Category: writing

22

One of the annual things about November that I enjoy watching–but don’t participate in–is Nanowrimo. Maybe I should participate, I don’t know. For many years I never needed to–I wrote the 95k first draft of the Kansas book in thirty days–but as bad as I have been lately about writing, maybe I should have taken part in it this year. Anyway, it’s always enjoyable for me to watch other writers working hard, being productive, and hitting goals. Well done, all of you! Keep on keeping on, and keep on being inspiring to those of us too afraid to officially set these sorts of goals and accountability!

This morning I am going to go vote. I had intended to early vote–just stroll over to the Smoothie King Center the last Saturday of early voting–but forgot all about until it was too late that Saturday–and my work schedule didn’t permit going the last two weekdays that followed thereafter. So, this morning I shall bundle up and trundle over the International School on Camp Street to vote, like I inevitably and invariably always do. It never takes very long–I think the longest line I’ve ever been in was four or five people–and then I can walk back home and get ready for the day’s work. Huzzah? Huzzah.

Boy, do I miss the crepe myrtles.

Yesterday, though, was a good day. I didn’t get everything finished that I wanted to, but I made progress rolling the stone up the hill, and I may even be able to start getting even closer to the top. Stranger things have happened, you know. I am starting to feel even a bit more confident about myself and life in general again. I did start rereading the story fragments that make up both “A Dirge in the Dark” and “Condos, for Sale or Rent”–I’ll get to “Please Die Soon” today, I hope–and there’s possibilities there. I’m not really sure of what direction either story is going to go in, and I am not entirely sure how either story ends; but I do think I should be able to get finished first rough drafts of all of them sooner rather than later.

I’ve also decided that I need to get my shit together with the first ten chapters of Bury Me in Shadows before I move on to the final fifteen chapters; there are things I need to set up in those chapters and I also need to strengthen the voice of my main character–as well as make the reader doubt more whether he’s reliable or not as a narrator. And no, that’s not a spoiler…and even if it were, the book won’t be out until late 2021 anyway, so you’d forget by the time the book comes out anyway.

And most importantly, it’s the tone of the book that really matters. That’s going to be the real struggle.

I had dinner with a writer friend in from out of town last night–her daughter goes to Tulane– and we went to Lula, a new place that is located in what used to be a furniture shop on St. Charles for decades whose name I can no longer remember; it was always there, so I never really gave much thought to trying to remember its name–and it will eventually come to me; it’s where we bought Paul’s love seat, which has sadly been tattered and shredded by cats over the years (EDITED TO ADD: the store was Halpern’s; I knew I’d eventually remember!). The service was good, and while we met early for a New Orleans dinner engagement (six pm), it got much more crowded the longer we were there. The food was good–I had the shrimp and grits, and frankly, only in Oxford, Mississippi have I ever had shrimp and grits that was better than mine–and then I walked home. I was very tired by then, and fell into a sad wormhole of Youtube videos about 80’s music (33 80’s Songs You’ve Forgotten! 100 80’s Songs Everyone Grew up With! Fifty 80’s Songs Everyone Remembers!) until I basically dozed off in my easy chair between nine and ten, when I repaired to the bed. Anyway, the dinner was lovely–we discussed writing, publishers, the crime fiction genre–and I always forget how invigorating such conversations always are for me. I love talking to other writers (unless they’re complete assholes–and you know who you are) because it does make me think about my own work more, and what things I could be better at doing (right now, it’s making myself do the work), but I remain ever hopeful that I’ll be able to dive back into my work and get it moving again sometime soon. I did pull the first ten chapters of Bury Me in Shadows into a single document for editing last night, so that’s something, at any rate.

Tonight when I get home from work I am going to go to the gym–despite the slight soreness in my back, which I totally know why I’m sore and what I did wrong, so I am going to skip the lat pulldowns, or use a different bar–and then I am going to come home and read The Hot Rock and/or write for the majority of the evening. I know I don’t want to check the election results or follow them the way I usually do–I don’t think my stomach, psyche, or anything can handle it–but I am probably going to have to take a look before I go to bed so I don’t have to wake up in the morning to bad news. I’m not kidding when I say I am terrified by this election, and can’t remember another such time when the soul of the country was on the ballot the way it is now. I thought the 2008 election was an important one for the direction of the country, same with 1992…but I don’t ever remember living through one this important. This must be how people felt about the election of 1860–which basically boiled down to, are we voting to save the union or are we voting for civil war? We know how that turned out, and this election feels very similar to that one–but at least then they didn’t have 24/7 news and social media. (Which is part of the reason, I now realize, why I’ve been reading Vidal’s Lincoln.) I can remember fearing for the future of the country on election nights before, but I don’t ever remember the existential dread and fear that I been pushing down deep inside of my soul the last few weeks. I really no longer trust my fellow Americans, I’m afraid, to be decent human beings–and given my previously held low opinion of humanity (working service and at the airport stomped most of my optimism about my fellow Americans right out of my system), that’s really saying something.

But I have always taking voting to be my sacred privilege and duty; I have nothing but contempt for those who do not hold it in the same regard that I do. Yes, there are problems with a two-party system (we’re really seeing that right now), and yes, many times you are voting for the lesser of two evils than for a candidate who mirrors your beliefs and values–but this country was founded on the basic principle of citizens voting and being participants in the process–abdicating that responsibility, regardless of how deeply cynical you might feel about voting and everything else about our political system, is in and of itself a statement of contempt for the country, your fellow citizens, and probably the most unpatriotic thing you could do other than sell state secrets to unfriendly foreign governments. If you don’t like the system, work to change it. That’s how it works, and how it was always intended to work. The founders imbued the citizenry with the right to change things if we so desired–and yes, they were racist misogynists with a side of homophobia and religious zealotry, but they designed the government and the system so that it could be changed, course corrections made, and always improved…but it has to start with voting. Whenever someone complains about something to do with the government or the system, I stop listening the minute they try to justify their not casting of a ballot–because they aren’t interested in actually making change; they are only interested in complaining, while at the same time claiming moral superiority by not participating in a “rigged” or “unfair” system. Well, guess what? Our judiciary is also a flawed, rigged, unfair system–but you don’t get to “not participate” in our legal system simply because you think it’s a failing system–as you will soon find out if you are accused of a crime. You don’t get to tell the police or the district attorney that you don’t believe in the system and therefore you won’t participate–that’s the fastest route to a jail sentence I can think of. And maybe it’s a failed analogy–always possible–because you have to be accused of something before you get dragged into the legal system–perhaps the better analogy would be taxes. You can’t get out of your taxes because you don’t believe in the system.

Although it would be interesting if someone sued the IRS to get out of paying taxes because they felt disenfranchised by the electoral college (taxation without representation)–but I’ll leave that to the lawyers.

And on that note, tis time to get on with my day. Stay safe, Constant Reader, and stay sane. Regardless of today’s outcomes, we will endure.

Breathless

Monday morning and up at the rise of the sun; back to another work week and trying to get caught up on everything.

I really do feel like Sisyphus pushing the rock uphill most days, you know?

But I woke up early yesterday and made progress, which is never a bad thing, and I also made it to the gym for my first workout of week two. I managed to accomplish all three workouts for week one, and so this week entailed an added set of 15 reps at the same weights I used last week. It was more difficult, but not painfully so or so bad that I couldn’t finish both sets–but on some exercises it was much harder than it was on others. That’s fine–I worked up a lovely sweat and my heart rate went up, which was the ultimate goal. I came home–it was really quite a beautiful fall day in New Orleans; sunny and crisp and cool–and had my protein shake before getting cleaned up and diving back into the emails and things I needed to get done.

I did decide what my next read would be: Donald Westlake’s The Hot Rock. My education in Westlake is sorely lacking (as is my education in Lawrence Block, for that matter) although I read one of his Hard Case Crime books, The Comedy is Finished, and I read the first of his Richard Stark novels…but other than that, I have failed miserably in reading Westlake. I remember when The Hot Rock was out in paperback originally; I also remember that it was filmed with Robert Redford (perhaps another film I can add–if I can find it–to the Cynical 70’s Film Festival), and I’ve had a copy of this forever. Rob Byrnes has always spoken highly of Westlake–his own comic caper novels, he claims, owe a huge debt to Westlake, and only three chapters into the book, I can totally see the influence–and I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to get around to reading The Hot Rock, frankly. The edition I have also has an intro from Westlake himself, which sort of explains where the book came from, and I found this very interesting:

One day in 1967 I was wearing my Richard Stark hat, looking for a story to tell about my man Parker, and I thought, he reacts badly to frustration, what if he had to steal the same thing four or five times? I started to work it out, then realized the idea was only comic and Parker wouldn’t stand for it. But I still liked the notion, and even–once it was comic–saw how to make it six thefts of the same elusive item. So I’d do it that way.

But if it wasn’t Parker, who was it? Who was this guy, dogged but doomed, and what was his name? Without a name, I couldn’t see him, and until I could see him I couldn’t write about him.

Wow. He then goes on to talk about how he came up with the name Dortmunder, but it was so weird to see a writer of Westlake’s stature having the same problem I have when writing, or coming up with a new idea: I can’t write about people if they don’t have names, because without names I can’t see them or know enough about them to write about them. I know there are writers who can do this; I am just not one of them, and I always thought it was one of my (many) peculiarities as a writer. Turns out, Westlake was like me, too. Mine goes even further–I can’t write a story without a title, and if the title is wrong, it impedes the story writing even further. I think some of the in-progress unfinished stories I have on hand suffer from this very problem–I know I think “A Dirge in the Dark” isn’t the right title for the story I am writing with that title–but I am hoping I can get it all worked out eventually.

I do hate daylight savings time, quite frankly, but this “gain an hour” nonsense was rejected by my body–which makes getting up earlier much easier than it usually is. I was awake before my alarm went off this morning, I am wide awake as I sip my first cappuccino of the morning, and I feel like it’s going to be, over all, a really great day–for a shitty, unsettling week. Heavy sigh. But I got everything ready last night so I don’t have to pick out clothes or anything this morning; my lunch is ready to go into the lunch box, and my office/kitchen is very neat and organized already–a very good start to the week. LSU has a bye week this coming weekend, and one good thing about LSU having a bad season–I’ve almost completely lost interest in both the conference and national championship races, which means I won’t be watching games other than LSU anymore, thereby freeing up my Saturdays almost completely. The Saints did eke out a win yesterday–although they did everything they possibly could to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. As Paul said, “this year sucks and we can’t even get solace from football season.”

I did read a Charlaine Harris short story yesterday as well, from the MWA anthology she edited a while back, Crimes by Moonlight, which was, in her own words from her introduction to the piece, “a collection of woo-woo stories.” Her story was set in the Sookie Stackhouse universe she created with her bestselling novels (later adapted into True Blood, one of my favorite television series), and was called “Dahlia Underground.” Dahlia is a nine hundred year old vampire who looks nineteen–sexy and beautiful, she also dresses like a sexy dominatrix (I kept picturing my favorite True Blood character, Pam) who wakes up after an anti-vampire terrorist strike on a hotel. Numerous vampires were killed during the attack, she has to be dug out of the wreckage by a firehouse company, and then the rest of the story is about not only vampiric revenge on the terrorists, but Dahlia essentially adopting the fire company that saved her life. It was well done and enormously satisfying; the next story up in the anthology is by Edgar winner William Kent Krueger, which should also be fun.

My back feels a little sore this morning–not sure what that’s from, but it’s not muscle soreness, so who the fuck knows–so I am going to use the self-massager in a moment to try to loosen whatever it is that is tight back there. I’m having dinner with a writer friend tonight who is in from out of town to visit her daughter, who is currently enrolled at Tulane University, which is lovely–I always tend to avoid such commitments, but when I do agree to them inevitably have a good time–and I just have to be wary of time, since I have to get up early again tomorrow.

We continue to watch The Undoing on HBO, and I am beginning to think I’ve already got this entire thing figured out. I could be wrong–I have been before–and perhaps what I am thinking is too obvious to be the case. If it does turn out to the case, it will be disappointing…but therein lies the rub of being a crime writer who reads a lot of crime novels (and has edited dozens).

I certainly am hoping to get a lot done this week. But I am rested, hopefully there will be no more major life disruptions (he types hopefully the day before a terrifying general election), and if I can remain focused, I can get everything finished that I need to get finished this week.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Monday before the election, Constant Reader, and if you haven’t already, VOTE TOMORROW.

The 1

November 1st, or All Saints’ Day; which is the perfect day for a Saints game, don’t you think? LSU lost yesterday, badly, and while it was incredibly disappointing to watch, I felt worse for the players. We always forget, regardless of how talented they are, they’re really little more than kids. And since so many starters are either true freshman or sophomores…I think they’ll be really good next year…if they can survive what looks to be a season on par with the late 1990’s. Yeesh.

I am up ridiculously early because of Daylight Savings time; I’d be up early regardless, but I am wide awake and decided, since I have to get up early the next three mornings, that it made sense to go ahead and get up now–one advantage of the so-called “extra hour” (because if 2020 needs anything, it’s more time) is that by not using that hour to get extra sleep, I can recalibrate my body clock to my own advantage for the next few mornings. The sun isn’t up yet completely, but the cutting down of the crepe myrtles next door–many of them, but not all–means that my workspace and kitchen are going to be flooded with a lot more direct sunlight, which is going to make it unbearable in here once it gets hot again; which means I am going to need to do something about window coverings, whether it’s curtains or blinds. We’ll see how much time I have before that becomes a massive priority–hell, it might become one later this morning.

I was still very tired and physically exhausted yesterday. I ran my errands, and then working on cleaning up our side of the house–leaves, branches, debris–and so I watched the LSU game, doing some cleaning and organizing around here in the meantime, and then for Halloween watched House of Dark Shadows on Hulu. I originally saw this movie in the theater–my grandmother, who got me started watching the soap in the first place–took me, and it was a very different take on the Barnabas Collins story. For one thing, there was no redemption of the character; he remained an evil, cruel vampire till the end, when he was killed for his crimes, and he also kind of killed off the entire family, other than Elizabeth and David, by the end. It was straight up more horror than melodrama, and the movie did well enough to inspire a sequel (with none of the same characters or actors), but it really wasn’t as good a story as the redemption of the vampire arc the show did.

I also took the time to read four novellas of Cornell Woolrich, collected together in one volume with the name Four Novellas of Fear (which is really not the best title, as it gives the impression that the novellas are more horror than suspense/crime; which is what they really are). The novellas are all interesting takes, some of which are dated and wouldn’t work today, alas: “Eyes That Watch You”, the first, was my favorite, in which a woman who is completely paralyzed and cannot speak overhears her daughter-in-law and her lover plotting to kill the woman’s son. Unable to communicate and warn him, the crime takes place…and then she becomes determined, somehow, to expose the murderers to the cops and send them to the chair. Great concept, marvelously handled. The next, “The Day I Died,” is about a man who finds out his wife is planning to kill him for the insurance; he comes home early from work and surprises her with the man she has hired to kill him. The hired assassin winds up dead, and the hard-boiled heroine convinces her husband to go through with the plan–they have a ready made corpse whose face they can disfigure and claim it’s suicide. But as he leaves town he runs into a co-worker on the bus…and now he has to kill the co-worker somehow. It’s very noir, very well done–but again, wouldn’t work in a modern setting because of technology and the difficulty of disappearing in the modern world. The third story, “You Won’t See Me Again,” is about a young newly married couple who have an argument, and she walks out–storming home to mother. When she doesn’t return–as he suspects and expects her to, after a day or so–it becomes a missing persons case and of course, the husband is always the prime suspect in those cases. So now he has to find not only the wife he loves to make sure she’s safe, but also to clear her name. It’s yet another story that wouldn’t work in today’s world because of technology, but it’s a charming time capsule. Likewise, “Murder Always Gathers Momentum” is about the slow descent into crime of a person who is broke and desperate and owed money he was cheated out of; rather than confronting the man and asking for his money he decides instead to break into his house and steal it. He’s caught, commits murder, realizes how easy it is to become a criminal, and starts killing people to cover his initial crime….(this is very similar to Agatha Christie’s Murder Is Easy, in which Dame Agatha and Miss Marple also explored the idea that once you’ve killed, it becomes easier to keep killing) and there’s a terrific ironic twist at the end, worthy of The Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Despite being dated, I enjoyed all four novellas–which were all very distinct and different, and cynical in their own ways. I certainly enjoyed them more than I enjoyed Night Has a Thousand Eyes, that’s for certain, and my own curiosity about Woolrich–who was a gay man, an alcoholic, and horribly unhappy in his personal life–deepened. (Just as watching The Other the other day, and thinking about the author of the book, Thomas Tryon–a closeted gay actor of the 1960’s who turned to writing novels in the 1970’s–reminded me that I had once thought him worthy of a biography, and I still kind of think that way; I just wish I had the time to devote to doing the research and traveling to Connecticut to examine his papers and so forth; he was also the long-time lover of the first gay porn star, Cal Culver, which is also an interesting footnote to his interesting life as well as of gay historical interest.)

I’m trying to decide what to read next, and have narrowed it down to four options (and may choose something else entirely): Owen Laukkanen’s Deception Cove; Shirley Jackson’s Life Among the Savages (which I may have already read, but I don’t remember finishing it); The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier; or The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake. I am leaning toward to du Maurier because I am thinking it may be time to finish her canon; but the others all look tremendously good, which inevitably always makes choosing difficult. I also want to start reading short stories again–I still have two volumes, for example, of Shirley Jackson stories to read–and I need to get back to my writing–if I can only remember where I was. I know I was rereading Bury Me in Shadows in order to get a grasp of the story–I also have been thinking about the tweaks it needs–and the deadline looms. I also need to revise my story “The Snow Globe,” there’s about a million emails to catch up on, and there’s also the bills to pay.

Heavy heaving sigh. I also want to make it to the gym this morning. One good thing that has happened in this past week is managing three workouts; my body feels wonderful, my muscles feel more stretched and better than they have since the pandemic closed my old gym (we belonged there for eighteen years) and that’s got to count for something, doesn’t it? I think so, and I like that I am developing better workout habits. I’ll worry about correcting my diet and going full on Mediterranean diet after a few more weeks.

I’m also going to write a story–or rather, try to finish one–for the next Mystery Writers of America anthology. Getting a short story into one of those is on my bucket list, and I have two potential in-progress stories for this one; three, really: “Condos for Sale or Rent,” “Please Die Soon,” and “A Dirge in the Dark”. I guess I’ll need to read what’s been done on all four stories and then see about finishing any or all of them…it’s not a bad idea to get all three stories written, pick one to submit to the MWA anthology, and then send the others to other markets.

So many stories in progress.

The sun is rising and the loss of the trees has also made a significant difference to my view–which isn’t nearly as pretty or scenic as it was before, and will take some getting used to. The great irony is my landlady has been trying to get the property owner next door to trim the trees back for years–and trying to get her to trim them regularly, as they are problematic for hurricanes/tropical storms. It took Zeta for her to take the risk presented by the crepe myrtles seriously, with the end result that some were not only trimmed back dramatically, but others were removed entirely. I may have to hang up a small blanket or something in the meantime as a stopgap until I have the time and financial means to get curtains or blinds.

And on that note, I must head into the spice mines and start working on getting caught up, a Sisyphean task at best. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and enjoy your Feast of All Saints.

Safe and Sound

Coffee is quite marvelous. Hello, dark roast my old friend…I’ve missed you so these last few days.

Saturday, and all is well again in the Lost Apartment. The power came back on yesterday afternoon, almost exactly forty-eight hours after it went out; and I immediately did the dishes and started a load of laundry. The Lost Apartment was already a mess before the storm came, and without light…well, it’s not only hard to clean but it’s fucking hard to find anything. I also was sleeping a lot–what else are you going to do when there’s no light, no power, no television, no Internet–and ironically, all the extra sleep simply made me more tired.

Then again, it could have been THE LACK OF COFFEE.

So today begins the actual process of digging out. The sidewalk along the house is covered in branches and various other storm debris, which will need to be cleaned up, bagged, and put on the curb. I need to go make groceries today, stop by the bank, get the mail, all sorts of things that have to be done. I need to start going through my emails, remembering where I was with everything and pick that back up again. One of the sad results of the storm is the neighbors spent a lot of yesterday chopping down some of the crepe myrtles in their back yard–those crepe myrtles blocked the sun from my windows, so now with them gone the sun shines directly into them–which is going to be a problem when the summer rolls around again. This means I will probably, finally, have to hang curtains over my workspace windows–else the hot summer sun will turn my kitchen–which already gets too hot–into a green house, and make it completely unbearable in here. I do have the little Arctic Air conditioners, and may have to be a few more to handle this new development. I may even have to figure out a new set-up for my workspace, because even as I type this the sun is in my eyes and quite unpleasant. Damned crepe myrtles, anyway.

LSU plays Auburn today; the sportscasters call it the Tiger Bowl, as both team names are Tigers. It’s a rivalry of sorts–neither school likes each other very much, but it’s not as bitter as the rivalry with Florida, or as long as the one with Mississippi. There’s no trophy, like there is for the Arkansas game, and there’s not as much bad blood as there is with Texas A&M. But LSU-Auburn–which used to cause a lot of conflict with me (not any more)–is inevitably always a very good, exciting game; there are few blow-outs, and it often has come down to the last minute, if not the final seconds. LSU has won three in a row–the out-of-nowhere come from behind upset win in 2017; the walk-off field goal in 2018; and in 2019 Auburn held LSU’s championship team to it’s lowest point total of the season (23; it was the only game LSU didn’t score over thirty points, and one of the very few games in which they didn’t score over forty). The game this year is kind of a make-or-break game for the season for both teams, so I am not sure that LSU will make it four in a row. LSU has only lost to Auburn three times in the past decade (2010, 2014, 2016)–and had they snapped the ball one second faster in 2016 they would have won that game. The game is at Auburn this year; Auburn hasn’t won in Baton Rouge since 1999–an impressive streak, actually. I need to get a lot done this morning so I can enjoy the game in peace, without worry or fear–and I also need to check the game time for the Saints’ game tomorrow.

We watched the season premiere of The Mandalorian last night, and as with every episode, I was incredibly impressed. The episode itself was kind of a throwback to the first Star Wars movie; it brings Mando and the Child back to Tatooine, to look for another mandalorian to help him find the Child’s people so he can deliver him back to his own kind safely, and involved the Tusken Raiders (sand people) from that first movie. They wind up working with guest star Timothy Olyphant (who really should be a much bigger star than he is), his town, and the Tusken Raiders to track down and kill a krayt dragon–which essentially was a sandworm from Dune, and a bit of a change for Star Wars and Tatooine; odd that these creatures never showed up or were mentioned before–but all in all it was a terrific episode and lots of fun, and as always, visually stunning. The Child–the break out star of the show–didn’t really have very much to do in the episode, but really, all he needs to do is be there. There’s also a teaser at the very end that Boba Fett–the Boba Fett–is still alive and on Tatooine; clues are dropped throughout the episode that allude to him, and wouldn’t that be an AMAZING development for the show? Yes, yes, it would. Needless to say, we love this show and are very excited for Friday nights for a new episode.

The weather has also turned; a cold front has rolled in behind the storm and it’s been a lovely change. It feels like fall now, just in time for Halloween. It doesn’t really seem like Halloween, quite frankly, despite the dressing up of houses and the candy on sale everywhere; I can’t imagine children are going to be trick-or-treating tonight, and of course Gay Halloween didn’t happen this year, or any of the big usual New Orleans Halloween things–masquerade balls, haunted houses, etc.–so like with so many other things this year that generally mark the passing of time, Halloween will come and go as just another date on the calendar.

I’m trying to decide what to read next; I have so many amazing books on hand that I want to get to that it makes deciding very difficult for me. I’m still reading Gore Vidal’s Lincoln, and am much further along in it than I thought I was. I’m feeling like I need to read some crime fiction, though some fantasy and horror novels I have on hand are looking pretty appealing at the moment. I didn’t do very well with my Halloween/October horror reading/watching month, which is of course is disappointing, but 2020 has been a rather disappointing kind of year, quite frankly. I think I have another unread Paul Tremblay I could start today–I also think there are some unread Christopher Goldens in my TBR pile as well.

I am kind of seeing the hurricane/power outage as a reboot of the year; like a force restart on my computer. I realize now that yesterday’s rant about the inconvenience of a power outage was evidence of privilege when others in the area are still without power, and lots of people are much worse off. But I also believe that you can’t even berate yourself for being frustrated with events beyond your control and shouldn’t stop yourself from venting simply because you are better off than others; that just bottles it all up and the explosion coming later is all the worse because you’ve bottled up anger and frustration–and Im sure this equanimity about it all this morning will change the moment I start going through my fridge and start dumping spoiled/ruined food that needs to be replaced.

Wednesday night wasn’t a good night, as I may have mentioned before; after the hurricane had passed the release of stress and so forth left me drained and exhausted and sleeping on and off before I went to bed very early (between nine and nine thirty!). Thursday night was kind of more fun; Paul and I lit all the candles and camped out in the living room and pretended we were back in college and one of us had forgotten to pay the power bill so we had to drink wine by candle light and hang out–and worry about paying the bill the next day. I’m rarely nostalgic for the past, and when nostalgia does come over me, it’s usually not my college years I look back to fondly…but there was something nice about sitting around with Paul drinking wine in candlelight and talking about things. I’ve decided to ignore politics and the election as much as I can; I’ve already decided who I am voting for and nothing is going to change my mind, so why torture myself with all the worry and stress and negativity? Everyone I know has decided, if not already voted; so I am pushing it all out of my mind until I get up Tuesday morning and walk over to the International School to cast my ballot for a return to sanity–and it’s all beyond my control anyway. I need to remember the lesson of not worrying about things I cannot control.

I went to the gym again yesterday morning before heading to the office for the afternoon; I am most pleased that I am sticking to the workout routine (although I’d intended to go on Thursday) and will be returning again tomorrow morning. My body feels so much better now that I am working out again, and as I get deeper into it, I am really looking forward to adding cardio and moving on to getting into better eating habits. I need to start checking my Mediterranean Diet cookbook–which I am also assuming will include more olives, feta cheese, and yogurt into my diet–but I need to dig back out from under again before starting something else new.

And on that note, I am going to make another cup of coffee and start the process of clean up. Have a lovely Halloween, Constant Reader, and may all your Halloween hopes and wishes come true.

The Story of Us

Well, this has been an adventure. The power just now came back on.

It went out on Wednesday sometime between four and four-thirty; and of course, it’s fall, so it also starts getting dark around four-thirty/five every day. It is pitch black inside the Lost Apartment, by the way, when we don’t have power and night falls. Even the candles don’t help. I am so tired of disruptions, you know? It seems like every time I get centered and get ready to pull it all together, there’s another fucking life disruption. Wasn’t it just the other day I was talking about trying to focus on positivity, and figuring out how to get my act together, and so forth? Then along comes a hurricane out of literally fucking nowhere and everything is fucked again. Sure, the house survived, Paul and Scooter and I made it through without harm, and not having power is a very small thing in the overall scheme of things–but I’m just so tired. No power of course means everything in my refrigerator has to be thrown away–yay! because I can certainly afford to replace it all!–and it means no computer, no lights for reading, no internet, no stove, no food, no hot showers, and most heinous of all: NO FUCKING COFFEE.

The storm was bad enough to live through–the winds were literally one mile per hour lower than a Category 3 hurricane, so it was classified as a 2–and it was scary. The rain was coming down so hard and so fast I was certain that the streets would flood–and the howling of the wind was bone-chilling. I kept worrying about the roof, about trees and branches, about the car…and then of course the power went out, leaving us in pitch blackness. I lit some candles but it was way too dark to read, and just started dozing off a bit in my easy chair, off and on. I finally just went to bed at nine-thirty, after moving my car back to the street from the high ground, and I just spent Thursday reading, and when the daylight faded and the candles weren’t enough, grabbed a flashlight so I could finish reading. And of coure, Friday we were still without power. The office was also without power, and even though it was a work-at-home day for me–and I did have the option to stay home and count it as work, I decided to go into the office; just to be in the light and have power and be able to charge my phone again and…also, for some reason, it takes my phone forever to charge in my car now. I don’t know what that is all about, but I spent over an hour in the car yesterday charging my phone.

An effective use of gasoline.

Before we lost power on Wednesday, I decided to stream The Other while making condom packs. I had never actually seen the film, written and produced in 1972 by Thomas Tryon from his novel of the same name; the book is one of my all-time favorites and I also consider it to be a big influence, not just on my writing but in my reading tastes as well. The novel is fantastic, absolutely chilling, and has two big plot twists that completely change the complexion of the story, and the reader’s perception of what is going on at the Perry house just outside Pequot Landing, Connecticut. I have always avoided the film, primarily because I love the book so much, and secondly because, as much as I do love the novel, I’ve never really seen a way to film it effectively. The film is okay–the big surprise, for me, was seeing early in their careers John Ritter and Victor French in supporting roles–but the concept of the book itself, while not particularly original (identical twins, with one being good and the other being evil; it’s been explored in films, novels and soap operas going back decades)–in this case, though, the twins are young–only eleven–which also throws the book into the “bad children” category, along with The Bad Seed, The Exorcist, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and We Need To Talk About Kevin–as opposed to adults, the way the good twin/bad twin story is generally presented. The movie is flawed, and doesn’t necessarily hold your interest the entire time–but it did make me want to read the book again. It’s time, methinks.

But watching The Other drew me to a Daphne du Maurier novel I’d not read before, The Scapegoat. Du Maurier takes the twin concept and gives it a bit of a twist; rather than having her twins be related by blood, hers are merely look-alikes; total strangers (one British, one French) who happen to look exactly alike (people always used to say that everyone has a twin somewhere in the world; I always wondered about that because whenever I would visit New Orleans–and for about a year or so after we moved here–I used to get mistaken for someone else in gay bars. It was quite weird.), and run into each other by chance at a train station in Le Mans; they have a few drinks together only for the Englishman to wake up the next morning in a sleazy hotel room, and all of his things–passport, ID, wallet, car, etc.–are gone and the other man’s things in their place. So John becomes Jean…because who, after all, would believe his story? If he went to the police, would they not think him completely insane? So he takes the du Maurier step of deciding, okay, I’ll be Jean and live his life, despite knowing very little about his double. And yet no one in his family–neither wife, mother, brother, sister-in-law, daughter, mistress one and mistress two–suspect for even a moment that he isn’t Jean, the Comte de Gue; which is kind of weird–but then again, they do notice he isn’t acting quite the same. And much as I love du Maurier, the entire set-up of the story is quite contrived, yet somehow she makes it work, which is part of why I admire her so much. Literally, what John is doing is quite mad; and yet, as he gets to know the family and his counterpart’s relationships with each of them–there’s also a brilliant subplot about a feud between Jean and his younger sister, going back to the Nazi occupation and resistance–he begins to care for them, and tries to do better by them than their actual blood relative did. It definitely held my attention, and I kept reading, wondering how on earth she was going to end it–and she ended it with the typical du Maurier cynicism and disdain for the “happily ever after” that holds true for all of her stories, or at least the ones I have read.

And now I must figure out how far behind I am now on everything; the mind reels, quite frankly. I was very definitely behind before the storm came; I am absolutely unnerved at how terrifying it will be to take a look at my inbox and what has been going on while I have been, quite literally, powerless. But there’s really no sense in allowing myself to get overwhelmed, is there? There’s so much work that needs to be done around the Lost Apartment–cleaning and straightening and so forth–and of course there are football games this weekend. But at least the power is back so I can watch the LSU game. GEAUX TIGERS!

Heavy heaving sigh.

All You Had to Do Was Stay

Well, we survived yet another week, Constant Reader, and here we are on Saturday morning. Huzzah! Congratulations–I do think even such small accomplishments definitely need to be rewarded in this year of Our Lord 2020.

It rained yesterday while I was making condom packs, and I just rewatched the LSU-Georgia game from last year–the SEC title game–because, well, frankly because after watching Fright Night on Thursday I was kind of not in the mood to watch any more horror, at least not yesterday; Fright Night was so disappointing I allowed that to carry over into another day (April Fool’s Day from last week was also disappointing).

This has been a very strange week; one of low energy, regularly occurring irritations and concerns and stressors, among other things. I finally got that damned essay revised and approved by the editor (thank you baby Jesus) and now today I intend to whip that short story into shape, work on a chapter of the book, and get some cleaning and organizing done around here. I’ve also found myself not on social media nearly as much as I used to be, and it’s really not a bad thing, after all. Sure, engaging with friends from across the country, commiserating about the slog of writing, etc. is often fun and satisfying, but emotionally there’s so much nastiness and negativity in the world that seems to take over so much of it that I don’t really miss being there nearly as much as I thought I might; I kind of miss the days when my feed mostly consisted of people taking pictures of their food or asking for recommendations for things to watch or read. I found a lot of terrific books and TV shows and films from my social media feeds; but now they are so emotionally and intellectually exhausting that I am not really terribly sure that I want to spend more time there than i have been lately.

The bloom is rather off that rose, as it were.

And yet another example of how and why we can’t have anything nice.

I slept marvelously last night; I even slept later than usual this morning, which was equally lovely. I do feel rested as I swill my coffee this morning, and I am currently working on backing up my back -up hard drive to the cloud, so that everything recent is kind of there. (I have done back-ups before, so I really don’t need to back-up anything past a certain date from the back-up hard drive, really; something i just realized, which means I don’t really need to spend as much time with it as I have been; I really only need to back up things from the last few months or so because it all should have already been backed up to the cloud already.) I’m still a bit foggy this morning as I type this, but the caffeine will eventually turn the trick and I’ll be ready to go tackle the revision of “The Snow Globe,” before preparing to take on the book again. LSU doesn’t play until six tonight, which gives me the entire day to write and read and clean and organize. Tomorrow morning will be my “try to answer all my emails” morning, before moving on to writing again. I want to read some more short stories this weekend–I may even move back into the Reread Project; I’ve had a hankering for a reread of Christine ever since I rewatched the film recently, and there are any number of Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt and Phyllis Whitney classics loaded into my iPad for me to reread quite easily; I actually queued up Sara the other night–why not reread one of my own, particularly my only previous Kansas book; particularly since I need to be certain I am not reusing character names from it in the new one–and I’ve also need to be certain that I am making time to write going forward.

Writing (and reading) really needs to become more of a priority in my life again.

I have been thinking about writing–whether in short or long form, I have yet to decide–about the yellow fever epidemics in New Orleans. The worst one was in 1853, when one in fifteen died; but the last was in 1905. (Bubonic plague paid a visit less than ten years later, something I noted in my Sherlock story “The Affair of the Purloined Rentboy”) I particularly like the note that people actually believed that yellow fever was spread by miasma, pollution in the air, or foul odors (they hadn’t discovered that mosquitoes spread it yet) and so they used to occasionally fire a cannon during fever season in an attempt to clear/clean the air. As always, the epidemics primarily targeted the poor, the enslaved, and the immigrant populations of the city; the wealthy used to abandon the city for their country estates or visiting relatives when it was fever season (little known fact: the reputation of Marie Laveau was primarily earned because she worked as a volunteer nurse during epidemics and never became ill herself; people began to believe this was further proof of her supernatural powers). It’s also really interesting to me that where the campus of the University of New Orleans sits now used to be a lake resort area called Milneburg; people used to catch the train at Elysian Fields and Esplanade to ride out there to catch the gentle breezes and experience the cooler air on the lakefront, renting little cabins out there as a vacation of sorts. I am very interested in New Orleans in the period between the Spanish-American War and the first world war; I also recognize that the period is one that most historians love and history fans love to read about, as it was the heyday of Storyville. But in fairness, all of the twentieth century in New Orleans is interesting to me, much more so than the previous centuries. I do have an idea for another Sherlock story or novella having to do with Storyville, based on an actual true story; “The Mother of Harlots” about the murder of a Storyville madam whom I have running a bordello called Babylon–my fictional Mrs. Fournier was the kind of women who embraced the sin of what she was doing and made sure everyone knew it, yet at the same time she had a very secret–and respectable–life with a daughter she was trying to pass off to society (there actually was a madam who did this very thing!), which, on its face, is the perfect set up for a murder, don’t you think?

I also want to set one in Milneburg, but I don’t have anything other than the Sherlockian title of “A Scandal in Milneburg”, which doesn’t really thrill me. I don’t see the need for me to parody Holmes canon titles, really; I can certainly mimic the style of the titles, as I did with the one I already wrote and sold. It’s interesting how writing that story has fired up my imagination as far as Holmes and Watson is concerned–I’ve written before about not being a huge fan of the stories–but actually writing about them has whetted my appetite to keep giving my own spin on the two characters, and I genuinely liked Watson as I wrote through his point of view.

Who would have ever thought I would come to the fandom by actually writing about them? Interesting, isn’t it?

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

Come In With The Rain

And just like that, we somehow made it to Friday yet again. Good for us all! Seriously, at this point survival is about all we can hope for these days–what with the world aflame, all the hatred and divisiveness in our society and culture, a pandemic, and all this economic uncertainty. I’ve noticed on social media a tendency for people to be hesitant about terrific things that are happening for them, whether personal or professional or both, and to them I say shout it out from the rooftops! We all need to find some joy in this life and world these days, and for heaven’s sakes, don’t feel guilty because good things are happening for you during tough times!

And anyone who looks at your good news and finds it inappropriate or whatever–really should take a long, hard look at themselves and their values, because if you have reached a point in your life where you cannot be happy for other people’s good news….maybe you shouldn’t be on social media at all and need to withdraw to heal yourself for a while.

I’ll take any joy or happiness I can find anywhere in this year 2020.

We all should, frankly.

Wednesday I saw a notice on social media–link, post, whatever–about a television reboot of the old Burt Reynolds/Sally Field film Smokey and the Bandit, which was the second biggest money-making film of 1977 (behind Star Wars). I can’t imagine this happening, to be honest; Burt Reynolds and Jackie Gleason were fairly definitive, and if we’ve learned anything from the Adam Sandler remake of The Longest Yard, Burt Reynolds is kind of hard to replace. Smokey and the Bandit was a surprising hit–I don’t think anyone involved thought it was going to be as huge as it was–and it was fairly definitive of my senior year. We only had two movie theaters in Emporia, Kansas–one was the Twin Cinema, with two screens, which showed new releases (albeit months behind their arrival in major cities and markets; Star Wars opened in June but didn’t get there until August) and another, old classic theater style place, the Granada; one of those wonderful old movie theaters with the marquee that came out over the sidewalk. It was primarily used for art films and special occasion films and things like that; midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, that sort of thing. Anyway, Smokey and the Bandit opened at the Twin the weekend before Star Wars, and both stayed for months, rather limiting teenage high school weekend dating options for kids in town and from the rural surrounding counties. I think I saw each of them about eight times each, at a minimum; there was literally nothing else to do. (There was also a late, after prom showing of Smokey the following spring, which, of course, my date and I attended because I clearly hadn’t seen the movie enough times.) I never saw any of the sequels, primarily because I was so burned out on the movie after my senior year; I rewatched it recently–several months ago, I think–and it was kind of a weird time capsule. Burt Reynolds was the sex symbol of the 1970’s for women–he never really did much for me, but I always conceded he was incredibly charismatic and probably a lot more talented than anyone gave him credit for–the open shirts, revealing a thick mane of chest hair; the mustache; the tight jeans; the big warm inviting smile that, whether he actually meant it or not, indicated a sly amusement at life and the world in general. It also reminded me that back in the day sales of Coors beer was illegal east of the Mississippi; that illegality was the driving force of the film’s plot. (Whenever we drove from Kansas to Alabama for our annual visit to the relatives and home, we always ‘smuggled’ cases of Coors for relatives–who primarily only wanted it because they didn’t have access to it.) Everyone drank Coors in Kansas; it was usually the beer on tap in bars, and there was never any question about, when making a beer run, what beer you’d get. I used to drink Coors all the time, and thinking about Coors reminded me that Coors was the first business I ever boycotted because of an anti-gay stance. I don’t exactly remember what it was–I think Colorado passed a horrific anti-gay law; Coors helped bankroll it; and the company itself was deeply homophobic. I stopped drinking Coors and have never had it since–even though Colorado has long since stopped being the ‘hate state’ and Coors may have even apologized and become more gay-friendly; I don’t know, I don’t remember, and I don’t drink beer at all anymore so it really no longer matters anyway. But boycotting Coors was my first-ever personal activism against homophobia, and thus kind of a step in my own growth and acceptance of who I am.

Wow, I really digressed there, didn’t I? Anyway, Smokey and the Bandit actually fits into the Cynical 70’s Film Festival because it is, after all, essentially a “fuck the law” comedy; if ever a spirit inhabited films of the 1970’s if was definitely fuck the law. The movie is about bootlegging, essentially; smuggling beer illegally across country, while breaking all speeding laws along the way–including being chased, and evading, the police. There’s actually an essay in there somewhere…it was also a time when CB radios were enormously popular, or at least they were in Kansas. Practically everyone had one in their car or truck (we didn’t) and I was always amazed that anyone could understand anything being said; whenever I was in a car with a CB and the driver would talk on it, I could never understand what was being said in answer over the radio.

Maybe that was the first sign of my hearing issues. It’s certainly the first time in my life I remember not being able to comprehend what I was hearing.

My lovely Apple adapter arrived yesterday and yes, it works and yes, I can now access my back-up hard drive again…which makes me so incredibly happy, Constant Reader, you have no idea. I feel settled again, if that makes sense, and now everything at my home work station is back the way it was, even if the screen is tiny and I keep getting annoying messages about my memory being depleted. But I can now make an appointment to take it in and have them look at it, and tell me what I need to do–or do it with an on-line Apple rep–and now all feels right in Gregalicious-world again. I also picked up my library books–Montgomery Clift: Queer Star and Confidential Confidential: The Inside Story of Hollywood’s Most Notorious Scandal Magazine–both of which are research for Chlorine.

Quite marvelous, really.

While making condom packs yesterday, I watched the original Fright Night for the first time. It may have been good when it was released, but it really hasn’t aged well–despite a clever concept. Chris Sarandon is great as the vampire next door, and Roddy McDowell as the horror actor/vampire hunter is terrific (despite some bad aging make-up; but in fairness, Roddy McDowell was good in everything), but everyone else is….meh. I was interested to see Amanda Bearse playing the female lead/love interest/reincarnation of the vampire’s old love (shades of Dark Shadows!); she was fresh off her role as Amanda, Liza Colby’s sidekick on All My Children, and years away from coming out as a lesbian. But yeah, it doesn’t hold up. I am wondering if that was why it was remade in 2011? But I’m not going to bother with watching the remake. Also–weirdly enough, in looking up information on the film, one of the supporting actors, playing the character of Evil, apparently went on to be in gay porn…an interesting career choice.

I also discovered full episodes of the syndicated Friday the 13th–the series on Youtube; the first season used to be on Amazon Prime but was unceremoniously yanked before I could finish rewatching. Back when the show was airing in the 1980’s it was great fun–Ryan and Mickey inherit an antique shop from their long lost uncle Lewis Vendredi; only then his old friend Jack Marshak shows up, tells them Lewis made a deal with the devil and everything in the shop was cursed–and they need to get every object back. It’s a great idea for a horror anthology series. It ran for three seasons and yes, it’s clearly made on a low-budget in the 1980’s, but it’s entertaining enough and I watched the first two episodes while finishing the condom packs yesterday.

Today I have to focus and get things done. When I was finished with work yesterday, Paul also finished with work and came downstairs, and we started watching another series on Apple Plus, Servant, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, and it’s creepy and weird and dark and interesting and we definitely were sucked in. It’s plot is kind of complicated and weird–but essentially a nanny with a lot of secrets comes to work for a couple who also have a lot of secrets…and each secret as it is revealed is an eye-opener and changes the story almost completely; Lauren Ambrose is extraordinary as the mom/newscaster/wife. It apparently aired the first season last year; the second season is coming in December. It’s weird and off-putting and perfect for October viewing, really.

And on that note, best to get to work. May your Friday be marvelous and wonderful.

Beautiful Ghosts

Well, it’s Thursday, somehow, and we are on the downward slope into the weekend now, which is always pleasant.

I’m adapting, somewhat, to the new work schedule, which is great, but I also need to start getting my other work done and figuring out how and when I am going to do it. Since we are joining a gym again and I’ll need to figure out when I am going to get my working out done as well, it’s time to take a long hard pitiless gaze at myself, my schedule, and my natural tendency to inertia (A Greg at rest tends to stay at rest), and figure it all out. October is already slipping through my fingers, and Bury Me In Shadows–which doesn’t really need as much work as #shedeservedit–really needs to be finished sooner rather than later so I can get to the enormous overhaul #shedeservedit requires.

So, what have I been doing this week? Writing the prologue to the next Scotty, which isn’t even the next thing I intend to work on once I get these two contracted books out of the way.

I really don’t why I am like this. I really don’t, I wish I did, and I wish I knew how to fix it, because it’s actually a very stressful way to live and get through life and manage a career. It’s NO way to manage a career, frankly.

I was very tired yesterday; three days of getting up to an alarm at six in the morning will inevitably take its toll (that, and the not being in very good shape anymore, which really is starting to grate on me). I am hoping that our new gym–once we’ve actually joined–is going to inspire me to get in better shape and to consistently take better care of myself. I know, I should have been doing stretches and crunches every morning since the gym closed, and now that the weather is nicer I should be taking walks. But I am very hopeful that once I’ve joined a gym again that I’ll find that motivation to get back working hard again. One of the saving graces for my sanity in the wake of the Katrina debacle was the reopening of my gym; I went to the gym religiously in the years following Katrina. My mentality about working out and eating right and everything else ran along the lines of everything in my life is beyond my control right now, but I can control my diet and exercise and body, and so, control freak that I am, I embraced the hell out of that philosophy with the end result I ended up probably being in the best physical condition of my life. I don’t need to be ripped again nor do I need to fit into size 30 waist jeans and shorts, but I could tone up my body and trim away some of the excess. And since I need to start eating healthier…putting it all together into a vigorous diet/exercise regimen is probably the best way to go. I know it’s going to be difficult–it’s hard enough to get motivated when your natural inclination is towards laziness–but I also remember how great it felt to exercise again earlier this year before the gym closed, and I am going to hold onto that thought as much as I can and try to use it for motivation when I am not feeling much, or any.

I also read another short story from The Darkling Halls of Ivy, Reed Farrel Coleman’s “An Even Three.” It’s another dark tale of academia, this time told from the point of view of a woman who is a philosophy professor, who has failed at three different universities to get tenure. It doesn’t take long for the reader to ascertain why–she is nasty, sarcastic, condescending, and contemptuous towards her students for the most part–and she has now found herself at her Last Chance University; a small liberal arts college in New England, hired by a former student. She is hardly the type to deal with trigger warnings and so forth, and so the story takes a very dark turn. Suffice it to say she plays a long game. It’s a fun, if nasty, little tale.

Today I have a couple of errands that must be run during my lunch break–mail, prescriptions, picking up library books (more Chlorine research)–and of course, I have condom packing duties as well as other things to do from home today and tomorrow. I slept really well last night–didn’t really want to get out of bed this morning–and was so tired last evening that I almost fell asleep in my chair, which rarely happens. Another exciting day in the life of a Gregalicious–aren’t you jealous? You know that you are. 🙂

But I am ever hopeful that after I get my work done today, I’ll be able to focus to work on some writing as well

Hope always springs eternal.

Blank Space

Well, hello, Wednesday, good morning and how are you? October 21st, can you believe it? Only ten days left before Halloween, and then it’s November and Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year’s and oh my oh my oh my.

I’m frankly terrified about what fresh horrors 2021 might have in wait for us. I keep remembering how happy everyone was to say goodbye to 2019…and how that turned out. *shudders in terror*

For someone who actually prides himself on being highly organized and efficient, I have to say I am constantly disappointed in myself as I explore my iCloud drive. You see, the MacBook Air doesn’t have any USB ports (fuck off, Apple) and until I get my adapter, I cannot use my backup hard drive, which is where I usually keep everything–and it’s slightly better organized than the iCloud, which is where I used to just throw things as a scattered back-up in case something went wrong with the back-up hard drive. I also wasn’t able to back up the back-up hard drive to the Cloud for a while because of course, my desktop computer wasn’t functioning properly and it would have taken forever (not to mention all the Finder crashes that would have ensued). The good news is I finally ordered the damned adapter, so hopefully will be able to access it again soon. ANYWAY, I have been having to use iCloud and am literally almost always finding every folder to be a disorganized mess, and sometimes with any number of duplicates of the same digital file, which can be a little annoying…so I am trying to get it all straightened out so it’s usable (if the back-up hard drive, for some reason, is unable to be read by the Macbook Air, which will quite literally make me homicidal, but that’s been my luck lately with electronics), and I just opened another folder last night in order to store some files and sighed….because it was yet again another folder with no fucking organization or rhyme or reason to it.

Heavy heaving sigh.

But I’m also getting more and more resigned to the idea that every time I open a folder in the drive, it’s going to be a mess that will–either then, or at some point–need attention. And if I go ahead and take care of it at the time I notice it…well, the closer I get to having it all done.

Last night I continued to play around with the opening of French Quarter Flambeaux. It’s more of an intellectual exercise at this point, and it’s some kind of writing, though my absolute reluctance to work on any of the things I need to be working on has been duly noted. These prologues to the Scotty books–which really began as an homage to Sue Grafton’s “letters from Kinsey” which she used to both introduce and wrap up her novels–and then developed into something a little more fun (parodying the opening of a famous book) are my way of telling the backstory so the story can begin on page one of Chapter One. I do get a bit tired of explaining the entire family backstory, and how he came to be named Milton Bradley–how many clever and original ways can you tell you that story, after all–and as I was thinking about it last night, as well as writing it–I thought, you know, you should check and see how you did it on your last one and rather than getting up to go get a copy of the book, I simply looked it up on the Evil Empire and then “looked inside this book”. Bearing in mind the fact that I never look myself up on amazon nor do I click on the reviews nor do I even glance at the “star” ratings…I was surprised and delighted to notice that the star average was 4.8, which rounds up to 5, and that there were fifteen reviews. This was enormously lovely, and a very pleasant surprise–I think my books generally average at somewhere between 3 and 4 stars–but on the other hand, I was really pleased with how that book turned out, and I worked very hard on it.

It didn’t, however, inspire me to want to go look at the ratings of any of the others, though. I’m not completely insane, after all, and I learned long ago that Amazon and Goodreads were not places for authors to go check on their books. That is, without doubt, one of the fastest trips to the mental hospital one can imagine.

I do need to get back into the writing groove, and I also need to figure out a schedule of sorts. We’re going to be joining a gym this weekend–I think it’s called Franco’s, over on Magazine Street and a slightly longer walk than St Charles Athletic Club, which was just around the corner–so I am going to need to figure out when and how I am going to go do my workouts. It is absolutely going to feel marvelous working out again, without a doubt–I want to stretch regularly, work my muscles with weights, maybe even do some cardio classes–and one of my goals for 2021 is going to be to try to slim down some before I turned sixty. Not like I’m terribly overweight right now or anything; but ten pounds or so, or getting down to about 200, is a great goal to begin with at any rate. I need to rethink my diet anyway–bad cholesterol is too high, and I don’t have the best genetic inheritance from my parents (thanks guys!)–but it will feel really good to get back to lifting weights and working out again. My doctor also recommended that I go on the Mediterranean diet…which I am going to start trying. I bought a cookbook for it, and since I love cooking, well, it’s time to give it a try.

We think we are going to rewatch The Mandalorian as well before the new season drops on Halloween.

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines for my third clinic day of the week. Y’all have a lovely day, okay?

A Perfectly Good Heart

And here it is, Tuesday morning again, and we survived Monday.

I am sort of getting use to getting up at this hour; not necessarily a bad thing. Both Saturday and Sunday I woke up at six; Saturday I stayed in bed for a few more hours and managed to doze off again; Sunday I went ahead and got up at seven. I did get things done, so that was clearly a plus; so maybe getting used to getting up early (as well as going to bed early) isn’t such a bad thing?

Madness.

I was tired when I got home last night, so I mostly just relaxed and thought, going deep into myself, while music videos streamed in an endless cycle of continuous play on Youtube and a purring cat slept in my lap. I was a little disappointed in myself–I’d high hopes of working when I got home, but tired is tired, damn it–and I do realize this month is slipping through my fingers, but….tired is tired. I refuse to give into my natural inclination to give myself a hard time about not working, or relaxing when I am tired; that only adds to my stress and makes me crazier–with which I need no assistance whatsoever. But I will get everything done.

I will.

It may very well kill me, but I will get it done.

It’s still dark this morning as I sip my first cappuccino (almost finished; I’ll be needing to make another momentarily), and I do feel rested, if not fully awake this morning. I’m not positive how much I will be able to get done today, but in a worst case scenario, I am closer to being finished and caught up with my emails, which is something; if I can finish those all off today, I’ll be doing great. I feel as though I have recently finished a major project–that sort of dissociative cognizance that usually comes with turning a book in, or something along those lines–and I know where it comes from; we recently wrapped up something big with my volunteer work, and so now I feel a bit disoriented and untethered, which usually only happens when I’ve finished a book and turned one in. The fact that I haven’t finished a book in actuality is part of this disorientation I am feeling, methinks; I have a book to actually finish but I keep thinking I am done with one, and I do have to keep snapping myself out of it.

It’s nearly November, and 2020 is slowly but surely inexorably drawing to a close. I was thinking–amongst many other things last night–about how long ago January seems now; almost another lifetime. I can’t remember any other year that has seemed to exist so completely outside of time, other than post Katrina 2005-2006, but even in those weird times you could escape the unreality and weirdness of recovering New Orleans whenever you traveled outside the city–you’d become so used to the strangeness of what was going on here that going somewhere else, unaffected and intact and perfectly normal, and it was jarring. I noticed this especially when flying–the New Orleans airport was a ghost terminal, operating at a severely reduced capacity, and then you’d arrive at another airport where Katrina hadn’t happened and be taken aback by the crowds of people and the open shops and how everyone was just going about their business like normal and it was kind of like traveling into another dimension or something. This is different because even if you were to travel, there’s nowhere you can go in the country that is unaffected and where this isn’t happening. I keep thinking about all the things I wanted to do in 2021–my two trips to New York for the board meeting in January and the Edgars in May; Left Coast Crime; Malice Domestic; and even possibly Crime Bake in New England or Sleuthfest in Florida–and am bitterly disappointed knowing that many of these in-person events won’t happen. Bouchercon is coming to New Orleans, in theory, in August of next year; there are no plans currently for that to change, but naturally, there’s a concern. I hate to think negatively, but I am also ceaselessly realistic…I don’t see how this can happen in August at this time, but I am also keeping my fingers crossed.

I miss seeing my friends.

My last trip before all of this was actually to the MWA Board meeting in New York in January, which was a lovely time but also exhausting–I never sleep well in hotel rooms, and I never sleep well when I drink; and inevitably whenever I am around my mystery writing friends I always drink too much, stay up too late, and then can’t sleep. (I keep thinking the martinis will help me fall asleep, but they never do. Apparently I can only successfully pass out from drink in my own bed.) One of the best parts of being on the board is going to New York twice a year; the Edgars are also always a lot of fun, and I definitely hated missing that this past year as well (although I definitely did NOT miss having to get up on stage in front of a room full of mystery publishing professionals and trying to be entertaining–just even thinking about that now is terrifying to me and giving me heartburn); we’ll see what 2021 holds in store for us all…but I don’t have very high hopes.

Eternally pessimistic, that’s me!

I actually started writing French Quarter Flambeaux for a hot minute last night–yes, I know, I already have way too many projects in some sort of progress already–but I had found the perfect book opening to parody for this Scotty opening (Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, to be exact) and as an intellectual exercise–and to help free up and loosen up my creative abilities–I started writing the parody opening of the book. The opening of the Bradbury isn’t probably as famous or as well-known as others I’ve used (I mean, almost everyone knows the opening lines of Rebecca and The Haunting of Hill House), but it works. Especially since the book is set during the accursed Carnival of 2020.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Tuesday, everyone.