Category: Saints

Back In My Arms Again

Yesterday I walked to City Hall after work (at home) duties and voted early1, as I won’t be home on election day. It was a lovely day–cool in the shade, but rather warm in direct sunlight–and an even lovelier one for a walk. I believed that walking rather than driving (although I also noticed once I got there, they had set up one-hour free parking spots for early voters, well done, Orleans Parish!) was better for me, and I also wanted to see how the Swiftie takeover of the city was going. It was really nice, actually. I was wearing my LSU joe Burrow #9 jersey, and I’d forgotten (or just didn’t think about) the pleasant reactions I would get (people would say Geaux Tigers to me, or would thump their chests and point at the number and give me a thumbs-up), which was lovely. The Swifties also made me smile. I didn’t see as many as I would have thought I would, but every bar/restaurant I passed was playing Taylor Swift songs (there was a LOT of “Love Story” and “You Belong with Me”) and the Swifties were easy to spot. It was such a pleasant experience being around them, to be honest, and they were of all ages, too. I saw teens and kids and moms and dads and grandmothers–the groups that were three generations of women, dressed alike in bright colors with their arms covered in bracelets and glitter on their faces and I couldn’t help but think how lovely a bonding experience this is for families. Has any artist crossed generations the way Taylor Swift has? And even the dads made me smile. Again, what better way for fathers to bond with their daughters than over Taylor Swift? I loved the GIRL DAD shirts, to be honest, and I also loved the T-shirts with lyrics on them. I recognized all the quotes, too, so maybe I’m not a lower level Swiftie after all? I took pictures of the Superdome with the friendship bracelets on it, too.

But the sun was bright and hot and by the time I’d walked home all my leg joints were aching as were my feet, and I was very sweaty and uncomfortable. By the time I managed to slip into my easy chair, I was bone tired and exhausted–which just tells me that the walk was necessary and important, and I need to start taking more walks regularly. I bought a pair of ten pound dumbbells to keep in the house for my arm rehab exercises, and hopefully by the end of the year I will have started getting more of my strength and endurance back–it would be very easy to just not do any of this and remain feeble, but aI don’t really want to be feeble. I also think the steroid shots on Thursday (and having my eyes dilated) probably wore me out for yesterday too; I went to bed last night at ten and slept until almost nine this morning–Sparky even cuddled with me some in the bed before I got up, which isn’t like him–which tells me I needed the sleep. Today I am going to wash the car, run some errands and make some groceries so I can get home to watch the football games today and read some more. I also want to work on the Scotty Bible today, too–I’ve been trying to find the marked up copy of Royal Street Reveillon, but finally gave up on that yesterday and decided to make up another one today.

I also stupidly walked over there and back without a hat or some kind of head covering, which was terrible. The dermatologist had frozen some “suspicious looking” scaly spots on my scalp that were early skin cancer indicators, and Dr. Claiborne *did* tell me to always wear a hat outside…which means I am going to have to buy some hats. I used to have a ton of them but threw them away to make space2, since I didn’t wear them hardly at all. Now I have to rebuild my collection–although I really only need a few, and of course I am going to get LSU caps, maybe a Saints one, and definitely a Louisiana one.

We also got caught up on our shows, and I have to say I absolutely am loving both Grotesquerie and Agatha All Along.

I feel rested this morning, but also a bit worn out still–that weird feeling where you feel rested but know if you went back to bed I’d fall right back asleep. The coffee is hitting magnificently this morning, and tastes even better. There is some picking up around here that needs doing, and there are boxes of books I’ve been meaning to take to the library sale for quite some time now, which will help clean out that corner of the living room. I don’t know if I’ll have the energy to read, write or edit today, but I know when I finish this and eat something I will probably go to my chair and read some more of Gabino’s book, which I am hoping to finish reading this weekend. I think I am going to allow my Halloween Horror Month to spill over into November, so I can read some more of these horror novels collecting dust in my TBR pile. I also think when I get back from that trip I will probably read some classics I’ve not read, dipping more into the Ross Macdonald/John D. MacDonald/Margaret Millar/Dorothy Hughes well, before circling back to the more recent releases. I’ve managed to get very far behind on all of my favorite authors, and am really looking forward to getting all caught up with them relatively soon.

I also got a royalty statement this morning, and I have to say it’s really lovely having that passive income of a robust backlist.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I need to make another cup of coffee and eat something before I dig into the day. GEAUX TIGERS! Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again at some point!

  1. I understood the assignment. ↩︎
  2. It was a collection; I always bought a ball cap every where I traveled. ↩︎

I Don’t See Me in Your Eyes Anymore

And now it’s Thursday.

Despite waking up multiple times during the night and never falling into a deep sleep, I wasn’t as tired when I got home last night. I’d picked up some packages at the post office (coffee…lots of coffee, and the new Lev AC Rosen novel, Rough Pages. It’s a gorgeous cover, too. Once I got home I just glared at the new but not completely assembled desk chair and decide not to ruin a decent mood on it, unpacked the boxes, took out the trash, did the dishes and the laundry (!!!!) and wrote over a thousand words on the book. I also managed to mark up Mississippi River Mischief, and copy the highlighted information from Jackson Square Jazz into a notebook. Not too shabby for a Wednesday night, wouldn’t you say? Tonight I am having dinner with a friend, and I got a message from another writer who’s in town, who I am definitely hoping to see. Look at me, being sociable and not even thinking twice about either. Who am I? This is actually kind of nice. And yesterday at work was a nice day, as well. I hope to get Chapter Seven finished tomorrow evening, and maybe even get Chapter Eight going over the weekend, too. I want to go to the gym this weekend, and start trying to be more regular with that; I can go on nights when I don’t plan to write.

I do have to come into the office tomorrow, not my usual Friday; we have a department meeting and then my team meeting and a benefits seminar (meeting). I also have an eye appointment on Saturday in Metairie (better make sure my shots are up to date, just kidding), so I have a lot of stuff to navigate over the next few days and the weekend, don’t I? I should be able to squeeze some writing in, too, as well as all my errands. It’s crazy for me to have all this going on; I can go months without going out of the house to be sociable. My natural tendency is always to stay home; I’ve always said that it’s a good thing I have a day job so I have to leave the house at least four days a week now, otherwise I never would other than make groceries and so on. Good thing LSU is off this weekend and the Saints play Monday night.

We’re supposed to get rain this weekend, and that system down by the Yucatan (same place Helene started) still isn’t doing much, but could form but will most likely head over to Florida. I am still stunned by the destruction wrought by Helene, as pictures and news and updates come from the communities up in the Appalachians along and near the Tennessee-North Carolina border. It sounds like the estimate to get running water again in Asheville is not until next year. That’s way worse than Katrina; and while more people were killed by Katrina than Helene, I think the devastation is on par with Katrina, if not worse. It’s horrifying to think this could happen more often, which is sadly more likely, and imagine the same scenario with rain and wind and so forth heading to Birmingham or Nashville (or both, really), or up the river to Memphis. 20-30 inches of rain on the Mississippi River would be catastrophic; 1927 level flooding. My heart is with everyone affected by Helene, and I wish there was more that I could do to help.

I woke up several times during the night again, but woke up feeling fine again this morning. Today is going to be a slower day at the office, but I’m pretty much all caught up on everything. I do have something new to do while my boss is in England for the next two weeks, but I’m sure it’s something I can handle. I also made a to-do list for the weekend last night, and hopefully I can stick to it and keep that momentum going forward. Lists are very necessary for me because I don’t remember anything anymore, but I’m not going to pretend like I had a great memory. I did used to have one, but I started making lists when I was in my thirties because…I was forgetting things. I also used to have a great memory for trivia (I always killed at both Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy), but even that’s iffy anymore. (I also don’t know much trivia from this century because I gradually stopped paying attention to things like pop culture.) There’s nothing wrong with that, either. Compiling the Scotty Bible has been very illuminating–I’d forgotten a lot about the plots of the books over the years; hell, I had trouble remembering things from Mississippi River Mischief and it just came out last year.

Overall, I am rather pleased with myself. The ship seems to have finally righted itself after many years of disorganized chaos. Of course that probably means more chaos is on its way; that’s just the way things go. Life is just a long list of chaos, anyway. Trying to make sense of the chaos or trying to control it is a fool’s errand; when you’re in the midst of bad chaos, you’re just trying to survive and get through it, but it never really ends. Chaos can change you–you may not even know how you’ve changed. I’ve also come to accept that my biggest delusion is thinking I’m self-aware…I so am not.

Ruby Baby

And Saturday morning has rolled around again, and it’s a lovely morning here in the Lost Apartment. The LSU game tonight is being televised (SEC Network) so I can flip back and forth between LSU and the Georgia-Alabama game. There aren’t many games on today that I feel the need to watch or even follow, but I can have the games on while I do other things. Yesterday I ended up taking the day off–I didn’t know how long I’d be out with the errands so I just bit the bullet and took a personal day. It ended up being a lovely day; the weather was very spectacular; in the heat of the summer it’s easy to forget how gorgeous it is here the rest of the year. After the errands were done, I finished reading Jordan Harper’s superb Everybody Knows (more on that later), cleaned up the house some, and had a rather nice day at home with Sparky. I think for the weekend I am going to reread two rather short horror novels to get in the mood for Halloween Horror Month, and the first read of that month will be Gabino Iglesias’ House of Rain and Bone.

We started watching Grotesquerie last night, and it’s really superb. Niecy Nash-Betts is a fantastic actress with incredible range, and this part is perfect for her. The show is very creepy and reminiscent in some ways of the classic Seven, from the 1990’s with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman (which is also my favorite Gwyneth Paltrow film), and we were sucked in again. I hope the show doesn’t wind up going off the rails, as so many of Murphy’s shows do, but I am looking forward to watching. I’m actually also still thinking about Monsters–isn’t the point of great art to unsettle you, make you see things from a different perspective, and perhaps even change your mind about something? I don’t know that I’m interested in learning any more about the case–not doing any deep dives into the Menendez case, but watching the show did give a fresh perspective on the case, and society and the culture have changed significantly since the murders and the trials.

I do have some errands to run today–I need to get the mail, drop books off at the library sale, wash the car, and make a grocery run. I ordered a new desk chair (my old one was torn to shreds by Skittle…and he’s been gone for fourteen years) because this old one is definitely ready to be retired and sent to the dumpster. I don’t think I am going to cook out this weekend–unless I decide to barbecue that pork tenderloin in the freezer; tenderloin always tastes better when it’s got a bit of burnt crust. Note to self: either set it out to defrost or get something else at the Fresh Market for dinner tomorrow. Of course, I could just get a pizza for tomorrow…decisions, decisions. I also want to make some more progress on the book today and the Scotty Bible; I need to mark pages in the last two Scotty books, and I am also trying to decide how this current one works out (I did solve problems I was having with two other works-in-progress, Muscles and Chlorine; reading good writers always gives me inspiration for my own; thanks, Jordan!). The Saints play the Dirty Birds tomorrow, and I’ll probably do a grocery run tomorrow, too. I also want to get caught on some blog posts that have been in drafts for a while, and I’ve not done a Substack in quite a while–you can’t build an audience (I blocked a right-winger yesterday who started following me; no fucking thanks, treasonous scum) without posting.

And there’s always, always, cleaning to do.

But…truth be told, I don’t feel anxious or stressed about anything. That’s actually kind of lovely, you know? I also want to watch Saturday Night Live tonight–at least the cold open, I can always stream it tomorrow–but not sure if I want to stay up that late. I stayed up later than I intended to last night, which was fine, but I managed to get up at eight anyway (thanks to Sparky) and I feel good today. I need some more coffee and some breakfast, and to get cleaned up, but I kind of want to get the kitchen and so forth under control before I run my errands before coming home to watch games and do things. I had the Eras tour on yesterday while I read and cleaned, and it really is very excellent; reminding me again of what a force of talented creativity Taylor Swift is–and the way those massive crowds react to her is really something to see, the joy on the faces of people actually there as they dance and sing along with her as she puts on a helluva show. (I still wish she’d done “Red,” but her choices from the Red album were pretty good ones, and the ten-minute version of “All Too Well” certainly belongs on the set list.) So, of course MAGA has targeted her–they want to kill all joy. Period. The Joy Killers is what we should be calling them.

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close so I can get more coffee and have breakfast. Have a spectacular Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back for sure.

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Trouble in Paradise

Work at home Friday (gotta get down it’s Friday) and I slept a little later than I thought I would; Sparky didn’t even try to wake me up at the usual time (how does he know?) but there you have it. I feel good and rested this morning, and I have errands to run this morning before my work-at-home chores this afternoon. I have to take Paul to some appointments and since I’m already out, might as well run my own while I’m at it, right? I am going to get a new desk chair today; this one is incredibly old–I bought it when we moved back in here after Katrina from the carriage house–and Skittle is the one who ripped it to shreds, and he’s been gone since 2010, so yeah, I am overdue for a new one. It always sinks, too, so I sit too low at the computer.

I hope everyone still in Helene’s path are sheltering safely, and those over whom it has already passed are okay. She’s turned out to be quite the bitch. I worry about the flooding, which looks to be horrific. Although all this rain water and swollen flooding rivers will help deter this year’s salt intrusion up the river, which isn’t a bad thing.

I had a pretty decent day, but by the time I got home from work last night I was feeling a little brain fatigue. I worked a bit on the Scotty Bible last night (got Garden District Gothic entered, leaving only a few left to go, including Jackson Square Jazz), and went ahead and rewatched the first two episodes of Monsters, and within the context of the rest of the series, they aren’t as bad as I originally thought they were. I’m still not sure whose perspective that first episode was supposed to be from, but I think it’s the American public’s, and the second was the cops’. It is really interesting how much thinking I’ve done about this show, and there’s some interesting commentary, methinks, that I should be able to write and talk about. I want to start watching Grotesquerie tonight (love me some Niecy Nash-Betts) after Paul gets home, and I also want to get some cleaning done today. I have to launder the bed linens, and there’s still a sink filled with dishes to wash. Heavy sigh. But I was thinking last night I might put the film of the Eras tour on again while I am working around the house today; I do love me some Taylor Swift, and I was thinking I am not as familiar with her newer stuff as I am her older stuff (which I still love and has never gotten old to me), and I enjoyed the concert film, so why not watch it again?

The LSU game tomorrow night is being broadcast on the SEC Network, so I can watch it if I so desire, but it’s also on at the same time as Georgia-Alabama, which is what I will probably end up watching. The Saints game is at noon on Sunday, and we’re playing the hated Falcons, so I am going to have to plan my Sunday around that. I am not sure of the college football schedule for tomorrow, but I should try to do any remaining errands tomorrow morning before the games start. A quick glance over the schedule really doesn’t show anything I absolutely must watch, so I am hopeful I won’t go into a football coma and get sucked into watching games I don’t care about all day. Que sera, sera.

I am going to be taking Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows with me on this morning’s Paul’s appointments tour of the city, and I also hope to finish reading it this weekend before diving into my October Horror reading, starting with a reread of We Have Always Lived in the Castle and Gabino Iglesias’ new book. I’d like to get through several horror novels this coming month, but I also am not sure how that would look. I am going to have to go up to Kentucky later in the month–LSU’s bye weekend is looking pretty good for that trip–and I should be able to get a lot of reading done while I am up there. Also, I can listen to books in the car. I am probably going to meet Dad in Alabama for the weekend weekend after next (the Mississippi game), and then go up to Kentucky a week or so later for a longer visit. It’ll be cold up there (of course), but it’s been a hot minute so I’ll probably drive up on a Saturday and back on Sunday.

And on that note, I am bringing this to a close so I can get cleaned up and do some other things this morning. Have a lovely Friday, and please please please stay safe if you’re in the path of Helene.

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Back Home Again

It is very lovely to be here at my desk this morning, with my coffee and Sparky begging for more food, knowing I don’t have to go into the office today. The work-at-home duties today are tedious, but hopefully they will make that time go back more quickly. I was very tired yesterday–I felt great in the morning, but as the day started to pass by I felt fatigue settling in and a feeling of not feeling terribly motivated, which is shameful, so when I got home last night I made myself transcribe the notes from three Scotty volumes into the Bible, and I only have maybe four or five left to go? Light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, quite frankly, and of course once it’s completed it’ll have to be updated. I have lots of errands to run later, after I finish my work-at-home duties, including a Costco run, which will probably wear me out a bit the way it always does.

We started watching Monsters, about the Menendez Brothers, and I’m not entirely sure we’ll continue to watch. I know the story fairly well, even if I may have forgotten a lot of it, because I followed the story as it happened. I also read all of Dominick Dunne’s columns in Vanity Fair back in the day–it was my favorite part of the issue, every month–so..it didn’t really engage me all that much. American Sports Story is kind of on deck (along with Agatha All Along), and there are some other things I’d like to watch dropping either soon, or have already, too. And of course it’s a football weekend; LSU-UCLA being the marquee game of the afternoon. There was also a lot of insane news breaking yesterday–not the least of which was that North Carolina jackass hate-monger’s exposure as a porn addict and a real insane freaky man. It’s exhausting. I’ve also taken the Bluesky/Threads methodology of “block at first sign of annoyance” to Facebook1. It’s much easier to block people than to indulge their idiocies and passive micro-aggressions. For the record, the people that think we shouldn’t allow politics to interfere with relationships? Tell me you’re a straight white cisgender person without saying the fucking words. Fuck you and all your descendants, now and forever, for all eternity. And I don’t owe anyone my friendship or affection, thank you very much.

I do have some plans for the weekend–around the games, of course (Saints at noon on Sunday)–I am going to have to make groceries again this weekend, and the apartment is a disaster area (but not as bad as usual on a Friday morning); I have dishes and filing to do, and of course there’s always laundry. I’m a little worn down this morning, but I’m hoping that will change once I’ve had more coffee and eaten something. The Internet is also out for some reason–this has been happening a lot ever since Francine; it’s annoying as fuck. I’m using my phone as a hotspot so far this morning and I’m really sick of Cox’ incredibly shitty service, which is getting less and less reliable. Every time I think maybe I should ditch the streaming and go back to regular cable, something like this reminds me why I’d really not have all eggs in Cox’ fucking basket.

Ah, remember the extolling virtues of the Internet and streaming back when it was first getting started, about how much better our lives would be now? As always, no one ever answered my questions of how reliable will it be? My personal favorite is everything you have to do with Cox pretty much requires an Internet connection…how can you reset your modem on-line when you can’t get on-line? All the instructions and so forth are on their website, and yes, sure, I can do it all on my phone but I shouldn’t have to. Bastards, really.

Wow, this is not only dull, but taking a really long time for me to get finished and posted. I must be running on accessory this morning, with my energy levels not quite reaching optimization. Man, I was tired when I got home last night–I stopped to get the mail and a few things at the grocery on the way home and didn’t even finish putting everything away, let alone finishing the dishes or doing anything else. Heavy sigh, but probably will get going once I have something to eat. I did eat jelly beans last night (yes, I succumbed to their allure while at the grocery last night) so maybe it’s a sugar crash. It’s possible, and i really do need to stop eating (and bingeing) jelly beans.

I did make a to-do list yesterday, and I need to make a Costco one today. I also need to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines, so I’ll bring this dullness to a close and get going with my work-at-home day. Till I return again, adieu.

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  1. Blockity blockity block block. If you annoy me once, you’ll probably do so more times and each offense is progressively worse than the last, always. Bitch, bye. ↩︎

Would You Lay With Me In a Field of Stone

Thursday, and my last day in the office for the week, which I’m not going to cheer about but I am starting to feel it. I haven’t had a full week of work in what seems like forever, between Labor Day and the hurricane and all. This week is the reset week, when you have to get re-oriented and back into the normal flow of life. I think I’m there; I wrote again this week, and I also worked on the Scotty Bible. I didn’t write anything last night, but I typed up the notes from three volumes. Left to go are Jackson Square Jazz, Vieux Carré Voodoo, and Garden District Gothic, and I also have to go through the last two and nock pages. Then I have to organize it, as well as summarize each book and list key plot points and characters. One of the lovely things about having a lengthy backlist is you can go back and mine the old books for references and even “hmmm, could this character be interesting to bring back at this point?” Yes, I am enjoying myself, and it’s great. I ran an errand after work last night–just the mail–but I also have to stop on the way home tonight at the grocery for a small run (I am resisting the urge to splurge on jelly beans, which are my literal favorite thing right now, and I am trying to break the habit but they’re so good!!!!) and will probably take the evening off from doing anything other than chores. Paul caught up the laundry yesterday, which was a very pleasant surprise, and I am currently soaking the dishes so I can finish washing them tonight. I would love to cruise into the weekend with all of these chores already taken care of so I can lose myself in college football while correcting the manuscript so far (as well as reading it all the way through to see how repetitious and tedious it must be).

I feel good and alert this morning, which is nice, and also think I slept through the night for the first time in a while–I’ve been waking up lately in the middle of the night, but am always able to get back to sleep–and I feel rested. No telling how long that will last, of course, but–last day in the office for the week, so as long as I make it through the day–and it will be a busy one, too. That’s fine; being busy always makes the day go by faster, which is nicer than having it drag all day. We’re still catching up on appointments that were canceled last week because of the hurricane, and looking ahead to next week…well, next week isn’t quite as busy once the “oops I need to do my STI swabs” worries from Southern Decadence experiences starts to fade. Halloween, of course, is just around the corner, so we’ll have one of these periods in the two weeks following it, as well. My people are like clockwork, really.

WE got caught up on English Teacher, Bad Monkey, and Only Murders in the Building last night. There are also a lot of other shows dropping soon that look great, too; I’m interested in American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez because that case always interested me. I’d even thought about basing a book on it, using LSU and the Saints rather than Florida and the Patriots, but I don’t know if it’s that compelling anymore, so seeing it through the eyes of a fictionalize television adaptation will help me make up my mind if it’s something I want to attempt in the future. I’d like to spend some time reading Jordan Harper’s Everyone Knows, which is wonderful, and I’d love to finish it this weekend and move on to my Halloween Horror Reading challenge for October. I want to reread an old horror favorite to prime the pump, maybe Stephen King or The Haunting of Hill House, which is overdue for a reread, or I could perhaps reread We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which I’ve not reread in a very long time. Yeah, maybe that’s what I’ll do.

There are some big college games this weekend, too. I want to wash the car this weekend and clean out the interior, which I think I might be able to do tomorrow afternoon when I finish my work-at-home duties and on the way home from picking up the mail. My messy workspace needs to be organized and cleaned this weekend, and maybe–just maybe–I’ll be able to take a box down out of the attic. I can clean all the copies of my own books out of the cabinets once there’s space for them to be stored in the attic, which will be a lovely way to free up space and reorganize the kitchen. I’d also like to get a few more chapters done before the end of the weekend and Monday rolls around again. I really do need to get into the habit of making to-do lists again…

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning, if not sooner; one never knows.

If You Love Me Let Me Know

I slept late this morning, but feel good now that I am awake. I did stay up later than I should have watching games last night, but I couldn’t turn off the Georgia-Kentucky game until the end. Georgia survived their closest non-Alabama game in quite a while, before prevailing 13-12 in a nail-biter in Lexington. My coffee tastes wonderful this morning, and I am slowly swimming up from the depths of Morpheus-induced slumber (strongly aided by Trazodone). When I first got up I debated maybe you don’t have to make groceries today but I really do need to. The Saints game starts at 1, so I’ll probably go during that to avoid traffic and other shoppers; New Orleans is a ghost town during games, and as long as I am home to catch the second half, that should do the trick. I did have a good day yesterday, despite all the games I watched; I was able to get more work done on the Scotty Bible (finding more discrepancies in the series), I did read some more of Everybody Knows, I got the dishes done finally, and did some cleaning around here, which is cool; it was nice coming downstairs and not seeing a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. I also worked some more on the books and straightened up the living room. Still need to do more cleaning, but am very pleased with the State of the Lost Apartment.

LSU played early yesterday, and it was a nail-biting, sloppy game with lots of penalties (and I feel like the officials kind of had their thumb on the scale a bit for LSU; some of the calls they made raised my eyebrows, and I was rooting for LSU. They did wind up winning, 36-33, but they look like they haven’t completely gelled as a team. Garrett Nussmeier can throw for sure, but there was also some incredibly stupid play-calling by the offensive coordinator (I was reminded of the Les Miles era; I wasn’t the only one because a headline on the Times-Picayune reads “Les Miles would have enjoyed LSU’s sloppy 36-33 win”). It was also weird because we actually don’t know how good South Carolina really is; they trounced Kentucky last week, and last night Kentucky almost knocked off Georgia, only to lose to LSU this week. After the LSU game ended, I watched Florida’s season start circling the drain again as they got trounced at home by Texas A&M, who lost to Notre Dame last week; you see how this is going? This is, I think, going to be an extremely strange season, and right now I am picking Texas to win the SEC.

Tulane also lost to Oklahoma yesterday, but they gave the Sooners what-for before going down to defeat.

I did run out yesterday to the Fresh Market to pick up a few things–fresh ground hamburger for grilling, and a meal kit of shrimp scampi for tonight–and so heading over to the West Bank today (which I was on the fence about when I got up) doesn’t seem as daunting now that I am waking up. Paul might have his trainer today, and thus will be gone for a bit anyway; perfect timing, and I can also stop for lunch at either Five Guys or Sonic; this decision is a tough one, frankly, but will probably go for Sonic. (These are the important decisions I face down every day, you know.)

I also took notes on the next chapter of the book, which I hope to tackle at some point this week. It’s Chapter Five, where I always have trouble in a first draft (come to think of it, Never Kiss a Stranger also stalled out at Chapter Five), but the good thing to come out of Hurricane Francine is now I remember how it goes and how it feels and how it sounds to ride out a hurricane. I know this is where Venus and Blaine turn this into an actual crime story–the dead body in front of their place the boys find in Chapter One–and it’s going to be really fun figuring out the rest of this book, I think. But I think I have an excellent grasp of what this chapter needs to be to move the story forward, plus it’s more of an intellectual puzzle of sorts because they can’t really go out and do any investigating because of the storm conditions. It’s so nice to feel excited about writing again, Constant Reader, you have no idea.

The story of Springfield, Ohio, and its perfectly ordinary Haitian immigrant population, working hard and building a better life for themselves and their families in this country with the opportunities here, despite the deeply imbedded racism and xenophobia they’ve surely encountered since being recruited to immigrate to Springfield to keep the town from dying. Now that the right’s candidates have decided to target that small town with blood libel and slander and racism, the town’s public schools, city hall, and hospitals have all been receiving bomb threats, because the Right has embraced stochastic terrorism for years now. There’s nothing American or patriotic about any of this, and the Right thinks it’s funny and laugh about it, particularly their Queen of Sewage, Chaya Raichik, who should be in a women’s penitentiary trying to explain how she’s not a racist to the brown women in there. Imagine being a “brand” and making money on being a stochastic terrorist, and celebrated for it. I’d actually like to see an IRS audit of Moms for Liberty and their bitch goddess to see where their money is coming from. We really don’t utilize the IRS nearly enough when it comes to lawbreaking cults and psychopaths when they are white, which is completely despicable, but part of those horrific baked-in values of racism in American society, carefully developed and nurtured over four hundred years. When I first saw they were targeting Haitian immigrants, I had two thoughts: 1. I was surprised the old blood libel about Haitians and HIV/AIDS weren’t dug up (it took just another day and 2. since it was pets, I was a little surprised it wasn’t the blood libel of Haitian satanism/voodoo’, i.e “they’re stealing our pets for ritual sacrifice!” Thanks, by the way, to perennial presidential candidate and new age lunatic Marianne Williamson, for making that connection for everyone. She’s fucking trash, and someone else Oprah owes us all an apology for platforming. She actually has quite a track record for charlatans and frauds, doesn’t she?

And on that note I am going to get another cup of coffee and perhaps some coffee cake for breakfast before I head into the spice mines. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I may be back later, one never can be sure.

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Rub It In

Saturday morning of this disrupted and off-track week. I went to the office yesterday and did walk-in testing, primarily because I’d already been home for two days getting paid and didn’t really think it was right to then work-at-home on Friday, too. But it has thrown my routine off, just as the hurricane did, because now my days are all messed up. LSU plays at eleven this morning, which means I should make a grocery run this morning before the game starts, but I also slept late and am not really sure if I have the energy to do so before the game starts. There are also good games on for the majority of the day–which will make that trip even trickier to do later, so i really do need to get to the Fresh Market before hand. Sigh. I didn’t do much when I got home from work, either, as I was very tired; mostly watched the news and cuddled with Sparky until Paul got home–late–and then I went to bed shortly after.

I also have to go to make groceries tomorrow, too. Sigh. The run to the Fresh Market is to get some fresh meat and shrimp for the weekend. I want to barbecue burgers today–a college football Saturday thing–and shrimp scampi or maybe even shrimp creole for tomorrow night. But I need to clean this goddamned godforsaken kitchen first. I have a sink full of dishes that I’ve just let sit there all week (we were supposed to use water sparingly after the storm, because the sewers were full of water already) and of course, now it’s going to be a major undertaking. I let the entire house slide this week, which is shameful. I’m going to work more on the Scotty Bible today while I watch games, try to read some more of Everybody Knows (which is fantastic), and try to pick up around here. Next week isn’t going to be an easy one, as my supervisor will be out at a conference (which basically means everyone will come to me with questions and concerns) so it will be a lot more hectic. Sigh. I have so much to do! I guess today I’ll go ahead and make a to-do list today before I start working on the house.

Ah, there’s the coffee kicking in at last! I was getting worried as I was feeling a bit groggy still, and thought ugh is this going to be a tired day? I fell asleep in the afternoon one day this past week, during the storm days, which was wild, but hurricane fatigue is a thing. Yeah, running over to Fresh Market after finishing this and getting a bit cleaned up before the game is definitely do-able. I want to seriously clean off my desk and organize this area a bit–the great thing is I can play whatever game I’m watching on the computer while I am in the kitchen, which is very cool (something I always forget–that my desktop AND laptop are also television screens).

I also want to get some progress made on the book this weekend. I’m sure the Saints are playing tomorrow, plus the grocery trip (I may go to the West Bank, now that they’re finished installing the lights on the bridge, and may even treat myself to Sonic while I am over there), so the window for writing tomorrow could be a little tight. It’s always hard to write on the weekends during football season! But I’ll get it done. It really is impossible to be able to focus completely to write when there’s a storm on its way, or even immediately after. But the positive is the book itself is set during a storm, and now I have fresh memories of time-lines, what it’s like outside, and the tension. No matter how much you try to relax, you’re always on edge because you never can be certain the roof isn’t going to come off or there won’t be a tornado or the wind won’t pick up a tree and deposit it on your house–sometimes hurricane winds can rip the facade off a house, too. I also need to do some brainstorming on the rest of the book. I’ve got some ideas about how to write the rest, but the primary trick is going to be not using anything that can slow the narrative down–like over-explaining (what I call “filler”), because it really does need to keep moving.

And see? After a tropical weather break, I am getting right back into it again. Huzzah!

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines and get that grocery run out of the way…and perhaps start on cleaning up this kitchen, too. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader; I doubt I’ll be back today but you never know. GEAUX TIGERS!

If You Talk In Your Sleep

Well, here we are in the cone of uncertainty for a tropical storm that should be forming due south of Louisiana in the Gulf, which should make for an interesting week, don’t you think? How things have changed since I posted my blog yesterday morning… I imagine we’ll be hearing about contingency plans today at the office.

Sigh. Wednesday is also Pay the Bills Day, which should make everything all the more interesting. According to the hurricane center, landfall should be around seven pm on Wednesday, so who knows? It might impact work on Thursday, too. And of course, I am writing about experiencing a Category 1 with this new Scotty, and this one will be a Category 1, too, if not stronger. Yay. Needless to say, we won’t be evacuating as this has come up a little too quickly; we’d have to get packing and on the road today, tomorrow morning at the latest. There’s no call for evacuation, so we should be okay. But…we may lose power, and that truly sucks. If the weather is going to be cool…it might be kind of nice, but I don’t think that’s going to be the case. Guess I’ll be getting that case of water down from the attic and tossing a few of them into the freezer. But there doesn’t seem to be much concern in the news or on the weather channels, so I am assuming it’s nothing to be terribly concerned or worried about. It’s 3’s and up that are the real problem…and of course, now that I’ve said that…

Since it’s a Monday, it’s back to the office with me this morning. I had a lovely, restful weekend, how about you? Yesterday was a really lovely day here. I overslept so was a bit off for the rest of the day, but the weather was gorgeous. I didn’t do a whole lot of anything, but one thing I did was start the Scotty Bible, going through the already post-it noted copy of Mardi Gras Mambo and getting some interesting (and necessary) information out of it (the first names of his grandparents and his dad; the street the Diderot mansion is on) that I needed, and I felt very accomplished getting that part of it done and it’s off to a start. It was also kind of nice revisiting the old book, something I wrote almost twenty years ago. I’d forgotten how insane the plot of this book actually was, and I’m kind of impressed that I managed to pull it off, especially given how many aborted starts I made on it. But I certainly picked the right back-list book to start compiling the Bible with; it had all the answers I needed for this one in it. Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop doing it, mind you; I am planning on getting through one book per day (I already marked the places I need to get information from in the entire series, many years ago); today is Who Dat Whodunnit when I get home tonight. I’m also going to correct the chapters I’ve already written with the right names and places and so forth.

I ran an errand and the weather was stunningly beautiful–the 70s and cool; the breeze was nice and cool, a lovely change from it feeling like the air coming out of a floor vent in Minneapolis in January. I watched the Saints win, which was also lovely, and then I had a ZOOM call with some friends before settling in for the evening, where we got caught up with Bad Monkey and Only Murders in the Building.

So, all in all, a pleasant if lazy weekend here in the Lost Apartment, if not a particularly productive one. Which is also fine, you know. Weekends don’t have to be productive anymore.

It’ll be interesting to see how this storm–which is now projected to be a Category 2 when the eye comes ashore–is going to interrupt the week and my work. If we lose power, we have plenty of candles and things to drink, and I can catch up on my reading. Now that I’ve broken through my “reader’s block” and binged an entire novel in one sitting (Alison Gaylin’s We Are Watching, available now for preorders and being released in January), reading isn’t going to be as big an issue as it was. I am also making progress on getting through Rival Queens, and am revisiting some Ira Levin classics, preparatory to a longer essay for Substack about one of my favorite writers that I sadly forget about when asked about influences; Levin’s work had an influence on mine in some ways, but he was definitely a master. He wrote one of the greatest crime novels of all time (A Kiss Before Dying, which still amazes with its twists and turns and surprises), and three others that became part of the zeitgeist and had a lasting impact on our culture: Rosemary’s Baby, The Stepford Wives, and The Boys from Brazil. (I also want to reread “A Rose for Emily” this week, too.) I also haven’t reread Rebecca in quite some time, nor The Haunting of Hill House, either. I am going to be trying to read horror all month for Halloween again; I have some terrific horror novels collecting dust that I need to get around to, and Halloween Horror Month sounds like a great idea to me.

I also want to watch The Deliverance this week.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. It’ll be an interesting day, for sure, and maybe I’ll be back later. Stranger things have occurred.

It’s Four in the Morning

Tuesday morning and my alarm went off this morning–as well as the cat alarm–and so I am up, swilling coffee, and looking forward to my day. I did stop on the way home yesterday to get the mail and went to the gym to do Rehab. It was remarkably smooth, too–I was able to drive there, park easily, get in and out relatively easily, and get home. I feel a bit tired this morning, which is no doubt due to the unexpected rigorous exercise I put my body through last evening, so there’s definitely some muscle fatigue going on. We watched The Hit Man on Netflix, which was interesting and clever enough, and it was filmed in New Orleans–and that was the way to film in New Orleans; AKA, they just filmed it here like it was anywhere else, and didn’t feel the need to “Nawlins” it up (by which I mean constantly saying New Orleans, sending the characters out for beignets all the time, occasional mention of the Saints, etc etc etc), and there was only one scene where I was like, “if you work at UNO and live in Gentilly, why would you drive home via Liberty Circle?” It was a pleasant way to spend the evening, and it was a cute film; actually based on a true story here locally about an undercover cop (really a side gig) who played hit men in sting operations to arrest the person hiring him, and he’s actually good at it. Check it out, it’s a pleasant way to spend two hours.

I did spend some time writing yesterday, which felt good; I am now going to let that sit for a few days before marking it up with the proverbial red pencil (when I first started, you did use a red pencil or ink to mark up your manuscripts) and I am now going to start pulling Never Kiss a Stranger apart in order to piece it back together as a novel. I mean, why not? I love the main character, I love the minor characters, and the story itself is one I really want to tell and share with the world.

I also picked up the mail, and now have my copy of Summer of ’42, which I am hoping to reread relatively soon.

Hilariously, Harrison Butker (aka Hairy Butt) was in the news again lately for “saving” a teammate’s life, who’d gone into cardiac arrest. Turns out all he did was run for help–which, as someone who has been certified in CPR since 1997, I can tell you is the wrong thing to do. You’re supposed to call for help while starting CPR and ordering someone else to go for help, or to keep calling until someone comes. You’re never supposed to leave the person alone; seconds are critical and the longer before compressions starts the more unlikely it is they will be successful, not to mention the cessation of oxygen flow to the brain. Even if he was the person who was sent for help, it was hardly “his” heroism at play here; it’s really not all that heroic to go look for help when someone is having a medical issue. The irony that he got a female trainer to come out and save the man’s life–while getting the headlines for himself about his “heroics”; in many of the pieces the actual trainer’s name wasn’t even mentioned as they masturbated Butker’s fragile ego, as though saying to all of us who found his graduation antics in incredibly poor taste “see what a great guy?”

Given the other option was to let the man die, he literally did the bare minimum, but we’re supposed to call him a hero? No, heroes are my co-workers who run outside to administer NARCAN to an overdose and save lives. It’s become so routine now that no one even thinks about it, but watching my department immediately slip into crisis mode and work together quickly and efficiently to save a life is very impressive, and way more than Hairy Butt ever would do; he’d probably think the OD was God’s will or something.

The bar really is set low for cishet white men, isn’t it? They need praise for everything.

Sigh. The poor, sad, oppressed straight cis white man, right?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Wish me luck, and I’ll do the same for you, Constant Reader, and there’s going to be a Pride post later, I’m sure.

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