Category: social media

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! ↩︎

Burning Up

Thursday morning and the last day in the office for me this week. But I slept amazingly well last night, and feel rested and refreshed this morning. Today is going to be hectic–I have back to back clients all morning, and then this afternoon I have to renew my CPR license, which will take the rest of the day. Heavy heaving sigh. I do think, though, that I can come straight home tonight and chill. That would be lovely, and I can get caught up on chores that I won’t have to do over the weekend. We can also finish The Vampire Lestat, which we are both loving, and some other new shows/seasons have dropped as well that I need to explore. I also want to finish reading my books this weekend. I read some more of Love in the Afternoon and Evening, which I am really enjoying (thanks again, Kristopher, for the recommendation), and also want to get more into the new fiction read as well as the reread.

Yesterday was a bit rough. I didn’t sleep well Tuesday night (I may have forgotten to take my night time pills), and so was either over-caffeinated or tired most of the day at work. It was just busy enough to keep me on my toes, but not so busy I was miserable. Oddly enough, I did catch a second wind later in the afternoon–which was a relief, as I had a dinner date–and came home and changed before heading uptown to Le Petit Grocery for dinner, which was superb. (I even allowed myself a dirty martini, but just one.) The company was even more superb, as it always is–I really do have the most amazing friends. I actually didn’t feel tired at dinner, and yes, of course I got tired when I got home, but…I slept amazing last night and feel fantastic this morning.\

Yesterday was a bit on the insane side, at least in the world of social media and author organizations. I only currently belong to ITW (no membership fee) and Sisters in Crime. (Sisters always has and always will have a special place in my heart because they’ve all been so great and supportive of me, personally and professionally.) I’ve not belonged to HWA in a long time, but not out of any sense of oh they are so awful or anything like that; I chaired World Horror Con for them here in New Orleans in whatever year that was (I want to say 2014, but it may have been 2015; who can keep track anymore?), which I actually enjoyed doing, working mostly with Rocky Wood and Lisa Morton–and I became very fond of them both. When I saw the first rumbles about a controversy involving their newsletter yesterday on-line, my first thought was literally Thank God I am not on any boards anymore and the second was oh no poor Lisa (before remembering she isn’t president anymore) and finally to I am SO glad I am not on any writer’s organization boards anymore. As for the op-ed, I know the person who wrote it, and of course, someone sent me a link so I could read it. It was…badly written and poorly argued. I saw her claim that the piece was theoretically about bullying, to which my response was clearly, straight white lady, you’ve never been bullied. No, dear, your piece was about bullying authors for using generative-AI–you know, the thing that stole my work for training purposes? No, bitch, I am never using any generative-AI in any way with my work because it is my work and they STOLE from me and almost every published author in this country. As for those writers who do use generative A.I.? I won’t bully you but I also will not read you. I lost interest in the controversy when it became apparent a lot of people were jumping on the bandwagon to slam HWA, which I wasn’t interested in. I don’t publicly bash writers’ orgs because I have sat on their boards before and I know all the concomitant difficulties–as well as battles–that happen behind the scenes. Whether I agree with the decisions they make is a different story, but I try not to critique because I also know I don’t have the whole story. HWA reacted to the backlash very quickly, removed the person from their board, and issued an apology. The bashing still went on, and yes, it can be frustrating when you’re on the outside, but I at least don’t need to know anything more, and I am not a member of HWA. I prefer to believe that everyone behind the scenes is doing the best they can at crisis management, and to give the benefit of the doubt.

But, for future reference, straight white people? Don’t use the word “gatekeepers” so blithely and freely. It’s a term for the exclusion of non-straight not-white people, and the predictable process those of us they chose to publish wind up going through–and it’s incredibly offensive to be accused of that simply because I don’t want to use, or read anything by, generative-AI. Fuck you for that cultural appropriation now and forever, even if it was unintentional, it was still incredibly offensive. Use your generative-AI if you want. But you don’t get to tell me how I can or should feel about it, unless you’re paying the rent. If not, shut the fuck up and take a folding chair.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Hope you have a lovely day, Constant Reader; I’ll be back tomorrow after I drop the car off.

L. A. Knight from WWE

Love Without Words

Saturday, August 1, and coniglio! Coniglio!

Let’s see if that works; it did for Trixie Belden in The Mystery of the Emeralds.

It’s Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment. Sparky got me up before seven this morning–His Majesty was HUNGRY–and I decided to get up and feed him. Once I was out of the bed, I decided to get cleaned up and get going on my day. Yesterday sucked–I won’t go into the details, but suffice it to say the a/c in my car still isn’t working and I need to take it to another place first because some “body work” needs to be done, and it really doesn’t sound cheap–but I am shaking it off today. I’ve never had to spend much money on this car since buying it and it’s been about ten years. So, let it go, I can’t do anything about it until Monday, anyway, and why let that spoil my weekend when I have free time, I still feel good, and tomorrow we’re going to go see the new Spider-Man movie. So, lots to look forward to, and today I am going to try to get some stuff done around here. I need to order groceries for delivery (too hot to drive there and back), and I need to get the house back under control again. It’s not that bad, but the last couple of days I’ve let things slide a bit. I did read some of my book yesterday, and it’s really fantastic. We caught this week’s Sugar, and I think tonight we’ll dive into The Vampire Lestat.

I also have those Emily Wilson translations to dip into, as well. And a newsletter to get out, but them not going out consistently has been an issue from the first, and I do suspect the only person I am actually disappointing with any of this is me, you know? But they are fun to write, and while I do forget things I wanted to say in them from time to time, and I don’t proof them as thoroughly as I should before they go out, but I am also not going to get anxious or stressed about them. Paul is going to work with his trainer today and then is going to ride the bike at the gym, so I should have the entire afternoon to myself for downtime, reading and writing and more cleaning. Why is there always more cleaning to do? Heavy heaving sigh. I did decide to treat myself to a long birthday weekend this month, so I have my birthday and the Friday after to accept that I am officially elderly. It doesn’t bother me (much); it’s more shocking to me that I made it this far, with so much stacked against me. Making it to 65 as a gay man in this country was no small accomplishment, but honestly? Pure damn luck. I made it through the HIV pandemic without getting infected–miracle of miracles, especially when it seemed so damned unlikely any of us would make it through with anything other than PTSD and guilt. (The guilt has always been tough for me to deal with–why me? Why did so many wonderful and talented and brilliant people die? And yes, I’ve been thinking about this since the circus the other day with Dr. Fauci, whose true crime to conservatives is that he helped stop gay men from dying.)

Maybe I do see homophobia everywhere, but you know what? That’s what it almost always is–enough times that it’s not a surprise when that does turn out to be the case.

It also pleases me to no end to see Tom Holland and Zendaya starring in the two biggest movies of the summer. I’ve always liked her, and of course, his lip-sync to Rihanna made me a life long fan of our short king. He is also one of the rare examples of a child star who grew up into a successful and always working adult actor/star.

I was also amused to see the Department of Justice and that pig Jeannine Pirro had to drop charges against “reflecting pool vandals” when it turned out to be a result of shoddy installation on a (surprise!) a no-bid contract for one of the Harkonnens’ friends? Everything the Baron said about the reflecting pool was a lie (as everyone with a brain and one working eye could see), and his minions jumped in line–against all reason, against all sanity, and above all else, against the Constitution–to snap to his insane logic and mentality and excuses. His supporters should never be allowed in public again without being shamed for the bootlicking quislings they are. (I laugh every time they call him “Daddy”–showing they are all fucking betas and will roll over, ass end up in the air ready for his penetration) Karoline Leavitt and Jeannine Pirro will go on to jobs at Fox, next to Sophie “Maga Skipper” (Barbie would never) Cunningham.

And when this is finally all over? Watch the centrist Dems try to close the book and “move on.” We saw this after the Bush Crime Syndicate left office in 2009, and way back when the Republicans sold out southern Blacks for political power. (They haven’t changed from what they became under Grant.)

What this country has allowed itself to become makes me appreciate that I am old, and I do not ever wish I were younger. Ever. And I wouldn’t go back in time even if I could.

And on that note, I am going to get some more coffee and take my book over to my easy chair. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow morning.

I’ve always loved stained glass. I played with it as a hobby in my twenties, but could never ever dream of doing something so artistic.

Everything

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. I have to take the car over to the dealership across the river tomorrow morning, but hope to have a nice productive day once I get home from that. I intend to stay inside the cool house as much as possible. I feel rested and good this morning–my Achilles tendons are making their presence known again, but nothing unbearable, just noticeable. I slept really well last night, which is nice, and the heat is breaking at last; now we’re just in a heat advisory, rather than an extreme heat watch. I parked my car in the garage at work yesterday, so the drive home was bearable yesterday. I picked up the mail, got my copy of All Aboard for Murder by Ellen Byron, and made a little groceries. I did do some chores last night–cleaned out the sink and ran the dishwasher overnight–and did some picking up. We watched another episode of Ride or Die, which we are loving, and I went to bed. And it looks like we may get some rain this weekend, which would be marvelous; there’s nothing like New Orleans after a cooling summer downpour.

Something occurred yesterday on Facebook that hasn’t happened in quite a while; someone from one of my past eras (thanks, Taylor, for that name) appeared on my feed extolling ignorant MAGA talking points about Dr. Fauci and his testimony yesterday and of course, the people in his life were all there replying (viciously) in agreement in his comments. While I was tempted to ask, did you go back to school and get either a medical or epidemiology degree I chose instead to block him. It was also a reminder that over the years I’ve accepted friend requests from people out of a previous era mostly out of curiosity, more than anything else. I’ve also accepted friend requests from strangers since I started an account there during the Bush administration (yikes). Sometimes I get requests from names that sound familiar and I can’t place either the name or the face, so I don’t know how I know them or just that they have a familiar-sounding name. The person yesterday popped up on my feed out of nowhere, and was one of those I know I know you but don’t remember much about you which usually is an indication that, well, you’re not someone that made a deep impression on me nor do I care about you or your opinions. I saw the post, blocked the person, and then–because it hadn’t happened in so long–I posted about it blocking MAGA’s from my past. (Is anyone surprised that guys from my fraternity support an adjudicated rapist? And yes, that means exactly what you think it means.) Anyway, someone replied to my post with “Add me to the list” which was both annoying–you lazy MAGA fuck, you won’t block me?–and hilarious at the same time. Dude, I have no fucking idea who you are. Your name sounds familiar but that’s it, and do you honestly think I care what a rando MAGA piece of shit thinks? The arrogance! Like it’s some great pleasure for me to be friends with you on social media when I don’t even know who you are? For the record, MAGA is a cult with a plank for homophobia. Every single time you vote, you vote to have my rights as an American stripped away. And you think we should be friends? Fuck all the way off, and then fuck off some more.

And my wall isn’t an airport–no need to announce your departure. Have the life you voted for. I mean that with all of my heart.

For the record, the tolerant left is another Fox News lie. My tolerance went away during the HIV/AIDS pandemic–remember? “It’s killing all the right people”? If you’re looking for tolerance of your abhorrent beliefs that also mean you consider me less than human, you’re knocking on the wrong door, boo. Look for the house with the swastikas MAGA signs.

Recently, someone promoting his business, natch,did a light show on the Lalaurie mansion–without permission from either the owners or the Vieux Carre Commission. It was in incredibly poor taste–I’ve always thought it being a tourist attraction was exploitative, given the house’s horrific history, and what Delphine LaLaurie did to enslaved people shouldn’t be a folk legend told in whispers and intended to give a cheap thrill. People were tortured, maimed, and murdered there; the amount of suffering is unimaginable, and surely its in poor taste and exploitative to market that horrific past. If any piece of ground in this city is haunted, surely that lot would be it. I have always wanted to write about the Lalaurie House, but I wouldn’t want to do it in an exploitative kind of way, which I am not sure is even possible. Over a decade ago, a friend who is a horror writer suggested I should do a short story collection called Monsters of New Orleans; how could such a book be possible without including Delphine the demon? Maybe someday.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow before (or after) my trip to the West Bank.

Ben Pierce also does excellent Louisiana photography, and I love this shot of a foot bridge in the Atchafalaya Swamp–very evocative, and an excellent writing prop

Fragile

Wednesday and somehow, it’s Pay the Bills Wednesday again. Go figure, right? Time keeps on slipping, into the future…. Time keeps on slipping, into the future…. Time keeps on slipping, slipping, into the future….

I’ve been spacy this week and I am not really sure what that’s about, honestly. I don’t mind–I’m being productive and getting things done, but I think I’m still not used to all this free time that I have now. I’m used to worrying about things I have to do when I’m taking down time, and I’m also so used to having so much to do all the time that I can’t comprehend having actual down time without anxiety. I’m still wrapping my mind around this. Trust me, I don’t miss being that busy or that Type A in the least. So the week is going well. I haven’t been doing much reading this week, either, but after I get home tonight–depending on how miserable the drive home in the heat–I want to do some reading. This a/c in the car not working thing is very unpleasant (fortunately I am not in the car that long), so I will have to bring the car in this Friday. It’s fine, I haven’t been over to the West Bank in a while, and I should see what else I should do while I am over there. I have to make groceries on the way home, and of course, not having a/c in the car is going to make the trip even more marvelous. Heavy heaving sigh.

Yesterday was a good day, even if I was tired. The plumber is coming to look at the sink tomorrow morning, so I need to empty the dishwasher tonight and do something about the dishes in the sink, which are too dirty to load into the dishwasher, but I can at least hide them in there to get them out of the sink and out of their way. Yesterday was a nice, busy day at the office, and I stayed caught up on everything. Our site visit is today, too. Two more days of July, so I also have end of the month duties to look forward to tomorrow and Monday. Yay! I know this sounds like I’m spoiled, but not having cold air in the car during a excessive heat warning is the pits. By the time I got home yesterday I was drained; the heat just sucks your soul right out of you. I fed Sparky and gave him some attention (he loves to sit on my shoulders and head butt me) before collapsing into my easy chair to cool down from the hideous heat outside. Paul was home, so we watched some Jeopardy before diving back into Ride or Die, which we are loving. Hannah Waddingham and Octavia Spencer need to be in everything. I went to bed at a relatively decent time and slept like a stone. I’m debating running errands on the way home tonight in the heat; there are a couple of things I need, so maybe I should just swing by and make some groceries on the way home but not drive uptown for the mail until after I get the car serviced Friday morning. It does seem smarter. At least then I will know if there’s anything wrong with the a/c compressor.

Sigh.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mins. Have a lovely Wednesday, and I will see you tomorrow on my last day in the office for the week day blog.

This is such an 80’s look! Sweaty and everything torn for a glimpse of lovely skin. And lots and lots of oil.YayYay