their religion?

I thought the point of religion was joy, which I guess is my bad for taking Sunday school and sermons seriously. Or maybe I was just supposed to take the lessons I was learning and twist them into justifications for non-Christian like behavior? Sorry, Christofascists, my DNA came with the cognitive dissonance gene for my brain, along with rational thought and logic–which is why they hate science and math so much, I guess, because that’s what they teach, logic and reason. Now that we’ve removed Civics and Philosophy from educational requirements, that’s the only place students can learn those skills now, and it should come as no surprise most Americans only take the basic required Math and Science courses and nothing beyond. I will admit when I was taking those advanced classes in high school I thought it was a waste of time; I was going into neither field so why did I need Trigonometry and Chemistry and Physics and so forth? I would never use those skills….but now, all these years later, I realize that those courses taught me how to use logic and rationality to solve problems. And I’ve used those skills quite frequently as an adult.

Mom and Dad were right and not being mean to make me take them.

All right, I am going to get a move on. I need to run my errand, do some picking up around here, and write today. I also would like to read for a little while this weekend, but maybe I’ll do that to take breaks from writing. I used to do this–read for an hour, write for an hour, and switch back and forth like that, and it worked. I need to work on a short story today, too, and maybe I can wake up tomorrow feeling accomplished after getting so much done today. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later at some point as I have trouble staying away sometimes.

Something for those who like hairy men. I do, too, but they are much harder to find than the waxed ones.

Tapioca Tundra

A work at home Friday again, and what a week it has been, not just for me but for the country and the world. It’s been a hell of a ride these past few weeks, hasn’t it? I’m actually going to have to take a social media break or something, but for the best possible reason. We all became addicted to social media in the first place because it was fun (at least, in my case) and also an easy way to stay connected to friends who in the past, you might have exchanged emails with periodically because they didn’t live anywhere near you. Since I started publishing, my friends group grew from people I knew locally to people all over the country. Some of my very best friends do not live anywhere near me, and I usually only get to see them in person at conferences, so social media was a boon for me at first. Then it started turning darker, and around 2016 stopped being as much fun as it had been in the beginning, gradually getting worse and worse until Sunday evening. It’s still kind of a shock how everything changed over the course of this week, and suddenly, social media is fun again. It’s lovely seeing all the renewed energy and excitement around the Vice-President1, whom I have always loved and supported, beginning when she was Attorney General of California (“start the marriages now!”) and she was my candidate in 2020. I have wanted her to be president now for at least ten years, and it looks like I’m getting my wish. (I am keeping my excitement low-key and grounded in reality, but it’s so nice to be excited and hopeful again. I feel like twenty years have dropped from me.)

This week, my first normal work week in quite some time, went normally. I was energetic and awake and “conquer the world” the first days and gradually grew more and more tired as the week went on. Traffic was horrific on the way home (it took me half an hour to get home), and so I decided to once again put off those errands until today. After I finish my work-at-home duties this afternoon, I will head out to do them all. Sigh. Ah, well, it’s nothing more than I deserve for blowing off said errands all week. I had a good day at work yesterday despite being tired, and it’s amazing how good my mood has been all week. It’s still pretty good this morning, actually, and so I am excited to see how much I can get done today. I didn’t work on the book as much as I would have liked this week, and I really do need to work on a short story for an anthology open call that’s due next week. I have to really focus on writing, and while it certainly is okay for me to take a weekend day off to just relax and do chores, if I do I absolutely have to write the other weekend day.

Ah, the coffee is starting to kick in as well, which is wonderful. Sparky got me up early this morning–I was watching news clips last night on Youtube, getting caught up and laughing my ass off at my Gen Z pundits’ mockery of the right and Vance and Trump before bed–and I decided to stay up after feeding him. I also didn’t do any of my chores last night, so they are all waiting for me this morning too. I have an on-line team meeting this morning, so I won’t be starting the loud dishwasher until after that is over. The kitchen is kind of a mess this morning, but it has definitely looked worse. And of course there’s always laundry and the goddamned living room. Sigh. Oh, well. I should also purge some more books today.

All right, I suppose it’s time for me to head back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll most likely be back later!

  1. Can you imagine how they’ll react to losing to a Black woman? I mean, I can, and they are going to try everything possible to overturn the election, guaranteed. And it’s not like those losers haven’t tried violence before–but President Biden is in the White House, and I don’t think he will allow the Capital to be besieged. ↩︎

Valleri

And here we are on a Thursday morning. I kept getting confused yesterday about what day it was (all day) but that’s disorientation caused by working a full week in the office for the first time since maybe June? I don’t know, it just seems like I’ve had more time off over the last month or so than I usually do. Of course, I could just be a chowderhead who doesn’t remember anything anymore, but let’s hope this is not the case. I felt tired yesterday when I got off work, and had thought about heading uptown to run errands, but by the end of the shift I just decided to head home and do all of that tomorrow1. I am feeling tired this morning, and am waking up slower, which seems more normal than how I always feel tired at the beginning of the week and feel more energized as the week goes on. We’ll see how the coffee works this morning.

Ironically, I already feel more awake this morning since typing that sentence, which is very cool. I think we’re going to be slow today so I can get caught up on a lot of my paperwork and Admin duties.

We had a downpour last night–no thunder that I heard at any rate–and we caught this week’s Presumed Innocent, which was the finale. Spoiler–they did change the ending, despite the fact that the original book and movie are so old I doubt anyone has read or seen it, and those who did have forgotten, but I did wonder why they were redoing this if they were going to use the same big twist. I was on Youtube catching up on the news and also watching analysis from Generation Z political pundits–I really enjoy seeing young people so interested and so involved, and I see them getting really involved now, which is awesome. I have a very good feeling about this year’s youth turnout…and the kids are mostly not conservatives. I didn’t write last night because I was tired, which is shameful…but like I said, I was tired and Sparky was feeling playful. I should have known that once I get wrapped up in Sparky-time I wasn’t going to get anything done. I didn’t even do the chores I needed to do last night, and will have to do tonight instead. I also have to run those errands tonight after work, too. Heavy heaving sigh. I also need to make a to-do list for the weekend. I am doing pretty well with getting things crossed off the one I made for this week; which just goes to show how important making a list is for me. (The coffee is working, but I am fatigued and will be exhausted by the time I get home. DAMN YOU YESTERDAY GREG!)

I also plan to watch the President’s address to the nation last night at some point over the next few days.

I have to say I’ve been delighting in social media lately, which is a very odd feeling. Since Sunday night, my social media feeds have been absolutely delightful. Someone said they were joy-scrolling now instead of doom scrolling, and I have a feeling this is going to be very different this year. The Left is energized, and the MAGAts ain’t got nothing besides name mispronunciations, calling her a whore, and a “DEI hire.” Um, you claim she slept her way to the top–does that mean she fucked the over seven million voters who voted for her in the Senate election? And the mobilization of the HCBU’s and the Pan-Hellenic council? I think the American public–the majority of it at any rate–hates the ugliness and the smears and the slanders. For the MAGAts, nastiness and jeering mockery is the appeal. They feel like they’ve been overlooked and mocked and by gum, them libtards are going to pay! Engaging in a battle of wits and scorn with them is a complete waste of both our times, really; I’ll always go lower but smarter. On my way home from work yesterday I saw one of those Viagra trucks–you know, the ones that start at $70k and are basically luxury cars with a bed instead of a trunk, and cost about $100 to fill the tank weekly? His back window had a massive TRUMP decal across the top, with Make Liberals Cry Again. Usually I just roll my eyes and pity the women in his life; or get super irritated. Yesterday I laughed at his impotence. The truck at least had mud spattered all over it, so it actually is a utility vehicle for him rather than cowboy cosplay (which is what it usually is). Yesterday it just made me laugh, as I pictured him out in his yard with a razor scraper taking that off in November, red-faced and furious and thinking the country is doomed. GOOD.

Make liberals cry again. Like MAGA is the fucking adult in the room rather than a toddler throwing a tantrum blaming everyone else for their problems. It wasn’t liberals who took an electoral loss so badly they stormed and vandalized our nation’s capital, but sure, we’re the crybaby sore losers. Sorry you all are incapable of rational or logical thought, and are so narcissistic and self-absorbed that you vote against your own best interests as long as you think you’re screwing a minority. You really want no more social security or Medicare?

There’s no guarantee, of course, but there are just over a hundred days for them to smear the Vice-President. They don’t have thirty years of baked-in smears and lies like they did with Hillary Clinton. All they have is racism and misogyny and insults…no policy except the vague, broad descriptions of how beautiful and perfect everything will be, as corporations and oligarchs get even more tax breaks, with the full burden of taxes falling on the working and middle classes. Foreign countries didn’t fear and respect him, no matter how many times Sean Hannity trots out that sad, pathetic and tired trope. He was, and is forever, Putin’s bitch, and there’s a Russian thread through their entire party. They cozy up to Putin and Russians (Look at Moscow Marge 6B’s, proudly spouting Russian talking points), and how is that in our best interests? Would Ronald Reagan buddy up to Putin?

Not in a million fucking years. I can only imagine Nancy Reagan, rebranded as a high-brow sophisticated society matron from the lot-whore she was in Hollywood in the 1950s, sitting down to dinner with the Trump family. (Best potential SNL sketch ever–wait, no. Second best, because the best would be the dedication of the Trump Presidential Library.)

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Thursday. I may be back later, but you never can be sure.

Save a horse, ride a cowboy.

  1. And yes, this morning’s Greg is really annoyed at yesterday afternoon’s Greg. ↩︎

No Time

Wednesday hump day and we’ve made it to the midpoint of yet another week, one that is startlingly so much better than the ones preceding it that I actually don’t mind looking at social media. Of course, I’ve purged everyone from the mainstream media outlets I am boycotting now and probably forever, so I am not seeing their bullshit “pick me” scare headlines anymore, and you know, my world is already a much better place without them in it. My social media feeds now are filled with excitement in a way I’ve never really seen before. Does that mean I am in a bubble? Probably, but at the same time my news sources now are more reputable and reliable than the old US Big Four, who seem to be in the tank for authoritarianism and fascism. Who knew the fourth estate was such unethical garbage? The Right, as it turns out, was correct about them all the time, and they are more concerned with appealing to the people who will never buy their paper than serving the audience they’ve built over the decades…after all, now they’re saying we should have had an open convention. The head of the ticket stepped down, so the second person is stepping in–which is how it works and is the most important role of the vice-president–President in waiting, just in case.

And I think a lot of people are starting to wonder about JD Vance being a heartbeat away from the White House, given he is running with the oldest person ever to accept his party’s nomination. (Someone called him a shillbilly yesterday, and I still emit a small snicker every time I think about it.) Republicans have given us a lot of mediocrities as vice-presidential candidates this century, haven’t that? Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, and now this grifting garbage.

Yesterday was a good day. I had a very productive day at the office before coming home. I lost track of the evening–BBC America news clips on Youtube, so much better than anything native to these shores–and then checked in with a few of my young Gen Z political news junkies, like Luke Beasley and Meidas Touch (and yes, I know they are biased, but it’s nice to hear someone else puncturing their balloons of hollow logic), and before I knew it, it was late and Paul was home and it was almost time to go to bed. So, tonight I will have to be a bit more productive when I get home. I need to get the kitchen back under control before the weekend, and I need to do some errands on the way home tonight, too. Need to delve back into the book. July has also kind of slipped through my fingers, too, and I had wanted to try to write something for the Malice anthology–which I will probably not get back around to before its deadline, which is the 1st of August. I hate when I let that sort of thing happen.

It’s funny, but I’ve never considered my family to be Appalachian; we’re from Alabama. I knew there were mountains in North Alabama. I don’t think I ever made the connection that those mountains were actually the Appalachians (maybe I did and just don’t remember)–and it is considered Appalachia. So, like Vance, I am Appalachia-adjacent. I am a child of Appalachia but never lived in Appalachia, but spent a lot of summers there, like Vance. I would never write a book trashing my family as worthless and lazy (I couldn’t, because they aren’t), and extrapolating that out to everyone in Appalachia (#notallAppalachians). Even though I’ve always considered Alabama the home place for my family (my real “home” was always where my mother lived), where my roots are and where I come from, I am not really of Alabama or Appalachia. It strongly influenced my life because my parents were technically hillbillies (or Mountain Williams, as an old Bugs Bunny cartoon called them), but hillbilly has always been kind of a slur for poor white trash; and one I’ve always kind of proudly claimed, jokingly. But I don’t know as much about either Alabama or Appalachia as I probably should. I’ve been making up for it with Alabama, but I really do need to study my heritage more–and being Appalachian is a much better heritage to claim rather than the Confederacy.

And I do love my lazy approach to research, in which I idly come back to it whenever I remember.

And I am just as Appalachian as JD Vance, and at least I am neither ashamed or embarrassed by the fact or my family.

I’ve also really enjoyed watching Appalachia come together on social media to drag him for the lying filth he is. (The fact that I got all the jokes, too, was definitely an indicator of the heritage, wasn’t it?) Hell, every time I drive up to eastern Kentucky I am going to Appalachia.

And on that note, I am getting cleaned up and heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back a little later on.

I’ve had cowboys on my mind lately. They definitely can be sexy as fuck, as depicted here.