Category: Uncategorized

Mistaken Identity

I became a fan of Patricia Highsmith in the late 1990’s, although I’d been a fan for a lot longer–I didn’t know she’d written the book that Hitchcock’s magnificent Strangers on a Train was based on. It was the release of the Anthony Minghella film version of The Talented Mr. Ripley that finally got me to start reading Highsmith; I read the book on which it was based and I became a big fan of Ripley, the queerness of the story, but the film never really resonated with me the way the book did…and I think it was acting and directorial choices. Damon also played Ripley as a nerdy, socially awkward type desperate for friendship and for love, and while I think Highsmith definitely created him as a striver, his striving had a lot more to do with sociopathy than unrequited love. It never made sense to me in the movie that he started impersonating Dickie on his way to Italy. Why would he do this? Was he trying to transform into Dickie before he even met him? (Whether Tom actually did know Dickie before the Greenleafs hire him to go to Italy isn’t clear in any adaptation of the story, including the novel–which I’ve not read in a while, so my memories of the book aren’t to be trusted. I should probably read it again sometime this year, to help me with my essay on Saltburn... and I should also read Brideshead Revisited.)

As a Highsmith fan fascinated by her mind and talent as well as someone who’s been interested in her Tom Ripley character–I never read the four other books in the Ripley series; I wasn’t terribly interested in seeing how things went for him after the first book ended–primarily because of the potential queer undertones in the relationship with Dickie. In the Minghella film, Tom does make a move on Dickie–and this is where, in the movie, Dickie completely changes his attitude toward Tom and just wants to get rid of him. I think this particular scene is where the audience’s sympathies are now fully with Tom going forward; we’ve all been rejected by someone we loved, and many of us have been rejected as cruelly and nastily as Dickie turns on Tom, and poor heartbroken Tom who has now had all of the rugs pulled out from underneath him…we are fully on board with him from hereon out; I certainly wasn’t sorry when Tom snaps and kills him in the boat. This motivation, I think, is a failure in the script; Tom is a sociopath incapable of feeling, so it never made sense to me in the movie. (I do not remember how this played out in the book, which is yet another reason I need to go back and read it again.)

I had already been thinking about Ripley a lot lately; since watching Saltburn and trying to see the inspirations there to compare the two. I’d been looking forward to the Netflix adaptation–which I think is going to go further into the Ripley series, beyond the first book–since it was announced; one can never go wrong with Andrew Scott in a lead role.

But the series is an entirely different animal than the Anthony Minghella film from the late 1980’s, and I realized, while watching the series, that I had always viewed the novel through the lens of that movie….and now I need to read it again.

It’s fun, though, when an adaptation can give you another reading of a book; every time I’ve read The Talented Mr. Ripley I’ve viewed it a new way–but always through that Minghella lens; the only other book I’ve read differently on a reread (every reread, really) is Rebecca.

High praise indeed.

The queer undertones from the original story are still there in this mini-series, but Andrew Scott plays Tom as older and as an already career criminal, committing check fraud and insurance fraud on a very small scale. He lives in a shitty place, barely has the money to live decently, and these little frauds he perpetrates aren’t big time enough to ever earn him a big score. (It also reminded me of how, in pre-Internet and cell phone and computer days, how easy it was to swindle people.) When he gets the chance to travel to Europe to try to persuade DIckie to come home, it’s just another step, another con, a new opportunity to begin life anew in another country and get to know Dickie and perhaps infiltrate his life. As he’s so well established already as a con man and small-time crook, his pretending to be Dickie on the cruise ship makes more sense, and takes on a more sinister tone. The black-and-white cinematography was beautiful, languid, and breathtaking. The pacing of the series is tantalizingly slow, which seemed at first to be a slow-burn and a major risk; I do remember thinking how are we ever going to sit through eight hours of this? But as the story progresses and Tom’s cons and crimes become more complex and clever, it all makes sense. It makes sense that he would kill Dickie and take his place when Dickie tried to get rid of him (in the series, why Dickie would go out to sea alone on a boat with someone he’s trying to get rid of and thinks could be dangerous struck me at first as insanely stupid–but it was all of a piece with Dickie and his arrogance. He’s a rich white American, no one would ever dare harm HIM, right?), and the rest of series seems to fly by as Tom continues fooling everyone by never letting anyone who knows him as Dickie meet Tom, and the people who know him as Tom never see Dickie. Superb, and Andrew Scott was fantastic as Ripley; I felt like this was the version of Ripley Hitchcock would have given us.

At one point, Paul turned to me and said, “It’s funny how you root for the sociopathic killer,” and I replied, “because the rich people are horrible, and you want to see them suffer.”

And that’s the true genius of Highsmith; she doesn’t make Tom sympathetic, but by putting us into his mindset and seeing everything from his point of view…you start rooting for the sociopath because he’s the most sympathetic character in the book.

Which is a view of the rich I can certainly get behind.

Highly recommended, and I am looking forward to the next season.

Waterloo

Thursday and Work-at-Home Day Eve.

I did have a pretty good day yesterday; although I did start flagging a bit in the afternoon. I paid the bills, always depressing, and then stopped on the way home to make groceries and cleaned things up a bit around the apartment. I wrote last night and made some progress on the book–not enough, but it’s never enough–and also started working on another short story for a submissions call that I think’s deadline is next month sometime? It may even be later, one truly never knows unless one checks–and I really need to be better about putting deadlines for submission calls on my calendar. But that would make sense and be efficient!

You see where this is going, don’t you? Yes, I am starting to come out from under a bit, and yes, I am pretty pleased about it. My email inbox is down to almost nothing, and I’m starting to feel like my old self again–creative, with my mind zapping around in a million directions at all times, but now again able to zone in with extreme focus again when I need to. Whew. That’s quite a relief. I wasn’t terribly stressed; I just figured I’d have to figure out another way to push myself back into the writing somehow. I do wonder sometimes if not having stress and anxiety would become a problem for me in and of itself–but that is a vestige of the stress and anxiety, isn’t it? I’m so unused to this! I feel like I have so much more time than I did before, if that makes sense? My life has pared down in many ways, on every level, and I kind of like it like this. I like not getting worn out by the emotional rollercoaster of anxiety and all of its horrific side effects. I like being relaxed instead of tightly spooled. I like sleeping at night, and not being tired in the morning. I hated that feeling of drowning, not being able to keep up, and always falling further and further behind on everything.

I slept well again last night, which was great. I feel rested today, which is great, and my brain is actually functioning this morning. Let’s hope this is a good omen for the weekend, shall we? After I wrote last night, I did some cleaning around here and watched news clips on Youtube to catch up on what’s going on around the world. The Key Bridge collapse yesterday was a horrible event, and of course the right decided that it was somehow Pete Buttigieg’s fault that a container ship lost power and hit the bridge? Honestly, they are such garbage, and we’re lucky as a nation that we have someone compassionate, driven, and smart as Secretary of Transportation. After all, Maryland is a pretty consistent blue state, so why would they deserve any help from the White House had the coup attempt succeeded? We’d be living in a different country, for one thing, and we need to be sure that different country never happens. I think Dobbs and the Alabama Supreme Court decision on IVF were bridges too far for most Americans, as the special election in Alabama showed us this week. Women and men are PISSED OFF, and just because the media wants to keep shoving the right down our throats while undermining the left doesn’t mean a fucking thing. All the polling in Alabama was distinctly off, and it was a 35 point swing from the 2022 election. The Democrats need to keep hammering them on their discrimination and their contempt for women as anything other than brood mares; incubators for their children.

And how lovely would it be if a blue Congress codified the right to choose, the freedom to marry? The best fuck you ever to Alito and Thomas, the worst and most corrupt justices since Roger P. Taney. Congressional Republicans also exposed themselves by voting down IVF protections. And my guess is there will be another insurrection when Don Poorleone loses in November, count on it. The difference this time will be that the National Guard will be there in no-time, and if they kill more traitors like Ashli Babbitt, so be it.

And for the record, everyone involved in January 6th? We sent the Rosenbergs to the chair. Stop whining and do your time. You’re not patriots, you’re traitors. And for the record, conservatives in 1775 were Tories, i.e. were on the side of the British. Sorry you can’t read and aren’t capable of coherent, logical thought, but if you don’t know any history it’s probably best if you don’t bring it up. That’s why the Tea Party particularly infuriated me; they adopted an “iconic” Revolutionary War event, dressed themselves up that way, and called themselves “patriots”–for opposing the Affordable Care Act. In other words, they were calling themselves the modern-day equivalents of people protesting a massive corporate tax cut. What? That’s right, the tea tax was also a tax break for the East India Company, so they could sell tea in the American colonies more cheaply than American vendors, which also raised the question (again) of “taxation without representation.” The Affordable Care Act was definitely not taxation without representation–and the Tea Party was the root source of the MAGAts, and Sarah Palin was once its queen and shining star. Remember when we thought she was the worst the Republicans could inflict on the country? Ah, for the innocence of 2008 again; when grifting became a major player in American politics.

Heavy heaving sigh.

I have long been tired of the idea that the only real Americans live in the country and small towns, are Christians, and thus are the real patriots. Cities are the economic engines that drive the country, for the record. The point of our system is that we all cooperate together; the entire point of the government is compromise; not demand things all be your way and if you don’t get your way, you throw a tantrum and bring everything crashing down. There’s also no one way to be an American, either. The hijacking of patriotism by the right–by people who don’t understand their country or its government–is something I’ve long deplored. The goal was never perfection–the founders were very aware of human frailties and weaknesses–but to always strive to be better. And are red states better places to live than blue ones? Our new governor here in Louisiana seems determined to out-Desantis Desantis; who knows how much worse things are going to be here once he is finished doing the job of utter destruction of Louisiana that Bobby Jindal started?

I wish I had more time to devote to studying our politics here in Louisiana so I could write about it more.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Thursday, Constant Reader, and you never know; I may be back later.



A Teenager in Love

Monday morning and back to the office blog. I did write some yesterday–not nearly enough–and I did get some things done this weekend. I bought blinds for the breakfast nook, but I think they are too small; I may have to exchange them for another, larger set. Which is okay; I can do it after work one night as the Lowe’s is just up Elysian Fields. Tonight after work I have to go to the gym to do PT, and then I’m coming home to do some more writing and cleaning. Paul’s moving into the Monteleone on Wednesday, which means I’ll be here alone with the Sparkster, and also means Sparky will be very needy. He loves the cat treats I got him this weekend, no surprise there, and so I will continue to dole them out for good behavior. I feel rested this morning, which is different from most usual Monday mornings, but I think that has to do with making myself get up early Sunday morning and not sleeping late again the way I did Saturday morning.

Still, that felt amazing.

I feel pretty good this morning, too. The temperature dropped again over night, so there is a bit of a chill in the air this morning. I need to actually look at the program for S&S this weekend so I can put the stuff I am doing on my calendar and can start planning for the weekend. It’ll be weird being home alone for the long weekend (Wednesday thru Monday), but I’ve been a Festival widow since January anyway, so it probably won’t even be noticeable. I’ve also taken Monday off, as it’s always brutal getting up at six in the morning after the Festivals have concluded. It was a little odd this morning, though; Sparky usually comes and starts smacking me in the face with his paw just before the alarm goes off, and continues to do so while purring and cuddling until I get up. He didn’t come out from under the bed until I actually got out of bed, and just followed me downstairs instead of insisting on food immediately. His bowl was completely empty this morning, too.

I did write about a thousand new words on the short story yesterday, but my mind kept wandering and I got up to do something and just never went back. I also edited the 2000 words or so I had already done, so I think it was probably more new words than merely a thousand. It still feels a little rusty for me when I’m writing, but the best way to get past that is to keep writing until it starts to feel natural again and my mind stops wandering when I am writing. That’s the weirdest part. Usually when I write I shut out everything and am laser-focused, that’s not the case anymore and that’s fine.

My mind is still bouncing all over the place, too. It’s trying to spike my anxiety, too, but I just take some deep breaths and calm down, which is a lot easier to do with the new medications.

I did finish reading The Cook by Harry Kressing, which was an interesting and short read. It was a black comedy of sorts, more of a Kafka-esque fable than anything else, but in all honesty I enjoyed the movie version (Something for Everyone) a lot more than I did the book; in the book Conrad seduces everyone with his incredible food and force of will; in the movie, he’s played by a stunningly beautiful young Michael York who actually sexually seduces his prey until he gets what he wants. I will do a more in-depth review of the book at some point, but it does play into my thoughts that Saltburn owes more to that movie than it does The Talented Mr. Ripley or Brideshead Revisited.

We also finished watching season two of The Tourist, which was twisty and clever and fun and we really enjoyed it and are really looking forward to the third season–the second ended with a terrific cliffhanger twist that definitely will make for a fascinating and exciting third season. Plus, Jamie Dornan and Danielle Macdonald have some amazing chemistry together.

I also watched some documentaries last night about Jayne Mansfield, who I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’m not entirely sure what triggered me to thinking about her again. I first read about her in Earl Wilson’s The Show Business Nobody Knows when I was a teenager, and from there went on to read May Mann’s biography of her, Jayne Mansfield. She was very interesting to me, and was thrilled when her daughter began her career as an actress. I remember thinking Mariska Hargitay? She must be Jayne Mansfield’s daughter because what are the odds of there being two Mariska Hargitays? and watched her for years on Law and Order: SVU. Oh, now I do remember. I bought a copy of the Wilson off ebay because I thought it might be helpful with Chlorine, to give me an idea of what it was like to be in show business in the 1950’s, and of course, he devoted a chapter to her. I bought another bio of her off eBay recently, and she is very interesting, as she always has been to me. I’ve only seen one film of hers, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter, which I thought was hilarious and she was fantastic in it. Benjamin Dreyer brought her up on one of the social media channels this weekend, and so I thought I’d find what I could of her on Youtube. Her story was actually perfect for someone like Jackie Collins or Jacqueline Susann to have written a huge trashy novel about, I’ve always thought. I also loved that she was actually–despite her image as a sexy dumb blonde–incredibly smart, almost genius level. And she only worked in show business for about ten years–while having four children, too, and keeping that incredible figure.

It’s funny; I’m not sure if you’ve ever noticed, Constant Reader, but I generally use song titles for my blog posts. About twelve years ago it was getting harder and harder to think up song titles organically, so I started using themes–Stevie Nicks songs, Pet Shop Boys songs, top 100 hits of 1977, that sort of thing. I can’t remember now which years I’ve used so I recently went back to the top 100 of 1959, I think; it’s interesting how many titles and songs have to do with teenagers; clearly, modern songwriters don’t have to write about teenage heartbreak anymore to appeal to young listeners. I also started watching Eras: The Taylor Swift Concert Movie, and I have to say I am very impressed. I can’t dedicate three and a half hours to watching it, but putting it on and listening while doing chores is terrific. Her show is amazing–I still have over an hour to watch (and am bummed she didn’t do “Red”) and I am actually looking forward to it. I also love how much right-wingers hate her.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day Constant Reader, and I may be back later, you never can be sure. I’m tricky that way!

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Saturday morning and I was exhausted, not rising up out of bed until well past eight. Sparky tried to get me up (five a.m. for food; he doesn’t recognize Daylight Savings Time) several times–I did get up to feed him at six–before giving up and curling up to my side and going to sleep. I could hardly disturb him by getting up, could I? Plus I still felt very tired, exhausted, until I finally did get up. PT was particularly intense yesterday–I had a new therapist who was filling in for my regular–and she was just stunned, repeatedly, at how well I was doing and how strong I was, which was really nice. She kept commenting on it the entire time, which was a lovely thing for my ego and only encouraged me to keep pushing harder. I came home, worked, did some chores around here. and then ran a couple of errands after the work was done. I was exhausted (I think I did seven loads of laundry? It had built up and Friday is when I do the bed linens), and just collapsed into my chair. I finished watching Feud–I didn’t think last week’s was the final, if it did indeed end with him dying–and then watched LSU’s gymnastics team trounce North Carolina in their last meet of the season (SEC meet is next weekend) before watching this week’s Abbott Elementary and retiring to bed, exhausted. I have a busy day ahead of me–reading, writing, errands, other chores–and my house is also a mess, sigh. But I’m not going to allow all the things I need to get done to overwhelm me and thus guarantee none of it will get done.

And I definitely need to make groceries.

But I do feel tired–fatigued–in my muscles. The shoulders are fatigued, and so are my legs and my lower back feels a bit tight. Fortunately I bought that hand-held massage device (which can’t be used as a vibrator, get your head out of the gutter), so I think I am going to use it and that foam back roller today, maybe stretching a bit will help the leg fatigue. I also am going to get cleaned up this morning–shaving the face and head, which I don’t keep up with as much as I should, bad Gregalicious, bad Gregalicious. I need to get to work on myself more than anything else, and need to stop thinking “meh, good enough”. I think later on this year I’m going to have to make a trip to the outlet mall in Gonzalez and get some new clothes–dressier pants and shirts, at any rate–to go with the fancier shoes I have; I’ve never matched outfits to a couple of pairs of Oxfords, which makes wearing them more difficult–bothering my OCD–because the outfits have to be made to somehow match the shoes, and I don’t always succeed. I usually am bored by shopping for clothes; but now that I am thinking about experimenting with style, it actually sounds a bit more intriguing than it ever did before, frankly…and now that I am thinking about it more, that was undoubtedly triggered by my anxiety.

And now that I no longer have the anxiety anymore, maybe shopping for clothes will cease to be an ordeal for me. And I do love argylle.

It’s a very bright and sunny morning here in New Orleans, too–which reminds that I need to size the windows and order blinds, so I should also check on office supplies and maybe order for pick-up or delivery–and so I am feeling like I should be able to get things done today (or it’s the coffee kicking into gear here); we’ll see how it goes and how long my energy lasts–it should be a major grocery run today, but then again Paul won’t be home after Wednesday so…probably not? Heavy sigh. I guess I’ll NOT do a major grocery run today and then add things during the week that we need. I also bought a half-gallon of milk thinking we were out and SURPRISE! There was a half-gallon in the refrigerator already. AH, well.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. I have things that I need to get done this morning, and I also want to read a little bit before I dive into the day headfirst. May your Saturday be amazing and wonderful and cool, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.

Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad

Ah, Third Chanse.

If you will recall from my last entry about the Chanse series, I had a new editor for the second book in the series. I had also written a proposal for the follow-up, Murder in the Rue St. Claude, which was going to be about a nursing home and an angel of death. The second book ended with a tragedy for Chanse, and the last scene of the book was Chanse saying goodbye to someone before their life-support was turned off. I did a trickery and was going to have the person be in the nursing home, still living, only a suspicious death happens there and one of the workers talks to Chanse about her fears. The editor wasn’t the most professional or organized person, and I had to send the proposal to her three times on request with no contract offer. I was very irritated by this, but there were also a lot of changes going on there–including moving the offices from LA to New York, which I thought was an incredibly stupid business decision…and I wound up with yet another new editor right before Katrina hit. I honestly wasn’t sure if I would go back to writing ever again–one of the lulls in my career–but things eventually settled down and I started house sitting for a friend in Hammond over on the north shore while I waited for the city to reopen so I could drive into the city and get some more things from the house. I did, my friends’ trip was cut short, and I was going to return to Kentucky to my parents’ after one more swing by the apartment to pick up things. Imagine my surprise that my mail service was open, my grocery store and bank were open, and so was my gym. We’d moved into the main house from the carriage house, which hadn’t been rented yet as it needed some work before the hurricane, and so….I just moved back into the carriage house and cleaned up around the property and kept an eye on the main house, as well as emptying out the water from the machines that were trying to keep the insides of the apartments dry (the roof was gone).

While I was in Hammond, my new editor got me to reluctantly co-edit an anthology about New Orleans called Love, Bourbon Street (a title I hate to this day), and he was trying to talk me into writing a Chanse book about Katrina. I didn’t really want to, but he kept insisting and finally, I gave in and agreed to write it. However, the nursing home I was researching was a place they left people to die in–wasn’t touching that with a ten foot pole–and it occurred to me that I could wrap the case around Hurricane Katrina. He was hired by the client the Friday before Katrina, and obviously he couldn’t do the job now.

And that was the seed from which Murder in the Rue Chartres (no title at the time of contract) grew.1

This is the original cover from Alyson Books.
This is the new cover for the Bold Strokes ebook

It was six weeks before I returned to my broken city.

Usually when I drove home from the west, as soon as I crossed onto dry land again in Kenner, excitement would bubble up inside and I’d start to smile. Almost home, I’d think, and let out a sigh of relief. New Orleans was home for me, and I hated leaving for any reason. I’d never regretted moving there after graduating from LSU. It was the first place I’d ever felt at home, like I belonged. I’d hated the little town in east Texas where I’d grown up. All I could think about was getting old enough to escape. Baton Rouge for college had been merely a way station—it never occurred to me to permanently settle there. New Orleans was where I belonged, and I’d known that the first time I’d ever set foot in the city. It was a crazy quilt of eccentricities, frivolities, and irritations sweltering in the damp heat, a city where you could buy a drink at any time of day, a place where you could easily believe in magic. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Any time I’d taken a trip before, within a few days I’d get homesick and started counting the hours until it was time to come home.

But this time wasn’t like the others. This time, I hadn’t been able to come home, and had no idea how long it would be before I could. Now, I was nervous, my stomach clenched into knots, my palms sweating on the steering wheel as I sang along to Vicki Sue Robinson’s “Turn the Beat Around” on the radio. It was everything I’d feared for the last few weeks when I thought about coming home, the anxiety building as the odometer clocked off another mile and I got closer to home.

It was different.

The most obvious thing was the lack of traffic. Even outside the airport, the traffic was usually heavy, sometimes slowing to a complete standstill. But other than a couple of military vehicles, a cement mixer, and a couple of dirty and tired looking sedans, I-10 was deserted. There was a film of dirt on everything as far as I could see, tinting my vision sepia. Huge trees lay toppled and debris was everywhere. Signs that used to advertise hotels, motels, restaurants, storage facilities, and pretty much any kind of business you could think of were now just poles, the signs gone except for the support skeleton. Buildings had been blown over, fences were wrecked and down, and almost everywhere I looked blue tarps hung on roofs, their edges lifting in the slight breeze. My breath started coming a little faster, my eyes filled, and I bit down on my lower lip as I focused back on the road.

No cars joined at the airport on-ramp, or the one at Williams Boulevard just beyond it. No planes were landing or taking off.

Most of the writing I did in the fall of 2005 was my blog, which at the time was on Livejournal. (The old stuff is still there, but I started making things private after a year because of plagiarism; I guess people thought they could steal my words if they were on a blog.) I documented as much of the experience as I could, so people outside of Louisiana could see that the city wasn’t fully recovered despite no longer being in the news. American attention had moved past New Orleans by the spring of 2006.

When I started writing the book, I was really glad I had done that with the blog, because more than anything else it reminded me of the emotions I was going through, that horrible depression and not remembering things from day to day, the need for medications, panic attacks, depression, and the way the entire city just seemed dead. I did repurpose a lot of stuff that was on the blog–rewritten and edited, of course–and I could tell, as I wrote the book, that I was either doing some of the best work of my life to that point or I was overwriting it mercilessly. You never can be sure.

But I also needed to flesh out the murder mystery I came up with, and I also wanted to write about a historical real life tragedy of the Quarter. The client who hired him that Friday before Katrina roared into the Gulf and came ashore was engaged, and she wanted Chanse to find her father, who’d disappeared from their lives when she and her brothers were very young. But what happened to her father? Who killed her, and why? Was her murder a reaction to her looking for him?

I had started using Tennessee Williams quotes to open my New Orleans novels with the third (Jackson Square Jazz: “A good looking boy like you is always wanted” from Orpheus Descending) and I liked the conceit so much I kept doing it. I knew someone who’d built a crime novel around the basic set up of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and I thought, what if the person who knows all the answers has been in a mental hospital for decades? Then what if Mrs. Venable had succeeded in getting Catherine locked up with all of Sebastian’s secrets lobotomized out of her head?

I named the family Verlaine as a nod to the Venables, and aged Mrs. Venable as well as gender swapping her (this was also a bit influenced by The Big Sleep), and I was off to the races.

My editor wrote me when he finished reading the manuscript and told me it was one of the best mysteries he’d ever read. The reviews! My word, I still can’t believe the reviews, and how good they were. I got a rave in the Times-Picayune, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly.

And yes, it won a Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Mystery.

  1. The irony that two books I wanted nothing to do with, let alone write or edit, ended up with each winning Lambda Literary Awards, does not escape me. ↩︎

Memory

Ah, how I love cats.

I’ve been putting my cats into my books now for quite some time.

It’s kind of funny, because I never wanted to be one of those people–posting pictures of my pets, writing them into my books–until, of course, I actually acquired a pet. It never occurred to me to put Skittle into any of my books, until we lost him to a very rapidly advancing cancer when he was only seven.

Skittle was such a beautiful cat.

Skittle came to us when he was about six months old, when we were still living in the carriage house. (We’d gotten a mouse, and were advised by friends, neighbors and landlady to just get a cat…to which were both like “Really? We don’t want a cat and we know nothing about them” but after the third mouse sighting, it was, yeah, we need a cat. We got Skittle on Christmas Eve, 2003, as a bit of a Christmas present to ourselves. (We never saw the mouse again.) And cute and tiny as he was, we had no idea what a cat was like or what was normal behavior for them…and he had us completely charmed and under his thumb by the end of the day–head butts, making biscuits, cuddling and a non-stop purr machine. Skittle was beautiful, but was afraid of the outside for a while. He’d been found at about two weeks old in the middle of the road in a rainstorm, so the sound of cars scared him for a long time, and he was terrified of going outside for the first few years. Then one night I was coming home from a party–Paul was staying in the Quarter for the TW Fest, and I was home taking care of the cat–and the front door didn’t latch. When I got up the next morning the door was wide open, and Skittle was nowhere to be found. I called him a few times, and he came out from under the main house and sat down on the walk, nonchalantly cleaning himself as a very-relieved me ran and grabbed him.

After that, we had to watch and make sure the door closed because he’d dash out if he had the chance. He always let us catch him eventually, but he liked to explore and check for vermin and other live toys to torture. He was a great hunter, and could take a palmetto bug out of mid-air with a massive leap. He loved to play fetch, was very affectionate, and loved people, always winning them over by winding through their legs and rubbing against them, begging to be petted. He was also long-haired and I swear he shed that entire coat at least three or four times a year; his hair was everywhere. He also was smart–he trained me to know what four different noises he made were: food, water, litter box to be cleaned, and I either want to be petted and go to sleep on you in your chair. When I had a laptop as my primary computer (from 2003-2010), I had it sitting on a metal tray at eye level while I used a separate keyboard, and Skittle loved to go to sleep up there. When I got an actual desktop computer again, he lost his place to sleep while I worked, and he did. Not. Like. That. One. Bit.

He got sick first over Memorial Day that weekend, and he was dehydrated. The vet rehydrated him again and he was back to his normal self…but over Labor Day he was sick again. It was cancer, and from the first diagnosis that Tuesday after Labor Day and when we took him back a few weeks later….it had spread to all of his organs, and it became just a matter of time. Keeping him alive would require three months in the hospital, thousands of dollars, and no guarantee he would make it through.

We were both devastated when we brought him home that Wednesday night, and we made an appointment to send him over the Rainbow Bridge for Saturday. We spoiled him that Thursday and Friday–treats and tuna, as much as he wanted. Ironically, those last few days, he seemed like himself again to the point that I had to be the monster on Saturday morning and convince Paul it was better to let him go now, rather than watch him decline because he wasn’t getting any better; it was almost like he knew so he wanted us to remember him the way he always was. Paul spent that entire day after we got back in bed, while I was an empty shell of myself, removing all reminders–toys, food, etc. because every time I found one I’d start crying again, so I rounded them all up.

I wanted to get another cat, but Paul was so heartbroken, he wasn’t sure he could handle another so soon. (I was also heartbroken, but I also knew we had to rescue another one.)

Scooter was such a handsome fellow, too.

Thursday the vet called to let me know Skittle’s ashes were ready for us to pick up, so I went over there on my way to work in the morning and picked them up. They had some cats there for adoption from the SPCA, and there was a beautiful orange boy, named Texas, who was so sweet I wanted to take him home right then. But I didn’t know if Paul would be upset if I brought home a replacement cat, so I didn’t, but I remembered him and thought I’ll talk to Paul about it tonight.

Paul was asleep on the couch when I got home from work that night, and so I turned on the television and thought, “I’ll ask him about Texas when he wakes up.” I read while something was on television–a Real Housewives marathon, I think–and about an hour later, Paul sat up on the couch, completely freaked out that he’d just seen a mouse looking at him from the top of the recycling bin. I hadn’t seen anything. He was just dreaming–and his subconscious was letting him know it was okay to get another cat. Thirteen years later, he still insists there was a mouse. So I told him about Texas, told him to go by and look at home and if he wanted him, to make all the arrangements and I’d pick him up after work. Paul fell in love with Texas, and nothing would do except that I pick HIM up from work and we’d go together to get him.

Scooter jumped out of the crate and hid under the coffee table, which was a bit concerning. But after about an hour of us leaving him alone, he came out, crawled onto the couch and onto Paul, laid down on his chest and started purring and headbutting him, and then he came over to me and did the same. We renamed him Scooter that first night, and for thirteen years, we had this incredibly sweet ginger boy.

Such a sweet boy. Around this time was when I realized that if I started putting MY cats into my work meant they would live forever. So I gave Chanse’s friend Paige (who hadn’t yet appeared in a Scotty book an orange and white cat named Skittle. I gave Scotty a cat named Scooter, and I can’t remember which cat I gave to Valerie in my cozy series; it was either Skittle or Scooter. Jem also has a black cat in Death Drop, but he is fictional–what else but Shade?

We had Scooter for thirteen years. He had a bout with diabetes, but insulin shots cleared that up (thank God; I hated giving him those shots) and he was mostly healthy. One morning last summer before I went to work I noticed Scooter was huffing–and having trouble breathing. I tried to soothe him, but I could tell he was terrified…and thought, Oh no, this is probably it for him, how am I going to break it to Paul? Later that morning he called me at work to tell me we needed to take Scooter in, and we were probably going to lose him. We took him over that morning, and they called us later to let us know it was congestive, and he wasn’t going to make it. They had him comfortable, but whenever they took him out of the oxygen thing he’d start huffing again. It was, alas, fatal, so I walked over there and held him while they put him to sleep and he crossed the rainbow bridge. I sobbed all the way home, and still can’t think about him without tearing up.

The house felt so empty without a cat. But finally we steeled ourselves and headed to the SPCA to pick out a new rescue.

Sparky!

And we brought Sparky home, and I’ve been entertaining you all with tales of the kitten here ever since. He’s a darling, and he’s getting so much bigger than the little kitten with a big voice and adorable energy. He picked us out–just as Skittle did–and I love that he’s got orange coloring, as you can see above.

And I guess I’ll have to start another series so I can immortalize Sparky, too.

Everybody Wants You

Here it is Sunday morning and I am coming back to you once again from the spice mines where I am recovering from my biceps tear repair surgery. I haven’t had a lot of pain; they had given me what’s called a “pain ball”—which is a nerve deadener that was attached to my shoulder so I wouldn’t feel any pain. I was skeptical, but it really did work. The most pain I ever felt was the equivalent of a Charlie horse, at least so far anyway! I do worry that I jinx myself a little bit by talking about not having any pain, but that’s just how it all shakes out. I try not to be superstitious, but it doesn’t always work. I was worried about the transition from the pain ball 2 not having anything other than painkillers on demand, but it hasn’t been that bad. The brace is bulky and uncomfortable, but i can live with that. It was the ice machine that was really bad, and I am off of that now unless I need it for swelling or pain or something in the meantime. It wrapped around the brace and blew cold air into the attachments that were around my arm to prevent swelling and to reduce pain and I took it off for the first time Friday to see if I could go without it. I managed to get through Friday night and last night without needing it, which i think is a good thing probably, right?

I have been a slug ever since the surgery. I haven’t really done much of anything except lay in my chair, let sparky sleep on me, and watch a whole lot of streaming. Some of it was really good, some of it was really bad, and some of it was just laughable. It is also really amazing to me that with all of these streaming options that I have on my Apple TV, that it is really hard for me sometimes to find something to watch. Is there too much choice? Are so many options that it’s difficult to make a choice? But there’s also the issue of getting into something that’s not very good. Paul and I do stick to our 15 minute rule with movies and our one episode and a half rule streaming series. And there’s so much to look for that I don’t even know what to look for anymore! I find myself forgetting shows that I wanted to watch because new shows are coming out all of the time and then we move on. It does remind me of the olden days of cable where you could have over 300 channels and nothing to watch all the fucking time. (Interestingly enough, I have discovered that dictation will turn curse words into asterisks instead and will not spell out the word so I have to do that manually! Who knew Microsoft was such a prude?)

Interestingly enough, I have also developed an enormous pimple on my nose. I am 62 years old and I am still getting pimples. I suppose this is payback for my adolescence when I didn’t have hardly any at all during high school and college! I don’t mind really, it’s just kind of funny to me and it’s also on the bridge of my nose, which is where my glasses rest. Of course! I am also hoping that I’ll be able to run some errands on Monday. I have a prescription to pick up and the mail, and it probably wouldn’t hurt to do a small grocery run to pick up a few things. Navigating all of this with one hand is not going to be easy of course, but it needs to be done and at least I’m not on pain medication so my mind is clear. I have the wagon to help me bring the groceries back, and I also think on Monday I’ll try to get back to normal around here answering e-mail, reading, paying bills (always a joy!), and maybe even trying to get some writing done through dictation which might be a little frustrating but—the more I do it the easier it will get I am sure.

This hasn’t been the easiest of years for me. Over the course of the last 12 months, I lost my cat and my mother, injured myself severely, had all of my bottom teeth removed and got new dentures, and had a major surgery. But the teeth removal was great because now I have dentures and can chew much better than I have in years; which is difficult to get used to again. But at least I no longer look like a hillbilly from the holler! It’s unfortunate that I didn’t have this done before mom died because I know my teeth really bothered her, even though she never said anything. WHEW! Just dictating that got me overwhelmed and sad, and a bit teary eyed.

I think that’s been the hardest thing about the surgery recovery; that anesthetic and the painkillers and just the recovery of from that trauma to my body has made my emotions all over the place. Also, just sitting around thinking about things and your mind starts to wander and you can’t help but miss your mom. Facebook also gut punched me the other day by bringing up a memory within adorable picture of scooter. But sparky wouldn’t be here if we still had scooter, and i am very glad we were able to rescue them both. I think I will always be sad about mom. I don’t think you ever get over losing your mother no matter how old you are. And of course, I always think about dad saying that your mother is always the first person to love you. I had thought about going to visit dad during this recovery time, and i still might—it just depends on how my arm feels and if I think I can handle 12 hours in the car in two directions. It’s probably a stupid idea but I really hate the thought of not seeing dad during any of the holiday season. However hard this has been on me, it’s been 1000 times if not a million times worse on my dad . Paul is also thinking about going to visit his mom during the Christmas season too—but I think by the time he’ll be able to go I should be functional on my own. At the very least, I’ll be going back to work before then. I’m still not sure exactly how I’m going to put shirts on; I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it I guess.

We’re also watching bodies and Netflix which is really good, LSU won yesterday which was very cool, and Auburn lost the iron bowl in the most Auburn way possible. Heavy sigh. But for all intents and purposes as far as I’m concerned anyway, college football season is effectively over anyway.

And on that note, I’ll bring this to a close have a great Sunday everyone!

On the Wings of Love

So, I have figured out how to use the “dictate” function in Microsoft Word, which I can then turn around and cut and paste into my blog. This is very cool; because now I don’t have to wait until I have both hands to make blog entries, write emails, or just write in general. I do have to remember the punctuation, though. Ah, technology is wonderful, isn’t it?

The surgery itself went very well. It was difficult that morning, because I had to get up at 5:00 to be there for the surgery in Metairie at 7:15, and had to fast after 10:00 PM the night before. I couldn’t have coffee that morning and I had trouble sleeping; so as you can imagine I was tired and groggy when I got to Lakeview Hospital. But I also was worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle the recovery period and I had a lot of anxiety about it; which is a big surprise, right? Anyway, it’s been a roller coaster since getting home Tuesday morning. My emotions were all over the place the last couple of days, and I think that had a lot to do with reaction to the anesthetic, the medications I’m taking, and basically, the trauma to my body; it would be a surprise if my emotions hadn’t been all over the place the last few days– which kind of sucks. I also couldn’t sleep Tuesday night for whatever reason, and so was exhausted all day Wednesday. I did sleep really well Wednesday night though and the last two nights as well. I don’t think I have ever been this inactive for this long for a very long time–if ever. It’s starting to get to me a little bit, and I think that has something to do with the mood swings and the emotions—being unable to get up easily from my chair and navigate the apartment whenever I need to (and having to plan every time I get up) hasn’t been easy for me to deal with emotionally. I suppose I shouldn’t really be surprised, since I I’m such a control freak and have so much anxiety.

But voice to text may be a lifesaver for the next two weeks; unfortunately, I don’t speak as fast as I can type, which is very strange!

I am hoping that today I will be able to read a little bit; my mind has been kind of loopy due to the medications and things since getting home so it’s just been easier to watch television and not even try to engage my brain.

Paul has been very helpful during this whole thing, which has been really nice. I am also learning that I am a terrible patient because I don’t like to bother anyone to do things for me, which has always been a problem — it makes me feel like I’m a burden to people. But being loopy and on drugs has also sent my mind into bizarre directions and into weird memories these last few days. Since Mom died, I had to do a lot of rethinking about my life and my own history, remembering things that explain why I act the way I do or why I react the way I do to certain things. It helps to know I have anxiety just like she did, and once I’m on the road to recovery from the surgery I’ll be able to start treatment for the anxiety at last, and will finally be on the right medications. I cannot stress enough how important it is to advocate for yourself with your doctors. Do not be afraid to ask questions, do not be afraid to not take their word for everything, or their immediate answer, and keep asking questions because the only way you can get better is if you talk to your doctor and get the right kind of medication and the right kind of treatments so that you can live your best life and not be suffering all the time. I always believed that I was mentally normal anyway and that everyone’s brain worked the same way that mine did. I wish I had known sooner that mom had anxiety. Oh well. Hindsight is always 20/20.

It’s funny, too, because dictating engages my brain in a different way than writing with my hands does. My brain works a lot faster when I am typing, rather than when I am dictating, and having to think about what I am going to say, whereas I can just put my hands on the keyboard and things just start coming out of me without much thought really; it kind of is a subconscious thing for me, which kind of explains a lot.

We watched the new Spiderman animated movie, which i think was called Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse? Anyway, I really enjoyed it almost as much as I did the first, which I guess was Into the Multiverse? I wish I had known that it was a “to be continued”, though; that was very disappointing to not get to the end of this story to see how it all works out for Miles and Gwen Stacey! I also have been rewatching episodes of Moonlighting in addition to finishing Happy Valley, All The Light We Cannot See, and some football games. I feel more rested than I have in a very very very long time; which says something really terrible about my life really. I apparently never take time off of work to just rest up and relax. Usually when I do take time off it’s to go to a conference for self promotion for the books or to go visit my family which is a 12 hour drive in both directions—not optimal for rest and relaxation.

And of course whenever I travel I have trouble sleeping.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines for this wonderful Saturday of the holiday weekend. How the lovely rest of the day, and hopefully I’ll be back at some point to let you know how things are going in the recovery process for me. Thank you for always reading!

A Penny for Your Thoughts

Black Friday.

I don’t know long this will be; typing one-handed is an exercise in frustration. But here i am, giving it the old college try. Things have been challenging since the surgery; i am attached to a cooling machine which keeps the arm iced, which I then have to unplug and carry around if I want to get up and out of my chair. (It’s complicated, but if I detach the easy way I can’t hook myself back up to it one-handed, so Paul has to do it for me.) The most difficult thing has been the anxiety and depression, which I think is normal, given the situation. I’m having my first cup of coffee since Monday, since I had to fast for the surgery itself. Yesterday was hard, because it was the first “family” holiday since Mom died; I thought having the surgery this week would make the holiday easier.

I was incorrect. It did not. Retrospectively, it would have been hard to go; but it wasn’t any easier here and I probably should have spent it with Dad. Ah, well, neither the first nor the last time I’ll be a disappointment to Dad.

This morning is the best I’ve felt since the surgery. I feel like me this morning, and mot as tired. The dressing can come off today and I can shower, which is going to be amazing. Paul has a meeting this afternoon, so I am going to wait until he gets home from that to shower. That will definitely make me feel better, I am sure. I think my head is also clear enough this morning/today to read rather than try to watch television. Thank God, because I’m running out of things to watch. Yesterday I watched a Netflix series based on an award-winning novel that was so fucking terrible all I could think was I hope the book was beautifully written because this is so fucking problematic I can’t believe it won awards. We also started watching Shining Vale, a Courtney Cox show from Starz that is wild and crazy and over-the-top; it’s oddly fascinating but I think it’s quite odd in a David Lynch/horror way that is kind of fun.

I’m not sure how much I will be here until such time as I can use both hands to type; this has already taken a ridiculous amount of time already and I haven’t written much, have I? (I just tried to use the other hand and clearly not ready for that yet.) But writing this is, in a very small way, progress and a return to normalcy–at least a step that way–is a good thing, right?

Hope your holiday was awesome!

Dark Lady

The fortune queen of New Orleans, stroking her cat in her black limousine…

Ah, Cher’s 1970’s musical career. This one was always a big hit at Tea Dance at both Cafe Lafitte in Exile and the Pub on Sundays; there’s really nothing like a gay sing-along, is there?

I suppose being a fan of Cher as a child was kind of a sign? What is it about performers like Cher and Bette Midler and Liza Minnelli that draws young boys into their fandom who are going to wind up gay? Why was I drawn to actresses like Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Katherine Hepburn, and Doris Day before I knew I was gay? It’s something I’ve often wondered about–what is it about those women that draw us in like Formosan termites to a lit chandelier on a Monday night after Mother’s Day?

Ah, Formosan termites. That brings me around to today’s blatant self-promotional post for Mississippi River Mischief.

Isn’t this a cool, spooky looking shot? I took this out one of my kitchen windows one Sunday afternoon during a mighty New Orleans-style thunderstorm, and love how spectral and haunted-looking it turned out.

I still can’t believe that it took me this long to write about the swarming termites.

No one warned Paul and I about them, for the record. We had no idea that first May we lived here on Camp Street that the city was infested with swarming Formosan termites whose breeding season was the few weeks past Mother’s Day every May, and they are a scourge. We were swarmed, and had no idea what to do with them or how to handle the situation, or anything. We were running around the apartment spraying Raid everywhere, swinging at them with brooms, and they were everywhere. When the swarm finally passed, the apartment was filled with wings and corpses. It was horrible. We talked to the property manager, who apologized for forgetting to warn us–and the primary problem with the apartment on Camp Street (which was where Chanse also lived) was we had a very bright security light mounted on the front corner of the building–which drew them, and our apartment was right there. We learned to turn off everything that gave off light–including the television–when the first scout flew into the apartment, the mad dash around turning off everything, and then sitting there in the dark with maybe a couple of candles lit, waiting for the fury of the swarms to die down.

But that damned outside security light…ugh.

They are quite literally like one of the Biblical plagues of Egypt, and you see why the Egyptians constantly cried to Pharaoh to let the Israelites go.

But now that we live in the back of the house, we’ve been pretty insulated from dealing with them. Sometimes when I walk the garbage out in May, I can see a small swarm around one of the street lamps, but all the lights in the front of the house are off. We usually turn everything off if and when a scout flies into the television screen and immediately light candles and sit in the dark until we feel the coast is clear.

So when I started writing Mississippi River Mischief, I thought the best way to open the book was with the line It was the Monday after Mother’s Day and the termites were swarming. I posted this on Twitter, and local meteorological icon Margaret Orr replied “what a great opening line!” which kind of made my week (I am a big Margaret Orr fanboy) and helped me realize I was on the right track in writing something about New Orleans that rarely makes it into fiction. (Author’s note: That isn’t the opening line anymore; I added Scotty asking the guys a question about the renovation, and then after he talks, that’s where the line is. I just couldn’t get the prose to work with that as the first sentence; it read awkwardly, so I moved Scotty speaking up.)

Nature, and the natural world, is all around us here in New Orleans; the occasional alligator will sometimes lumber into the city limits; snakes and nutria and squirrels are all over the place, and of course there are the insects–the flying cockroaches (aka palmetto bugs), the swarming Formosan termites, the stinging caterpillars–peculiar to here. The tropical climate makes everything over-bloom and grow and expand and try to reclaim the natural balance of the region before it was settled. This is NOT the place for you if you have pollen allergies or have sinuses sensitive to the air pressure (I do); and I swear by Claritin-D for allergy and/or sinus relief (not the over-the -counter kind, but the kind you have to ask for at the pharmacy because you can make meth with it). OH–and the gecko lizards, always darting around and running up the side of buildings or fences or trees.

So, yes, since Scotty had finally bought the building he’s lived in all these years, I thought it was time to talk about termite swarms, as they would be an enormous headache for a property owner, and what better way to start a book where Scotty is now a landowner than with swarming termites?

And I remembered the buy link! Maybe I’m getting better at this.