Category: Saints

Save Me

Sunday morning and I guess there’s probably a Saints game today? I am a terrible fan this year–I can’t seem to remember ever to check on the schedule to see when the games are, so maybe it’s my fault they’re having a really terrible year? (Yes, Greg, because that’s exactly how professional sports work…)

The sun is bright this morning–it was gloomy, overcast and humid yesterday; I also got rained on while running my errands. I am having my morning cappuccino, which is marvelous, and feel like I again slept extremely well again last night. Ironically, despite the same feeling yesterday morning, I succumbed to fatigue much earlier than I thought I would yesterday, which didn’t bode well for getting things done the way I had hoped and/or wanted to. So, no, I wound up not getting nearly as much done yesterday as I had originally hoped I would; but I am also still at the point where I think any progress is better than no progress so I am taking the day as a win. I did have the football games on in the background while I tried to get things done around here, and they kind of turned out the way I figured they would: Mississippi taking down Texas A&M; Tennessee embarrassing Kentucky; and Georgia made a fool out of Florida. Missouri surprised South Carolina, and Arkansas embarrassed Auburn at home. The big surprise of the day was the way Kansas State embarrassed top ten ranked Oklahoma State–no one, I think, saw that coming. But this weekend did a good job of setting up next weekend: the winner of LSU-Alabama takes control of the West, while whoever wins Georgia-Tennessee will do the same in the East. I try not to get involved in the whole “conspiracy theory” aspect of fandom, in which some controlling elite wants certain outcomes to drive their ratings, but I can’t help but think everyone at ESPN and all the college football reporters are hoping for an Alabama win, to make the Alabama-Mississippi game matter in two weeks as a “winner takes all” battle for supremacy in the West. I don’t expect LSU to win, honestly; that’s almost too much to hope for (although I do hope it happens), and all I am really hoping for is another great game, not a blow out.

I think the weather had something to do with the doldrums I was suffering from yesterday. I don’t have that same feeling this morning, but at the same time I think maybe not waking up three mornings in a row to an alarm helps make me feel more rested for some reason. It doesn’t make sense (little does, really, when it comes to my mind and my theories about my life and so forth), but I am hoping that once I get this done and the kitchen repaired a bit (the sink has dishes, things need to be put away) I can dive into working on the writing and some other things I want to get done. I’m going to take a break momentarily after finishing this to read a short story by Paul Tremblay, after which I’ll get cleaned up and get a move on with everything.

Or so I hope, at any rate.

I watched an episode of American Horror Stories before I went to bed last night–the one called “The Lake”–and it was much better than the earlier episodes I’d seen. Alicia Silverstone, Teddy Sears, and pretty young Bobby Hogan were an appealing cast, and while the story was terribly derivative (the curse of towns flooded by dams is an old trope; there’s a great German show with a similar premise–but it’s also a trope I’ve always wanted to use as well), the acting was fine and the ending–while a little like The Fog, it worked within the construct of the story and was really the only way for it to actually come to an end. It reminded me, in some ways, of another idea I had for a story a long time ago–about college kids camping out in ghost town in the Sierra mountains in California that I’ve always wanted to write–but who knows if I will ever get around to that or not? It was entertaining, though, and now of course it’s Sunday–several of the shows we watch drop episodes on Sundays, but I can’t watch any of them until Paul gets home. Heavy sigh. Although I think tonight I’ll rewatch Halloween–the original. It is, after all, the seminal slasher movie and the one that kicked off the slasher craze of the late 1970’s/early 1980’s (along with Friday the 13th).

On the other hand, one can never go wrong with Scream, for that matter.

Well, I can figure out what I am going to watch later, right? It’s not like it is of the utmost importance to figure this out right now, either.

Or maybe I’ll watch a horror movie I’ve never seen before–there were so many in their heyday that I’ve not seen them all, like Terror Train or Prom Night–then again, on the other hand, there are so many it’s entirely possible I’ve seen some of them and forgotten that I have, as well. My memory is no longer trustworthy, after all–as I am finding out while writing this book–which makes me wish I’d written more things down over the years or been more faithful to keeping a journal; I’ve never been as faithful to a journal as I have been to this blog, for example. Yet another reason why I don’t write a memoir or many personal essays; I don’t trust my memory, and I know I have most likely revised my own personal history to make myself more of the hero of the story than I should be–it’s something we all do, really; it’s also how we perceive things, through our own lenses with all of our foibles and miscues and flaws helping to interpret and record things in that great back-up hard drive inside our skulls. We are all the heroes of our own story, even if we are the villain in someone else’s.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning.

Oh Diane

Monday morning and a good morning to you all. I feel rested this morning, if a bit intimidated by what all I have to get down this week but I’m just going to update and make a new to-do list this morning and just start working my way down it, you know? I was still a little unwell yesterday–I used to be able to shake of a mild fever and still get things done, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. I feel better this morning–I always feel better in the mornings; it tends to come on during the course of the day, alas–so I’m hoping whatever mild thing that was is over and no more. I don’t have any COVID tests here at home (note to self: pick some up today at the office) so I can’t test myself until I get to work, but I don’t think that’s what this is (but better safe than sorry, just in case). I did manage to get some writing done yesterday–not very good writing, but it got done–and I read more of ‘salem’s Lot, which still holds up remarkably well (I just got to the part where Danny Glick dies…oops, spoiler). I know King was going for a more Gothic type style in this book (he patterned it along the lines of Dracula, if I recall correctly) and that sense of brooding and creepiness is there to very good effect. As I said yesterday, it would be edited down today by at least a third if King were a new writer; and I think the shorter books we get nowadays kind of do us a disservice, as both readers and writers? That could also explain why I always feel like my own books don’t cover enough material and so forth–because the books I grew up reading were longer than the books getting published today and the ones that I myself am writing.

We watched The Serpent Queen, House of the Dragon, and Interview with the Vampire last evening (I couldn’t watch the Saints game yesterday–the games are too stressful plus it was hard for me to not root for Joey Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase to do well, so my loyalties were divided which made it more stressful, and this morning I feel like I’ve betrayed the Saints), all of which are getting more interesting. The Serpent Queen has begun to deviate from the actual history–dramatically so, especially in light of last night’s episode–which is disappointing but understanding; the great game of politics in the mid-sixteenth century was insanely complex, so I can see why they’d want to simplify it in order for it to be more easily digested by the audience as most Americans have no clue about anything that happened in that century outside of easily digestible bits without nuance: Henry VIII had six wives; religious conflict; Bloody Mary, Spanish Armada and Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded.

It always cracks me up how everyone loved Game of Thrones but get bored about the real history that puts Martin to shame, really.

I’m plowing ahead on the book even though I know Chapter 5 is a sloppy, disgusting and terrible mess. I need to get the rest of the draft done so I can go through it and start fixing things; I’ll probably need to fix some of it before I can move on to Chapter 6 but the plan this week is to move ahead and try to get as much done as possible so the first draft can be finished by the end of the month so I can then spend the rest of December making the fixes it so desperately needs (I think the primary problem with it is that it’s out of order; I crammed too much into the beginning of the book and now I need to go back and put it in the proper context and order, which will all be a part of the extensive revision process this book is going to be sorely in need of…which just makes me tired, frankly, to think about.). I am trying very hard not to get horribly stressed about everything I need to get done…

And I have a book coming out in six weeks. YIKES.

I missed a short story deadline from this past weekend, which is a shame. But I didn’t feel well all weekend, really–I know the flu shot doesn’t get anyone sick, but can I help it if every time I get one I do? It just seems like an odd coincidence that almost every time I get a flu shot I spend the next few days not feeling 100%–and I hate the feel of a low grade fever. Either go big or go home, god damn it! But my body seems to be sliding back into the normal routine of Monday thru Thursday in the office and Friday as my work-at-home; which I am hoping means that once I get home every night, I can be certain to do some work and chores around the house before settling into my easy chair, exhausted, to wind down before going to bed. We’re all caught up now on our weekly shows, so can go back to Diary of a Gigolo, which is interesting and fun to watch, if a little complicated and sometimes hard to follow–but Spanish-language shows are so much better and faster moving than English language counterparts; they never have a filler episode like so many American shows do to pad out their seasons.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Big Love

Sunday morning and another good night’s sleep. The bed was enormously comfortable and I didn’t want to get up–knowing how much I had to do today–but c’est la vie; I knew that was going to be the case. I felt unwell most of the day yesterday–slightly feverish, low energy, no appetite–which was probably my usual flu-shot reaction (I know you aren’t supposed to get sick, but I always have a reaction to a flu shot) and I stupidly had them give it to me in the same arm I got my COVID booster injected into, so my left arm was achy and sore all day yesterday. It was okay, I knew I needed to just rest and relax, and fortunately, it was college football Saturday, so I curled up in my chair and started watching college games when the chores I was doing eventually wore me out and I had to retire to my easy chair with ‘salem’s Lot (more on that later) while watching games–and the two I wound up watching (Alabama-Tennessee and LSU-Florida) were pretty epic games.

The Tennessee-Alabama game was amazing, and deepest sympathies to my Tide friends; what a stinging loss, and to a bitter rival–even if it’s one you’ve beaten every year since 2006 (it was Nick Saban’s first loss to Tennessee at Alabama; he also had some pretty memorable wins over them at LSU). 52-49 was the final score, with the Tide missing a last-minute field goal with the Volunteers making theirs to hold off the furious Alabama comeback and capture the biggest win in Knoxville in decades. One thing you have to give Alabama–their losses are almost always incredible games because they never give up.

I didn’t have very high hopes for my Tigers going into the Florida game. Like Alabama-Tennessee, it’s a rivalry game (I don’t know how that happened or came about; maybe it’s because we are both swamp states with a large alligator population? I honestly don’t know, but it’s true) that has mostly been dominated by Florida throughout the series–but LSU has been catching up. The series record is now 33-33-3; tied. LSU has won four in a row against Florida for the first time since 1977-1980 (when Bear Bryant was still at Alabama, Florida had no national titles and LSU only had one), and because it had been so long since LSU won four straight, I figured history would be telling and LSU didn’t have much of a chance. The game was also the first between new coaches for both teams. LSU has won 8 of the last 10 games in the rivalry–losing in 2012, 2016, and 2018–and has won 10 of 13. And for the first time this season LSU looked good; usually this year they’ve fallen behind very quickly in the first half and had to dig their way back out, but not yesterday. Florida’s opening drive last two plays before they went up 7-0 and I thought oh, here we go again but LSU matched every Florida score and then added another just before half-time to take a 28-21 lead; by the end of the third quarter the score was 42-21 and despite a furious Florida comeback in the fourth (similar to Alabama’s, actually), held on to win 45-35. Nerve wracking, but exciting–and it was nice to see LSU finally starting to gel as a team. The schedule doesn’t get easier now–we have Mississippi, a bye, then Alabama followed by Arkansas and Texas A&M–and two of those teams are currently sitting in the Top Ten. LSU and Alabama are tied for second place in the division behind Mississippi, which makes both of those games crucial for all three teams (Mississippi and Alabama have yet to play as well; Alabama also plays LSU and Mississippi back to back) so it’s going to be an interesting November in the SEC West–while the Tennessee-Georgia showdown in the East also looms.

And the sting of the blowout loss to Tennessee at home doesn’t seem quite so horrific now that Tennessee has also beaten Alabama and scored 52 points to do it. I think that’s the most points scored on Nick Saban? It may even be the most points ever scored on Alabama? You just never think of any team ever scoring fifty points on the Tide. It’s definitely a weird season. And of course, Mississippi is coming to Baton Rouge in almost the same position they were in back in 2014, when they were 7-0 and ranked third; LSU won 10-7. This is only the third time Mississippi has started a season 7-0 (the other was 1962). Definitely an interesting season when there’s a chance that the SEC Title game could be between two unbeatens–but instead of Georgia-Alabama, which is what everyone was expecting, it could be Tennessee-Mississippi. How weird would that be? Tennessee hasn’t been in the title game since 2007, and Mississippi never has.

Definitely a weird college season, but very happy with my Tigers. It’s always lovely to beat Florida.

And today the Saints play the Bengals, which brings Joey Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase back to the Superdome for the first time since the 2020 national championship game against Clemson. I think I’ll hav the game on in the background–I can’t root against the Saints under any circumstance, but I also can’t ever root against Joey B and Chase, either.

I did finish reading Interview with the Vampire the other night (I’ll write about it when the TV series is finished), and yesterday I started rereading ‘salem’s Lot, which is one of my favorite novels of all time and was the book that turned me into an unabashed Stephen King fan. I had bought a used hardcover copy on eBay sometime in the past decade (which I also had done with The Shining) and so as I was reading it yesterday I caught a typo–I’d never read this copy of it, and the typo was weird, so I flipped back to the front of the book to discover that it’s a first edition. I don’t think the person selling it knew they could have gotten a lot more for it than I paid for it; it was so inexpensive it never even crossed my mind it was a first edition (I had the same insane luck with a copy of In Cold Blood, getting a hardcover copy off eBay for less than ten bucks, only to have it arrive as a very well-kept first edition…signed by Truman Capote. You never know how lucky you can get on eBay, I guess is the point of this sidebar?) so I was pretty thrilled to see that my copy is actually an undiscovered treasure. Anyway, as I started rereading–and remembering just how great a novel it actually is–I started thinking about length; my longest book is around 100k (I don’t think I’ve ever exceeded 100k in a book, or by much if I did) and the average length for books I am hearing these days is 80k. Out of curiosity, I decided to see how long ‘salem’s Lot is; it’s just over 157k words. As I was rereading it–and enjoying those early chapters again, as King creates the small town of Jerusalem’s Lot so beautifully and perfectly–I also was thinking what would an agent/editor cut out of this to submit it for publication today if this was a first or second time author in modern times? They would cut out a good third of the book, I think; sure, there’s a lot in the story that doesn’t really advance it at all–a lot o the supporting characters and subplots could easily be cut without notice, but at the same time I think that would serve to damage the book and turn it into something else; as I was reading, I kept thinking “this is really just Peyton Place as a horror novel” and that, for me, is one of King’s strengths–the way he writes about small towns, and how interconnected everyone is, and how everyone has dark, dark secrets that aren’t quite as secret as they might prefer. I think when I finish reading this book, I may move on to another King that I’ve not read–there are any number of them in my cabinets; the days when I used to get King on release day (still do that) and then read the entire book within forty-eight hours are long gone, and so many of his book are really long…

And I just checked my email to see that I’ve placed another short story. Woo-hoo! More details on that as they develop.

And now back to the spice mines with me. I am going to have another cup of coffee and go read some more of ‘salem’s Lot before getting cleaned up and getting to work on the book. Have a great Sunday, Constant Reader!

Straight Back

G’morning, Saturday! How you doing? I slept well, woke up sans alarm, and feel kind of rested and good this morning. The sun is ridiculously bright this morning–it was yesterday as well–but that’s fine. Today is a long day of college football, and I have one errand to run this morning later on. Yesterday was a fairly good day; I got my work done during the day and ran the errands that needed running. I made Swedish meatballs (my version of them, any way) for dinner last night, and we settled in to watch the finale of Bad Sisters and of course, Halloween Ends, which was remarkably different than what I was expecting and despite a slow start, turned out rather interestingly after all.

I did think about the book last night while I was waiting for Paul to be ready for television viewing (and while I was doing some chores and making dinner), so I think I may have some success working on it this morning. I am going to try to get this done, put the dishes away and do some other chores before taking a shower and getting cleaned up to work on the book before I have to run the errands. And while I am of course hoping that Alabama cleans Tennessee’s clock today, the LSU game isn’t until this evening so I have the day pretty much all free heading into that, so there’s no reason I can’t get some writing done today and tomorrow (note to self: check the time of the Saints game today so you can plan accordingly). I don’t need to make another grocery run this weekend–or even order anything for pick-up–so I can pretty much plan on having the time to get things done around here. I have to work Monday morning in the clinic (covering for someone) but I also don’t have to be there until eight-thirty, either. Huzzah!

I also want to start rereading ‘salem’s Lot today; but I also have some other things I want to read as well. There never is enough time for everything, seriously. I have a couple of short stories written by friends that I need to look over (I promised feedback months ago) and I also have that Shirley Jackson Edgar-winning story I want to read, too. At some point I want to drive around the city and take pictures of Halloween decorations too–maybe I can take a walk with my phone tomorrow morning around the neighborhood and the Garden District–because I feel like I don’t document life in New Orleans as much as I should.

But then this blog has never really had a theme other than really just being a kind of diary for me, more than anything else, one where I don’t really talk about personal things as much perhaps as I would in a diary but just a way of situating myself and seeing where and how I am every morning. I have some pending entries that I also need to finish–entries talking about other books I’ve written, other books I’ve read and yet not done an entry for yet–and of course that takes time out of my day every day as well as time away from my other writing. But I do have a rather funny one about Nancy Drew and New Orleans I really should finish sometime–I have a weird love/hate thing with Nancy Drew; my OCD required me to collect and read the entire series, yet she was never really a favorite of mine; there were other juvenile series I vastly preferred to both Nancy and The Hardy Boys–but I had wanted to pay homage to Nancy’s adventures in New Orleans in the new Scotty book, so I reread the two books where Nancy came to New Orleans (The Ghost of Blackwood Hall and The Haunted Showboat) and whoo-boy, were they dated, wrong on almost every level, and horrifyingly racist. (Sidebar: I’ve always wanted to write my own juvenile series, similar to Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, and at the same time I’ve always wanted to write a murder mystery set at a fan convention for one of these series–because I belong to some fan-pages on Facebook and let me tell you, those folks are interesting)

I also have my entry about Donna Andrews’ marvelous Round Up the Usual Peacocks to finish, and I also have a rather lengthy entry about Interview with the Vampire I think I’ll wait to finish until I am done with watching the show.

I am not going to lie, I was curious about Halloween Ends primarily because I absolutely hated the second film in this sequel/reboot series, or whatever the hell it is considered. I was impressed by the creative decisions made on how to handle this absolutely, finally the last chapter (the end definitively ends it, trust me); but I am not entirely sure how I felt about the focus being moved off Laurie and Michael Myers. I guess I was a little disappointed–I was hoping to see, I guess, a balls-to-the-wall Laurie v. Michael battle, which we did kind of get, but it also wasn’t the primary focus of the film? I appreciated the new story as well as the new cast members like Rohan Campbell (who plays Frank on Hulu’s The Hardy Boys reboot), but I came away a little disappointed, but that was due to my own expectations, not any failure of the film itself. (I was also really amused to no end that Kyle Richards of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, who played one of the kids Laurie babysits in the very original Halloween, was brought back to reprise the role in the new trilogy. After listening to her talk about “filming” all season, and “having to focus on learning her lines” while dealing with RHOBH drama…only to watch the actual film to see she has exactly two scenes and at most five lines made me laugh out loud–and of course, Paul shadily said “I find it really hard to believe a bartender in Haddonfield could afford all that plastic surgery” which sent me into gales of laughter. I did enjoy the movie, though, and appreciated the different direction it took. If you’re a fan of Halloween, I think you’ll enjoy it, too–but understand it’s different going in.

All right, on that note I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and GEAUX TIGERS!

Hold Me

I got my bivalent booster yesterday (I think that’s what it’s called) and am hopeful I won’t feel any ill effects from it this morning. If I do, oh, well. I am also taking a long lunch today so I can drive out to UNO to tape Susan Larson’s show The Reading Life to talk about Streetcar, which feels a little strange. I am so deep in the weeds with this new Scotty book that it’s weird to shift back into my Streetcar mentality and talk about a book I wrote over a year ago. Ah, well, we’ll see how it goes, won’t we?

I feel okay this morning. I woke up early–around three–and dozed off and on until the alarm went off. I don’t think the booster has made me unwell (unlike it’s four predecessors), or at least not yet at any rate, but I’m still pretty jazzed that I finally got a vaccination that didn’t even make me slightly feverish for twenty-four hours or so. This is a plus; I was a bit worried about being coherent for the radio taping today because of the booster–but it seems as though my level of incoherence will just be the usual, normal one that I always bring to an interview. *Whew*

I did some terrible work on the book yesterday but it was forward progress and I will take it, you know? The book is a mess, but sometimes the first draft is a mess and needs to be so you can fix it and clean it all up later and turn it into something coherent. That’s the plan, at any rate. Yesterday was a pretty productive day, both at the office and at home; I’m getting some training on how to do more things to go along with my promotion and raise (did I mention that? I think I did), both of which were significant. My job is essentially remaining the same, with some new added responsibilities (which make sense for me to do, really) that I have to learn how to do, and of course Friday I am going into the office to get a flu shot and so I can drop off this wretched cable modem (don’t even get me started on this)–the only Cox office in the city is a few blocks from the office–and then of course it’s the glorious weekend again. LSU is playing Florida on Saturday night (which may be painful; we’ve beaten them three years in a row and the last couple of times they were heavily favored–two years ago was the notorious Shoe Game in which one of their players threw an LSU player’s show twenty yards down the field for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that kept an LSU scoring drive alive; that drive also handed LSU the win; last year’s game was also kind of insane with all kinds of crazy plays and turnovers and so forth), and I should probably check when the Saints are playing–although they seem to do better when I don’t watch this season for some reason–and then plan my weekend around it. I’ve got to do a major push on the book this week and weekend; I’ve got to get back on schedule with this stupid thing.

Heavy heaving sigh.

I had a spell of not feeling so hot there for a moment, and when I was brushing my teeth earlier I noticed that my left shoulder (which is the arm that took the vaccine yesterday) was pretty sore; at least when I move my arm I am very aware of the general vicinity of where it was punctured. I think I can power through, however.

Last night we started watching another Spanish language show (we decided The Midnight Club, while sort of entertaining, wasn’t compelling enough and we can finish it another time) called Diary of a Gigolo, which of course is filled with DRAMA and all kinds of bizarre twists and turns with a rather large cast of characters and a lot of backstory and yet…not a single dull moment nor did we have any confusion about the multitude of plots–which is even more impressive when you realize it was in a foreign language and we were reading subtitles. (I do think there is something to watching shows with the closed captioning turned on; it forces me to pay attention and not let my mind wander–interesting.) I also spent a little time reading Interview with the Vampire while I was waiting for Paul to come downstairs so we could watch television. I am rather looking forward to continuing with Diary of a Gigolo (which, for the record, is far superior to American Gigolo, which just didn’t hold our interest at all) this evening after a conference call I have tonight. Heavy heaving sigh.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. May your Tuesday be as amazing as you are, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back in the morning tomorrow to check in yet again.

Only Over You

I do love researching Louisiana, even if and when it leads me down a rabbit hole as it always does. I’ve been trying–and it really isn’t necessary–to find out of you can actually leave the New Orleans metropolitan area without crossing a bridge; I-10 east and west require bridges (west is the wetlands/swamp alongside Lake Pontchartrain, going east you cross the lake) and of course the Causeway to the North Shore is also a bridge across the lake. Obviously you need a bridge to cross the river (there are two, the Crescent City Connection and the Huey P. Long Bridge), which leaves the old River Road, which for years was the only way into or out of New Orleans without crossing a bridge as it follows the levees up the river to Baton Rouge. I’ve never actually taken the River Road so I can’t swear that there are no bridges on its path alongside the river going north; I’ve been trying to get the answer by using Google Maps and Earth rather than taking the time to drive all the way out there and see for myself. The trick is, of course, the Bonne Carré Spillway; according to the maps the road is inside the spillway, so if the spillway is opened I believe New Orleans would have no dry land exits in any direction. I want to include this in my book, but…I also don’t want to have to take the drive to find out for sure, either.

And if I get it wrong, of course I’ll hear about it.

I am back into the office on a Monday for the first time in a very long time; I feel good this morning. I woke up long before the alarm and stayed in bed until the alarm went off, but I do feel remarkably rested all the same. We’ll see how this shift in work days feels later in the week, won’t we? But so far it feels good.

The Saints did win yesterday; for some reason I thought the game was last night instead of in the afternoon so I was reading in my chair when Paul came downstairs and mentioned that the game was on and it seemed like an exciting one–so I tuned in just in time to see the closing two minutes of the Saints’ second win on the season. I’m glad, though, I didn’t watch–from all reports it sounded like the kind of exciting and thrilling game that is inevitably an emotional rollercoaster, and after the disastrous LSU game on Saturday I don’t think I could have handled a close, exciting Saints game on top of it anyway, so it was just as well. I did get some writing done yesterday–nowhere near as much as was necessary and needed, so yay, still behind! Woo-hoo!–and then we watched our shows last evening. I enjoyed the new episodes of The Serpent Queen (now deviating from the actual historical story), House of the Dragon, Interview with the Vampire, and an episode of The Midnight Club (which, interestingly enough, is turning the stories the terminally ill teens tell each other into adaptations of other Christopher Pike stories, which is really clever) before retiring to bed relatively early last evening.

Ugh, just looking at my inbox is giving me the vapors. Hopefully I’ll make some good progress on that as well as my to-do list; which I made last week and nothing is crossed off of it, which doesn’t bode well for me or anyone or anything for that matter. But here’s hoping I can start making progress tonight or tomorrow.

Watching Interview with the Vampire, as well as rereading the book, has sent me down some mental wormholes as well. I actually wound up digging up copies of my vampire writings from the past (for teh record: the novellas “The Nightwatchers” and “Blood on the Moon,” and my novel Need), which aren’t terrible (I really need to stop defaulting to all my old work is terrible because it’s not); I had in fact forgotten a lot about them, to be honest. I just read the beginnings of all three to get some sort of idea of what I had done and was like, oh, wow, I didn’t remember this character or I’d forgotten this was set during Carnival and so on. So I am hoping that rereading them won’t be painful and will remind me of some other things that I wanted to work on; I was always disappointed that I never got to do a follow-up to Need–I’d created what I thought was an interesting paranormal mythology that I really wanted to explore more, but never got the chance.

Maybe when I retire?

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

Tusk

Monday and a work-at-home day, for data entry and other things. I also have a meeting at one (yay) and I am hoping to get some things delivered today so I don’t have to leave the house. Yesterday started out well; I wrote my entry and did some writing planning and then repaired to my easy chair to read; but then Paul got up and came downstairs and I decided that as long as I kept my notebook/journal handy, I could make notes while thinking and watching television. We missed the Saints game; I’d forgotten it was in London and by the time I checked what time it was starting it was already over so I can’t even blame the Saints for my complete (well, pointed, at any rate) failure to get as much done yesterday as I had wanted to–which means it’s entirely my fault.

I did watch the first two episodes of the new Interview with the Vampire series, and it put a lot of thoughts into my head. I thought it was remarkably well done and well-cast–I would have gone for a Skargaard for Lestat, but that could be True Blood’s fault as well–and it was beautifully filmed. The changes made to the original book (I liked that it’s structured as a follow-up interview to the original interview) and story were barely noticeable. It’s also amazing how different Jacob Anderson looks as Louis as opposed to Greyworm from Game of Thrones. It also made me start thinking about vampires and how/why they are so popular with queers–this show has no gay subtext, it’s right there in your face–and also remembered how incredibly disappointed I’d been when I first read the book, as a teenager. At that point in time, I’d forgotten that Dark Shadows had turned a vampire into a romantic leading man–my thoughts about vampires were entirely shaped at that time by Dracula and ‘salem’s Lot, and that was what I was expecting from Interview…and that is most definitely not what the book was. I read it again about ten years or so later, and still didn’t care for it much; I didn’t come into an appreciation of Anne Rice’s work until the 1990’s–a friend told me to read The Mummy so I did and enjoyed it, and then I read and loved The Witching Hour, so I took the first three volumes of The Vampire Chronicles with me to Hawaii on a vacation and that time…well, that time I got into the books and enjoyed them. Mrs. Rice soon became a “buy in hardcover on release” author for me, and remained that way for a very long time. I do think there’s a line from Barnabas Collins in Dark Shadows to Lestat/Louis to True Blood/the Sookie Stackhouse books; I once described True Blood as “Dark Shadows with sex, violence, nudity and blood.”

We then watched the first episode of Queer for Fear, a documentary series on Shudder about queer themes and subtexts in horror films, which was fun and certainly fit the theme of the day, but then we moved on to Your Honor starring Bryan Cranston, filmed and set in New Orleans (again, we marveled a lot about the geography–“oh, look, they’re transporting him from the courthouse to OPP but for some reason are coming in from I-10 which means they somehow detoured through Metairie”–and we can’t quite figure out where Cranston and his son live; they are always taking the bridge across the river, but Cranston can go jogging from his front door down St. Charles Avenue down to the lower 9th ward (clearly, training for a marathon of some sort) and back, so I am not sure why they have the need to go back and forth to the West Bank (Paul: this would only make sense if they lived in Algiers, but why would he cross the river to go jogging?). I know, I know, it’s fiction and make-believe and has everything to do with shots and visuals that remind the viewer it’s New Orleans; both the Crescent City Connection and the Huey P. Long bridges will do that, as will the drawbridge over the Industrial Canal, and nothing says New Orleans quite like the streetcar. I also know it’s being nit-picky and “more New Orleanian than thou”, but I can’t help it when I watch something filmed here (I was also identifying where scenes were shot in Interview with the Vampire as well). I’m sure New Yorkers do this a lot, too. We also watched this week’s House of the Dragon, which I am enjoying–there’s really no good characters to root for in this one; they are essentially all terrible people; at least in Game of Thrones we could root for the Starks as the only decent people in Westeros. We also watched the new episode of The Serpent Queen, as Catherine is now slowly coming into her own. I really am enjoying this series; I hope it doesn’t go off the rails at some point.

But now it’s October already–yikes; it seems as though this year has sped past but on the other hand January also seems like it was a million years ago already–and I’ve really got to start getting things done.

As I’ve been doing my entries about writing my books, it’s been a fun journey down memory lane, as I remember things I wanted to do and plans I had that somehow were either forgotten or pushed aside as other things crowded them out of my brain. Watching Interview and Queer for Fear reminded me of my own world of the supernatural I was trying to create with some of my horror writing (I don’t really consider my vampire writing as horror; yes, vampires, but the primary focus of them was the eroticism), and somehow I’ve managed to stick to the rules of that weird world of the supernatural I was creating through short fiction that spilled over into the erotica; so far I’ve done vampires and witches, rougaroux and le feu follet, all tied around parishes on the other side of the river and west/south of New Orleans. I have a couple of short stories to write still, and a book to get done–and I want to read more. I want to finish reading my current book and I think the first book for Horror Month will be a reread of Interview with the Vampire, perhaps followed by a reread of ‘salem’s Lot; why not explore the vampires?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely first Monday in October, Constant Reader, and I will be checking in with you again tomorrow morning before the sun comes up. Yay.

Save Me a Place

Oddly enough, as I sat in my easy chair the other day watching college football games and letting my body and mind and creativity rest, I had an idea for either a stand alone book or a new series, one way or the other, and it’s something I find interesting enough that I might even consider it. It would be a difficult proposition, to be sure–given the decline in retail sales and everything going to an on-line and electronic model–but I was looking at a map of New Orleans on my iPad because it occurred to me that I didn’t know where Tulane’s not-so-new-anymore on-campus football stadium was; so I pulled up a map to look because I was thinking that was a great line for a Scotty book–I always forget there’s a football stadium in Uptown-so of course I had to go looking for it. The map also brought up businesses in the area and lo and behold, there’s a comic book shop uptown on the lake side of Claiborne and it hit me: no one has ever done a cozy series about a comic book shop and that opened up an entire world of possibilities for me: the main character is an aspiring comic book artist who works in the shop, and of course, you can get into the whole thing about who actually is into comics and the history of comic books and it would give me an excuse to actually learn more about comics and their history and…

You see how this ends up going, don’t you?

I know any number of comics geeks–Alex Segura Jr, author of this year’s brilliant Secret Identity, about the business side of producing comics, is one–and one of my best friends from college owns a comic book shop in central California, or did at some point–and of course my neighbor Michael is also heavily into comics, having gone to Comic Con in San Diego, even. And of course I’d get to make up shit, which is always a huge plus for me. I love making up shit! And of course, it would be fun to write from the point of view of a struggling artist.

I mean, it’s not like I wouldn’t know anything about that…

The Saints played terribly yesterday and logged another “L” in the record book (how bad are the Falcons?) yesterday; I didn’t watch but rather followed on Twitter while I did things around the house. The Saints games sometimes cause me too much stress and then I am emotionally exhausted afterwards–too drained to be of much use, so sometimes I just follow it on Twitter or it’ll be on in the living room while I work in the kitchen. I did get the Costco delivery yesterday, and should probably run some errands at some point today, but it is Work-at-Home Monday and I have work I have to get done. I am behind still from the Bouchercon trip and the ensuing back injury, but am hopeful I will start getting caught up somewhat soon. Emails beget emails, though, and therefore that is a sisyphean task indeed.

We watched the new Star Wars show Andor last night, and I am so happy Deigo Luna’s character is getting an origin story. So far, the only show they’ve done I didn’t buy into completely was The Book of Boba Fett, and am thinking maybe we should give that another try at some point. After those three episodes we moved on to The Serpent Queen and American Gigolo, which I think we’re going to give up on. I love Jon Bernthal, but I’m just not buying this story for the character. It’s an interesting idea–and full props to them for turning it into a sequel series in which Julian actually goes to jail for the murder he was accused of committing in the film, but I’m just not really getting vested into the show, either, no matter how much I want to. The Serpent Queen remains fantastic, and gets better with each episode as Catherine explains to her new maid her philosophy of survival, illustrated with scenes from her past. Samantha Morton is fantastic as the older queen and the actress who plays her as a young woman is also equally good. But it’s a period of history I particularly love, and of course, Catherine de Medici is one of the most fascinatingly complex women to hold power in history. The reality of her life was dramatic enough to drive a series, and they’ve done a pretty decent job of following the actual history, with some adjustments here and there.

Also keeping an eye out for Hurricane Ian, which seems to have Florida’s Gulf Coast clearly in its sights. We are just outside the Cone of Uncertainty, which doesn’t mean we’re safe–there could always be another westward shift to the potential path–but I do concern myself with Florida and friends there. I don’t remember the last time Tampa took a direct hit; I don’t think they have in quite some time, and I can imagine a storm surge into the bay and into the rivers that drain into it would be enormously problematic for the city–as well as for Clearwater and St. Petersburg on the peninsula on the other side of the bay. Stay safe, people.

My podcast interview about Daphne du Maurier, with a particular emphasis on My Cousin Rachel, went really well. It was for my friend Ricky Grove, whom I know from my days in the Horror Writers Association and when I put on World Horror Con back in the day here in New Orleans (he is the author Lisa Morton’s partner–have you read Lisa? You should read Lisa). I can talk about du Maurier all day, and we did continue talking for at least another hour after we stopped recording; I do love to talk books and writing, after all, with the end result that I felt horribly drained when it was over. Ah, yes, the age-old problem of the introvert having to be an extrovert on a day when he usually doesn’t have to do anything of the kind. I retired to my easy chair, but found the draining of my energy to have been far too effective for me to focus clearly on anything. I did do another blog entry about my work–this time my Todd Gregory erotic novel Every Frat Boy Wants It, while starting others about Baton Rouge Bingo and the second Todd Gregory book (Games Frat Boys Play)–but when I tried to work on the book or anything else (including trying to read) I couldn’t get anything done so finally gave up and made myself useful around the house. Hopefully after an eyes-crossing day of data entry and quality assurance on testing logs, I’ll be able to dive back into the Scotty book. I know I am procrastinating with Chapter Three and should probably just stop worrying about it and move on, but that’s just not how my creativity works. Heavy heaving sigh. But that’s okay, the stress of being behind will come in handy as December 1 draws ever more near.

Or so I tell myself.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Hope you have a marvelous and lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Who Dat Whodunnit

Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?

I am a very proud member of Who Dat Nation, and have been since we moved here in 1996. I never really paid a lot of attention to the NFL before moving to New Orleans; I vaguely was aware of who was good and who wasn’t–and I knew very certainly that the Saints had routinely been one of the worst football teams, consistently, in the league since they were formed in 1966. You couldn’t not be aware of how hopelessly bad the Saints were, year in and year out. I always root for underdogs–a particularly American trait, I might add, which is another good essay topic (how we always root for underdogs, especially in our entertainment–film, television, books–but in the real world we either look the other way or actually pile-on. We all feel bad for poor bullied Carrie White in Stephen King’s Carrie and hate the cruel kids…but how many of us ever stood up for some kid being bullied in school? My experience as the bullied is NONE.)–and so I always wanted to see the Saints somehow turn their program around. Paul and I always watched the games–or had them on–when they aired; there were many times the games were blacked out locally because they didn’t sell out the Superdome.

Three things were inevitable in New Orleans: hot summers, termites in the spring, and the Saints would suck in the fall. When we first moved to Louisiana LSU was also in a downturn slump; some seasons they’d win, some they’d lose, but they were rarely, if ever, in contention for the conference title. I had a Saints ball cap and a Saints T-shirt, of course, but I was an idle fan of theirs for a very long time.

As with so many other things, my attitude towards the Saints was completely changed by Hurricane Katrina.

It was the best of times.

It was the craziest of times.

Well, what it really had to be was the end times, which was the only logical explanation for what was going on in the city of New Orleans.

Pigs grew wings and nested in the branches of the beautiful love oaks everywhere in the city. Some thought the pilot light in hell had gone out, so that icicles hung from the noses of shivering demons in the realm of the dark lord. Others started watching the horizon for the arrival of the Four Horsemen, for surely the Apocalypse must be coming. Surely the earth was tilting on its axis. Maybe aliens would land in Audubon Park, or the Mississippi River would start flowing backward.

Anything and everything was possible, because the Saints were winning.

GEAUX SAINTS!

People who don’t live in the South don’t really understand how important football is down here. Football is more than a religion in the Deep South. I’m not sure what it is–my mom claims it’s because the South lost the Civil War–but it’s true. On Saturdays, when the colleges play their games, the entire region comes to a complete halt. People live and die by their teams–whether it’s LSU, Ole Miss, Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia or Tennessee–and how they face on Saturday. I myself grew up cheering for the LSU Tigers–even though attending Vanderbilt was a family tradition on my mother’s side. Whenever Papa Fontenot gives me crap for dropping (well, flunking is probably a more accurate word) out after my sophomore year, I give him a withering look and reply, “Maybe I’d have done better at LSU.

That always shuts him up.

I don’t think even the Saints organization knew how much the team actually meant to New Orleans until they tried to move the team after Katrina.

Everyone knows the Superdome was damaged by Katrina and the aftermath. I’ll never forget driving back into the city in either late September or early October and seeing it as I came around that curve in I-10 just past Metairie Road and the cemeteries; I wrote in Murder in the Rue Chartres that it resembled a half-peeled hard-boiled egg. One of the saddest things for me about seeing the wreckage of the Lost Apartment was finding my beloved Saints ball-cap lying on the rug in the living room and consumed by black mold. It seemed so symbolic of everything that had happened to us and our city.

Obviously, the Saints had nowhere to play home games and arrangements had to be made. Some games were played at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, others in San Antonio–and San Antonio made it very clear they would be more than happy to give them a permanent home.

It felt like the Saints organization was not only stabbing New Orleans in the back, but the entire state. I know I took it very personally; the city had supported and loved that team through decades of mediocrity if not outright suckage, and now when the city is at its lowest point, they’re going to move to San Antonio? But the NFL wasn’t having it–Tom Benson always made it seem like it was his decision, but the NFL was committed to New Orleans and wouldn’t let the Saints leave. The Dome was renovated and fixed in record time; the season tickets for 2006 sold out for the first time in years, and the new Saints–with our new coach and quarterback–debuted on Monday night football against the hated Atlanta Falcons. I wasn’t even aware of it, I was paying so little attention to everything going on around the country and world, to be honest. I ran my errands that day and noticed Saints flags were everywhere and people were wearing Saints jerseys and there was this strange sense of excitement in the air. Paul and I were living in the carriage house and we only had this tiny little black-and-white television, but we watched that night. And when Steve Gleason blocked that punt and the Saints recovered in the end zone–we both cried as we jumped up and down and screamed. (Everyone remembers the punt, but the entire game was amazing from beginning to end.) People call the blocked punt “the moment Louisiana healed,” and maybe they were right about that…but all I knew was for the first time in over a year we had something to be excited about, cheer about, and be proud of–and the Saints made it all the way to the NFC title game, so close to making it to the promised land of the Super Bowl.

I’ve been a rabid Who Dat ever since (2005 I also switched my first college allegiance from Auburn to LSU, but that’s a story for another time.).

And that magical season when the Saints not only went to, but won the Super Bowl? I had to write about it. I had never lived in a city that won a championship before, and let me tell you–it was insane in New Orleans that season, insane–as were the play-offs and the Super Bowl. I cried when Tracy Porter picked off Peyton Manning in the fourth quarter and ran it back for a touchdown to ice the game, and I cried again when the clock ticked to zero and the impossible had finally happened: the Saints had won the Super Bowl. It was so noisy that night; cars were honking their horns all night long, the streetcars rang their bells non-stop, and people were just chanting and cheering all over the city. We could hear the crowd at the bar on the corner, we could hear our neighbors, it was just insane and celebratory. Paul and I to this day have regretted not getting dressed and heading down to the Quarter to see it all; when will that ever happen again? The Saint may win a Super Bowl again, but it will never be the first time ever again.

I remember later that spring a friend asked if I thought the Saints would be good again the next year, and I just smiled. “I don’t know and I don’t care. All I know is we finally won the Super Bowl and I can die happy, and I think a lot of us feel that way.”

The Saints are New Orleans, and New Orleans is the Saints. (I also am a little disappointed in myself for forgetting that A Streetcar Named Murder is actually set during football season; I didn’t mention it once and that’s a significant flaw in the book, honestly.)

So I decided to write another Scotty book, set it in that period between the Saints winning the NFC Championship and the Super Bowl so I could document that time, and I also decided to bring the other side of his family–the Bradleys–into the mix and give him a cousin who actually was on the Saints team and kind of a dick.

It was around this time, when I was planning or writing the book, that same-sex marriage was in the news a lot. Several suits were winding their way through the courts, and public opinion–thoroughly anti-queer in 2004 when it was on the ballot on a lot of states–was starting to swing back the other way. There was an incident at a beauty pageant when Miss California (her name escapes me now) was asked by Perez Hilton (who shouldn’t be judging anything, frankly) about same-sex marriage. She had to say she was against it, and even apologized, saying “I’m sorry, it’s how I was raised!” as the crowd began booing and jeering. She didn’t win, and I actually felt like it was kind of a shitty question to ask, but on the other hand, California had passed Prop 8 in 2008 (which was kind of the catalyst for the public opinion change, I believe). I also have always believed the old “it’s how I was raised” is a copout for bad or unpopular opinions–most white people are raised racist, after all–and questioning and reevaluating values and beliefs you were raised with is part of the maturation process of becoming your own person. But I was willing to cut her a break–she was young, it was a “gotcha’ kind of question, and kind of unfair–until she doubled down and decided to became the Patron Saint of Homophobia, following in the pumps of another runner-up pageant queen who became the face of hate and bigotry, wrapping it all up in religion and “concern for children”: yep, the hateful old bitch Anita Bryant herself, may she burn in hell for all eternity. She didn’t last long–its hard to paint yourself as a martyr for family values when you’ve been caught sexting (and recording yourself masturbating to send your man–and that was the end of that. I decided to make the reigning Miss Louisiana a homophobe who got that question at Nationals and is now dating Scotty’s cousin the Saints player–and he brings her to Christmas, with the end result that she gets slugged by Scotty’s mother and their family storms out.

And the night the Saints win the NFC championship, she’s murdered.

It was fun because I got to involve a megachurch in Jefferson Parish (there actually is one), and a sordid history of her own that the beauty queen was keeping secret for her own reasons–(coughs LESBIAN coughs) and even got to bring some more past characters back into the mix, like Emily who worked at the Devil’s Weed, and I had a lot of fun with this look into the other side of Scotty’s family (the one I am working on now also deals with another branch of relatives).

And I got to write about the Saints winning the Super Bowl, which was even more awesome. This was the book where I really thought I was done with Scotty. The year after it came out, at the next Saints and Sinners, was when I was asked if I would do another Scotty book; this was when I made my famous reply, “if I can figure out a way to include Mike the LSU Tiger, Huey Long, and his deduct box into a book, I will write another Scotty book.”

Of course, later that night it hit me like a 2 by 4 across the forehead, and I made some notes that eventually became Baton Rouge Bingo.

Over & Over

Monday morning and I slept really well again. I feel rested this morning; but then a weekend of pain killers and muscle relaxers will do that for you. But I do feel better than I have since getting home from Minneapolis this morning, so that’s a start. My back still hurts but it’s bearable–this morning it feels like I simply slept on it wrong rather than making my wince and my eyes water every time I move. I also realized yesterday that if I did everything with proper posture, my back didn’t hurt…you know, doing things the way you’re supposed to–i.e. not bending at the waist to pick something up but rather using my legs, keeping my head erect instead of leaning forward, sitting back in chairs etc. I also did, in addition to the drugs, the alternating heat/cold thing with it, and so I think as long as I don’t do anything particularly stupid in the meantime it’ll keep getting better.

And I should always use good posture and do things properly anyway. Lesson learned.

I did manage to get all the dishes done and put away yesterday, which is lovely. I have a couple of errands to run today–mail, minor groceries, a prescription–but I think the right plan is to do my data entry while doing my heat/cold with my back, and at some point try to do some stretching. I believe my hips and quadriceps have been taking pressure off my back when I walk and do things, which is why they’ve been exhausted for the last few days as well. I don’t know how to avoid this happening again when I travel, but I think it does have more to do with all the standing and laughing–a laughing injury!–than anything else, as I didn’t have the same issues other times I’ve traveled. We did watch the Saints lose yesterday, and then, in my drug-addled state I rewatched the LSU game when it was rebroadcast on SEC Network yesterday, before we watched American Gigolo, House of the Dragon and The Serpent Queen. I wasn’t sure about American Gigolo, because no matter how much I love John Bernthal I just couldn’t see him taking over from Richard Gere, but he did a great job and the second episode really takes the show off–the first is merely set-up and back story, which is why you should always give a show two episodes before deciding to stop watching unless the first episode is so incredibly bad you can’t put yourself through a second (although I will confess to being wrong about Outer Banks, which I found out thanks to the Holmses). Of the three, I believe The Serpent Queen is the best (because you really can’t go wrong with Catherine de Medici; her story alone is dramatic enough for a series), even though they aren’t capturing Diane de Poitiers correctly (Diane was a lot smarter then they are making her out to be, and she was never Catherine’s enemy for the simple reason she preferred Henri to be married to someone he could tolerate but was no threat to her); but I believe the audience wouldn’t get the nuance and sophistication of the game Diane played in reality.

I did start reading Donna Andrews’ Round Up the Usual Peacocks yesterday before I had to start taking meds for my back, and it’s as charming as her books always are. I didn’t get as far as I would have liked because my back’s need for attention by the time the Saints game started could no longer be ignored; and I started reading Daphne du Maurier’s novella “A Border-Line Case” during my brief lucid moments (because it was shorter). It’s an interesting story and one that I will most likely have to start over again in order to get a real reading of it accomplished, but du Maurier is such a genius with mood and her language usage that reading her is akin to getting drunk on the words.

Reading du Maurier is, of course, one of those things that make me wonder why I bother, or what I am trying to do with my work–and she used a typewriter. I can never get past that with writers of the past–that they wrote either first in long-hand or all along on the typewriter–but regardless, it always had to be typed. (Even using Word I make typos on a regular basis and they are far easier to correct on a computer document than they are on onion-skin or bond paper….which makes me think about how Misery couldn’t work today, because Paul would have to be a crank who still used a typewriter instead of a laptop and…you get the picture.)

So, today I hope to start digging out from under. I had never really caught up on everything after Bouchercon (primarily because I’ve been in so much pain since I got home) and so now today I must assess the damage and try to figure out how to get back on the horse I’ve fallen from. I didn’t intend to lose two weeks to Bouchercon but here we are, almost to the end of September and another month of 2022 gone before I knew it and a deadline taking aim at the bull’s eye squarely affixed to the center of my forehead. The house is a mess (as always) and I have a lot of data entry to get done today before venturing out to run the afore-mentioned errands; I also don’t know where I am at financially and need to figure out what bills are left to be paid and so forth. I also need to get this messy house under some sort of control, and I only have so much time every day to deal with these things. Once my back is better, I’m going to start easing back into the gym as well–what better way to get in shape for conferences than being in better physical condition and perhaps dropping some of this extra weight? My blood sugar was surprisingly high the last time I fasted for blood work, which isn’t great–so perhaps the exercise and shift in diet I’ve been avoiding for quite some time has finally reached the point where it’s unavoidable anymore. My natural inclination to laziness doesn’t help matters much in this regard either, but I just have to remember how much I enjoy how I feel after I’ve worked out to help motivate me to get started again. This back shit is a motivator too; if I can keep my back stretched and strengthen my core, I’ll never lose a week to back pain again.

And so, that is the state of the Gregalicious this morning: hopeful, rested, and hoping the sheer amount of work I am behind on won’t send me into a corner whimpering. I am heading into the spice mines, and I shall see you on the other side, Constant Reader.

And as always, thanks for stopping by.