Category: weather

I Feel So Free

It’s Tuesday morning, with a tropical storm out there and heading this way. Eek! It seems to be moving slow, with potential landfall tomorrow in the afternoon some time…which will be fun since I will be at work and will have to figure out how to get home in a downpour, but hey, you never know. Best thing will be to take I-10 to the I-90 exchange and get off at St. Charles. Ah, well, don’t have to worry about that until tomorrow, so why borrow trouble today? Besides, New Orleans/tropical weather forecasts are often wrong; it could be cloudless and sunny while Bertha works her wiles along the coast before coming in. We’re in both a heat advisory and a tropical storm watch at the same time; how New Orleans in July is that? I also slept really well last night–I was tired when I got home from running my errands, for some reason. Tonight I am going to stop on my way home to pick up a few things, but it’s on my way home and thus not a big deal or detour.

I’ve viewed The Odyssey with a skeptical eye since it was announced and previews/clips/still photos started showing up everywhere. As I mentioned before, I always thought Odysseus was kind of a dick, as were the rest of the Greeks; despite knowing the outcome of the Trojan War and what happened to Odysseus on his way home, I always was on Troy’s side. (case in point: Achilles the great warrior. Um, it’s easy to be a brave killing machine when your skin all over your body is invulnerable like Superman. How are you a hero when you literally can’t be killed or injured? Make it make sense, Homer!) However, over the past few days I’ve seen some discussion on the film that makes it seem more interesting to me; I’m not going to see it in a theater (no way am I sitting anywhere for three hours), and had always planned on streaming it. I was going to watch more out of a sense of obligation, really, but it sounds like Nolan’s take on the story is different…it never occurred to me to ever link Troy and the Sea Peoples and the Bronze Age collapse together, and I have to say I am now interested in reading Emily Wilson’s translations of Homer and Virgil. I read the three epics when I was in junior high, and may have been too young to absorb, understand, and interpret. (The Achilles/Patroclus relationship fascinated me; even though the myth was so cleaned up for kids…somehow, I knew.)

I’ve always wanted to write about the Trojan War but was confused by so much. If Troy was a major city and in control of trade routes, where was their fleet? Their merchant ships? Their port? I have this image in my head of an old man, seated by a fire, telling the story of Prince Ganymede of Troy, one of Priam’s bastards, but very close to my favorite Trojan, Cassandra.

I hate my brain sometimes.

Yesterday wasn’t a bad day, but mother of God, it was hot. It was 103 when I got into the car after work, and yes, it felt every degree of it. I listened to the new Madonna album on the way uptown yesterday as the a/c in the car finally began blowing cold, deliciously cold, and got the mail. I also stopped and made groceries (still no Creole tomatoes) and yes, bringing everything into the house from the car was exhausting and sweat-inducing to the point that I needed to sit in my chair once everything was put away. I watched the news–the World Cup trophy presentation thing made me laugh, cruelly, and almost as hard as I laughed at the booing. Bravo, Spain! Bravo! How pathetic and pitiable was that display of childish self-centering? “My trophy! Cameras on ME! I’m the best boy!” I mean, I totally get why his parents didn’t love him (who could?), but I also don’t see why we have to be the ones to suffer from his lifelong trauma of Not Being The Best Boy. The first hints of rain from Bertha aren’t supposed to (last time I checked, anyway) get here until tonight, once I am safely home from work and have a purring kitty in my lap while I write and I catch up on the news. I did the dishes this morning and will turn on the dishwasher once I am on my way out the door. It’ll be nice to come home to a cleaned up kitchen without a sink full of dirty dishes and dirty dishes and assorted debris all over my counters.

Sigh.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the day. Hope you have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning.

Professional wrestler and Greek god-like Finn Baelor

Danceteria

And here I am, on Monday morning again, yawning and swilling coffee before I get ready for work. We’re busy this week, so I am going to be drained and tired when I come home from work every day this week. That’s fine, really. I had a most lovely weekend to begin with. I spent a lot of time just resting and relaxing, but I did get some things done. I’m not used to having so little hanging over my head that I have this much free time, and I have to say that I kind of love having time to just decompress and chill while still being able to get some things done.

We’re in a heat advisory again, and there’s a storm forming in the gulf–Bertha–projected to most likely come this way and pass over New Orleans, but it’s potential for strengthening beyond tropical storm (still not something to sneeze at, just means we don’t have to evacuate) is not very strong and we should start feeling effects of this on Tuesday, supposedly. This means we’ll probably get heavy rains this week, possible flooding, and the potentiality of losing power. I also need to check out what’s going on with the fecal infected vegetable products as I need to stop at the store and make some groceries on the way home; although I did see the FDA was coerced into walking back blaming Taylor Farms for this round of cyclospora. Thanks again, RFK and DOGE. Are we healthy again yet?

Sherlock Holmes, of all people, was on my mind this weekend for some reason I am not certain of; I think I was offered a ridiculously low ebook price for The Hound of the Baskervilles. I know I want to write an essay about not being a Sherlockian; I’ve always felt my lack of appreciation for Holmes was something shameful for someone who identifies primarily as a crime writer. When I wrote that historical story about a New Orleans-based Sherlock in 1916, I did read some of the short stories I hadn’t read before and enjoyed them, and Sherlock dances back into my head every once in a while, primarily because I’d like to revisit that time and write about it more. But does it have to be a Sherlock story? Why can’t I have a New Orleans-based world’s greatest detective? It’s an interesting time period, as Storyville still existed as did anti-Italian prejudice aka they’re all Mafia, where they lived in the lower Quarter. There are also all kinds of interesting cases in New Orleans history that could also go back to that time, too. I don’t feel like I know enough about Holmes to write more about him as a 1916 New Orleanian with a desire for male flesh….I also like the idea of writing about New Orleans when it was primarily accessible only by water. The 1915 hurricane after-effects would also be interesting to write about, especially since both St. Malo and Freniere were wiped off the map. I already have a Sherlock short story idea having to do with Freniere–but I’ve held off on writing it because I need to decide whether to base my character on Sherlock, and continue with him as I have already adapted him.

I also wonder if I should be writing about Sherlock.

Since Lisa Morton will occasionally urge me to write more horror (which is incredibly sweet, encouraging and supportive all at the same time) so I have been thinking about horror more these last few weeks or so. I have an idea for a horror novel that I am toying with currently, which could be a lot of fun to write–horror always is–but like the Sherlock thing, I’m not sure I have the background knowledge or the necessary steeping in the genre that I should have…then again, I always am very quick to point out my lack of formative knowledge in the crime genre (see: Sherlock Holmes), too, but I write it anyway. Horror always, surprisingly enough, turns my mind towards Alabama and the Florida panhandle and the Sierra Nevada mountains. I also came up with the opening for a new series I am interested in tackling this weekend, too…

I did work some on the book as well as a couple of short stories…and I also thought a lot about the next Scotty and what to make it about. I was going to go with January before parades start, with it opening as the boys watch the Krewe de Vieux parade pass beneath their balcony, but then I remembered the S&WB project that has the streets in the Quarter all torn up and thought, well, I’d need to look into the construction work and then started thinking about October/November; something to do with Halloween as the title anchor, and Hijinks as the third word, but I need something to go in between; I can’t use season because I just used that…maybe Halloween Pumpkin Hijinks? Maybe candy? Sigh.

I also hate that the World Cup is over and everyone is going home…but at least Spain beat Argentina (ETTD).

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

Erling Halaand, my World Cup crush

Lift ‘Em on Up

Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment, and I did stay in bed later this morning on purpose because it imply fet so marvelous. I had a small replacement fan delivered yesterday afternoon, and it ran all night and I didn’t wake up once, instead going into an incredibly deep and restful sleep for nearly ten hours! Yesterday was kind of a nice, low energy day around here. Paul is back to working with his trainer and going to the gym again, and so he was gone most of the afternoon. I slept later yesterday, and had a bit of a sleep hangover; I was back to feeling rested and not tired, but my batteries were a bit low. I ordered some things to have delivered, and picked up and organized whenever Sparky wasn’t insistent on my lap for hugs and cuddles and naps, which was also nice. Relaxing is always important for both physical and mental health, and my stamina is getting better. I did get a fan delivered yesterday, to make sure I had both the breeze and noise while sleeping last night. I didn’t read any of my book, but I read some of my work in progress, which counts, doesn’t it? I think this morning I’ll read some of the book I’m reading, which I am enjoying. It’s nice to wake up feeling rested and good.

I’m also late with the newsletters, which I am blaming on being “off” all week. I did do some writing this past week, but not much, and I am definitely behind on everything I am working on. It’s a shame that the response I am writing to that little gatekeeping shit who wrote that op-ed for the New York Slimes recently, trying to restrict the community to those he feels “truly belong” as opposed to, how did he say it? Straight kids trying to be cool? I was very angry when I started writing it, but am glad I waited and let it sit, so I can be very cold and factual as I dismantle his bigoted (and hardly Christian) argument.

Honestly, I had no interest in seeing The Odyssey , and it had nothing to do with it being “woke.” (Which didn’t seem to hurt its opening weekend ticket sales). It’s more along the lines that I’ve always thought Odysseus was kind of a dick; Greek “heroes” aren’t really heroic in the modern sense (the Hero’s Journey is the protagonist’s journey, just like romance originally meant something different than it does now, as did mystery); which always confused me when I was fascinated by the Trojan War (I’ve always wanted to write about Troy) and Greek mythology. Heracles was most certainly not a hero in the sense that the modern American definition thinks of as heroic–and while some of his monstrous behavior could be excused away as acts of the gods, not all of them were because of Hera or some other Olympian with a grudge. (I’ve also wanted to write about Heracles since I was a kid.)

Since I was on low-energy mode yesterday, we did watch Sugar, and a couple of episodes of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, which really needs to ditch the soapy time travel melodrama of the cast of characters and more on the monsters, which is why we are watching. Godzilla finally has shown up–it’s funny how these same monsters traumatized me as a child, watching Creature Features on the television, giving me bad dreams for weeks after seeing one, and now I love them–which was vastly overdue. The problem with the focus on the melodrama always makes me zone out a bit, which means I miss key things about the monsters by the same team who are also studying the monsters and predicting patterns of behavior and movement–and also where they come from, hence the time travel melodrama. Sugar? No notes. Colin Farrell is fantastic, and the show is well done and well written and extremely clever.

I have to order some things for delivery today or tomorrow; I haven’t decided. I ordered things yesterday so I didn’t have to leave the house, since we were in a d (“feels like 110!”) so I decided going to the gate to get things or out to the trash to dump garbage and the recycling was enough; the sun glaring off my windshield was blinding and I don’t want to think about how hot the car is on the inside. We’re in another heat advisory today, with the ‘feels like’ at about 112, hence ordering for delivery yet again.

The times in which we live, where Taco Bell has replaced the CDC and Waffle House the National Weather Service. Had someone told me this would be my senior years when I was even middle-aged I would have laughed so hard. An anti-vaxxer in charge of public health and food safety? Let’s remember, the agencies that would have worked on these things were gutted by DOGE, Elon, and his ketamine fueled college-age boys? Where are those little shits now? I know they aren’t behind bars where they belong.

There are two tropical messes trying to form in the upper Gulf, just off the coast, and it will of course affect us with some rain and possible flooding from Tuesday through the next weekend. Heavy sigh–but I am looking forward to the thunderstorm.

Pity about the Tates being arrested for raping and trafficking children. Hope they enjoy dying in prison.

And on that cheerful note–I approve of predators being arrested–I am going to get another cup of coffee and head into the living room to read for a bit before getting cleaned up and heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will be here again tomorrow morning. Till then!

This artwork is “The Tree of Forgiveness” (1881–1882) by English Pre-Raphaelite painter Sir Edward Burne-Jones. The painting depicts a scene from classical mythology, specifically the legend of Phyllis and Demophoön.
It illustrates the moment Phyllis, transformed into an almond tree, emerges from the bark to embrace her lover, Demophoön, who has returned filled with remorse. (If you ask me, he looks terrified and like he’s trying to escape. Maybe that’s the myth?)

Too Long a Soldier

My word, I was tired yesterday when I got home from the work day, so much so that all I could do was basically eat something and collapse into my chair. I don’t know why I was so tired, but I was. It was a nice day, actually; informative and saw some people I don’t see very often. I also got a service plaque or twenty-one years on the job, which is kind of staggering–and something I should talk about at some point, I guess. I just like to try to keep my separate lives from overlapping. It’s kind of ironic that I circled back around to having two distinct and separate lives again; who’d have thunk it? But I keep the two lives–day job and public–apart as much as I possibly can. I also have my private life, which I don’t really share much of–probably more than I think, but much less than twenty-odd years ago when this–the blog–began. Ironically, I started keeping this blog about two weeks before I started the day job, so the two are also kind of linked in my mind.

Paul even did the bedding yesterday, so I wouldn’t have to. I ordered a pizza for dinner because I didn’t have the energy or bandwidth to look through the cupboards and the refrigerator to throw something together.

As an example of how tired and worn out I was yesterday, I slept about ten hours last night, and could have stayed in bed longer had I not opened my eyes and seen the time. I feel better now that my coffee is kicking in, but today was questionable when I first got out of bed! My fan broke earlier this week–Paul said he’s been having trouble sleeping as well last night, and I think we both subconsciously miss the sound of my little fan. That, of course, will be remedied today. I think I’m going to buy one; once I am completely awake I think I’ll do a mail and grocery run–and they have fans at the grocery stores here. The heat has been insane–it was 98 when I drove home from Dillard yesterday (!!!) and humid as all fuck. Yeah, I think that’s a good idea. Do it before noon before it gets really hot (!!!), get home and get cleaned up and do chores and read and organize and do other things as the mood strikes. I did figure out Chapter 4 of the book last night, despite the exhaustion, so that’s a good thing. I also intended to load the dishwasher before bed last night and I didn’t do that, either. Since the theme of this week was tired, I didn’t keep up with the chores as well as I did the previous two weeks, and so there is more for me to do this morning/afternoon.

I don’t even want to look at the news this morning. Talk about exhausting. I think I may go back to the old “no news is good news on the weekends) mentality I used to have back in the day; we all need to take breaks from the madness from time to time for the sack of our mental health, you know?

I think that could have also had something to do with why I’ve been having trouble sleeping this week, too–the fucking news. It’s always an assault on decency and humanity and everything that is good in this world, as the country burns to the ground and the world continues to shed its reliance on the United States–which is, actually, a good thing for everyone concerned, because it’s showing we the people that the world can get along fine without us. Look at Ukraine’s success battling Russian since they stopped sharing intelligence with us! NATO and Ukraine are showing Europe–and Russia–that they don’t need our support or assistance.

So much for that hideous and horribly ugly American trope of you have to back us or you’ll be speaking Russian before you know it that has existed since August 1945. How many markets have we lost now, because we elected a cowardly bully with a brain that has never worked properly?

Okay, enough of that. I do not want to go down that dark mental path today. And on that note, I am going to get some more coffee and have some breakfast while I read for a bit. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow!

Not a fan of the facial grooming look–ugh, mirrored sunglasses–but the body is nice.

Cerebral Man

Wednesday Pay the Bills Day has rolled around again somehow, and so I get to spend some part of my day doing just that: paying the goddamned bills. Evangelicals keep promising the rapture, can y’all get your shit together and let us know when exactly this is going to happen? I intend to have fun during the end times, and I have zero interest is paying my bills during that time. Of course, whenever I think about these things, I do reflect on what a paradise it will be without the evangelicals here….oh, wait. They were Left Behind? (see what I did there?1) After the rapture, think how much fun it will be reminding evangelicals why they are still here.

I’m petty, what can I say?

I’ve been listening to the new Madonna album, Confessions II, and it’s good; probably her best album since the original Confessions on a Dance Floor and I have to admit, it’s a lot of fun having Madonna back on form again. As I listen to it while I drive around, I remember other Madonna bangers–there were quite a few–and what a fucking legend she is, and it also takes me back to my gay bar days and weekends. I don’t miss going out and dancing all night–much too old for that now–but I do have a lot of marvelous memories–or would if I could remember any of it, ha ha ha. I feel another essay coming on…there’s no celebrity that I am such a huge fan of that I can’t judge their work independently; I am not a “I love everything so-and-so has ever done” unless I actually do love everything so-and-so has ever done; but I don’t cape for famous people nor do I try to defend them against the indefensible on-line. I’ve stopped being a fan of some celebrities once I realize they aren’t good people–looking at you, Gloria Gaynor and Carrie Underwood, just off the top of my head (nothing makes me madder than people who use gay men for money and fame like that two-faced MAGA skank Kristin Chenowith; Judy or Liza would never). Also, there are people–adults now–who know nothing of Madonna, which is insane to me. If you want to talk disruptors…she was the original, and we’re all the better for it.

I feel rested this morning, so I think I slept better last night than I have the last two nights–or my body has adapted to getting up early. I have an employee development thing at work on Friday–everyone in the agency has to go–so once again, not a normal weekend for one Gregalicious. Sigh. The highs for the rest of the week are in the nineties, and I am sure the heat advisories are back, too, although we didn’t have one yesterday. It was actually kind of nice and cool when I left for the office yesterday morning, and according to the forecast the rain is returning this weekend. It was overcast a lot for the rest of the day after the rain passed in the morning, and it was definitely hot when I came home. I had to swing by the post office on my way home yesterday to pick up a package, and dashed into the grocery store for one item. I washed the dishes and cleaned out the sink last night, running the dishwasher just before I went up to bed. So yes, came down to a lovely clean kitchen (well, cleaner at any rate) this morning, which was absolutely lovely.

My coffee is kicking in! I like this leaving for the office later thing I’ve been doing, and I don’t care if I have to stay there until 5, you know? Yay! I do have some things I want to get done today. I didn’t do much work on the book yesterday–a couple of hundred words, at best, and I honestly don’t think I hit a hundred with fiction yesterday. I have to pay the bills and have another task I need to get finished today–preferably this morning, actually, or over lunch–and I have some stuff to order and have delivered, either tonight or tomorrow.

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

Yes, yes, people are interested in his brains.
  1. If you are fortunate enough to be unaware, I am talking about the post-Rapture books by the evangelical scum by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, which were popular for a few years around the turn of the century. Three films (starring certifiable freak Kirk Cameron), all as forgettable as the poorly written books. Most don’t remember them at all, and if I just reminded you of them, my apologies BUT WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO SUFFER ALONE?? ↩︎

Let’s Stay Together

Tuesday morning here at Spice Mines Estates and it is raining.–but supposed to clear up shortly. I slept well again, too, which was also nice. I woke up an hour before my alarm, and stayed under the blankets because it was so comfortable.

Yesterday was a bit dreary; it rained off-and-on all day (no flood watches or warnings, thank God). It was overcast and chilly with damp when I came home (a mere 78 degrees outside). I stopped off and made groceries on the way home, and was bitterly disappointed that again, I found no creole tomatoes. So annoying, and it’s really hard to eat regular tomatoes once you’ve had a creole. The rest just taste like water now. I was a bit off during the day, or rather, it took me longer to snap to it than it usually does, but I think that’s because I had to get up and go to work in the rain, when I would have much rather have stayed in bed under my comfy and warm pile of blankets. The day at work wasn’t bad, either. It was busy enough to pass the time but slow enough for me to figure out what needs to get done this week. I’m actually adapting, finally, at long last. Getting up in the morning is no longer an ordeal, and I generally am fully awake by the time I get to the office. Going in later so I don’t have to rush has been an unexpected boon, and I like not having to rush in the morning, which always, inevitably means forgetting something.

I also got to work on the book for a while when I got home. As I mentioned the other day, I was struggling a bit with Chapter Two, so moved on to Chapter Three, which I got through yesterday and even got started a bit on the next chapter. I was able to repurpose the scene with Big Dick Nick and thus keep it, and also was able to make “I’ve never been interested in dames” work in this new version, which I am enjoying working on. I love his voice, and am very glad I finally found it. I am hoping to get this new chapter finished this week, and then i have to figure out where the story is going once that one is finished. I may have to work on short stories or something else while my brain comes up with the next three or four chapters. So exciting, really. It’s fun to be excited about writing again. It’s amazing what an overall life improvement all this free time I have now is!

We also watched this week’s House of the Dragon; does anyone know if this is the last season? It seems, to me, like they are building to the finale–two seasons of plotting and very little happening, and now they cram everything into a final season? But it’s a George R. R. Martin show; I am sure they can drag this out for another season. I am very much enjoying this season, but it’s also difficult because there really is no one to root for in this. I suppose Rhaenyra is the heroine–she’s the one consistently fucked over by everyone else’s greed, envy and desire for power–and the actor playing her is fantastic. We also started the new season of Cross, which is pretty fun thus far. I think, since HOD has redeemed itself, perhaps we can give A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms a go.

I was saddened to learn of the recent passing of Jameson Currier, a very kind and talented man I had the pleasure of knowing. Jim was actually an enormous help to me early in my career, and I’ve always been grateful to him–plus, he was so much fun to gossip with. I’ll probably write about him some more, if I can figure out how to do it without making it all about me–which is what I usually do; my narcissism and self-absorption know no boundaries. I didn’t know him as well as I knew Felice or Dorothy or Victoria–the others who befriended me and took an interest in me and my career, but he helped open some doors for me that led me to being where I am today, and that is something I will be eternally grateful for–and if you can get a copy of his novel Where the Rainbow Ends, I highly recommend it; it’s one of the few AIDS novels that ends with some hope, making it pretty remarkable. I cried when I finished it because it was beautiful.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and may it always be filled with as many tacos of your preference as you can handle. I will be back on the morrow–somehow it’s pay day again, how? But, until then, adieu.

I mean, aren’t they a cute couple? Cue gay sports romance in pro wrestling world.

Wide Awake in Dreamland

Sunday and wide awake, perhaps not in Dreamland per se, but definitely the Lost Apartment. Yesterday was a lovely day, really. I got up around seven and checked the news, put away the dishes, and pottered around in the morning over my coffee. As it turned out, Paul had plans for nearly the entire day from before noon until the mid evening, leaving me to my own devices for the day. I read some, puttered around a bit, wrote some, put some things on while I rearranged and reorganized during the day while he was gone, and kind of enjoyed the peace and quiet of a little alone time. It’s nice periodically to have a day that is entirely mine to do with as I pleased, you know? It would get old very quickly, I suspect, but as I said, it’s nice every once in a while. The thunderstorm also arrived just before one, too–at least that’s when the sky started darkening and I heard thunder in the distance. It was the proverbial New Orleans gully-washer with flash flooding alerts and so forth. Paul wasn’t home, so Sparky wanted to sleep in my lap all afternoon and I was frankly happy to allow him to; it was very cozy with the chilly damp in the air and the sound of rain pouring out of the sky and rushing along the walk to the lower level of the street. I watched the last two episodes of House of the Dragon, which were quite enthralling. It did pick up in episode two, after all, and these episodes I watched yesterday were very gripping and moved very quickly.

I apparently missed the news about Lindsey Graham’s sudden death yesterday, adnd have not read any of the reporting, just seeing some social media posts about it this morning. Awful as he was, there was a little part of my brain that felt sorry for him. I always felt that the mocking of his questionable sexuality bordered on the homophobic and made me uncomfortable, even as I succumbed to the temptation of the low-hanging fruit on occasion. I guess seeing him triggered my empathy because I would always think, whenever I saw him, how easily his “path” (we don’t know anything for certain, everything is speculation and cruel gossip rooted in the homophobic ideation that you can always tell. Um, tell Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter’s fans back in the day, or Rob Halford. Hell, they didn’t think Freddie Mercury of QUEEN was, so yeah, no you can’t) could have been mine. I often wonder how I, born gay into a rural Southern family steeped in that dominant Southern culture, may have turned out had we not left Alabama when I was two, which is where my place of empathy for Graham comes from–and now that he’s dead and cannot cause any harm to non-white non-straights anymore, I can shake my head with sadness about his wasted life. Even if everyone is reading him wrong and he was just not “masculine” enough1, that’s actually even sadder. He was a horrible person and his congressional voting record and public white supremacy mean the sympathy is more along the lines of a wasted life who could have spent his entire career doing things for his constituents rather than being a MAGA mouthpiece.

He certainly was a Harkonnen beta, and that is unforgivable.

With McConnell also dead (despite the pretense and this whole Weekend at Bernie’s bullshit they’ve been pulling with his brain-dead corpse–if he didn’t die before they took him out of his home, they sure were not in a hurry for someone found unresponsive in their home. These things come in threes–dare we to hope? As someone I admire greatly once wrote–dare we have the audacity of hope? This could be the best American summer in quite a while. Although in this shitty timeline, Anne Widdecombe probably counted as the other vile politician death in this glorious triumvirate.

Seriously, live your life so the world isn’t better off when you’ve died.

I slept late this morning and feel good and rested this morning, if a bit hungry. I do have to order some things for delivery and I’ll have to stop on my way home from the office tomorrow to pick up a few things. Today I am hoping to read and write and do some picking up around here. Paul slept on the couch last night (he said it’s easier sometimes for his knee when it hurts) so I can’t catch up on the news, so I will have no choice other than to read and write this morning. We watched a documentary last night on Netflix, Breakdown: 1975, which was a pivotal year culturally–this focused on politics and films, and that in wake of government distrust that permeated the country after all the scandals, how films became more cynical rather than optimistic and good didn’t always win in the end–and the good guy himself was not entirely a good guy either, unless he was an innocent pulled into something beyond both his knowledge and control, like Marathon Man. My Cynical 70s Film Festival that I did during the shutdown really emphasized how gritty and realistic the decade’s “serious” films by the auteur directors that rose in the 1970s were…and how Spielberg and Lucas changed the industry into the summer blockbuster mess it’s been ever since.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. My book is calling to me, and I need to read some other things for research purposes before I dig back into my own book and short stories and essays. Hope you have a lovely Sunday however you choose to spend it, Constant Reader, and I will see you again bright and early at six am again tomorrow!

Sure, whatever you say, there’s absolutely nothing homoerotic about professional wrestling. Uh huh. Nice ass, anyway.
  1. This would make a marvelous introduction to one of my essays about masculinity, wouldn’t it? ↩︎

The Art of Letting Go

Saturday morning, and a top o’ the morning to you, me pretties. Yesterday wasn’t too terrible, actually; I always make such a big deal out of things that aren’t big deals and I really need to break that really bad habit at some point before I die. I got up before the alarm, but hit snooze a couple of times before Sparky realized the alarm was mysteriously going off a fifth day in a row, which meant I’d be getting up soon which means breakfast for the kitty! And wasn’t it sweet of him to try to let me sleep in? I feel good and rested this morning; I was tired and sleepy last night when bed time rolled around, and I slept like a stone (how things that aren’t sentient are supposed to sleep has always mystified me) last night, and woke up relatively early this morning. Once again there’s supposed to be some serious thunderstorms in the late afternoon, which would be lovely and a nice time to curl up and read some more of the book I am currently reading and need to finish.

I was tired, though, when I left the office to run my errands before heading home to finish the chores. They didn’t have Creole tomatoes, which was enormously disappointing; I really wanted one of my grilled cheese sandwiches, which I need to rename because it’s not just a grilled cheese sandwich. I usually will put bacon, guacamole and Creole tomatoes on them, too; they are so amazingly good, and when you use Maldon salt and fresh ground pepper? My word. I’m going to have to go to the store again over this weekend to look for Creole tomatoes, which is the only thing I actually need to get. I was a bit brain dead when I got back home, and then worked on the laundry and other chores. I do feel like this is going to be a productive weekend, and I feel good about that. I really straightened up the books in the living room as a first step to making it look less like a FEMA zone, and also couldn’t find a copy of a book I was looking for, which means I’ll have to buy another copy. Oh well. I did also locate my copies of Dancer from the Dance and Faggots while going through the books, which was a bit of a relief. I can revisit them now, at some point. It’ll be interesting to see them again through a modern lens, remembering the first time I read both and what I thought of them then and how they hold up now. I really need to get back to my reading.

We watched an episode of Sugar and I had the end of an episode of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (not enough monsters) on while I was straightening and picking things up last night. I also baked potatoe sbecause I didn’t feel like making ravioli or…anything, really. I also kept thinking it was Thursday all afternoon, and being confused by how early it was before remembering oh yes, you put in six hours at the office. Next Friday is Staff Development Day, also mandatory, and also all day. Hurray. Not loving this, honestly. I’ll survive though–at least, I hope so and if I don’t, well, I could use the rest and not aging anymore isn’t a bad thing.

Amazing what anti-anxiety medication can do for a person, isn’t it?

Paul is going to something tonight–he told me, but I forgot; some kind of art show he’s attending with his board president–so they’re having an early dinner first, which will leave me here alone with Sparky for a few hours later on–probably around the time the thunderstorms are predicted to hit the hood. I also want to do some more deep cleaning on the place; I need to move some furniture around, but getting all the shit various cats over the years have knocked behind or underneath them out. (I told you, I have not been as thorough with the housecleaning chores this decade as I used to be, and I wasn’t joking at all!) I also would like to work on a newsletter some more this weekend, maybe even get it sent out later today or tomorrow (I kind of went overboard with them over the holiday weekend and need to space the next ones out some more), and I do want to work on the book and some short stories today, too–we’ll see how it all goes, though, won’t we?

Okay, on that note I am heading into the spice mines. I am going to take my coffee into the living room and watch some news before I get cleaned up and going on this fine day. It looks beautiful outside my windows, and it’s not that humid because the windows aren’t covered in condensation. So, out with the trash and the recycling, too!

See you tomorrow morning!

Il Duomo in Florence from the air. I love Florence.

All Fired Up

Well, it may be Thursday morning, but this is not my last day in the office for the week. We have an in-person department meeting on Friday, so I have to get up and come in. That’s fine, really, I don’t mind putting my time in at the office tomorrow. I won’t have to stay past two, and then I can run some errands on the way home from work and hopefully, get everything I may need so I don’t have to leave again over the weekend and can just stay inside. In the cool. Out of the heat. One of the nice things about doing chores every night and in the morning before I leave for work is that all the cleaning I used to let accumulate in the sink, laundry room and on the counters no longer has to be done first thing on Saturday morning….so I can maybe do some other cleaning that I never get to–like the floors and the stairs. The laundry room shelves need organizing and straightening, too–and I should also go through all the kitchen cabinets and throw away everything that has expired without being used.

And I can also spend some more time writing and reading on the weekends, too.

I slept well last night again, but this morning I hit snooze one more time than usual (to Sparky’s chagrin), but it was more about being comfortable than wanting more sleep. I have the most comfortable bed, and of course my incredibly soft and heavy pile of blankets. It’s supposed to rain again today–it did at the office during the day, but today’s rain is forecast for this late afternoon/earaly evening, which means coming home during a torrential rain (potentially; New Orleans weather forecasts in the summer are completely unreliable), but that’s fine. I don’t even mind having to go into the office tomorrow, either.

Paul didn’t get home until it was too late to watch anything (board meeting), so I did some chores when I got home yesterday before providing a very needy Sparky with a lap/bed for him so he could feel safe and secure again. I did work on the book again yesterday, writing a thousand words and getting a very strong first draft of the first chapter done, which needs a further polish but for now I am content to let it stand as is and move on to finishing a strong draft of chapter two. I’m not writing at my old break-neck pace; I can’t remember the last time I did three thousand words or more in a single day. But that’s also okay; I’m not on any deadline outside of my personal goal of solid first draft by Labor Day, and being able to take my time instead of rushing through a draft is eminently more satisfying, too, and I do think I like this way of writing better. I have more free time than I have had in almost sixteen years, and my body seems to be, if not completely recovered from everything, at least I feel better physically than I have in years. I also like this going into the office a little later every morning thing I’ve been doing this week. I feel more awake and alive and motivated getting there at eight rather than seven thirty, and in the afternoons I don’t feel exhausted…and the days seem to pass much faster than they used to.

The Macavity Award nominations have been released, and was delighted to see three of the short story nominees I have a connection to; Cheryl Head and Christa Faust for their marvelous stories in Crime Ink: Iconic, and from Double Crossing Van Dine, Vaseem Khan’s excellent story “The Devil Himself.” This is the second time one of our contributors from that anthology has been nominated for an award; Barb Goffman earned an Agatha nomination for her story. I am always in good company when I am in an anthology, which is always thrilling for me. Rob Osler also landed a nomination for Best Historical, which is awesome! My friend group is always well represented on awards lists, you know? #ilovemylife.

It’s a good life, isn’t it? 🙂 I also got my copy of the latest in Rob’s series in the mail. Oh, so many excellent books in my TBR pile! I really need to get back to reading seriously. Maybe an hour after work every night? I can read while Sparky dozes, after all. I think maybe unconsciously my mind has closed off answering emails and reading so I can focus entirely on writing fiction? Stranger things have happened in my fevered, chemically imbalanced brain.

And on that note, y’all, I am ending this entry and heading into the spice mines. Have yourself a merry little Thursday, Constant Reader, and no worries–I’ll be here again tomorrow morning. Till then!

Much as I love New Orleans, I love Venetian carnival costumes the most.

7 Rooms of Gloom

It’s actually quite easy to succumb to gloom, actually; the gloom affects our moods and can make us feel either blue or down or depressed from the lack of sunlight. The sun is out there this morning, but the rain from last night and the humidity have covered my windows in condensation so I can’t see out them that well. It rained yesterday while I was at work, and I came home in a break in the storm. Raindrops started hitting my windshield as I turned off St. Charles, and I managed to make it into the house before the big bold of lightning lit up the sky and the thunder that followed shook the house. And then came the gully-washing rain. I did some chores when I got home–laundry and dishes–and came down to a relatively picked up and not-messy (I won’t say clean) kitchen this morning, which is a nice feeling. Sparky certainly likes being able to get up on the counters when they’re clear. It’s nice not being completely exhausted when I get home from work, and as long as I don’t succumb to Sparky’s need for a lap (he definitely needed one last night. Paul went to the office so he was alone at home all afternoon for the first time in about four days, so he was experiencing some abandonment issues) I can get things done so I don’t have to spend an entire day cleaning the kitchen. If I don’t have a sink full of dirty dishes and cluttered counter space by the weekend, I can do a quick touch up and then work on something else that needs cleaning and organizing….and maybe I can finally get this apartment back into the kind of shape it needs to be in for me to be okay with.

I also have worked out a new system at work to be more efficient with my time and easier to stay caught up on things, which is very pleasing since we are now working the clinic short-handed for the foreseeable future. Very cool! I love making my job more efficient. I am feeling good again this week; last week felt like my batteries were on accessory, but feel like I got full recharged up over the weekend. Getting up in the morning is no longer an ordeal, and my mind is clearer when I leave the house so I am not kind of half sleep-walking through the mornings anymore. I do think a lot of this has to do with me writing again, even if the fiction just comes in dribs and drabs these days…the important thing is that I am making progress and I am very pleased with the work. I’m not going to have much of anything published this year–I have a short story in an anthology coming out this fall, but other than that I ain’t got a thing….and at the rate I am going I may have nothing again next year. Nose, attach thyself to grindstone.

Paul got home in time last night for us to finish season one of Sugar and start season two. This show is such a unique take on the hardboiled private eye trope that I enjoy every twist and turn and surprise that comes along. I went to bed fairly early and slept well–the rain, the rain–and had no trouble getting up this morning. I am not as energetic as I was on Monday, for sure, but I am not groggy-tired and wishing I didn’t have to go into the office…and now that the caffeine is hitting my bloodstream that little grogginess is clearing and I can feel my body beginning to wake up. We’re not going to be terribly busy today, so I should be able to get some more administrative stuff done around the clients.

The predictable implosion of the Graham Platner senatorial campaign over the last weekend and past few days has been pretty impressive, frankly. I never said anything publicly about Platner (or James Tallarico, either, for that matter) because I don’t trust them. For me, the homophobia put all my antennae on alert but…I also knew the “progressives” would swarm me and call me everything under the sun for not being on board with our latest iteration of the “working class blue collar straight man” savior they always try to foist on us, because no one is really interested in what we queers (if that bothers you—my use of queer, that has some crusty white gay male asses twisted–go the fuck away) or any of the “minorities” welcomed into the big tent–unless we want to run for office or actually rise to an actual position of power, in which case we “don’t have a chance” and we need to “step aside for someone (white straight cisgender male) who can win.” You see, I decided to listen to those wonderful gay commentators Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers earlier this year and not donate to campaigns with candidates I don’t think are “electable”–Platner was at the top of my list once the Nazi tattoo came out–and the usual “no responsibility white man” response of “I didn’t know what it was!” Um, in which case, you are too fucking stupid to serve in the Senate. But hey, it’s also interesting to me when the blue bros go all in on a straight white man with serious issues because…straight white man. They also never acknowledge their mistakes. I get the same spidey-sense tingle with Tallarico, too, sorry/not sorry…the same nagging instinct I had with Sinema and Fetterman…and I didn’t listen, to my bitter and everlasting disappointment.

I’m not ignoring that instinct anymore. I hope I’m wrong about Tallarico, but I’m not giving him a cent. Any money I donate this midterm cycle is here in Louisiana. We have a chance to beat MAGA Julia Letlow, the homophobic racist piece of shit Incompetent and Incontinent Baron Harkonnen endorsed (he calls her Yulia every now and again, but hey, Jake Tapper, write a book about Biden, quisling), and that’s what I want to focus on. Interesting how this race is on no one’s radar in the progressive world…oh, yes, that’s right. Jamie Davis is Black and thus unelectable.

Funny how that works.

And can someone take Stephen King’s phone away from him before he does even more irreparable harm to his reputation and legacy? Bad enough he’s a friend and supporter of the Chatelaine of Castle TERF–which was when my opinion began turning from admiration and fandom to I beg your pardon? Um, “they’re all rapists” isn’t the selling point you seem to think it is, sir.

The Boy With the Nazi Tattoo is doing no favors to anyone. Typical. And now he’s making demands before he drops out? Sounds about straight white man.

I’m not going to comment about the mysterious death on Horn Island over the weekend. Yes, I am very interested in the case and yes, I have theories, and yes, I don’t trust any of those other kids and especially not their parents who didn’t raise them right (you never leave someone you brought behind without making sure they have a way home, my mother drilled that inti my head as a child and she would always ask when picking me up if we’d taken someone with us). Period. But I want to be respectful to the young man’s family; it’s hard enough dealing with this kind of sudden and unexpected loss that shouldn’t have happened and then having to deal with speculation all over the internet? And the horrible things the racists are spewing? I am a crime fiction writer, not a journalist or a true crime writer, and I don’t know anything about what happened other than it stinks like three day old fish baking in the hot Louisiana sun. I also don’t trust the local law enforcement or the state of Mississippi to investigate thoroughly–this is the kind of thing that happens all too often. (Can’t imagine why that Black kid they sent to prison for life for stabbing that white kid at that track meet felt endangered.) I will follow the case, but I won’t speculate about outcomes or what happened. (I cannot say enough how much I do not trust those white kids or believe their story, at least what’s been reported.)

Sigh. We will never beat the allegations, white people.

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

Hot male bodies that haven’t removed all their body hair are unusual to see and thus sexy as fuck.