Yesterday was rather lovely, if I do say so myself.
I woke relatively early after a wonderful night of sleep, and drank my coffee while primarily doing some chores around the kitchen/office. Once I was sufficiently fortified with coffee, I sat down and edited/revised my story “The Snow Globe,” and Constant Reader, I have to tell you–I feel like an absolute idiot for putting off doing it for so long. There really are few things as satisfying as editing and revising something you’ve written, making the language better, making the story flow better, deepening the characters, and tying up the ending in a more satisfying bow than the one you originally used.
Why do I always forget how much I FUCKING love doing my job? WHY do I always have to force myself to do it?
One of the eternal mysteries of life, I suppose. I always have to force myself to do things I enjoy–like going to the gym and working out, which is what I did as soon as I finished the revision. I really need to put that on a sticky note for my computer: REMEMBER YOU LOVE TO WRITE.
I also spent some time plotting out my novella-in-progress “Never Kiss a Stranger,” which I hoping doesn’t turn into a novel. I like the story a lot; it actually began life as the idea that eventually became “A Streetcar Named Death”–that happens to me sometimes; I get an idea that could go off in two different directions, and they both wind up becoming stories of their own. I like–still do, in fact–the idea of “chance meeting on a streetcar”, which is such a lovely way to open a story, really, but it truly fit with “A Streetcar Named Death” better than with “Never Kiss a Stranger”–and it didn’t take me long before I realized that this particular story was too long to be a short story–I needed to go too in-depth with the main character as it was, and then other characters began talking to me more, insisting on being more important to the story, and I finally realized fuck it, it’s a novella, deal with it and just write it. I have several other novellas in progress at the moment (insanity, well aware)–“Fireflies,” “Once a Tiger,” “A Holler Full of Kudzu,” and “Spellcaster” being the others (I’m probably forgetting one–still on my first Monday morning cappuccino)–and feel fairly confident that at some point I’ll get them all finished and ready to be published.
My Internet is out this morning; fortunately I can turn my phone into a hotspot so functionality this morning isn’t lost completely. Yet it’s still annoying–as I muse every time we lose power, we’ve become so dependent on modern conveniences that even something so minor as a cable/Internet outage is teeth-grindingly annoying.
We watched another episode of both Mr. Mercedes and The Undoing last night–Donald Sutherland is extraordinary–and I’m not really sure where The Undoing is going; it’s an interesting mystery thus far, and I am not really sure if Hugh Grant is a killer or not. But there’s more going on in that family and marriage than we’ve already seen–or that they’ve shown us–and I am hopeful the show isn’t going to blow its premise. It is based on a novel–You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz, that I’d never heard of before. I also think I prefer the original title, frankly–and am also thinking that maybe David E. Kelley should adapt one of Alafair Burke’s novels, like The Ex or The Wife.
I slept really well last night–I even woke up before the alarm this morning at six–and am hopeful this will be a nice, productive week. I need to get back to work on Bury Me in Shadows, and I also need to work on getting a draft of “A Dirge in the Dark” completed; I have an amorphous idea of where I want to go with the story, and it isn’t going to be easy, frankly–which is part of the reason I’ve been delaying working on everything (nothing is going to be easy) and that’s just stupid, really; part of the reason I kept pushing the revision of “The Snow Globe” to the bottom of the to-do list was because I thought it was going to be difficult to do–and it wasn’t, really. I need to stop doubting my creativity and my ability to do my work–but that’s been something I’ve struggled with pretty much my entire life so far. It would be lovely if at age sixty I finally turned the corner there.
I also made it to the gym for a workout yesterday, which was lovely; I’ve managed three workouts a week for three consecutive weeks now, and if I keep my head down and keep plodding along, I’ll continue feeling better and sleeping better and getting shit done. The Saints also won yesterday–they’ve now won six straight, although they just as easily could have lost any number of those games–and so who knows? Perhaps they are going to turn out to be a contender this year after all.
And on that note, my dear Constant Reader, I am returning to the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, everyone.
I did the windows yesterday, and it is literally amazing how I can forget between window cleanings what a difference it makes. It had been so long since I’d done it I need to do them again–it’s never easy getting all that caked on dirt and dust and debris off the glass, even when you do it weekly, as I used to do–but it’s a start.
I woke up early and feeling rested yesterday, which was absolutely lovely–and it was an absolutely lovely day in New Orleans, if a bit warm for mid-November. Did I get as much done as I needed and/or wanted to? Of course not. I did some other cleaning and straightening around the Lost Apartment; made some notes on some projects I am working on, and reread “The Snow Globe” to get a better idea of what I am dealing with on the revision, which I am going to get done today before I go to the gym. I’m also making the week’s to-do list, doing some other chores around the house, and feeling a lot better about things. Yes, I am behind on everything, but a little bit of focus and a little bit of desperation never hurt me, or anything I’ve worked on.
Rereading the story was, actually, something i’d been dreading doing; I always hate to reread something I’ve written, as I always tend to be highly critical and negative, and this story was no exception. I do love the story a lot–it was written to be submitted to a war on Christmas anthology and wasn’t accepted (the anthology never happened, either; long ugly story)–but it definitely needs some work. I originally came up with the story for a Halloween anthology, to be completely honest; there was a call for submissions, I think maybe from the Horror Writers’ Association, for stories with a Halloween theme. I distinctly remember reading the call and then an image popped into my head–me standing on the balcony at the Pub, looking down on Bourbon Street and the front doors of Oz, as a man in a devil costume came out; and he was hot as fuck; perfect body, body paint to make his skin red, and a skimpy red bikini, and thought Satan has a great six-pack, which I then made the opening line of the story. I believe at the time the story was called “All Hallow’s Eve” or something along those lines; but the story never made it past the opening paragraph. When the chance to write a story for the Christmas anthology came along, I remembered that opening and I remembered the joke I made on the Facebook post and thread about Christmas horror stories–I wanted to write about a Satanic snow globe–and immediately saw how to turn my unfinished Halloween story into a Christmas horror story called “The Snow Globe” merely by changing a single letter in the opening line: Santa had a great six-pack.
Voila! And the story began to flow. As I said, it was rejected from the anthology I wrote it for–and in the notes I got from the editors, which was lovely (one rarely gets notes on a rejected story) they basically told me I should have made it more than it was–which I had also thought about doing, but was afraid to–and so naturally, with that confirmation that the initial instincts I’d ignored from lack of confidence were, in fact, correct, I went back to the drawing board and revised it. And clearly, it needed one more revision. I have editorial notes on this story already, which I completely agree with, and I don’t know why–other than utter and sheer laziness–that I have not gone ahead and worked on this story to get it finished and out of the way. That is my goal for this morning–get the damne thing finished and be done with it–and then I can move back on to the book that has been stalled for weeks now.
Last night we watched a few more episodes of Mr. Mercedes, which finally introduced the character of Holly Gibney, who quickly became one of my favorite King characters–which was why I was so delighted she showed up in The Outsider–and so far the character is being played as she was written in the book, which is quite lovely. I think the show has padded/built up some things that I don’t remember from the book–but since I don’t remember them from the book, I am not entirely sure there were changes made. I just know I am deeply enjoying the show–it’s really a shame it hasn’t gotten as much success as it should have. (Maybe it did, I don’t know; but I rarely, if ever, heard anything about the show and there are three seasons…so there wasn’t a lot of social media buzz about it.)
The Saints play this afternoon–I think the game starts around three-ish, if I am not mistaken–and then of course there will be a new episode of The Undoing tonight. That should give me more than enough time to get this story finished, some chores done, and a trip to the gym for a workout. This is my fourth week since we rejoined the gym, and I am eminently proud that I have gone three days a week ever since. I can’t get over how much better I feel physically–the stretching really helps, too–and that correlates with how much better I’ve been sleeping. Who knew that exhaustion would help one sleep? (Sarcasm, don’t @ me)
I also read a few more chapters of The Hot Rock yesterday, which I am enjoying. Westlake’s style in this book is very reminiscent of Rob Byrnes’ brilliant caper novels (Straight Lies, Holy Rollers, Strange Bedfellows)–although since Westlake is the influence here, I should probably say I can see his influence on that unappreciated trilogy; it still kind of amazing to me that I’ve not read more Westlake (or Lawrence Block, for that matter), which is something I am going to need to rectify. (I’ve also never read Ed McBain, but I read some of his Evan Hunter novels.)
As I have often said, my education in crime fiction is a little lacking when it comes to the classics; I’ve not read all of Ross MacDonald or Raymond Chandler, for example, and I’ve also never read a Dick Francis novel either, for that matter. I think I’ve read a Nero Wolfe or two, but not many–although I have thought about using the trope of that series for a book of my own–the brilliant investigative mind who never leaves his/her house so needs a legman, from whose point of view the story is told–and there are any number of other classic crime fiction writers I’ve not cracked a spine on. But with new books I want to read being released all the time and being unable to even keep up with the canon of current writers whose work I love–not to mention all the new-to-me writers I keep discovering–there’s just simply no way I can ever read everything I want to read.
I’ve been doing some more research on Chlorine, recently reading Confidential Confidential, about the scandal rag of the 1950’s, and Montgomery Clift Queer Star, an academic treatise of multiple essays about reading Clift performances and films as queer, which was very interesting. Reading these two books also reminded me of something else that was going on in the time period which I wish to cover–red-baiting and the House Un-American Committee hearings; another period of America not living up to her ideals. It’s probably hard to explain to people who didn’t grow up, or were old enough, to remember the existential threat of the Soviet Union that had Americans seeing Communist spies and Communist infiltration everywhere; without an understanding of the highly paranoid state created by politicians and news outlets, neither the Korean nor Vietnam Wars would have most likely happened. That fear of Communism was also used by conservatives to gin up racial hatred as well as systemic discrimination against people of color and queer people–the queers were considered a national security threat because if you were queer and worked for the government in any capacity, you were thus opened up to blackmail by Communist agents. This was an actual thing, and I all too often see that key element left out of writings about the time, both fiction and non-fiction.
It would thus be wrong to leave Red-baiting out of Chlorine, which will mean more research. Heavy heaving sigh.
And on that note, the dryer just clicked off, so I should fold the clothes and get ready to get back to to work on the story. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader.
And now we are here at Monday morning, yet another three days of clinic to face down, and another tropical system with a potential track to come into the Gulf and come knocking at our door here in southeastern Louisiana yet again. The season doesn’t end officially until November 30th, and I have a sinking suspicion that this one will undoubtedly last longer than they usually do–it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if a Hurricane Omega winds up heading this way for either Christmas or New Year’s.
It’s really been that kind of year.
But I slept really well Saturday night and slept in as well on Sunday morning, and while I did fritter away the morning essentially reading election coverage (and laughing at the Four Seasons press conference perhaps will never get old) before heading to the gym around noonish. Yesterday was the big day–three sets of reps–and while it wasn’t as awful as I’d feared it might be, it definitely had its moments of horror. But I also got to do my stretching ahead of time, came home and had a protein shake, before shaving, showering and heading off to finish the weekend’s errands, with a make groceries and fill the tank with gasoline run. It was all accomplished and wasn’t very terrible; it could have been so much worse. I slept really well again last night, which was lovely–the Saints winning so easily over Tampa Bay and the ex-Patriots was quite delightful as well. As Paul said, as we shut off the television and headed upstairs for bed, it was perhaps the best, more relaxing weekend we’d had in quite some time. I daresay it was easily the best weekend of 2020 thus far.
I definitely didn’t dread going to bed to wake up to Monday morning, that’s for sure, and even though I am up early I don’t really mind it so much as I used to–which is saying something, I think.
This week I need to get back to work on Bury Me in Shadows, I need to finish editing a short story, and I need to finish writing the first draft of another. It doesn’t feel in the least bit daunting, even though I know I am running out of time for the deadlines on everything, but for the first time in a long time I feel like I can get everything done, and done well. There’s some definite distractions going to be happening in my life this week–family stuff, so I won’t go into detail–that will have me nervous and on edge, but I am okay with it all. I feel like I have finally evened out somehow, perhaps even adapted to my reality, at least for the moment.
We started watching the third season of Killing Eve, which is finally on Hulu (with fucking commercials), and I have to say I am not as compelled to watch as I was before. The first episode of season 3 was interesting–the PTSD Eve is experiencing from being shot by Villanelle, as well as the fallout of her interference in Eve’s personal life, and the eventual shocking death of one of the main cast to close out the first episode–but at the same time, I wasn’t compelled to queue it up and watch last night rather than the Saints game–and remember, neither one of us had high hopes for that game going into it. The Saints have already lost twice, and have come close to losing almost every other game they’ve played this year (two wins in overtime; three wins by a field goals and four by one score in total) so while I am still of course rooting for my team, I don’t have very high expectations for them this season….and as for LSU, I am mentally preparing myself for the embarrassment to come this weekend against Alabama. The Tigers aren’t going to finish with a winning record for the first time since 1999, which is a bitter pill to swallow coming the season after fielding one of the greatest teams in the history of college football…but it is what it is.
And we did really have one of the greatest teams in the history of college football last year.
I’m getting used to the loss of the crepe myrtles. The view isn’t nearly as pretty as it used to be–and the more direct sunlight really shows up how filthy the windows actually are–but I can deal with it. I can see more of the sky now–and we have beautiful skies here in New Orleans, a gorgeous vibrant blue–and I have about six months to get either the curtains or the blinds situation handled and implemented before summer returns with all of its brutality to my kitchen. But I think I can manage the curtain situation–blinds are surprisingly not as expensive as I thought they might be–and I think blinds are probably going to be the best choice, frankly. I don’t think I will ever stop missing my shade trees, though; it was part of the joy of the view…and I wonder what happened to the opossum family that was living in them? Granted, I haven’t seen one of them in some time–and I wonder if there was damage to the roof of the carriage house next door from Zeta–several times over the weekend I saw men on ladders doing things to the carriage house roof next door, which would possibly explain why the trees were cut down and others were dramatically cut back.
Nancy Drew may have solved The Mystery of the Murdered Myrtles.
And on that note, tis time for me to get ready to head to the office and get going on my day. Happy Monday, everyone.
Yesterday was quite marvelous. As a general rule, I refrain from talking about politics, primarily because I feel I don’t really need to; anyone who knows me knows where I stand. Anyone who has ever read one of my books knows my politics, or they do if they’ve read anything I’ve ever written–essay, blog, short story, etc.. I only talk about equality when I do talk about our country or our system; and my feelings about equality should make it abundantly clear that I am pretty far to the left, and move even further left the older I get. So, when the presidential election was finally called yesterday morning, I ran upstairs with tears in my eyes to tell Paul the great news, and I pretty much realized three hours later, after viewing as much of the celebrations and reading as many articles and so forth as I could in my thirst to make it finally all seem real to me, that I was going to get absolutely nothing done yesterday. And I didn’t, either. I didn’t cook anything, didn’t wash a dish, didn’t write a word; I didn’t read my book, I did nothing constructive at all other than joy-scroll through my social media. I watched football games that meant nothing to me, since LSU wasn’t playing–Indiana beat Michigan for the first time since the Reagan administration; Florida beat Georgia; Notre Dame beat Clemson–but it was all just background noise, really, as I kept going through social media and sometimes would switch over to the news while the games were on.
Could I really afford to take the day off and do nothing? Of course not, but I did precisely that very thing. I figured that since we won’t be electing the first biracial female vice president of the United States ever again, I was allowed to take the day off and bask in the knowledge that this was another historic election.
If someone would have told me, back when I was casting my first presidential election ballot back in 1980, that one day I would be voting for the first black man to become president (and doing it twice), and another day I’d be voting for the first black/Indian woman to become vice president, I would have laughed really hard, as such a thing was completely unimaginable back in those days. (Four years later, Geraldine Ferraro became the first major party female candidate for vice president; it would only take another twenty two years for another one to be a candidate, and another thirty-six years for one to actually win. And yes, much as I am loathe to give the loathsome Sarah Palin credit she does actually count as a historic nominee–even if she is now essentially a political pariah and yet another “Christian values” candidate whose marriage has crumbled into divorce. #Palinfamilyvalues.)
And watching the international celebrations of our election results was also a reminder that, no matter what anyone thinks, despite all of our flaws and mistakes and judgment errors, the rest of the world looks to us for leadership; and despite all the inequality built into our system by imperfect men who were well aware of their flaws and prejudices, we are what they aspire to–our political stability, our peaceful transitions of power, and yes, our freedoms. (Although when they think about our freedoms I rather seriously doubt the right to bear arms is at the top of their list…)
I’ve always believed that history was taught incorrectly; our history shouldn’t be taught as dates and places and battles–those are important, don’t get me wrong, but they are not as important as the progress, throughout history, of human rights and human freedoms. As for the battles and the wars, those should be seen through the prism of whether they pushed forward (or held back) human rights and freedoms. As interesting as kings and queens and emperors and tsars might be…what was life like under their rule? Did the people suffer, or did they prosper, or were they merely seen as sub-humans not really worth the divinely appointed King’s time or consideration?
Heavy thoughts on a Sunday morning. I need to get to the gym today, and I also need to make groceries–I don’t really need to get groceries, really–there’s only a few things we need and it could conceivably wait till next weekend–but I am all about getting things over and done with and out of the way. The Saints play later tonight–an evening game with the Buccaneers–and I’ll undoubtedly watch that until around ten, when I’ll need to go to bed to wake up in time for clinic tomorrow morning–but that also gives me this afternoon to try to get to all the things I never really got around to yesterday–Westlake’s The Hot Rock, any number of short stories that need writing, the book I should be writing, and lots and lots of cleaning–but I feel good today. I feel like I can breathe again. I also am aware the results of the election simply means the start of the great work required to right this ship–and it’s going to be a struggle–and there are going to be disappointments along the way, but I am going to allow myself to ride this wave of optimism and hope as long as I can….it’s been in far too short supply these last four years.
We finished watching The Murders at White House Farm last night, and it was really most marvelously done. There was also enough ambiguity left in the crime itself to leave the viewer wondering if justice truly was done–as is the case unless there are eyewitnesses or a confession–and this ambiguity is what makes these types of shows so interesting to watch for a crime writer. In our fictions, we cannot leave our readers with that kind of complex ambiguity–we can allow killers to go free, but the reader has to understand completely that there is a miscarriage of justice occurring. Most of criminal justice is shades of gray in reality; our fictions are allowed some shades but cannot be completely gray over all.
I did spend some time wondering about the short stories I am writing, and of course came up with the idea for another one, called “The Oracle on Orange Street” (Orange Street is one of those secret streets in New Orleans that only exist for a few blocks; it was named for the orange groves that lined it back in the day–the street I live on is another one of those, and so is Camp Place, which only exists for two blocks near Coliseum Square; Camp Place is the setting for another novel I want to write some day called Voices in an Empty Room) and while I am not certain what that story is actually going to be, I kind of would like to write about a psychic (yes, Scotty is also one, but I want to write about one who makes her living as one; I’ve considered resurrecting the psychic who told Scotty’s parents that he had the gift to be the lead character; Madame Xena. But, as I mentioned the other day, it’s really a matter of age. If Madama Xena was already a psychic with a good reputation when she spotted Scotty’s gift when he was a child…how old would she be now?), but on the other hand, I kind of also want to write about a phony psychic being used in a noir fashion to convince a believer of something that isn’t true…decisions, decisions. But I like that title, and at some point I’ll figure out who and what “The Oracle on Orange Street” is about and who she actually is as a person.
But for now, I will continue savoring that title. Hell, for that matter, Voices in an Empty Room is also a really good one.
I also spent some time wondering about the next Scotty book–I know, I know, finish the two you’re already writing–and trying to figure out how best to write about this accursed 2020 Carnival season. There are also some things left over from Royal Street Reveillon that will need resolving in this book, and then I have to deal (in the next one) with the pandemic. It also begs the question, can’t you just pretend in Scotty’s world that it never happened?
It’s an interesting possibility, but in some ways for me it feels like copping out; like not writing about Katrina, or having it happen in Scotty’s world was just too easy an out. I get that people may not want to remember what it was like, or relive the horrible experience of 2020, but on the other hand I don’t see how, as series writers, we can simply pretend it never happened. I recognize that my world is fictional, and therefore theoretically in “my” world I can simply decide “no pandemic” and it never happened in this particular alternate universe; I’ve certainly never mentioned the Afghan or Iraq wars in a Scotty book, or 9/11 either for that matter (although the PATRIOT Act and Homeland Security have come up, without explaining how they came to be in existence). There’s also some reluctance in actually tying a book to a certain year–although I did that with some of the earlier ones; after all, the Saints only won the Super Bowl for the first time one time–but again, sometimes when it comes to this sort of thing I am literally spinning my wheels and being indecisive because that leaves me in my inertia…always remember: a Greg at rest tends to stay at rest.
This morning my natural inclination is to blow off both the gym and making groceries, even though I know that neither is an option. The gym is only open until one today, and since the Saints game isn’t until much later, there’s no need for me to make the grocery run so early–gym first, groceries and gas up the car afterwards. I can spend the rest of the day writing or reading or playing intellectual games about my works in progress.
But last week I started feeling the old Gregalicious–the Type A one who gets a ridiculous amount done in a remarkably short period of time–starting to break through the cloud cover and start elbowing his way out to the front of my consciousness. This morning, I strongly feel like I can breathe and sleep and rest again….and soon I’ll be writing up a storm again.
And on that note, tis time to head into the spice mines and get this kitchen cleaned up before I head to the gym. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader.
Monday morning and up at the rise of the sun; back to another work week and trying to get caught up on everything.
I really do feel like Sisyphus pushing the rock uphill most days, you know?
But I woke up early yesterday and made progress, which is never a bad thing, and I also made it to the gym for my first workout of week two. I managed to accomplish all three workouts for week one, and so this week entailed an added set of 15 reps at the same weights I used last week. It was more difficult, but not painfully so or so bad that I couldn’t finish both sets–but on some exercises it was much harder than it was on others. That’s fine–I worked up a lovely sweat and my heart rate went up, which was the ultimate goal. I came home–it was really quite a beautiful fall day in New Orleans; sunny and crisp and cool–and had my protein shake before getting cleaned up and diving back into the emails and things I needed to get done.
I did decide what my next read would be: Donald Westlake’s The Hot Rock. My education in Westlake is sorely lacking (as is my education in Lawrence Block, for that matter) although I read one of his Hard Case Crime books, The Comedy is Finished, and I read the first of his Richard Stark novels…but other than that, I have failed miserably in reading Westlake. I remember when The Hot Rock was out in paperback originally; I also remember that it was filmed with Robert Redford (perhaps another film I can add–if I can find it–to the Cynical 70’s Film Festival), and I’ve had a copy of this forever. Rob Byrnes has always spoken highly of Westlake–his own comic caper novels, he claims, owe a huge debt to Westlake, and only three chapters into the book, I can totally see the influence–and I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to get around to reading The Hot Rock, frankly. The edition I have also has an intro from Westlake himself, which sort of explains where the book came from, and I found this very interesting:
One day in 1967 I was wearing my Richard Stark hat, looking for a story to tell about my man Parker, and I thought, he reacts badly to frustration, what if he had to steal the same thing four or five times? I started to work it out, then realized the idea was only comic and Parker wouldn’t stand for it. But I still liked the notion, and even–once it was comic–saw how to make it six thefts of the same elusive item. So I’d do it that way.
But if it wasn’t Parker, who was it? Who was this guy, dogged but doomed, and what was his name? Without a name, I couldn’t see him, and until I could see him I couldn’t write about him.
Wow. He then goes on to talk about how he came up with the name Dortmunder, but it was so weird to see a writer of Westlake’s stature having the same problem I have when writing, or coming up with a new idea: I can’t write about people if they don’t have names, because without names I can’t see them or know enough about them to write about them. I know there are writers who can do this; I am just not one of them, and I always thought it was one of my (many) peculiarities as a writer. Turns out, Westlake was like me, too. Mine goes even further–I can’t write a story without a title, and if the title is wrong, it impedes the story writing even further. I think some of the in-progress unfinished stories I have on hand suffer from this very problem–I know I think “A Dirge in the Dark” isn’t the right title for the story I am writing with that title–but I am hoping I can get it all worked out eventually.
I do hate daylight savings time, quite frankly, but this “gain an hour” nonsense was rejected by my body–which makes getting up earlier much easier than it usually is. I was awake before my alarm went off this morning, I am wide awake as I sip my first cappuccino of the morning, and I feel like it’s going to be, over all, a really great day–for a shitty, unsettling week. Heavy sigh. But I got everything ready last night so I don’t have to pick out clothes or anything this morning; my lunch is ready to go into the lunch box, and my office/kitchen is very neat and organized already–a very good start to the week. LSU has a bye week this coming weekend, and one good thing about LSU having a bad season–I’ve almost completely lost interest in both the conference and national championship races, which means I won’t be watching games other than LSU anymore, thereby freeing up my Saturdays almost completely. The Saints did eke out a win yesterday–although they did everything they possibly could to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. As Paul said, “this year sucks and we can’t even get solace from football season.”
I did read a Charlaine Harris short story yesterday as well, from the MWA anthology she edited a while back, Crimes by Moonlight, which was, in her own words from her introduction to the piece, “a collection of woo-woo stories.” Her story was set in the Sookie Stackhouse universe she created with her bestselling novels (later adapted into True Blood, one of my favorite television series), and was called “Dahlia Underground.” Dahlia is a nine hundred year old vampire who looks nineteen–sexy and beautiful, she also dresses like a sexy dominatrix (I kept picturing my favorite True Blood character, Pam) who wakes up after an anti-vampire terrorist strike on a hotel. Numerous vampires were killed during the attack, she has to be dug out of the wreckage by a firehouse company, and then the rest of the story is about not only vampiric revenge on the terrorists, but Dahlia essentially adopting the fire company that saved her life. It was well done and enormously satisfying; the next story up in the anthology is by Edgar winner William Kent Krueger, which should also be fun.
My back feels a little sore this morning–not sure what that’s from, but it’s not muscle soreness, so who the fuck knows–so I am going to use the self-massager in a moment to try to loosen whatever it is that is tight back there. I’m having dinner with a writer friend tonight who is in from out of town to visit her daughter, who is currently enrolled at Tulane University, which is lovely–I always tend to avoid such commitments, but when I do agree to them inevitably have a good time–and I just have to be wary of time, since I have to get up early again tomorrow.
We continue to watch The Undoing on HBO, and I am beginning to think I’ve already got this entire thing figured out. I could be wrong–I have been before–and perhaps what I am thinking is too obvious to be the case. If it does turn out to the case, it will be disappointing…but therein lies the rub of being a crime writer who reads a lot of crime novels (and has edited dozens).
I certainly am hoping to get a lot done this week. But I am rested, hopefully there will be no more major life disruptions (he types hopefully the day before a terrifying general election), and if I can remain focused, I can get everything finished that I need to get finished this week.
And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Monday before the election, Constant Reader, and if you haven’t already, VOTE TOMORROW.
November 1st, or All Saints’ Day; which is the perfect day for a Saints game, don’t you think? LSU lost yesterday, badly, and while it was incredibly disappointing to watch, I felt worse for the players. We always forget, regardless of how talented they are, they’re really little more than kids. And since so many starters are either true freshman or sophomores…I think they’ll be really good next year…if they can survive what looks to be a season on par with the late 1990’s. Yeesh.
I am up ridiculously early because of Daylight Savings time; I’d be up early regardless, but I am wide awake and decided, since I have to get up early the next three mornings, that it made sense to go ahead and get up now–one advantage of the so-called “extra hour” (because if 2020 needs anything, it’s more time) is that by not using that hour to get extra sleep, I can recalibrate my body clock to my own advantage for the next few mornings. The sun isn’t up yet completely, but the cutting down of the crepe myrtles next door–many of them, but not all–means that my workspace and kitchen are going to be flooded with a lot more direct sunlight, which is going to make it unbearable in here once it gets hot again; which means I am going to need to do something about window coverings, whether it’s curtains or blinds. We’ll see how much time I have before that becomes a massive priority–hell, it might become one later this morning.
I was still very tired and physically exhausted yesterday. I ran my errands, and then working on cleaning up our side of the house–leaves, branches, debris–and so I watched the LSU game, doing some cleaning and organizing around here in the meantime, and then for Halloween watched House of Dark Shadows on Hulu. I originally saw this movie in the theater–my grandmother, who got me started watching the soap in the first place–took me, and it was a very different take on the Barnabas Collins story. For one thing, there was no redemption of the character; he remained an evil, cruel vampire till the end, when he was killed for his crimes, and he also kind of killed off the entire family, other than Elizabeth and David, by the end. It was straight up more horror than melodrama, and the movie did well enough to inspire a sequel (with none of the same characters or actors), but it really wasn’t as good a story as the redemption of the vampire arc the show did.
I also took the time to read four novellas of Cornell Woolrich, collected together in one volume with the name Four Novellas of Fear (which is really not the best title, as it gives the impression that the novellas are more horror than suspense/crime; which is what they really are). The novellas are all interesting takes, some of which are dated and wouldn’t work today, alas: “Eyes That Watch You”, the first, was my favorite, in which a woman who is completely paralyzed and cannot speak overhears her daughter-in-law and her lover plotting to kill the woman’s son. Unable to communicate and warn him, the crime takes place…and then she becomes determined, somehow, to expose the murderers to the cops and send them to the chair. Great concept, marvelously handled. The next, “The Day I Died,” is about a man who finds out his wife is planning to kill him for the insurance; he comes home early from work and surprises her with the man she has hired to kill him. The hired assassin winds up dead, and the hard-boiled heroine convinces her husband to go through with the plan–they have a ready made corpse whose face they can disfigure and claim it’s suicide. But as he leaves town he runs into a co-worker on the bus…and now he has to kill the co-worker somehow. It’s very noir, very well done–but again, wouldn’t work in a modern setting because of technology and the difficulty of disappearing in the modern world. The third story, “You Won’t See Me Again,” is about a young newly married couple who have an argument, and she walks out–storming home to mother. When she doesn’t return–as he suspects and expects her to, after a day or so–it becomes a missing persons case and of course, the husband is always the prime suspect in those cases. So now he has to find not only the wife he loves to make sure she’s safe, but also to clear her name. It’s yet another story that wouldn’t work in today’s world because of technology, but it’s a charming time capsule. Likewise, “Murder Always Gathers Momentum” is about the slow descent into crime of a person who is broke and desperate and owed money he was cheated out of; rather than confronting the man and asking for his money he decides instead to break into his house and steal it. He’s caught, commits murder, realizes how easy it is to become a criminal, and starts killing people to cover his initial crime….(this is very similar to Agatha Christie’s Murder Is Easy, in which Dame Agatha and Miss Marple also explored the idea that once you’ve killed, it becomes easier to keep killing) and there’s a terrific ironic twist at the end, worthy of The Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Despite being dated, I enjoyed all four novellas–which were all very distinct and different, and cynical in their own ways. I certainly enjoyed them more than I enjoyed Night Has a Thousand Eyes, that’s for certain, and my own curiosity about Woolrich–who was a gay man, an alcoholic, and horribly unhappy in his personal life–deepened. (Just as watching The Other the other day, and thinking about the author of the book, Thomas Tryon–a closeted gay actor of the 1960’s who turned to writing novels in the 1970’s–reminded me that I had once thought him worthy of a biography, and I still kind of think that way; I just wish I had the time to devote to doing the research and traveling to Connecticut to examine his papers and so forth; he was also the long-time lover of the first gay porn star, Cal Culver, which is also an interesting footnote to his interesting life as well as of gay historical interest.)
I’m trying to decide what to read next, and have narrowed it down to four options (and may choose something else entirely): Owen Laukkanen’s Deception Cove; Shirley Jackson’s Life Among the Savages (which I may have already read, but I don’t remember finishing it); The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier; or The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake. I am leaning toward to du Maurier because I am thinking it may be time to finish her canon; but the others all look tremendously good, which inevitably always makes choosing difficult. I also want to start reading short stories again–I still have two volumes, for example, of Shirley Jackson stories to read–and I need to get back to my writing–if I can only remember where I was. I know I was rereading Bury Me in Shadows in order to get a grasp of the story–I also have been thinking about the tweaks it needs–and the deadline looms. I also need to revise my story “The Snow Globe,” there’s about a million emails to catch up on, and there’s also the bills to pay.
Heavy heaving sigh. I also want to make it to the gym this morning. One good thing that has happened in this past week is managing three workouts; my body feels wonderful, my muscles feel more stretched and better than they have since the pandemic closed my old gym (we belonged there for eighteen years) and that’s got to count for something, doesn’t it? I think so, and I like that I am developing better workout habits. I’ll worry about correcting my diet and going full on Mediterranean diet after a few more weeks.
I’m also going to write a story–or rather, try to finish one–for the next Mystery Writers of America anthology. Getting a short story into one of those is on my bucket list, and I have two potential in-progress stories for this one; three, really: “Condos for Sale or Rent,” “Please Die Soon,” and “A Dirge in the Dark”. I guess I’ll need to read what’s been done on all four stories and then see about finishing any or all of them…it’s not a bad idea to get all three stories written, pick one to submit to the MWA anthology, and then send the others to other markets.
So many stories in progress.
The sun is rising and the loss of the trees has also made a significant difference to my view–which isn’t nearly as pretty or scenic as it was before, and will take some getting used to. The great irony is my landlady has been trying to get the property owner next door to trim the trees back for years–and trying to get her to trim them regularly, as they are problematic for hurricanes/tropical storms. It took Zeta for her to take the risk presented by the crepe myrtles seriously, with the end result that some were not only trimmed back dramatically, but others were removed entirely. I may have to hang up a small blanket or something in the meantime as a stopgap until I have the time and financial means to get curtains or blinds.
And on that note, I must head into the spice mines and start working on getting caught up, a Sisyphean task at best. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and enjoy your Feast of All Saints.
Coffee is quite marvelous. Hello, dark roast my old friend…I’ve missed you so these last few days.
Saturday, and all is well again in the Lost Apartment. The power came back on yesterday afternoon, almost exactly forty-eight hours after it went out; and I immediately did the dishes and started a load of laundry. The Lost Apartment was already a mess before the storm came, and without light…well, it’s not only hard to clean but it’s fucking hard to find anything. I also was sleeping a lot–what else are you going to do when there’s no light, no power, no television, no Internet–and ironically, all the extra sleep simply made me more tired.
Then again, it could have been THE LACK OF COFFEE.
So today begins the actual process of digging out. The sidewalk along the house is covered in branches and various other storm debris, which will need to be cleaned up, bagged, and put on the curb. I need to go make groceries today, stop by the bank, get the mail, all sorts of things that have to be done. I need to start going through my emails, remembering where I was with everything and pick that back up again. One of the sad results of the storm is the neighbors spent a lot of yesterday chopping down some of the crepe myrtles in their back yard–those crepe myrtles blocked the sun from my windows, so now with them gone the sun shines directly into them–which is going to be a problem when the summer rolls around again. This means I will probably, finally, have to hang curtains over my workspace windows–else the hot summer sun will turn my kitchen–which already gets too hot–into a green house, and make it completely unbearable in here. I do have the little Arctic Air conditioners, and may have to be a few more to handle this new development. I may even have to figure out a new set-up for my workspace, because even as I type this the sun is in my eyes and quite unpleasant. Damned crepe myrtles, anyway.
LSU plays Auburn today; the sportscasters call it the Tiger Bowl, as both team names are Tigers. It’s a rivalry of sorts–neither school likes each other very much, but it’s not as bitter as the rivalry with Florida, or as long as the one with Mississippi. There’s no trophy, like there is for the Arkansas game, and there’s not as much bad blood as there is with Texas A&M. But LSU-Auburn–which used to cause a lot of conflict with me (not any more)–is inevitably always a very good, exciting game; there are few blow-outs, and it often has come down to the last minute, if not the final seconds. LSU has won three in a row–the out-of-nowhere come from behind upset win in 2017; the walk-off field goal in 2018; and in 2019 Auburn held LSU’s championship team to it’s lowest point total of the season (23; it was the only game LSU didn’t score over thirty points, and one of the very few games in which they didn’t score over forty). The game this year is kind of a make-or-break game for the season for both teams, so I am not sure that LSU will make it four in a row. LSU has only lost to Auburn three times in the past decade (2010, 2014, 2016)–and had they snapped the ball one second faster in 2016 they would have won that game. The game is at Auburn this year; Auburn hasn’t won in Baton Rouge since 1999–an impressive streak, actually. I need to get a lot done this morning so I can enjoy the game in peace, without worry or fear–and I also need to check the game time for the Saints’ game tomorrow.
We watched the season premiere of The Mandalorian last night, and as with every episode, I was incredibly impressed. The episode itself was kind of a throwback to the first Star Wars movie; it brings Mando and the Child back to Tatooine, to look for another mandalorian to help him find the Child’s people so he can deliver him back to his own kind safely, and involved the Tusken Raiders (sand people) from that first movie. They wind up working with guest star Timothy Olyphant (who really should be a much bigger star than he is), his town, and the Tusken Raiders to track down and kill a krayt dragon–which essentially was a sandworm from Dune, and a bit of a change for Star Wars and Tatooine; odd that these creatures never showed up or were mentioned before–but all in all it was a terrific episode and lots of fun, and as always, visually stunning. The Child–the break out star of the show–didn’t really have very much to do in the episode, but really, all he needs to do is be there. There’s also a teaser at the very end that Boba Fett–the Boba Fett–is still alive and on Tatooine; clues are dropped throughout the episode that allude to him, and wouldn’t that be an AMAZING development for the show? Yes, yes, it would. Needless to say, we love this show and are very excited for Friday nights for a new episode.
The weather has also turned; a cold front has rolled in behind the storm and it’s been a lovely change. It feels like fall now, just in time for Halloween. It doesn’t really seem like Halloween, quite frankly, despite the dressing up of houses and the candy on sale everywhere; I can’t imagine children are going to be trick-or-treating tonight, and of course Gay Halloween didn’t happen this year, or any of the big usual New Orleans Halloween things–masquerade balls, haunted houses, etc.–so like with so many other things this year that generally mark the passing of time, Halloween will come and go as just another date on the calendar.
I’m trying to decide what to read next; I have so many amazing books on hand that I want to get to that it makes deciding very difficult for me. I’m still reading Gore Vidal’s Lincoln, and am much further along in it than I thought I was. I’m feeling like I need to read some crime fiction, though some fantasy and horror novels I have on hand are looking pretty appealing at the moment. I didn’t do very well with my Halloween/October horror reading/watching month, which is of course is disappointing, but 2020 has been a rather disappointing kind of year, quite frankly. I think I have another unread Paul Tremblay I could start today–I also think there are some unread Christopher Goldens in my TBR pile as well.
I am kind of seeing the hurricane/power outage as a reboot of the year; like a force restart on my computer. I realize now that yesterday’s rant about the inconvenience of a power outage was evidence of privilege when others in the area are still without power, and lots of people are much worse off. But I also believe that you can’t even berate yourself for being frustrated with events beyond your control and shouldn’t stop yourself from venting simply because you are better off than others; that just bottles it all up and the explosion coming later is all the worse because you’ve bottled up anger and frustration–and Im sure this equanimity about it all this morning will change the moment I start going through my fridge and start dumping spoiled/ruined food that needs to be replaced.
Wednesday night wasn’t a good night, as I may have mentioned before; after the hurricane had passed the release of stress and so forth left me drained and exhausted and sleeping on and off before I went to bed very early (between nine and nine thirty!). Thursday night was kind of more fun; Paul and I lit all the candles and camped out in the living room and pretended we were back in college and one of us had forgotten to pay the power bill so we had to drink wine by candle light and hang out–and worry about paying the bill the next day. I’m rarely nostalgic for the past, and when nostalgia does come over me, it’s usually not my college years I look back to fondly…but there was something nice about sitting around with Paul drinking wine in candlelight and talking about things. I’ve decided to ignore politics and the election as much as I can; I’ve already decided who I am voting for and nothing is going to change my mind, so why torture myself with all the worry and stress and negativity? Everyone I know has decided, if not already voted; so I am pushing it all out of my mind until I get up Tuesday morning and walk over to the International School to cast my ballot for a return to sanity–and it’s all beyond my control anyway. I need to remember the lesson of not worrying about things I cannot control.
I went to the gym again yesterday morning before heading to the office for the afternoon; I am most pleased that I am sticking to the workout routine (although I’d intended to go on Thursday) and will be returning again tomorrow morning. My body feels so much better now that I am working out again, and as I get deeper into it, I am really looking forward to adding cardio and moving on to getting into better eating habits. I need to start checking my Mediterranean Diet cookbook–which I am also assuming will include more olives, feta cheese, and yogurt into my diet–but I need to dig back out from under again before starting something else new.
And on that note, I am going to make another cup of coffee and start the process of clean up. Have a lovely Halloween, Constant Reader, and may all your Halloween hopes and wishes come true.
Well, this has been an adventure. The power just now came back on.
It went out on Wednesday sometime between four and four-thirty; and of course, it’s fall, so it also starts getting dark around four-thirty/five every day. It is pitch black inside the Lost Apartment, by the way, when we don’t have power and night falls. Even the candles don’t help. I am so tired of disruptions, you know? It seems like every time I get centered and get ready to pull it all together,there’s another fucking life disruption. Wasn’t it just the other day I was talking about trying to focus on positivity, and figuring out how to get my act together, and so forth? Then along comes a hurricane out of literally fucking nowhere and everything is fucked again. Sure, the house survived, Paul and Scooter and I made it through without harm, and not having power is a very small thing in the overall scheme of things–but I’m just so tired. No power of course means everything in my refrigerator has to be thrown away–yay! because I can certainly afford to replace it all!–and it means no computer, no lights for reading, no internet, no stove, no food, no hot showers, and most heinous of all: NO FUCKING COFFEE.
The storm was bad enough to live through–the winds were literally one mile per hour lower than a Category 3 hurricane, so it was classified as a 2–and it was scary. The rain was coming down so hard and so fast I was certain that the streets would flood–and the howling of the wind was bone-chilling. I kept worrying about the roof, about trees and branches, about the car…and then of course the power went out, leaving us in pitch blackness. I lit some candles but it was way too dark to read, and just started dozing off a bit in my easy chair, off and on. I finally just went to bed at nine-thirty, after moving my car back to the street from the high ground, and I just spent Thursday reading, and when the daylight faded and the candles weren’t enough, grabbed a flashlight so I could finish reading. And of coure, Friday we were still without power. The office was also without power, and even though it was a work-at-home day for me–and I did have the option to stay home and count it as work, I decided to go into the office; just to be in the light and have power and be able to charge my phone again and…also, for some reason, it takes my phone forever to charge in my car now. I don’t know what that is all about, but I spent over an hour in the car yesterday charging my phone.
An effective use of gasoline.
Before we lost power on Wednesday, I decided to stream The Other while making condom packs. I had never actually seen the film, written and produced in 1972 by Thomas Tryon from his novel of the same name; the book is one of my all-time favorites and I also consider it to be a big influence, not just on my writing but in my reading tastes as well. The novel is fantastic, absolutely chilling, and has two big plot twists that completely change the complexion of the story, and the reader’s perception of what is going on at the Perry house just outside Pequot Landing, Connecticut. I have always avoided the film, primarily because I love the book so much, and secondly because, as much as I do love the novel, I’ve never really seen a way to film it effectively. The film is okay–the big surprise, for me, was seeing early in their careers John Ritter and Victor French in supporting roles–but the concept of the book itself, while not particularly original (identical twins, with one being good and the other being evil; it’s been explored in films, novels and soap operas going back decades)–in this case, though, the twins are young–only eleven–which also throws the book into the “bad children” category, along with The Bad Seed, The Exorcist, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and We Need To Talk About Kevin–as opposed to adults, the way the good twin/bad twin story is generally presented. The movie is flawed, and doesn’t necessarily hold your interest the entire time–but it did make me want to read the book again. It’s time, methinks.
But watching The Other drew me to a Daphne du Maurier novel I’d not read before, The Scapegoat. Du Maurier takes the twin concept and gives it a bit of a twist; rather than having her twins be related by blood, hers are merely look-alikes; total strangers (one British, one French) who happen to look exactly alike (people always used to say that everyone has a twin somewhere in the world; I always wondered about that because whenever I would visit New Orleans–and for about a year or so after we moved here–I used to get mistaken for someone else in gay bars. It was quite weird.), and run into each other by chance at a train station in Le Mans; they have a few drinks together only for the Englishman to wake up the next morning in a sleazy hotel room, and all of his things–passport, ID, wallet, car, etc.–are gone and the other man’s things in their place. So John becomes Jean…because who, after all, would believe his story? If he went to the police, would they not think him completely insane? So he takes the du Maurier step of deciding, okay, I’ll be Jean and live his life, despite knowing very little about his double. And yet no one in his family–neither wife, mother, brother, sister-in-law, daughter, mistress one and mistress two–suspect for even a moment that he isn’t Jean, the Comte de Gue; which is kind of weird–but then again, they do notice he isn’t acting quite the same. And much as I love du Maurier, the entire set-up of the story is quite contrived, yet somehow she makes it work, which is part of why I admire her so much. Literally, what John is doing is quite mad; and yet, as he gets to know the family and his counterpart’s relationships with each of them–there’s also a brilliant subplot about a feud between Jean and his younger sister, going back to the Nazi occupation and resistance–he begins to care for them, and tries to do better by them than their actual blood relative did. It definitely held my attention, and I kept reading, wondering how on earth she was going to end it–and she ended it with the typical du Maurier cynicism and disdain for the “happily ever after” that holds true for all of her stories, or at least the ones I have read.
And now I must figure out how far behind I am now on everything; the mind reels, quite frankly. I was very definitely behind before the storm came; I am absolutely unnerved at how terrifying it will be to take a look at my inbox and what has been going on while I have been, quite literally, powerless. But there’s really no sense in allowing myself to get overwhelmed, is there? There’s so much work that needs to be done around the Lost Apartment–cleaning and straightening and so forth–and of course there are football games this weekend. But at least the power is back so I can watch the LSU game. GEAUX TIGERS!
So, I went to the gym for the first time in nearly five months yesterday morning.
Apparently there’s another tropical storm out there with New Orleans in its Cone of Uncertainty; Wednesday night seems to be when it’s projected to come ashore; they’re saying Category One is about as big as Zeta will get, given conditions in the Gulf and so forth, and while that’s not nearly as scary as the bigger storm, it’s still a cause for concern amongst New Orleanians. We’ve been incredibly lucky this year in this insane season of storms, but every time someone else gets it instead you can’t help but feel that your odds for a direct hit are exponentially increasing every time that happens. And it’s always stressful when there’s a storm coming your way–that whole losing power thing is the least of it, of course, but at least it’s not the dog days of summer right now and losing power doesn’t mean melting into a puddle inside the Lost Apartment.
THANK GOD.
I know I loathe cold weather, but I am also all about the air conditioning.
The track has starting shifting to the east–sorry, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida panhandle–and local meteorologists are saying the longer it stays stationary and slow-moving where it is, the more likely it is that it will continue to shift east. But I’d still rather not have that in the back of my head for the next three days, you know what I mean?
So I went to my new gym yesterday morning–it was quite chilly out for a Sunday morning in October in New Orleans–and did my first workout since May. It was marvelous. I was smart and only did one set of 15 reps with low weight and exercised every body part; I stretched for a good while before going to the weight machines, and did 100 crunches to conclude before walking back home. As always, one must start slow–one set this first week, two sets the next, then three in the third week and then add weight in the fourth–in order to get your body used to exercising again. In about two months of this (full body workout three times per week) I’ll change the workout to different body parts per workout–chest and back one day, shoulders and arms the second, and legs the third–and make the workouts more intense and difficult, in order to begin pushing myself and getting my heart rate up and making my muscles grow so they can burn fat more efficiently. My goal is to get my weight down to 200 by March, and then reassess my goals and where I want to be physically by Memorial Day.
I used to always balance out my workout goals based on gay holidays when I would go out in public with the inevitable goal of removing my shirt at some point. I always wanted to peak at Southern Decadence. hen it was just maintenance through Halloween and Carnival, bulking until Memorial Day and then lean down for Decadence for peak lean muscularity.
Ah, my shallow youth.
I do wonder, though, if having those goals made the workouts easier to focus on and stick to; not using those times as an endgame to work towards might have had something to do with the loss of intensity and interest in regular workouts, along with not caring as much about a healthier diet. Points to ponder.
We started watching the new Nicole Kidman HBO series The Undoing last night, and were quite taken in by it. Kidman is always a fine actress, and the rest of the cast, which includes Hugh Grant and Lily Rabe, is also quite good. We also are continuing with the very strange M. Night Shyamalan series Servant on Apple Plus, which continues to be very strange and remarkably disturbing. It’s quite good, creepy, and rather intense. I’m still not entirely certain I know what’s going on in that house, to be honest, and I’m also not really sure who I am supposed to be rooting for. The episode we watched last night, which primarily focused on Rupert Grint’s character, was rather confusing. But…it’s also M. Night Shyamalan, which means it’s probably intended to be confusing.
I slept very well last night, and I’m not sore this morning, which is, of course, always a plus. My muscles feel tired, in that good way from working them, rather than tight and tired from non-use. Today will be a day off from the gym–I still need to buy a lock to take with me–and then after work tomorrow I’ll walk over there and get in a workout. I’m thinking Saturdays will be the day when I go and use the aerobics studio for my own cardio workout–if, of course, I can still remember my routines from my classes all those years ago–and do weights on Sunday. It means rearranging and rescheduling my weekends so I can make sure I can still get things done and stay on top of things, but adding some structure to my weekends cannot be a bad thing. Structure is always important for me–as well as routine–and I feel like that is what has been missing in my life since the pandemic began–having some sort of structure and routine to keep up with.
The Saints managed to win yesterday–and it wasn’t a guarantee, either, until the final drive–and so we had a good Louisiana football weekend. I am quite pleased with how both LSU and the Saints played this weekend; although one can never be sure if the LSU win actually meant anything, to be honest. Sure, South Carolina managed to knock off Auburn the week before–but in this crazy college football season no teams (besides Clemson and Alabama) seem to have any kind of identity; they are all playing all over the map, and outside those two top teams, it seems like everyone else are all about the same–anyone can win over anyone on any given weekend. Should make the play-offs race interesting, and regardless, whoever winds up winning it all this year should have an asterisk next to their name because the season is shortened, weird, and staggered.
And the pandemic seems to be kicking into high gear yet again, just like the Spanish flu pandemic did all those years ago.
But I am trying something new: optimism. That was why I enjoyed Ted Lasso so much–the show was about kindness, understanding, and optimism–and while all of those things have been in short supply for this horrific year (partly why the show resonated so much; it served as a reminder of what we can be if we choose to be), I am going to try to keep all of those things in mind going forward…knowing full well there are going to be times when it’s not going to be easy to keep any of those mentalities and life philosophies in the forward part of my life and mind…but also understanding and trying to remember that it can be a choice.
And on that note, it is off to the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader–I certainly intend to.
Sunday morning coming down–as if; although there have been any number of Sunday mornings when I was doing precisely that; often sleeping late or stumbling home in the early morning hours to sleep until around noon or so. I’m not quite sure how I managed to do all of that–and for years would go out again around six or seven on Sunday for Tea Dance, to come home around ten or eleven sloppy drunk yet again. It’s been a good hot minute since I’ve gone out in the evening to gay bars, visiting my old haunts and so forth; yet the pandemic has certainly made any nostalgic trips to the Fruit Loop impossible and impractical.
We joined a gym yesterday at long last; another one in our neighborhood and within walking distance, and while it’s a bit more of a slog than going to the old gym was–maybe a ten to fifteen minute walk rather than a five–it’s nice to belong to a gym again; it’s nice that it’s still in the neighborhood; and there are many different ways of walking there–so I can explore the neighborhood even more each time I walk to and fro. It’s nice, if small, and I am very excited to walk over there this morning and start putting my body through its paces yet again. The main thing for me is to remember that I need to be cautious, start slowly with lower weights, and build up reps and sets gradually. But it feels very terrific to be going to the gym again, working out again, and while i may not be as fanatical about it as I was in the wake of Katrina–I am hopeful I’ll be able to get going and gradually work myself back into better shape again.
LSU won last night–and while the defense didn’t look terrific, they didn’t look as terrible as they did in the two previous losses. At first, it kind of looked like the same-old, same-old; LSU took the opening kick-off and drove the length of the field behind a true freshman, starting in place of an injured Myles Brennan, in about eight minutes. South Carolina took two or three plays to tie the score on their next possession, but the defense started clamping down. South Carolina continued to have big plays, but that was it–scoring 17 more points in the game while LSU went on to win 52-24. The team is starting to pull together and play better–and considering how many true freshman are starting–LSU is going to be dangerously good in the future. This may be an off year for the Tigers–there’s no telling how many of the remaining games they’ll win, but I certainly am feeling better about our chances to do well this year. I mean, I didn’t go into the season thinking it would be a repeat of last year’s amazing result, but I didn’t expect LSU to lose to two teams they should have beaten.
We also wound up staying up later than we probably should have watching the pairs and ice dance finals from Skate America, but i also slept very well–I almost dozed off a couple of times in my easy chair–and slept later than I wanted to this morning but that’s okay; the combination of going to the gym this morning and getting a lot of work done today should work to enable to sleep really well tonight. I’m not sure what time the Saints game is today–just checked, it’s at noon–but I need to get deeper into the weeds with my book, and I also realized part of my issue with writing lately is getting used to my new computer set-up here in my office; writing on a significantly smaller screen on a MacBook Air is the primary difference here, and one that I shouldn’t be having such an issue adapting to. It could, of course, simply be my innate laziness, but there you go.
It’s cool this morning–it’s in the sixties, and the high is only going to be 75–so it’ll be a nice brisk walk over to the gym–they are only open on Sundays from 9-1; they close early on Sundays to clean everything thoroughly due to the pandemic–and then a brisk walk home to a protein shake and a shower and a plan for the rest of the day. I started rereading the first ten chapters of Bury Me in Shadows yesterday–it’s better than I thought it was, but it still needs tweaking and work–and hope to spend today reading through the last fifteen and making revision notes and so forth. I still have to finish the revision of “The Snow Globe” again, but I honestly think that getting off my ass and exercising again will be the catalyst or impetus to get me off my fat ass and writing again, too. It’s all connected, in some ways, in my mind–working out, writing, etc.–and hopefully I’ll also be able to get my mind and my writing in better shape as I go to the gym more and more.
I know I am probably too hard on myself about everything I do–whether it’s the day job, writing, editing, my body, etc.–but that drive to improve myself and be better is what helps me accomplish things. As I was remembering the other day, so much of my life is out of my control that when the world becomes too overwhelming in its harsh realities, I try to focus on the things I can control. I can control my body and how it looks; whether people read my books and like them is beyond my control but the books themselves are not. I do tend to be lazy–a Greg at rest tends to stay at rest–which is a constant struggle for me; I have trouble between distinguishing when I need to actually rest and recharge vs. when I just am feeling lazy. There’s a difference there, and one I need to be better about recognizing–kind of like having to identify the difference between bad pain (injury) vs. good pain (muscle exhaustion) at the gym when working out. My goal isn’t to get back to the kind of shape I was in post-Katrina–I will never be that lean and small-waisted again; then again, do I need to fit into size 30-31 pants again at my age? No, I really don’t, but I also don’t need to be carrying this extra weight I am, and I’d kind of like to have toned muscles again rather than simply the size that goes with having them. This week is going to be a gradual thing–I am going to stretch thoroughly before working out, the longer walk to and fro will serve as a nice warm-up/cool down, and once I get through this first week of primary focus on weights, I will start adding in the treadmill or stationary bike or some kind of cardiovascular exercise, which is probably what I need more than anything else. The aerobics studio in the gym is always open and available for use when it’s not being used for a class, and i may start doing my own step class again, trying to remember the programs I used to teach twenty years ago–I always preferred doing step than using the cardio machines, but there may be times at the gym when I have no choice–like when there’s a class going on.
As you can no doubt ascertain, I am very excited about going back to the gym. In fact, I shall have precisely one more cup of coffee before I head over there this morning to put my aged body through its paces for the first time since May. Since May.
Lord.
And so, on that note, I think I am going to finish my morning coffee, get my ass in gear, and head over to the gym. May your Sunday be as warm and delightful and amazing as you are, Constant Reader.
