Category: working out

Heartlight

Saturday and no LSU game, so the day stretches out in front of me a yawning empty chasm. But I feel incredibly well rested after a very relaxing deep good night’s sleep, which is simply marvelous. I have things to do this weekend–out of the ordinary things, different from the usual to-do list–so I have to figure out when to get those things done. I’m going to need to make a grocery run at some point–I have to make a cheesecake for a work potluck this week, and I am thinking it’s probably smart to make some white bean chicken chili in the crockpot at some point (soft food, after all); regardless, I need more ice cream and microwave ramen. I really like that super-hot ramen, and am also very low on yogurt. Maybe I’ll get up tomorrow and head for a grocery run on the West Bank or to the Rouse’s on Carrollton–which I could also just do this afternoon, depending on how I feel. I want to really clean up the house and get stuff done–filing, organizing, and so forth–and I can always have the football games playing on my computer while I am in the kitchen, which desperately needs work. I also want to go for a walk around the neighborhood later on today, to get a look at how the neighborhood has dressed up for Halloween.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I managed to get my work-at-home duties taken care of and made it to my pain management appointment, which was unnecessary as I am not in pain–I think my surgeon thought I was in pain from the injury, which is cute–I wouldn’t have let it go this long had I been in actual constant pain from it. But it was one more box to check off on the list of things that need to be done before the surgery, so that makes it one step closer to when I am going to be rehabilitating the arm. I think having this hanging over my head isn’t helping much with my anxiety or getting things done; I can try to compartmentalize all I want, and try not to think about things, but the truth of the matter is I cannot control my subconscious–especially when I don’t know what’s going on with it. I think I’ve been more relaxed and rested this week because I’ve not been trying to get much done or worrying about anything; I just came home, sat in my chair with Tug sleeping in my lap (Paul is calling him Puma now, because his claws are so sharp), and read or watched television. I did watch another episode of Moonlighting yesterday while doing work-at-home chores (“My Fair David”) and then finished reading The Dead Zone but also Adam Cesare’s marvelous Clown in a Cornfield (more on both later), and am now trying to decide what horror to read next before Tuesday–which is the end of Halloween season as All Hallow’s Eve itself falls on Tuesday. I am leaning toward Mike Ford’s middle grade The Lonely Ghost, which has been in the TBR pile for far too long, and then maybe something by Chris Grabenstein if I get that done quickly–The Hanging Hill looks like it could be quite fun, or perhaps a reread of my favorite ghost story of all time, Ammie Come Home by Barbara Michaels. I also have a kids’ ghost story anthology–Alfred Hitchcock Presents Ghosts and More Ghosts, actually edited and compiled by Robert Arthur, who created one of the best kids’ series of them all: The Three Investigators. After Paul got home from the gym we also watched this week’s The Morning Show.

And just looking at the college football television schedule, I am not seeing anything other than Georgia-Florida to watch with any degree of interest, and it’s tough–I despise Florida with every molecule of my existence, but I also kind of want Georgia to lose…but I just can’t root for Florida. (Georgia always winds up being my default team in the East because I hate Florida and Tennessee both with the white-hot intensity of a dozen burning suns, and pretty much everyone else is kind of irrelevant. Kentucky and Missouri never break through, nor does South Carolina, and Vanderbilt is…well, Vanderbilt.) I’m trying not to get overly worked up for the LSU-Alabama game, which is a must-win for both. I don’t get nearly as worked up over college football as I used to, which is a good thing–as I have slowly began to recognize that while they may be athletes, they’re also kids, and they shouldn’t be subjected to the scorn from fans. The coaching staffs and administrations, on the other hand, can have all the scorn, as can the conference hierarchy AND the NCAA. I’m not overly excited about all the conference expansion because I’m not so certain that the needs of the student-athletes are being taken into consideration as much as they should be in the pursuit of the almighty television deal dollar, and that NIL stuff isn’t something I quite understand other than that college athletes are now getting paid.

I can’t get over how good I feel this morning, and how good I felt all week, frankly. I’ve got to get all this filing under control and work on the kitchen, too–the living room and the laundry room are complete disasters; although I did start working on the laundry room shelves a bit yesterday. I do get to go for the final fitting for my dentures on Tuesday morning (the same day I am taping Susan Larson’s “My Reading Life” at UNO), so I am hoping to get back to solid food in a couple of weeks–and I am definitely going to reboot my eating habits once I have teeth again. I now am down to somewhere between 205-209 pounds, depending on the day and what is in my pockets, and I’d like to get down to 200 again; but until I am able to exercise again I am going to have to do that by changing the way I eat. I’ve frankly enjoyed the ramen (and the Velveeta shells and cheddar) and may continue to eat it going forward–same with the yogurt–but the calories from Haagen-Däzs will need to be replaced by something healthy. It wouldn’t hurt me to go back to having turkey sandwiches and salads for lunch occasionally. It’s the heavy steady diet of red meat I need to dial back on, mostly; and some of the other fatty stuff I eat far more regularly than I should–and go back to looking at Five Guys as an occasional treat for good behavior.

I can but do better in the future.

And on that note, I think I am going to indulge myself in some self-care this morning and get cleaned up before taking on the rest of the day. Have a great Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back soon enough, no worries–I have blog posts on “Don’t Look Now”, The Dead Zone, and Clown in a Cornfield to finish writing, too.

Biggest Part of Me

Well, I am not going to get my dentures until Monday; they just called and the dentist isn’t in today, so I can’t get them until Monday morning, which makes this weekend a bit more difficult–sigh, eating will be a bit of a challenge for me this weekend in Panama City Beach, but at least I get them Monday morning–which means I can get groceries and start eating normally again on Monday; which is fantastic and makes me incredibly happy. I think I can probably chew if I take the uppers out, but I hardly would want to be doing that in public. But Monday I can eat normally again, although I still have a lot of the softer food to get rid of without wasting. I’ve actually liked some of these options I’ve adapted to–who knew hot and spicy ramen would be so fucking good?–and I will miss the ice cream of course, but I didn’t really lose a lot of weight while on this diet (my body always adjusts very quickly) but I am hopeful that will become more of a reality for me (actual weight loss) once the teeth are done and the surgeries are over and I’ve recovered. The weather has become cool enough for me to take walks when I get home from work; I’ve just been so focused on bonding with li’l Tug that I’ve not really made use of the time as productively as perhaps I should have.

Tug is becoming more and more at home, and showing more and more Big Kitten Energy every day. When I got home from work there was a trail of…well, I won’t say destruction because that wasn’t what I found; but there was a lot more stuff on the floor when I got home than was there when I had left. Last night he slept a lot in my lap, but then would get the “wanna play!” zoomies, where he was running around knocking things off and playing with everything and chasing things. I read some more of Riley Sager’s Final Girls, which is quite interesting and holding my attention, and then switched over to some Youtube videos. I watched another old episode of Friday the 13th the Series, which is fun, as always; it also occurred to me that I’ve basically given a sort of the same set-up backstory to A Streetcar Named Murder that the show had; my main character inherited an antique shop from an old uncle of her husband’s she didn’t know, the first case involved an item from the store, etc. etc. etc. (I just last night put that together–there truly are no new stories under the sun, are there? This is what I mean when I say things like I have so many influences I can’t possibly list or remember them all–pretty much anything I’ve ever read and any movie/television show I’ve seen has influenced me in some way.) Paul had a meeting last night so he wasn’t home before I started falling asleep in my easy chair; Tug and I repaired to bed before Paul got home around ten and I slept until eight this morning; ten hours! That never happens, Constant Reader, and it felt great. I feel very rested and relaxed this morning before I dive into my work-at-home duties, of which there are quite a bit today. I also have some errands to run late this afternoon after work, and of course tomorrow mornign I have to get up early and get the oil changed–which means more of the Riley Sager. I’m also a little excited to listen to Stephen Graham Jones’ The Only Good Indians on the way over and back, and I want to finish the Sager this weekend so I can reread The Haunting of Hill House and The Dead Zone before moving on to Elizabeth Hand’s A Hanunting on the Hill–although I’ll reread the King before the Jackson, because it just makes more sense to pair the Jackson with Hand’s retelling of the same tale, doesn’t it?

The switch from blast-furnace summer heat to the coolness (relatively speaking) of fall has been wonderful, and I hope my Entergy bill reflects the cooling of the weather. The kitchen is a mess, as always on Friday mornings, so of course I have some things to do around here before I get started on my work-at-home chores or do some writing or reading or whatever I need to get done here around the house. The new season of Our Flag Means Death dropped last night, as well as other new episodes of our shows (Ahsoka, Only Murders in the Building, among others) and we also want to start The Changeling, based on Victor Lavalle’s superb novel.

So I am hoping for nice productive day at home. I feel rested and relaxed–always a plus–and maybe not as motivated as I would like, but hey, that’s on me and the coffee I have yet to finish consuming. I’m going to finish off my morning with a cup of cacao, because I am trying to get used to it and it would be great to wean myself entirely off coffee, but the cacao is taking some getting used to–it doesn’t really have the bitter bite of coffee, which is the part of the taste I prefer. Cacao is more like unsweetened hot chocolate–and it’s probably the real chocolate taste, as opposed to the insanely sweetened version Americans are used to. I’ll have to get up early tomorrow to get the oil changed in the car–since I’ll be on the West Bank, I should probably go ahead and grocery shop while I’m over there, and then I won’t have to worry about it when I get back on Sunday night, which does make the most sense.

And so, on a more cheery note than usual lately, I am going to take this chance to head into the spice mines. I may be back before tomorrow morning’s before the oil change at the crack of dawn, but one never can be sure. At any rate, have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll talk to you again soon.

I Don’t Want to Cry

But my God, fasting is the worst. The doctor visit went extremely well, and I am actually kind of excited about going forward with a primary care physician who, um, cares. Everything went well, we are getting ready to move ahead with my next surgery, we’re coming up with a plan to deal with the anxiety (bye bye, Xanax; but you didn’t really work for that anyway, only the symptoms), and I got my flu shot. I think I’ll probably swing by CVS to get a COVID booster and the RVS shot tomorrow. I have to go drop books off at the library sale anyway, I want to wash the car, and now that the excessive heat is over, maybe now I can properly air my tires and get the pressure in them to balance again. But I weighed only 200 pounds per their scale (with my wallet, belt, shoes and keys on me), which must be a result of the fasting? I can’t imagine how i dropped five pounds since yesterday.

I was also thinking that this soft food diet/tooth thing is really the perfect time for me to reset my eating habits and go forward with a more healthy eating plan. I need more vegetables in my life, and fresh foods. I don’t need the junk anymore except as a treat–I’ve rather broken the habit while not being able to snack these last couple of weeks, and let me tell you, last night I wanted a snack of something crunchy and salty so badly there’s no telling what I would have done to be able to have something like that. I’ve also come to realize that I actually like ramen. I generally have tried avoiding the foods that I consider “poverty indicators”–the stuff I could afford in college or during my leaner financial days–and those are things like ramen, box Mac’n’ Cheese, and tuna. But only being able to eat soft food and reverting to ramen reminded me that I do, in fact, actually like it–I always love any kind of noodles, really–and what is easier to take for lunch than that? I’ve been taking leftovers, and usually only cooking a big meal on the weekends to have something to take for lunch…,but ramen is easier, tasty, and filling (which is why it’s such a great poverty food). And you can always dress it up; one of my roommates in college had a Japanese mom and what she could do with a package of ramen, spices, and some vegetables was something I’ve tried duplicating any number of times without success. And once my arm is healed, I need to get back into working out again. Now that the weather is getting cooler I am probably going to start taking walks in the mornings on the weekends; the city is getting ready for Halloween and I have so many friends who are into Halloween that I love sharing pictures showing how overboard New Orleans goes for it.

I’ve never really done any Halloween writing about New Orleans, now that I think about it. Jackson Square Jazz was supposed to be the Halloween book, but I wound up setting it earlier in the month and only mentioned Halloween costumes in the epilogue. A Streetcar Named Murder was also set in October just before Halloween–hence the masked ball Valerie and Lorna attend–but I’ve never done Halloween itself. My story “The Snow Globe” actually began life as a Halloween story; I wrote it for a Halloween anthology and it wasn’t accepted. The original opening line was Satan had a great six-pack, and was inspired by me standing on the balcony at the Pub/Parade on Halloween and looking across the street just as someone come out of Oz dressed as sexy Satan–red body paint, red bikini, face done up, and red glitter everywhere–and I actually had that thought: “Satan has a great six-pack” and stored it away as an opening line. When I was looking through the files for a Christmas holiday story for the anthology benefiting my chapter of Sisters in Crime, I realized Santa is an anagram for Satan (which is interesting in and of itself) and I can switch the story from Halloween to Christmas, which makes more sense anyway for its outcome. Ironically, the story actually worked better as a Christmas story!

I definitely need to do a Scotty Halloween book. Halloween Season Hijinks? That actually could work….hmmm.

And on that note I am going to make myself some lunch (hello, Lipton’s double noodle soup and Ritz crackers!) and dive into the spice mines to get my work at home duties completed for the day. May the rest of your Friday be as awesome as you are, Constant Reader! I may be back later–one never knows–but if not, definitely on the morrow.

Don’t Throw It All Away

Well, we made it to Hump Day again, which is a lovely thing.

I think I may also be losing my mind? I could have sworn one night in the last two weeks I sat down with my journal and hand-wrote the next five or six hundred words of my story “Parlor Tricks.” Last night after running errands and getting home, I promptly sat down, opened the Word document for the story, pulled out my journal and started flipping through the pages.

Constant Reader, those two or three pages I could have sworn I wrote in my journal? Were not there. I turned page after page, growing more and more confused. How could I have not written it down? I specifically remembered words and phrases I’d used in the scene, describing how my main character’s psychic ability to read someone else’s thoughts sometimes created a psychic bridge between the two, which has just happened. The bad part of it is she read his thoughts and knows he’s planning on killing his wife later that night. I even got into the weeds with the psychic stuff, but no–I must have thought of it all, planned to write it down, and then…just never did. I’ve also somehow lost my belt and my Crescent Care hoodie, too.

Or Paul is gaslighting me. I’d prefer to believe that, of course (who wouldn’t?), but much as I want to believe that, I’d only be gaslighting myself. Heavy heaving sigh.

I was very tired as I ran my errands after work last night–needing more soft food, although I can eat stuff now that isn’t quite as soft; macaroni and ramen and soups and things. But the primary need was for things I could make for lunch at work; microwavable things. I also didn’t eat dinner last night, so this morning I am a bit on the hungry side. Yogurt and oatmeal and protein, oh my! But the end is nigh; next Friday I got get the molds for my new teeth made, and I am hoping that will only take about a week or so for the final to be ready for me to wear and use. (I’m also hoping there will be temporary ones I can use in the meantime, but I rather doubt it. But the thought of being able to swing back Five Guys on the way home next week is almost overwhelming.) I also weighed myself yesterday with shoes and keys and belt and wallet on and came in at 205, which is fine and something I can live with. I’d love to get below 200 again, but I’d rather that happen through diet coupled with exercise once I can go back to the gym.

But I did manage to get Jackson Square Jazz printed, three-hole punched, and put inside a three ring binder, meaning the editing just got real. I had gone back and forth over it, you know; should I re-edit/revise the book, or just do the basic copy edit? I didn’t have time to do any work with the Chanse book or Bourbon Street Blues before the ebooks went up, and at the time I didn’t know how I felt about redoing the books for republication; it was more along the lines of the old writer’s adage you can keep fixing it forever but sometimes you just have to say “fuck it it’s done” and it didn’t seem right. I wanted the print editions to be available as they were originally published…which seems now like a silly hill to die on. Why wouldn’t/shouldn’t I revise them? Jackson Square Jazz I think is the longest of the Scotty books, and probably has one of the most convoluted plots of the entire series; there was a lot fucking going on in that book. As I was putting the new printed-out pages into the binder, I came across the scene where Scotty is drugged and loopy in the penthouse on top of Jax Brewery when Colin scales the building to rescue him…and I started reading. I got rather caught up in the story–that scene is rather amusing and was a lot of fun to write–before stopping myself and getting back to what I was doing. I did think that was a good sign.

This week I’ve been letting the anxiety control me rather than the other way around. My supervisor is on vacation this week, which amps up the anxiety for me as I have no one to go to for decisions and/or questions; I kind of have to decide for myself and I really don’t like that. I think that was why I had trouble sleeping on Monday night, frankly. And I noticed it Monday night when I got home from work as well as last night. Granted, I was also tired last night, but I got very little done once I got home. Sure, I printed out the manuscripts (frontside and backside), and made groceries and picked up the new Lou Berney novel Dark Ride, which was very quickly moved up to the top of the TBR pile, but once the book was in the binder and the groceries all put away…I just literally did nothing else. I should have worked on “Parlor Tricks” while I still remember the continuation I didn’t write down but is only in my head; I should have read more of Shawn’s book; I should have done the dishes or folded the clothes that are still sitting in the dryer this morning. More to do this evening, I suppose. I am also seeing my new primary care physician this Friday morning, which will be nice, and then of course LSU’s game is Saturday night in Death Valley, which gives me the day free to run errands and clean and write and get things done around here because I don’t much care about the other games, although I’ll probably have them on as I clean and do things. Then again, I just looked at the games this weekend, and Florida State-Clemson, Auburn-Texas A&M, and Alabama-Mississippi are also on Saturday…so I’ll be paying more attention than I was thinking that I would.

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

Don’t Be Angry

So, this morning’s appointment went very well.

I’m not going to lie, I was very concerned and stressed about the appointment. To make a long story short, I tore my left biceps muscle changing a flat tire back in January. (I thought I’d jacked the car high enough to remove it; it wasn’t until I pulled on the tire that I realized it just as blinding pain flashed through my arm–from the fingers to the shoulder.) It hurt badly, but as a former athlete and personal trainer I am used to muscle strains and pulls. It felt like I’d pulled it, which has happened any number of times over the years (I couldn’t even. begin to tell you how many times my hamstrings have been pulled; both calves as well). It felt just like that–the pop and then the pain. The muscle looked weird, but my calves looked weird until the pull healed, and of course, I couldn’t see how my hamstrings looked as they healed. I had my biannual physical/check-up scheduled with my primary care physician for Wednesday that week, and I thought, as I drove home after running my errand, well, if it still hurts tomorrow I’ll go to the emergency room; if not it can wait till I see him on Wednesday. It stopped hurting that night unless I actually flexed the muscle, and it felt like I just had a charley horse…so I figured it was a pull, but best to ask my doctor just in case. My doctor didn’t think it was a bad thing, and suggested I wait and see how it goes until I saw him again in July. By July, I knew it wasn’t a pull and it wasn’t healing and maybe I should have pushed my doctor more and advocated for myself better than I did (something I am always lecturing my clients about, almost on a daily basis: “advocate for yourself! You know how you feel better than they do!” But…

I don’t like conflict, I don’t want to be a pain in the ass, and I always have had that “need to please” thing going on, which I am working on shedding.

Needless to say, the muscle was actually torn not pulled; and a tear requires surgery. I was referred to an orthopedic surgeon and visited him a few weeks ago, which was when I learned Dr. Google was correct; a biceps tear needs to be repaired within six weeks of the injury, or the tendon will continue to retract. The muscle is attached to the forearm muscle (sorry for not having technical terms) with a tendon, and that tendon is what tore. If you have the surgery before the tendon retracts, it’s easy to reattach it. The problem is the longer you wait the less stretchability the tendon has; it’s kind of atrophied. So THAT specialist didn’t feel comfortable doing the surgery because he wasn’t that specialized, hence the need to go to this morning’s appointment at the Tulane Institute of Sports Medicine–this is a more common injury with athletes–and so this morning I got up and headed uptown.

I have to say, I can highly recommend the Tulane Institute for Sports Medicine. Everyone was so nice, and polite, and made sure I was comfortable the entire time, always checking in on me whenever I was waiting, and so forth. I had some X-rays done of both my shoulder and elbow, and then I met with the surgeon. What a wonderful experience it was! He was kind–which matters so much more than anyone ever thinks it does in those situations–carefully explained how the surgery worked, how it would be done, the prognosis (I won’t ever get 100% strength back in my biceps, but it should be 90% at the least; and that was a big relief). There will be two incisions made, one on my inner forearm about an inch below the elbow, and another right below where the biceps muscle is sitting right now. If the tendon won’t stretch, they will sew in a cadaver tendon to reattach the muscle. The scarring will be apparent, but will be much smaller than I feared, and I’m glad that I can put my mind in ease. We scheduled the surgery for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, so I won’t be going to Kentucky for the holiday (kind of relief, in a way, I was dreading the first one without Mom) but it means I’ll have to go up there some other time over the holidays.

I’m still angry at my former primary care physician for not really giving the injury anything more than a cursory, dismissive glance in January–and there were several other issues with him as well, so I fired him and have found a new primary care physician, who I will be seeing for the first time next Friday. She is my PrEP provider at Crescent Care, so I’ve been seeing her for several years now, I work with her on behalf of my clients, and I am comfortable with her and I also know she’s thorough. I don’t know why I didn’t switch over to her completely years ago, but…live and learn and I suspect it had more to do with laziness than anything else.

So, that’s out of the way and I just have to wait for someone to call me to schedule an MRI before the surgery, but there’s plenty of time for that so I don’t need to be anxious about it.

And now back to work at home chores.

If We’re Not Back in Love By Monday

I’ve been sleeping deeply and well lately for an insomniac; I suspect it has more to do with the pain being exhausting than anything else. Any surgery is traumatic to the system and requires rest for recovery, and oral surgery is no different than any other. I’ve taken today off as well as tomorrow; I was thinking yesterday I could probably just go in today and do some paperwork or something, but (and this is not laziness) I started thinking it’s probably best to give myself enough recovery time before I head back in–and I also know the clinic is jam-packed with appointments for today and tomorrow, and I just don’t think I have the energy to deal with that today. I think one more good night’s sleep with probably do the trick.

The Saints won a nail-biter yesterday and I didn’t watch the US Open final; I just can’t with Novak Djokovic anymore. I used to like him until he became an anti-vax/COVID denier, and I can’t with that, I’m sorry. I respect his athleticism, commitment to his sport and being the best, but as a person? I can’t help but feel he’s a selfish, arrogant, borderline sociopathic asshole. Of course he’s entitled to his opinion, but he’s not entitled to me being a fan and watching him play, either. For the record, that’s how it works. I don’t deny him the right to be an anti-vaxxer/COVID denier, but I also don’t have to be a fan or watch him play. We got caught up on Only Murders in the Building and Ahsoka last night, too. I also finished several in-progress blog entries, including the one called “Shame” about homophobia in crime fiction and how things have gotten better over the years–but we can’t forget how bad it used to be, either, which was the point of the post, really; telling the crime community that we’re here, we’re queer, and we’re not going any fucking where.

Get fucking used to us.

Today I am going to try to do some chores around here. I’m feeling like a slug–anxiety talking again; I always feel like I should be doing something and down-time is time wasted–so I think I should do some things today. I suppose it depends on my energy stores, and how long it holds out. I want to read some more of Shawn’s book this morning–I think my resistance to that brutal opening was more of the post-surgery exhaustion–and I also need to empty the dishwasher and do another load that is soaking in the sink. I also want to make something to take for lunch this week–I’m thinking Swedish meatballs in the slow cooker, but am not sure if my minimal chewing abilities can handle the meatballs, even if I cut them up smaller before putting them in my mouth; I don’t think I can swallow them unchewed in some fashion–and I do need to go buy more ice cream and yogurt. I think some of the soups and ramen on hand could be useful. I can’t wait till I can eat a burger again, to be honest.

I also need to answer all the emails that have been languishing in my inbox for quite some time. I owe Dad an email–I’ve not had the strength after Bouchercon and the surgery to face writing him–and my sister’s birthday is this week. I also need to mail something, so I think I’ll drive uptown to make groceries and see what else is possible for soft foods for the week (mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, that sort of thing). I need to get the things on my to-so list knocked out, too. I feel more rested and more myself this morning, but maybe that’s because the pain pills haven’t quite kicked in yet. I also need to start revising/editing Jackson Square Jazz; I’m very excited about that finally being available again, and since Scotty turns twenty-one next year, I kind of want to celebrate the series throughout the year and I don’t know, maybe give away first editions? Something, anyway.

It’s also hard to believe Chanse will be twenty-two in January. I’ve been doing this for over a third of my life now. I owe it all to my stubbornness and obliviousness. Someone smarter and more aware would have probably given up a long time ago, but here I am, still here, older and possibly wiser and certainly not much smarter than I was all these years ago when I was a wide-eyed innocent walking into the world of the published word. I always remember that first August Paul and I lived here back in 1996. We went to a fundraised for the LGBT Center, and there was a tarot card reader there. (I’ve always been fascinated by tarot; I blame the James Bond movie Live and Let Die, which also connected New Orleans and the tarot in my mind. I write about a “private eye” who’s slightly psychic and reads tarot cards and lives in New Orleans. Coincidence? Probably not. Sadly, it’s always been one of my favorite Bond movies and always has held a special place in my brain for introducing me to Bond, New Orleans, and the tarot…unfortunately, the film does NOT hold up forty or fifty years later.) Anyway, the question I thought about as I held the cards in my hand was will I ever be a published writer? The answer the cards gave her was “Yes, but it will not be anything like you think it will be.” A generic answer, yes, that could apply to any number of questions…things are generally never what you thought or imagined they would be. Being a published author is definitely not anything like I ever dreamed or fantasized about when I wasn’t one. I know I thought being published would change my life for the better (I was not wrong about that) but…yes, it’s nothing like what I thought it would be like. Publishing can be a very cold and lonely place, but all you can really control is the work itself. You can’t control whether or not you get published, you can’t control whether or not the book sells, you can’t control the way readers and reviewers will react to it, you can’t control whether you get award recognition. All you actually can control is the writing itself, and do the best you can. I always hope my work is getting better–which should make reediting and revising the original Jackson Square Jazz interesting…

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close, make another cup of coffee, and start working on the chores around the kitchen, while streaming music through my iHome speakers. I’ll probably check back in later–I have all those unfinished blog entries I need to eventually finish and post–and I also want to get some fiction writing done today as well. Have a great Monday, Constant Reader–do you think today’s photo will get my adult content flags on social media?

I’m Just a Country Boy

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. I have a lot to get done over the weekend–errands and chores and things, oh my! I’ve arranged for medical appointments and examinations, have gathered everything I need for the OMV, and I even spent a little time writing yesterday. Who am I, and what have I done with Gregalicious?

I slept better on Tuesday night than the previous nights, and it felt great. I didn’t feel tired or worn out or dragged out–and of course, while it was still fucking hot here, it was normal August hot, not Satan’s taint hot. I can handle normal August hot. Sure, I’ll complain, but if this summer thus far has proven anything to me, it’s that I’ll be grateful for a regular Louisiana summer from now on. Yesterday was a good day at work as well; I feel like I helped some people and was able to be a good listener for some others who needed to get some things worked through. I love my job because I get to feel like I’ve made a difference in someone’s life, and there’s always at least one client per day who makes me feel that way. It’s a good feeling. I know I am helping everyone I see, but the ones where you have to go a bit deeper than is usually necessary are really special for me. That’s what I really needed from a job all along, and if I didn’t find that out until I was in my forties, at least I finally did find out. I’ve been at my day job longer than any job I’ve had previously, and by the time I retire at sixty-seven (roast in hell for all eternity, Ronald Reagan) I will have worked there longer than I worked at all my other jobs combined. (I’m not counting writing or editing in this, by the way; those are contract jobs, not a regular paycheck with benefits, which also includes fitness instruction. No benefits nor regular paycheck there, either.)

I also loved being a personal trainer because I enjoyed helping people feel better–so much of fitness training is mental, and reshaping mindsets and attitudes and mentalities, you have no idea. I used to actually write a syndicated queer-specific fitness column, which took a holistic approach to fitness and well-being, and so sometimes I would get into the mental health/self-image stuff. I always wanted to write a holistic health and fitness book targeted to a queer audience, but the performance aspect of promoting a health and fitness book wasn’t anything I was interested in; it would mean staying in shape constantly, watching everything that I put into my mouth and limiting myself, cutting out alcohol., and above all else, quitting smoking. Once I got myself back into shape, in 1994 and then again in 2001 (after that Horrible Year That We Never Discuss), I gradually became less obsessed about the regimen I needed to maintain to continue to work toward underwear model-type body and decided I was okay with a slight roll around the middle, and not having a six pack, or veins bulging out from under the skin everywhere. Fitness instruction, and fitness writing, weren’t my passion though; I wanted to be a fiction writer and I didn’t want to use my discipline and self-control and will to push myself into trying to compete for dollars and eyes and influence in the fitness world–I wanted to use that to write the best fiction I could and get it published so people could read it.

I was also thinking that I might want to think about doing something to mark Scotty’s turning twenty-one next year (I honestly cannot believe I’ve been writing this series this long. It was supposed to a stand alone!) I am thinking I should probably write another Scotty book, so the tenth will come out during his twenty-first year of existence, but I am not quite sure what I want to do with the boys next. I have some titles and possibilities–French Quarter Flambeaux about a Mardi Gras murderer; Quarter Quarantine Quadrille which of course takes place during the quarantine; and Bywater Bohemia Bougie, which would be a long look at real estate, gentrification, and how New Orleans has lost some of its soul since Katrina. I probably should write a Scotty every year. But I don’t want him or the series to get stale; that’s what happened with Chanse and I’d originally planned to only do seven, and I was on book seven so I said, fine, we’ll end it here. I do think there are more Chanse novellas to be written at some point; I think the shorter form will force me out of the “paint by numbers” way I was feeling with that series by the end. (For the record, I think the last two books of the series are just as strong, if not stronger, than the books that came before them. The quality wasn’t slipping, but the challenge of writing them wasn’t there anymore.)

The last thing I want to feel when I’m writing something is bored. Sick of it is one thing and is perfectly acceptable to feel; by the time you’re doing the page proofs you should be so fucking sick of your book and those characters that you don’t ever want to think about them again….and the time between turning in those final corrections and the release/promotion is just long enough of a time to pass so you don’t want to slit your wrists when the subject of the book comes up. I have yet to feel boredom with writing Scotty; the fact that the stories can be insanely ridiculous and completely over-the-top helps a lot in that regard. And yet…I’ve noticed things, looking back at the older books in the series, while I was writing Mississippi River Mischief, that I need to pay more attention to in the future. A reader asked me, sometime after the release of Royal Street Reveillon, “how many car accidents has Scotty been in?” And when I started thinking about it….was like yeeesh, quite a few–to the point where I probably wouldn’t get into the same car with him. I noticed that there are books where Frank and Colin’s presence is so minimal that they aren’t even supporting characters but rather cameos; and I don’t use Scotty’s family nearly as much in the later books as I did in the earlier ones. So, when I write the next Scottys, going into them I am going to be more conscious of these things, and I am going to try to work them out organically through the manuscript. Scotty’s getting older, as are the others (my editor was very enthusiastic about how much she loved that Scotty ages in real time), and I’ve started addressing that. I do think the next case is going to have to heavily involve Scotty’s family; I’m thinking it’s about time his sister Rain took center stage in one of his cases. I love Scotty’s entire family, to be honest, and I am really glad I brought his best friend David–missing from the last four or so books–back into this one.

As you can probably tell, I was a bit concerned about my editor’s response to this one. Someone who has anxiety to the degree I do probably shouldn’t be a fiction writer, but it’s too late now, over forty novels in. But….it’s never too late to enter a new chapter of my career, either.

I slept great again last night–the slight cooling off this week has been marvelous; the air conditioning finally caught up, and I was laughing last night because I was taking some stuff out to the recycling and realized…it was chilly enough in the apartment for me to wear a sweatshirt and sweatpants (which means the temperature inside is correct), and when I was walking the stuff out I didn’t break a sweat and thought it was actually pleasant outside…and it was 94. Today I have to get through, run some errands on the way home (post office mostly–I can’t decide about the grocery store but I don’t think we need anything; I have developed the habit of making groceries whenever I get the mail since I’m already uptown) and then settle in for the night. Paul was late last night working on a grant, so when he got home we watched the first episode of Only Murders in the Building, which was a very pleasant surprise (we weren’t wild about season two, but season three got off to a great start, and of course, Meryl Streep!), and finished the evening off with an episode of Awkwafina is Nora from Queens, which is just hysterically funny. It’s nice to feel rested before the last day of getting up early and going into the office.

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

Say You’ll Stay Until Tomorrow

Sunday morning and we’ve survived yet another day of a heat advisory, which was miserable when I went out to get the mail and some cleaning supplies (I also got grocery store sushi for lunch, don’t you dare judge me). But I wasn’t out in it all the much, and I managed. I slept decently Friday night, woke up a few times, like always, but went to bed and slept in until seven thirty (!) before getting up and getting started on the day. I started doing a thorough cleaning of the laundry room and the kitchen in the morning (I needed more wet Swiffer pads, which was why I had to stop before running errands, and I needed other cleaning supplies as well, too), and rearranged the top of the dresser upstairs so there was room for more books, so I took my copies of the annotated Holmes up there along with some other enormous research books that don’t fit in my bookcases and had taken up residence on top of the microwave–which I then cleaned and moved the cookbooks to (because that’s where they belong, goddamnit), which pleased me inordinately. I miss Paul, of course, but the plan to keep myself busy so as to not get lonely seems to be working out so far.

Yesterday, I cleaned.

I even moved furniture and rearranged my workspace. I also discovered that I’d bought one of those Apple speaker things I can stream Spotify through, so I can have music playing while I do things–so no risk of being detoured by television or going down Youtube wormholes. I did baseboards, Constant Reader. I really need to get some Venetian blinds for this window over my desk, much as I loathe giving in finally to the loss of the crepe myrtles. The LSU blanket I tacked up in a rather pointless display of spite and vengeance that had absolutely no effect on anything other than to further enhance the “college apartment” essence we’ve apparently been going for these last few years needs to come down. I’m a grown-up, after all, and the days of using blankets for shades should have been gone years ago.

Talk about arrested development! And as usual, the only person affected by my spite is me, as always.

But it felt good to clean everything, to pick up the rugs and beat them outside, to actually sweep the floors beneath and then wash them before putting back the rugs; moving furniture to anchor the ones more prone to moving, wiping every surface down and even getting some work done in the living room, too, which was marvelous. I also discovered that I had already written a draft of the fifth chapter–I didn’t remember getting past Chapter Four (although I thought I’d already figured it out just not written it–pleasant surprise!). Also, after putting the new drafts of chapters three of four in the three ring binder for the book (because I do this for every book), I found a note scribbled on the last page of Chapter Four–something I had noticed when I was revising it, but didn’t think was a big deal–and now I need to go back and fix it. It’s minor, not a big deal, but if I don’t catch it and fix it now…I may not and whoops! Today I am going to work on the living room some and try to get some writing done. I want to revise Chapter Five, maybe finish this next draft of a short story, and maybe finish writing the first draft of another. I also need to sit down and plot out another one.

I may clean the ceiling fans. Madness. I also need to get lightbulbs, or find the ones we already have.

I also stretched yesterday and used the the back massage roller thingee, which felt great–as did the stretching. I need to stretch more regularly; seriously. It only takes about five minutes, feels great, and always gives me a jolt of energy whenever I do it. And it’s good for me and a healthy thing to do, so why do I never think about doing it? Or why do I think about it and then just shrug it off? Perhaps someday I will understand, but it’s doubtful at this point.

I slept really well again last night, waking up relatively early this morning, which is good as I plan on having a productive day. This morning I plan to do some more cleaning, read some more, and then write all afternoon if possible. My coffee is definitely hitting the spot this morning and tasting marvelous, and here’s hoping this motivation carries through the day, shall we?

I did finish watching The History of Sitcoms last night, which I did enjoy somewhat, I could probably write an entire entry dissecting the episode about class, and the success CBS had in the 1960’s essentially stereotyping the South and Southern people with shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Petticoat Junction, among others. But the first two shows (I watched Petticoat Junction growing up, but don’t remember anything about it; the other two I remember very clearly) were actually a lot more clever that critics of the time thought–they were dismissed as very lowbrow humor, but they said a lot about class and were also kind of stinging indictments of American capitalism, mythology, and the class strictures we faced as a nation. (It was interesting that these shows about rural Southern people never address race; Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies still believed the Civil War was still on-going–she was in denial about the loss, I guess; which is certainly problematic when seen through a more evolved and modern perspective.)

I plan on finishing the downstairs today–which means the ceiling fans, or at least trying to get them cleaned; I can only reach so far with my ladder (I should have bought a six foot instead of a five foot all those years ago) but I think I can reach the blades of the fans…or at least I can change out the lightbulbs that are blown out. Then I can spend the rest of this week keeping the downstairs under control as I start working on the upstairs.

I also read two more chilling Alfred Hitchcock Presents tales, this time from Stories That Scared Even Me, “Men Without Bones” by Gerald Kersh and “Not With a Bang” by Damon Knight. I enjoyed both stories, despite having no clue about either author (these old anthologies do not include author biographies in the back, which is a rather disappointing oversight). Kersh apparently wrote the book Night and the City and lots of short stories; Harlan Ellison considered him one of his favorite writers, and “Men Without Bones” was certainly a chilling story, about a man who boards a banana boat hoping desperately for passage back to the United States, who then tells of a chilling voyage deep into the jungle to look for proof of alien visitation years ago when mankind was still in its infancy (which was a very popular trope when I was a kid; Erich von Däniken’s work was selling hundreds of thousands of copies in multiple languages); there is a very dark twist at the end of the already dark story that was rather jolting. Damon Knight was a very popular science fiction writer of the post-war period; I’ve not heard of any of his novels (he was named a Grand Master by SFWA, which he helped found; he was also very prolific as a short story writer, and he wrote the story “To Serve Man,” which became one of the more famous episodes of the original Twilight Zone. One of the things I am enjoying most about reading these old anthologies is learning about great writers of the past who may not be as well-known today as they were in their time; it sometimes makes me wonder if forty years from now some gay mystery writer could be reading old anthologies from this time and discover me? “Not With a Bang” is a post-apocalyptic story about the last two humans left alive–a man and a woman–but the woman’s experiences and what she witnessed as the world came to an end has kind of fried her brain; she cannot really process what happened and it sent her back to a rather prim-like mental state from earlier in her life; she refuses to have sex with the only man left alive unless they are married–but they cannot be married as there’s no one left alive to perform the ceremony. It’s never very clear if the man is so anxious to fuck her because he wants to repopulate the world or if its sexual anxiety and frustration; but he’s not a very good person and he also has caught the post-nuclear plague that wiped out everything the bombs and the fallout didn’t get; one of the symptoms is essentially losing the ability to move or speak and falling into a coma-like state that can be reversed with medication he has stockpiled…but once she has agreed to marry him and we realize that he’s not just frustrated with her–he’s not a good person and he plans to abuse her and be dreadful to her…and chillingly thinks and she could have a daughter…before he goes into a bathroom and freezes into the coma…with the door shut behind him and he’s lost the ability to speak.

These old macabre tales with their eerie twists at the end are probably–I am seeing now–the biggest influences I ever had with my short story writing. I still try to end my stories with a surprising twist, and that has everything to do with reading these anthologies when I was a teenager, watching Night Gallery and reruns of The Twilight Zone (as well as the reboot in the 1980s, which aired one of my favorite episodes of television of all time; a teleplay based on Harlan Ellison’s brilliant story–one of my favorites of all time–“Paladin of the Lost Hour”); these were the same influences Stephen King counts. I also read the horror/suspense comics a lot as a kid, House of Secrets, House of Mystery, Tales from the Crypt and The Witching Hour, among others; there were also little digests for Ripley’s Believe It or Not and other macabre comic tales. Apparently, you’re never too old to remember influences or learn more about yourself.

And on that note, I am going to go spend some more time with Kelly J. Ford’s marvelous The Hunt, and I will check in with you again later, Constant Reader. Have a lovely Sunday!

Southern Nights

Home alone. Look at that, I’ve not even been home for an hour and already I am sitting at the computer, writing a blog entry to document my first night sans Paul and pet in over twenty years. I got home from the office, emptied the dishwasher and reloaded it, did some laundry (one load in the dryer now, the other in the washer) and cleared off the kitchen counters, wiped down said counters, and then plopped my butt down at my desk, and here we are. I may work on the book a bit; I may not. I haven’t decided, but I think tonight, other than chores (which are mindless), I may just chill and relax and not use my brain very much and let it rest. I wasn’t terribly tired when I got home from work, either; I woke up before the alarm this morning and didn’t stay in bed–a miracle in and of itself–and had a pretty good day at the office. So, I may clean up computer files and do some organizing of my back-ups and files and things; I may just float around the apartment absently picking things up and wiping things down as I think about the fourth chapter of the WIP which is the one I am currently revising, and what precisely I want to do with the fifth chapter and where the story weaves itself next. It’s nice to simply sit and think sometimes, or to think while you do chores that don’t require much attention so your mind can wander while you do them. There’s a lot of clutter and mess in the Lost Apartment, and I’m kind of tired of it.

Everywhere I look there’s dust and clutter. This shall not stand!

This book that I’m currently writing again–because I actually started writing it sometime last year–is something I’ve had the kernel of the idea for now for quite some time. I’ve been wanting to write a straight-up gay noir novel now for I don’t know how long. I’ve had this particular idea longer than I have had the idea for Chlorine, for those of you who are anxiously awaiting that book to happen, and that’s kind of why I want to get this done. Chlorine will be a much bigger challenge than this one, and so I want to write this one as a kind of warm-up. It’s set in a city based on Tampa but isn’t Tampa, and I don’t know why that is but it feels right, like it belongs there for some reason. I haven’t been there in a very long time and the last time I was actually in Tampa (the day of the fateful Bouchercon Target run with my friend Wendy) I didn’t recognize anything and was completely lost–and I used to know that part of the city like the back of my hand. So the city I am writing about is Tampa, but as I knew it in the 1990’s, so it’s not Tampa. (There’s another noir I want to write that would be set in the same city but in 1992–and that one is going to be waaaay too much fun to write! But that’s a few years away–and both noirs are connected to each other.) The working title is Muscles, and Muscles is the name of a gym in my fictional city, that is managed by a has-been former pro wrestler in his later forties (injuries ended his career) who also happens to be gay. The gym is owned by a local criminal operation and money is laundered through it, while the main character is the public face of the gym. A very hot and sexy younger man who is fluid sexually and a bit of a sociopath (and yes, I realize I am playing into the trope of the evil bisexual, but you’ll just have to trust me) who is involved with the crime boss’ daughter and has used the main character to get ahead in the past has now done something–but the main character doesn’t know what it is–that has put his life in danger, and the main character has to decide whether he wants to try to help this stupid kid who’s in over his head but is also a user, or let the chips fall as they may while trying to stay out of it as much as he can…but of course, he can’t. It is soooo much fun to write, Constant Reader, and I’ve been very excited about working on it and the work I am doing on it. I am, of course, having constant doubts about things, but that’s what other drafts are for and I won’t be signing a contract for this until it’s in good enough shape to only need a vigorous and anal-retentive copy edit.

Today was also miserably hot again, but either I’ve gotten used to it or my entire body and soul have been numbed by it. It never gets to be over a hundred here; it was always rare before. Nineties, yes. Feels like over a hundred? Of course. But for the actual temperature to be over a hundred, and the feels like being in the hundred and teens? Mary Mother of God, no one asked for this. But I endured it today without much of a problem, and it was nice to just come straight home from work for the first time this week. My copy of the new Donna Andrews (Birder, She Wrote, which may just be one of the best titles of all time) arrived at the postal service today, so I’ll probably swing by there on the way home from work tomorrow and I’ll stop at a market so hopefully I won’t have to leave the house for the rest of the weekend, which would be oh so lovely.

I am probably being overly ambitious about what all I want to get done around here while Paul is away, but that’s always been my modus operandi, and that will also probably never change. What I can change is feeling like a loser for not getting everything on the list done. That’s self-defeating, which is also my modus operandi, and I need to do that a lot less going forward. I think part of the reason I am high achieving when it comes to productivity is because I always try to do more than any human being is capable of doing, but even getting half or part of it done is an accomplishment. I was looking at something the other day, I don’t quite remember what, but it was stats for this blog for some reason–which isn’t something I care enough about to actively seek out–but I was looking for my tags because I wanted to see if I had ever written about my book Dark Tide (I had) and at some point the list of how many posts I’ve done since moving the blog here whenever the hell that was, and was stunned to see it was in excess of two thousand? I think I moved the blog here in 2015, which was roughly eight years or so ago. So if I write one entry per day every day for eight years, that alone is 2920 entries. There have been days I’ve missed, of course, but there have also been days with more than one entry, and sometimes more than two when I am feeling especially bloggy (I just made up that word, you’re welcome), and assuming that every one is about 500 words (an underestimate, I’d bet), it comes out to…one million four hundred and sixty thousand words.

Holy fuckballs, seriously. And I never count the blog as writing for daily totals or anything.

Yikes?

And I think that’s a good place for me to cut this off. The loads in the dryer and the dishwasher are complete, so time to reload the dryer and dishwasher and fold some clothes.

Try not to let your envy consume you, Constant Reader.

Free, Gay, and Happy

Probably the first clue that I wasn’t like other guys was that I loved to dance. There’s nothing like that feeling of freedom when you’re out on the dance floor and the deejay is playing one of your favorite songs to dance to, and you’re in a crowd of gay men, all moving to the same music but in vastly different stages of reality diminishment, from total sobriety to tipsy to buzzed to wasted to fried on a drug of some sort (you always could tell the difference between the drunks, those fried on a stimulant, and those on Ecstasy), and many of them with their shirts off and passing around bottles of poppers. Dance floors in gay bars always have a musty smell to them when they’re crowded, as though the man-musk from dozens and dozens of sweaty men has somehow seeped into the walls, the floor, the speakers.

That interesting mix of sweat, musk, cologne, cigarette smoke, and poppers that lets you know you’re in a gay bar, and pheromones are everywhere.

And of course, there’s today’s title, which was a great dance hit back in the mid-90’s; 1995, I think, to be exact?

Click here to hear the song.

God, how I used to love to dance.

I had no idea how to actually dance, of course. All I had was years of watching American Bandstand, Soul Train, and various teams of cheerleaders and pom-pon girls. The first time I went out onto the dance floor was when I was a junior in high school. It was a victory dance after we won a football game, and someone asked me to dance. And oh look, Greg actually can find a backbeat and knew instinctively to move to it–and that your upper body could move differently than your lower body. It was fun, I loved it, and people actually thought I was good at it, which made it even more fun. My junior and senior years of high school saw the rise of disco, and my first few years of college were during the height of the disco era. The little clubs and bars in Kansas I was able to get into, where I could drink beer till I was drunk and the music played and I could dance, weren’t Studio 54 or anything like that, but I could dance, and I would spend the whole night out there on the dance floor, sweating through my shirt and my bangs plastered to my scalp with sweat. I missed dancing, when we moved to California and I was no longer old enough to go out to bars, and when I was, I did want to go out dancing, but the 80’s weren’t a great time for dance music (in straight bars, any way), and the few times I was able to get to a gay bar, the music was much better and the dancing was way more fun…

The dance floor was, for a long time, the only place in a gay bar where I felt comfortable. This remained true even after I came out and merged my two separate lives into a single whole. Coming out was really just the first step towards accepting myself and figuring out who I was. I’d spent most of my life thinking there was something wrong with me, and that manifested itself in incredibly unhealthy ways for me emotionally and mentally. I’d always believed that coming out would solve all of my problems, but it didn’t; instead it created new problems to replace the old. I felt unattractive, overweight and unlovable. Every experience I had with another man only added to that sense of discomfort, that self-loathing that was still there in my head. I used to go to gay bars with co-workers, who would disappear as soon as we got there, out prowling for a cute boy for the night’s comfort while I just stood somewhere in a corner. I had a crush on this really hot bartender at a gay bar in Ybor City, Tracks, which is where we always used to go. He was always so friendly and polite and I naïvely thought he might be interested…which was when I learned all gay bartenders are friendly and nice because they want to get tipped (and I never made that mistake again). The only time I ever felt comfortable or at ease was on the dance floor. I also convinced myself that I was unappealing, which was why no one ever approached me–or it was rare that someone did (I am too shy to ever approach anyone). I had an extremely unpleasant experience the summer I turned thirty-three, and that motivated me to reevaluate everything in my life and start over. I essentially burned myself to the ground and started over.

I still had the same shitty job, but if people thought I was out-of-shape and unattractive, well, I couldn’t change my face but I could change my body. I radically altered my life and started eating healthy and exercising. I even stuck to it. I lost a lot of weight in a very short period of time (which probably wasn’t healthy) and figuring (hilariously) that the possibilities of finding love and a relationship were already gone because I was thirty-three and still single (just goes to show what I know, right?), but everything changed. I also began to realize over the years that followed that I wasn’t ever approached back in the day because I wasn’t attractive but because I was giving off a bad vibe–how can you help but give off a bad vibe when you’re insecure and feel uncomfortable? It’s amazing what a difference a friendly, open smile makes. But it’s hard to look friendly and inviting when you don’t feel friendly or inviting or good about yourself. The on-going struggle with my self-esteem really started in earnest during this time of my life, and while those self-esteem issues have never truly been conquered, I started enjoying my life a lot more. I no longer felt like my life was something that just happened to me. I felt like I was making things happen for myself. And as my self-esteem continued to grow, I also found myself figuring out how to make the big dream–becoming a writer–come true.

And I also managed to find my true love in the process of finding myself.

I do miss dancing, but I don’t think I am capable of staying out late at night to dance. But I remember those days of dancing till dawn fondly, trying to flag down a cab in the cold gray morning light, drenched in sweat and shivering. It would probably take me a week to recover from dancing all night…and let’s face it, dancing all night was the best way for me to get cardio.