Category: the apartment

Saving Myself

Very tired this morning, after being out late bar testing last night. Hanging on by my fingernails until this weekend, I’m afraid. Definitely more coffee is in order this morning before I can function. I’m also trying to decide if I want to take lunch or if I want to get a gyro from Mona’s. Right now I am feeling so incredibly unmotivated I don’t even think I have the energy to shower and pick out clothes to wear to the office, quite frankly. It’s not even that I didn’t sleep well–I did. I am just physically worn out, which means I really need to focus on getting back into better shape than I currently am in. Seems like I’ve been saying that since January, doesn’t it? And it’s not like I’ve been so motivated to get a lot where I need to be with my writing. ENOUGH! I must get back on schedule with the revision.

And that’s the name of THAT tune.

I’m still reading and enjoying Dan Chaon’s Ill Will, although I’m still not very far into it. I want to finish reading that this weekend; I think after I finish him I’m either going to read either something from Lisa Unger, or maybe something horror; I’m not entirely sure. I did notice yesterday that I’ve been reading a lot of men lately; which is unusual for me. I generally tend to read more women–not to disparage male writers, of course, there are a lot of them I enjoy (Bracken MacLeod, Christopher Golden, Owen Laukkanen, Chris Holm, Michael Koryta, etc etc etc; it’s just there’s so little time and so MANY books!) But Project Purge continues apace; I have another bag full of books that need to go out for donation, and I am very pleased about that. I am taking a four day weekend for 4th of July, and am hoping to be able to get over to the storage unit on that Monday to start making inroads on THAT mess (if they’re open; I shall be highly annoyed if they are not, but that Wednesday is also a bar testing night, so I won’t have to be at work until later in the afternoon so in a worst case scenario I can get over there on that Wednesday morning). I do need to get in there because I have no copies of Bourbon Street Blues, Jackson Square Jazz, and Mardi Gras Mambo available here in the house; but have cases of them in there. I also fear they are in the back; but there are also boxes of books in there that can be donated. It’s definitely going to be a more than one-day purge, I fear.

Heavy heaving sigh. But hey–you don’t become a hoarder over night, you know. And if I can get that mess cleaned out, I can clean out the storage attic over the laundry room, which would be freaking awesome.

A boy can dream.

And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines. Here’s your Throwback Thursday hunk, Matt Lattanzi, who was in Rich and Famous and later married Olivia Newton-John.

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The Sunshine After The Rain

It’s actually sunny this morning in New Orleans; mayhap we can get through the day without any rain; although I am not counting on it, of course. I have a late night tonight–bar testing–and as such don’t have to go into the office until later. I am going to get some things done this morning, run to the post office and get groceries, and try to get some revising done before I head to work later this afternoon. I’ve been awake for a little over an hour now and am still shaking off the lethargy; it’s very defeating to get up and have little energy or motivation. I think the energy is there, but the brain fog is the problem.

I think tonight I might try something different when it comes to sleeping.

Anyway.

The kitchen is also a  mess this morning, so I need to empty the dishwasher and refill it. This weekend I need to definitely spend a day cleaning the downstairs and try not to get distracted from doing it (the way I have been the last month or so). I am still reading Dan Chaon’s Ill Will and deeply enjoying it–the writing is so sublime–and it’s triggering (as really well written books always do) some ideas for a book I’ve wanted to write for about thirty years now; I am making notes, just having some trouble coming up with the basic premise for the book–how do I get my main character where he needs to be for the summer? (Of course, the last thing I need is another book idea nagging at me while I am trying to get this one revised and I know I have another to write immediately after–and June is slipping through my fingers. I seriously need to buckle down and get this revision done, so I can move on to the next so I can stay on schedule.) Sigh. All I do is whine, whine, whine. So tiresome.

And on that note, I should probably get moving. I am going to the grocery store today so I need to make a list (already started) as well as go through the fridge to make sure everything in there is organized and whatever needs to be tossed has been tossed. I really hate going to the grocery store, but it’s simply got to be done this morning. (I’ll have to go again on Saturday, which is enormously frustrating, but there you go. I also have two late nights next week, so I’ll wait until then to make the Costco run.)

Life as a famous author is rather thrilling, isn’t it?

Here’s today’s hunk:

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(I’ve Been) Searchin’ So Long

Saturday morning. After my morning coffee,  I’m going to run some errands, and then I am going to figure out what time to drive out to Elmwood to see Wonder Woman–shooting for late afternoon/early evening; that way I can get some cleaning and revising done. I’ve not done much revising this week–which is shameful (there is some harsh and ugly truths there about the need for actual contractual deadlines, isn’t there?), and so my goal is to get back on track with all of that for this weekend. I want to get another three or four chapters revised, as well as the second draft of “Quiet Desperation” finished this weekend, so I can move on to revising another short story. I’ve also started a new draft of the eighth Scotty novel, Crescent City Charade, which I am hoping to get finished by the end of the summer (Labor Day is the goal). I absolutely HAVE to get these revisions finished by the end of June, because I want to spend the summer querying agents. I honestly believe this WIP is my best work, and could be an important book.

Whether that proves to be the case or not remains to be seen, of course, but here’s hoping.

The Lost Apartment is a mess, and has been for quite some time. I can’t remember the last time I did the floors, quite frankly, and it’s getting kind of ugly down there, honestly. I mean, our kitchen floor needs to be redone–tiles have come up–which kind of makes it hard to make it look nice anyway, but that’s no excuse for not cleaning, you know? My mother would be so ashamed.

So ashamed.

So, I am going to, as soon as I finish this cup of coffee, start straightening and cleaning up down here. It looks like it’s going to rain all weekend, so I am not going to bother with the windows (which are also long overdue for a cleaning; although I could do the inside. Hmmmm, that could be a plan, actually) and definitely work on these floors. There’s some filing to do–isn’t there always–and some other organizing I need to do, but if I buckle down and stay focused (and make a fucking list) I should be able to get through everything before it’s time to go see Wonder Woman.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the movie. Wonder Woman was always one of my favorite comic book superheroes (although when I started reading DC Comics, she’d given up her powers somehow and was running a clothing boutique and dealing with social issues and was a modern feminist; in retrospect, it was one of the stupidest reboots in DC’s long history of rebooting their characters); I loved the historic Amazon character, and the rebooted non-powered Wonder Woman/Diana Prince character was more of a detective, solving crimes and trained in martial arts. Around the time the television series starring Lynda Carter started, the DC rebooted her again and made her an Amazon princess with her powers again. And the TV show was amazing. Rewatching it now shows it up for its low-budget special effects and bad writing, but Lynda Carter embodied the part so beautifully that she became iconic–and I’ve been a lifelong fan of Ms. Carter. Paul and I stopped watching Supergirl during its first season, before Lynda Carter joined the cast as the president, so I’m sure at some point I’ll go back and binge the series. (I’ve also always been a fan of Supergirl–who also went through an incredibly stupid reboot in the 1970’s; complete with new costumes and a loss of some of her powers–sometimes she had them, sometimes she didn’t; they came and went because of some kind of Kryptonite poisoned drink she was tricked into imbibing; then was killed off during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, and then was brought back as something completely different after Superman was killed off in the early 1990’s. It’s really hard to keep track of all these shifts and changes in DC continuity/universes.)

Interestingly enough, now as I reflect on my fandom of both Wonder Woman and Supergirl, I realize how I’ve always been drawn to fictional depictions of strong women–from Nancy Drew to Trixie Belden to the Dana Girls to Cherry Ames to Vicki Barr to Wonder Woman to Supergirl to Lois Lane (who used to have her own comic book, detailing her adventures as an investigative reporter, which I also loved), to real life women who defied the traditional role of women in our society, like Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. I’ve certainly always enjoyed reading fiction by and about women; from Charlotte Armstrong to Phyllis Whitney to Victoria Holt to Mary Stewart to Judith Krantz and so on and so forth. Do people still read Rona Jaffe? She was another favorite of mine from the 1970’s. Taylor Caldwell, Evelyn Anthony, Jean Plaidy, Helen MacInnes, Daphne du Maurier, Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson–I’ve always read and enjoyed books written by women. (This is not to say I don’t enjoy books by men; I always have, but at the same time there is a certain style of testosterone driven male novel, complete with angst, that I simply cannot abide, and the crime genre is riddled with them. I recently joked that I wanted to write a noir set in the strip clubs in the Quarter and call it Girls Girls Girls…you get the idea.)

And there are so many wonderful women writers publishing today: Sara Paretsky, Laura Lippman, Sue Grafton, Megan Abbott, Alison Gaylin, Alafair Burke, Alex Marwood, Lisa Unger, Jamie Mason, Wendy Corsi Staub, J. M. Redmann, Kristi Belcamino, Carrie Smith, Sara Henry, Ellen Hart, Donna Andrews, Dana Cameron, Toni Kelner (Leigh Perry), Carolyn Haines, Catriona McPherson, Lori Rader-Day, and Rebecca Chance–just off the top of my head; my TBR pile is filled with books by women, and there are so many wonderful women writers I’ve not gotten to yet, like Lisa Lutz and Shannon Baker and Jennifer MacMahon and Karin Slaughter–the list goes on and on forever and ever, amen. And this is just crime fiction/thrillers…I’ve not even touched on horror or scifi or fantasy or so-called ‘chick-lit.’ (Which reminds me, I really want to read some more Liane Moriarty, and I’ve not read any Jennifer Weiner…sigh.)

There’s just never enough time….and speaking of which, it’s time for me to head back into the spice mines.

Here’s a Saturday hunk for you:

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Set the Night to Music

It rained all night; a wonderful downpour punctuated with lightning and rolling thunder that seemed to last forever. This morning everything is still gray outside, the windows covered with condensation and everything outside slick and dripping. It’s a short work week, and I don’t even have to go in until later this afternoon; I am bar testing tonight. I have some errands to run this morning, and also some things to do around the house that I kind of blew off and didn’t do over the course of the three day weekend, which is sort of shameful but I refuse to feel guilty about. I feel very well-rested this morning, and that really was the point of the weekend; the most important thing was for me to feel rested again once it was time to return to the office.

So, over all, the weekend was a win. I didn’t finish reading The Sympathizer, but have only a hundred or so pages left to read. I am really enjoying it. We finished watching Sherlock last night, got caught up with Veep, and then moved on to London Spy, which we are also enjoying; it’s nothing like I expected. I kind of knew the premise; everyone on Facebook was talking about it when it was originally airing, and of course, lots of people told me I should watch it–gay main character, gay romance at the heart of the story, and a mystery the main character has to solve. We’re two episodes in, and I have to say I am rather pleased with how it’s depicting Danny, the main character. It’s very Hitchcockian in that the main character is just an ordinary guy who gets caught up in something beyond his scope quite by accident; which is also something I rather enjoy. I’m looking forward to getting further into it–alas, tonight I have to work late, but there’s always tomorrow. (It also got me thinking about Colin, and what I kind of want to do with the next Scotty book.)

And before I run my errands and get things done around the Lost Apartment, I am going to get through some work on the WIP as well.

It is very lovely to feel rested.

And on that note, it’s time to get back to the spice mines.

Here’s a hunk to get you into your week.

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Big Yellow Taxi

Christ, it’s hot. I think this is the first day so far this year where it’s been hotter than ninety degrees and humid, and yes, in case you’re wondering, it’s miserable outside. I had Wacky Russian this morning, then ran to the post office, the grocery store, and Costco. So, I am both exhausted and drenched in sweat. I just ordered our weekend treat–a Chicago-style deep dish pizza from That’s Amore–and if I didn’t have to walk to pick it up and bring it home, I would be in the shower right now. As there’s no point to taking one now when I am just going to get sweaty all over again, I am holding off.

But I am miserable, even in the air conditioned comfort of The Lost Apartment, as am still wet and sticky. Blech. But…that pizza is going to taste amazing, and then I can take a long, hot shower…then repair to my easy chair with The Sympathizer and some fizzy water. We finished watching The Keepers last night (color me unimpressed; there was such obvious editorial manipulation–which, of course, is always necessary in a documentary, but this was so blatant that it was noticeable, and it raised some questions that it never even addressed), and now will have to find something to watch tonight. I cruised through Netflix, Hulu, and Prime before the gym this morning, and while I did find some things of interest, overall nothing that was oh, I can’t wait to watch this!

Ah, well, we can always rent movies from iTunes, I suppose.

As I was cruising around New Orleans this hot, muggy afternoon, my mind went back to the stalled Scotty book and I realized that, once again, what I was doing wrong was trying to force the original story into the Scotty book. I thought I had figured that out already, and I did to a degree, but it occurred to me that part of what I feel was missing from the series since Katrina can easily be remedied, and if I go back to Scotty’s roots, the book will be that much easier to write. I imagined an opening scene with Scotty having lunch with his sister, Rain, at her house–which we finally saw in Baton Rouge Bingo–and thought it made sense to delve into the family again. As Rain is friends with some of the ‘Grande Dames of New Orleans’, it only makes sense, plus it gives me an opportunity to get Taylor into the story as well. I also need to figure out a way to get Scotty’s parents into the story, and it’s been far too long since there’s been one of these where Frank and Colin both were present–I had developed a  very bad habit of sending Colin off on missions and sending Frank away for wrestling tours so Scotty was all alone–and I want this book to be longer than the others, as well. I want to really get deep into it, in a way I feel I haven’t since Mardi Gras Mambo. 

On the other hand, maybe I’m not the best judge of this. After all, Katrina kind of intervened, and that changed the way I look at things…so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that’s what’s going on here.

Heavy heaving sigh.

The revision of the WIP is also going well; I am very excited.

Oops! Time to go get the pizza.

Here’s a hunk for you, Constant Reader.

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Do You Know Where You’re Going To?

Thursday!

I am so incredibly tired this morning. I did bar testing last night, and am, for some reason, just completely wiped out today. I slept late, have had a lot of coffee, and yet am still spacy, muscles aching from being tired, and there are more clouds than usual in my mind. Hopefully, as the day progresses that will abate somewhat.

An old man can dream, at any rate.

I’ve been toying with an idea with the WIP revision I am doing;  it’s a risk, but this WIP is all about risk-taking and stepping outside of my comfort zone. I am hoping to get some serious work done on this revision this weekend; I’ve been so groggy this entire week I haven’t been able to do much other than think and take notes. Thank God today is Thursday; I don’t know if I could make it through this week if it were any longer. Right now I am praying that I can make it through my work day today and tomorrow so I can just collapse into my easy chair Friday night with a sigh of relief and get caught up on my rest. I don’t know why I am so sleepy/groggy/tired this week; maybe it’s the weather, who knows? (It’s been unseasonably cool, not humid, and gorgeous this week…which makes sleeping ever so much easier…and harder to wake up from.) I have high hopes for this three-day weekend, Constant Reader. High hopes indeed.

I submitted another short story this week to a new market for me; a place I’ve never tried before so it will be interesting to see if anything comes of that. The story is “Keeper of the Flame,” which is about as dark and hopeless a story as I’ve ever written–it’s really dark and disturbing, on many levels, so of course I absolutely love it–and I hope I am going to get “Quiet Desperation” finished up in second draft this weekend as well. (Yes,  am very aware that I am setting the bar really high for getting things done this weekend, when it’s entirely possible all I will do is drink lots of wine, eat pizza, get fat and read; I am not ruling that out, of course; just hopeful that a three day weekend will somehow help me hit my restart button) I also want to get some of my other short stories finished–“The Scent of Lilacs in the Rain,” “Fireflies,” “The Ditch,” and “The Terrortorium” all come to mind–but that is probably not realistic for this weekend. I do look forward to getting some of those stories finished, though, and sending them out into the world.

This week I broke down and bought a new backpack. Several years ago, I decided that I had gotten too old–had been out of college for too long–to continue carrying a backpack, and a shoulder bag would be much more adult. So, I bought a relatively nice computer/shoulder bag, and have hated the fucking thing almost since day one. I won’t go into the many reasons I hate that shoulder bag, but finally, on Monday night, after having another aggravating shoulder bag moment–not to mention how much I hated slinging the strap over my neck to relieve the drag on one shoulder and pressure from my back–I decided to hell with it, I am buying a new backpack, adjusting the straps to make it easy to get on and off, and did so.

God, I am so happy with my new backpack.

Really, it’s the little things.

And on that note, perhaps it’s time to get back to the spice mines. Here’s a Throwback Thursday hunk for you, actor Antony Hamilton:

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Another Saturday Night

Well, it’s early afternoon in New Orleans. I’ve done my workout, run errands for both myself and Paul–including the always dreaded grocery run–and now am home, a bit worn out and needing to hop in the shower. The humidity is thick out there today, so thick I’ve already had to take a Claritin-D, and my kitchen is a mess and I have lots of laundry to do. I don’t think I’m going to do any writing today–my brain is tired; that may change later, one never knows–but I think I am going to just spend the rest of the day relaxing, reading, and slowly but surely getting the apartment straightened up and cleaned up and organized; the never-ending struggle not to live in a slovenly dump. Heavy heaving sigh. I also want to get back to reading About the Author, and select what I am going to read next (although I suspect, having gotten two anthologies in the mail–Storm Warning: Chesapeake Crimes and In Sunlight or In Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper—I may just curl up with some exceptional short stories.

Stranger things have happened.

We got all caught up last night on both The Handmaid’s Tale (which continues to be incredibly gripping while horrifying) and The Mick, which is a truly demented sitcom we are enjoying tremendously. I’m not sure what we are going to watch tonight–we’ve started watching the new season of American Crime, which seems to be about migrant worker, sex trafficking, and the opiod addiction crisis, and it really looks really gripping and good; I am really sorry the show has been cancelled. We never did watch the first season, so we can also always go back and watch it, but it’s a shame. Then again, a highly intelligent show about crime that shows the same crime from many different perspectives, with all the necessary nuance and complexity, without clear cut villains and heroes–well, it was bound to not last long.

Okay, some time has passed, and I indeed curled up in my easy chair with About the Author, and finished it. It’s terrific, full of twists and turns and surprises; and the author, John Colapinto, did a most excellent job of making an extremely unlikable protagonist, well, likable. I can highly recommend it; it still holds up, even though it is nearly twenty years old–obviously, technology has moved on–but other than that, it is so well done and so well told that you don’t really notice that sort of thing. Most, most excellent. I am currently grilling hamburgers while reading Megan Abbott’s story, “Girlie Show”, in Lawrence Block’s Edward Hopper anthology; it is, thus far, quite sublime.

And now, I need to go flip the burgers.

Here’s a Saturday hunk for you.

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Blank Space

It always feels good to finish a project. It’s not entirely in the books yet, of course–there’s another round of edits, and then page proofs to get through–but this stage is completed and it feels lovely.  Ironically, it didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would; I’d started working on it Friday night, and had gotten much further along in it than I’d remembered. I then repaired to my easy chair and read some more of About the Author, which is terrific; a really great noir I can’t wait to finish. I did have to put it aside, though, because it reached that point I always call the “uh-oh” moment; the part where the character makes the really bad decision that will eventually bring him down. It’s an extremely well put-together novel, structurally speaking, which gives me some ideas about a noir I want to write–the long-thought about Muscles.

Reading is such a lovely gift to one’s self, really. I am so glad I learned to read very young, and fell in love with it. It’s a terrific pleasure.

Last night, TCM aired the old Lana Turner movie Imitation of Life, directed by Douglas Sirk, and I watched it for the first time, while paging through Sam Staggs’ gossipy book about it, Born to Be Hurt: The Untold Story of “Imitation of Life.” I love Staggs’ books; I’d already read both All About ‘All About Eve’, Close-up on Sunset Boulevard, and When Blanche Met Brando. They’re wonderful books about the stories behind the making of iconic films–including gossip, of course–and also wittily written and compulsively readable. I do want to read the others again; I recently bought a bunch of them in a lot on eBay  just for that purpose. This one also includes information around the notorious Johnny Stompanato murder–he was Lana’s abusive lover; one night he was threatening her and he was stabbed by her daughter, Cheryl Crane–and it was after this scandal that Lana was cast in Imitation of Life. The movie itself works on so many levels; it’s campy but self-aware, and everyone plays it straight, which makes it even better. Turner plays Lora, an aspiring actress with a young daughter, whose life becomes entwined with that of Annie and her daughter, Sarah Jane–Annie is black and the two come to live with Lora and her daughter Susie, who is about the same age. Lora of course becomes a huge star, and the drama surrounding her has to do with her own self-absorption and basically she allows Annie to raise Susie–but it’s the story of Annie and her light-skinned daughter–who hates being black and passes for white, abandoning her mother until of course, at the very end, Annie has died and Sarah Jane comes back too late, that is the real story here. The movie doesn’t face any of the racial issues, they just are–there’s one perfectly horrible scene where Sarah Jane’s boyfriend, who has found out she is black, beats her (played by Troy Donahue) which is about it, really. There’s a sort of sense, at least on my first viewing, that the terrible situation for people of color in the US at the time was taken for granted; but I can only imagine how controversial the movie was at the time of its release. It was an enormous hit, and Juanita Moore and Susan Kohlar, as Annie and Sarah Jane, both got Oscar nominations. The film is flawed, but Turner is actually pretty good in the role (she was always considered a beauty who couldn’t act), but I also couldn’t help thinking how amazing Joan Crawford could have made it–it was the kind of role she or Bette Davis or Olivia de Havilland could have played in the late 1940’s/early 1950’s.

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If you like books about Hollywood, you have to read Sam Staggs’ books. They’re terrific.

So, this week I am getting back to the WIP, and hope to get some good work done on the short stories I’m struggling with. Woo-hoo! But I’m actually looking forward to getting back to the work I had to put aside to work on the edits of this other manuscript. (Keeping up? Sometimes I can’t keep up with what all is going on with me, so I am often curious if people reading this can follow along.) I should make it clear that the manuscript I just revised from editorial notes is one that will be published under a pseudonym; and the one I am now getting back to is neither a Scotty nor a Chanse. I mentioned a few entries ago that I was looking through Mardi Gras Mambo, and I do think I do need to make the time to reread the entire Scotty series as written thus far before trying to get back into writing another one. It’s long overdue, frankly; I’ve not reread the pre-Katrina Scottys in years, and I think, for this next one, it’s kind of necessary. The nice thing is it’s not like I need to read them deeply, I can sort of skim-read, get a sense of the voice and the characters, and the story.

And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines.

Simon Says

Lots to get done today, but I am groggy and struggling to wake up. I have errands to do, editing and writing, and cleaning–always, always, cleaning. I try to be better about keeping up with things around the house during the week but always, inevitably, fail because I am tired by the time I get home. I’d also like to get to the gym today, but the way I feel right now I am not certain that’s going to happen. Heavy heaving sigh.

I slept well, but again, had weird and unsettling dreams, which is why I think I feel so worn out this morning. There’s nothing worse than weird and unsettling dreams, and while I don’t want to discuss the details of this dream, it had to do my career and it wasn’t a good dream by any stretch of the imagination. Isn’t that really the worst? Ugh, I am sure it was based in anxiety, and if you’re wondering, yes, I have been suffering some anxiety about my career lately. (What’s going on in Washington lately hasn’t helped with my anxiety levels, either.) Unfortunately, this anxiety is one of the things that kind of keeps me from getting my work done; I fall into the pit of despair and think what’s the point and why bother? But that is self-defeating, and God knows I set up enough traps and obstacles to succeeding that I don’t need any further help in that regard. So, in a moment I am going to make my third cup of coffee and some toast, and then I am going to hop in the shower and get the day started, shake of this lethargy, and try to get some shit done. Getting organized is a part of that process, and the book purge is also going to continue this weekend as well.

Being a writer is so soul-destroying sometimes. I am always amazed at writers who are confident always, and I sometimes wonder if that confidence masks insecurity. I’ve described writing as a bi-polar thing; you have to think you have talent even though you doubt you have any constantly, and it seems as though everything in the world is set up to tell you that you don’t. I’ve written and published over thirty books; I think it’s thirty-three at last count, and lots of short stories, book reviews, essays, etc., and yet somehow I still doubt myself all the time.

I often stop at times and think, “Well, this is why writers drink and commit suicide.”

We started watching American Gods last night, and it’s production values are spectacular. Ricky Whittle, who plays Shadow (and whom I know from The 100), is really amazing in the part. (I wasn’t sure, based on The 100, that he had the acting chops to pull off the lead in another series, and am very pleased to say that I was wrong.) The first episode was kind of slow–Paul wasn’t enrapt–but I do remember loving the novel when I read it a long time ago, so we’re going to stick with it; I’m sure it picks up steam after the initial set up.

And on that note, I need to get going.

Here’s a shot of Ricky Whittle to keep you going.

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The Unicorn

Monday morning, and not only a new week but a new month. May, of course, is when the Formosan termites swarm; usually they join us sometime around Mother’s Day, but I saw people posting about them last night on Facebook. Maybe it was the extremely mild winter; hopefully, the early start means an early end. It really does seem like one of the plagues of Egypt when the termites are swarming; our first experience with it back in May 1997 was absolutely horrifying. Even typing about it now makes my skin crawl. We’ve been relatively lucky over the past fourteen years or so; living in the back as we do, we only get a few inside the house and once they do, off go the lights and we light candles.

It really surprises me that there really isn’t anything that can be done with these things.

Last night, we watched the documentary Tower, which is about the first mass shooting at  a school, and another episode of The Handmaid’s Tale, which continues to be riveting. I vaguely remember the events of Tower;  I was almost five when Charles Whitman went up to the observation deck of the University of Texas Tower and started shooting people. It really did seem as though the world, and the country, was going crazy. Only a few weeks before the Texas Tower murders, Richard Speck raped and murdered eight nursing students in Chicago, and in retrospect, my mother’s paranoia about our safety–a young woman with two small children and a husband from the rural South living in the big city–really isn’t so surprising. There were also some horrible riots in Chicago in 1996, and of course, the riots in the wake of Dr. King’s murder in 1968 were still to come (in the wake of those riots, some of my father’s relatives who lived in Chicago packed up and moved back to Alabama). The Democratic National Convention was also in Chicago in 1968… and the Chicago Police Department’s brutality against the protestors documented by news cameras for the world to see.

Tower is incredibly powerful, and an interesting way to film a documentary. The filmmakers interviewed and spoke to the survivors, and then used filmed actors the right age to reenact what happened, then animating them, while interspersing actual film footage and photographs from the ninety-six minutes of pure hell the city of Austin, and the University of Texas, endured. What happened that day was horrifying enough, but reliving it through the personal stories of the survivors, and their memories of what happened that day, made it even more heartbreaking and moving. The documentary primarily focuses on the point of view of two of the police officers, one of the students who helped victims, another witness who watched it all happen through the windows of a nearby building (one of the most moving moments is when this woman, a young girl at the time, says, “This sort of thing is a defining moment. I stood there in the window, knowing there were people out there who needed help, but I was too afraid of being shot to do anything. That was when I knew I was a coward.”), the University bookstore manager who climbed the Tower with the three officers to take out Charles Whitman, but the two personal stories that moved me the most was the young paperboy who shouldn’t have even been there, but was filling in on the route for another boy, and had his young cousin riding on his bike with him when he was shot in the leg off his bicycle, and of course, Claire, one of the first victims, eight months pregnant and leaving the student union with her boyfriend, who was killed instantly. Claire’s baby was killed when she was shot in the abdomen, and she lay there, on the cement in front of the Tower, with her boyfriend lying dead near her, unable to move or get helped because anyone who went out there was in the line of fire, roasting on the hot cement in the heat of an August day in Austin. A young woman named Rita ran over to her, talked to her the entire time, lying on the ground near her, keeping her conscious and keeping her alive.

I cannot even imagine how horrible the ordeal must have been for her, or how she has lived with the memories of everything she lost that day for the rest of her life.

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Simply extraordinary.

I’ve almost finished reading Cleopatra’s Shadows–have maybe another hundred pages to go, and also made some serious progress on decluttering the apartment. I’ve decided that I am going to clean out the storage space–both the one over the laundry room as well as the rented one–and try to declutter the Lost Apartment as much as I can. I am only going to  keep research books, my children’s series collections, signed books by friends, and my Stephen King hardcovers. Anything else is going to be donated. If I had more time I might try to sell them on ebay or Amazon, but I just don’t have the time and I don’t want to mess with it, to be perfectly honest. So, every Saturday morning–or every morning when I have to work late–I am going to take boxes out of the storage places, go through them, and start donating. I feel very good about this decision, quite frankly.

I also intend to finish the outline of the WIP this week, as well as a second draft of “Quiet Desperation.”

Onward and upward, y’all.