Category: social media

Jane

Tuesday and feeling somewhat better this morning. I just hate the whole head congestion thing, along with the scratchy throat and phlegmy cough. Not a fan–but are there people who like being sick? I suppose there are; anything you think is too outrageous for people to be into is more about your own naivete, really. It was smart to not go into the office yesterday–I don’t remember if I mentioned it yesterday or not, but I got up early and was sick, so I called out for the day. Sniffling, sneezing and coughing while working in a clinic? Not wise. I do feel much better this morning, and hope to make it through the day. I feel rested, which is always best, and a good night’s sleep definitely helped. I watched more of Season 1 of the UK Traitors (the OG, if you will)–it’s fun; every day people and it is the first season ever, so you can see how they learned to make the show better as they went. This first group didn’t have a clue about the game going in–everyone in every season later had a season to watch to get a grasp of how it works, so for this group, everything catches them by surprise–the challenges remain similar, with slight alterations per season. Sparky slept in my lap most of the day, which was also lovely, so overall, outside of feeling awful–I hate when my joints ache and my eyes water–it wasn’t too terrible.

I also tried for a bit to catch up on the news, but it was all so depressing I couldn’t bear it for terribly long. To heal my brain and soul from that horror, I spent some time looking at fan videos about the Heated Rivalry boys. For whatever reason, they–and their friendship–just please me endlessly. It’s always lovely when new stars explode into the night sky, isn’t it? I don’t know if we are conditioned to love rags-to-riches stories or if it’s organic within our psyches, but it’s so lovely to see two talented young men who were waiting tables a year ago become two of the most beloved actors on the planet, isn’t it? I remember seeing that video, where they were going to crash the viewing party at a gay bar in West Hollywood, and were worried no one would recognize them…of course, everyone did and loved and welcomed them, which was so nice. They genuinely seem like level-headed young men who are just as shocked as anyone they’ve blown up the way they did, and also seem to be very appreciative of it all. I do remember how it felt to publish my first book, to be considered a peer by other authors, and my first interactions with people who’d read my book. Mine wasn’t even remotely close to what they are experiencing, and it just brings me joy to see them (along with some of the Olympic athletes) enjoying the unexpected ride. I don’t think they’ve had much time to process anything–it literally blew up overnight–but I hope they never lose that sense of “is this really happening to me” that is so much fun to watch.

The primary war between Senator Bill Cassidy and “liberal” (as if) Julia Letlow continues to be entertaining, if tedious. Letlow’s finally dug her heels in and started throwing mud back at Cassidy–mainly, his vote to impeach their foul lord and master–and while it is fun watching MAGA Republicans turning on each other, you can only see those ads so many times before they become boring and old and tired. I do find it interesting that Letlow’s voice-over actor is a man, while Cassidy’s is a woman. It’s interesting to me that they use a differently gendered voice to smear their opponent, and what does that mean? Since Letlow is a woman, they need to have a man attack Cassidy, and vice versa? Is there some sexism/misogyny at play here? Is it because its “ungentlemanly” for Cassidy to attack a woman, so they hired a woman voice over actor? Likewise, does using a male voice for Letlow’s ad mean to convey strength–“I may be a woman, but here’s a man to make my case for me”? It also sent me down a wormhole of wondering who these voice actors are, and if there’s a playbook for political voice actors–“stress this word, draw out that one, lower your voice here” and so on. I wonder if there are more of these style voice actors (“running a racist campaign? Have we got the woman voice actor for YOU”) or if it’s just this man and woman doing them for everyone…and it does make you wonder a bit about the voice actors, doesn’t it?

I think me getting sick–Paul was sick last week, and undoubtedly passed it on to me as he recovered–was kind of a good thing, in a weird way. I don’t really recall having anything else wrong with me the last few years other than the big things–which kind of took up all of my head space–but I honestly don’t remember the last time I dosed myself with DayQuil before this past weekend, which is kind of a good thing? I have to remember, always, that my immune system is compromised, thanks to the ulcerative colitis, and the medication I take for it also makes me more prone to infection, and so I need to be a lot more careful about being exposed to things when I am out and about. So, getting this first cold or whatever it may be was an excellent reminder to be careful–although there’s not much I can do when Paul brings something home to me, is there?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning!

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Kick It

Well, I intended to get up early today and get a job on it, but I stayed up later than I intended and I was very comfortable–I even got up to feed Sparky and went right back to bed like a lag-a-bed–and so I figured what the hell and stayed in bed relaxing and napping until finally I got up. I stayed up too late watching Connor Storrie on Saturday Night Live–intending to see the monologue and then either watch the whole show or clips this morning. Yet I stayed up, watching, and next thing we knew it was midnight and we’d watched the entire show for the first time in decades. This will always be a Heated Rivalry and everything related to it fan account; it’s a show that brings me joy, and the endless enthusiasm worldwide for the show and everything connected to it also brings me joy. I’ll talk more about last night’s episode, and everything that goes along with that a bit later on.

Dan Simmons, a writer I used to admire, died recently. I had read some of his works in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Carrion Comfort, Summer of Night, Children of the Night) and I really enjoyed the books. I had also read both Song of Kali and Fires of Eden, which I enjoyed but made me very uncomfortable–they reminded me of early twentieth century books about “exoticized” locations and peoples; Song of Kali even seemed like a “means well but still offensive” juvenile series book for kids written pre-1970–and having been to Hawaii, Fires of Eden was an interesting take, I thought at the time, on the old Hawaiian gods; now being more aware than I was when I was a clueless dolt, it’s probably deeply offensive to indigenous Hawaiians. I stopped reading Simmons when I moved away from reading horror to reading exclusively crime and/or queer lit; I’d even forgotten about him entirely until I was judging an award one year and his novel Flashback was entered. “Oh, Dan Simmons! I love his work and had forgotten about it” only to read and see that all it was just a lengthy diatribe that’s message was nearly as conservative and ignorant as anything written by Ayn Rand. The main character is a former college liberal arts professor in a dystopian world ruined by things like free health care and everyone granted a guaranteed income, which naturally led to the collapse of everything good and decent and meaningful in the world–and there was a lot of talk how electing a Black president in 2008 was the beginning of the end. I gave it a zero rating on my judging form, threw it in the garbage, and vowed to never read, or reread, anything he wrote ever again. I don’t give my money to homophobes. I did like the television mini-series of his novel The Terror, despite its blatant homophobia (of course the gay sailor is the villain, because of course), but I was also amused that the second season was a slap in Simmons’ face, focused on the internment of Japanese Americans during the second world war–I’m sure he was a fan of those camps, given his politics. I did feel a bit of a pang when I heard he’d died (one of those too bad he wasted his talent by becoming a fascist), but he really was a good writer, and yes, a shame that happened to him.

Oh, well. It’s a nice day outside today, too!

Yesterday was a pretty good day, overall. I got some much-needed rest, did some chores around here, ran some errands, and was a kitty bed for Sparky for a good while. I have some more chores to do this morning, of course, and I am not really going to plan to do anything today. Plans don’t always seem to happen the way I want them to on the weekends, and making plans and announcing them publicly isn’t really the smart way to go here, because then I have to come here and make excuses for myself, or admit to not operating as efficiently as I like to think of myself being. Which, now that I think about it, is definitely a me thing, a holdover from the anxiety and my youthful training to not be lazy–as though taking it easy and resting and relaxing is somehow a bad thing. I keep finding all these habits and mental things that are all coping mechanisms I built up over the years to handle the anxiety, or try to manage it, at any rate.

We also watched Reality Check, about Tyra Banks and America’s Next Top Model, which we used to watch back in the day, and really, none of what they depicted in the documentary came as a surprise. I saw how they treated the bigger girls, I saw how they slut-shamed Shandi, and so forth. We didn’t watch the show as it aired, but would watch the marathons cable channels would run on the weekends, so it was comfort watching while recovering from going out the night before–lying on the couch, ordering a pizza, no energy, etc.–and everyone excused everything by saying “yes, well, this is the industry”–instead of “we should be fighting to change this.” The world and culture is very different now than it was when the show first started airing, but I’m not precisely sure when we stopped watching; probably when the weekend marathons were discontinued. Even with all the new attention the show has gotten this decade (people found it during lockdown), Tyra still seems to think she didn’t do anything bad or anything wrong, there’s no real accountability other than “I wouldn’t do that now.” (She also wasn’t the first Black supermodel, so I don’t know why she is fine with erasing Naomi Sims? I don’t know modeling that well (it’s not something I’ve ever cared enough about, frankly, to pay much attention to), so maybe there were others before Tyra that I don’t know or remember, but I am pretty damned sure Naomi Sims was before Tyra. I could be wrong.

I really enjoyed watching Saturday Night Live, and while some of the skits didn’t hit, he certainly did. He was terrific on live television! I also loved that they used his old skit from clown school–stripper hit by a car on the way to a bachelorette party–and he was terrific at the physical comedy it required (plus, we got to see him in a bikini, but it wasn’t gratuitous or sexy, which was a lovely flip and a metaphor about always have to deliver for fans), and his monologue was terrific. Like everyone, I was a little bothered by CAA and NBC (hockey AND the Olympics) using his luster and star power to rehabilitate the boys’ team’s image–horribly unfair, especially given how new his star is and not even considering the damage it could cause his image–but the quiet, polite applause when the NFL’s “chosen sacrificial lambs came on stage, and their awkward faces was perfect. They looked like two little boys who wanted to be anywhere else rather than where they were, sorry they got caught and sorry they had to be there, but if they didn’t want to lose Internet privileges they had to do this. They also didn’t look ashamed or sorry, either. But the looks on their faces when Hilary Knight and Megan Keller got long, sustained applause and cheers–something they didn’t get, and never will now outside of a hockey arena–their little bubble finally pierced and they realized oh man we really did fuck up those cheers would have been for US had we not fucked up and I think I watched Toothless Jack die a bit inside. Once again, the women have to clean up after the men, after the men not only laughed at their accomplishments with a rapist pedo and turned the entire conversation about the women’s gold medal into “about what the men did”–you not only buried the national pride in your own medal but built up at the women at your own expense. I also loved how Tkachuk was cornered into admitting his god-king used and embarrassed him on the global stage–I also love how clips of him getting absolutely drilled on the ice are going viral every time it happens. Close the Northern border indeed.

Schadenfreude and her sister karma are bitches indeed.

It was also exciting that Hudson Williams showed up, too!

And yes, I know what’s going on in the Middle East, but don’t have words to express how apoplectic my anger and rage is. Give me time.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back before work tomorrow morning.

Unconditional Love

Saturday morning and all is well here in the Lost Apartment. Yesterday turned out lovely, after the rain, there was this lovely chill dampness to the air that was quite nice. I got all of my work done without a problem, and worked on the house. The kitchen looks terrific now–I still need to do the floors and some touch up; same with living room–and it was nice to come downstairs to a very clean kitchen and work space. I also did all the dishes and all the laundry! I also spent some time icing my ankles, and will probably do that some more today. I never got around to writing yesterday, and I didn’t read anything I have in progress already (I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with my brain lately), but as I was moving things around I picked up a couple of books that I paged through a bit (The Last Picture Show and Michelangelo, but more on those later), so that’s something. I watched the reunions for The Traitors seasons 3 and 4, which were fun (more on those later). When Paul came down, I finished the day’s chores and settled in for the LSU-Dartmouth baseball game, before we switched over to the LSU Gymnastics meet against Alabama (yes, if you didn’t know already, we are a very LSU house), and then it was off to bed. I slept really well for the first time in a while, and feel rested. My Achilles tendons also need icing this morning before I head out for my errands later this morning.

Today, I am going to pick up the mail, and make some groceries on the way back home. I had planned on washing the car, but now I don’t think I am going to. I also need to get mailing envelopes because I’ve been terribly lazy about sending the copies of my book to the people I need to; but this whole month has been kind of weird in some ways, which I am still thinking about and processing. I am also a little freaked out that tomorrow is March 1 already, but that’s how time passes in New Orleans in the first two months of the year. It also looks gray outside this morning, but it’s supposed to be sunny and warm by the early afternoon.

As I had mentioned, as I was moving books around yesterday, I came across copies of Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show and Michelangelo by William E. Wallace, both books I enjoyed, and The Last Picture Show was influential on me, I think, as a writer. The Last Picture Show was basically another, male-driven version of Peyton Place–the dark, dirty sex secrets of a small town, and it also made me a lifelong fan of McMurtry. (I also loved the film version.) I was going to reread it a few summers ago, but I gave up on the read when we got to the calf-fucking and taking Billy to the hooker who bloodied his nose. Billy was unable to give consent to anything, so from a modern reading this entire sequence is pretty disturbing, but I think I will give it another go because of how the book treats homosexuality; I’d like to see the book through that lens, and see precisely how the future Oscar winning screenwriter of Brokeback Mountain dealt with it in an early novel.

Left Coast Crime is criming right now, and of course I am enjoying everyone’s social media posts, but…I don’t have any FOMO? Considering FOMO has been a major driving factor throughout my life, and often to my own detriment, I think this is some serious personal growth. I never really liked the “pick me” side of my fractured personality, and I am not in the least bit sorry to banish that part of my brain into some remote, dusty and not easily accessed back wrinkle in the very back of my skull. I think this is a big step forward for me, you know?

Connor Storrie is hosting Saturday Night Live tonight, and I may stay up to watch some of it–I can also replay it on Peacock tomorrow morning, or find clips on Youtube if I can’t stay up that late. They are also bringing on one or two of the Hughes bros–trying to rehab them in front of the audience Connor will bring them (straight women and gay men–yeah, I am sure they’ll be embraced by the live audience and we should be prepared for NBC to mute any negative audience reactions to their stain of an appearance. Since NBC also hosts the Olympics, obviously they feel the need to rehabilitate the men who can’t say sorry, ladies, we totally fucked up in the moment and we are so sorry to spit in your faces about your accomplishments like that. You see how institutions always rally to the cause of infantile boys who never grow up? I do love the way the country has stepped up for the women, though. My favorite thing this past week has been reading the comments on the social media posts of the NHL or the teams’ accounts.

And I think a harsh critique and rebuke of that infantilizing “boys will be boys/locker room talk” enabling bullshit is in order, and could be the introduction to my essays series on masculinity. Hmmm.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow morning.

David Florentine is a great New Orleans photographer; check out his work! I especially love the spectral mist in this shot. You can check out his website here.

Destiny

Thursday and my last day in the office this week, praise Jesus. It’s not been my best week, what with the insomnia and tiredness. It’s kind of ironic that after finally getting past the endless fatigue of the past few years, and finally getting excellent sleep for months…that the insomnia has come back. I think it’s over-caffeination, frankly–lots of coffee these last few days, which wasn’t smart; yesterday morning I really felt the effects. Not to mention the endless irritation that social media has become, with bots flooding feeds with racism, misogyny, homophobia, and the most disgusting ableism and infantilization of people with people with medical conditions that I despair of this world and start rooting for the meteor strike–failing that, any extinction event on this planet would probably be a boon to the rest of the universe. I think maybe my weariness at this insane dumpster fire we’re living through might be seeping into my soul.1 I won’t let the bastards win, though–and if they send me to a camp, well, I’ll be defiant until they kill me.

I’m not, and never will be, a good little German.

And I did sleep better last night. I feel better this morning, if my legs are a bit tired. I definitely hit a wall yesterday afternoon after lunch, and was so tired that I thought it was Thursday by the end of the day. I ran an errand on the way home and had groceries delivered, and I also did some chores and picked up a bit before collapsing into my easy chair with Sparky for the evening. We finished off Season 3 of The Traitors–so much traitor on traitor violence!–and did not see that ending coming at all. Maybe when the show has been around longer, and people are more familiar with it and how it works, the players will watch past seasons and catch the patterns and shifts in how people inevitably end up going along with other people when they can’t make up their own minds–or how easily people can be manipulated and steered, which is part of its appeal, I think, and when the players talk about learning lessons about themselves from playing, I can totally see that. We at home viewers can roll our eyes at players being deceived, or making insane leaps of logic, often outsmarting themselves in the process–but we also aren’t there, and we are only being shown bits and pieces of their days and their interactions–and it is possible to bond very quickly with people when you’re completely immersed in a group with no outside contact–like fraternity hell weeks, or boot camp–and it’s also a very good lesson in how perceptive and intuitive you are–as well as making you doubt yourself. The finale of season 4 airs tonight, and we shall see if Alabama Rob can pull it off with his sweet demeanor, blue eyes, and prettiness.

Never trust a pretty Southern boy from rural Alabama. Just sayin’.

The hockey mess continues, and the Olympic players keep digging themselves in deeper, and the NHL and the teams aren’t helping matters at all, either. Every social media post gets ratioed, and apparently they are hoping to ignore it till the season ends and hope it all goes away before next season. That’s how ignorant they are in their misogyny; they don’t understand women in the least. Women are, as a general rule, incredible in their ability to maintain a grudge (I admire that because I am similar). I sure as hell carry grudges to the grave with me. I’ve been to Colorado exactly twice in my life since they passed anti-gay legislation decades ago; it has since been repealed an Colorado is mostly blue now…but I still won’t spend my money there, and my visits were work-related. I just mentally crossed Colorado off my list of places to visit, and never thought about it again. Likewise, I am not too keen on ever doing anything to help Florida economically, either. When I visit my family over in Panama City Beach-which is rare–I buy gas before I cross the state line into Florida, and make sure I wait till I cross it again on the way home. Any little bit I can do to not help their economy, I am so there.

But it looks like the women’s team–and all the women medalists–are going to have a massive celebratory party in Las Vegas thrown by Flavor Flav, and companies are stepping up to participate or sponsor it. Hope those cold double cheeseburgers and Aquafina water bottles (warm, I’ll bet) and ketchup packets in that back-ass tacky conference room was so much better than anything the women will experience in Las Vegas–and the women are also getting a lot of endorsement deals. The men’s accomplishment is forever stained and tainted by allowing themselves to be used as political props for a pedophile who hates women. Job well done, assholes. The “honor” of a White House visit? There’s no honor in being used like that, and then lapping it up as you lick the very boots of the monster who is stealing your glory and using it to prop his unpopular ass up. This will haunt you until the days you die…because the Internet is forever and if you think the women players are going to forget how you pissed all over the “friends” you pretend to “support”?

But no worries guys–there’s always prostitutes and gold-diggers to fuck. And as for the NHL’s so-called “Girl Dad” campaign? It’s kind of abhorrent now that we know those dads are okay with the sex trafficking of children. That’s a very specific version of utter ick.

Ugh.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great day, and I will be here again tomorrow!

  1. Those of you thinking the next election will change things, may I direct you to the elections of 2008 and 2020? ↩︎

Listen to the Rain

Pay-the-Bills Wednesday and I have a lot on my plate here at the midpoint of the week. I didn’t sleep very deeply these last few nights and I’m not sure why that is–I keep waking up and taking a long time to fall back asleep and it’s never really a very deep one. I think I’ve been over-caffeinating myself in the mornings, too. For some reason I drank a shit ton of coffee these last few mornings–yesterday to the point where I was jittery and shaky and slightly overheated and nauseous…which obviously probably affected my sleep this week. So today I need to not drink that much coffee, clearly. My stomach hasn’t been an issue at all since my injection Monday morning, and I feel better than I did before then. That’s a plus, to be sure. The last two nights when I get home from the office and errands I am pretty wiped out, and then of course Sparky wants me in my chair so he can bond and nap, and after that happens I’m a goner. Paul got home later, and we watched another episode of The Traitors (we’re getting to the end of season 3) before going upstairs for the evening.

That off, icky feeling eventually abated after I ate lunch yesterday, so I was able to be productive in the afternoon around my clients, which was also very nice. I knew this adjustment week after all the time off, and really only having like one full work week this year, wasn’t going to be easy, but now I need to snap out of the lethargy or whatever has been going on with me this year and affix nose firmly to grindstone. I also decided yesterday to stay off social media as much as possible, and to resist the urge to look at it when I get bored or are waiting for something; it’s a bottomless tarpit of nastiness, bots, and trolls; even the Twitter replacements aren’t nearly as fun as they were back in the day. Was it ever fun, though? I remember being trolled by assholes when I first went onto Facebook (not by choice; my publisher recommended it for “marketing”, but I don’t think it was ever effective for that) and getting into arguments with people when I didn’t realize that there actually are miserable, sad people whose only joy in enraging other people on-line. I don’t see the pleasure in that myself; but I’ve also never understood people who are deliberately awful, mean and cruel, either. Generally, when I try to understand something, I usually will write about it and that helps me make sense of it–sorting my thoughts, which come and go at a very rapid pace, always works because the thoughts are no longer scattered and ricocheting around inside my skull with thousands of other thoughts. But I’ve never had any success with creating that person because that’s so outside my personal reality? (And yes, I can be rude to people on line, but only to “people” being sexist, fascist, racist or homophobic.)

Yet just typing that out? I just figured out how to do it. A classic trope in suspense/crime from the olden days was the poison pen letter; which, obviously, nobody does anymore and most people wouldn’t even know the term (same with prank phone calls)–but wouldn’t an online, anonymous troll be the same kind of person that would send poison pen letters back in the day? Just like that, I know how to write the story and how to do it and the voice and the tone and everything.

Which is why I always take notes to organize my thoughts; writing them out solves the problem usually.

I suspect I am again going to have a tired day, alas. My legs feel tired, my eyes feel like they’ve not had enough rest, and mentally I don’t want to do anything–but am going to have to force myself to get things done here and at the office. I wonder if I maybe mixed up my pills and am not taking the right one at night? It’s possible.

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

Love is Like a River

Can we pretend yesterday was just a bad dream and start over? Sheesh.

It began with me not sleeping well on Sunday night. I was having some stomach issues on Sunday–heartburn, mostly, with an occasional side of unpleasant burping–and then remembered that oh yes, tomorrow is my injection and I can usually tell the days leading into it., which was why I wasn’t hungry or eating that much over the weekend, and the last few days of last week. Okay, fine, but the heartburn was intermittent and thus I had a night of fitful sleep where I awoke periodically, but never really fell into a really deep sleep. The reason I hit “snooze” yesterday morning just once was because it was warm and comfortable and Sparky was curled up in a ball on my pillow beside me. But I was already awake, needed to shave, and so I grabbed my sweats and ventured out in the horribly cold apartment, and down the stairs, where it was even colder. YIKES. I noticed when I was running water to fill the sink to shave that there wasn’t much water pressure.

Which, of course, led to there not being enough water pressure for the shower.

Sigh. I know it’s more a habit and a mental thing, but I never really feel awake until I’ve showered and gotten cleaned up. Once I am out of the shower, I feel ready to face the day. Not showering? A long day in which I am out of sorts literally almost all day. Turns out, a big water main near the intersection of Claiborne and Toledano burst…and it flooded the neighborhood before they were able to get it off. The drop in water pressure also led to a boil water advisory, businesses and schools closed, and so on. Such a New Orleans thing (note: put that in a Scotty book)!

After I got to work, the day leveled off and I had a relatively good day at the office, in spite of being tired and not taking a hot shower on a cold morning (cold again this morning, but at least no blizzard). Of course, the day was going to be one of those days, it’s just that none of the nonsense was work-related, more of a macro thing than anything else.

Ugh, the world was ablaze yesterday, wasn’t it? The glow I was feeling coming out of the Olympics is now gone, and I rescind my pride in the US Men’s hockey team winning gold–and their alchemic transmutation of gold to lead. Straight men in groups are always garbage, especially when they think no one who isn’t a straight white men won’t know. “Locker room talk,” that bullshit. As for the Hughes brothers, congratulations on being pieces of shit and letting us all know that your mother is one, too. I really don’t think that bitch should be in charge of the safety of young women when she excuses demeaning talk about women from her own sons. This tells me she did a shitty job of raising decent human beings, and I suspect all their “advocacy” for Pride Nights and all that is just PR. “Yay, spend your money to come see us play and buy our merch!” while calling us fags in the locker room and laughing. The minute any white woman pulls out that whole “locker room talk/boys will be boys” dismissal? That tells me she doesn’t believe rape victims, thinks sluts deserve to be raped for leading men astray. I wasn’t a hockey fan–never watch, don’t care–before this, and I won’t be watching any men’s hockey again, and certainly not the US men’s team. I hope they never qualify for another medal round at the Olympics, frankly. That trash doesn’t represent me.

I can’t imagine how the women’s team felt, seeing and hearing that after cheering the men on in every game.

At least my taxes are done. That’s something, right?

Here’s hoping for a better day today! See you tomorrow!

The height difference between the street and the sidewalk is demonstrated by the live oak roots!

Greta

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment and all is well. I got up early this morning on my own–I think my body expects at least four mornings in a row of getting up early, and this would be the fourth–I guess we’ll see how early I get up tomorrow, shall we? I did manage to do some reading yesterday after I finished working, and had Season One of The Traitors on while I picked up and did other chores. I started a new project in the pantry this morning, and if I can manage to stay motivated this morning, I should be able to complete it before working on the living room and kitchen. I ran two loads of dishes in the dishwasher and the sink is filled with dishes yet again somehow. I also did all the bed linens yesterday, too. I need to run uptown this morning to get the mail and swing by the Fresh Market for a couple of things. I managed to go through my lengthy to-do list yesterday and mark off a lot of things, too. So that was pretty cool–I even had groceries delivered, which was amazing and awesome and all of that. I felt very good about the day when I finally slid under the covers last night, and I slept well, too.

I have to say, I love how the world has fallen in love with Alysa Liu and Amber Glenn after the women’s free skate the other day. There really is something about witnessing someone having the Olympic skate, the one you always hear about that epitomizes the Olympic spirit, right? She was just radiant out on the ice, just epic energy and joy and having the best time. Amber’s support and sportsmanship for the other skaters after her epic long program also won over hearts and minds. (Someone on social media said that she’d watched Alysa’s skate over and over again, because it sparked so much joy, and it ranked with Tom Holland’s Rihanna number! I heartily concur with this sentiment.)

I also remember the good feelings the Paris Summer Olympics back in 2024, and how they made us all forget temporarily the horror of the present times. Our athletes make me proud to be an American, and that’s a feeling I’ve not had in a very long time–and these Olympics have reminded me, also through Alysa and Amber, that joy is so very important, and we should grasp it whenever it’s within reach to us–we should probably look for it more, too. This actually is how the bastards win–by taking away our joy and our hope. This is why I am embracing how much fun I am having with The Traitors, because I enjoy it, it makes me forget the worries and cares and strife of the world and the burdens we all carry on the daily–and why on EARTH would I consider that a guilty pleasure? I need to rediscover my love of reading and writing. I am going to do some writing today if it kills me–and who knows? It just might.

It was in the low eighties and sunny all day yesterday (!!!!), and it looks to be that way today, too–although I thought it was going to be colder this weekend. I looked, and yes, it’s going to be in the seventies today, but thunderstorms later this afternoon! Huzzah! I do love me some rain, you know. That would be a fun time to watch some episodes of The Traitors’ second season (I told you I’m addicted) and maybe do some reading then. I think once I finish this I am going to try to get some cleaning and organizing done before I run my errands. I also need to organize the refrigerator better, too, and finish the pantry project I started yesterday, which is hella exciting. My taxes are also being figured right now, so that should be done soon and my refunds arriving by the end of March, too. Huzzah!

Okay, I think I’m going to take my coffee into the living room and read some for a bit. Have an absolutely delightful Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning for another Gregalicious update.

You can never go wrong with Joe Manganiello.

Blue Eyes

Its the morning of Ash Wednesday and I am up at my normal time, trying to get back to normal and back into my normal day-to-day life now that Carnival is over for another year. The city is probably still in ruins, because there’s only so much they can clean up overnight, you know? The trees of St. Charles are dripping with beads and crepe paper and, of course, toilet paper from racist Tucks, er, Sucks1. I am so tired of the insidious nature of racism in incredibly stupid and small-minded white people. I can’t imagine how exhausted racialized communities feel. The closest thing I can think of would be how tired I am of homophobia and homophobes.

You haters are fucking tedious, you know? Get a fucking life already.

Readjusting back to normality after Deep Gras is always tricky. It’s Fat Tuesday that always winds up throwing me off–I am always aware that it’s Monday during Lundi Gras, but it felt like Sunday yesterday and I keep thinking today is Monday, and it’s not. That will take some mental adjusting, as will that tomorrow is my last day in the office again. But I feel very rested this morning, too. I spent a. great deal of time yesterday icing my ankles, so the Achilles tendons aren’t very tender this morning, but I am sure that will change as the day gets longer. I’ll ice them again tonight, of course, and I have some errands to do after work on the way home, too. I made potato leek soup in the slow cooker yesterday–it was sublime, probably the best I’ve ever made, and I added shallots this time, too–and that was quite lovely for dinner. I did chores and picked up a lot around the house, but never got around to the floors, which I hope to get to this weekend. I also managed to read some, which was very lovely, and I had a very strong burst of creativity yesterday that resulted in me making significant headway on an essay for the newsletter after sending a promotional one out over the course of the lengthy weekend, while getting an idea for another one–and I thought I was finished with the promotional Scotty newsletters; so that is a very good thing.

I also need to pack up more beads to donate to ArcGNO this weekend, and should also probably drop off a box of books at the library sale. I made some other reorganization decisions about the apartment this weekend, too–I need to clear out a shelf in the pantry so I can take some boxes down from the tops of the cabinets–and I really need to get the floors done. The house always looks so much better when I’ve done the floors, and maybe this weekend I can get the workspace windows cleaned, depending on the weather; I’ve not bothered to look ahead just yet. If it rains or is too cold, the windows can certainly wait.

While I did things yesterday, I was bingeing Celebrity Traitors from the UK, and even with a majority of the cast being people I had NO idea who they were, it was an excellent cast and an even more enjoyable game. I primarily wanted to see how the game ends, since I’ve never seen a season finale, and now that I know, I am pretty pleased, as I was afraid the way they wrap it all up might be a let down, but it’s not. And there was someone I’d actually met and had dinner/drinks with years and years ago in the cast! Yes, I am going to humblebrag, but the British actress Celia Imrie and I have mutual friends in common–and I had dinner with her and our mutual friend when they came through New Orleans a while back, which was marvelous. Naturally, I was rooting for her, but she was one of the last murder victims, alas. Stephen Fry was also on, and he was the first person I’ve seen note how badly the game is stacked in favor of the Traitors; I also observed to Paul “they really shouldn’t feel bad for banishing people who aren’t Traitors; the Faithful outnumber the Traitors by a 19 to 3 ratio, so of course they are going to banish incorrectly more often than not. I suspect I would be terrible at this game unless I was a Traitor.

If you’re a politics junkie2 and love watching MAGA eating themselves, pay attention to the Louisiana Republican primary for Senator Bill Cassidy (the pro-life OB-GYN who looks like a Muppet gone wrong) for some hilarity. Cassidy, as you may remember, committed the egregious sin of voting for Trump’s impeachment after January 6–hoping the person with no long-term memory would forget that six years later. About a month or so ago, Orange Foolius handpicked congresswoman Julia Letlow to endorse for the race. I’m not entirely certain she’d even announced? Cassidy’s dark money PACs are now going after Letlow, tying her to DEI and Nancy Pelosi and President Biden as a “dangerous liberal” (it took me a while to type that while laughing hysterically); does OF still have pull in Louisiana now? After a couple of weeks of silence, Letlow has finally released her own attack ads on Cassidy and seriously, this primary race can easily be called A Confederacy of Dunces.

I was sorry to hear that both Jesse Jackson and Robert Duvall died over Deep Gras. Both contributed significantly to society in their own ways, and giants cannot be replaced. I mean, look at this iteration of the current Democratic Party–where are all the great Democrats I grew up watching legislate? I mean, even the Kennedy in the forefront of public policy today is a very poor imitation of his father and uncles, pissing and shitting all over the family name. I also find it interesting that Hunter Biden was targeted and hounded for having addiction issues, while MAGA celebrates the brain worm guy who had addiction issues and clearly has something wrong with him.

After finishing reading The Secret of Hangman’s Inn, I started writing a newsletter essay about the Ken Holt series and this book in general, with a particular look at the series’ homo-eroticism–based on my recent reread of the book itself. The series, expertly written by Sam and Beryl Epstein under the name Bruce Campbell, is very much of it’s time–and you could easily see how things had changed since they were written. I remember there was a clue in one book that had to do with the cotter pin holding automobile tires on–they don’t have those anymore–and of course, no television, no automatic transmissions on cars, having to depend on phone calls and being home to take them, newspapers and syndicates with journalistic ethics, and so on. But this particular reread made me realize something about the juvenile series that I hadn’t ever caught on to before–and that will also be a strong piece of the newsletter essay.

I also decided yesterday what my next Scotty book will be and when it will be set. I wanted to jump ahead–the most recent, this new one, is set in August of 2019, and I am going to skip ahead to Mardi Gras 2022, when the parades rolled again after the canceled parade season of 2021–and I even know what it’s going to be about. Huzzah!

So yes, I had a very productive and good day yesterday. I feel rested, my right Achilles tendon has a bit of a twinge but the left feels good, and I feel rested and relaxed and motivated to get things done. And as always, we’ll see how long this feeling lasts. I am going to head into the spice mines now, and hope to have a great day post-Carnival.

Have a great Ash Wednesday if you “celebrate”, and if you don’t, have a lovely Wednesday–the rest of the work week is the downhill slide into the weekend, which will be here before I know it or am ready for it!

American swimmer Caeleb Dressel is an Olympic champion. And has pretty blue eyes.

Photographed at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Mandatory Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY ORG XMIT: USATODAY-451287 [Via MerlinFTP Drop]
  1. I saw yesterday that the racist assholes who hung black dolls by the neck with beads from their float have been kicked out of Tucks. Good. They also should be named and shamed, but I doubt that will happen. ↩︎
  2. This is an example of a time when I really miss Victoria. ↩︎

Escape from Berlin

It’s Lundi Gras morning, with my favorite parade–Orpheus1–rolling tonight, and I have two more days before returning to work. I am enjoying this little mini-vacation very much. My Achilles tendons are still a bit sore, so after I get home from the errands I have to run this morning, I am in for the day until Orpheus arrives tonight–unless it rains. It looks a bit gloomy outside the windows, if I am being totally honest. It does happen–and it’s been a hot minute since it’s rained, you know? I slept really well the last two nights, and I feel pretty good. I think another easy day of reading and hanging out around the house while doing some chores sounds lovely. I also spent most of yesterday off-line, and that was marvelous. I like that I am spending less and less time on social media. The world is burning, and doomscrolling isn’t much help with that, you know?

We made art during HIV/AIDS, didn’t we?

I did wake up early yesterday after a lovely night’s sleep, and had a pretty good day around the house. I emptied the dishwasher and ran it again, did some straightening up and organizing around here, and had the pairs figure skating short program on the television while I finished reading The Secret of Hangman’s Inn, and started reading another old series book, The Egyptian Cat Mystery, a Rick Brant science adventure. (Rick Brant is another one of my favorites.) I am going to try to read some of the Eli Cranor today, with some more of the Brant, too. I think I may also start Sarah Weinman’s Without Consent as well. I think going forward I will stick with the three–a new fiction read, a reread, and a nonfiction–going forward is my reading plan. I do need to start reading voraciously again; I miss it. I also need to write about Hangman’s Inn. I also managed to send out another promotional newsletter about Hurricane Season Hustle, which you can read by clicking here.

If the weather does hold and my ankles feel okay, I may take a walk later today to get some pictures of the bead trees blooming and all the debris along the sidewalk and in the trees. I feel rested, and Sparky was very cuddly this morning under my warm pile of blankets in the bed. I want to do some writing today, but I may not; it depends on how I feel when I get home from the errands.

We binged more of season four of The Traitors, and I love everything about this show. I cannot believe none of y’all told me I needed to watch this show. I mean, it checks ALL my boxes–murders, pettiness, camp, a castle, robes with cowls, lanterns and torches and executioners! Alan Cumming is having the best time camping it up as the host–and there are some iconic lines on this show; currently my favorite is “snatched tighter than a housewife’s jawline.” And there are three previous seasons to catch up on! It’s all so deliciously Gothic, which I love. We have one more episode from this season before we are caught up, and we’ll probably watch that either tonight or tomorrow; I’m sure Paul has to work, and I know he has his trainer today, too. I should be able to get some reading and writing done today, and today I can finish the floors–which I’ve put off all weekend.

The emails can wait until Wednesday, seriously.

And on that note, I am going to go get cleaned up so I can run my errands. Have a lovely Lundi Gras Monday wherever you may be, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow for Fat Tuesday.

Two Kinds of Love

Muses Thursday! Happy shoe day to you, and you, and you! There are three parades tonight down the Avenue–Chaos followed by Babylon followed by Muses–and we will see if we can keep our 16 year streak of getting at least one shoe. I’ll probably be a bit tired by the time Muses gets to the corner–I am leaving the office early again today–so I can ice my ankles and hips before the parades, and rest and relax. There’s no figure skating to watch today for the Olympics (more on that later) so I can get some things done today and maybe be productive (maybe not); we’ll see how things shake out. I slept really well, which is always a plus, and my legs aren’t very tired, the Achilles tendons are still making their complaints known, if not as urgently as before. I also need to organize both the refrigerator and the freezer, because it’s out of control after going to Costco and making groceries.

Yesterday turned out to be a very good day. The weather was lovely, and we had some slight sprinkles of rain throughout the day, so the air was cool and damp. I left the office early (parade street closings; will be leaving even earlier today) and made groceries on the way home. There wasn’t much traffic on the way home, so the slalom course on St. Charles was much more fun to navigate (why people slow down to five miles per hour to drive around the barriers is a mystery to me; when no one is in front of you, you can go through it at about 20 mph and it’s like a Grand Prix) than usual and then I was home. I did a lot of chores, watched the disgraceful judging of the ice dance, and did even more chores. I was so pissed at the ice dancing (more on that later) I didn’t even want to finish watching Glitter and Gold, which I will probably never finish–but I can also always skip over the #metoo team parts, can’t I?

I saw an ad yesterday for a touring musical coming to the Saenger (I think)–an adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Seriously, who asked for this? It just seems to me that the story isn’t strong enough to carry a musical, nor can I think (I don’t think in terms of music or songs, sadly) of any potential songs that could be added to enhance and improve on the story.

I have now read The Great Gatsby at least four times throughout my life, and to this day I don’t understand why everyone loves it so much; I’ve never understood it, and my antipathy to this so-called Great American Novel goes all the way back to being forced to read it for a Lit class when I was a sophomore in high school. That class was responsible for me always feeling out of step with the Literary Academy and its holy gods and saints. (I was also introduced to Hemingway in that class, and I’ve never read any other Hemingway because I hated both A Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea–the sharks! The sharks!) It always puzzled me, but I hated being forced to read something because reading, for me, was always a joyous experience. Having to read something for a grade was an entirely different matter. The first books I was assigned to read were in junior high. I didn’t mind Sterling North’s Rascal, about a pet raccoon, but absolutely loathed The Adventures of Tom Sawyer with the white hot passion of a dozen burning suns. As someone who was just a few years older than Tom at the time of the story–I don’t remember how old he was; I’ve pretty much blocked out all my memories of the book I hated it so much–I didn’t think he was amusing or funny; I thought he was an asshole, someone I wouldn’t want to know, and would probably grow up to be an asshole. It was such an unpleasant experience that I developed an antipathy to Twain (I also hated the story about the jumping frogs) that kept me from reading him until my late twenties, when I decided to give him another try–and enjoyed his other work tremendously. There was an essay he wrote about becoming a steamboat pilot on the river, included in Life on the Mississippi, that has always stuck with me; I may have had to read it in high school or college, but I loved the essay so much that it did lead me back to reading Twain.

I went back to The Great Gatsby three more times over the course of my life and I hated it every single time I read it. I kept thinking, what am I missing here? These people are all awful and terrible; was that the point? They weren’t even interesting. I even read other Fitzgerald novels, and failed to see the genius every time. If forced to pick a favorite, I would say This Side of Paradise, if pressed–and I wouldn’t give it another read, either. Rebecca is a much more interesting take on the awful people of the upper class. Hell, Saltburn was a better take; so was Dynasty, for that matter.

And Fitzgerald has nothing on the Real Housewives.

Ironically, a writing teacher recommended I read Faulkner, As I Lay Dying to be exact, and that led me to Sanctuary and Light in August and The Sound and the Fury; and of course, I love “A Rose for Emily” because it was such a perfect capture of small rural Southern town dynamics. Every Southern town had a Miss Emily, didn’t they?

Hilariously, I’ve always considered myself to be dramatically under-educated in classic literature, but as I was thinking about this last night I realized that isn’t the case; I am self-educated in classic literature, and that always subconsciously fueled an insecurity about myself as a writer and as a reader because I did so poorly in college…and I need to get it through my head and into my subconscious that college failed me, not the other way around. I also need to get out of my own way with ambitions and goals and bury self-deprecation once and for all.

I am not going to talk about the figure skating judging farce from yesterday because I am still bitter and angry about the rewarding of the “#metoo” couple from France. Figure skating still has a lot of issues, and this was an incredibly glaring example. I will discuss this when I am more calm about it and can be rational and logical (the French team currently is “Abuser and the Rape Apologist” in my head). There was also some farcical bordering on insane judging in the team event, too. How did Ilia Malinin place second in the short? #madness.

And on that note, I am going to forget about Olympic medal-fixing for now and focus on tonight’s shoe. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow with a report on Muses…if I am not too tired to go out tonight.