Category: shopping

Cara Mia

My apologies in advance, for I am feeling a bit smug this morning.

Suffice it to say, deciding to flex and exercise my writing muscles again with a new Scotty was an incredibly smart decision. I started with a very slow, hesitant 1300 words on Sunday that took about four hours to do…and then when I got home from work last night, blasted out a quick 2000 more (about an hour or so) that not only advanced the story (which I was making up as I went) and now I am starting to get there. I’ve also not created a Scotty completely from scratch in a very long time, starting with nothing more than a situation and a title and making it up as I go along. And you know what?

It fucking felt fantastic. Highly recommended, would definitely do again.

I’m kind of excited about getting home tonight (after making groceries) and writing even more!

I also channeled that momentum into finishing the dishes and cleaning out the sink once I’d printed out the pages from yesterday. All the dishes are clean, and Paul finished the laundry for me while I was at the office, bless his heart. After finishing the chores, we watched a few episodes of Solar Opposites, which is fantastic, and then I caught up on the news and so forth before heading to bed. A rather exciting Gregalicious evening, no? I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to let whatever it is take over and bang out those 2k words last night–and they aren’t bad, either. Huzzah for me! I also ordered pizza for dinner last night, which was also really good and hit the spot. It was quite a lovely Monday from start to finish, frankly, and I never really felt tired all day, either. This morning I am awake, firing on most cylinders and have no desire or need to go back to bed, and that’s terrific, too.

And my, this coffee is tasty this morning.

Not a bad way at all of starting the day, and not at all a bad way to feel on Tuesday morning, either. It’s lovely when you have a couple of really good days when you feel like yourself again. The missing piece in my life has been the writing, honestly, and now that I am starting (no guarantees it will last, after all, or that I’ll feel that way every morning going forward) to get back into the groove of writing again, I remember feeling this good before and I want to keep feeling this good, you know? It’s so easy to have a down day and then turn that into a malaise that lasts far too long for my comfort. I’m still feeling my way through this recovery-from-everything period, and it’s really kind of nice. It really does feel like there was a dark cloud in my brain for years, keeping me from relaxing or even being able to enjoy the thrills and good parts of authoring. I’ve often mused about my not being able to ever be able to actually enjoy the highs of my career and being me because there’s always something clouding my neurons and synapses. It was very cool being nominated for three Anthony Awards last year (and I lost all three), and an Agatha and a Lefty. That’s five award nominations in a year, with no wins, but I don’t really mind not winning, much as I joke about being such a unrelenting awards loser–but a lot of writers are never nominated for even one writing award, and I certainly never saw myself as ever being nominated for any mainstream awards, so each one is truly a wonderful blessing.

And it’s a lot of fun pretending to be bitter about always losing awards.

Everyone is beginning to start their Bouchercon travels, which is popping up all over my social media feeds, and is giving me serious FOMO. But it’s simply not in the cards for me to head up to Bouchercon this year, and I think taking a full year away from conferences and so forth while readjusting and settling into my life again is probably a good idea. It’s also kind of a good thing that I had/have so much free and down time over the last year or so; not only to mentally and physically recover but to reassess and rethink a lot of things. It’s not so much that I have a new attitude (although I do) about my career and life, but I need to take more time to be appreciative of how lucky I’ve been, and how much my hard work has paid off over the years.

It’s very easy to confuse wanting greater success with feeling like a failure because you aren’t there, and that is something I definitely need to remember.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, and I probably won’t be back later; but hey–stranger things have happened.

Silhouettes

Monday morning after a lovely weekend, and we have Labor Day coming up this weekend. Huzzah! I am a little bleary for being up so early this morning, but I don’t feel tired, just not completely awake yet. The good news is I wrote thirteen hundred words of the new Scotty yesterday, and feel very smug and pleased about it. At first I was concerned when the tap was turned off, 1300 words is nothing compared to my old output, but I realized those muscles are tight and haven’t really been used as thoroughly or regularly as I should, so they are going to need to be retrained, just like I need to be retrained with regular going to the gym. I have to slowly build back up so I don’t strain or pull one of those muscles. The weekend was nice–low humidity, and the so the temperatures didn’t feel as brutal, especially since we’ve gotten used to it “feeling like” over 110 for almost two solid months. Yeesh. I think the humidity is coming back today; I know we may have rain this afternoon. But overall, this morning I feel pretty good–at least so far–and am ready to get some stuff done.

It really is lovely to have the weekends free from everything, you know? I didn’t get nearly as much work done on the house as I would have liked, but at the same I worry the lack of pressure or any anxiety driving me is making me a bit more lackadaisical when it comes to things…despite intellectually knowing that my brain has been rewired so I have to rewire everything else to get things done. It’s a learning process, and I had thought I had my routines and so forth down to a science. And hopefully, this time around I will not teach myself the bad habits I allowed to develop over the years. We shall see, won’t we? I did also rethink some of this stuff over the weekend, too. I’ve been so rigid in my writing and how I construct a novel and rarely, if ever, varied that pattern. It was what worked for me then, and I never really had the free time to sit down and figure all of this stuff out. I’m kind of doing that now, and I also think writing two books at the same time (when I was still writing books and hadn’t yet encountered the nightmare that was 2023 kind of broke my writer brain a little bit. It happens, you know? But the rigid way I always used to write my books wasn’t working for Never Kiss a Stranger, and because it’s not my usual kind of crime novel, the unstructured writing of it made it much harder to write. If I am going to finish that book–and I intend to at some point–it needs a plot summary and an outline. Maybe that’s something I can work on while I work on this new Scotty? Stranger things have happened, after all.

Maybe, just maybe, I should do the same with Scotty, rather than making it up as I go? Again, I did that with the first and second, didn’t I? Something indeed to ponder as the three day weekend draws nearer and nearer by the day. I am excited to be writing another Scotty book, because it’s in my comfort zone, and isn’t that where I need to be to get into the swing of persevering with the daily writing, in my comfort zone? I think it’s probably smarter to write another Scotty, and then step out of my comfort zone and go back to Never Kiss a Stranger...although I did remember yesterday why I focused on finishing it in the first place. It developed from me going from finishing the novellas into a collection, realizing this one could be a really good novel, and then moving on to writing it…when what I should have been doing, if I wasn’t doing another Scotty, was finishing either Muscles or Chlorine, and I am going to write one of those next, PERIOD.

But it’s also nice to be putting thought into these things.

On the way home, I am going to stop and make groceries. Once I am there I am going to finish the dishes and laundry, possibly make dinner (or possibly not), and get the rugs back in place in the kitchen. Paul will be home, so I should make something for dinner but I’m not really sure what…and I definitely don’t like deciding while at the store itself what to make for dinner. Pizza would probably be the easiest thing, really; just got one of those premade crusts and slather pizza sauce and cheese over it. I do need to work on my cabinets, but that might be a project for the three-day weekend. I also need to revise and update the to-do list. I feel pretty good this morning, and the nice thing is that my “bad” days now are just more low-energy than depressions as deep as the Grand Canyon, like it was before. I also need to start listening to my body again. I need to stretch regularly, and I need to get back to rehabbing my arm/shoulder at the gym or I will never get back to (as close to) normal (as I can get after the injury and surgery) again. But I’m starting to fall into a routine, I’m not sleepy and groggy until well after ten every morning anymore, and getting up is more about leaving the warmth and comfort of the bed more than anything else.

I hate when I’m comfortable and have to stop.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader. I might be back later–I’m trying to write an essay about toxic masculinity for the Substack, and trying to stick to the “one essay per week” thing there. Or…I may come back over here and try to talk about something, you never know.

Screenshot

My Girl

Work-at-home Friday this morning, and Sparky let me sleep a little later this morning before getting insistent (the swipes at the face have claws out more). So here I sit, with my first cup of coffee and the weather is supposed to be cooler today; we’re having a cold front. Hilariously, the local weather source I use said today is “false fall” because it’s only going to be ninety…temperatures here are definitely skewed over what most of the rest of the country experiences. I also slept very well last night, deeply and restfully and through the night, which was lovely and kind of why I feel so good this morning. I have some things to get done around the house today in addition to my usual work-at-home duties, and some errands to get done later as well.

The DNC concluded last night, and while the evening had a different vibe than the rest of the week, it was lovely seeing the Exonerated Five calling out the demented Martyr of Mar-a-Lago did my heart very good (reminder to self: watch When They See Us) and the Vice-President’s acceptance speech was incredibly powerful. There were other speakers–the young Black congressional candidate from Alabama was amazing; as was Elizabeth Warren (and it was great seeing her get her flowers from the crowd)–and so were many of the others. I feel very hopeful about the future for the first time since November of 2016, and that’s saying something. It isn’t going to be what we hope, and the Republicans will fight her agenda every step of the way with their lies and smears and general awfulness; those of us who can remember the rise of the racist Tea Party will have to continually remind people of who and what they are. The MAGA movement has always been toxic and most Americans have always seen it that way. But like the Know-Nothings, the Whigs, and the Federalists, MAGA just needs to die, and can we but hope that this election will finish that anti-American racist movement once and for all.

A fine example of how awful they are is their reaction to, and treatment of, Gus Walz; whose emotions overcame him during his father’s acceptance speech, burst into tears as he jumped to his feet with love and pride and shouted “that’s my Dad!” on camera. Anyone who saw that and wasn’t moved and touched touched by this testament to the strength of their family love (and what amazing parents the governor and his wife are) is a soulless, craven monster. The same people who’ve been screaming that “Barron is off limits!” (as were the Bush twins) but then went after a seventeen-year-old? You’re trash, and Barron is no longer off-limits, as far as I am concerned; these are the same people who called Amy Carter ugly and Chelsea Clinton the White House dog…not to mention all the racist hate they threw at the Obama girls. Imagine being raised in the Trump family; what choice did the kid have to be anything other than a sociopath like his tragic older half-siblings?1

But we’re supposed to ignore the Right’s children and leave them alone, like the sociopathic Palin children, or Lauren Boebert’s felon son “because the kids are off-limits” until a new Democratic candidate comes around with kids and the story about politicians’ kids change.I am tired of Republicans and the media holding the Democrats and the left to a standard of behavior that is never applied to the Right. They are literally the biggest hypocrites of all time, and it’s past time they get dragged for the filth they are. Ann Coulter’s attack (now deleted) on Twitter about Gus Walz was about what one can expect from the talking heads on the Right. MAGA already hates her for turning on Trump, the Left hates her because she’s always been a horrible woman, so who exactly is listening to her nowadays anyway? She never is on television any more because no one wants to watch, and she’s no better than the irrelevant TERF bitch in Scotland. I can only imagine the kind of toxic environment/household she grew up in. I had started writing a book a while back where I killed off a Ann Coulter-type character; I’ve hated that woman for years. Maybe I should find that manuscript…

This weekend my goal is to do some reading and writing. I can’t believe it’s almost Labor Day already. I’m not sorry to see this brutally hot summer come to a close (I never am) and of course, I love the fall, with the cooler weather and it being football season. Plus, I can no longer use the heat as an excuse to not get things done!

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines to get my work-at-home duties completed. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back later.

  1. And for the record, I am also tired of people making victims out of Republican wives. They are exactly where they want to be. Melania could have left at anytime, and so could Usha Vance. But they are craven grifters just like the men they married. They deserve no consideration from us. None. They are not women like Hilary Clinton or Michelle Obama or Rosalynn Carter. They are the modern-day equivalent of Klan wives who falsely accused young Black men and got them lynched. Save your sympathies for the women he assaulted. ↩︎

I Got You Babe

Well, I survived returning back to work yesterday. I really thought I’d have trouble getting up yesterday morning, but I was awake when the alarm went off the first time–and yes, Sparky was a kitty puddle at the foot of the bed who immediately woke and strolled up along the side of the bed for head butts and purring to get me up. I also made it through the day without ever getting tired, and I was sure I would; I woke up several times during the night, and it seemed to always take a while for me to go back to sleep. I did sleep more deeply last night, and I feel pretty good this morning. Which is weird, of course; I shouldn’t feel more rested and better later in the work week, but when have I ever been normal?

I haven’t wanted to be normal in decades. And this particular oddness is something I’ve noticed before.

But overall, yesterday was a pleasant day. I wasn’t terribly tired when I got off work, which I’d been concerned about, and ran my errand and came home to play with Sparky. Paul worked at home yesterday and went to Hoshun to get us dinner (a treat for my birthday, delayed a day) and we watched the convention again last night. The DNC is simply killing it this year, aren’t they? Whoever planned this convention deserves a huge raise. It’s also lovely getting reminders of how good and deep the bench of next generation party leaders actually is. Who do they have? Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Matt Gaetz? Give me Jasmine Crockett, Wes Moore, Josh Shapiro, Andy Beshear, Pete Buttigieg, and Eric Swalwell any day of the week over those fools. I stayed up to watch Governor Walz–and what a wonderful, amazing, normal family he has, and how much do they all love each other? I know Vance’s biracial children have been completely moved by how their dad has defended their mom–oops, never mind.

And tonight the Vice-President will accept the nomination, and I can’t wait to watch.

The humidity has broken here for a few days; we’re having an unusual cold spell which will result in lots of storms all week next week, and then…it’s Labor Day weekend and college football starts. LSU plays USC in Las Vegas that weekend on Sunday night, and I don’t know if I’m ready for another college football season this soon. I don’t think we’ll be going to any games this year, alas, but that’s okay. No one is really sure how good LSU will or won’t be this year, but most seem to be cautiously optimistic. The schedule is rough this year, too. Two of the non-conference games are USC and UCLA, and I think they play both Texas and Oklahoma this year in addition to the usual SEC meat grinder–although Auburn and Mississippi State have come off the schedule. (Note to self: print the schedule and put it on the fridge; same with the Saints. Sigh. I can’t believe it’s already football season! But I am ready for fall weather–or what passes for it around here, LOL.)

I managed to book an eye appointment for a Saturday in September, and yes, I booked it during the scheduled game that day, at South Carolina. Which is fine, actually; I don’t mind driving out to Metairie in the morning, and I can always get something to eat out there that I usually don’t have access to–which is even better. I probably should stop and make groceries tonight–we need a few things–and I also need to get gas as well. I keep forgetting I need to get gas every night this week on my way home, and if I’m not careful I’m going to wind up stranded on the side of the road somewhere. (Not the end of the world; my insurance has roadside service so I’d just have to wait for someone to bring me some gas so I can get to a station–but this is something I’d have had anxiety about before the new medications, and boy do I not miss the anxiety!) Note to self: get gas on the way home tonight.

I’m working at home tomorrow, so I get to sleep a little later than usual (if His Royal Highness Sparky will allow it–he will most likely not), and of course, I have some chores to get done this weekend. I ordered new kitchen towels for my birthday, which delights me to no end, and I am thinking about upgrading some other things around the house. I also need to clear out some more books and get the boxes down from on top of the cabinets, and maybe even start on the boxes in the attic. Whoa, Nelly, slow down; you’re feeling awfully ambitious this morning (it’s the coffee, no doubt) and by this afternoon you won’t feel like doing anything at all when you get home. There’s a load of dishes in the dishwasher to run, and there’s also some laundry to finish, too. It truly never ends!

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have an awesome Thursday, and I may be back later. I’m tricky that way.

Shotgun

Monday!

Yesterday was kind of nice. I worked on the apartment and worked on some stories–mostly thinking, some writing, some notes–and started working on the desk area too. We started watching Bad Monkey (more on that later), and then spent a lot of time streaming Solar Opposites, which continues to delight. I also started working on the rugs and the floors, which is way overdue, and also did some other work on the apartment, too. I feel very good this morning, as far as being rested and everything is concerned. I slept deeply and well, Sparky woke me up around eight this morning–when I first woke up he was curled up into a kitty coil sound asleep, so I closed my eyes and turned over…which got him up and brought him up to my face to see if I was, indeed, actually awake. I let him do that for a while, before succumbing and getting up. Today is my Birthday Eve, and while I do need to make a grocery run and get the mail, I can stay inside most of the day and do whatever i please. I plan on working on the house more (cleaning out cabinets, working on the floors, pruning books) before running those errands later this morning, and it’s only going to “feel like 112.” Sigh, my power bill for this month is going to be so brutal.

Oddly enough, I just walked over to the Walgreens and back (I needed sweet and low and forgot to get some this weekend) and it was actually pleasant outside with a cool breeze? I didn’t even break a sweat, which was super nice and definitely weird for this late in the summer. I don’t know if it’s supposed to rain today or not, but it would be super-awesome if it rained all day tomorrow for my birthday, so I can stay inside and read. I’ve not decided how I want to spend my birthday tomorrow, but I know I am probably not going to do any cleaning or some-such unless I so desire. How exciting I sound this morning! What can I say, my brain isn’t waking up as fast as I would prefer! But I am on my second cup of coffee and am about to eat some breakfast, so that should help.

One would think, anyway.

I’m not feeling particularly profound or insightful this morning, but nevertheless here I am, typing away on the day before my birthday. It really is astonishing how long I’ve been keeping my blog; it’ll be twenty years this December (the 26th, I believe, to be exact). That’s a lot of entries and a lot of writing. I know I’ve missed days over the years–I’m the only person committed to this on a daily basis, well aware–but I’ve been pretty consistent with it for all these years. Apparently I was a bit more commitment-phobic in the past. I’ve now lived in New Orleans longer than I’ve lived anywhere else; Paul and I have been together for close to thirty years now; I’ve been blogging for almost twenty years, and I will also hit my twenty years at work in January. I’ve even lived in the same apartment for almost twenty years. Not bad for someone who rarely lasted in any job longer than two years at most; and I’ve also been writing professionally since I cashed my first check for writing back in 1996. That’s almost thirty years. My first short story was published in 2000, and my first novel came out in 2002. I’ll probably be more reflective tomorrow, most like.

I also wrote an essay this weekend that I published over at Substack; do check it out if you’re interested. I probably should have revised and rewritten it one more time before sending it out into the world, but the whole point of my Substack is to get more practice writing personal essays, and as with anything, there’s a learning curve. A personal essay is more than a blog entry (although they are kind of mini-essays in and of themselves, detailing whatever is going on and through my mind at the time I write the entries), and so I am slowly learning how to pull an essay together. They don’t necessarily have to be longer than the essays I’ve already posted there; they work as essay abstracts, for sure. This latest one, “Death by a Thousand Cuts,” has been idling in the back of my mind for a long time now–the original inspiration for it came from getting tired of being straight-splained, as well as being aware that straight men and women don’t really see me as an equal. It could be longer, and there are/were other points I could have made in it to further illustrate the point, but essays are really out of my comfort zone (like short stories) and so I need to toil over them a bit more and build up my confidence.

I’m also thinking I can publish short stories there, too, if I am so inclined.

Hmm, this got a little more interesting as my brain woke up, didn’t it? It’s looking gloomy outside this morning now, so I think we are definitely getting rain today. Yay!

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. Maybe later–one never can be entirely sure. I am tricky that way.

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me

Up early on a Sunday, thanks to Sparky. I got up, fed him, and decided to have some coffee and stay up. I got eight hours, did I really need anymore? I thought when you got older you slept less? I don’t know. All I know is I’m able to sleep a lot later than I used to, and sometimes my body feels like it needs more. We’ll see how today goes, and I can always take a nap if my body needs one this afternoon. I am debating whether or not to make a grocery run today or wait till tomorrow to do it. But the coffee is starting to kick in, and I have a lot of chores to get done around here today. I did go get my RSV and flu shots yesterday, ran some errands, and came home to watch more Solar Opposites, which continues to be a hilarious delight. I barbecued for dinner last night, and managed to get to bed earlier than I usually do on a weekend.

I can get everything done this morning and try to get a lot of other chores done before Paul gets up. I started writing a new essay for the Substack yesterday, which counts as writing, and hopefully I can get some more writing done today. I also got the ARC of Alison Gaylin’s January release for next year, We Are Watching, which looks fantastic, so I really do need to get back to actual reading again. I have two days left as a sixty-two year old, so kind of just easing into my sixty-third (although it’s really the sixty-fourth, you aren’t born at age one you’re born at zero; your birthday marks how many years so far you’ve completed). I cannot believe August is nearly half over already, but that means cooler weather is not that far off–and by that, I mean the high seventies, low eighties. That may seem hot to you, Constant Reader, but to give you an example, it’s going to feel like 120 in New Orleans today.

Maybe I’ll stay inside and go make groceries tomorrow. That makes more sense to me. I also have some things being delivered to the apartment today, too, so yeah, maybe I’ll wait and go tomorrow morning. Less people, less traffic, and less aggravation. Maybe I’ll treat myself to Five Guys, too, while I am over there. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve had a good greasy burger, you know? I bought one of those dinner kits from Fresh Market to make for dinner; I don’t remember what, but we really liked the shrimp scampi one we had the last time I got one, and we’ve genuinely liked the others I’ve gotten. So I don’t need to worry about what we’re having for dinner today and there’s no need to get to the store to buy anything. Tomorrow night I think I’ll make salisbury steak and mashed potatoes, to change things up a bit, and then I really only have to go into the office for two days this week. Next week is a full week, but then it’s Labor Day and Southern Decadence. I’m not going down there–too many people, too hot, and I’m too old to stand around all day (which I am really not capable of doing anymore), but I hope that everyone who does has a great time while staying safe at the same time.

Ernesto is still out there heading up the east coast, churning up waves along the shore and it’s either already hit Bermuda, or is very close to doing so. There’s no other systems at this time anywhere in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, or Caribbean Sea1, which is a lovely relief, but we are not out of the woods yet, either.

We had some rain yesterday afternoon, between me running the errands and cooking out, and it was a beauty of a thunderstorm. I’ve always loved thunderstorms, you know, ever since I was a kid. Is there any feeling as marvelous as being in your easy chair, covered up in a blanket reading a good book while there’s a thunderstorm outside? It’s definitely one of my favorite things. Paul and I were watching television when it happened, but Sparky did go to sleep in my lap which was very sweet and endearing for the little demon.

And I think I am going to bring this to a close this morning. I am feeling more awake now, and think I am going to go get cleaned up and get the day moving. I have chores to get done and writing to do, and I am getting a bit hungry. So I may be back later, I may not; it’s a mystery. But may your Sunday be blessed, Constant Reader, and remember to stay positive!

  1. I always spell ‘caribbean’ wrong the first time; I am always certain it only has one b and two r’s. WRONG. ↩︎

I Can’t Get No Satisfaction

Blergh.

I am up way too early this morning, and I can’t even have any coffee. I am having labs drawn this morning, and I need to fast for them…so I always schedule it for super-early so I can get it over and done with and back home to the shower and my coffee. I am not working at home today like I usually do; we’re having a department meeting and although I had permission to join the meeting on Teams…I also had some admin work to do in the office so I figured I might as well just go in person and do my work time there. I mean, I took Monday and Tuesday off, so missing out on a work-at-home day when I have four days off in a row isn’t going to be a major issue for me. And it’s not a full day, anyway. We’re going to Costco after I get home from work later, and I do have some errands to get taken care of this weekend. But I took Monday and Tuesday off for my birthday, so I have four days to relax, read, clean, or just do nothing if I so choose.

Well, I am home from having the labs drawn. I won’t spare you the gruesome story of the poor phlebotomist who had to locate a vein–the vein he finally found in my right forearm only gave one vial, so he then had to use my left hand; it actually didn’t hurt (I’ve steeled myself to having blood drawn, and having it done so regularly for my PrEP prescription has kind of inured me to sharp pointy metal things going into my skin. I also scheduled my flu shot and my RSV vaccine for tomorrow morning, so look at me–getting all this medical stuff knocked out and being pro-active about my own health, which is actually kind of lovely. It’s one of those things that I consider “ooh, look at me being a responsible adult” which is kind of a reaction to being told for so long that I was so completely irresponsible by so many people. I do enjoy, however, those moments when I behave like an actual adult. (I’ve set the bar pretty low for myself, in case you couldn’t tell.)

Despite being tired on my way home from work last night, I did do a speck of writing. I’ve been thinking a lot about a short story that’s been in progress for almost ten years, but I was never really sure how to end it, or really what it was about. I got the idea for it when I had to stop to use the rest room at a rest stop in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. There was only one other car there, and it was running with the passenger door open. At first I was amused–I guess someone really had to use the bathroom pretty badly–and of course my next thought was that it was probably a woman…but as I walked up to the building and went into the bathroom there was no one in the men’s room, so I assumed I was right. But after washing my hands, I walked back out and the car was exactly the same as it was when I passed. I called Highway Assistance–in case it was something serious and there was a woman lying on the floor in the bathroom or something, and once I was back on the road again, I thought about the situation all the way to my parents’, and pictured a woman coming to the same rest stop and encountering the same situation, only she finds an unconscious bleeding woman in the bathroom…and the main character is really not in a position herself to call the police. A picture of the Smoky Mountains on Facebook–the riotous colors of fall–came across my feed over the weekend, and it put the story back into my frontal lobe, so I decided to work on it some more this week since it was taking form in my head. I know why the main character is there, I know why the bleeding woman is there, and all I have left is deciding which ending is the best. I didn’t write much–Sparky kept distracting me before Paul came down to watch television with me–but I did get some writing done, and that feels simply wonderful.

Anyway, this day is going to feel off all day because it’s out of the ordinary. Getting up and out for the lab work; coming into the office for a meeting and to catch up on Admin work here that should be done before I leave for my brief vacation this weekend–odds and ends, really, that shouldn’t wait until I return to the office on Wednesday.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for this strange Friday. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I doubt I’ll be back before tomorrow morning.

You Were On My Mind

Thursday! I’d ordinarily be more excited about it being Thursday, but I have to get up super-early to have fasting lab work done and then I have to go into the office for a department meeting, so no work-at-home Friday for me this week. I am taking Monday and Tuesday off, though, so I have a lovely four day weekend to look forward to. Huzzah indeed!

Last night I noticed that my Louisiana landscapes calendar that I hung in the laundry room was still on January. I’d never once flipped the calendar page. It’s a gorgeous calendar, by a Louisiana photographer (we have some amazing photographers taking gorgeous images of all of Louisiana; I follow many on Facebook because the images are so gorgeous they take my breath away, and it also stimulates my creativity. I think there’s a metaphor in my forgetting the flip the calendar page for eight months, don’t you think?

It’s very gloomy this morning, which was weird to come downstairs and have it still look dark outside after turning on the kitchen lights. No worries, it’s going to be hot and humid all day–not a big surprise there, really, is there? I did run errands after work last night, picking up the mail and swinging past the Fresh Market on St. Charles on my way home, and was a bit tired when I got home. I roused myself to do the dishes last night between episodes of Evil, which is really getting a lot more interesting in this second season. I was too tired to work, and Paul’s not been very well this week (I have felt off this week myself), and so we both settled in to watch television and just relax for the evening.

It’s going to “feel like” 118, and there’s a fifty percent chance of rain today, which means it will feel hot and soupy outside all day. Please let it rain before I get off work today, so it will have mellowed out a bit outside. It’s been supposed to rain every day this week and it hasn’t, so I am not so sure of the fifty percent chance as perhaps the weather folks would like me to believe. It would be nice, if for no other reason than to cool things down for a moment or two. Heavy sigh. I do feel rested and awake this morning, which is pleasant. Not motivated, but that might change when I have more coffee. I’ll just come straight home from work tonight, and tomorrow I have to go in to the office for a meeting and then I’m just going to stay there and keep working until my partial day is over, and I can make a grocery run on the way home and run other errands, too. I’d love to not leave the house for my long weekend, but that is very unlikely. I should make it to the gym a few times, and start getting myself back into decent shape. It’s really hard to get motivated to go in the summer, and a Greg at rest always tends to stay at rest. It is remarkable how I’ve lost my dedication to working out over the years as I’ve gotten older. It’s not even about vanity anymore (much as I’ve always denied that, there was a part of me that liked looking in shape and fit and getting complimented on my body), and maybe that’s a sad statement about me that I have to face up to–with vanity removed from the equation, the motivation simply isn’t there any more?

I was also getting ideas about short stories I have in progress. What I am going to try to do is alternate between writing the book and finishing the collection. It’s almost finished–I just have to finish and polish two or three stories and I can turn it in, so there’s really no reason I can’t bounce back and forth between the two differing projects. This has worked for me before (I also remembered just now that I’ve also agreed to write a short story for two different anthologies, too), so we’ll see if that works again. This is why I don’t like the stress and pressure of deadlines anymore; I’d rather not force the work because I don’t have a choice, but would rather keep working on things organically. Again, the short term memory loss I’ve been experiencing since I got COVID in 2022 isn’t much help in this regard, because I don’t remember what I actually wrote and what I thought about writing anymore, so it also is taking me longer. I’d love to build myself back up to my old glory days of 3k words per day, but right now I don’t think that would even be remotely possible. But…you never know. I’m just out of the habit, just like going to the gym, and reestablishing both habits is going to be hard work. But that’s okay; lazy as I am and reluctant as I am to work hard, I actually kind of enjoy it once I am back in the groove.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Thursday, Constant Reader, and I might be back later. You do, in fact, never know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Downtown

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

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

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

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

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

There’s always so much writing to do.

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

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