Category: television

Sweet Love

Saturday morning and feeling fine. Another good night’s sleep is in the books, and I am swilling coffee and looking forward to getting some things done today. I have to make groceries (I wound up pretty much effectively blowing most of yesterday off–who saw that coming?) and I need to get some work done on the WIP. I did get all of the laundry–including bed linens–done yesterday, and the dishes, and some cleaning and organizing done. I also pulled the WIP out from the back-up, and sure enough, the 300 words or so I’d one on Chapter Three weren’t there, since they are on the flash drive.

But as I said yesterday, reconstructing the revisions I’d already done turned out to be easier–and better–than the revision I’d done already; and while I simply added a different three hundred words to that chapter, this 300 is better than the last 300 and I also restructured the opening of the chapter so it makes better sense and works better. So leaving the flash drive at the office was, as I thought it might be yesterday, for the best. I intend to get that chapter finished this morning, perhaps move on to the next, and then perhaps get a short story reworked before retiring to my easy chair with Alison Gaylin’s quite superb Never Look Back, which is quite superb, actually. I thought her last two novels–What Remains of Me and If I Die Tonight–were marvelous; this one looks to be even better than both of those….which means hours of reading bliss for me. Gaylin is an author who always outdoes herself with each new work, like her peers Megan Abbott, Laura Lippman, Lori Roy, and Alafair Burke.

And I think the next book up with be something by a gay author, as I continue working on the Diversity Project. I also need to get back to reading Murder-a-Go-Go’s, so I can keep writing up the stories in it. I also should be doing more promotion for Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories. I’ve done a terrible job of pushing the book thus far–even forgetting the publication date–and yeah, it’s a wonder I still  have a career to speak at all in this business.

But it’s great to feel rested and relaxed; that happens so rarely that having several good nights’ sleep under my belt has me wondering, is this how everyone else feels? Don’t take the ability to sleep for granted, Constant Reader, if it is something you are blessed with; it can be taken away from you before you know it and you’ll really, really miss it once it’s gone.

We watched some more of Kim’s Convenience  last night, and continue to enjoy it. I do want to get back to watching You and The Umbrella Academy at some point, but neither show crosses my mind when I am flipping through the Apple TV apps trying to find something to watch. I also never finished watching Pose, and there’s also Fosse/Verdon, which I’d like to take a look at as well. And I barely ever think to go to Amazon Prime…primarily because their television app isn’t really user friendly. (I’ve still never forgiven Hulu for changing theirs from something incredibly intuitive and super-easy to use to the more complicated version they have now.) But there are some terrific films I’d like to see–I still haven’t seen Black Panther, for example–and of course there are some classic films available for streaming.

It’s ever so easy to get distracted, you know?

So, once I finish this I am going to go read for an hour before getting back to work on the WIP, and then I am going to head to the grocery store. I’ll work on it some more when I get back from the grocery store, and then read some more until about five-ish, after which I’ll probably go sit in my chair and scroll through apps looking for something to watch…oh yes, the NCAA women’s gymnastics championships are on tonight, and LSU made it to the final four, along with UCLA, Oklahoma, and Denver. Paul and I are enormous LSU fans, and we watch the gymnastics team compete, whenever possible, on television. And football season will be returning soon…I am already getting emails from Stubhub about buying game tickets. Paul and I are still riding our eight-year streak of never seeing LSU lose when we are in the stadium; let’s hope that streak continues for a ninth year.

And now it’s time to head back into the spice mines. See you on the flip side, Constant Reader!

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Right Back Where We Started From

A very good morning and a very good Friday to y’all. I slept late this morning, which was fabulous. I did wake up once, sometimes after four, but rolled over and focused and was able to fall right back asleep, and yes, marvelous doesn’t even begin to cover how lovely it felt. We had a terrible storm last night–it was much worse on the north shore and in Mississippi than it was here–but there was lots of rain, wind and thunder/lightning. I was able to leave work early–half-day–and came home feeling exhausted, so I went right to my easy chair while getting some laundry going. Paul and I then finished watching the third season of Cardinal, a Canadian series that it quite excellent–Bill Campbell is exceptionally good in the lead–and then watched a few episodes of a cute comedy series, also Canadian, called Kim’s Convenience, also in its third season. I then went to bed after folding a basket of laundry; the second basket is currently tumbling dry in the dryer. At some point I need to run to Rouse’s–although I am trying to stick really hard to the “don’t be a food hoarder anymore Gregalicious” mentality I developed thanks to the Termite Armageddon.

I really am going to make it a goal to clean out the kitchen cabinets more frequently; perhaps once a quarter?

So, the three day weekend looms large before me. I realized last night I forgot my flash drive at the office, but never fear…this week I managed to back up everything, including the flash drive, to my back-up hard drive AND the cloud, so I should be able to access everything I’ve been working on. I may not have the three hundred or so words I managed on chapter three of the WIP, but I have also found that reconstructing work I have already done sometimes–not always, but most of the time–turns out better than the work I’d already done. So, yes, I am going to try to do that this weekend, and get some other work done. I have more things on the “get done” list than is likely to actually get done (as always), but hey, it is what it is, you know?

Obviously, as always, there is cleaning I want to do, and there are some books I want to read–Alison Gaylin’s Never Look Back in particular, which I’ve started and is amazing thus far–and I also need, at some point, to do some book review blog posts. I think I may have taken too much time between reading the last two books I read and writing about them; we shall see, I suppose, once I actually start writing about them.

But this morning I feel good and ready to go; rested and better and all about getting things done today, which is quite lovely. I hope this motivation lasts, frankly–although it’s pretty easy to see it going south fairly soon–it doesn’t really take very much for me to get off track. But this morning I am going to do some writing and do some laundry and some cleaning and perhaps some organizing and we’ll see where the day takes us, shan’t we? I am also going to spend some time writing answers to my emails, which I will send on Monday morning (email begets email; so I stopped answering emails on the weekends several years ago and it felt marvelous; it still does, actually).

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

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You Should Be Dancing

Well, Constant Reader, it’s Wednesday and we’ve officially made it through the first half of the week. Actually, for me it’s the first three quarters because I have Good Friday off, bitches.

Thank you AGAIN, Catholic New Orleans.

It’s payday, so I am going to relish having money in my bank account for a few moments before I start paying the bills and the money disappears. Yesterday I was tired; I had dinner with my friend Stuart (in from out of town) and his friend Jamie Monday night after work and even had a craft beer–which of course made me incredibly sleepy. Paul had gone over to a friend’s on Sunday so I’d watched Game of Thrones alone, so Monday night I watched it again with Paul, so I was already sleepy from the beer and tired, and wound up staying up later than I’d intended watching Game of Thrones. Sigh. But last night I slept really well, and even woke up relatively early this morning, which was quite lovely.

My desk is a bit of a mess and I have dishes in the sink (and I suspect dishes in the dishwasher that need to be put away) and some laundry in process…so I probably should get going on all of that before I get ready for work. Heavy heaving sigh. Today is the last of my long days at work this week–tomorrow is a half-day, Friday is a HOLIDAY HUZZAH HUZZAH HUZZAH!–so I should just buckle up and deal.

We did watch Veep last night, which was, as always, hilarious.

And while I whine about going to work all the time, I have to point out that I actually love my day job. It’s the perfect thing for me; I just wish I didn’t have to do it forty hours a week. But if I have to work forty hours a week in an office, this is the best possible option for me; I love what I do. (I just feel like I need to point that out on occasion!)

So, today I am hoping to get some writing done, read some more of Alison Gaylin’s terrific Never Look Back, and get home tonight in time to watch The Real Housewives of New York.

Yes, that’s me, living large.

Sorry to be so dull–and now it’s off to the spice mines.

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Golden Years

When I wrote Jackson Square Jazz, an important part of the plot had to do with the 1989 fire at the Cabildo. Shortly after moving to New Orleans in 1996, I’d seen a documentary about the Cabildo fire and how the New Orleans Fire Department had fought the fire–choosing to rescue as many of the artifacts and treasures inside before training the water hoses on the building. I made it a plot point because I wanted to preserve, even if in fiction, what an amazing job the NOFD had done, as well as point out how fragile and delicate our history can be. Doing the research on the fire kept putting a thought in my head–how heartbreaking would it be if St. Louis Cathedral caught fire?

After Katrina, seeing that the cathedral had survived without damage was the first semblance of hope I had after the levees failed that New Orleans would recover.

I cannot imagine how Parisians and other Frenchmen must have felt yesterday, seeing that iconic image that has stood for over eight hundred years aflame. I am not French, but it broke my heart to see the images from this horrible disaster.

One of my dreams, my bucket-list items, was to spend a day at Notre Dame, to soak in all the history and the beauty and the art. I love French history; I love France, although I’ve never been. I remember reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame for the first time. I remember all the French histories and biographies I’ve read; so much history took place in and around that beautiful, beautiful building. As I write this I remember a scene I wrote once; for a book I never wrote but one day I had this glorious image in my head and I wrote it down: the marriage of Henri of Navarre to Marguerite de Valois on the steps; because he was not a Catholic they could not wed inside. It was after their wedding that the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day began; I remember reading about it in Dumas’ Queen Margot, and in assorted other historical fictions or biographies of Catherine de Medici or Henri of Navarre (who later was the first Bourbon king, Henri IV). I remember having this vivid image in my head of a lady watching the ceremony; and her impressions of it, and wrote them down. I always thought it would be an interesting historical suspense novel–the lady in question was one of the “flying squadron”; ladies trained in the erotic arts who used seduction for information in service to Catherine de Medici. I enjoyed writing about Jeanne-Charlotte de Sevigny in that scene; I’ve always liked the character and the period has always fascinated me. Perhaps someday…

I still think about that novel every once in a while.

But now, when I finally make it Paris, if I finally make it to Paris…depending on when I go, the iconic landmark, one of the major symbols of both Paris and France, won’t be the same. It will be repaired and rebuilt–it was under renovation already when the fire broke out yesterday–but will it be the view that millions have already enjoyed, admired, gasped in awe at?

And of course there’s the fear that it won’t be the same.

On the other hand, the Cabildo was rebuilt after the fire and it’s still the Cabildo, so there’s that. Future generations won’t know anything other than there was a fire and it was rebuilt–and the interior, it turns out, survived a lot more intact than anyone had originally anticipated.

It also reminds me of John Berendt’s wonderful book City of Falling Angels, about the fire that destroyed a Venetian landmark, the Opera House, and the rebuilding process.

And now, tis back to the spice mines with me this Tuesday morning.

Vive le France.

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More More More

Monday morning, and I overslept a bit this morning. Not a good start to the week, but the week is also only a four day week, as Good Friday is a city holiday (one has to love Catholic New Orleans, doesn’t one?) and so it’s a short week for me. Perhaps not off to the best start, but it’s off to a start at any rate.

In other exciting news, some of my computer issues have been solved, My friend Stuart, whose company is exclusively Mac and therefore is a sort of non-Apple-employed genius genius, is in town and we spoke on the phone yesterday (we are having dinner tonight) and he explained to me what some of the issues I have been having might have been…and he was correct. I worked on correcting those issues yesterday, to a point, and now my desktop computer is operating a little more normally than it was–it’s certainly faster, and the program crashing issue, at least for the last twenty-four hours, has apparently corrected itself–or my actions have corrected it. We shall see how long this lasts, shan’t we?

I also managed to get back to work on the WIP yesterday. I only managed about 400 words, but it was work and it was progress and I am definitely counting that as moving forward. I also did some brainstorming on the potential new series I am considering writing, which was lovely. The more I think about this new series the more I like it. Hopefully, it will work out and turn into something truly terrific; one can hope, at any rate. We shall certainly see. The goal for this week is to get several chapters on the WIP done, and to get some more work done on the two proposals I am writing. I am excited about both, even though they are both new things that I hadn’t even thought about it two months ago–which is pushing other projects I want to write further back into the ethereal future–but there you have it. That is this writer’s life, and someday–someday–I hope to have written everything I want to write.

I also managed to get some serious cleaning done yesterday. I had a great night’s sleep Saturday night, and therefore yesterday had more energy than I was expecting to have/thought I would have/have had on a Sunday in quite some time. So the kitchen and the living room look really lovely; I am hoping to use the extra day this coming weekend to do some other, more serious cleaning (oy, my ceiling fans are filthy, and I don’t even want to discuss my kitchen windows). So, in other words, Sunday was a much more productive day than I’d thought it would be, and it turned out quite nicely–particularly after I didn’t get anything really accomplished on Saturday, other than finishing Steph Cha’s wonderful book, which I greatly enjoyed (more to come on that later). So…despite my late start to the day–which I am not letting discombobulate me at all, instead of stressing about being late I am going to just get the things done I need to get done before I leave the house this morning and let the day play out as it may.

The premiere of the penultimate season of Game of Thrones  last night was a bit slow, but it was also a set-up episode, setting the stage for the big finish of all the stories that are currently spinning out and coming to their inevitable end. We did get the big reveal about Jon Snow’s true parentage last night, which was incredibly cool, plus the scene of Jon and Dany riding the dragons (BIG hint, as only Targaryens can ride dragons), and I love how Sansa has turned into a Bad Boss Bitch. The evolution of Sansa as a character, from the wide-eyed innocent girl who dreamed of marrying and being a queen to the calculating, suspicious, trust-no-one Lady of Winterfell has been extraordinary, and bravo to Game of Thrones for this. Bravo.

We also watched the season finale of Schitt’s Creek over the weekend and it, too, was enormously satisfying. Watching Stevie on stage coming into her own as Sally in Cabaret singing “Maybe This Time” was one of those in-your-feels moments that the show does so remarkably well. Schitt’s Creek may be one of the best sitcoms in the history of television; it has rarely missed a beat, has always been funny, and no matter how crazy or insane situation develops in each episode, every character remains true to themselves even as they develop, change and grow. I told a friend the other day that the run of Schitt’s Creek has had some of the best character development and growth I’ve ever seen in a television comedy series, and it’s incredibly true. The fact that there is only one more season breaks my heart more than just a little bit–and while I may have been late to watching this show–well, this is indeed another case of better late than never.

I also hope to start reading the ARC of Alison Gaylin’s new novel, Never Look Back, this week, and am most excited about it.

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

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Bohemian Rhapsody

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide no escape from reality.

I do love the song. I wasn’t an enormous fan of the movie–primarily because I wasn’t that interested in the trajectory of the bad so much as I was more interested in Freddie and his life–but it was a perfectly good movie about a rock band.

I did finish reading Steph Cha’s Follow Her Home yesterday and I highly recommend it. The writing is exceptionally done well, and her character, Juniper Song, is terrific. I have some other thoughts about the book in my head, but am going to wait until they fully form before I write about it more. But…while I am sure I would have eventually gotten around to reading Steph–I’ve met her and like her–I am glad that I made a point of moving her up in the TBR pile. As I said when I was talking about the Diversity Project the other day, it’s the unconscious bias against minority writers I am fighting against within my own head and within my own choices, and trying to retrain/rewire my brain to not automatically move toward white writers when selecting the next book to read–even if they are women, who are also historically undermined as ‘not as serious as the men’ by not just the industry but by society itself. (I am really itching to start reading Alison Gaylin’s Never Look Back.)

As I’ve mentioned, my reading has always skewed more toward women than men; as a child, I preferred Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden to the Hardy  Boys (although the Three Investigators are my absolute favorite kids’ series, and they were boys), to the point where I was forbidden to read books either by women or about women for a period of time–which quite naturally made me want to read them even more.

The absolute best way to get me to do something is to either forbid me from doing it, or telling me that I can’t do it. Forbidding me makes me want it all the more, and telling me I can’t do something makes me want to prove you wrong.

I am ridiculously excited that Game of Thrones returns tonight for its final season. I am going to be terribly sorry when the show is over; I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the ride from the time Paul and I got the DVD’s from Netflix and starting binge-watching; loved it so much we paid for the HBO app subscription so we could watch it as it aired, once we were caught up. I do want to finish reading the books–I’ve only finished A Game of Thrones–and maybe if I get a long vacation on a beach somewhere, I can finish the entire series that has been published thus far. I really loved the book, and suspect I’ll feel the same way about the rest of the series. Yesterday I spent some time reacquainting myself with some of my favorite moments from the series over the years, thanks to said HBO app–the Battle of the Loot Train, the end of Ramsey Bolton, the trial of Littlefinger, the big reveal about Jon Snow’s parents, the Battle of Meereen, Daenarys conquering the Dothraki by killing all the Khals, Cersei’s revenge on the Sept–and was again, as always, blown away by the sheer scope and scale of the show, and how fucking fantastic it is from top to bottom. Game of Thrones, whether you love it or hate it, is always going to be considered one of the greatest television series of all time, up there with The Wire, The Sopranos,and The West Wing, and deservedly so. We truly are in a marvelous time for television programming.

Friday I was even more ridiculously excited to see the first trailer for the ninth episode of Star Wars and to learn its title: The Rise of Skywalker. I really cannot wait to see this movie, and I suspect we are going to go see it on opening weekend this December if it kills me. It’s very strange to realize that Star Wars has been a part of my life for over forty years now…and while the second trilogy, episodes one through three, aren’t amongst my favorites (I’ve not rewatched them very much), I still have a big love for all things Star Wars, and frankly, Rogue One just might be my favorite Star Wars film of them all.

So, after a really good night’s sleep and waking up later than I usually do, I am going to clean this kitchen and then I am going to work for a while. I might go to the grocery store; we need a few things, but at the same time I should also be able to get the things we need on the way home from work tomorrow, if they are, in fact, so desperately needed. I think I’m going to do that–wait, I mean–because if I’ve learned anything from the Termite Genocide experience, it’s that I hoard food and really need to use the things I already have on hand rather than go out and buy new things to prepare.

I’m actually looking forward to working today, if you can believe that, Constant Reader. I am determined to get the next chapter of the WIP finished, and then I am going to work on these other two ideas I’ve had, and then I am going to spend a couple of hours with the Gaylin novel.

What a lovely Sunday this will turn out to be.

Have a terrific day, everyone–and in one week, it’s Easter!

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I’d Really Love to See You Tonight

I never used to have trouble with my sinuses, or allergies, or any of that; at least that I recall. But I would think I would remember having these horrible headaches, that reach down into my jaw, or the constant dripping and coughing and the fevers and the eyes burning and all that comes with sinus infections or allergies. I think it was sometime after 2001 that it happened the first time; the weather changed and spring sprung and suddenly I was feverish and coughing and my nose was running and a friend told me it was sinus-related; and that the best way to deal with it was taking stinging nettles. I thought it was weird, but on my way home I stopped at Walgreens and bought a bottle of stinging nettles in capsule form. I took two and within half an hour all of my symptoms were gone.

Like the whole thing had been a figment of my imagination.

The nettles worked so well that I started taking them every day even if I didn’t sense symptoms; along with my multi-vitamins and my workout supplements and other vitamins and fish oil and so forth, I took two capsules of nettles. It worked for years, but as time passed and I grew older, the nettles stopped being effective and I switched to Claritin-D, which is the only thing since the nettles that I’ve found that helps. But you can break Claritin-D down into something approximating crystal meth (I don’t know how it works or how you do it; I’ve never watched Breaking Bad) and so now the government keeps track of how much you can buy; you have to present ID and if its too soon after the last time you bought some…they won’t sell it to you. I’ve never quite been able to figure out how the limit works–I suppose I could research it on-line–but the bottom line of it is I treat my Claritin-D like gold. I won’t even let Paul have one, in case I need one and I’m out and it’s too soon to buy more. I used to try to buy some every time I pick up prescriptions to stockpile it so I will always have it when I need it; I’ve slacked off on that and this recent sinus infection has reminded me of the importance of having stock.

So, much as I would simply like to take a Claritin-D every day during the spring, I can’t because one-a-day is above the government monthly allowance. So, when my sinuses start reacting and we have heavy weather like we did over the weekend, because I am worried I might run out of it sometime when I really need it, I don’t take it preemptively and wind up with yet another sinus infection. So, note to self: when I can, I am going to buy more. And I am going to put a bottle of stinging nettles on the list, too. It can’t hurt to take it every day, supplementing with a Claritin-D as needed.

It’s also insane that anything I can get with a prescription doesn’t work as well. In all seriousness, make it a prescription medication again. Wouldn’t usage being easier to track and people using it to make drugs be easier to stop if there has to be a prescription filed in order for it to be obtained for use?

I don’t know, just spitballing here.

In case you couldn’t tell, Constant Reader, I still feel lousy and I am feeling pretty damned crabby over the whole thing. I had to use two days of sick time  and probably two days of being productive in other ways by being sick. Heavy heaving sigh.

I actually feel worse this morning than I did yesterday; my hope is this will all clear up somehow before tomorrow so I can go back to work and stop using sick time. My sinuses feel okay today, so that’s something; but it’s the rest that needs to clear up. My joints ache, I’m still feverish, and I had to get up in the middle of the night to throw up–yeah, that was lovely. I am going to be eating chicken soup today for lunch; I tend to not eat when I am sick, which makes me even weaker.

Again, lovely.

But I did get to read some more of Steph Cha’s Follow Her Home yesterday between bouts of dozing off and feeling sick; I’d read until I couldn’t focus and then put it aside. I might just curl up in my easy chair today with a blanket and watch movies; Bonnie & Clyde, All the President’s Men, and Deliverance are all available to stream from Netflix, and I’ve been wanting to see them all again. I’ve never seen Bonnie & Clyde in the theatrical cut, only seeing the badly butchered edited for television version, and since reading Mark Harris’ brilliant Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of New Hollywood I’ve been wanting to see all five films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar for 1967–some again, some for the first time (I’ve never seen In the Heat of the Night, which won). Maybe if I can’t focus on reading…

And on that note, back to the spice mines.

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Love Hurts

I detest being ill.

Sunday night I began to feel slightly off–more off than I’d been feeling since Friday, when the wretched bad weather rolled in–and I began to suspect that the weather was wreaking havoc with my sinuses which would lead to the inevitable sinus infection. Yesterday I didn’t feel great, and as soon as I got home from work last night I started taking antibiotics leftover from the last sinus infection, and woke up this morning feeling absolutely horrible.  I called in sick to work, have taken some more antibiotics this morning, and am hoping that when tomorrow dawns, the antibiotics will have done their job and cleared everything up for me.

One can hope, at any rate.

The Claritin also seems to be helping. I intend on spending the rest of the day retired to my bed, with Steph Cha’s Follow Her Home to keep me company. I managed to read another chapter and I am very impressed indeed with Ms. Cha. She writes in a very hard-boiled, noir style that is reminiscent of Chandler and Hammett–and she does pay homage to Chandler quite a bit in these opening chapters. Juniper Song is an interesting, complex character that I like quite a bit, and am looking forward to getting to know her better. This is also the first in a series, which means there’s more Juniper Song out there for me to read, savor, and enjoy, which is absolutely lovely.

Is there anything more satisfying than discovering a new author whose work you love?

I think not.

When I retire to my bedchamber later on this morning–as soon as I take care of some business here at my desk–I will be taking my Macbook Air with me, along with my novel, so that if the mood strikes me I can work on the WIP whilst ensconced in the comfort of my bed. I don’t remember the last time I spent the day lolling about in bed; I usually move to my easy chair with blankets and heating pads when I am unwell, but it sounds absolutely lovely, despite the pressure in my head and the constant draining and hacking up of phlegm from my lungs. I see chicken noodle soup in my future for lunch as well; it may not help cure what ails me, but it always makes me feel better.

Last night we got caught up on the most recent episodes of both Veep and Schitt’s Creek, both of which were terrific, before I retired to sleep. I slept pretty decently, given that I felt terrible when I went to bed, but this morning I am still feeling kind of worn out, which is no doubt due to the sinus issue. Yay?

So, there will be no spice-mining today, most likely. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.

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I Write the Songs

Another good night’s sleep, with gloomy Sunday glaring at me through my kitchen windows. I wound up wasting most of yesterday–although organizing and filing and so forth doesn’t really seem like a hardship to me–and then last night there was some drama involving my phone again not being recognized by my computer, so yeah, there was that. So, I managed to get next to nothing done yesterday but relaxing and some little bit of my organizing, which means today I have to do a lot of it. Which is fine–I usually dread the morning of the day I pushed everything off to arriving; because nine times out of ten I will almost always feel just as lazy on the Sunday as I did on the Saturday.

It happens.

But I am not feeling quite so out of sorts–or lazy–this morning; which means I am going to start tearing through the to-do list once I finish this entry. I am determined to get my inbox emptied once and for all; I am going to get some work done, and I am going to finish the organizing and cleaning I started doing yesterday. I cleaned off and organized most of the stuff on the top of the kitchen cabinets–eighteen foot ceilings give you a lot of storage space on top of your kitchen cabinets, in case you were wondering–and while there is still stuff up there that should probably come down, I may leave that up for a while just yet…until I can figure out what to do with the stuff. I mean, I don’t want to give away my food processor, but the truth is I rarely, if ever, use it–maybe three times once I first got it and was impressed with the novelty of having one. Or my electric wok; again, used maybe once or twice. Again, a nice thing to have…but I never use it. Maybe I should store these things in the attic. I don’t know.

Yesterday afternoon (and early evening) we watched Venom and the remake/reboot/latest sequel in the Friday the 13th series–the 2009 version with Jared Padalecki of Supernatural in the starring role. Believe it or not, I’d never watched the original until a few years ago, when it became available on a streaming service, and while I can see why it was so enormously successful at the time and am willing to recognize it as a landmark film in the resurgence of horror cinema in the late 1970’s/early 1980’s, the production values are only slightly higher than that of a home movie of the time–which led me to think about how The Blair Witch Project, with similar production values and maybe a slightly higher budget, also revolutionized horror cinema and made a fortune. The reboot (or whatever it was, a sequel with no number, whatever) wasn’t a bad film, it just wasn’t a great film; it was perfectly adequate, but added nor removed anything from the canon or iconography and therefore just seemed like an attempt at a cash grab. Likewise, Venom, despite its impressive effects and being about one of my favorite Marvel characters…just didn’t fire on all cylinders for me and was actually kind of dull. And I love me some Tom Hardy; perhaps the problem was that giving Venom an origin story that doesn’t involve Peter Parker was a misfire…and Stan Lee’s cameo at the end of the film just made it sadder, knowing he’s now dead.

So, today I have to make a quick and easy grocery run, deal with my taxes once and for all, and want to finish revising some chapters of the WIP while also putting together the proposal for the suspense thriller I may want to write later in the year. I also want to read the next story in Murder-a-Go-Go’s and get started on Steph Cha’s Follow Her Home. I also have some other things I need to work on as well. And there’s always cleaning that needs to be done, and organizing. Always. I just have to make sure I don’t get into one of those oh I feel lazy and this can wait until another time moods, you know?

Which is, sadly, easier and easier to slip into these days.

But that cannot happen, I cannot keep letting things slide, so today is the day when I need to get it all together and get it all done.

Beginning with the goddamned emails.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Sara Smile

Well, I slept much later than I usually do; I did wake up at seven but through nah, too early and went back to sleep, not awakening again until nine-thirty-ish. And yes, that is late for me, but I also stayed up later than I usually do because Paul and I got sucked into a marathon binge of season three of Santa Clarita Diet, which dropped this week. We have three episodes left to go–which will probably be watched this evening–and then we have to decide which of the shows we’d already started we want to finish–either Umbrella Academy or You. There are also some other shows we need to finish, others that look like possibilities, and Netflix also added some great classic films I’ve been wanting to watch again; namely Bonnie and Clyde, All the President’s Men, Deliverance, the reboot of Friday the 13th, and the Will Smith version of I Am Legend. I also intend to start reading Steph Cha’s Follow Her Home, kicking the Diversity Project back into gear, and I also want to finish reading Murder-a-Go-Go’s for the Short Story Project.

I also need to start doing some sort of promotion for Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories, but I’m not exactly sure what and how and…you get the picture; again, I don’t really know how I have a career.

I was thinking about the Diversity Project the other day, and I want to make it abundantly clear that I don’t think it’s right that I have to turn reading diverse authors into a “project” to make diversifying my reading happen. Even saying The Diversity Project makes it sound effortful, as though if I didn’t make a point of it I wouldn’t do it. And that’s clearly wrong on every level. And I’ve been failing miserably at it thus far this year, no matter how many excuses I want to make for it. This of course has me examining my own prejudices. I’ve bought the books, of course, which is an important first step and every sale helps, but I also need to not only read the books but talk about them. Here it is April and the only one I’ve talked about is Walter Mosley; what kind of an ally am I to minority writers, of which I am one?

Apparently, not a very good one.

I had already softened the project’s goal from focusing on only reading minority writers to interspersing them with others; so if I read a book by a non-minority writer the next one I have to read must be by a minority writer. That hasn’t worked overly well, either; part of it has been due to my own, I don’t know, weird ambivalence to this year–something that’s been going on since around the Great Data Disaster of 2018. I’ve also realized, just this past week, that the Great Data Disaster wasn’t really where it all started. My life has been in an almost constant state of upheaval of some sort or another since late October, just before Halloween. My day job moved from the office where we’d been located since I was hired back in 2005 (the office actually opened in 2000) into a new location, which required all sorts of adaptation. For almost the entire first month of the existence in the new office we didn’t do a lot of testing, which is what my job is, which meant I was working a weird (to me) early morning to late afternoon shift–say, 8-430ish. This freed my evenings and I was going to town on writing and revising Scotty in those free evenings, because the Festivals were also kicking into high gear and Paul was coming home late. Then came December with a readjustment to working a new schedule all over again, followed by the Great Data Disaster, the Christmas holidays, and then Carnival. During that time period I was also working on finishing up my job as a book award judge and diving into a new task for this year, also involving award judging but not actually having to read anything (I really can’t say more than that about it; but it’s a big endeavor and I will leave it at that). I don’t think I ever really got a handle on anything, which is why I felt like my life was happening and I was not actively participating in it.

And softening the goal also makes me question myself and my internal, subconscious prejudices and biases. Yes, I had to read three books to moderate my panel at the Tennessee Williams Festival, which wasn’t easy and really involved a lot of cramming at the end. Why do I automatically reach for a book by a straight white writer when it’s time to chose another book to read? Why will I justify taking that book out of the stack rather than reaching for a book by a minority writer? It is these unconscious biases and prejudices that need to be ripped out by the root and plowed under with salt so they won’t take root again; and  not just in reading, but in life. 

I think I do a better job with my life than I do with my reading, quite frankly.

I also had thought, when I started on this, that I would expand the project outside the bounds of crime fiction and include other genres as well. I’ve always believed that reading more widely outside of one’s genre will make one a better author by exposing you to different styles of writing, different stories and different characters. Horror is always my immediate go-to when it comes to reading outside of mystery, but I also need to read more fantasy, science fiction, romance, and literary fiction. I also don’t want to stop reading women crime writers, either.

The exposure to other voices, other thoughts, other mindsets, will not only make me a better writer but a better person. What better key to understanding experiences outside my own is there than actually reading books outside my own experience, and to see the common humanity?

My first thought on rising so late this morning was well, you’ve shot your day to hell. But that isn’t true. I can still get things done today as long as I don’t allow myself to bog down on generalities or give up on the day. It would be ridiculously easy, you know, to simply write the entire day off and do nothing, but I really don’t want to waste the day. I’d like to get another chapter of the WIP finished, for one thing, and I’d like to work on this proposal I’m putting together. The kitchen needs work and there’s always filing that needs to be done, and there’s a lot of mess around. I also need to make a quick run to the grocery store as well.

So, on that note, I am off to the spice mines. Happy Saturday, Constant Reader.

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