Category: television

Enola Gay

Friday and it’s a work-at-home Friday, at that. I have data to enter and forms to check for accuracy–always an exciting day around the Lost Apartment–but also, working at home today is a return to normalcy and routine around here after the big disruption. My grocery order has been rescheduled from today till tomorrow, which is fine; it wasn’t going to be the easiest thing in the world to get them today, frankly. I am going to swing by the office to get more work this morning, and then I am going to swing by Lowe’s/Home Depot or whatever that is just up the road from the office to get the replacement fuse for the dryer–yes, I am going to make an attempt to fix it myself, which seems like madness but if I can spend about fifteen bucks to save us six hundred, I am going to do that very thing. I mean, it makes financial sense, and one of my goals for this year is to make better financial decisions.

It’s also hard to believe and/or imagine that February is almost gone. I mean…usually the month is lost to Carnival, so this year it was lost to something else.

Paul was late getting home last night, so I watched the new Netflix documentary about the Murdaugh murders in South Carolina, and then watched some short documentaries about the presidents on Youtube, starting with James Buchanan and then working my way through John Quincy Adams, Polk and Wilson (i may watch more of them today; I do love my US History, and it’s been a hot minute since I’ve watched anything on US History–but I did yesterday). I also watched a documentary about Fort Proctor on Lake Borgne (which is still there but it is cut off from land by water and is only reachable by boat; you can’t really go inside either because it’s not stable) and I really want to write Fort Proctor into a book at some point, or something, even a short story or two.

There’s just so much about New Orleans that needs and deserves to be written about, you know?

Today I also need to end the wallowing self-indulgence of grief and start digging my way out into the world again. I did finish One Night Gone yesterday and really enjoyed it (more to come on that score), and now can go back to Body and Soul Food. One of the things I want to make certain I am doing from now on is taking a bit of time every day to go ahead and do some reading; if I don’t make a point of it I will never get through this TBR stack, and there are so many wonderful choices in my TBR stack that it’s sometimes hard to pick out my next read. (I’ve also almost finished–at long last–Robert Caro’s exhaustive work on the career of Robert Moses, The Power Broker, which is kind of scary, given it’s great Robert Caro-like length) I need to finish the clean-up/organization of my workspace (which means more filing, but so be it), and I think I’d like to wash the car at some point this weekend as well. I am slowly developing a plan for today’s errands that will make them more time-efficient; the question is, do I want to get Five Guys today? I did have it recently as a treat (I don’t remember when; remember, I have no concept of time and dates anymore), so maybe it’s too soon to have it again or something, but I neither know nor care. We’ll see how I feel when it’s time for me to head over there, once I’ve gotten through the great joy that is this morning.

I slept really well again last night and my toe doesn’t seem to hurt when I walk on it this morning–it’s still sore, make no mistake about that, but it’s a lot better. I still think I need to talk to my doctor (honestly, I don’t know why I have so many issues when it comes to medical assistance that I pay for through my insurance, but it’s a lifelong thing, really) about it, but I’m not sure what good that may or may not do but I suppose it’s better than never having it checked out and just being in pain for the rest of my life. I mean, if it’s something that needs treatment, I should kind of know that, don’t you think?

I also feel decent this morning, rested, at any rate. I’ve been sleeping well every since I returned home, which is a relief and not much of a surprise. It shouldn’t surprise me that there are emotional states that overrule sleeping medications and exhaustion, although I will admit I was worried this inability to sleep would follow me home from Alabama, which it thankfully did not. Now all I need to do is get back to work on the manuscripts and so forth and everything else that is due–my inbox, Jesus Christ the Lord, my inbox–and start working my way through that to-do list (which is by no means comprehensive).

And Outer Banks is back today! Huzzah!

And on that note, I am going to have some more coffee before heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again soon.

Red Frame/White Light

AH, the first day of the week that doesn’t have a name–after Lundi Gras, Mardi Gras, and Ash Wednesday, just plain Thursday seems a bit on the dull side. Today is the last day before I return to work; and yes, I am working at home tomorrow, in case you were wondering–but I do have to run by the office at some point to pick up some more of my work at home work. I figure tomorrow morning I’ll get up, bang out my blog entry, and then work until I am caught up before taking this work back into the office and picking up more work. Yesterday was a stunningly beautiful day for running the errands I needed to get done–CVS, mail, making groceries–the high was in the eighties and it was sunny as fuck; the low being only 63. I continue to make my way out from the emotional devastation and move toward an uneasy and unwilling acceptance. The world keeps turning, after all, and much as I would love nothing more than the self-indulgence of wallowing in self-pity, I have things due and things to do and books to write and books to read and errands to run and a life to maintain. I need to get my life together and make plans. I need to get back into shape by taking exercise more regularly and I need to take better care of myself. A lot has happened in the world since everything around me turned upside down; things I ordinarily would have taken some kind of stance on or said something about–like all the nastiness about how Madonna looked at the Grammys, or the Palestine East train disaster, or Marjorie Traitor Green’s call for secession (because it worked out so well for the conservatives the last time they tried to leave the Union). In some ways it was kind of nice to have something that crowded out all the rest of the noise in the world; being caught up in my own stuff enabled me to dismiss Traitor Green’s idiocy as precisely what it was–her pathetic need for attention and validation from people equally stupid as she is and from the media because that’s what she is all about; attention and grifting. While there are criticisms that can be leveled at Madonna, trashing her appearance is reductive and misogynistic. I would have preferred Madonna to age gracefully and not have any work done, personally–what a message of solidarity about the misogyny of agism she could have sent by staying natural–but it’s her body, her face and her decision. She would be criticized for aging naturally (“MADONNA LETS HERSELF GO is what they would report, with lots of bold type and exclamation points) or for gaining weight (remember the breathless reporting about Elizabeth Taylor’s weight?); so why not let her do what she wants to do and what makes her feel good about herself? If you want to be horrified by how she looks, why not use that as a way to extrapolate out into a broader commentary about what our society and culture does to women in the public eye?

But that would require intelligence and work, and why do anything hard when it’s easier to get clicks by being shallow and horrible?

Yay for freedom of the press!

Anyway.

I allowed myself to sleep late again this morning–it’s kind of sad what I consider “sleeping late” these days–but it was another good night’s sleep, which I am grateful for. I did run errands yesterday, which was necessary, and then when I got home I started working on cleaning the apartment: laundry, dishes, etc. After awhile of that, I curled up for a few hours with Tara Laskowski’s marvelous One Night Gone, which I am greatly enjoying, and then I made dinner last night before watching a few more episodes of Class, which we should finish soon–since Outer Banks‘ third season is dropping tonight or tomorrow. Today is the last day of this bereavement leave, which I did need–there was simply no way I could have returned to work on Monday, seriously–and I am not even sure this coming Monday’s return to the office will be okay. But I can’t stay out forever, but I am also forcing myself to use this time to rest and relax. My toe is still throbbing a bit this morning, but I am going to rewrap it in a little while and of course it’s going to be elevated and iced and all that jazz. I do find that I am still short of temper and easily irritated; I seriously snapped at Paul yesterday which was completely unnecessary. I guess I am still dealing with it on some interior levels below the consciousness. It did occur to me yesterday that one thing I should do, or try to, is write a long essay about my mother. Not for publication, of course, or even for posting on here (the further we get away from the funeral, the more uncertain I am growing that I should have even brought it up here at all in the first place). That might help, I think.

And it might get me writing again. I do have that short story I need to be working on (although an alternative story occurred to me last night–one that would need some revisions, but could work; I just need to dig it out and reread it), and I do want go get all this filing done today before working tomorrow at home. I also need to investigate my dryer situation and see if it is, indeed, something I can potentially repair myself–it would be marvelous to not have to buy a new dryer–but that will require me to spend some time on researching it on-line, which I can do as long as I don’t bother getting sidetracked or distracted by some other shining object in the meantime. I think I am going to spend some more time reading my book this morning before moving on to filing and dishes. I also need to trim some books that I can take to the library sale this weekend, and of course, I need to start revising and editing the manuscripts.

Life goes on, the world keeps turning, and tax liabilities continue to accrue, so I am heading into the spice mines. May you have a marvelous Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you tomorrow.

Electricity

Ash Wednesday and the party is over for another year. It feels a bit weird to have not gone to a single parade and have missed out on all the festivities, but I will always remember 2023 as the Carnival when Mom died.

I allowed myself to sleep in this morning. I’m still out of the office on leave, which is nice. I am getting better but am still a bit shaky, if truth be told, and so these extra days to kind of get my act together before going back to work are going to be a bit nice. I did manage to get some things done yesterday. I had a Facebook page takeover promo thing to do, which turned out to be a lot of fun–it was a very nice group, and I have to say, the cozy audience (writers and readers both) are amazing. They are welcoming and friendly and inclusive and supportive and I have to say, this entire experience has been really marvelous. While I was doing that I was cleaning out my inbox and working on filing and organizing. This morning the kitchen/office looks much better than it has since this whole business with Mom started; today I plan to do some more. I also need to make a minor grocery run (probably will go to Fresh Market today) and will order for pick-up on Friday to do the bigger stuff (mainly because they’ll have restocked after the Carnival madness by then). I also need to start working on the books again, and I still have that short story to write, and there’s of course all those emails in my inbox (yesterday I was just basically deleting the junk). I was still exhausted for the most part yesterday still, so focusing wasn’t easy, so I spent most of the day watching documentaries about history on Youtube and making Scooter happy by giving him a lap to sleep in. We also started watching Class last night on Netflix, which is basically an Indian remake of Elité, which makes it kind of fun. The actors are all young, pretty and talented; the show seems a bit less glossy and a lot grittier in this version–can an American version be far behind? (I suppose Gossip Girl would qualify, but it’s not in the same league and the reboot is terrible to the point of being embarrassing.) Class also moves faster than Elité; we discover the identity of the first season’s murder victim at the end of episode 2, whereas in Elité we didn’t know it was Marina until halfway through the season–I also think this version’s seasons are shorter. But it’s fun to watch, even though we know what’s going to happen, just seeing how they did the adaptation and how they had to change things because it’s now set in Delhi, India rather than Spain.

My toe is less swollen, less red, and less painful this morning as well. I am beginning to suspect it’s psoriatic arthritis, but I am going to send a message to my doctor about it through the phone app. I also need to buy more wrap for it; I don’t know where the wrap I bought before the trip disappeared to; I may have left it in the hotel room (note to self: never buy black tape again) since I can’t seem to put my hands on it around here. I can swing by CVS on the way to get the mail to buy more, but it’s not cheap and it’s very irritating to have lost the rest of the roll. Now, the toe is just annoying and irritating, but I need to get to the bottom of what happened to it in the first place.

It does feel weird and somewhat disrespectful to pick up the reins of my life again and start moving forward. What is an appropriate period for mourning in modern times? I don’t think I’ll ever stop mourning, to be honest; it’s just something else you have to learn to live with and never get over completely. I remind myself regularly that this isn’t unique to me–I am hardly the first person to lose their mother, nor am I the last–and that really, I was pretty lucky that I had my mom for sixty-two years and I still have my father. I am still processing this, and probably will for a while. It’s very weird that it takes something like this to give you clarity on a lot of things, or insights that should have been fairly obvious all along but never crossed my mind because there wasn’t a reason to even think about it; they just were, you know, and why question these things or think about them? It also forced me to look back at my life (which I don’t like to do, but have been doing more and more since I turned sixty and the realization that the sands in my hourglass are almost finished running through), and realize that sometimes it’s not necessarily a bad thing to look back. The interest in the past that I’ve always had but never extended to my own has now been triggered, and I suspect more and more of my future work is going to be somehow tied to the past–either being set there or things in the past are affecting things in the present. I also need to assess where I am with regards to my plans for the year; I didn’t really have plans–more of an amorphous this is what I’d like to write for this year thing than anything else–especially since I never really make writing plans because they inevitably are changed or have to change and I am very resistant to change (not sure why that is, my entire life has always been about changing), but I do have a vague idea of how I want the rest of the year to play out writing-wise. I also have to start being more restrictive of my traveling because I am going to start needing to go to Kentucky more often every year (yay for audiobooks!) or at least meeting my dad in Alabama to visit Mom (Alabama is much easier than Kentucky for me, obviously).

So, today is catch-up day; finishing laundry and dishes and chores, running errands, organizing and filing, maybe doing some reading (I am really enjoying One Night Gone by Tara Laskowski), and I also need to start trying to figure out how to fix the dryer, or if I even can. Paul was kind of adamant about not buying a new one at first, but as this has gone on for weeks (I’ve been gone the last three weekends) he is getting more and more resigning to buying a new one. So on the to-do list I am going to update after I post this will go figure out if I can fix the dryer myself. I don’t have to work in the office on Friday, but I do need to swing by there to pick up some more work, and there’s a Lowe’s out by the office I can swing by the see if they have the fuse I may need (I may just need to unplug it and vacuum out the lint thing; it’s the simplest solution and definitely worth a try). I also need to order a Bluetooth keyboard for the laptop; the one I am using now is battery operated and of course, the batteries are always dead when I need to use it, so I need to get one that is rechargeable.

But I feel good and rested and at peace this morning, so I am going to focus on that and get moving. Have a lovely rest of your day, Constant Reader, and I will check in which you again later.

Souvenir

Happy Mardi Gras! Everywhere else it’s just Tuesday.

I was exhausted yesterday, and essentially useless. Scooter demanded a lap almost as soon as I got home, and apparently he missed me. I collapsed into my easy chair, he climbed into my lap and started purring as well as making biscuits before curling up and sleeping (and purring in his sleep), which was comforting and relaxing at the same time. I finally slept last night, and feel more human and Greg-like this morning than I have in a while. The bed felt wonderful, especially this morning, and i really would have been more than delighted and happy to have stayed in bed for another few hours. But I agreed to do a Facebook page takeover this morning to promote A Streetcar Named Murder (what better way to do promo for a New Orleans book than on Fat Tuesday?) several months ago, and at the time I didn’t know what the future held for this year’s Carnival for me and my family. I would imagine the neutral ground on St. Charles is crowded with parade-goers already; it was already a zoo on the neutral ground yesterday when I got home. I knew we would most likely be taking today as a holiday and not going anywhere or doing anything to celebrate, figuring we would be exhausted by Fat Tuesday and staying in to recover. I am out on bereavement leave from work until Friday, which is nice, and I will probably begin the process of figuring out where I am with things and digging out from under (my email inbox is out of control; I had it under control until a few weeks ago), and making groceries and getting organized. It’ll be nice to be home this weekend after three weekends in a row away. I’ve driven almost three thousand miles over the last three weekends, and my poor car is probably wondering what the fuck at this point.

But it’s good to be home, good to be feeling like myself again, and there is a lot of work that needs to be done around here. I really let everything slide these last few weeks–don’t even want to think about how much filing there is to do, and organizing–and of course, the kitchen/office is a total mess as always. I’d started making progress on the gradual thorough clean of the apartment I’d planned as a New Year’s goal before everything went up into the air; I’m not sure where I left off but do know that it won’t kill me if I simply start over again. I’d really like things to be neat and tidy (another of my mother’s legacies) so I can get to work on my manuscript editing that I am so terribly behind on. I also have a short story to write. So basically I have the rest of this week off to get my shit together before my work-at-home Friday and then my first weekend at home since January. I am going to probably do some bits and pieces around here today but after the Facebook page takeover thing I think I am simply going to spend the rest of the day relaxing and resting and recovering and hopefully regaining my equilibrium. I started listening to Tara Laskowski’s One Night Gone in the car yesterday after finishing The Other Mother, and I’m going to probably dedicate some time to reading more of it today. Just looking around this morning as I write this and sip my oh-so-delicious coffee I made for myself this morning (I do laugh at myself and how particular I’ve become about things I like, like my morning coffee; it’s never the same when I have to get hotel coffee or make it in one of those little coffee maker things they have in some hotel rooms). I need to take out the trash and put dishes away before cleaning out the sink again and running another load through the dishwasher. I also need to figure out what to do about our dryer situation; I’m going to try to fix it myself before giving up and buying a new one.

My toe is still slightly painful this morning, but I can walk on it without either wincing or limping so I consider that a victory. I’m going to wrap it again this morning as well as ice it and keep it elevated (hence the day in my chair reading Tara’s marvelous book); tomorrow is going to be errands day (which will require lists, and we all know how much I love a good to-do list) and probably laundry and other chores, and I’ll also probably start digging into the editorial process with my two manuscripts. I would also like to start back to the gym for stretching and cardio soon; maybe even go to some yoga classes, which can also help me with focus and relaxation. I need to start taking better care of myself; eating better, dropping some weight, getting some exercise, and so forth; it will make me feel better physically and mentally; and of course, I now have the great joy of audiobooks for the treadmill, elliptical, and stationary bike. I also have to accept that my work schedule may never go back to what it used to be, and the rest of my working life before retirement is going to be this schedule that I’ve been working now for months.

But I feel better about almost everything this morning–amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for you–and I know grief will sucker-punch me again at least a few more times–but I think I’ve achieved acceptance at last, which is a start to healing. I know I’ll never get over losing Mom, but I think I am starting down the path of learning to live with the loss.

One step at a time, one day at a time, one task at a time.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Fat Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later–I need to write up The Other Mother–and thank you again for all the kindness.

Almost Hear You Sigh

I feel better this morning than I did yesterday. I didn’t sleep well last night but I rested, and I’ll frankly take that. I may be tired again later today, but it definitely beats yesterday. By the afternoon at work yesterday I was so tired I actually felt sick; I did run my errands after work (didn’t want to) and then came home to my easy chair and cat. I spent most of the evening sitting in my chair watching Youtube clips (and the Rihanna Super Bowl half-time show, which I think was fantastic) before finally tumbling into my bed around nine thirty. I did sleep some, but I was half-awake half-asleep most of the night, but…I feel rested and okay this morning, even getting out of bed before my alarm went off. I should have done laundry last night and emptied the dishwasher, but hey, it is what it is and i’d driven twelve hours the day before. I’ll have to do that tonight. Tonight is the final night of rest during parade season, and the madness all begins again tomorrow night, with Druids (the parade after is still trash and still being boycotted by New Orleans) rolling down the Avenue and me having to leave the office early so I can get home before they close the Avenue.

I was also so brain dead that I wasn’t able to make my to-do list, which is on my agenda for today. I did manage to muddle through the work day yesterday, but seriously, I was so tired I barely even remember being at work yesterday, let alone what all happened and what went on. I know I got all my work caught up–I was concerned, having left town so abruptly last week, about how behind I may have fallen but being competent really comes in handy sometimes. I need to write my review of The Stranger Behind You by Carol Goodman, which I loved, and need to get back to Abby Collette’s Body and Soul Food. I don’t even know where we are with our television shows that we were watching, but we’re also in crunch time for Paul at work so i don’t see him very often; he sometimes comes home after I’ve gone to bed and I of course leave before he gets up in the morning–long before he gets up in the morning–making me a Festival widow until it’s all over. He’s going to try to come home so we can have dinner together tonight for Valentine’s Day. but I’m not going to be holding my breath anytime soon.

Yesterday, a friend went public with something horrific that happened to her at Bouchercon in Dallas in 2019 (I didn’t go; I got an inner ear infection that week and as such couldn’t fly); you can read about here. I urge you to sign the Change.org petition on the page I linked to; I cannot state how much I admire Laurie for her courage and determination to make sure that what happened to her–a complete dismissal of her, no follow-up, and absolutely incredibly incompetent police work–never happens to another woman, at least in Dallas. It’s also no easy task to come forward about being drugged and possibly assaulted; we have in our culture and society a tendency to not believe women, and to dismiss them as being “overly-sensitive” and “well, it’s a he said/she said situation”. Part of the reason I wrote #shedeservedit was because I get so angry about how we treat women who are victims of predatory men. That book was of course inspired by the Steubensville/Marysville gang rape cases, but how many times do we have to go through and witness this same song-and-dance? The Stanford swimmer, Laurie in Dallas, Steubenville, Marysville…the list just goes on and on and on. (Which was why reading The Stranger Behind You was so serendipitous; it’s about #metoo) I’ve actually been thinking about writing another book about this, but wanting to do it from the perspective of say a woman like the Stanford swimmer’s mother; which was why the Goodman novel resonated so strongly with me.

Boys will be boys indeed.

I also need to get writing again. That will put me and everything in my life back into balance, methinks. But at least this morning I am awake and functioning and feeling rested; how long that will last remains to be seen. But on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you again tomorrow.

Beast of Burden

Wednesday and only two–count ’em, two–days left before the parades start rolling down St. Charles, so tonight after work I am taking the highway and swinging by Costco on my way home. Yesterday was an okay day in that I never really felt tired or drained, which is always a plus. I did manage to start working on the first stage of the revisions of the manuscript–and I started working on something cool and exciting and new, but must remain a secret for now until I get it all figured out and worked out–and that’s terrific. I am sure going to Costco after work today is going to be a draining experience–but it’s never as bad as just going to a regular grocery store or Walmart, frankly. I also have to clean up around the kitchen this morning because I am doing a ZOOM thing for the MWA-Midwest chapter tomorrow night. I also have to go in Friday morning for a staff meeting (yay) but that’s fine; I can run to the grocery store for last minute things and pick up the mail afterwards so we’re good through Monday.

Because the grocery store won’t be a zoo the first Friday morning of parades, either.

I’m a bit groggy this morning. I slept pretty much through the entire night, other than when Scooter began howling for food early in the morning. He’s such a sweetheart, though. I went to bed last night before Paul got home and fell asleep almost immediately. I woke up when Paul got home and Scooter was curled up, nestled inside my right arm with his head right next to mine. You have to love a cat that’s just a big ole cuddlebug.

While I waited for Paul last night–I am still in the final stages of the malaise, alas; my creativity at a very low ebb at the moment–I started going through the manuscript, this time getting character names and seeing which characters actually had their names changed from one thing to another over the course of the manuscript (which happens when you don’t have a character key, which I know and don’t know why I didn’t keep up with mine as the manuscript progressed…especially when you have a fashion show with how many drag queens walking the runway? But the manuscript, even with the slight glances I was giving to it as I went through pulling out character names, didn’t seem nearly as messy and sloppy as I remember it being while I was writing it–which can be either my faulty memory or my usual self-loathing of any and every thing I write. The latter is always possible, but so is the former. At some point I should probably address my failing memory on here…but not today; I shall save that for some morning when I am not awake before sunrise and can focus properly on writing about my aging mind.

I was too tired to read as well last night; I am hoping to break that tonight when I get home. I am in the midst of two really fun and well written crime novels–Abby Collette’s Body and Soul Food and Ruth Ware’s The Lying Game–and so maybe every night when Paul’s not home I should take a book to bed with me? I don’t know how that might work, to be honest; usually I am so groggy by the time I climb the stairs I’m not sure how much reading I could do–let alone retain–late in the evening. I was pretty worn out by the time I finished watching Airplane! on HBO MAX (I got tired of scrolling through Youtube videos to watch so decided to rewatch one of my favorite comedies of all time–which has some eyebrow raising moments, but still holds up for the most part) and maybe that’s what I should start doing on the evenings when Paul works late–watch an old movie, maybe even a rewatch of a particular favorite, like Rogue One or something I’ve not seen in years, like Double Indemnity.

But today’s goal is to finish the character list and start the outline, so I can see what corrections needs to be made, what sections might need moving, and where I need to add more. I am feeling more awake now–coffee always helps, but my legs feel like they’re still not completely awake yet, which is a weird feeling that I am not describing properly to get across. It’s not like they’re asleep and tingling, or even exhausted or fatigued or anything like that–they just feel like they’re not awake, which isn’t getting the way it feels across, is it? Ah, well, it doesn’t matter because they don’t feel like they’re still sleeping in the bed, anyway.

And I still haven’t gotten an Arthur Hardy’s Mardi Gras Guide 2023 yet, either.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.

Miss You

Tuesday morning and back into the office with me. I am awake before the sun rises yet again, and will be back in the office again for the first time since Thursday. It feels like it’s been somewhat longer than that, somehow, but the vagaries of time and how it passes seems to be ever-changing the older I get. I slept pretty well–could have slept longer quite happily–but am hoping I’ll fully awaken my brain with a strong assist from my coffee this morning.

I was tired yesterday–not the exhaustive kind, but the drained kind; public performance always drains me and wears me out. It’s why I could never be a performer of any kind who would need to perform every night. I’m sure you get used to it, but even when I was younger public appearances always drained me and left me feeling very low energy. It probably also has to do with driving over ten hours over the course of forty-eight, too, but yesterday was a real low energy day where I just couldn’t seem to get started. I did manage to get some things done. I picked up the prescription and made groceries, picked up the mail and went by the bank. I came home, wrote some panel descriptions for Paul, and did some cleaning and organizing.–and felt grateful to get that much done by the time I went to bed last night. I also watched a rather bad documentary series called The Price of Glee–about the tragedies surrounding the show. (Glee was important in many ways, but whoa boy, it has not aged well.)

Today I must pay some bills and make an updated to-do list. I keep forgetting things that I should be doing, and trying to plan my week (parades start Friday, so finesse needs to begin to become more involved in the planning processes here. I also need to be checking my calendar to make sure I am not forgetting things I’ve agreed to do–which has become a problem. I need to make a Costco run sometime this week after work as well–probably tomorrow or Wednesday would be best–and I need to get the editing process on my two manuscripts started as well as work on a short story I’ve promised. (I am going to look at some other stories I have on hand that might work just as well, as I am struggling with the one I thought would be perfect initially.)

I also was unable to resist writing the opening sentences of the 70s book I was talking about the other day, because they’ve been dancing around in my head tormenting me for quite some time now; plus it’s about time I create a file of some sort for the idea in the first place. So I guess I did do something writing-wise when it comes to productivity; even if it was nothing that should have been written or any time spent on at all. Ah, well, welcome to the wonderful world of creative ADHD. But I think the malaise combined with the hangover from the public appearances of extroversion and traveling over the weekend created a 1-2 punch that made truly doing anything other than recharging my batteries a major accomplishment, so I am going to simply go ahead and rest on my laurels, proud that something got done. (I straightened out the corner in the living room, so it doesn’t look quite as cluttered and hoarder-ish as it has for the last few years or so.) I’m going to also continue pruning the books with extreme prejudice. I need to finish the Ware and the Collette, which hopefully will not be difficult to do or to find time to do this week as I rush around madly trying to accomplish things before the parades begin. I think the weather might be nice this weekend, too–which would be lovely to take some time and go out to the corner, catch some beads while enjoying being outside, and taking lots of pictures. I should have taken a walk today, actually; it was a beautiful day in New Orleans yesterday. I had to switch the heater over to the air conditioner in the apartment this afternoon as it was in the low seventies and sunny–heaven. Today will be the same, getting into the high seventies before dipping into the lows at night. This seems to be what the weather holds for parade season as well; decent and sunny during the day, with it getting far chillier at night, which means hoodies on the parade route most likely.

The coffee is kicking in (huzzah!) as I sit here, but I also have to shave and do all kinds of things before I leave for the office later on. I need to get my daily pill regimen sorted into its daily dosages, I really should shave my face and my head, and of course, I need to take a shower and get dressed like every other morning. I’m still a little dazed, I think, from the weekend, but fortunately that will gradually fade away throughout the course of the day as I wake up further. I got a fresh king cake yesterday (cream cheese filling, of course, because it isn’t sweet enough already), and I also need to get my lunch packed. So, Constant Reader, I am going to head into the spice mines after finishing this. Have a lovely Tuesday, and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning.

Dance Little Sister

Today I am off to Alabama. I’ve ordered groceries to pick up for Paul, which I will drop off on my way out of town. I am a bit excited about the trip–it’s always lovely to see Margaret and Tammy–and I just love this event. This is my fourth time going, and I’ve always had a good time whenever I’ve headed up there. I’ll be back here on Sunday evening, probably exhausted and ready for the incredible comfort and joy of my own bed. I am looking forward to the drive (lunch at the Arby’s in Toomsuba! Carol Goodman audiobook on the stereo!) and I’m not in a huge rush to get up there, either. I think it’s about six or seven hours? Never mind, it’s only five total– I also checked the distance and the timing it takes, and I realized last night that I don’t, in fact, have to get on the road by nine or ten. Since it’s five hours, give or take, without stops, so really, as long as I get on the road around noon I’ll be there tonight by six. So, why make myself crazy trying to rush out of here?so yeah, no need to put the pedal to the metal and speed or anything. I’ll probably just put the cruise control on after I get past Slidell and cross the state line into Mississippi. I also checked the distance and the timing it takes, and I realized last night that I don’t, in fact, have to get on the road by nine or ten. Since it’s five hours, give or take, without stops, so really, as long as I get on the road around noon I’ll be there tonight by six. So, why make myself crazy trying to rush out of here? I do have to go pick up those groceries, swing by the bank and post office, get gas, and run another errand. I can also take my time and make sure I have everything packed that I need as well–when I finish this I’ll probably go ahead and make the list after checking the weather. I slept extremely well last night, too.

I was exhausted when I got home from work yesterday, hence the great relief that I could just laze about and not do much of anything last night, which was helpful. I think the malaise really struck hard yesterday, and by the time I got home from the office I was exhausted, so much so that I collapsed into my chair without a second thought and pretty much stayed there the entire night, rather than packing or organizing or anything. Paul did come home so we could finish The Recruit–and I have to say, that was a season finale. It’s already been renewed for a second season, and I can’t recommend this show enough. It’s a lot of fun, has humor, a great plot and story, and the acting is top notch. I also rather like the cynical way the CIA works on the show–as well as its depiction of how Washington works–because I suspect it’s much more like this than people would like to believe. I did go to bed early, too, which helped with the sleep, and even though I woke up at six this morning I chose to stay in bed for another couple of hours like a slug. But it felt marvelous–last night I was thinking to myself I was too tired to make the trip this weekend if I didn’t get a good night’s sleep, and how fortuitous for me that I got one. Here’s hoping I can sleep for the next two nights at a hotel in Birmingham, shall we?

But I can feel my batteries recharging, if that makes sense? And that, too, feels good to me. I know I have a lot of editing work to do in front of me–as well as other writing–but this fallow period is needed to rest the earth of my creativity so it can spring back into action when I need it again. I think I was a bit too ambitious with thinking about my schedule for the year, too–but the schedule has kind of sorted itself out again, which is kind of nice. I’m not sure when I am going to get to some of the things I had planned to write this year–but I do still plan on writing them; I don’t think ambition is going to be a problem to get me motivated this year. In fact, I suspect motivation is actually not going to be a problem for me this year or any year going forward.

Then again, it isn’t summer here quite yet, either. Summer definitely takes its toll on me and my psyche; usually by August I am feeling relatively defeated by the heat and humidity, but I don’t think that’ll be as much of a problem this year as it has been. Now that we have the new HVAC system, it’s always cool in the house in every part of it. And by then I am hoping to have my return to the gym ingrained as a habit by then. 2023 is the year I want to take better care of myself and get things taken care of–hearing and teeth to start with–and of course going to the gym is integral to my health. I need to start stretching at home every day in the meantime, maybe even working my way back up to some push-ups and ab crunches before I start going back to the gym. It also has occurred to me that stretching at home before going to the gym is probably a better approach; I’ll be warmed up and the walk will keep me warmed up as I head over there and then back home again. I also think I’ll feel more like myself once I am going to the gym again more regularly. And feeling more like myself, returning my life back to what it used to be, is really kind of important to me. I feel in some ways like I’ve lost my sense of self and who am I and what really matters to me the most over the course of the last years because I’ve been so busy. It’s also been really tempting to think oh I have so much free time I should start volunteering again, but I cut those thoughts off very quickly and at the pass. This is how I become over-committed and stressed out and inevitably kicks my anxiety into high gear again–so I always have to take a step back and think whenever that impulse rears its head in my life again.

And I won’t feel bad for being selfish and more jealous of my time. I’ve been volunteering almost non-stop since 1998–twenty five years ago–and so see no reason to feel bad about not giving back for a while, if ever again.

And on that note, I need to start getting ready for the trip and ready to hit the road. Have a great Friday, Constant Reader; I probably won’t check in again with you until Monday morning.

Dark Shadows (Josette’s Theme)

I always forget this when I am asked about major influences on my life, writing, and career–but probably the biggest influence on me was the television soap Dark Shadows.

“My name is Victoria Winters…”

So began the first episode, with young heroine Victoria speaking over some rather spooky music, usually with a background scene of a light in the window at the great house of Collinwood in the fog, or waves crashing against the beach, or the family cemetery, or even the Old House.

Dark Shadows is probably the root or seed from which Bury Me in Shadows was grown from, now that I think about it more. A haunted old house, an even older house in ruins nearby in the woods that was the original family home, ghosts and secrets from the past–oh yes, the framework is absolutely there, and it never even occurred to me.

When my sister and I were kids, we moved to Chicago from Alabama. I was about two years old, give or take; I don’t remember moving up there nor do I remember ever living in Alabama; my sister was two years older. My parents both got jobs–the point of the move was for climbing the economic ladder; they both got really good jobs in factories while my dad finished his degree. But because they both worked (our friends and neighbors all felt sorry for us because our mom had to work; their moms all were housewives), we needed to be watched while they weren’t home. Our landlady recommended a woman down the street–a mother of six whose two youngest were in their last years of high school–and so we started spending our days with Mrs. Harris, who fed us breakfast and lunch, and Mom would pick us up on her way home from the bus stop. When we started school, we went there for breakfast and lunch but came home after school; school let out at 3:15 and Mom was usually home by 3:30. But it was Mrs. Harris–and my grandmother, who worked a night shift–who got me started watching soaps in the first place. One Life to Life and General Hospital sort of held my attention, but it was Dark Shadows I couldn’t wait for. I used to run home from school to try to catch the last five or ten minutes during school; it wasn’t a problem during the summer.

I loved Dark Shadows.

I was crushed when it was canceled.

I mean, look at that house!!!!

The show wasn’t canceled, although the ratings were starting to slide a bit in the later years. The truism that Dark Shadows‘ producers and writers discovered is one that practically every other continuing series having to deal with the supernatural and supernatural creatures has had to deal with: how do you keep topping yourself and raising the stakes? True Blood, Supernatural, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and countless others have all run headfirst into that wall. Once you’ve done time travel and vampires and witches and werewolves and Frankenstein and other dimensions, what is left to do? I admire them for pulling the plug rather than getting more and more desperate to get the ratings up and eventually damaging the legacy of the show.

The show was a phenomenon the likes of which had never really been seen before in daytime–and the lesson learned from its success (go for the young audience!) would soon lead to the creation of youth-oriented shows like All My Children and The Young and the Restless–and of course in the mid-1970’s soaps would be forever changed when General Hospital introduced the character of teenager Laura Webber, played by an actual teenager, Genie Francis–and daytime was never the same. But Dark Shadows managed something that other soaps hadn’t–they created teen idols. Jonathan Frid as Barnabas, David Selby as Quentin, and even David Hennessey as David Collins were often on the covers of teen magazines like Tiger Beat and 16. The show even licensed FAN FICTION–a series of books based on the characters from the show, but thanks to all the fun stuff with time travel and parallel dimensions, Dark Shadows was perfect for spin-off books that took place in other Dark Shadows universe; one could even say Dark Shadows was one of the first shows to make use of a multi-verse.

The books were cheap–as you can see in the picture above (a copy sent to me by a friend with whom I bonded over our mutual love of the show) they ran between fifty cents and seventy-five cents a copy; they all had that same gold bordered cover with an oval image of characters from the show, and they were all written by “Marilyn Ross”, which was a pen name for a very prolific Canadian author named  William Edward Daniel Ross; he wrote over three hundred novels during his career, and Marilyn Ross was the name he used for Gothics–and the Dark Shadows books. (He also wrote as Clarissa Ross, and I read some of those novels as well, including The Spectral Mist.) They also weren’t particularly well written, and while they did take place outside the show’s continuity, there were also moments in some of them that didn’t make sense; in one of them, in which Barnabas shows up at Collinwood in the 1910’s, the only son of the family dies in a tragic accident…but if he was the only son, where did the present day Collinses come from? (The earlier books were told from the perspective of Victoria Winters, and in some cases the gimmick was some member of the family was telling Victoria a story about the family history.)

That’s the kind of shit that drives me insane.

But I remember when one of the off-brand television channels in Chicago (not affiliated with a major network) started running repeats of Dark Shadows from the very beginning when we lived in the suburbs in the evenings while the networks ran the evening news–guess what I was watching instead? Yup, Dark Shadows. (I always found it interesting, too, that the young actress who played Victoria Winters originally–Alexandra von Moltke–eventually became infamous as Klaus von Bulow’s mistress Alexandra Isles, who was, in the prosecutor’s theory, the reason Klaus injected Sunny with enough insulin to induce the coma from which she never woke up. But I digress.

I always wanted to write a vampire story similar to that of Barnabas Collins; I have an entire idea for a rural Louisiana version called Bayou Shadows that I’ve tinkered with off and on since the early 1990’s…but then Charlaine Harris started the Sookie Stackhouse series, which was essentially the same thing. I still might write about Bayou Shadows–the town called that has popped up from time to time in my books about New Orleans and Louisiana; most recently in A Streetcar Named Murder, actually–and if people think I’m ripping off Charlaine, so be it.

I’ll know that I’m really ripping off Dark Shadows.

The show also spawned two feature films, Night of Dark Shadows and House of Dark Shadows, each featuring one of the show’s leading men, Jonathan Frid and David Selby, respectively; the first did far better than the second. The show was revived in prime time for a single season in the late 1980’s; I watched it and loved it, of course–even got Paul to watch when it became available on DVD and I rewatched. I wish that show had been given more of a chance, because it was really quite good, and I was curious to see where the story went from that first season. It also had an excellent cast, including Hammer Film star Barbara Steele as Dr. Julia Hoffman. I did watch the Tim Burton film from this century, which had some clever moments but wasn’t quite as good; it went for the silly parody thing The Brady Bunch movies of the 1990’s did, but it didn’t land. The actress who played villainess Angelique in the original series, Lara Parker, has also written some Dark Shadows novels (I have copies but haven’t read them; I really should). Kathryn Leigh Scott, who played the original Maggie Evans on the soap (and in the first film) also has written novels; she was at Long Beach Bouchercon, where I met her and got a signed copy of her book Down and Out in Beverly Heels. She was lovely and couldn’t have been nicer; I really should read that book someday.

I’ve had Dark Shadows on my mind lately because I bonded with Carol Goodman at Bouchercon over our mutual love of Dark Shadows, and the Scotty book still in draft form takes place mostly in a rural parish outside of New Orleans; not the same parish where Bayou Shadows is located, but the next one over.

Sometimes I think it would be fun to reboot the show again, retelling the original story, or picking up from where the television series ended, or even doing a new generation, some forty years later, with David Collins as an adult with children and so forth…Carol and I have joked about coming up with a concept and trying to sell it and be the showrunners…which would be a dream.

Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)

Well, I’ve decided on my audiobook for the drive to and from Alabama this weekend: Carol Goodman’s The Night Visitors. Carol is one of my favorite writers (and has become a friend! I love my life) and I love her works; if you’re not reading her already you need to get on it–and there’s a healthy canon to dig into as well (always a plus). She also has a new book coming out this spring, called The Bones of the Story, which is a great title. I’m working on a short story this week while I am letting my novel manuscripts rest, and it’s definitely some slow going. I got about two thousand words into this story about a year ago, and I think it works perfectly for this anthology a friend of mine is putting together; I just need to finish the damned thing. But tonight I have a ZOOM call I have to do and I have to pack for my weekend in Alabama, and tomorrow morning I’m getting up, writing a post and hitting the road while listening to the divine Carol Goodman.

Does life get better? I think not.

It’s actually kind of funny; after I finished yesterday I realized I could, for the first time in quite a while, take some down time to myself for a minute or two without guilt or something looming over me needing to be done. After I sent the manuscript (such as it is) in along with my editorial thoughts and analyses, I thought, wow, I’ve sure written a lot since just before Christmas and showed an incredible amount of discipline–the kind of single-mindedness you’ve not had for quite a while, and I should feel drained and tired but I don’t. That was an incredibly over-confident assumption to make, even though it was true at the time I thought it. When I got home from work I realized my candle wick had burned down so far that it needed to rest and be replenished for a while. I am still feeling motivated and creative, though; I was simply drained yesterday. Before I went to bed last night (after watching another episode of The Recruit, which I am really enjoying) I kind of felt like the batteries were already starting to recharge. I feel very tired this morning, too–I slept well, don’t get me wrong, but I think I needed to sleep longer. Ah, well. I don’t have to get up before the sun rises tomorrow, so that’s something.

I always like Thursday nights.

But the kitchen is still a mess. I wasn’t in the mood to clean last night when I got home, either. I just felt disoriented, emotionally and intellectually spent, and physically tired. I used to call it the malaise, because it felt like melancholy brought on by the utter exhaustion of my creativity and drive to write. It’s very weird. Usually, the malaise also brings with it the feeling that I don’t even want to think about writing anything else ever again–which is not the case this time, which is very weird to me. I am champing at the bit to get to work on more things, new things, even to start working on the editing of everything else. It is very weird, and I will keep you posted on how this weird new version of malaise works itself out.

But I’ll have to clean the kitchen before the ZOOM thing tonight. That, or turn off all the kitchen lights.

Heavy heaving sigh.

I watched an interesting documentary on Youtube in my tired malaise last night, a new one from James Somerton called The Death of Queer Privacy, which was interesting. The primary focus of the documentary–Somerton does popular media critiques from a queer perspective–was, to begin with, about outing as well as the potentially problematic tropes in Paul G. Tremblay’s A Cabin at the End of the World and it’s film adaptation, A Knock at the Cabin. It was another look–deconstruction, if you will–if whether a straight identified (I don’t know how he actually does identify) writer centering a gay couple/family at the heart of a horror novel/movie is either good representation (they could just as easily have been a straight couple, a mixed-race couple, lesbians, etc.; sexual orientation didn’t play a part in the plot and if anything, the fact that the gay family was presented as normal and not a big deal tends to undermine any critical analyses of this as intentionally or unintentionally sinister) or if the book/movie, at heart, centers the trauma of a queer family as entertainment for the masses. I may want to watch that again; I wasn’t paying a lot of attention because I was tired and scrolling through social media on my iPad, so I may have missed some things, but the critique and look at the film itself was merely an introduction to the main topic, which was the attack on queer people’s right to privacy–which served as an interesting counterpoint to a lot of the public discourse about queer celebrities and how much of their lives, if any, needs to be shared with the audience. The recent forced outing of Kit Conner from Heartstopper is perhaps the best example of this; the idea that queer people in the public eye need to–nay, must–come out and be publicly queer, no matter how they themselves feel about revealing that much of themselves to the world, is problematic on its face. Somerton then went on to talk about how gossip blogger (and garbage human being) Perez Hilton essentially dragged a couple of people out of the closet. And really, are the personal and private lives of any celebrity any of our business? Simply because we enjoy someone’s performance in film and television, or like someone’s music, doesn’t really give us the right to know intimate details of their personal lives. I’ve never cared, beyond mere idle interest in hearing gossip; but I don’t care that much about it because I don’t know these people. What does who Taylor Swift is dating have to do with her music–other than her break-ups tend to spawn some amazing music–and why do I care? Why would I care who Tom Hiddleston is fucking, unless it’s someone I actually know? (There’s an interesting dialogue to be had about our billion-dollar celebrity gossip industry…) To circle around back to Tremblay, I knew he was publicly identified as straight as far as I knew (and didn’t care to know more). I was a fan of his before reading A Cabin at the End of the World (having greatly enjoyed A Head Full of Ghosts and Disappearance at Devil’s Rock–I’ve not read the others yet–and so I was delightfully surprised that the family the book was centered on was a gay couple and their adopted child. It was yet another entry in the “people go to secluded place and then horrible things happen” trope of horror, but with a remarkable twist that made it even more intense and terrifying. (I’m really looking forward to the film.) I read the book and enjoyed it, and I didn’t read anything sinister into it; but I was also reading it from an entertainment perspective rather than to gain a sociopolitical perspective for writing a critique…which now I kind of want to do, thank a lot, James Somerton–this is how this kind of thing always happens to me.

In fact, an essay exploring three mainstream novels by non-queer writers centering queer characters could prove interesting–and the Tremblay, S. A. Cosby’s Razorblade Tears, and Laurie R. King’s Back to the Garden would be the perfect trio to look at as they are relatively current, critical successes, and often award recognized.

And on that note I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely morning, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.