Category: working out

Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)

Another good night’s sleep here in the Lost Apartment, which was lovely. I woke up before six again this morning, but stayed in bed a while longer. It’s cold in New Orleans this morning; currently it’s thirty nine degrees with a predicted high in the low fifties, probably later this afternoon. It is also the day of the St. Patrick’s Day parade in uptown, so I am not leaving the house. Errands would be impossible with streets closed and blocked off anyway. I guess a horrible snowstorm is heading to the northeast, so I hope everyone up there is prepared and ready and stays safe. I have to say I do not miss living in that kind of weather. It may be cold here but at least the sun is out and we have a clear azure sky overhead.

Today I have a lot to do (surprise, right?). I didn’t get nearly as much done yesterday as I needed to as the day kind of blew up around me–it happens sometimes and can’t be helped–with the end result that I didn’t get everything finished, or worked on at least, the way I had planned. Which is fine–no sense crying over spilt milk, the only thing to do is clean it up and get on with it. We had a massive thunderstorm last night (poor Paul had to walk home through it) and then we watched the LSU Gymnastics meet against Utah (LSU triumphed, despite some absurd high-scoring of the Ute gymnasts), and then I kind of relaxed for a bit before going to bed. The latest Scream movie is now available to stream, so I am kind of hoping Paul comes home tonight early enough so we can watch it (yes, I know I could watch it without him and then watch it again, but…) I also managed to get a lot of my chores done last night while I waited for Paul to come home, so I don’t have as many to do today, which means hopefully I can do some new chores that I never get around to (those shutter doors to the laundry room! Those ceiling fan blades!) usually.

The mystery of the banning of The Postman Always Rings Twice continues. I reached out to another friend with a lot of knowledge of the history of crime fiction, with an emphasis on both hard-boiled and noir, and she didn’t think it had been banned in Boston; although it was banned in Canada. And yet, right there on it’s Amazon sales page is this:

“First published in 1934 and banned in Boston for its explosive mixture of violence and eroticism, The Postman Always Rings Twice is a classic of the roman noir. It established James M. Cain as a major novelist with an unsparing vision of America’s bleak underside, and was acknowledged by Albert Camus as the model for The Stranger.”

It really would be interesting if that turned out to simply be a marketing gimmick with absolutely no basis in fact, wouldn’t it? I spend some more time skimming through the Hoopes biography and still have found nothing about the banning or an obscenity trial for the book; it does make me wonder somewhat if the banning of Serenade somehow became conflated with Postman over the years; Cain was banned in Boston, just for a different book. A bold claim, to be sure, but it’s beginning to look that way…and I do think it’s an interesting perspective for an article or an essay. As I become more and more obsessed with finding out about this, I also realize I bet this is how a lot of non-fiction writing gets started, isn’t it?

And anything I find on-line listing “books banned in Boston” does not include Postman. Like I said, interesting.

My heel feels better this morning, but I think it’s best to keep letting it rest before over-exerting it again. I am going to try to return to the gym on Monday, depending on how my foot feels, but I’m not even aware of it this morning as I walk back and forth between my desk and the coffee maker. (Okay I was paying attention just now as I got another cup, and there’s still a bit of discomfort but unnoticeable unless I am paying attention, so that means it’s getting better and I probably shouldn’t push my luck.)

And I think on that note I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and stay safe from inclement weather.

Happy (Is a Bumpy Road)

I always try to give back however I can.

One of the reasons I do so much volunteer work is because I don’t have money to donate to causes I believe in. So, instead I give my time. I never say no to a charity anthology that wants a story, and I have done a ridiculous amount of volunteer work over the years. I don’t think I can remember, if I wanted to, how many charities I’ve given my time to since I started doing volunteer work. I’ve only had one job since 1999 that wasn’t working for a non-profit, so I’ve logged in a lot of hours working for non-profits as well. But the older I get the less energy I have, and I am trying to cut back on the stress in my life. I’ve been pretty successful–the insomnia is a lot less chronic than it used to be, for one example–and lately, I’ve felt a lot better both physically and emotionally than I have for a long time. I am currently pulling together the Bouchercon anthology for this year–the third time I’ve done the Bouchercon anthology but the first time I’ve had a co-editor, which has lessened the burden significantly–and this will probably be the last time I am going to do a Bouchercon anthology. I am kind of anthology editor-ed out; I think this will be my twenty-fourth go around editing an anthology and I really don’t want to do it again. It’s not an unpleasant task, really…I’ve got the organizational side of things so down-pat I don’t even have to really put much thought into it anymore, either. (It’s actually eerie how well I have the organizing of an anthology down to a science–but one should when it’s the twenty-fourth time you’re doing one. If not, you shouldn’t be doing it.)

I am almost finished editing the manuscript, which is great. Holes and discrepancies are vanishing, language is getting cleaned up, clunky sentences are being unclunked, and I feel much better over all about the book in general. I have to do some anthology work this weekend and I also have to start editing another manuscript that is due by the end of the month. I have a short story to write as well, and then I am going to try to spend April working on Chlorine while I try to plot the new Scotty, which is also starting to come together inside my mind. Doing this revision has helped me with my confidence and my imposter syndrome; I really felt like I’d lost the ability to write when I turned this book in. I wasn’t wrong about it needing work, but I was definitely wrong about losing the ability to write. Usually I have what I call the malaise when I finish a book–burn out is another way of putting it; but I don’t like the way writing a book burns me out sounds, frankly, because that makes it sound like I don’t enjoy it. And I do enjoy writing my books and stories. Sure I complain, but the complaining usually is rooted in the stress of the deadline and compounded by everything else I have to do.

I slept well last night, so well that I have a bit of a sleep hangover this morning that I hope the coffee will help with (it usually does). I am working at home today (yay for work-at-home Fridays!) and it does seem a bit gray outside. I’ve not looked at the temperatures yet or the weather forecast for the day. I won’t be going to the gym today because somehow at work on Wednesday I did something to the heel of my right foot; not entirely sure what exactly it was, but my heel has felt bruised ever since Wednesday afternoon; I think my shoe insert might have shifted and my heel was stepping on its edge, but it hurts and the later it gets in the day, the more it hurts. Walking to the gym isn’t an option for me today and driving just seems silly–especially since I shouldn’t really do any kind of leg exercise that involves my feet. So I am going to see how it goes over the weekend and try to stay off it as much as I can so that whatever I did to it will heal (my heel needs to heal!).

You also never really appreciate how important your heel is to walking until it hurts.

I was correct yesterday about being tired when I got home last night. I did the dishes and ran a load in the dishwasher, then repaired to my chair and watched news, alternating with documentaries (I delved back into the pool of French royalty, or French royalty adjacent, videos on Youtube last night. I’ve also been discovering a lot of gay royals in history lately, too. I really need to read a biography of Frederick the Great, and I’ve long been fascinated by the last of the Medici, Gian Gastone). I did go to bed early last night and slept later–I stayed in bed until seven, scandalous–and so when the coffee kicks in today I should be in a good place as far as getting things done and being productive today. I just wish my heel didn’t still hurt, which is enormously disappointing. One of the great joys of getting older is being more brittle and fragile, apparently. Still have to consider myself lucky, though–I could be a lot worse off physically…and it still freaks me out a bit when I remember that I am, in fact, sixty years old.

I still can’t find any evidence on-line that The Postman Always Rings Twice was tried for obscenity and banned in Boston. I’ve not been able to find any mention of it yet in the Cain biography my friend Laura recommended to me, either.

And on that note, I am going to make another cup of coffee and head into the spice mines. There’s condoms to pack and data to enter and all kinds of chores around here to get done. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow morning.

Where Would I Be Without You Baby

Thursday morning at last, and the last day of the week in the office for Gregalicious. I didn’t have the greatest sleep last night–I seemed to wake up or be half-asleep a lot–but I don’t feel tired or sleepy this morning. I’m quite delighted by this, but we’ll see how I feel later this afternoon during that “day coming to an end” stretch. I also seem to have injured my foot yesterday. I don’t know how, and it doesn’t make any sense. Best I can figure I had my shoe insert not properly placed and walked on it till the heel bruised slightly, so I started limping yesterday afternoon. I reset the insert–I don’t understand how I didn’t notice that my heel was getting bruised until it was, it seems insane to me this morning–and that made it easier, but this morning it still hurts. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Now I have to stay off it as much as possible until it gets better, which means no walking to the gym in the meantime. Sure I could drive, but that just seems kind of silly, since the gym is actually so close: yes, my gym is about a ten minute walk from my house but I drive to work out instead.

Yeah, not a lot of sense there.

The editing continues to go rather smoothly and am still making progress. I hope to have the whole thing re-edited by Saturday at the latest, and it’s a much stronger book now I think than when I turned it in. I also managed to get a lot of other work done yesterday–this has been actually a very good week for productivity–and I think I am close to being back on track and back to my old self (which always seems to jinx it, doesn’t it?). Yesterday I came dangerously close to zero email in my inbox; I am hoping to make that a definite reality come this weekend.

I got a copy of Cain by Roy Hoopes, the definitive biography of James M. Cain (one of my writing idols) for a project I had in mind–with books being banned and laws being passed to get books removed from libraries or access from those under eighteen, I thought it might be a good time to do a little research into the obscenity trial (attempted banning) of Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, which is not only a great (if incredibly short) book, but incredibly influential for many modern day crime writers. Cain is one of my favorite writers, even if I don’t talk about him much, but I do; I love his work. Imagine my surprise to not be able to find out much information on the Internet about this banning; I believed it was “banned in Boston” (does anyone else remember that phrase? Just me? okay then). I found ONE link to a website discussing it, so naturally I reached out to my friends who are either aficionados or steeped in the history of our genre. The book arrived yesterday, and so I started looking through the index. Nothing. But there was a chapter about two court cases involving Cain that happened around the same time: an accusation of plagiarism from a woman who claimed he stole Mildred Pierce from her, and an obscenity trial for Serenade. And this morning I was able to find some things on line about the trial for Serenade…which also reminded me that I couldn’t believe Serenade hadn’t been controversial at the time it was published; I remember even thinking how did Postman get banned but this one didn’t? I just figured the failed attempt to ban the one resulted in the other getting a pass.

But I also have to say I am a lot more interested in researching the banning of Serenade than I ever was about the banning of Postman. Stay tuned!

So, today I get to come straight home from work (yay!) and I can do some chores around the house so I don’t to have to worry about that this weekend. The Lost Apartment is starting to look better–still messy and there’s still a lot of touching up to do–but if the more overall macro stuff gets done on the weekdays, on the weekends I can do the touching up. I really need to do the shutter doors to the laundry room and the ceiling fans (I hate to do this because I hate ladders and the fans hang so far down from the ceiling you can’t really use one of those long-reach blade cleaners because it inevitably makes them swing and I am afraid one of these days I will put the whole fucking thing down), and of course the windows around my desk need to be done again.

Heavy heaving sigh.

But on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader! And I wil check in with you again tomorrow morning on my work-at-home Friday!

Together We Can Make Such Sweet Music

Tuesday morning and ready to start my three days in the office for the week. Or am I?

Hard to say, really.

Yesterday wasn’t a bad day per se; I did my working-at-home stuff, went to the gym, and came home to edit my manuscript–the deeper into it I go, the more I regret turning this mess in as it was, but to be fair, I was fried–and the edits I am making are making the story better, deepening the characters and cleaning up some sloppy-ass writing. I mean, seriously sloppy ass writing. Heavy heaving sigh. But I am actually enjoying editing it, slow as it is going, and at least I am not feeling sleepy tired this morning. I woke up before the alarm, and as always, have about a million miles to go before I can rest.

But that’s fine; better a busy Gregalicious than a bored one with nothing to do.

It’s also hard to believe all the festivals are in just a few weeks–Tennessee Williams and Saints and Sinners; which is why I’ve seen so little of Paul lately. Someone dropped out yesterday and so now I have to fill in teaching a workshop about writing erotica–which of course I’ve done before, but I think this is slightly different:

Friday, March 25

2:30 – 3:45 PM—SAS Master Class

GREG HERREN: WRITING THE EROTIC

Writing about sex is more challenging than it appears. This master class will help writers produce erotic writing grounded in character, setting, and voice, with an eye on how erotica can contribute to, build, and/or resolve story conflict. We’ll explore how the implicit is often more effective than the explicit, and how to make explicit scenes compelling and authentic. With a focus on finding fresh imagery and an original approach, we’ll also look at how humor, bad sex, or even problematic sex lend themselves to a fuller—and more erotic—interaction between two characters. Questions addressed include: How can we make use of the erotic to create more exciting fiction that better reflects the real life and aspects of a character? How can the erotic be the center of a story without being explicitly so? What do we do about hyperbole and how do we grapple with the often hyperbolic feelings around the erotic? How is erotica different from sex writing or porn? And, how can we ultimately make the erotic fit naturally, as an integral part, into the flow of a good story. This workshop will encourage participants to take chances and experiment with building eroticism into their work mindfully and seamlessly, and/or give them the tools for creating a story that is primarily driven by the erotic, but that has a freshness and originality often lacking in the genre.

Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal C

Which, of course, means I am going to have to prepare and sound like I know what I am talking about. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve written anything explicit, you know–I cannot even remember the last time I put together an anthology of erotica, it’s been at least ten years, minimum, and I also cannot remember the last time I wrote an erotic short story; probably at least not since Promises in Every Star and Other Stories. I used to have a nice sideline in erotica, writing stories and editing anthologies….oh! Wait! I wrote that erotic Todd Gregory novel Games Frat Boys Play, too…I wonder if that was before Promises? I don’t remember. But I think this workshop isn’t necessarily intended to be about writing erotic fiction but rather how to include erotica in your writing and integrate it so it’s not gratuitous….and of course, there’s always the joy of writing about bad sex….or bad writing about sex; always fun (note to self: visit the Twitter account “men writing women”).

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will talk to you again tomorrow morning.

You Gotta Have Love in Your Heart

A gray Monday morning and I am up early, which is terrific, serving as further confirmation that my body clock has definitely reset. Back in the olden days, before going back to work full time, I used to get up by seven every morning. It was a nice routine; I would write my blog while drinking coffee, read the news, and then start going through my email inbox. Usually by ten I would have all of that under control, and would start working around that time–writing or editing or whatever I had on the agenda at the time. Working full-time meant late nights testing in bars; the earliest I ever would get off work was eight. I kept getting up at seven despite getting home so late–I usually didn’t have to be at the office until eleven–and my mornings have always been the time I work on emails and my blog. I’m not sure exactly when that changed and i started sleeping later–but I am actually kind of glad that my body clock has reset itself again. I don’t mind going to bed at ten, or even earlier if I am falling asleep in my chair (which is what happened last night; I fell asleep in my chair around nine-ish, woke up at almost ten and moved upstairs). I worked on editing yesterday (as well as laundry, cleaning, and making groceries–and still forgot some things, despite trips to two different stores), which wore me out some, so I was trying to decide what movie to watch last night–there were several options, but none of them really appealed, and my brain was too fried from the editing to focus on reading anything, so instead I played around reading social media (the ever popular doom scroll) while I had the news on the television. (And yes, I am watching the news more than I have in quite some time. I don’t think I need to explain why, do I?)

But it’s another work-at-home Monday and I have condoms to pack and data to enter. I will be taking on the SIsyphean task of my emails as soon as I post this and have some more coffee; then I have some dishes to wash and some laundry to fold before getting into my work-at-home duties. It looks like it’s going to be gorgeous today–the temps lately have been sunny and in the high 70’s to low 80’s, which has been truly lovely–and I hope to get back to the gym this evening as well. Then I have my three in-the-office days, and I have to say getting up has been a lot easier on those days as well…which is nice. I still somehow don’t feel like I am as fully functional on those days as I could be; but that has probably more to do with having to leave the house instead of slowly rolling out the day the way I can when I am working at home. I do like my job, for the record–always have; I like helping people–even if sometimes it can be emotionally and mentally draining.

That doesn’t mean I am not looking forward to retiring, though.

The editing is going well, if a little slower than I would ordinarily prefer. I got through some chapters yesterday–ugh, the bad writing and sentence structure!–and plan to get some more done tonight. I’ve come up with a plan with how to juggle everything and still get it all done this week; it depends on how easily I am distracted by other things this week and how lazy I feel, really. It’s the lazy part that always gets me. My natural tendency is towards lazy; one of the things I always loved about John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee character was that he took his retirement “a piece at a time”–in other words, he’d take a job to make enough money so he wouldn’t need to work again for awhile. I always thought that was a smart way to approach life; why not take the time when you’re young enough to still enjoy it? I was thinking the other day–last night, actually–that if I was going to have trouble diving into another book, I should do what I did to get back into reading when the pandemic started: the Reread Project, and why not reread Travis McGee? I read the series back in the 1980’s and early 1990’s, and I would be curious to read the books with a modern eye toward gender and sexuality. McGee was such a male-romantic idealization of the perfect life, really–no wife, no kids, no job, no career, no responsibility, lots of pretty young things to seduce/sleep with, living on a houseboat in a marina in Fort Lauderdale (and now that I am thinking about it, isn’t it interesting that there were never any hurricanes in any of the McGee books? MacDonald certainly took on hurricanes in Condominium); the straight male fantasy life. MacDonald and McGee were a heavy influence on the Chanse MacLeod series; I’ve also read quite a bit of his stand-alones and really enjoyed them, even if they were a tad dated. MacDonald didn’t influence the Scotty books at all; I’m not sure what influenced those books in their creation of the series. I’d have to go back and look–and yes, part of the plan for writing the next Scotty book involves revisiting the series from start to finish, and possibly even creating the Scotty Bible I should have created back when I started writing the series.

Coulda woulda shoulda.

It doesn’t get you very far, does it?

LOL. Now that I’ve folded the clothes and now have some emails I need to get taken care of before starting day-job responsibilities–so yes, it’s time for the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and will see you tomorrow morning.

Stoned Love

It’s Ash Wednesday and before dawn as New Orleans crawls out from under and returns to what passes as normal around here–which by the standards of everywhere else, ain’t normal.

I’m kind of glad to see it over this year. I’m sort of glad we had it–it felt like a return to normalcy of a kind, even if I didn’t feel excited about it or participated in it much–but I’m also happy it’s over. I feel very weird having been essentially trapped inside the house for the last six days or so, with small windows of opportunity here and there to run necessary errands and get things done. I spent a lot of the time tired–I’m not sure what that’s all about it, but “low energy” has been a thing around here for quite some time–and last night I went to bed at nine. I did submit a story to that magazine that asked for one–I finally gave up on “Parlor Tricks” yesterday morning–it literally was like pulling teeth–and instead edited what. I have on “Never Kiss a Stranger” down to about 4000 words, tacked on an ending, and turned it in as “To Kiss a Stranger (Summer of 94)”. I doubt they’ll use it–hell, I may never even hear back one way or the other; professionalism when it comes to short story submissions, with some exceptions, seems to have gone the way of the dodo over the years–but at least I tried. I now also am wondering if this story needs to be a novella or not; slicing all that extra stuff out of it felt really good, and while the ending wasn’t necessarily stuck (that can always be fixed, of course), the story itself wasn’t bad in its trimmed down state. Which naturally puts me on the horns of a dilemma: keep it as a short story and fix the ending, or leave it as a novella and finish revising/writing it?

Or…why not both?

We finished Toy Boy last night (I keep calling it Boy Toy, which is incorrect) and….not as good or as interesting as the first season, alas. By the time the final episode rolled around I realized I hadn’t been paying as close attention as I did during the first season and thus had literally no idea what was going on in the finale–which ended remarkably well, given how dull the season actually proved to be–and set up the next season quite well…which means we will probably watch the third season, if there is one. Paul’s late night schedule and Carnival has thrown me off on everything we watch; I don’t remember what series that are currently airing that we were watching–but it should show up on my up next on Apple TV.

At least I can hope.

I also have to pay the bills today–always a joy–and probably should go back to the gym tonight. I’ve not been since Wednesday night–Friday was one of those horrible low-energy days where everything was sore and achy; going to Muses Thursday night, even briefly, was undoubtedly a mistake. And I also need to start digging out from under because I am so far behind now I don’t even know what’s what. I know I have a story due sometime in April that I need to start writing; I need to get caught up on my MWA stuff and the anthology I am editing; and I need to start a significant final revision edit of my book coming out in December. So first things first: make a to-do list, go through my notebooks and look through my notes about pending things that need addressing, and try to get my energy levels high and stop allowing myself to feel defeated before I even try.

And on that note, tis off to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Ash Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will talk at you tomorrow.

I Second That Emotion

Wednesday and parades start again tonight. I did make a brief grocery run last night and picked up the mail on my way home from work–which was lovely and I am terribly glad I did, since it won’t be an option again until Friday morning. I don’t think I’ll be attending parades tonight–I will probably never attend a Nyx parade again, which is a shame, since they were becoming a favorite, until their descent into controversy; the last time they paraded they had 4000 riders, and are now down to 240, which is testament to the mass exodus from Nyx a few years back–but probably wouldn’t have even had there been no Nyx controversy; I have to get up early tomorrow morning and so standing out on the parade route (the low today is going to be 71, sob) until all hours simply isn’t in the cards for me this Carnival anyway. I will go to Muses tomorrow night, of course–don’t have to get up so early for Work-at-Home Friday, after all.

I slept extremely deeply and well last night, which was quite marvelous. I woke up before the alarm–why is it that those moments between hitting the snooze button and actually getting up are so magical and comfy in the bed?–and don’t feel tired this morning, physically or mentally. I have to leave the office early today–they close the streets early for the parades, plus the parking situation will probably already be out of control by the time I get home–and I am hoping to make a quick dash to the gym this evening as well. It feels good–I feel so much better physically overall–to be working out; my muscles feel stretched and worked, which is nice and I am sure that is also helping me sleep better as well. Yay! I’m not as concerned as getting ripped and lean as I used to obsess over; sure, weight loss would be great, but I am really more concerned about just feeling better physically more than anything else (the stretching alone! Tres magnifique!). And it would be nice to get my blood pressure and cholesterol down so I could stop taking medication for it….and the best way to do that is through diet and exercise. I can do the exercise part but the diet part will be a little rougher, obviously; I’ve always had issues with eating healthy. (I did for a number of years, but then got out of the habit and reverted to my old ways…but as long as I was regularly exercising, it didn’t matter. Once I stopped exercising…yes, well, I should have expected the weight gain, shouldn’t I?)

I have to say I have been in kind of a lull about writing lately. I’m not sure what it is–burnout, maybe–but I have struggled so much with this short story that I am giving up on that it triggers all kinds of other doubts in my head that I really don’t need to be having. I know I can resolve this by getting into writing something and getting some good stuff down on the page, but I am trying to figure out what story to tackle now for this deadline and it’s…not going well. Of course, I could just not submit anything–I certainly don’t have to–but the pay is nice if they take my story–really nice, and they did reach out to me rather than the other way around so…but I have some potentials, I suppose. I just need to take some time to sit down and go through the files and see what’s there, really there, rather than just skimming over the folders and wondering if this one might work or that one might work…after braving the grocery store yesterday, doing two loads of laundry, emptying the dishwasher and doing another load…I was a bit tired.

Of course, the plan is to go to the gym tonight. Maybe those endorphins will help me to decide on which story to focus on. I mean, I only have five or six days left…

Heavy heaving sigh.

It’s also weird adjusting to my new work week. I am delighted, of course, that I slept well last night and feel like I have energy today and can get things accomplished and finished and crossed off the list, but I keep forgetting that oh yeah I have to come in tomorrow this isn’t my Friday anymore and it’s always a disappointing jolt. But…since Mondays and Fridays are work-at-home days, and Fat Tuesday is a holiday…after tomorrow I don’t have to return to the office until Ash Wednesday, and only have to come into the office two days next week. This isn’t a bad thing. And I also have another story to write before the end of March, too.

So, I probably should head back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Mid-week Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow.

Uptight (Everything’s Alright)

Tuesday morning and we’re still in the brief respite we get in Parade Season, the second of the two day period where there are no parades. I will have to leave the office early both tomorrow and Thursday to get home before the streets are closed; Friday I will have to run errands in the morning. I am going to swing by the grocery store and the post office on my way home this evening, since I won’t be able to do either again until Friday morning, and of course I won’t be able to leave the neighborhood from Friday evening at five pm through Monday morning–because who knows what time Bacchus will be finished Sunday night? And it’s not likely I’ll be in the mood to make a grocery run then, anyway.

Heavy sigh.

The struggle living inside the parade route is real.

I am tired this morning but not sleepy tired; more that my muscles are tired from going to the gym yesterday. My mental acuity is there (I think) but it just depends. I have also decided this morning that this story I’ve been trying to finish for this March 1 deadline simply isn’t going to work. I think it can work, at some point; I just right now can’t wrap my mind around the concept of how to justify committing the murder gels in my main character’s head; the motivations just aren’t strong enough, and I need him to kill this guy just isn’t good enough to make the story work (of course, on March 2 it will come to me), So I am going to dig through the files today and tonight to see if I can find something else that I can finish or rewrite to make work for this call. I still have a week, and of course March 1 is a stay-at-home holiday for me (no Fat Tuesday partying for me this year, thank you very much), so I have that entire day to work on it–which is also incredibly helpful. Just going through the files this morning between answering emails and taking breaks from writing this has been enormously helpful already–also has reminded me of some really good ideas I’ve had but never saw all the way through to a completed draft (“To Sacrifice a Pawn” is a really nasty little story, and so is “The Flagellants”), which is also a good thing.

And I really need to make a new to-do list. I also need to get all my notes of things I need to get done together to create a master list of everything that I need to get done. Heavy heaving sigh.

But we did finish watching Reacher last night, and while it was disappointing to confirm that each season will indeed follow another book in the series and Reacher himself will most likely be the only carry-over character (I’d become attached to some of the other members of the cast, especially Willa Fitzgerald) it makes sense because Reacher is, by nature, a paladin or a knight errant; a man who wanders and whom trouble often finds. Therefore you can’t have any regular characters on the show other than the man himself…which means never get attached to any of the other characters (because they are also disposable and can be killed off at any moment) because they will not be carrying over into the next season. But I thought the show was incredibly well done and well cast and well written; it’s one of the better thriller series I’ve seen, and I am definitely going to keep watching when it returns.

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

The Way You Do The Things You Do

You got a smile so bright, you know you should have been a candle.

So, the first weekend of parades are over, and we are in that breathing space where you try to catch your breath and brace yourself for the marathon to come. While it does make me feel a bit like a Mardi Gras Grinch (or grunch, as the local urban legend may hold), I didn’t go out and watch any parades this weekend other than King Arthur briefly yesterday–in order to see some friends riding in it–and I started to get into the swing of things after being out there for maybe about fifteen minutes. My friends gave me wonderful throws (I got a Grail!), and the crowds were about the usual for the first weekend; the weather was nice but a bit crisp, and everyone was having a lovely time. At some point I dropped my phone out of my pocket, freaked out when I got back to the Lost Apartment and realized it was gone–but then remembered the “Find My Phone” app on my computer, located it, and went back out….where some nice women noticed me looking around and asked me if I had lost my phone. When I affirmed I had, they directed me to the nice woman who’d found it and was holding on to it in case someone came looking for it. It was an enormous relief–I was in the stages of grief and panic–and also served as a lovely reminder that the majority of people actually do default to kindness and being helpful; something I’ve grown rather more cynical about since the start of the pandemic (and let’s face it, before the pandemic I didn’t think I could grow more cynical about humanity). It also reminded me that Carnival is a celebration of community–it brings everyone together in a celebration of life and joy and also reminds us that we need to always celebrate and find joy in life because who knows what tomorrow will bring?

It’s nice to be reminded of what the entire point of Carnival is, and to be reminded that I live here in New Orleans because we have a stronger sense of community than anywhere I’ve ever lived before.

There are two extremely hot young men in Terminix uniforms wandering around outside the house today; I’m not sure why they are here–Terminix generally doesn’t mean good news, and it doesn’t look like this is our monthly vermin/bugs spraying visit–but their attention appears to be focused on the carriage house. Better, but still not optimal. Hopefully, this doesn’t mean a termite infestation over there, as it is very close to the main house….sigh.

Another reminder of why I never want to own property in New Orleans.

Today I am working at home and hope to make it to the gym today after work. I also need to check out our food situation and make plans to visit the grocery store at some point–since it won’t be possible any time other than this Friday and next Monday before three in the afternoon. I could conceivably go after work tomorrow on my way home, but it’s always nightmarish at that time and I try to avoid that as per usual, and with the parade situation everyone is going to be trying to make groceries around the times they can and so maybe–maybe–if we have enough to last us until Friday morning I can get up early and get the errands finished so I can get the car home early enough to find decent parking on my block. Carnival can be challenging, but there’s no escaping it or defeating it…there is only resigned acceptance. And I did have fun out on the parade route for that brief window of time I was out there. I don’t think I’ll do Wednesday night parades this week–I am boycotting Nyx, for one thing–but definitely will go out for Muses on Thursday night, do Friday’s three, and Iris on Saturday. By Bacchus Sunday it will be insane out at the corner–Thoth is major–and of course Orpheus is always fun on Monday; we’ll probably just hide out inside on Fat Tuesday.

I didn’t get nearly as much done this weekend as I would have liked, frankly. I did get some cleaning and organizing done, worked briefly on a short story that’s due in a week (it has a long way to go before it’s finished; I may not get it done at all, which is sad. But it’s also not a guaranteed publication–although the pay is significant–so that also makes it a bit harder as to whether or not I will find the focus to get it done. It’s a good story, I think, and a bit on the macabre side (all of my stories tend to be on the macabre side, really); it’s a matter of whether I can make it work or not. I think I can (I always think I can) but one never knows. I also spent some time thinking about my next two books to write, Chlorine and Mississippi River Mischief, which was also kind of fun to do–that’s the most fun part of writing, the thinking and planning and “what if” part–and since i am working at home today, I will be trying to get the house back under control around my work. We also watched two more episodes of Reacher last night–the show is really good, y’all, I can’t encourage you enough to watch–and I’m going to be very sorry to see the season end. There are some other shows lined up for us to watch–second seasons of shows we greatly enjoyed in their first season, like Dark Desire and Boy Toy–and there are some others out that look really good. Poor Paul is in the height of Festival madness, of course, so probably won’t get much time with him until after the Festivals are over…which means I should have my evenings free to read, relax, and write.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you before dawn (sob) tomorrow.

I’ll Try Something New

Yesterday was not only Work-at-Home Friday, but also one of the rare days where I never finished my blog entry for the day. I got up earlier than usual–part of my plan for days when I don’t have to go into the office early is to get up early anyway, with the weekend (like this morning) designated as sleep-in days where it doesn’t matter. I had to do a visit with a college fiction class–I’m not sure whether it was a writing class or a short fiction class, to be honest–over ZOOM about my story in Josh Pachter’s anthology The Beat of Black Wings, which was themed as crime stories based on Joni Mitchell songs. (My story was “The Silky Veils of Ardor”, for the record) That was nice, and then I did some condom packing before I had to go into the office for a meeting with the new head of my department at the office (another transition I have to get used to, not easy for someone who easily falls into routines and ruts) before returning home for some data entry work before Paul got home. I was drained last night from unusual Friday activities, so I just settled in to wait for him to come home while starting to watch this season of Real Housewives of Orange County (I’ve become ambivalent about these shows which I used to love; but that’s a topic for another time). Paul got home in time for the LSU-Alabama gymnastics meet (LSU won, GEAUX TIGERS!), after which we watched the season finale for Peacemaker (which was terrific) and then watched the first episode of Reacher, which we both loved (Alan Ritchson is perfect, an excellent cast, great production values, and good writing; what more can one ask for? We’re all in on Reacher). There were parades last night, but I was tired and worn out and I am also kind of iffy about parade attendance….but I do have at home COVID tests, so I can at least self-test if I do go to the parades before I go into the office as Typhoid Mary. There are parades all day today, starting at one.

So, this means St. Charles Avenue will be closed by noon, and I will be trapped inside my neighborhood essentially until King Arthur passes tomorrow.

Today I intend to work on stuff and clean the house. It feels cold and chilly in the Lost Apartment this morning, and it’s not as sunny as I would like for a day of parades (clouds everywhere) but by Wednesday it will be 81 degrees in New Orleans. Yikes! Talk about unseasonal weather…sure, sometimes we do have gorgeous and warm weather during Carnival–I remember any number of gorgeous weather Fat Tuesdays over the years–but it’s been a hot minute since we’ve had that kind of weather on the last weekend of Carnival, which means the corner will be INSANE for all the big parades. I didn’t go out there myself last night, but Paul walked up the parade route to come home from work and eventually detoured off St. Charles because it was so crowded and insane. He did go look at our corner to see how big the crowds were here–not too bad, certainly not as bad as further down river, but still more people than usual for the first weekend of parades with not terribly pleasant weather–but if it’s sunny and warm next weekend it will literally be insane out there.

I had also intended to go to the gym yesterday but that never happened; as I said, when I got home from my meeting I was exhausted and it just didn’t seem like the smartest decision. I will probably go later this morning/early afternoon most likely; after getting some things done around here. I hate that I was so tired yesterday, but in retrospect, I shouldn’t be surprised. Doing events where I have to be “on” are always debilitating to me and wear me out; even if it is on ZOOM and not in person. I don’t know why I always forget that…but it was a wonderful experience–those sorts of things always are, really, I just wish I weren’t so damned introverted and shy that putting forth the effort to not be introverted and shy is inevitably so exhausting. I really felt drained the rest of the day–I still have a bit of residual hangover this morning from it, despite not getting up until after eight. But I am having coffee and king cake–if caffeine and a plate full of sugar doesn’t revive me completely, it’s really a hopeless case–and hope to really kick it up a notch. I need to finish the first draft of “Condos for Sale or Rent”, and I would also like to start editing my manuscript. Reading would also be nice–I’ve not read a novel in a while, and I really do need to get back into the reading habit. I’m hoping we can watch more Reacher tonight…but I have to get a lot done today in order to watch and enjoy without guilt.

I’ve not commented on the Olympics in a few days, but seriously–I am so utterly appalled by the disgusting exhibit put on by the Russians, particularly when it comes to those young girls. The entire world got to see child abuse put on full display in all of its ugly callousness this week, and my heart breaks for all three of those girls, but especially poor Kamila. Shame on the Court of Arbitration for Sport– which really needs to be investigated itself and perhaps recalibrated–because what they did in allowing that poor girl to skate has psychologically damaged her for the rest of her life. I doubt seriously we will ever see or hear anything from or about her again after she returns to the hell her life will now be in Russia, and those disgusting abusers will not be punished and this torture and abuse of young girls will continue for the greater glory of Mother Russia. I refused to watch the ladies’ final, and I am now incredibly glad that I didn’t–I won’t even watch highlights (or lowlights, as it were) because I have no desire to see abused children suffer more. The CAS destroyed these Olympics, and perhaps it’s time for there to be serious consideration of ending the entire Olympic movement. If ever there was a time when the world needed to come together to celebrate athletic accomplishment, it was this year–and boy, were we ever let down. If this is what we are going to have to witness in future Olympics, count me out–and I am a lifelong fan.

And on that note, these dishes aren’t going to wash themselves, the floors aren’t going to vacuum themselves, and my stories aren’t going to write themselves, either. Have a lovely first Saturday of Carnival, Constant Reader, and I will shout at you again tomorrow.