Category: social media

erotica

erotic…erotic…put your hands all over my body..

Madonna really recorded some bangers, didn’t she? (She still is; really enjoyed her latest record.)

So here we are on Wednesday Pay the Bills Day again, and wow, this month has certainly flown past like nobody’s business, hasn’t it? September looms, and there are even college games this weekend (nothing I’m interested in watching; but if an SEC team was playing I’d watch.

Dolly died yesterday, or at least, her passing was reported by her family on her social media channels. I’m a little taken aback, honestly, because there was something eternal about Dolly and she would always be here to help where she can and spread love and joy wherever she went. RIP, sweet princess! At least you’re with Carl again. Usually when a celebrity dies, I think oh that’s a shame if they were someone whose work I admired and pity when it’s someone I loathe (don’t try to school-marm shame me over that, either. I’ve watched too many good people die young to waste my time and energy and sympathy on a piece of shit that’s finally been flushed; not very Dolly of me, I know, but it’s who I am). Prince saddened me, but this was like a 2 x 4 to the forehead. Dolly was hardly perfect, but she was the best example of a real Christian, trying to do good to make up for whatever harm she may have caused. She distilled Christianity down to its core elements: kindness, charity, and empathy. There’s a reason she often got type cast as an angel, you know. What an incredible loss to the world.

And I will never get over the fact she wrote “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” on the same afternoon. I mean…wow.

Yesterday wasn’t bad, outside of losing Dolly. I wasn’t quite as groggy when I got up yesterday morning and felt pretty good all day. Sparky was incredibly needy when I got home, so he demanded a lap and some cuddles to feel safe and secure again. He’s very neurotic, much more so than any other cat we’ve had; when we boarded him the last time I went to Alabama he was very traumatized and terrified; his abandonment as a kitten must have been very traumatizing for him…to the point I don’t think we can ever board him again. (It’s hard enough thinking that the cat thinks you’re dumping him again…) Paul was late getting home, and when he did we watched an Outer Banks, in which John B and Sarah ran off to New Orleans to find her mother, who has the scytale, which…it’s one of those insane treasure hunt plots that sounds even more insane when you try explaining it, so I won’t. (Every time someone said “the Big Easy” Paul and I said, in unison, don’t call it that. LOL. And we’re not entirely sure it was actually filmed here…somehow they got to a body of water here without going over a levee, and it couldn’t be the river because there was no current.) Every time I start to wonder if I am still a New Orleanian… I see something that makes me think oh, yes, you still are a snobby New Orleanian.

If I’ve learned anything from watching Game of Thrones, it’s you can never go wrong wondering what the worst reason for someone to do something like this–and you’ll only go wrong due to a failure of your imagination to realize just how corrupt, vile, and disgusting some human beings can be. When I saw the horrible golf club commercial, my jaw literally dropped. As I was reading some of the social media postings about it, I assumed it was probably bad…but I had no idea how bad. I still can’t believe a company in this year of our Lord 2026 was okay with this commercial. The fact that the man shoving and threatening the woman is a co-founder of Good Good, who made the ad, tells me one thing–they’re all misogynist pigs who think violence against women is absolutely legitimate and okay and funny. (After all, same co-creator posted a selfie with the creature from the spray-tan lagoon, so yeah, I’m sure he respects women) Anyway, Callaway, the golf accessory company they made the video for? Their stock tanked and they’re buying it back! Sounds like some market manipulation to me, and yes, evil. “Yes, this will make everyone mad and people will start dumping their stock and the pigs we really market to will appreciate it, think it’s funny, and maybe will even use their drivers on their wives! And we won’t lose sales and we get a lot of stock back! Win! Win!”

Maybe I’m cynical, but this is the world we live in. I do think this was a ploy to manipulate their stock. But I don’t think the outrage is going to go away. Ask Target how that went for them. And yes, that is the worst reason I could think of for posting that ad; but the reality is probably even worse to the point I can’t imagine it…and I don’t mind that failure of imagination.

Heavy sigh.

I also managed some work on the book yesterday–not any actual writing-writing, but background work and realizing I need to do some of the work I should have done before I started writing the book, but I also wanted to get started to get me going on it. I need to focus, though…but I do think I’m getting better about things like that. Baby steps.

Oh! I sent out another newsletter yesterday! You can read it here, if you like.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, and I will check in with you again tomorrow for my last day in the office for the week!

Former collegiate wrestler turned onlyfans model Wrestle Chris.

Fever

Tuesday, and day two of my return to the spice mines. I was a bit groggy yesterday, and felt a bit tired in my legs for some reason, but it wasn’t anything, really. And I certainly had the energy to walk around the office pretty briskly while at work. We were busy in the morning–it’s been awhile–but it slowed down in the afternoon so I could get caught up on paperwork and so forth. We also had a marvelous thunderstorm system move through yesterday afternoon; on my way home it was still sprinkling, and it was wonderfully cool. I went to the post office and made a small grocery run and was home before six, which was also nice. Once I was home, of course, I had to feed Sparky and give him some attention before we put on the new episode of Furious (so damned good), followed by an episode of Outer Banks (so damned silly but strangely entertaining; so what if it doesn’t make sense?) before going to bed for the evening, where I slept very well. I feel pretty good this morning, too—if hungry; this morning’s coffee cake slice did not do the trick this morning; I should have eaten something last night but just didn’t feel up to messing around in the kitchen. Tonight I’ll bake potatoes, I think; I have some mushrooms I need to sauté in butter, too; Kerrygold works marvelously for this, by the way.

Sorry/not sorry about the cattle ranchers and farmers going bankrupt. Were all those liberal tears worth it? You voted for this not once but three times (excuse me, #not all ranchers). You wanted ICE, you wanted no regulations, you wanted a whites’ only country, and you kept what? Like four trans girls from competing in sports? You voted for all of this, you pathetic beta cuck bitches, and look! Here you are with your hands out for socialism. That’s practically communism! (Actually, the government controlling the means of production and market IS communism–so all that foul beef, that may or not be wild horse meat–for the record, you fucking idiots. But hey, wasn’t it fun calling Kamala Harris a whore who slept her way to the top? Is losing your cattle and your land worth screaming “Lock her up” about Hilary Rodham Clinton? You tell my community we were freaks and pedophiles and don’t deserve rights? Why the fuck would I give a shit about bailing your homophobic racists asses out with MY tax dollars. Like the student loan situation–didn’t you all oppose that? Aren’t you concerned about the national debt anymore? You scream at the top of your lungs about it whenever there’s a Democrat in the White House; why so silent when your votes are responsible now for it being so incredibly astronomically raised, higher than ever in history? Oh, no, you’ve got your palms up begging for relief from the taxpayers you gladly mock and vote against all the time? Like student loans, why should the taxpayers be on the hook for your poor choices? You don’t even have the balls to NAME him, like the submissive mongrels you are. No, you blame the government–you can’t even say anything critical of him personally. You’re fucking afraid of a pedophile.

Miss me with your low-T whining, you little bitches. Some MEN you are. Your ancestors would be ashamed and embarrassed, you entitled shits.

This was all in Project 2025, by the way. Everything that has happened since he was sworn in last year is straight out of Project 2025; you know, the thing they all lied to you about so you wouldn’t read it…but you were too busy “owning the libs.” Good job. Now someone else is going to own your land and you’ll be homeless and on the dole. Come on guys! Aren’t you the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps real men who don’t need anyone” types? Seriously, go fuck yourselves now and forever.

I was also highly amused to see that the Tate Brothers had to admit to a court that they are broke, they don’t own any of the properties or cars or jewelry they paraded around on-line to give unfuckable young men something to cling to since the world is “so unfair to them!” Whatever happened to “nobody ever said life was fair?” Has anyone checked on the incels today? What with Spider-man whomping on Jake Lang1 this weekend, the collapse of the Tate Brothers…can the collapse of the bros and the so-called man-o-sphere (cuck-o-sphere is more accurate) be far behind?

We started watching Lanterns this weekend, too, and I’m enjoying it. I do like both Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre (my God that man is beautiful), and I’ve always liked Green Lantern (I pretend that execrable film with Ryan Reynolds never happened). The show has a kind of slow burn feel to it, and I like that a lot.

I was pleased to see that Nicholas Hoult has bowed out of the TERF Queen’s tv show because of “scheduling conflicts”…I saw someone on-line said, “Yeah, the scheduling conflict was a phone call from an angry James Gunn asking him, why are you buttfucking my Superman sequel?” I, for one, was perfectly willing to never see anything he’s in again–I’ve been a big fan since Warm Bodies–but…he’s still kind of tarnished with homophobic slime, now. I don’t think I’ll ever be as big a fan of his again. His replacement can’t act anyway and mostly looks constipated–so no loss not watching him in anything again…which I’d pretty much decided after Pompeii already. Pompeii was exponentially worse than all of the Twilight movies combined. And I fucking despise Twilight with the white hot passion of a dozen burning suns.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I am going straight home from work tonight, no stops, and hope to get the kitchen under control. I’ll be back tomorrow, of course. See you then!

I took this picture from the upper balcony at the Times-Picayune office on St. Charles; Paul and I were there for their Friday night before Mardi Gras parade party. I just love how it turned out.
  1. And why is someone with an ankle monitor able to travel so freely between states? Who is bankrolling him? Inquiring minds want to know. ↩︎

Love Song

Saturday morning and I have really lost the plot on what day it is. I kept thinking it was Saturday all day yesterday, which was annoying. And as much as I was wanting to have another day off yesterday (planning on working more today and tomorrow), I actually started writing my next chapter of the WIP, and even worked some on my newsletter drafts, which is becoming more and more fun the more I do of them. Obviously, we didn’t go see the movie because I was writing and had gotten settled into that “in my sweats and I’m in my chair working on my laptop” mode, and so I thought it was better to go ahead and do what work I could while doing my chores. I wound up writing about 1500 words on the new chapter, which was a pleasant and unexpected surprise. Whether they are any good or not is another story, but I am taking the win. I also stayed up later than usual, doing the laundry, and Sparky tried to get me up early again but settled in for cuddles when I didn’t get up.

I watched some more documentaries about the Pacific War again yesterday, which is technically research for the book–since my main character served in the South Pacific during the war. It also occurred to me yesterday that I should watch South Pacific again–I watched it when I was a kid, and never revisited, but thought it might be interesting from a sociological and research point of view; how did they depict sailors with no access to women? It’s been so long I don’t remember much of the movie, or the book either for that matter (Tales of the South Pacific was my entry point for James A. Michener’s work) so one of these weekend mornings when I don’t have much else to do along the lines of reading or chores I could put it on. I liked musicals a lot when I was a kid–I remember seeing The Sound of Music and Camelot on the big screen–but kind of got away from them as a teenager and the post-teen years…the fact that not many were made might have had a lot to do with it. Anyway, it couldn’t hurt, right? And if I can consider something as a kind of sideways research, it doesn’t feel like I’m just wasting my time…see, what you saw right there is an anxiety coping mechanism: I’d feel guilty and anxious for not being productive, so I needed a rationale for it that made sense to my brain.

And while we didn’t go see the movie yesterday after all–and probably won’t this weekend either–we are going to Costco tomorrow.

I watched more of The Burbs yesterday, and when Paul came down from his work-at-home duties, we caught up on both The Shards and Reacher. This most recent episode of The Shards was probably one of the best ones so far, but it’s still Ryan Murphy so there’s kind of a glitzy veneer over it all and character motivations don’t seem to be important (they never are to Murphy)…and almost all of the characters are unlikable, because I at least never feel any sympathy for any of them–and kind of enjoy their failures…I am not sure that’s the primary intent here, but that’s my reaction to it. It’s addicting, though, like so many things are that are nothing more than empty calories, like cotton candy or soda.

I was actually kind of glad we didn’t go to the movie yesterday because around the time we would have left, some amazing thunderstorms rolled into the metro area. The band of bad weather lasted for about six or seven hours, too–with street flooding uptown and there was also HAIL uptown, big chunks of ice hurtling down from the sky. We didn’t have any here at the Lost Apartment, thank the Lord, and it sure would have sucked to bring Costco home during a thunderstorm. Yikes.

Some rather interesting news broke yesterday regarding the Karmelo Anthony case, and a better picture of what happened that day is starting to emerge. When I first heard the news, my first thought was “self-defense” and my second was “they are going to roast and railroad this kid” and I was right about that, too. (Just like when Nolan Wells went missing and my reaction was “he’s dead and those white kids did something, they may not have killed him but they certainly didn’t act like innocent people who didn’t know anything” and as more facts come out…)

Because inevitably it will always turn out to be some kind of bullshit white shenanigans. And that kid Karmelo Anthony killed sounds to me like he was already well on his way to becoming a full-fledged sociopath. We need to stop treating white kids with kid gloves. Hell, we need to stop centering white people, period.

And on that somber note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in on you again tomorrow morning, okay? Til then!

I’ve never understood the “must shave body and be smooth at all times” mentality. Body hair can be sexy, too—and very masculine.

Promise to Try

It’s my birthday, and I made the enormous mistake of giving Sparky a new catnip toy this morning and now he’s high as a kite and zooming around the apartment, with the occasional launch of a crazed kitty at me in full play-attack mode. Needless to say, I’m regretting giving him that toy!

And just like that, I qualify for senior discounts. Funny, I don’t feel any older this morning. I’ve never been a big birthday person, for any number of reasons (primarily because outside of my parents, no one else ever cared much about it, which I will unpack at some point in the newsletter), and the older I get the less fuss I want made of it. I really prefer to just spend the day hanging out at home with Sparky and Paul, very low-key. I’ll watch some shit on television, and do some reading; maybe even take some notes on something, anything, that I am working on currently. But no pressure at all, and that’s the lovely thing. A day of ignoring the world and everything else going on and just having some peaceful, relaxing down time. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? It does, indeed. The house is messy, so I may slowly and gradually do things, too, but the primary goal for the day is to stay off-line as much as possible and just have a lovely quiet day at home.

Sparky also let me sleep late this morning, for which I am grateful, and even slept in the bed with me after checking on me at the usual time I get up. The no-alarm confused him, I think–hey you’re supposed to get up to the loud noise–which is why he curled up in the crook of my legs and went to sleep.Yesterday was fine. It was a relatively easy and mellow day at the office, and I ran some errands when I got off work. Paul got home while I was catching up on the news, and we watched another episode of Furious, which took another turn last night I wasn’t expecting. We’re caught up now, and have to wait for the next episodes to air, so we can catch up on The Shards and Reacher in the meantime. There’s also a couple of movies streaming that I want to see–Obsession and The Devil Wears Prada 2. And the final season of Outer Banks dropping today on Netflix like another birthday present for me. I also want to read more today, and finish the birthday newsletter I started…but there’s no rush. It’s about getting older and not being ashamed or afraid of the word old. I wouldn’t, for example, want to be younger now than I am, and frankly, now that my health is pretty far along on its way to 100%, I actually feel pretty good most of the time other than the occasional ache or pain; and you know, I was often sore when I was younger because I worked out.

And yes, we are definitely seeing the new Spider-Man tomorrow.

I also got caught up on the new season of Real Housewives Ultimate Girls’ Trip, and I have to say I really am enjoying seeing the other women bonding over not liking Vicki. Them’s my girls!

So, I am going to get another cup of coffee and have some breakfast. There’s a load of laundry I want to do, and the dishes need to be done, and some minor straightening up I also need to get done and handled, and get cleaned up as well. Sparky has calmed down now enough for me to safely navigate the apartment without getting attacked, so it’s also safe out there.

Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will see you tomorrow morning!

A very young Michael Biehn posing as St. Sebastian

Express Yourself

Wednesday, Wednesday, my last day of work this week! And yes, it’s my Birthday Eve. The last day of being sixty-four. Am I having heavy thoughts about being old and officially a senior citizen? Fuck no. I’m happy I made it this far–the odds were not in my favor. I turned twenty-one the year the New York Slimes first reported the appearance of a strange illness that only seemed to affect gay men (later, Haitians and injection drug users were added to the list), and when I came all the way out eight years later, I just figured I was going to eventually get infected and die. It never happened–I really have lived a charmed life–and there were any other number of close calls with death throughout my life; so many, in fact, that sometimes I forget them all.

That’s a rather somber start, isn’t it?

I slept very well last night, which was marvelous, even if I didn’t want to get up and feel a bit groggy this morning. Yesterday was a nice day at work–not terribly busy and thus was able to keep up on things. I was able to come straight home from work–tonight I have to go pick up the mail and do a very minor grocery run–and spent some nice time with Sparky sleeping in my lap. Paul went out to dinner with a friend, so I was home alone with the kitty for most of the evening. I watched another episode of The Burbs, which I am loving, and did some chores before going to bed relatively early.

College football is a mere couple of weeks away now; LSU opens with Clemson in Baton Rouge over Labor Day weekend, and my Saturdays will officially become dedicated to college football again. Thge preseason polls are out; LSU is ranked 11th in one and 13th in the other. Coming off a tragic 7-6 season that finished off Brian Kelly1‘s time in Baton Rouge (I don’t mind the season since it rid of us of him), that’s kind of surprising. I know everyone is expecting magic this first season with Lane Kiffin as coach, but we should really temper our excitement some. The schedule is brutal, and includes games at two places that want Coach Kiffin burned in effigy if not reality; Tennessee and Mississippi. These polls are not quite as bad as last year, though, which had LSU in the top five after beating Clemson in the opener, which was insane. No one knew whether either team was any good at the time, and Clemson has definitely not been on brand for quite some time now. Polls mean nothing, in football as in politics, and all that matters is what happens on the field on Saturdays. Obviously, I’d love to see LSU make a run for the natty, but it’s also not the end of the world if we’re not there yet.

Is it wrong to be looking forward to the long weekend so much? I don’t know that I’ll do a whole lot on my birthday tomorrow; I usually take the day off from anything approximating actual work–I’ll do chores and read for a bit, of course–but for the most part, I plan on being bored as fuck tomorrow. I think we’re going to Costco this weekend, and we’re planning on seeing Spider-Man. Not a lot of plans for a four day weekend, right? I do think tomorrow I will stay off-line most of the day. I have a newsletter to get out and a blog entry to write, and once that’s taken care of, I am walking away from the computer. Sounds heavenly, doesn’t it?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, and I’ll see you here again tomorrow morning. See you then!

The Sipsey River bottoms on my uncle’s farm. The river was high that spring.
  1. Hey, I was at least willing to give him a chance. He wound up ending worse than he started. ↩︎

Cherish

Monday and back to the office with me today. Yesterday was kind of nice, to be honest. I started clearing out old drafts of posts here; moving them over to the newsletter because they are all longer than I am willing to do here on the blog. It was kind of fun going back to see the ideas I had for longer posts–including ones talking about writing Timothy and A Streetcar Named Murder, which I should really finish and get posted–assuming, of course, that people who get the newsletter are interested in that sort of thing.

Yesterday was kind of nice. I had a short something to write, so I took a few moments and gathered some thoughts and dashed out a rough draft to send to them to see if I was on the right track…apparently I was because they loved it and I don’t have to worry about it anymore. I guess I can go ahead and cross that off my list.

I also spent some time cleaning up and organizing computer files–long overdue, and very time-consuming, but it’s a very good start for now. I now have a nice file for New Orleans Nemesis and even thicker files on works currently in progress. It’s kind of fun, if a little bit daunting, to see how much stuff I need to get done, but I am also getting into the swing of my life again. I feel much better, am not tired all the time anymore, and while there are definitely times when my mind needs to just rest, those moments are becoming fewer and further between. The house didn’t need a lot of chores done, either, so I was able to sit in my chair, watch documentaries on history (some excellent ones about World War II, and some Spanish history through the kings and queens) while I cleaned up my back-up hard drive and organized computer files. The next chapter of the book in progress is forming in my head, and so this week while I wait for those thoughts to coalesce, this week is going to be about clearing up continuity in the four current chapters. I also have to make sure my tenses are correct; I am not used to writing in the present tense, and when my character thinks about the past…that can be in past tense but do I switch back every time I need to? The real nuts and bolts of being a writer here, folks.

I feel pretty good this morning; I slept really well and thus feel rested this morning. I only have to go in three days this week because the birthday is Thursday and why work on Friday if I am taking Thursday off? Doesn’t make sense to me, so I took them both off. We’re also in a heat advisory still, but nothing really new there. I am going to make some groceries on the way home tonight and have some things that need to be done at the office today in addition to seeing my clients. But I am not doing anything on Thursday, the big day itself; that will be my day to just stay home and do not a goddamned thing besides read and watch television. That will be lovely, and I think I will probably stay off-line all day, too.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back again in the morning. See you then!

The Sipsey River. Alabama is really beautiful.

White Heat

Pay my bills, pay my telephone bills, pay my bi-ills….

There’s always a song cue in my life; and every time Pay the Bills Wednesday rolls around, I always hear “Bills, Bills, Bills” by Destiny’s Child in my head, even though the song is about a leech boyfriend, not losing a lot of your paycheck to bills…but that big Entergy bill is worth every penny in the summer. I have to say air conditioning is a gift from heaven that we should not turn out backs on, or scoff at. Now that the air is working again in my car, it’s made a huge difference. I wasn’t sweaty and crabby when I got home from work yesterday; I felt good. Maybe it was also because I remembered the injection was due on Monday (I forgot Monday with all the car stuff), and did it yesterday morning? I don’t know, I don’t need to know why I feel so much better, but all of these things could easily be related. Feeling how the car a/c works now has me wondering how long the a/c wasn’t functioning properly? It took that truly nasty heat dome thing to make me finally realize something was wrong with it.

Yesterday wasn’t a bad day. I only added 300 words last night to the book, but that’s because I know the rest of the chapter is going to be hard. (This is the part when I’m on deadline when I just type finish this scene later, which always makes me want to cry to the heavens when the deadline is soon and I get to that in the revision…I know I am not the only person who does this, either.) But I do feel like the better I am feeling, the easier the writing is going to be? Does that make sense?

Are all these heterosexual hockey romance shows doing as well as Heated Rivalry did? I know they aren’t a cultural phenomenon the way the queer hockey show and I literally have seen no conversations about any of them, anywhere. So typically Hollywood to get the wrong message, isn’t it? “People must have watched for the hockey! IMAGINE if the romances were STRAIGHT? We’ll be printing money!” Yeah, no, that’s not the right lesson….but at least when those shows fail, we won’t get blamed for them; which may make them think even deeper about Heated Rivalry’s virality, but I doubt it. They’ll just think it was a fluke, or it was the cast. Which is good for the cast, of course, but not so much those of us who want to see same-sex relationships. But these are the people who saw the huge success of Barbie and thought the takeaway was “more toy movies!” No, it meant you finally gave women a reason to go to the movies and they turned up in droves…as well as anyone else who wanted to see a good film with a feminist message critiquing modern society and culture.

It’s astonishing how bad Hollywood can be at originality and creativity. Billy Wilder would be making pictures for television now if he were in his prime currently because his movies wouldn’t be seen as bankable.

Can I just say that Abdul el-Sayed is hot, hot, hot? Then again, he’s also very smart and quick on his feet, which is even more hot, in my opinion. Interesting, though how the centrist battle–cry of vote blue no matter who only applies, apparently, to white straight men. These are the same kind of Democrats who tried to water down the New Deal and did water down the Affordable Care Act…even if we do take congress back this fall from the Unwashed Flat Ass Party doesn’t mean they’ll accomplish anything because, well, Fetterman and other Democrats like him. There’s always at least one Trump sympathizer running for the Senate to sabotage any and everything and to completely back him (looking at you, racist Vindman with the skank wife in Florida), because we will always have the Sinema and Manchin sell-outs (I really hope the rest of her life is even more miserable than she deserves, and she should never go out in public without being heckled; same with Manchin. I hate her, more, though, not because she’s a woman because she’s an out bisexual who stabbed her own community in the back repeatedly to stand with McConnell and Trump like the syphilitic quisling skank1 she is.)

Furious is really good, y’all. It goes far beyond the usual “FBI agent starts tracking serial killer” trope, by getting more deeply into who Alice Black is as a character, why she left the police, and why she is the way that she is–cold, driven, thoroughly professional without empathy, which can be hard to watch when she’s interrogating a teenager who witnessed her father’s murder–but we know why she’s the way she is…she is working her way through PTSD from an abusive relationship, and it’s an extraordinary performance by the always underrated Emmy Rossum. And given the motivations of the killer, I’m not really sure she qualifies as a serial killer–because, yes, the bodies are piling up, but their connection is through her having been trafficked as a child…so yes, she is a very clever and vicious killer, but at the same time she is a victim and her tormentors are horrible people who would never see justice for what they did…another stinging indictment of our society and culture, really.

Injustice for one is injustice for all. I was taught that in grade school. I guess my public education was “woke,” even as it indoctrinated us all in white supremacy and American Exceptionalism.

I am very sorry to add Nicholas Hoult, whom I’ve enjoyed watching since Warm Bodies, to the “dead-to-me-will-never-watch-again” fake queer ally list. Hope your HBO check from the Chatelaine of Castle Hate is worth it. *Cough* Sydney Sweeney *cough*. This is why it is impossible for queer people to ever completely trust straight people–they will always choose their wallets over any “alliance” with a marginalized group. A shame, because I loved Superman, but …no views, clicks, or money from me going forward. The thing these people forget is that we never do. We also never forgive. Even an apology–which won’t be coming, believe you me–and withdrawal from the hate project won’t suffice for me.

You see, I believe people when they tell me who they are. Bye bye, Felicia! You’re not an ally if you’re only one when it doesn’t affect your bottom line. Thanks but no thanks.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you tomorrow

I’ve had a crush on gorgeous Latino hunk/actor/model William Levy since he was on Dancing with the Stars…can you blame me?
  1. Bisexual erasure is bad enough without skanks like her making them all look bad. ↩︎

True Blue

Monday morning after a car-free (yes, not a typo) weekend, and I have to take a Lyft to work this morning. Not a big deal, really; just a matter of timing. I left my work badge in the car when I dropped it off–it never occurred to me to take it, because I didn’t think they’d keep the car all weekend, either. Not a big deal. The big deal will be trying to figure out when I can go pick the car up once it’s finished as I have clients scattered throughout the day, and picking the car up will require another ride. Sigh. But at least I’ll have the car back and I can make some groceries on the eay

I also sent out a new newsletter yesterday, which you can read here. It’s about The Vampire Lestat, which we finished and thoroughly enjoyed, and really, Sam Reid is everything. It felt good to get that sent out, and I also was able to work on the book some yesterday, too. I also read some more of the book I am reading, which I am enjoying and savoring, and probably reading too slow because the language and voice are so hypnotic. I also upgraded the operating systems of both my laptop and desktop; who knew these upgades would, for once, actually be convenient? I was never able to access the back-up hard drive from the laptop, but now I can! Which means I can work on cleaning up my files while in my easy chair and watching television, whenever my mind doesn’t want to work too hard, I can do that. Needless to say, this is epic. (It may not even be that big of a deal, and I may have just not known how to do it before, but now it’s super-easy.)

We lost Frank Perez over the weekend, which is a real loss for the New Orleans queer community. Frank was dedicated to the history of queer New Orleans, and a big part of the scene here. I’ve read several of his histories and loved them all. He was also the driving force behind the LBGTQ+ historical archive in the Quarter, and his walking tours were also popular. We’ll miss you, Frank. I hate that we keep losing literary legends in this town…buy his books, please.

So, last night we started watching The Shards. I remember when the book came out, and it just seemed too meta…the author of Less Than Zero writes another book in the same setting, only this time it’s got the author writing a book about his friends while they are dealing with a serial killer situation. It’s a Ryan Murphy show (of course–stay away from Connor Storrie, Murphy!) so it’s glitzy and gorgeous, and there’s even nepo stunt casting (Cindy Crawford’s daughter! Richard Gere’s son! Cindy and Richard used to be married! Meta meta meta). The soundtrack was killer, of course, and hilariously, the standout set from the film Less Than Zero–the wall of televisions–appears in episode 2. It’s interesting enough, the acting is so-so, but we’ll keep watching, primarily because the main character is either bi or gay, but the men part is very deeply closeted. There’s also some poignance with that, too, but I can never get past how much the actor in the lead looks like Topher Grace, so I keep thinking Eric Forman with money.

I may order the book. I don’t know. I hated Less Than Zero, but loved The Rules of Attraction, and those are the only Ellis novels I’ve read. I can only take so much of the boredom and excesses of rich kids–I knew too many rich, spoiled brats in college who loved nothing so much as leaving behind messes for other people to clean up. (I suppose Ellis has been compared/contrasted to Fitzgerald?)

I did see some posts over the weekend talking about “straight actors who played gay early in their careers”, and they mentioned Dermot Mulroney…who I’d forgotten was in it; he was one of the first in the movie to die from the strange new disease. As heartbreaking as that movie is, it’s my favorite movie about the HIV/AIDS crisis. I started thinking about it more, and remembered how much better it was than Philadelphia (which I hated)…and thought, maybe I should rewatch them both and see if I still feel the same way about both? Needless to say, you can’t stream Longtime Companion anywhere, even to rent, but of course Philadelphia is available. Grrr.1

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Enjoy your Monday, and I hope it’s not as wacky and turned around as mine is turning out to be!

  1. Has anyone done a definitive critical analysis of HIV/AIDS books and movies? I’d love to read that. ↩︎

Love Makes the World Go Round

Sunday already? #madness. I am up early this morning after a good night’s sleep, and I feel pretty good. Yesterday wound up being one of those days where I didn’t do much of anything, and I am not one bit sorry about it, so there, LOL. I am not going to allow myself that luxury today, of course, and at least I should be able to get some reading and cleaning done. Or not. I had the television on, but don’t really remember a whole lot of yesterday and that’s also really fine. My time is my own, although I have some things starting to percolate. Another shared anthology is in the works (with Art Taylor and Donna Andrews for Jeffrey Marks’ Crippen & Landru Press), I have a short essay due by the end of the month, and of course, there’s always the book, the newsletter, and some short stories I want to write for upcoming submissions calls. I am trying to get back into the riding saddle again, but I have to be better about my time management, too. That’s the problem with a lot of free time; you can also wind up wasting time because you think you have plenty of it.

And you never do.

It was a bit gloomy when I got up this morning, but the sky has seemingly cleared. We may get some rain this afternoon, which would be nice and cooling. The temperatures have dropped to the low nineties/high eighties, which is more normal for summer in New Orleans, but I have no doubt we’ll get more blast-furnace heat by the end of the month; Labor Day weekend is always insanely hot and humid (which always made Southern Decadence more fun). But the summer is nearing its end (we won’t have cooler weather until October, but the humidity lessens some after Labor Day. A quick perusal of the weather channel and there is a disturbance out in the Atlantic, but no concerns for the moment. With my luck, it’ll probably come here and I’ll have to evacuate for my birthday. (It was my birthday the weekend before Katrina.) No sense borrowing trouble, as my mother used to say–which was funny, given she had generalized anxiety disorder and thus worried about everything,

Everything she could control, at any rate.

It’s kind of nice having my own dialed back to something manageable, seriously.

I am feeling both lazy and productive at the same time this morning. I need to eat something and get some more coffee, for one thing. I’ve got my journal right here with me, and I keep pausing to take notes. I also have The Last House on Needless Street here with me that I can dip into every once in a while, along with my reread of Celebrity. I have two newsletters I can get finished and out soon, and there are also a couple of others I am still working on. There’s always something for me to write, isn’t there? But one thing I definitely want to do this morning is organize the submission calls that I want to try to write something for as well–organizing is something I always enjoy, and it helps when you can look at everything in one single solitary place. I have finally accepted that my once sharp memory is now a thing of the past, and frequently am amazed at what I have forgotten.

I was thinking about this while reading another chapter of Needless Street, and about how wrong so many of my memories of Alabama have so often proven to be…this bothered me quite a bit, since I’ve visited the home county more times in the last four years than I have in the last forty. It bugged me mostly because I have written fiction set there in a fictionalized version based on memory, and if the memories are incorrect…(the reason is it–the book– reminds me of something similar I have been working on for the last decade or so; my own creepy house down the street in a small town and horrors from the past. This morning, the anvil dropped on my head. Fictional version are the keywords here; it’s based on, not an actual representation of the county. I swear to God, I wish I weren’t so literal and stubborn and oblivious, you know? Sometimes I wonder if I’d have been better off were I not that way; look at the difference dialing back the anxiety has made. Things to think about and consider, at any rate.

So Miss North Carolina was dethroned this week, so naturally the bitch tried to make it about religious persecution, so she could go the Riley Gaines route in conservative media…and then the pageant released the racist posts where she freely threw around the n word. Sit your racist ass down, skank, and have a folding chair. The “asshole whiner to conservative darling” grift is an entire thing, and always so sadly predictable. Your faith made you a racist piece of shit, did it? Have fun explaining that to your God before he sends you to hell, bitch. And how awesome is it that the title now passes on to a Black woman? Chef’s kiss, no notes–although to be honest, I wasn’t aware that beauty pageants, er scholarship contests, were still a thing.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Sunday, y’all. I’ll be back in the morning.

I cannot believe I’ve never written a Scotty with a chase scene across balconies in the Quarter.

Borderline

Friday morning and here we go.

You will be pleased to know that I am yet again certified for CPR, for the thirty-first time or so. This is more of an intense version–the clinic thing–and some things have changed, so I am glad I had to do it again this year. I’ve never had to use it–we have an emergency response team that responds to a code call–and some of the people in my department are on that team (I’ve seen them save multiple lives over the years) but it’s nice to know I can help if necessary.

I am about to get a second cup of coffee and start getting ready to take the car to the body shop. I’ll just grab a Lyft home. I have an on-line meeting at nine, and plenty of work to keep my busy this work at home Friday. It’s also supposed to rain this afternoon, and it’s under eighty degrees this morning–under eighty in New Orleans in August? Madness. I wasn’t tired after work yesterday, but didn’t do a whole lot when I got home other than pick up some things and catch up on the news. (Always a pleasure to do…) We did watch the season finale of The Vampire Lestat, which was different from the ending of the book but definitely ended on a cliff-hanger, which was an interesting choice. I also slept really well again, which was lovely. I am hoping for a good weekend again, but don’t really have any plans for the weekend other than reading, writing, some errands, and cleaning. I did finish reading Love in the Afternoon and Evening (more on that later), and hope to make some progress on The Last House on Needless Street as well.

Okay, the car has been dropped off at the body shop I use on the Earhart1, and I was sweating in buckets by the time the Lyft came–which was deliciously cold when I climbed into the back seat. Ah, this is what it’s supposed to feel like inside a car in the summer. The way New Orleanians forget every year how hot it gets in the summer needs to be studied–along with the comment “I don’t remember it getting this hot before” which is part of that protective amnesia I suppose. I said that on social media to a friend–who’d had dinner with someone earlier in the week who’d said the same thing. We do tend to talk about the weather here a lot, even if it’s just “whew, shore is hot this mornin’/afternoon/evenin’.” (Which is why Elmore Leonard’s writing advice to never start with the weather doesn’t work here. It affects everything.)

But “how to write” manuals are merely authors (or professors) telling others who are interested in writing and getting better. Nothing is tried or true in writing; one of the reason I turn off the spell/grammar check in word is because sometimes I want to use a sentence that may not be grammatically correct–and don’t even get me started on what that shit does to a stream-of-consciousness run-on sentence inside a character’s head. We don’t think in grammatically correct sentences and paragraphs; we also don’t speak that way. I certainly don’t, but that’s also me extrapolating my experience to everyone’s experience, which is a fallacy–yet something everyone does. A few years ago I read something and knit my brows together, thinking no gay would ever–and had to stop and remind myself that actually, some probably would. Our community, after all, is no freer from quislings than any other marginalized group. Sad, but a fact. That’s the mote in our collective eyes; the default that our own experience is the default and everyone thinks like we do….like how racists assume every other white person is also a bigot. (I’ve shocked a few, which is fun.)

And on that note, I am going to make some breakfast and get ready for my meeting. Have a lovely and great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow.

The Rhode Island mansion that was a stand-in for Collinwood on Dark Shadows.
  1. I also asked for estimates for the damage acquired from other New Orleans drivers while parked. Thanks again, trash! ↩︎