Category: working out

Crazy for You

Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment and feeling fine. I did get sucker-punched yesterday morning; I got an email about Mother’s Day gifts already (isn’t it in MAY, for Christ’s sake?) and yeah, wasn’t expecting that tidal wave of sadness and overwhelming grief. However, I took that as a sign to walk away from my computer and get my errands run, which is precisely what I did. Sigh. I guess I have Mother’s Day and the holidays without Mom to look forward to this year. Yay? Sigh again.

Ah, well, it’s not like I’m the first person to go through this. Just because it’s new to me doesn’t mean anything profound, really.

Yesterday was a good day. I made some excellent progress on the book–the revision should be finished today, praise Jesus–and did get some things done. I made groceries and went to get the mail. I also dropped off two boxes of books to the library sale. I did some of the dishes and made some progress on the apartment, which was lovely. We got caught up on Yellowjackets and started watching The Night Agent on Netflix, which isn’t bad. It’s not great, either–it’s a spy show, involving skullduggery probably within the government structure–but it’s entertaining enough, and the lead actor (whose name I cannot recall) is handsome enough. And then I had a very lovely night’s sleep to top everything off. This morning I feel rested and relaxed–which is always a good thing–while for some reason Scooter wants to sleep in my lap while I am sitting here working this morning. I don’t mind, of course–he’s such a sweet thing, really; and he’s getting older, so I know that a day will come where I will regret not cuddling with him every time he wanted me to.

I’m not feeling burnt out, which is also a good thing. It’s hard to believe it’s April already–I’ve got to get my taxes ready–and already I am way behind on all of my plans for this year. That was to be expected–even under the best of circumstances I will always tend to get lazy and put things off–and of course I hadn’t counted on a death in the family, which has impacted me far more than I ever could have realized (I guess there’s no way of knowing until you actually experience it). I was thinking last night that now all of my surviving aunts and uncles, with one exception, are all widowed now; and the only one where both are still alive…well one probably won’t last much longer. I guess I am now understanding how my dad felt after his mother, the last in her generation, went; the time will come far sooner than I would like when my generation will be the oldest surviving one in the family. It’s a somber thought, and I guess I should also realize how lucky we are as a family that my generation is still intact.

Today LSU’s women’s basketball team plays Iowa for the national title. I probably won’t watch–I haven’t really enjoyed basketball much since the advent of the three point shot and the shot clock (which should give you an indication of how long ago that was), so it’s unlikely. I have to finish the revision today anyway, and the game is this afternoon, I think. I doubt I’ll be finished with the manuscript by then, either, and that’s the most important thing. Much as I would love to go read a book this morning as I rev up to write and revise, I’m not going to because of the danger of getting deeply involved in reading and I won’t want to put the book down and get back to work. Instead, I am going to finish the dishes and do some filing–gah, my computer files will take weeks to get organized, not to mention how bad I am with the paper files. I’d hoped to take a week off this summer to clean out the storage attic, divest myself of a lot of these paper files, and get rid of a lot more books, while also working to get my electronic storage straightened up. But I am going to probably have to use at least part of that week going to see Dad up north; I’ll just have to be a lot more efficient with my time than I usually am when I take time off, I suppose (good luck with that, right?). But I also plan to start being better about some other things in the meantime. I want to reactivate my gym membership for May, and in the meantime I want to start stretching several times a week as well as using that back-roller thing to loosen the muscles in my back (which are tight and knotted, imagine that). I also am going to have to baby myself when I go back because of this issue with my left arm, which is irritating, although I suppose all of this is part-and-parcel of getting older and the slow, steady slide into the grave.

LSU Gymnastics is also in the regional final tonight, too.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow–before I head to work.

Material Girl

Saturday and all is well within the Lost Apartment. I slept really well last night, and woke up early this morning. I guess I slept in yesterday till eight so today my body was all “what the hell, dude? GET UP”so I did. My coffee is brewing, and I have a lot to do today. I have errands to run later, cleaning to do, and writing to do as well. Paul has his trainer later this morning and will probably go to the gym after; he’s been really good about that since the Festivals are now over. As soon as my toe is fine again, I plan on starting up again. It’s been over a year, and I think I can hang with returning to the gym again, testing out my left biceps, and seeing how long it takes me to get back into the groove. I need to lose some weight–I’ve not weighed in months–but my shorts are getting to the point where they don’t really fit comfortably anymore and same with my jeans; getting back into shape and starting to eat a more healthy diet can’t hurt, either.

I got some good work done on the revision yesterday; my goal is to get it finished this weekend and turned back in so I can get back to work on another revision I have to get done quickly. This one will require a lot more work than the other, so here’s hoping I can get it all done in April. I really do want to get these out of the way so I can go back to the ones I really want to be working on. I went down a Michelangelo wormhole this week, thanks to the stupidity of the David statue controversy, and I really want to write that book at some point–not quite yet, I don’t think; it’s also going to require another trip to Italy. Paul and I are thinking about doing an Amsterdam-Berlin jaunt at some point; I’ve always wanted to see both cities. I’d also like to do Greece and Spain before I die, too; Egypt is probably never going to happen (Mom always wanted to see the pyramids), but that’s also fine. Who knows? I could die in my sleep tonight, too. And of course, I have always wanted to go to France, too. Heavy heaving sigh. Ah, well. As little as I enjoy traveling domestically, not so sure how I will do on another international flight.

We finished watching season three of Outer Banks last night and it was terribly disappointing. I’m not entirely sure what went wrong with this season, but it was nowhere near as fun as the first two. Without giving spoilers, the treasure hunt that has been the basis of the first three seasons ends with the third; with a potential set up for a fourth season that’s a whole new treasure hunt coming at the very end. I’m not sure if the magic will return, but I suspect the writers ran into the problem that so many do; you have to keep going bigger, and eventually it becomes farcical. The writing was particularly bad in this third season; so much that didn’t make sense, and of course they wasted the first half of the season setting up the second half, which then felt incredibly rushed and nonsensical and stupid. It was disappointing, of course–we’d been looking forward to its return, too. Ah, well. Now that A Knock at the Cabin is streaming, we’ll probably just watch movies tonight; The Pale Blue Eye is also something I’d like to watch.

And what a night for LSU yesterday, as the women’s basketball team won to make it to the National Championship game for the first time in school history, where they will be facing Iowa. That game is tomorrow–I also think it’s Iowa’s first time playing for the national title–but I am not sure that I’ll watch. I used to love basketball, but stopped watching when they kept changing the rules to try to make it more exciting. LSU’s Gymnastics team is competing for a shot in the final four in that sport as well; not sure if they’ll make it out of the group of eight, but you never know. GEAUX TIGERS! And the baseball team is kicking ass this year, too. Looks like that athletic director that replaced the idiot one who went along with all the program abuses (I also like to remind people he was the same guy who blew the Duke lacrosse case) knows what he’s doing.

I also want to spend some time with Margot Douaihy’s Scorched Grace this morning (her last name is pronounced like Hawaii–only with a d. Doo-wa-eee), which looks fantastic. I am taking books to the library sale this morning, and want to do some more purging over the weekend, too. I’m starting to feel. like i have my life back again–the gym is the last piece of the puzzle to snap back into place–and I’m kind of enjoying myself again. It’s been quite a ride since Mom’s initial stroke–the grief still sneaks up on me every once in a while–but I also hadn’t realized what a subconscious weight her health had put on my shoulders. I don’t clench up and my stomach doesn’t knot when I get a text message anymore. I guess with all the other weight I was carrying around from other things I didn’t really notice? I think my compartmentalization is probably not as healthy as I would have liked to believe. But you know, you live and you learn. I’m realizing a lot of things now about life (mine in particular) and seeing things I couldn’t see before. I think the past few months, with everything going on with Mom and all the writing I had to do and the readjustments at my day job, was just so much that I just was kind of coasting along, doing what I needed to get by and trying not to get overwhelmed by focusing on one thing at a time. I also think, hard as it was to be a Festival widow this year, that it was probably good for me to have all that time in the evenings to myself. I could have been a lot more productive, but I think that was also part of the grieving process?

I just feel sort of like I’ve been asleep for a long time and have finally woken up.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader; I certainly intend to!

Can’t Stop the World

Monday morning has rolled around again and I am up before the sun rises yet again. Neither brain nor body wanted me to get up and heed the siren song of the alarm, but there was no escaping the inevitably of getting up and heading into the office yet again. Yesterday was a mixture of days; I got things done in the morning but after making groceries, I was oddly tired and physically exhausted. I did manage to read a few more chapters of Cheryl Head’s marvelous Time’s Undoing, which is very good and I’m enjoying it a lot, even as I wince at the past sections set in 1929, at its unerring and accurate depiction of the Jim Crow South. I honestly, as a Southern man, see no problem with reading about Southern history accurately; and certainly, seeing Jim Crow through the eyes of people of Color is a reminder than no matter how bad I may have thought things were, it still wasn’t a reality I would have had to either face or deal with, and it was so much worse than I can ever imagine it–and I have a very vivid imagination. Yesterday’s exhaustion was unexpected and out of nowhere, particularly coming in the wake of two pretty good days and a good morning as well. But grief is sneaky like that, is never linear, and can literally come from nowhere. There’s also the issues involved with my bout of long COVID from last summer and how my energy levels have never really recovered from that, either.

And don’t even get me started on the memory issues.

I am hopeful for a good week; I know I’ll eventually start experiencing being tired from exerting myself at work; it’s interesting that someone with shyness issues like me has wound up working as a counselor–but one-on-one and with a purpose to the conversation makes it much easier than having a conversation with someone I’ve just met at a party. Small talk is literally my Kryptonite, and of course, being socially awkward is my lifelong jam.

I did rewatch Mildred Pierce last night on TCM after Paul went to the office, and once again I marvel at what a terrific film it was–melodramatic and over-the-top, for sure, but the addition of the murder rescued the movie from not working. I need to reread the book–it’s been a hot minute–but the one thing I’ve never really gotten from either is a sense of who Veda is and why she is the way she is; spoiled and rotten and manipulative. In order for Cain to get his point across about Mildred and her own obsession with mothering, Veda turns out to be horrible and one-dimensional; everyone sees that Veda is horrible except Mildred–obsessed with being the perfect mother and giving Veda everything, it’s also a smothering, all-encompassing kind of love that most teens would rebel against and struggle to get away from. I remember about ten years ago I wanted to write Veda’s point of view; either a retelling of the story from her point of view or a sequel to the novel (no murder, remember?) which picks up with Veda some years later, having parlayed her singing and musical talents into a film career. That’s one of the things I love the most about Cain’s work, really; so much can be read into it, and so many great ideas can be inspired by rereading his work. I’ve not read the entire Cain canon–that “never want to run out of books to read by any author” thing I struggle with–but I’ve read quite a bit. Chlorine is really my first real attempt to write a noir; I cannot wait to get back to work on that. It’s already been delayed for far too long, and once i get through these contracted books, Chlorine is going to be my focus.

Finally, right? LOL. But I do eventually get around to the projects I talk about writing for years, don’t I? I talked about the Kansas book for well over a decade before #shedeservedit saw print.

I think today is going to be a good day. I feel rested this morning, and I slept really well. The toe is still twinging; I am beginning to suspect it really is gout. I went to WebMD (which I always tell my clients not to do) and the list of foods to avoid? Everything I eat, basically. So, I am going to have to bite the bullet, schedule an appointment with my doctor, and get on with things, you know? I don’t why I’ve dithered and dicked around about this for so long, either. Just another thing I didn’t want to have to deal with so I kept kicking the can down the street, which isn’t wise. Nothing ever fixes itself, you know; a lesson I keep having to relearn over and over again. I also need to schedule an appointment with the hearing specialist, a dentist, and make an eye appointment while I am at it. Yay. But I need to start and keep up with all this routine maintenance, especially if I want to start going back to the gym in April. I also need to start doing push-ups, crunches, and stretch every day too. Maybe I will climb back on that horse this evening when I get home from the office; stranger things have happened in the past and will probably continue into the future as well. The kitchen is a mess, too; I made dinner last night, so when I get home tonight I’ll have to clean the kitchen again and maybe even get the rest of the straightening up taken care of as well. I am definitely going to be taking books to the library sale this coming Saturday, and I also want to wash the car this weekend and vacuum it all out. I also want to spend some more time with Cheryl’s book this evening. So, so much to do and work on and get done. I also have to start preparing for moderating panels for the two Festivals coming up in a couple of weeks…yikes.

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

Lust to Love

It’s literally amazing how much stuff fell by the wayside over the last couple of weeks, really. I realized yesterday that it was already the 26th and thought how can that be? Mom just died on Valentine’s Day–twlve days ago? But I went to the office the rest of that week and drove over for the funeral last weekend, and then I was on bereavement leave and worked at home–the Fat Tuesday holiday fell in the midst of my leave–and today I am going back into the office, which feels like a step in the right direction towards normalcy, of a sort. Life does goes on, and as I’ve moped around this last week, it also kind of feels like I’ve been in a fog of sorts for quite some time. I should be used to this sort of thing, as it always happens with a paradigm shift–like how the weekend before Katrina we’d gone to Hammond to celebrate my birthday and had a great time…and while we were evacuated, that seemed like was a different life, a different world, and even happened to different people. Murder in the Magic City/Murder on the Menu seems like it was months ago. And hadn’t I just turned in the manuscript that week before I left, with plans to get back on it as soon as I recovered from that trip? Then Mom had her stroke and everything went up into the air, and now I’m trying to find all the balls I dropped somewhere that I had been somehow managing to keep up in the air.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day; it was eighty degrees when I made groceries and gassed up the car. I kept the toe elevated and iced for most of the rest of the day while I read more of Abby Collette’s marvelous Body and Soul Food–which I am really enjoying–and then around five gave up on everything for the rest of the day. I printed out a short story I need to read to see if I can revise it into something that I can turn in for this anthology I’ve committed a story to, and of course I have to dive back into the manuscripts. I have to write something for Paul for Saints and Sinners; and I think I may have agreed to write something else? I need to do thank you cards and I need to mail the books to the winners of the Facebook page takeover giveaway that I did. I need to check in on my dad and sister, and of course at some point this week the fuse for the dryer is going to arrive so I can see if I can get that working again (prayers are appreciated and welcomed; not having a dryer has really sucked). I also ordered some other things I need. I just feel like I don’t have a grasp yet on my own life, and I don’t really like the way it feels. It’s almost like I am swimming through a fog, and things I used to easily remember and keep track of now just go right out of my mind like they were never there in my head in the first place. I don’t like this feeling; I don’t like not being able to trust my memory anymore–but even now as I write this I am wondering hasn’t this been the case for a while? Isn’t that why you started making lists in the first place–because if you didn’t write it down you’d forget?

I can’t even trust my memory about my memory. There’s a Kafka novel in there somewhere.

I’m also more aware of how quickly I tire now, too. I know that’s been going on for a while–since last summer’s horrific bout with Long COVID–but I am hoping that once I get back into the gym I will start building up my endurance again, and I also have to accept that it won’t be quick and my body won’t change at the speed that it used to. For one example, I was overweight when I moved back to New Orleans in August of 2001; I’d lost twenty pounds and tightened up everything by Halloween so I could wear a slutty costume. I’m not going to be able to return to the gym and be able to dress slutty again within eight weeks. (Not that I would dress slutty now–I’m in my sixties, for God’s sake, and I don’t care whether people think I look good or not anymore. It was never the priority of the gym for me in the first place. Yes, I liked looking good and yes, I liked getting flirted with and hit on, but for me that was a nice side effect to having the endurance to dance for hours, or feeling good physically.

God, I used to be so vain! I don’t really miss vanity, though.

One of the things I was working on before Mom had the final stroke was building a website–just something to play around with when I have time (ha ha ha ha ha, sure, Greg, that’s going to happen) and of course, that was the same fucking day I got the text from my sister, so I’ve not done a whole hell of a lot there, you know? I did get the domain registered, and I loaded a picture as well as info on A Streetcar Named Murder, but it’s going to take me some more time to learn how to do all the things I want it to do.

Because I am just swimming in free time.

I’m a bit groggy this morning, mainly because I am out of the habit of waking up to the alarm now–it actually jolted me awake, as opposed to me already being awake when it goes off, which means a retraining of myself yet again as this does not feel natural to me. It feels weird having to go back to the office this morning, as well. My toe’s not quite as painful this morning, either–it still hurts, mind you, but I can walk without limping and it’s not as bad as it has been, which is progress. I am still going to message my doctor today, though. We’ll see how it feels at the end of the day, won’t we? I suppose I can always ice it again once I am home tonight.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have the best Monday you can, Constant Reader.

Fading Fast

Today’s title is an insanely accurate description of my memory; which has been fading faster and faster the older I get, which is endlessly annoying. I mean, it’s bad enough that my body has been endlessly betraying me more and more the older I get, but does my brain have to do it as well? Heavy heaving sigh. Granted, it’s not like I haven’t had reasons for my brain to stop functioning properly in the case of memory; we did have the trauma of a global pandemic on top of everything else that has been going on in the last few years, and of course, I’ve been stressed about Mom for the last three or four or five years or whenever all of her health issues began. I am slowly coming out of the funk, I think–I do think this every morning and then some time in the afternoon it hits me like a 2 x 4 between the eyes–and I need to reenter the world. I am going back to the office tomorrow for the first time in like well over a week, which has also been incredibly disorienting. I think getting back into my usual routine will make a huge and significant difference in my mental well-being; being off routine for someone as OCD as me is always an issue of sorts.

My toe is much better this morning, thanks for asking. It still hurts somewhat, but I spent most of yesterday elevating it or icing it, and I am not limping this morning. I think another day of icing and elevation may just do the trick…which makes me tend to think it’s not broken or bruised or sprained. Tomorrow morning I’ll take a picture of it and send it to my doctor through the app along with a note; I should have done this last week but…it’s been hard getting motivated lately. While I was icing and elevating yesterday I made some significant progress on Abby Collette’s marvelous Body and Soul Food, and I have to share something sort of funny with you at some point about that; I just realized yesterday that Abby Collette is a pseudonym of Abby L. Vandiver; and all along I kept wanting to say Body and Soul Food was written by Abby Vandiver; even correcting myself a couple of times here on the blog when I mentioned the author–and then would chastise myself for confusing two women of color (which happens a lot, sadly; I heard someone call Kellye Garrett Rachel once at a conference–Rachel Howzell Hall–and vowed I would never do that). Turns out the author is actually who I thought she was, just using a different name! This was kind of a relief, because the constant confusing Vandiver for Collette was making feel like I needed to work more on my own subconscious racism. But the book is engaging and entertaining–Abby and I were both in The Faking of the President anthology back in 2020–and I am looking forward to finishing it during this morning’s icing and elevating.

I didn’t leave the house yesterday other than taking out the recycling and a bag of garbage. Paul was gone most of the day–he came home from the office after I went to bed early–and I meant to get a lot more done yesterday than I eventually did get done. The kitchen looks much better than it did before all the stuff with Mom started, and while I still have some things that need to get done today before I return to the office tomorrow, but it’s progress and I will take it. As long as I can stay motivated today, I think I should be able to get a lot of things done today–things that need to be done. I need to make groceries today–I made the list yesterday when they canceled my pick-up order–and I need to get gas on the way home from that. Grocery shopping, lugging everything in from the car, and then putting it all away inevitably makes me tired and exhausted, so the key is to get everything set up before I head out so that I have no excuses and everything is out and ready for me with little to no effort.

I also decided to write something private, merely for me, about my mother. I think it’s necessary for me to sort out my complicated and complex feelings about my relationship with her and my family; there’s a lot of baggage and I am starting to see things now with the kind of clarity that wasn’t possible when she was still with us, if that makes any sense at all. It’s odd how that kind of clarity isn’t possible when they are still alive, you know? And the slow, subtle changes to my life that result from the loss of Mom I’m only now starting to realize. What does this mean about the holidays, going forward? I don’t feel guilty about anything–I thought I might when I lost a parent–but I really don’t. I didn’t write very much to begin with yesterday–a couple of hundred words, maybe, at best–but it was writing and it did help me somewhat…and let’s be honest, how do I deal with everything, really? By losing myself in my writing, that’s how.

My coffee tastes rather marvelous this morning, too. I slept in until eight thirty–I woke up at five thirty, as I do usually every morning–and feel very rested. If it weren’t for my toe, I’d say physically I feel about as good as I can for someone who hasn’t set foot in the gym for over a year. I can tell my muscles need to be worked and stretched and pushed to their limits again, and I think I am going to tell Paul to take my membership off-pause at the end of March; I’d say for March but I’m not sure that’s wise given the toe situation. I feel good this morning–probably best to say “at peace”, really–for the first time in a while. Acceptance has finally come–although I am sure the waves of grief will come back at some point, triggered by something–but I am not going to beat myself up for not getting a lot done this past week, or being pushed off track with everything by Mom dying. I am very behind on everything, and I need to start digging out from under.

And on that note, I am going to make another cup of coffee and start the elevating/icing process for today. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader.

Souvenir

Happy Mardi Gras! Everywhere else it’s just Tuesday.

I was exhausted yesterday, and essentially useless. Scooter demanded a lap almost as soon as I got home, and apparently he missed me. I collapsed into my easy chair, he climbed into my lap and started purring as well as making biscuits before curling up and sleeping (and purring in his sleep), which was comforting and relaxing at the same time. I finally slept last night, and feel more human and Greg-like this morning than I have in a while. The bed felt wonderful, especially this morning, and i really would have been more than delighted and happy to have stayed in bed for another few hours. But I agreed to do a Facebook page takeover this morning to promote A Streetcar Named Murder (what better way to do promo for a New Orleans book than on Fat Tuesday?) several months ago, and at the time I didn’t know what the future held for this year’s Carnival for me and my family. I would imagine the neutral ground on St. Charles is crowded with parade-goers already; it was already a zoo on the neutral ground yesterday when I got home. I knew we would most likely be taking today as a holiday and not going anywhere or doing anything to celebrate, figuring we would be exhausted by Fat Tuesday and staying in to recover. I am out on bereavement leave from work until Friday, which is nice, and I will probably begin the process of figuring out where I am with things and digging out from under (my email inbox is out of control; I had it under control until a few weeks ago), and making groceries and getting organized. It’ll be nice to be home this weekend after three weekends in a row away. I’ve driven almost three thousand miles over the last three weekends, and my poor car is probably wondering what the fuck at this point.

But it’s good to be home, good to be feeling like myself again, and there is a lot of work that needs to be done around here. I really let everything slide these last few weeks–don’t even want to think about how much filing there is to do, and organizing–and of course, the kitchen/office is a total mess as always. I’d started making progress on the gradual thorough clean of the apartment I’d planned as a New Year’s goal before everything went up into the air; I’m not sure where I left off but do know that it won’t kill me if I simply start over again. I’d really like things to be neat and tidy (another of my mother’s legacies) so I can get to work on my manuscript editing that I am so terribly behind on. I also have a short story to write. So basically I have the rest of this week off to get my shit together before my work-at-home Friday and then my first weekend at home since January. I am going to probably do some bits and pieces around here today but after the Facebook page takeover thing I think I am simply going to spend the rest of the day relaxing and resting and recovering and hopefully regaining my equilibrium. I started listening to Tara Laskowski’s One Night Gone in the car yesterday after finishing The Other Mother, and I’m going to probably dedicate some time to reading more of it today. Just looking around this morning as I write this and sip my oh-so-delicious coffee I made for myself this morning (I do laugh at myself and how particular I’ve become about things I like, like my morning coffee; it’s never the same when I have to get hotel coffee or make it in one of those little coffee maker things they have in some hotel rooms). I need to take out the trash and put dishes away before cleaning out the sink again and running another load through the dishwasher. I also need to figure out what to do about our dryer situation; I’m going to try to fix it myself before giving up and buying a new one.

My toe is still slightly painful this morning, but I can walk on it without either wincing or limping so I consider that a victory. I’m going to wrap it again this morning as well as ice it and keep it elevated (hence the day in my chair reading Tara’s marvelous book); tomorrow is going to be errands day (which will require lists, and we all know how much I love a good to-do list) and probably laundry and other chores, and I’ll also probably start digging into the editorial process with my two manuscripts. I would also like to start back to the gym for stretching and cardio soon; maybe even go to some yoga classes, which can also help me with focus and relaxation. I need to start taking better care of myself; eating better, dropping some weight, getting some exercise, and so forth; it will make me feel better physically and mentally; and of course, I now have the great joy of audiobooks for the treadmill, elliptical, and stationary bike. I also have to accept that my work schedule may never go back to what it used to be, and the rest of my working life before retirement is going to be this schedule that I’ve been working now for months.

But I feel better about almost everything this morning–amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for you–and I know grief will sucker-punch me again at least a few more times–but I think I’ve achieved acceptance at last, which is a start to healing. I know I’ll never get over losing Mom, but I think I am starting down the path of learning to live with the loss.

One step at a time, one day at a time, one task at a time.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Fat Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later–I need to write up The Other Mother–and thank you again for all the kindness.

Dance Little Sister

Today I am off to Alabama. I’ve ordered groceries to pick up for Paul, which I will drop off on my way out of town. I am a bit excited about the trip–it’s always lovely to see Margaret and Tammy–and I just love this event. This is my fourth time going, and I’ve always had a good time whenever I’ve headed up there. I’ll be back here on Sunday evening, probably exhausted and ready for the incredible comfort and joy of my own bed. I am looking forward to the drive (lunch at the Arby’s in Toomsuba! Carol Goodman audiobook on the stereo!) and I’m not in a huge rush to get up there, either. I think it’s about six or seven hours? Never mind, it’s only five total– I also checked the distance and the timing it takes, and I realized last night that I don’t, in fact, have to get on the road by nine or ten. Since it’s five hours, give or take, without stops, so really, as long as I get on the road around noon I’ll be there tonight by six. So, why make myself crazy trying to rush out of here?so yeah, no need to put the pedal to the metal and speed or anything. I’ll probably just put the cruise control on after I get past Slidell and cross the state line into Mississippi. I also checked the distance and the timing it takes, and I realized last night that I don’t, in fact, have to get on the road by nine or ten. Since it’s five hours, give or take, without stops, so really, as long as I get on the road around noon I’ll be there tonight by six. So, why make myself crazy trying to rush out of here? I do have to go pick up those groceries, swing by the bank and post office, get gas, and run another errand. I can also take my time and make sure I have everything packed that I need as well–when I finish this I’ll probably go ahead and make the list after checking the weather. I slept extremely well last night, too.

I was exhausted when I got home from work yesterday, hence the great relief that I could just laze about and not do much of anything last night, which was helpful. I think the malaise really struck hard yesterday, and by the time I got home from the office I was exhausted, so much so that I collapsed into my chair without a second thought and pretty much stayed there the entire night, rather than packing or organizing or anything. Paul did come home so we could finish The Recruit–and I have to say, that was a season finale. It’s already been renewed for a second season, and I can’t recommend this show enough. It’s a lot of fun, has humor, a great plot and story, and the acting is top notch. I also rather like the cynical way the CIA works on the show–as well as its depiction of how Washington works–because I suspect it’s much more like this than people would like to believe. I did go to bed early, too, which helped with the sleep, and even though I woke up at six this morning I chose to stay in bed for another couple of hours like a slug. But it felt marvelous–last night I was thinking to myself I was too tired to make the trip this weekend if I didn’t get a good night’s sleep, and how fortuitous for me that I got one. Here’s hoping I can sleep for the next two nights at a hotel in Birmingham, shall we?

But I can feel my batteries recharging, if that makes sense? And that, too, feels good to me. I know I have a lot of editing work to do in front of me–as well as other writing–but this fallow period is needed to rest the earth of my creativity so it can spring back into action when I need it again. I think I was a bit too ambitious with thinking about my schedule for the year, too–but the schedule has kind of sorted itself out again, which is kind of nice. I’m not sure when I am going to get to some of the things I had planned to write this year–but I do still plan on writing them; I don’t think ambition is going to be a problem to get me motivated this year. In fact, I suspect motivation is actually not going to be a problem for me this year or any year going forward.

Then again, it isn’t summer here quite yet, either. Summer definitely takes its toll on me and my psyche; usually by August I am feeling relatively defeated by the heat and humidity, but I don’t think that’ll be as much of a problem this year as it has been. Now that we have the new HVAC system, it’s always cool in the house in every part of it. And by then I am hoping to have my return to the gym ingrained as a habit by then. 2023 is the year I want to take better care of myself and get things taken care of–hearing and teeth to start with–and of course going to the gym is integral to my health. I need to start stretching at home every day in the meantime, maybe even working my way back up to some push-ups and ab crunches before I start going back to the gym. It also has occurred to me that stretching at home before going to the gym is probably a better approach; I’ll be warmed up and the walk will keep me warmed up as I head over there and then back home again. I also think I’ll feel more like myself once I am going to the gym again more regularly. And feeling more like myself, returning my life back to what it used to be, is really kind of important to me. I feel in some ways like I’ve lost my sense of self and who am I and what really matters to me the most over the course of the last years because I’ve been so busy. It’s also been really tempting to think oh I have so much free time I should start volunteering again, but I cut those thoughts off very quickly and at the pass. This is how I become over-committed and stressed out and inevitably kicks my anxiety into high gear again–so I always have to take a step back and think whenever that impulse rears its head in my life again.

And I won’t feel bad for being selfish and more jealous of my time. I’ve been volunteering almost non-stop since 1998–twenty five years ago–and so see no reason to feel bad about not giving back for a while, if ever again.

And on that note, I need to start getting ready for the trip and ready to hit the road. Have a great Friday, Constant Reader; I probably won’t check in again with you until Monday morning.

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment before I head over to the Convention Center. I had a decent day yesterday; I got all my work done and wrote quite a bit; around four thousand words. I’ll need to do quite a bit this afternoon after I get back from the ALA event; if by chance you are also going, I’ll be signing at 10:30, so stop by the Dreamscape booth (they did the audiobook for A Streetcar Named Murder) and say hello and get a signed copy of the book with a download link for the audiobook. How fun is that?

Last night we watched some of the US Figure Skating Championships, which I’d DVRed–we also watched the LSU gymnastics meet before hand–and I read some more of Abby Collette’s Body and Soul Food, which I am really enjoying. On the way home from the event today I have to stop by Office Max to get some new ink cartridges for my printer–it ran out of ink in the middle of a job yesterday (I always print out what I’m writing to edit and reread sans computer screen; I spend way too much time in front of a screen as it is). I slept really well last night, too–which was terrific; it’s amazing how much good sleep and rest I’ve been getting since my return to New York, and of course, I am also incredibly pleased with the writing I’ve been doing since before Christmas. I haven’t quite gotten my act together completely yet, but I am starting to feel like I’m getting closer to where I need to be. After I get back from Alabama the next step for me is to start taking walks when I get home from work every night–nothing major, just out with my phone around the neighborhood; there are Mardi Gras decorations that need to be documented, and it always makes me feel a little more connected to the city when I do that, and maybe start stretching every morning with my coffee, which will also help wake me up, too. I would imagine that tonight’s schedule will be watching more figure skating once Paul gets home from the office–which reminds me, I don’t have anything to make for dinner, so I should probably schedule a grocery run at some point today. Heavy sigh. Time is not on my side.

But so it goes, you know?

I have to say, I’m having a pretty good year so far. The Lefty and Agatha Award nominations were completely unexpected–then again, do people actually expect to be nominated for awards? It shouldn’t surprise me that some do, I suppose. Anyway, for me they were lovely surprises, and a lovely kind of pat on the back from the community to let me know they like and appreciate me and my work. I’ve really not had a lot of reassurance about anything throughout my life; most of my career I was just kind of over here doing my own thing while the mainstream mystery community might acknowledge my existence here and there, now and again, but for the most part I’ve kind of felt on my own, almost from the very beginning. The Anthony nominations last year, and these nominations this year, were so lovely. I may not be the first openly gay writer of openly gay work to be nominated for Anthonys and Agathas, but I am one of the few–there haven’t been many–and of course the response to my first mainstream book, A Streetcar Named Murder, has also been reassuring and lovely and nice. I know I shouldn’t still have issues with Imposter Syndrome, but the truth is I still do, but things like that help me with my confidence levels.

But after a lifetime of people telling me I couldn’t do it, I would never do it, and so on when it came to writing, it’s not surprising that I struggle with Imposter Syndrome despite being nominated for over twenty awards during the course of my career and even winning a few. I guess my mindset has never reset from when my first book came out–periodically I will look at my CV or have to count awards or publications or something and I am always taken a bit aback by how much I’ve actually done already. I guess part of it comes from just focusing on what I am doing and what I need to get done–part of that never look back thing I always do–as well as thinking about all the things I want to write but am beginning to realize I am never going to get to before I die. (And yes, I know, that’s morbid and depressing to think about but once you pass sixty your mortality starts seeming a lot more real than it did before–which is also a great topic for an essay someday.)

So yes, I am feeling good and content this morning. It’s a nice feeling and one I’ve not had in a long time; I am slowly but surely cleaning up all the odds and ends that I’ve had trouble getting around to and getting somewhere.

And on that note, tis time for me to head into the spice mines and start getting ready to head over to the convention center. Have a great Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will talk to you again later.

Sympathy for the Devil

Well, well, well. This morning I woke up to the announcement of this year’s Malice Domestic Agatha Award finalists, and mych to my pleasant surprise, our very own Gregalicious’ #shedeservedit is a finalist for Best Children’s/Young Adult novel. It was a very pleasant surprise, as I figured the Agatha short-list wasn’t in my future for A Streetcar Named Murder (which was only eligible for Best Novel, and there is WAY too much competition for that category to even consider the possibility) and honestly, I didn’t think #shedeservedit, my only other release for 2022, had a prayer of getting enough votes (if any at all), but hey. I put up a couple of “for your consideration” posts on social media, figuring it certainly wouldn’t hurt anything to at least try, and here we are. Wow. Thanks to everyone who voted for me. It’s very exciting to start out the year with what hopefully won’t be my last Lefty and Agatha nominations. The nominations are a very lovely pat on the back, and will make even nicer additions to my author bio and CV. Added to the two Anthony nominations last year for Bury Me in Shadows, and it would appear that I am having a rather lovely period in my career, am I not? Perhaps a Gregnaissance?

Okay, yeah, I hate when people do that and make up words. Forget I ever said that.

It’s work at home Friday and I have data to enter. I also had to roll out of bed and head down to Quest Labs this morning for a blood draw for my bi-annual physical, so now I have a bruise on both arms since I had my PrEP labs drawn on Wednesday. I had a good day yesterday–I managed to get back into the book, but fell 500 words short of quota, so I need to do that today as well as today’s writing so I am back on schedule. I’ve been having some moments of doubts and imposter-syndrome lately, but that always happens at this stage in a book so I dismissed it and put it right back out of my head. I was very tired when I finished yesterday’s writing, and Paul went to the gym last evening, so I went down a Youtube wormhole of research (yes, yes, justify wasting your evening, Gregalicious) until Paul got back and we watched some of the US Figure Skating Championships, particularly the Rhythm Dance. (If someone would have told me back when I moved in with Paul in 1996 that my eventual favorite discipline in figure skating would be the ice dancing, I’d probably still be laughing…) I also was remarkably hungry yesterday, which really never happens. I was so hungry yesterday afternoon when I left the office that I actually came home and ate a piece of King cake, which kept me through the night, but it was still odd. I rarely ever get hungry–which is why I often will forget to eat, especially when I am on a trip (unless you go to New York with That Bitch Ford–I think I ate more that weekend in New York than I have on every trip I’ve taken in the last ten years combined)–so it bears noting when I actually realize that I am hungry. My weird relationship with food and my body is something I should probably write about sometime.

One of the problems I face when I think about writing personal essays (did you enjoy that segue, Constant Reader? I usually struggle with transitions) is, of course, Imposter Syndrome. Whenever I sit and think about writing a personal essay, I immediately start to doubt myself. What insights and perceptions and conclusions can you possibly draw about this that hasn’t already been said, probably better and more eloquently, by many others already? I can be pretty oblivious, too–something that is patently obvious to everyone else is something that startles me when I recognize it, mainly because I never think about it; it’s just something that already is, so I don’t think about it. Like one day when I was visiting my parents in Houston a news promo ran on the television calling Houston the “space city,” which was something I clearly was aware of since my parents lived two exits from NASA, and “Houston we have a problem.” But when I heard it that day, it connected in my head, oh, Houston the space city, that’s why the baseball team is the Astros and the basketball team is the Rockets. I said this out loud and my mother looked at me like I was insane (a look I am quite used to, so no worries on that score) and started laughing. I guess my obliviousness was amusing, but I just had literally never thought about it–they were the Rockets and the Astros, and that was that; didn’t matter why they were called that. But this is the kind of thing that makes me worried about trying to write personal essays–that, of course, and my faulty and failing memory, which is yet another reason why I don’t write a memoir…although I could write a really good one. But the problem–even if I trusted my memory–is that everyone remembers everything differently, so I could write about something the way I remember it but the other people involved could remember it completely another way. Who is right, and what is the truth? That hurdle is something I’m going to have to clear–after all, “I Haven’t Stopped Dancing Yet” is a terrific personal essay, and a piece of work of which I am particularly proud; so I know I can do it. I suppose the true fear is that I won’t strip naked and show myself to the world, and will color and/or distort things to make me not look quite as bad as I actually was in the moment. That’s one of the reasons why I love writing fiction; I can take personal experiences and twist them into something that can fit into a good story, or make them better in some ways.

And believe me, there was a lot of bad behavior in my past.

You learn to live with it.

Sigh. I do have a lot to get done over the course of this weekend–cannot forget the ALA event tomorrow morning–and of course, there’s a lot of writing to be done and the US Figure Skating Championships to watch. I’ll need to make groceries at some point, too, and I have prescriptions to pick up at CVS and of course, next weekend I am off to Alabama (yay!) for two of my favorite events of every year, Murder in the Magic City and Murder on the Menu, which will take me to Birmingham and Wetumpka. Yay!

So, I am feeling a little more confidence this morning about my writing and everything in my life. I’m enjoying my day job and my new responsibilities, my writing career is doing okay, and I can’t really complain about too much. I’m going to return to the gym in April and start working on that part of my physical self. I am getting the hearings aids process started, and at some point I am going to need to have another eye exam later this spring. I have a lead on a dentist to get my teeth fixed so I can stop looking like a hillbilly, and start getting things figured out with a plan for my writing future.

And on that note, this data ain’t gonna enter itself. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader.

2000 Light Years from Home

Tuesday morning and back to the office.

I slept incredibly well on Sunday night–there really is nothing like your own bed–but despite feeling rested, my body was still exhausted and tired. I had to run some errands and make groceries, which us always tiring, but i also managed to get some other blog posts done yesterday morning. (After all, I didn’t post on either Saturday or Sunday, so had to catch up and make up for lost time.) I got the laundry caught up, and did some chores around the Lost Apartment–dishes, filing, organizing–and reread the manuscript to get a handle on where I am at so I could plan the next stages of finishing this sucker.

But yesterday was about re-acclimatization into my reality, and I think I did a nice job. I picked up my prescription and the mail, and made groceries. I was very tired still–exhausted, really–but managed to get some things done around the house; little things that are nevertheless time-consuming but need to be done. I think another project for the overall year will be to organize my picture files. They are a mess, always have been, and none of them are actually labeled or have been renamed; they all sit in my back-up drive as IMG-number, and only in a few instances have they been grouped into a labelled folder for ease of discovery. I also went to bed relatively early last night and finally slept through almost the entire night in a good, relaxing sleep. My legs still ache from soreness, a result of all that walking I wasn’t used to (I really do need to start going for walks–even if short–in the evening after work) over the weekend but not to the point of such exhaustion that I want to cry when I have to get up, thank God.

My voice is still raspy, too. But I feel much better this morning, which is a good thing as I have to not only go into the office but I also have to get back to writing the book this week and I can’t afford a single day off from writing or I won’t be finished by 1/31, which is the original plan. But I had suspected that my not feeling 100% and slightly flu-ey was a result of not enough rest, and now that I’ve slept well for an entire night, my suspicions have apparently been correct all along. I was too mentally fatigued still yesterday to do much beyond simple, menial tasks–my mind was too tired to handle any reading, so I won’t be getting back to Other Terrors until tonight after work. We also watched a documentary on Netflix called The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker, which was interesting–I’d never heard of this story, but apparently it went viral in 2013–particularly on how some people in the entertainment field tried to cash in on his viral story and success without doing any due diligence or any looking into his past or who he was at all. That was the most interesting part of the story to me–the way people saw him as a way to make money and didn’t care about anything beyond that, and so it’s hard to feel sympathy for any of them when the truth–(no spoilers here)did finally come out.

It inevitably does.

I’ve still not completely wrapped my head around the end of my volunteer work. I spent some time yesterday archiving all the emails from the last three years and deleting the folders they were originally filed away in–which made me realize that my email folders need to be overhauled, as there are any number of them that are no longer needed or necessary, or are actually duplicated–and of course, organizing always makes me incredibly happy. I have a lot of work to do in this first quarter of 2023 (!!!! I still can’t believe it’s this far into the third decade of this century…) and I want to make this a good year for me productivity wise; I am going to start looking for an agent probably come March or April. Nothing ventured, after all, and let’s face it, I’ve never really made much of an effort into finding one, and maybe send out a couple of proposals before giving up and pulling back and hoping for the best. I need to make a blanket effort–going after all of them at the same time–but I am always afraid that they’ll all say no and that’s the end of it. Honestly, the way this business is so brutal on your ego while at the same time requiring you to actually have one (you have to believe in yourself to some degree otherwise you’ll never get going on it and that’s the end of that).

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader!