Category: short stories

Radiophonic

And somehow, another week is finished and here it is, Friday morning again.

This was a good book week–Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng; Lot by Bryan Washington (Lammy winner); The Chill by Scott Carson; The Zimmerman Telegram By Barbara Tuchman; The Coyotes of Carthage by Steven Wright; and If It Bleeds by Stephen King all are now in my hot little hands, and while I really didn’t need more books (as I will never finish all the ones I have on hand) I had points that were expiring and the only place they were valid where I had any use for them was the Evil Empire, much as I hate to give them anything–but they also didn’t cost me anything, so there’s that–thank you, credit card points. I’ve been wanting to read the Ng for awhile, and having greatly enjoyed the television adaptation, I am really looking forward to the book. It’s been awhile since I’ve read a Lammy winner for Best Novel, Scott Carson is the name Michael Koryta is using now to write horror, and of course, one can never go wrong with Stephen King and Barbara Tuchman. The Steven Wright is a debut, and my friend Laura highly recommended it to me; now I need to finish the Woolrich so I can move on to some of these.

It’s truly unbearable how far behind I am on reading, and there’s nothing worse than being too tired (or exhausted) to read.

Perhaps this weekend, I shall have the time to get everything–oh, who am I trying to fool? I’ll get done this weekend what I have the energy to get done. I need to finish revising my Sherlock story, which I haven’t looked at this week, and of course the Secret Project glares at me from its file folder balefully every time I sit at my desk. I’m hopeful that since I’ve been relatively healthy all week–still drinking the electrolytes and the water every day carefully–that this weekend will be restful enough to give me the ability to power through everything, and head into next week fresh, happy and rested, while feeling powerful from getting everything done. It’s also a short week leading into a three-day weekend, which is even more lovely.

I cannot really decide what to read tonight for Queer Noir at the Bar. I don’t really get the opportunity to read from my work; and while on the one hand it’s lovely to do so, on the other it’s always quite stressful for me; and doing it on-line means that I can literally see myself doing it. I generally prefer not to spend much time looking at myself, and of course, on-line means it’s usually recorded and I loathe the sound of my voice. It’s strange, and I do think that once someone hears me speak the lightbulb goes on and, without me having to explicitly state it, most people tend to know I’m gay. That’s not why I don’t like my voice–I am gay, after all, and why not make it easy for others, after all; personally, I think my voice sounds strange. It’s deep, in a lower register, yet somehow high-pitched at the same time–like it cannot make up its mind which tone it wants to be, which probably doesn’t make sense because I don’t have a strong grasp of vocal terminology and cannot explain it more clearly. I also am always terrified I am going to make a poor showing of it; that people in the (virtual) audience will be clearing their throats, shifting in their seats, taking a drink or doing anything to help make the time pass so this hellish experience will end.

I feel like I slept well last night, and hopefully that rested feeling I am experiencing right now will last throughout the day and through the reading tonight. I also am a bit groggy this morning–I could have stayed in bed easily for another few hours at the very least, but I was also awake and Scooter was hungry and thirsty so I went ahead and got up. It’s weird looking outside again this morning–I guess the Saharan Dust Storm is here; I got an emergency alert about it yesterday, which explains the weird conditions out there and why I feel like I am smelling dust this morning.

Last night we started watching season one of Titans, on DC Universe. I had already watched it about a year or go or whenever it was originally current; Paul hadn’t, and since I didn’t really remember a whole lot about what happened and the story, I figured we needed something to watch and I wanted to watch the second season, so I may as well go ahead and watch it again. I like it; I think it’s very well done, fairly decently acted, and the production values are quite good. It’s also an excellent “origin” story for the Titans team; they were my favorite when I was a kid reading comic books back when they were the Teen Titans, which was kind of a junior version of Justice League only for the sidekicks. Robin, Speedy, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, and Aqualad were key members–eventually they started adding members who weren’t actually sidekicks for main heroes, and eventually they evolved into simply the Titans. Robin/Nightwing is probably one of my favorite heroes, and the young man they’ve cast to play him in the show is perfect for the part. He’s now ex-Robin on the show, and hasn’t evolved into Nightwing yet; I’m really looking forward to seeing Nightwings’s costume debut. Jason Todd, who replaced Dick Grayson as Robin, is also a character on the show–not a part of the regular cast, but someone who shows up now and again, and he’s just as big a dick on the show as he was in the comics back in the day.

And now, back to the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, everyone.

My Head is Spinning

And somehow here it is Wednesday yet again.

And it’s pay day; or as it is known in my corner of the Lost Apartment, “pay the bills and hope there’s grocery money left day.” I’m still swilling electrolytes every day. I managed a cup of coffee yesterday without a relapse; I may try a second cup today (“Greg never has a second cup at home”–ten points to anyone who gets that reference); that’s me, always living on the edge. But I have been feeling better. I’ve been tired, but the kind that comes from insomnia, not that wretched exhausted-drained-of-all-energy tired that comes with whatever this is–dehydration or whatever. That is quite a relief. But I finally slept well last night, and actually feel rested and healthy this morning. Huzzah!

I woke up to an amazing thunderstorm (and the inevitable flash flood warnings in the city). It’s pouring outside, bright flashes of nearby lightning followed by rolling thunder that seems to last forever. One of the many things I love about living here in New Orleans is the glorious thunderstorms we have here; I don’t think I could ever live in a desert climate again with its dry heat and rare rain. And sure, the flash floods aren’t particularly fun–especially if you get caught in one in your car–but I’d rather that then little to no rain ever. I’m also kind of glad to be working from home today so I don’t have to go out into it; that’s also quite lovely–but as I’ve said before to friends–the thing about being out in New Orleans rain is that your umbrella is useless because you’re going to get soaked anyway, so you might as well give into it and enjoy it.

Sometimes getting drenched in a rainstorm is a lot of fun.

Last night we finished watching Ordeal by Innocence, and while it’s been quite a long time since I read the novel by Agatha Christie, I feel relatively confidence in saying that I don’t think the television adaptation hewed closely to the novel–like the adaptation of The Pale Horse we watched over the weekend; as opposed to that, however, at least this revision (or reimagining, if you prefer) of Christie’s original story was rather well done. Again, I’m not entirely sure why screenwriters and producers feel they can do better than Christie, but there it is, and as I said, at least this one was told well and interesting. Excellent cast, as well.

As always, the Lost Apartment is tragically a disaster area again this morning; the illness and exhaustion have sadly long kept me from doing a deep and thorough clean–I’ve accomplished some surface cleaning, but haven’t done the floors in quite some time, and it shows–and I am hopeful that today, once I’m through with my workday, I can get some writing done. I am so horribly and woefully behind on everything that I fear I may never catch up. I’ve simply got to get the Sherlock story worked on, and I need to get the Secret Project caught up, and there’s another couple of stories I really want to be working on as well–“Condos for Sale or Rent” and “The Flagellants”–and of course, the novellas, “Festival of the Redeemer” and “Never Kiss a Stranger”. Sigh. Will I ever have time to work on everything and finish everything I want to finish? Most likely not.

And on that depressing note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.

Paninaro

Apparently, this old dog can learn some new tricks.

Yesterday morning, after the relapses of the previous weekend, I decided that I was going to have to give up caffeine again, as well as call my doctor’s office to see if I could get in sooner rather than later. After all, this has been going on for far longer than I would like, and perhaps more drastic measures were called for then just drinking Gatorade and water while cutting caffeine out. A friend suggested that I drink some PediaLyte, so on my way into the office I stopped at CVS, bought some–and suddenly, I felt like Gregalicious again. I just had always assumed, I guess, that Gatorade had whatever you needed in it to get over dehydration, and was apparently wrong. I drank water the rest of my shift, and was feeling a little dry-mouthed when I got home so I had another Pedialyte. Electrolytes were what were called for, and I am going to continue to drink one of these a day (at least) until this dehydration issue is taken care of. It was never something I ever really had to concern myself with–even after dancing all night on Ecstasy–but now, alas, yet another sign that my body is decaying.

But at least I know what to do now, even if it took me two weeks to figure it out.

I do learn, even if it takes me awhile.

It was lovely, though, last night to just feel tired and now it was from not sleeping well, rather than that horrible physical exhaustion.

Of course, I’m also on night four of insomnia.

But I am getting by. I’m still way behind on everything, and keep hoping that today–maybe–I’ll start to dig out from under. One can dream at any rate, can’t one? I need to get the Sherlock story worked on this week–in my fever state the other day I realized something could be cut and something should be added–and of course, last night as I was thinking about it, I started thinking about how much more could be done with the story; how much more could be done around Sherlock in New Orleans in the 1910’s; and how rich and layered and textured such a period piece could be…so of course I started wondering if I should think about possibly doing a Sherlock pastiche in this time period.

Because of course.

I read some more of the Woolrich last night; the pacing has picked up dramatically, although I’m still not sure where it’s going or how it could possibly end; and after Paul got home we tried to find a new show to watch, without much luck. Love Victor lasted about fifteen minutes–I wasn’t a big fan of Love Simon–and we tried a few other things before finally landing on another Agatha Christie adaptation, Ordeal by Innocence, which isn’t quite as I remembered the book either, but it’s an intriguing story and very well filmed and acted–and there are only three one hour episodes, so it’s not much of a commitment.

And let’s face it, Elite is a very tough act to follow.

I am tired again this morning, but this is entirely due to the insomnia as opposed to anything else; I am trying a cup of coffee this morning (after which I am going to have some Pedialyte) and it’s not sitting well with me; it’s kind of stuffy and sticky in the Lost Apartment this morning, and that’s certainly not helping any. I have to run errands after I get off work this afternoon–I have packages waiting at the postal service, and I need to stop at the grocery store for a few things as well–and so I am hoping today will be a productive one. There’s a million emails to sort and answer–and I really need to find my to-do list from before I relapsed into whatever this was the last two weeks and make a new one.

Every day I’m juggling.

And now back to the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.

One and One Make Five

So, after feeling human again on Friday and posting about it both then and yesterday, what do you think happened? If you guessed “Greg fucking relapsed,” you would be absolutely correct.

And this was the worst I felt since getting sick all over again. Chills and violent uncontrollable trembling? Check. Fever and headache? Check. Complete and total exhaustion? Check. It was horrible, frankly, Constant Reader. I wrapped myself up in blankets and retired to my easy chair, cued up Jonny Quest on HBO MAX, and drifted in and out of sleep for about five hours as I made it through the rest of the first season of the show–and yes, while I really wasn’t paying much attention (drifting in and out of sleep) I did see a lot of problematic stuff; and as the show progressed more, Hadji became more and more difficult to watch without groaning and thinking Dear God what were they thinking?

This morning I woke up still feeling a little dehydrated, but I wasted all of yesterday–I was too exhausted to do anything much more than use the remote, make some soup, and later make something to eat for dinner–and am hoping that I will feel well enough long enough to get some things done. I have to go back to to work in the clinic the next two days, so I really need to be up to speed for sure those two days. When I looked at our schedule it looked really filled up, so I will be seeing people pretty much all day. I also lost a day of writing yesterday, which really is upsetting. I am going to finish posting this, go through my emails, and then I am going to reread the Sherlock story, make some notes, and work on the revision some more.

My kitchen is also a complete and total disaster area, so I am going to have to do something about that as well.

We tried watching another crime show on Acorn last night but we couldn’t really follow it–there are a lot of disparate threads going on that will eventually come together into the main story, I assume, but at this point it’s hard to follow, and so we finally gave up on it and watched North by Northwest. I had never seen it, and maybe it was because I was so wonky and out of it yesterday, but I didn’t think it was that terrific. I did love the set-up; the whole mistaken identity thing and someone’s life gets terribly disrupted by getting accidentally involved in international intrigue, but it worked much better in The Man Who Knew Too Much. There are some great visuals, though–the crop duster chasing Cary Grant, the climactic scene on Mount Rushmore–but I never really bought into Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint falling in love, which also kind of spoils it. (Paul and I also enjoyed the fact that Cary Grant looked older than the woman playing his mother.)

So, as long as how I feel right now lasts, I’m going to try to get stuff done. I don’t feel nearly as good as I did on Friday–that was the best I’ve felt this year, I think–but at least this morning I am not feeling sick or exhausted, and I am counting that as a win. I need to stop thinking that once I feel better that it’s all over–same issue with that nagging back injury–and keep doing what it was that got my past feeling sick. For example, I am drinking water this morning before I have a cup of coffee, and I may only have the one cup rather than the three or four I usually do. Caffeine dehydrates, and if dehydration is the root cause of all of this, well, I need to cut it back until I am pretty certain the dehydration is no longer an issue, don’t I?

Still learning, after all these years, to deal with my impatience.

And on that note, I really need to get to work on this kitchen’s utter disaster before heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.

Love, Etc.

Saturday morning and I am hoping to have a good writing day today. I usually don’t respond to emails on the weekends–read them, just don’t reply–because I try to spend the majority of my free time on weekends writing or reading and not getting sucked into the endless bottomless pit that is social media and/or emails.

It also kind of helps keep me my sanity (on which my grasp is often tenuous) going.

Yesterday was the first time in a very long time where I felt good, and felt like my brain was working clearly and not through a fog of some sort. I think that might be some kind of PTSD thing; it’s hard to describe but whenever I am dealing with something horrific, I am able to function but it’s like this dark curtain has dropped down over my mind, and I see myself actually functioning but from a distance, almost like I am watching someone else. I guess it might be a sort of dissociative state? But yesterday it felt like the veil had lifted and I could see things clearly; I also wasn’t tired at all and was able to go up and down the stairs without resting. I also slept really well the last few nights, so hopefully the insomnia stuff is a thing of the past.

Ha ha ha. As if.

I worked from home yesterday and actually was able to get a lot accomplished. I finished all my data entry work and then started folding inserts for condom packs–very exciting, I know, but it is what it is. Our STI clinic is open again on a limited basis–Mondays and Tuesdays only–so I am getting back into the swing of my regular work again. I think that helps me both emotionally and intellectually; routine is very key. Today I am going to work on the Secret Project for a little while–trying to get as much done as I can, to try to make up for the lost weekends when I was so exhausted and/or sick over the last few weeks or so; tomorrow I am going to polish and revise my Sherlock story again–it’s been a week since I revised it based on the edits I received, so I think it’s sat long enough for me to look at it clearly and divorced from attachment.

We did finish watching Elite last night, and I am still saddened that it’s over for now–no word on when Season 4 will drop, but it was actually renewed for another two seasons. I am literally obsessed with the show now; I am writing a very long blog entry about the show that I started writing last night after we finished watching, and even went into a deep Youtube wormhole about the show for a good long while. Heavy sigh.

So my plans for today clearly include writing, cleaning and getting organized, and relaxing for the most part. We need to find a new gym, but I am leaving that in Paul’s hands; I found St. Charles Athletic Club seventeen years ago, and since he pays for our gym memberships, his input is what matters the most. We are looking at a place in our neighborhood on Magazine Street, in the block just before the intersection at Jackson Avenue, and this will be a rather nice change in my usual regular routine if we do wind up joining there.

I really do need to explore this city more. I just wish I had more time.

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

One in a Million

I feel somewhat better this morning–still a bit off, but that’s okay. It’s something I can deal with, I think. I still need to work on hydration–an on-going process in New Orleans in the summer time, but this is the first year it’s ever affected me physically the way it has this year. I guess that’s another cost of getting old? The worst is having to do without caffeine, as it also dehydrates. I am braving a cup of coffee this morning to see how that plays out. Probably not the smartest thing in the world to do, but I’m not particularly known for being super-smart, so there’s that as well.

I’m working from home today, which I’ll miss when the world opens back up completely. It’s nice to sit in my easy chair with my work laptop or making condom packs or doing data entry in comfort with an old movie playing on the television (or Jonny Quest; I am still working my way through the first season) and being able to relax. We opened the STI clinic yesterday on a limited basis, and it was nice to see clients again. We are, of course, taking every precaution to safeguard me (ironic, since I’ve not been feeling well for going on almost a week; this is apparently my year of ill health). but it was lovely to connect with clients again, and it was even lovelier to see that my blood drawing skill had not gone away in the three (!) months since we closed the clinic; I think the reopening was actually three months to the day. And the lack of caffeine wasn’t exactly the most pleasant thing in the world to deal with at the same time, but I made it through the day. I came home and collapsed into my easy chair, watched some Jonny Quest until Paul got home, and then of course we finished off the second season of Elite, which continues to be absolutely amazing. We have only the third season left–I think there’s a fourth coming at some point–so we have decided to dole it out slowly to make it last longer.

Since I’m working at home today, once I’m finished I’m hoping I’ll be relaxed and rested enough to do some writing before Paul gets home. I hate that I am getting behind on everything, despite the realization that I am much too hard on myself about not writing–counting how many things I have in progress over the weekend was an eye opening experience, and at the same time knowing how much incomplete work I have on hand was also stress-inducing: how can you read or watch television when you have all that work to finish? Add to that all the books I have on hand that I haven’t finished reading, and it all adds up to stress and feelings of unworthiness. There’s also all those ebooks in my iPad, and I haven’t been able to focus on reading, so Night Has a Thousand Eyes continues to languish on my end table next my chair.

My sleep was also odd last night; while one would think two consecutive days of no caffeine plus interacting with clients would have tired me out so I would sleep like the dead, the truth was it took me a while to fall asleep and I also woke several times during the night, and it wasn’t easy to fall back asleep. But I feel–other than the oddness of being slightly ill still–better and rested; who knows? We shall see how the day goes.

My gym officially closed today; another victim of COVID-19, which makes me really sad–not least because of the incredible convenience that it was just around the corner and less than a five minute walk, but mostly because I was really starting to get back into working out again before this latest bout of whatever the fuck is wrong with me this year took over again. It was also relatively inexpensive; the nearest gym is a slightly longer walk down on Magazine Street, and it’s considerably more expensive. The longer walk also means that waiting to the last possible minute to go is really not the best option. I’m not really sure what we are going to do; in the over all scheme of things, with a pandemic and everything else that’s going on in the world (not the least of which being the country’s long overdue reckoning on racism), it’s really not that big of a deal; it’s not like I need to worry about my life ending or significantly changing for the worst because my gym closed. But damn, I hate the loss of the convenience, and damn this fucking pandemic.

Gay white people problems, am I right?

The coffee seems to be not upsetting my stomach, so I am going to risk a second cup. Yes, that’s me, living on the edge. (eye roll to infinity) But one of the things I’ve noticed–I got an email from a friend asking me what I’ve learned about myself in the last three months, which made me start thinking–is that my self-absorption, which I thought was always at a high peak and level, has become even more deeper. I’ve always been horribly selfish; and pretty damned self-absorbed. But over the last three months it’s become even more apparent, and deeper. The news has been so consistently horrible for so long that I–someone who has been a political junkie for a long time and followed the news avidly–have withdrawn from it completely. Each day, it seems, has brought more horror–I glanced through headlines yesterday when I got home from work and literally was incredibly grateful to disappear into the world of both Jonny Quest and Elite last night. I feel a little stymied with my career, which is part and parcel of the volumes of uncompleted work I have on hand, and the inability to focus and juggle things–which I used to be so very good at–doesn’t seem to be clearing up anytime soon. My usual go-to (making lists) doesn’t seem to be working because I’ll make a to-do list and then completely forget about it, thereby rendering it completely useless.

But I’m going to make one again this morning and see what happens. Hope springs eternal and all that, you know.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.

Two Divided by Zero

My COVID test came back negative again, so I was right, I guess; dehydration and exhaustion combined in a 1-2 punch to send me reeling and off my game. My stomach is still messed up–sometimes stuff doesn’t go right through me, but most of the time it absolutely does–but that’s just how it is and we have to get on with life somehow. I am really sick of this, and I am going to be calling my doctor’s office later today. My doctor moved away, and I’ve been delaying dealing with contacting their office to get a new one, so now I guess I am in a position where I have to–in other words, moved to action because I have no other choice.

That happens a lot more than one might think, since my usual default is lethargy.

I revised my Sherlock story yesterday, so yes, I actually did get some writing done, and it wasn’t as easy as I might have liked but on the other hand, it also could have been much harder. There were a couple of times I was ready to throw in the towel and say hey I got something done at least, but forced myself to keep going. Now I’m going to let it sit for a few days before I polish it, and hopefully in the meantime i can get some other writing done. I know part of the weird emotional state I find myself in these days has more to do with the not writing than anything else; when I am not working on some form of writing, I’m always down. After I finished working on the story yesterday I felt fantastic; that adrenaline rush only matched by the one that comes from endorphins after a good workout. I’ve not been to the gym in over a week, either–I’ve neither had the energy nor felt well enough to actually go, plus not wanting to put people at risk…but I am going to have to start thinking about when I can go back again.

As a result of remembering a story I’d started a few weeks ago and completely forgotten about, I decided to make a list of all the stories and things I have in progress at the current time. It was quite eye-opening; eighty nine short stories in some degree of completion; seven novellas in the same situation; and two novels. This is what I mean by my creative ADHD; many of the stories are no more than 500 words (I made a point of not counting the ones that are just a title and an opening sentence or paragraph) but some of them have been through multiple drafts and still others have a first draft completed. I posted about it on social media, and based on the reactions I received, I realized two things: one, that I now understand why people call me prolific and two, the reason I think I am lazy and don’t ever get anything done is precisely because I have so many works in progress that are not completed. Add to that the reality that I constantly get new ideas for stories, novellas, and novels all the time, and you begin to see why I am so rough on myself when it comes to this sort of thing. I am trying to be better about being hard on myself–there’s a strong sense, though, that without being hard on myself I wouldn’t get as much done; but at the same time, I’m not getting much done these days…but I think this shift is necessary in order to delete negativity out of my life. There’s already so much negativity in the world I don’t need to create more for my life and career. But I need to get moving on the Secret Project, and now that this revision is behind me, I have some time to work on it now.

We finished season one of Elite last night and started season two, and I have to say–if you’ve not watched this show, you absolutely must. The story moves like a runaway freight train, the plot is incredibly intricate, intertwined, and complicated. The writing is stellar and the acting–the gorgeous young actors who make up the cast–is also topnotch. It’s so much better than 13 Reasons Why, and its approach to alternate sexualities is much better–considering this is a Spanish show, and I’ve always considered Spain to be conservative and Catholic, again shows how wrong you can be when you make assumptions about values and beliefs. It’s even hard to encapsulate the ongoing storylines on the show because so much happens and it moves so fast. It’s less like Edge of Night in terms of crime/soap hybrids than it is a Spanish, prep school version of How to Get Away With Murder–which we never finished watching the final season of, because it’s plot is so complicated we lost track and literally had no idea what was going on anymore.

And on that note, time to get back to the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, one and all.

Miserabilism

Sunday morning. I slept really well again last night, but my stomach is still quirky this morning; I am not enjoying this in the least and it really needs to stop sometime soon, thank you very much. I do appreciate the deep sleep I’ve been getting these last few nights, but there’s still fatigue in my muscles and joints and it might be dehydration still; I am going to have to drink more fluids today than I have been before and see if that improves things at all. I still haven’t gotten my test results back yet–then again, my phone expired last night and I forgot to charge it, so there may be a missed call or something there. I’ll check when I finish writing this, I suppose.

I also started writing up my detailed critique of 13 Reasons Why last night and it’s failures; which were made all the more evident when Paul and I moved on to yet another show from Netflix Spain called Elite, which is precisely what 13 Reasons Why could have been. Elite is more soapy, but they actually lean into it unashamedly, and it’s a hell of a lot more entertaining and better written. The cast is also spectacularly good in their roles, and we are unashamedly addicted to it–and there are three glorious seasons to indulge in thus far. That should get us through until next weekend, right? And I am looking forward to it! We truly enjoyed Toy Boy, and even White Lines, uneven as it was. Shows from Spanish Netflix are truly amazing; and I’m also really glad I got over my aversion to subtitles, which opens up a whole new world of film and television for us.

I took it easy yesterday, reading my emails and reorganizing the books while i could and straightening up a bit around the Lost Apartment. I also took a folder of partial stories to my easy chair and started reading through them. A lot of them of course are story fragments, just the opening paragraphs, and while they were sketchy and not particularly in depth; I could see the potential in them. I am very pleased with how “Closing Time” starts and rereading those paragraphs tipped me off on how to continue with the story; the same goes with “One Night at Brandi’s Lounge” and “Please Die Soon.” Today I am going to–once I finish some things here on-line that I need to get done today–close my Internet browser and focus on writing; the things I had planned to get done this weekend I haven’t, and that’s in part due to this disorientation feeling that comes from not being at 100% physically, which I rather dislike.

Then again, I don’t know anyone who enjoys being sick, other than those with Munchhausen’s Syndrome.

I also was thinking about the Kansas book yesterday and making notes; both shows were making me think more about it, and I do think it’s a great idea and has the potential to be a terrific book, if I can ever get back to work on it. But I’m never going to get back to either it or Bury Me in Shadows until I get this other stuff finished…so I really need to try to focus today and get to work on it.

I also was reading Barbara Tuchman’s The Proud Tower yesterday when I didn’t have the energy to do anything else–the energy drains is the worst part of this whole thing, quite frankly–and I really do love Tuchman. I’ve never read The Guns of August, which I really should, and would love to eventually would like to work my way through her entire catalogue. Oh, how I wish I’d majored in History and Creative Writing in college! I generally don’t waste my time with regrets about anything, and as I am extremely happy with my life right now any change to my past would have altered my life completely and I wouldn’t be where I am today. But oh, to have learned how to comb through research and find the proper materials to write about history intelligently and responsibly! I think I could have written history the way Tuchman did–compellingly, by being entertaining as well as educating at the same time. As I have mentioned many times before, I’d love to do the sixteenth century much the same as Tuchman did the fourteenth in A Different Mirror; but focusing on the rise of women to power. I do think that century had more women in power than any other century before or since (perhaps the eighteenth might compare); Isabella f Castile; England had three regnant queens (Jane Grey, Mary I, Elizabeth I); Scotland had Mary Queen of Scots and her mother, the regent Marie de Guise; France of course had Catherine de Medici pulling the strings of power; and there were any number of Habsburg women who ruled as regents in the vast array of their Imperial lands. Women in that century also were responsible for shifts of power–Juana of Castile brought the Spanish empire into the Habsburg realms; the struggle between Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn changed England forever; Margaret Tudor brought the Scots royal family eventually to power in England through her descendants; and there were powerful women lurking everywhere, from Jeanne d’Albret to Margaret of Austria to Marie of Hungary to Marguerite de Valois–and of course, the great mistress of Henri II–Diane de Poitiers. These women influenced the shape of the history that came after them, and changed the world.

All right, on that note I am going to close this and head back into the spice mines for the day. Wish me luck with my work and my stomach, Constant Reader! Have a lovely Sunday.

In Denial

And now we enter that eerie period of waiting and anticipation; as a storm hovers over the overly warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and decides which way north to follow. It appears that the eye of Cristobal is going to pass over Houma on it’s way ashore; Houma is about an hour drive from here, but southeastern Louisiana geography and direction is confusing. You do, for example, have to drive west out of New Orleans, out past the airport, to get there; and you cross the river on the way (I have a horrible story about coming back from doing an HIV testing event out there, but I’ll save that for another time). It’s more due west and south of New Orleans, and it’s levee backs up to what used to be wetlands, but because of coastal erosion the Gulf is on the other side. There’s a native reservation out there as well–Houma is named after the Houma tribe–and it’s one of those places we will undoubtedly lose to the encroaching Gulf at some point. Nicholls State University is also there. Some day when I have time I would love to go out there and explore the town more; when we used to test at Nicholls State I used to think about writing a story set there a lot. There’s a lot of sugar cane fields in the surrounding area as well.

It’s gray outside my windows this morning, which is to be expected; it’s going to be periodically raining and of course, there is the potential for flash flooding as always. I stopped to make groceries on my way home from work last night so I wouldn’t have to go out in it this weekend at all; I am going to go to the gym (I’ve not gone once this week, which is terribly disgraceful, but I was exhausted on every level all week) in a little bit, after which I am going to come home and write and clean the kitchen. My kitchen is absolutely a disaster area–I cleaned up in here on Thursday night, and it’s shocking how quickly it can again look like a bomb went off in here.

We’re still watching London Kills, which I do recommend, and we’ll probably finish it off this evening. We tend to watch movies a lot on the weekends as well–last weekend we watched Dolemite Is My Name, and I have to say, Eddie Murphy should have at least been nominated for an Oscar for that; the fact he’s only gotten one nomination over his lengthy film career is a disgrace–and there’s some good stuff on HBO MAX, which, along with Disney Plus, is a treasure trove. I also keep forgetting we have CBS All Access, which means I have all those new Star Trek series to watch as well as Jordan Peele’s reboot of The Twilight Zone, and we also have Apple Plus. THERE ARE SO MANY STREAMING SERVICES NOW.

And it’s been so long since I’ve had the energy to pick up a book I had to stop for a minute to remember what I am actually reading, which is Cornell Woolrich’s Night Has a Thousand Eyes. I do think it’s appropriate reading for Pride Month, and then when I finish that I am going to go back and reread Larry Kramer’s Book Whose Title Got Me a Facebook Ban. I am also thinking I might revisit one of my favorite Three Investigators stories this weekend as well.

I got an idea for two stories yesterday–because when don’t I get ideas for new stories, right? One is “Dance of the Burning Fools”, which is something that actually happened in history, as described by Barbara Tuchman in her seminal work A Distant Mirror; a party at the court of Charles VI of France, which descended into madness when some of the costumed revelers, dressed as animals in fur and pitch, caught fire and some of them burned to death; the King was one of the men in costume but was rescued. I’m not sure how the story will take shape, but I just thought that perhaps an investigation into the tragedy after the fact? I don’t know, it’s very amorphous right now.

The other is called “Happy Hour at the Hangover Bar,” which was inspired by my noticing on my way to work yesterday that there is a bar on Claiborne Avenue with that very name: the Hangover Bar, and yesterday they had a Happy Hour sign out on the sidewalk in front, and the title popped into my head, with a vague idea about a story told from the point of view of the bartender, watching something unfold in his bar during Happy Hour.

Many years ago, maybe in the late 1990’s, I had an idea for a series of short stories about gay men that were all interconnected through a central character of a nameless bartender at Cafe Lafitte in Exile; one of my best (in my opinion) short stories was one I wrote with that idea in mind; it eventually evolved and the bartender himself became the main character. The story was called “Unsent”, and in one of my proudest moments as a writer, a friend who’d arranged for a collection of my erotic stories to be published in Spanish (thanks again, Lawrence Schimel!) forwarded an email to me from the copy editor, who’d emailed him to tell him that the story had made her cry. I think about that collection–that I’d intended to call The Bartender–every now and again; but so many ideas, so little time, and so much laziness will leave it on the backburner probably forever.

And now, I have to depart for the gym. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and keep the people of Houma, Louisiana in your thoughts this weekend.

KDX 125

In case you’ve been wondering, Constant Reader, my blog titles are usually song titles; back when I first started doing that, I just used whatever song was playing on the stereo or my iPod (remember those?) when I started writing the entry. I’ve tried not to use the same title twice, but after fifteen years or so it’s kind of hard not to. I started using the Top 100 lists from certain years, but those got exhausted after a few years, and now I’ve moved on to singles by the Pet Shop Boys….many of their titles are awesome and wry and witty; today’s, I am not so sure about, hence my decision to explain.

It’s been a very exhausting week, and I am bone tired. I’ve not been to the gym this week at all; I will assess how I feel tomorrow about going; I can certainly, in a worst case, go on Saturday. There’s a tropical storm out in the Gulf heading our way, the country has seemingly gone mad, and sometimes I just feel so completely overwhelmed I don’t even want to get out of bed, let alone check social media or my emails.

But I persist.

Today wasn’t quite so bad as I feared when I started writing this post this morning; it was actually rather pleasant. The sad thing is I am starting to adjust physically to the heat and humidity; they did get us an enormous fan and a couple of smaller ones–but when I had to go into the building to do my timesheet and send my activity log to my supervisor I thought it was freezing inside the building–and had the same experience when I stopped at the grocery store. Naturally, the first floor of the Lost Apartment and my kitchen/office is miserable, even with the ceiling fans on, but I ordered two of those small, portable Arctic air conditioners–a co-worker highly recommended them–and when they arrive, we’ll see how they work.

I do think I am going to be able to sleep tonight. I am feeling sleepy–my mind is still going strong though–but I guess we will see. We started watching a show called London Kills on Acorn, and are enjoying it–we gave up on Dead Still after two episodes because it was, while very well acted and produced, kind of slow and not as interesting or engaging as I would have hoped.

Well, it’s now Friday morning and I’ve actually skipped a blog day. Shortly after I wrote the above I got so sleepy I barely managed to make it upstairs and into bed before sleepwalking, seriously, and I slept very well last night. I could have stayed in bed easily for another hour or so, but I have things to do and work to get to and so forth. But it feels absolutely lovely to have rested–perhaps tonight I will rest again–and maybe I can make some progress on work i have to do.

I got some glorious short story feedback on a submission I’d sent out, and am really looking forward to revising it. This is “The Affair of the Purloined Rentboy,” for those of you keeping track; the Sherlock story which was very far outside my comfort zone. I do think the notes I got will make it a much better, and stronger, story; and I am going to trust my instincts–as I read the notes, ideas began to form in my head on how to make this story stronger and better, and I couldn’t be more pleased.

And on that note, with the Gulf Coast now under a hurricane warning, I shall head back into the spice mines.