Category: writing

Every Day I Write the Book

Okay, that’s technically not true. I don’t write fiction every day, and I don’t work on a book every day. I generally don’t count the blog as actual writing, but it is writing, I suppose, so I do write that pretty much every day. But I’ve never included the blog in daily word counts or anything; just as I wouldn’t (and didn’t) consider emails, text messages, and social media posts as being part of the daily production output (although I suppose I should; I estimated how many words of blog I’ve done since starting this nineteen years ago–twenty in December–and it was a staggering amount, especially since it was probably dramatically under-counted), and never will.

I do think about writing fiction every day, even the days when I am so exhausted and brain dead I don’t think I’m capable of much of anything creative. I am always thinking, and it’s very rare that the brain turns off, unless I go to sleep (thank you, sleeping pills!); as long as part of my mind is awake and alert my mind will eventually wander into creative thinking. It’s just how my mind works.

During the Bold Strokes Book-a-thon last month, I was on a couple of panels, and as usual have decided to turn the questions sent by the moderators as the basis for self-promotional posts. It has been a hot minute–I’ve not done a hell of a lot of promotion since the surgery knocked me off my tracks for a few months–and while I know many other books have come out since and the Greg has a new book excitement amongst my readers has already died down long since, but what the hell, right? I’m nothing if not a narcissist (or have, at best, some narcissistic traits at any rate), and let’s face it, one of my favorite subjects is ME, so why not? No one has to read these self-promotional posts, either. Just scroll on by, if that’s how you feel; my feelings will not be hurt in the slightest, and I no longer have the anxiety of oh my god no one likes me how can I make everyone like me?

Thank GOD.

This is from the Prolific Authors panel1.

How do you ensure that your latest work is not similar to something you have written before? Can you even remember everything you have written before?

After the eighth (?) Scotty book, someone on social media commented on one of my posts asking how many car accidents has Scotty been in? I’d never really thought much about it, but in that moment I realized quite a fucking lot, and that doesn’t include my other, non-Scotty books, either. I realized that I had been in a car accident in 2008 (the first in decades, and I wasn’t at fault) and my car was totaled. It was so weird, and so different from anything I’d ever imagined being in a serious accident like that would be; it took me days to get the taste of chemicals from the airbag out of my throat and my voice was scratchy and husky for about a week or so after. So, of course, I wrote about it in my next book…and then I think I started having a car accident in a lot more of my books. There was also a car accident in one of the earlier Scotty books–Jackson Square Jazz–and so…I didn’t put one in Mississippi River Mischief.

I had never truly worried about repeating myself until that moment of oh my God do I have a car accident in every book? And so now, I try to be really careful. Am I just rewriting a scene I’ve written before? Scotty is on book nine now; I don’t think it’s feasible for me to sit down and reread the entire series every time I am about to write another one. I have always intended to make a Scotty Bible–what all the regular characters look like, their relationships to each other, where they live, little tidbits I’ve dropped over the years that are clues to their personalities–so that I could verify the information in the series and not have to go looking for it (because I am nothing if not lazy, so I’d put it off and forget it and then realize it’s too late to change that now! FUCK!). I also should go back and outline the books, too–just to have something easy to reference when writing another one.

Since I write more than one series and I also write stand-alone novels, I just realized I should probably do this with all of my books…but I am way too lazy to ever get that done. So I will go on trusting my brain and my memory…which is clearly a mistake!

When naming your characters, do you completely avoid names which you have used in the past or do you feel that the characterization alone is enough to differentiate?

I have names I always fall back on–I also tend to like names that start with L’s and J’s for some reason–so I have to be careful with that. I don’t keep track of all character names I’ve used, and I suppose it’s possible that I could “recreate” a character with a name I’ve used before, and even make them the same…but I also re-use characters; they cross over from series to series and back and then to the stand alones. When I was writing Death Drop, I was originally going to have Blaine and Venus be the cops; they were the cops in both of my previous series with a gay male protagonist, so why not keep expanding my New Orleans universe? I eventually changed my mind–I don’t know why, really, or remember, which is probably a more accurate statement–and changed the names; I think I wanted to differentiate the Killer Queen series and make it more distinct from Chanse and Scotty.

I’m worried more about creating characters that are similar to others I’ve written about more so than the name. I was thinking about starting another series–one with a true crime writer as the main character, and he’s already appeared in both the Scotty and Chanse series; I even had an idea for the story. But when I started creating him, I began to realize he was like a mash-up of Chanse and Scotty, so I abandoned the idea. Now that I am thinking about it again, so what if their backgrounds are similar? He’s nothing like either one of them, and it was a good story idea, so…you never know. I try not to ever conclusively rule anything out. I even think about bringing Chanse back every once in a while.

A question I’m sure most of you have received—do you ever worry that you will run out of ideas?

That’s the least of my concerns. I am more worried I won’t live long enough to write everything I want to.

After all these books, do you still enjoy the writing process?

The primary goal of my life has always been to try to surgically remove anything I don’t enjoy from my existence. I am very blessed in that not only do I get to write and tell my stories and people want to read them but I also have a day job that I enjoy and can feel good about the work I do there. So, the only way I would ever stop writing if I stopped enjoying it, and I can’t ever see that happening. Sure, I’ve had times where I had to step away because of burn out or exhaustion, but I always knew it was a break and I would come back to it again. It’s been difficult for me since my surgery in November to get back into it, but I am making progress. I love writing, and am so grateful this childhood dream came true.

  1. I used to bristle a bit when people called me prolific; I just love to write. But I finally stopped that nonsense and accepted the descriptor when I hit my tenth book…which was over thirty books ago. If that’s not prolific, I don’t know what is. ↩︎

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

I did not want to get up this morning. PT was particularly exhausting yesterday after work, and I also made groceries right after. By the time I got into the apartment and had the car unloaded, I…don’t really remember much of the rest of the evening, other than I sat in my chair and watched documentaries about the Eastern Roman Empire on Youtube for most of the rest of the night before I retired to bed early. I feel very rested this morning but still a bit tired, and also like I am running a bit on accessory. I know once the fog in my mind clears I’ll be ready to get this show on the road, but right now all my body wants to do is go back to bed and climb back into the blanket cocoon. Today is going to bounce around between 48 and 55 degrees, with the potential for wind and rain all day. Sounds like the kind of day when you’re very grateful to get back into the house after work, doesn’t it? It’s hard to believe it’s only Tuesday.

I know I will be very grateful to go back to bed tonight and go back to sleep. Clearly, I need more coffee.

I ordered a toy for Sparky that comes on a stretchy string and you hang from the doorframe, and he’s been playing with it almost incessantly since I hung it up. Given he bored very quickly of every other toy we’ve gotten him, I now know the answer: a hanging toy. He’s been trying to get the mouse ever since we came downstairs, and he spent hours jumping at it last night (which was cute; he also finally got it down at one point and dragged it into the living room to show me, and then took it upstairs to show Paul; who brought it back down and rehung it for more hours of kitty entertainment). He was also cuddly last night when he wore himself out, and he was cuddly this morning in bed. Could it be all he needed was a hanging toy? He’s also getting so big! He still likes to ride on my shoulders, draped around my neck–I have to let him up there every time I get home from work, and then I have to walk him over to the dangling ceiling fan cords–and wants to go up there every morning, and he rides up there as I walk down the stairs, chirping happily. He still doesn’t meow; like I said, he still just chirps, or some variation of the chirp–he draws it out into a whine sometimes, but that’s really it for cat noises from him so far.

Ah, now the caffeine is starting to jumpstart my engine and I am beginning to feel more awake, more alive, more ready to face this Tuesday before Mardi Gras. Parades begin again tomorrow, and run every day from there till Fat Tuesday. I have to leave work earlier every night the rest of this week, so I can get home before they close the streets and (hopefully) find a place to park within a mile of the house. I did take Monday off, so once I am finished here Thursday I don’t have to go anywhere other than to PT Friday morning and one final grocery run before the car is parked for four days. (Oh, I take that back; I do have PT on Lundi Gras in the morning–hopefully I’ll be able to park coming home from that excursion) and then I only have a three day work-week next week, which will make for a nice break. I hope to get stuff done on all those days at home; I will probably skip Wednesday night parades, go to Muses on Thursday, do the Friday night parades and Iris and Tucks on Saturday before skipping all of Sunday and going out for Orpheus Monday night.

I also felt a little off yesterday, and this morning realized I hadn’t taken my medications yesterday, which is never a good thing. It does make a difference–the absence of a new does of blood pressure and acid reflux and anti-anxiety meds is always noticeable the first time I forget, and extremely noticeable if I miss two consecutive days. I do feel calmer today than I did yesterday, and I was anxious a few times (should have been the tip-off, really) and snapped at other drivers a few times while driving around town. I also grew irritated and impatient with the woman in front of me at the grocery store, who seemed to think the smart way to unload her entire cart onto the belt was one item at a time per hand while trying to decide how she wanted them bagged, I suppose; she was arranging things on the belt and then digging through everything to find the next item to go on the belt properly. It was a very slow process and had I been on my meds yesterday I wouldn’t have been annoyed or irritated–because I would have thought ah, she has anxiety or is OCD or somehow isn’t wired right either rather than letting my own faulty wiring default to impatience. (As I started writing that example is when I realized her brain probably isn’t wired right, either–which I would have thought instead of impatiently scrolling through my phone and resisting the urge to say something snarky. Meds make a difference, seriously.)

And on that note, I am getting another cup of coffee and heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later–you never know.

Ladies Who Lunch

Americans have always been fascinated by rich people.

We all want to be rich, after all; as someone once said, “The United States is a nation of temporarily distressed millionaires.” So, in lieu of actually being rich, we obsess about them. The rich used to be celebrities for no other reason than being rich. It’s always been interesting to me that in our so-called “classless” society (which was part of the point; no class privilege, everyone is the same in the eyes of the law) we obsess about the rich, we want to know everything about them, and we lap up gossip about them like a kitten with a bowl of cream. I am constantly amazed whenever I watch something or read something set in Great Britain, because that whole “royalty and nobility” thing is just so stupid and ludicrous (and indefensible) on its face that I don’t understand why Americans get so into it; the fascination with the not-very-interesting House of Windsor, for one. We fought not just one but two wars to rid ourselves of royalty and nobility…yet we can’t get enough of the British royals, or the so-called American aristocracy. (Generic we there, I could give a rat’s ass about the horse-faced inbred Windsors and their insane wealth, quite frankly.)

I wanted to be rich when I was a kid; I spent a lot of time in my youth fantasizing about being rich and famous and escaping my humdrum, everyday existence and becoming a celebrity of sorts with no idea of how to do so. I was intrigued by the rich and celebrities; I used to read People and Us regularly, always looked at the headlines on the tabloids at the grocery store, and used to always prefer watching movies and television programs about the rich. (Dynasty, anyone?) I loved trashy novels about obscenely wealthy (and inevitably perverted) society types and celebrities–Valley of the Dolls has always been a favorite of mine, along with all the others from that time period–Judith Krantz, Harold Robbins, Jackie Collins, Sidney Sheldon and all the knock-offs. I was a strange child, with all kinds of things going on in my head and so many voices talking to me and my attention definitely had an extraordinary deficit; I always referred to it as the “buzzing.” The only time I could ever truly focus my brain was either reading a book or watching something on television–and even as a child, I often read while I was watching television. (Which is why I read so much, even though that buzzing isn’t there anymore and hasn’t been for decades.)

As I get older and start revisiting my past (its traumas along with its joys) I begin to remember things, little clues and observations that stuck in my head as a lesson and remained there long after the actual inciting incident was long forgotten. I’ve always had a mild loathing for Truman Capote, for example, which really needs to be unpacked. Capote was everywhere when I was a child; there was endless talk shows littering the television schedules those days–Dick Cavett, Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas, John Davidson, and on and on and on–and Capote was always a popular guest on these shows. I wasn’t really sure what he did or who he was, but he was someone famous and he was on television a lot. I saw him in the atrocious film Murder by Death, and I know I knew/had heard that he was a homosexual, a gay; and I also knew I was a gay. It terrified me that I was destined to end up as another Capote–affected high-pitched speech and mannerisms, foppish clothing that just screamed gay at anyone looking; Capote made no bones about who or what he was and refused to hide anything…yet he gained a kind of celebrity and fame and success in that incredibly homophobic time period, and no one had a problem with putting him front and center on television during the day time.

But this isn’t about my own self-loathing as evidenced by my decades of feeling repulsed by Truman Capote; that I will save for when I finish watching Capote v. the Swans.

“Carissimo!” she cried. “You’re just what I’m looking for. A lunch date. The duchess stood me up.”

“Black or white?” I said.

“White,” she said, reversing my direction on the sidewalk.

White is Wallis Windsor, whereas the Black Duchess is what her friends called Perla Apfeldorf, the Brazilian wife of a notoriously racist South African diamond industrialist. As for the lady who knew the distinction, she was indeed a lady–Lady Ina Coolbirth, an American married to a British chemicals tycoon and a lot of woman in every way. Tall, taller than most men, Ina was a big breezy peppy broad, born and raised on a ranch in Montana.

“This is the second time she’s canceled,” Ina Coolbirth continued. “She says she has hives. Or the duke has hives. One or the other. Anyway, I’ve still got a table at Côte Basque. So, shall we? Because I do so need someone to talk to, really. And, thank God, Jonesy, it can be you.”

I do want to be clear that once I started reading Capote, he quickly became a writer whom I admired very much; I don’t think I’ve ever read anything he’s written that didn’t take my breath away with its style and sentence construction and poetry. He truly was a master stylist, and perhaps with a greater output he might have become one of the established masters of American literature, required reading for aspiring writers and students of American literature. In Cold Blood is a masterpiece I go back to again and again; I prefer his novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s to the film without question; and I was blown away by his debut novel, Other Voices Other Rooms, which was one of those books that made me think my childhood, and my being from Alabama, might be worth mining for my work.

I read “La Côte Basque 1965” years ago, and didn’t really remember it very much other than remembering I didn’t care for it very much. I was aware of the scandal that followed its publication and that all of Capote’s carefully cultivated rich society women friends felt betrayed by it and turned on him, which sent him into a decline from which he never recovered, before dying himself. I’ve always seen Capote as an example of wasted talents. Anyway, I read the story but not being familiar with his social set, I didn’t recognize any of the people gossiped about in the story or who the woman he was lunching with represented (Slim Keith, for the record), and so it kind of bored me; it was a short story about someone having lunch and gossiping about people the reader had no way of knowing who they were or anything about. I assumed this was because the story was an excerpt from the novel, and the novel itself would establish who all these women were and their relationships with each other. But I did know it was all thinly veiled gossip about his friends, and they never forgave him for it. (I also didn’t recognize “Ann Hopkins” in the story as Ann Woodward; I hadn’t known until the television series that he was involved in her story. I primarily knew about her from reading The Two Mrs. Grenvilles and articles in Vanity Fair, and I actually thought, when reading that book, that it was based on the Reynolds tobacco heir murder that Robert Wilder based his book Written on the Wind on; it wasn’t until later that I learned about the Woodward incident) so I thought, well, it was an entertaining if confusing read.

It was kind of like listening to two strangers talk in a Starbucks and gossip about people you don’t know; entertaining but nothing serious, not really a story of any kind, and I didn’t at the time see how it would all fit into a novel as a chapter in the first place. What purpose to the overall story did this nasty gossip play? Why was it necessary for Ina to share these stories at this particular lunch (and don’t get me started on White Duchess and Black Duchess)? Were these people she was talking about important to the book as a whole? It was hard for me to tell, and I put it away, thinking at the time probably a good thing he never finished the book.

Watching the show about fallout from the story’s publication, I decided to read the story again.

And I still question why Esquire chose to publish it, as well as why Capote thought this chapter was the one to send them. Capote was a genius, of course, and after In Cold Blood was one of the biggest names in American literature (he truly invented the true crime genre); of course they are going to publish whatever he sent them, no matter how bad it was. It wasn’t promoted as a story, after all, it was a novel excerpt.

What I’ve not been able to figure out from any of this is why he thought he could publish this without any fallout from his “swans.” I guess it went to the grave with Capote, who clearly didn’t–and I don’t think ever did–understand why they were so upset with him, which just astonishes me. (Someone once thought I based a character on her–I didn’t–and was very angry with me. I didn’t care, because I neither cared about the person nor her concerns, but I know how careful you have to be as a writer with these sorts of things.)

I wish I could say I liked it better on the reread. I did not. It’s still the same mess it was when I originally read over twenty years ago. It’s just a rich woman being bitchy to her gay friend she feels free to be bitchy about her friends with, and when you have no context (even knowing this time who the actual people were, and yes, he barely disguised them) about the women being discussed or anything about them…it’s just boring, gossip about people you don’t know and you don’t know enough to care about, so it’s just a bitchy little boring lunch. I don’t know what could come before that or after, as an author myself; had I been the fiction editor at Esquire I would have been pissed that was what he sent in, and I would have definitely taken a red pencil to it before I would have published it–and Esquire? Why did Esquire, a men’s lifestyle magazine, publish this when the right place would have been Vogue or Vanity Fair or even The New Yorker. None of it made sense then, none of it makes sense to me now; and if this is the best example we have of Answered Prayers, maybe it’s not such a bad thing that the manuscript–if it ever existed–disappeared.

Sorry, Truman, you were a great writer but this one was a swing-and-a-miss.

A Horse With No Name

Monday morning has rolled around again and no, I didn’t want to get out of the comfortably warm cocoon of blankets yet again today. It was a nice, relaxing weekend. I didn’t go out to see any parades yesterday because I felt exhausted on Saturday and while i felt much better yesterday than I had, I thought it best to stay inside and rest for the day rather than push myself by going to stand on or around the corner for a few hours. This weekend is the big final push (I have to leave work early both Wednesday and Thursday), and I decided it was wisest to take Lundi Gras (Monday) off; Orpheus is that night and there’s no way I’d ever be able to find a place to park anywhere near the house. I do have PT that morning, so I’ll go to that and run some errands before heading back home and parking the car for another two days.

It actually turned out to be the best choice I could have made for the day because a friend called that I hadn’t spoken to in nearly two years (a myriad of reasons, mostly due to health concerns and my own insane rollercoaster life) and had I been out at the corner, i would have missed the call. It was a lovely conversation, and I realized once again how much I’ve missed, not only her, but so many others of my friends. I have always had the misfortune to have the majority of my writer friends not live anywhere near me, so it’s not like I can meet someone for a drink or lunch or anything at any time we so please. This has always been fine with me, but every once in a while it gets a bit lonely, so the few local friends I have are very precious to me. It was absolutely delightful to hear from her, and we were on the phone for nearly an hour, which was marvelous. (I’d been watching the Philip Seymour Hoffman Capote at long last when she called, which was really quite good and Hoffman deserved his Oscar, I think.) So yes, I kind of went down a Truman Capote wormhole yesterday. I am thinking Other Voices Other Rooms needs a reread, and maybe even a dip back into his short stories wouldn’t be a bad thing to do. My former antipathy for Mr. Capote (still processing it) has now turned to fascination; who was he behind that mask, that persona, he developed to hide behind? It’s also been years since I saw the film of In Cold Blood, too; it might be worth another look, too. This newfound obsession with Capote is multi-layered, too; it might take more than one lengthy post once I work my way through the way I’ve always reacted to Capote’s public face. (The self-loathing is coming from inside the house!) But after the call and after the film, I pretty much spent the rest of the night scribbling in my journal while watching an endless stream of Youtube videos, just to see what the algorithm thought I’d be interested in (Constant Reader, I was not interested in most of them, but I wound up watching a series of short histories of Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of my favorite historical women of all time.).

I didn’t write as much as I would have liked this weekend, either, but it’s also Carnival. Very little gets done during Carnival as I am too busy juggling and planning around parades to have much energy left to devote to writing. I did write some really good notes in my journal, though, which was fun; I always forget how much fun it is to freeform scribble in my journal and see where my subconscious mind takes me. It never matters if anything ever comes of it; it’s just playing around with words and ideas and names and form. I’ve been joking with myself that I should write a memoir called I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind of Thing, which is a terrific title for something like that (shout out to the Pet Shop Boys, because almost every song title is unabashedly clever and brutally honest and would make for a great title for essays or something), but as I always say, my memories lie to me all the time–which can be a problem when writing a memoir. Maybe personal essays would be a better idea than an actual memoir…and really, has my life been interesting enough for a memoir, anyway?

But I suppose that’s always in the eye of the beholder. I don’t think my life is anything special, or even unusual other than I am out of pace with traditional society with my sexuality and my chosen profession…but then other people will be amazed at some story of my past that I tell (usually after a few drinks) and I guess I never really think of me or anything that happens to me as anything other than normal and I always think everyone else has the same sort of things go on in their lives so it’s nothing out of the ordinary. But I have met a lot of important people and important writers. Larry Kramer used to call me periodically at Lambda Book Report to yell at me, but that was just Larry–he always seemed to be angry about something, but was actually also a really nice man (your mileage might vary, of course, but he also always made me laugh). Barbara Grier also used to call me about once a month to yell and swear at me, but I found her terrifically amusing and I could listen to her all day (and Barbara loved nothing more than a captive audience). There were only a few people in the business, actually, who were terrible to me when I worked there; I always seemed to have the ability to listen to everyone politely and was always pleasant and never argued with anyone….but there were a few I’d rather run over with my car and then back over them again rather than ever deal with them under any circumstance for any reason.

You know who you are, trash.

But I survived the first weekend of Carnival, and I am now thinking I want to watch the other Capote film, the one with Toby Jones–and maybe even revisit Murder by Death, which was another one of those after-church matinee movies Mom used to take my sister and I to. I just need to get through today at the office, and then I need to do my errands and go to PT before settling into my easy chair for the evening. I may go back to Lina Chern’s Play the Fool, which I am really enjoying, or my reread of Edna Ferber’s Saratoga Trunk, or Rival Queens, or even some short stories. I have some of Capote’s, and that might be interesting to reread. My friend who called yesterday afternoon recommended pairing Other Voices Other Rooms with To Kill a Mockingbird, which is a book I have issues with (more on that later at some point), but reading them as parallels to each other; the same childhood from different points of view in the same small Alabama town; it’s been a hot minute since I read the Capote novel but I did love it when I did. I don’t think I still have a copy of it, though.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. It’s a windy, gray wet day in New Orleans, and so I don’t think I’ll have a lot of issues sleeping tonight, either. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and you never know–I may be back later. Stranger things have indeed happened!

Tainted Love

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment and there are six parades today (I was wrong yesterday; I substituted Alla in for Druids for last night’s parades. I told you I don’t have the schedule memorized!), which can make for a long day and of course means I can’t really go anywhere at all today as I am trapped inside the parade route. They did move them all up so they roll during the morning and afternoon (threat of heavy rains in the evening) and if I am not mistaken they have done the same tomorrow? I was too tired and was almost asleep by the time the parades got to the neighborhood last night–and slept for just over ten hours, so clearly–Gregalicious was exhausted yesterday, and then some.

I had a doctor’s appointment that went swimmingly well yesterday morning (establishing primary care with a new doctor, whom I really liked on first meeting; he had a good manner, didn’t seem distracted, and asked probing follow-up questions to things I talked about–genetic predispositions to things and so forth, and genuinely seemed interested and had suggestions and answers for me about other things. His office building also has free parking, with is also lovely. That appointment took a very long time, so I didn’t have to wait terribly long before yesterday morning’s PT…in which my therapist Jacob introduced a weight bar to the therapy, so yes, we’ve moved on from dumbbells to that, and he even found a way to make planks more painful and tiring. So after making a quick grocery run (and still forgot a few things) I managed to come home for work-at-home duties. After that was completed, I tried reading for a little while to no avail, and finally watched the LSU-Arkansas Gymnastics meet, in which LSU got back to business and scored the highest team score in LSU Gymnastics History, which was pretty awesome. After that we tried to watch an episode of Lupin but we both fell asleep, which was a shame because it looked like a really good episode.

Today I am going to do more chores and try to get some more writing and reading done. There are six (!!!) parades, all starting at about a half-hour or so of each other (9, 9:30, 10, etc.) so they should all be past by the early evening –so if I want to run an errand or we needed something, I could easily (in theory) get out of the box tonight. I don’t think we will, really–we are low on crunchy salty snacks but that’s not a tragedy or anything to really be worried or concerned about. I do want to get the dishes and kitchen done, and establish some kind of order to the house (not easy with Mr. Wants To Get In Everything running around looking for play). Yesterday afternoon Sparky managed to get to the sink counter, from there to the top of the refrigerator, and then climbed up on top of the cabinets. In my imagination I saw everything stored up there some crashing down (and there were dishes soaking in the sink, so yes, it could have proved catastrophic) but it only took about ten minutes for him to get bored up there and realize it’s a long way down and start whimpering, so I had to get the little ladder out and climb up on the counter myself so I could reach and grab him so I could get hime down. He didn’t like that, either–he was clawing and terrified until I was able to put him down on the counter so he could jump to the floor and scramble off to safety, Sigh, the adventures of Big Kitten Energy are certainly something to experience.

I don’t think I’ll skip parades entirely today–I might go out every now and then just to take some pictures, watch the marching bands, and get a sense of the crowd and the energy of this Carnival. I don’t really remember the last Carnival I attended, which was actually the 2022 one (I was gone for 2023, 2021 was cancelled and was the year of the house floats, which was so amazing and so New Orleans); but I’ve no recollection of that year’s festivities at all. Maybe I should go back and look at my blog entries for then? Maybe I don’t need to really remember it much, either. Most of my Carnival memories are those of long ago, when we also used to go out all the time and truly celebrate the season before we got too old to walk to the Quarter and come home in the cold gray foggy mornings to rest up for a while before starting all over again. Carnival really is a magical time, and all it takes it to walk down to the corner on a beautiful day and once I catch that first throw I am right back into the spirit of things.

But still too old to walk to the Quarter.

I did finally take a walk around the neighborhood last night once I was finished with work for the day. I walked for about forty minutes, just around the neighborhood and down streets I rarely, if ever, venture down. It was indeed a beautiful day, in the low seventies and sunny, and that was still the case when I went on my walk as the cops were putting up barricades and closing streets, parking spaces disappearing throughout the neighborhood as people parked and walked over to the Avenue in their festive garb with coolers and rolling carts filled with food and ice and alcohol, boas were everywhere and goofy hats and those rugby striped shirts in the Carnival colors of purple, gold and green. But the end result of that unexpected exercise is tired legs and a sore lower back this morning (which could also have been from the PT as well) so I am going to just relax for a bit this morning and do some reading as I finish my coffee. There’s always FOMO involved in skipping parades–and the neighborhood did smell like grease and peppers and onions last night; that particular Carnival smell that becomes hardly noticeable by the second weekend, as the trees along the Avenue become festooned with sparking strings of beads in every color imaginable. Fences, porches and railings spring beads like crepe myrtles erupt with blossoms every spring.

There’s a winsome magic about Carnival, so that as it progresses you grow less frustrated with the parade traffic and the difficulty finding a place to park at home and the crowds of people and the trash growing exponentially on your street. Even just now typing all of this I’ve started thinking oh you can spend the afternoon out there which is, in and itself, the mentality that leads to pure exhaustion.

And on that note, I am going to my easy chair to read and swill coffee for a moment or two. Have a lovely Saturday wherever you are, and remember–it’s Carnival in New Orleans, so celebrate a bit for us. You’re allowed.

Only the Lonely

Friday morning and a work-at-home day; after I get home from a doctor visit and PT, and a brief grocery run to pick up the things I forgot last night on the way home. I didn’t make a list, of course, so once I got home I remembered the things I forgot to get, and remembered still more this morning, sigh.) Parades actually start tonight, with Druids, Cleopatra, and Alla, I think; I’d have to check to be sure. You’d think after all these years I’d have the parade schedule memorized, but no, I don’t. It’s supposed to rain all weekend and it looks rather gray out there in the morning light, but the sun isn’t all the way up yet either and it might turn out to be one of those gorgeous winter days with blue sky and sunshine and warmth.

I was correct about being tired when I got home from work last night, and so didn’t get a lot done other than hanging out and bonding with Sparky. I watched this week’s Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, which was a nice, no-stupid-arguments episode, and then decided to watch Capote v. the Swans because I was bored, and tired, and wasn’t sure that Paul would want to watch it anyway–and even if he did, he’ll never get home in time to watch much of it before the festivals anyway. I had seen some people hating it, the reviews are mixed, but I actually enjoyed watching. The acting is terrific, and like most Ryan Murphy shows it’s beautifully styled and constructed. The clothes and sets are impeccable. Naomi Watts is amazing, and Tom Hollander is pretty good as Capote. I have some of my own personal issues about Capote I clearly need to work through–it’s a long story and probably should be the center of its own entry, and probably will be once the show finishes its run and I review/blog about it. I had wanted to read more last night, and maybe do some chores, but once I went to the chair that was it for the night. I didn’t think I was that tired, but clearly I was. I even fell asleep in my chair and was snoozing away quite happily when Paul came home and woke me up.

I did sleep really well last night, too.

I’m not sure what this weekend holds for me other than being trapped here in the neighborhood during the parades. I want to get that story finished and I need to get the place straightened up/put back in order, not to mention all the chores I always end up having to do over the course of the weekend. There’s a load of clothes drying right now and I need to empty and reload the dishwasher so it can run while I am out of the house for the morning. I do have work-at-home duties to get done today as well. Tomorrow morning I am not getting up to an alarm–which is always lovely–and hopefully it will be a lovely, relaxing weekend of parades and beads and throws and watching stuff while writing and reading a lot.

I feel pretty good this morning too, which is also kind of nice. I feel rested, and since i am not rushing to get things done before heading into the office I canI’ve dy. PT is probably going to be quite rough, honestly; I’ve advanced more rapidly than anyone expected, so it gets a lot harder every time as the therapist tries to break me, LOL. I also need to make a list of things I need to buy for the house–a rolling cart for office supplies, some air filters for the HVAC system, a taller ladder, and so on–that I always forget about and I really do need to get more focused. None of the stuff can be delivered during the parade season, of course–or the windows for delivery are so narrow they can be easily missed–but the new microwave is delightful, and so are the new knives I bought. (I can’t believe how sharp they are!) There’s definitely something to be said for buying new things to replace old things you’ve had forever. I also want to get blinds for my windows so I don’t have to be blinded and so damned hot all summer in here when I am working, either.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines and get this day rolling. The chores and work won’t do themselves, after all, and I do need to get ready for this morning’s round of appointments and so forth. Have a lovely Friday and I may be back later; if not I’ll report back tomorrow morning after the first night of parades.

Wasted on the Way

Thursday and the last day in the office for the week. I am very tired this morning. I slept well but could easily sleep for another few hours or so (interesting that I went from almost non-stop anxiety about insomnia to anxiety about sleeping too much, isn’t it?), but as I slowly and groggily get going this morning, the coffee is definitely hitting the way it is supposed to. Tomorrow morning I have a doctor’s appointment and PT, as well as whatever errands I can get run before the parades start tomorrow night. Gah. I can’t believe it is already parade season, and I didn’t get nearly as much done as I would have liked in the meantime. I did work some more on the story yesterday night after I got home from work and the errands (I picked up the mail) and settled in for a relaxing evening.

For some reason I watched the season premiere of Vanderpump Rules, which is now picking up with the fallout from last season’s “Scandoval,” and I don’t know about continuing to watch. I had stopped watching the show years ago–years before Stassi and Kristen were fired for being racists, and long before Jax met and married that bizarre woman. I came back briefly for the scandal, and watching the aftermath I am just not feeling it, and probably won’t watch more. I do sometimes question my fandom of these reality shows, which generally feature terrible people being terrible, all for the sake of entertainment. I had never really watched The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City before–I had intended to, but then Jen Shah was arrested for massive scale fraud and remained on the show, and that was a bit too much for me (likewise, I stopped watching New Jersey when the Giudices went to jail, and I remain conflicted about Beverly Hills with fraud-adjacent Erica Girardi unapologetically remaing as a member of the cast and even getting, apparently, a redemption arc this season; which I vehemently oppose); I did start watching this most recent season at the urging of friends and yes, I was missing reality drama by not watching; I doubt that I will go back and watch the old seasons, which is something I never really do; why go back and watch old drama that doesn’t matter anymore? Reality shows like these are really like the old prime-time soaps; you can start watching at any time and just jump into the show without having to go back and watch the back stories–which you could never do with the daytime soaps but you could with the night-time.

Well, what do you know? I never finished this before leaving the house this morning so I find myself trying to finish this over my lunch break–and even my lunch is later today than usual, so yeah–been a day. But I feel good, tomorrow morning I have appointments and PT and so forth; before coming home to do work-at-home duties for the rest of the day. I’ve also kind of lost the train of thought I was riffing on before leaving the house this morning, and checking out what I’ve already written here didn’t return me to that particular mindset, so who knows where this is going to wind up going? I hope I have the energy after making groceries on the way home from work today to finish working on my story so I don’t have to worry about that over the weekend. I don’t know how my parade attendance will go this weekend; Paul’s got a lot of work to do and going out there by myself–which I can handle, and have done before–just isn’t as much fun as when I am with Paul, even if we barely speak while we’re out there. And I am not sure how much my stamina is going to hold up, either. We shall see, I suppose.

It’s also supposed to rain all day Saturday and Sunday, which will put a damper on the weekend anyway.

I did also watch the season finale of Percy Jackson and the Olympians last night, and I have to say I really do enjoy the series much more than I did the films. I did read the books a very long time ago–Rick Riordan’s series are the best fantasy novels for kids bar none, fuck all the way off, TERF Queen–so I don’t remember a lot of it, but I thought the series really adapted the books well, and I also appreciated that the cast went with kids rather than teens (or actors in their twenties acting as teens); which made the story make a lot more sense than it would with them in their mid-to-late teens. It’s also such a great concept; I really envy Riordan that idea, seriously. I used to want to do something similar–I still want to write a young adult novel set during the Trojan War–and I’ve had other ideas involving mythology and gods and goddesses, but nothing has ever come to fruition. The best idea I had I am not sure is usable, honestly, but every so often I remember it and think oh, if only…

Ah, well. As it is, I won’t have time to write everything I want to before I die anyway, so there are some things I will never get around to–and as long as it’s taking me to write this damned short story, I may not even wind up writing the things I do think I’ll have the time to get to, of course.

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later. You never know, and sorry for being so late today.

Love’s Been a Little Bit Hard on Me

Wednesday pay-the-bills day, and I am a bit groggy this morning, but that’s okay, really. I slept well and didn’t want to get up, and there’s nothing wrong with that (why I’ve always felt like not wanting to get out of bed in the morning makes me a lazy slug is something else I clearly need to work on). But the weekend draws nigh, which is always a lovely thing, and of course…parades. Yes, the parades start this weekend, with three on Friday night, six (!!!) on Saturday, and another three on Sunday. It’s also supposed to rain all weekend, so I don’t know how much time I will actually spend out at the corner this weekend risking getting sick and/or tired. I was also very tired last night, to the point that I really didn’t do much of anything once I got home from work yesterday afternoon. I didn’t do any chores, I didn’t run any errands, and I didn’t get the mail.

I did work on the story more and it’s starting to take a better shape than the mess that it originally was. I’m not certain why it’s taking me so long to get this draft finished, but I am instead going to think of it in terms of your writing muscles are as rusty as your actual muscles and so yes, they need to be used a bit more so I can get back into the swing of using those muscles every day. I really should think about writing now as writing therapy; the same mindset as my physical therapy. I am slowly but surely getting back into the spirit of writing after a deeply traumatic year, and the more I do it, the stronger and more lithe those muscles will get–and the less warm-up they will need. Having so many of the conflicting voices in my head stilled at long last also helps me with the focus and stuff; the problem is the lack of use and working out the kinks and the doubts. I think the story is going to make better sense and be much stronger than it was going to originally be in this draft version, and I did think about it a lot last night, too. I have always had a powerful imagination, and so last night I was using it to imagine what it would feel like out in the Manchac Swamp on a night in early October–and the kinds of risks college students will take that older people probably wouldn’t. If it weren’t for the parades–and maybe after the season is over I can do this–I should drive out to the swamp and check it out; there are a lot of places around New Orleans and in Louisiana in general that I really should go visit and experience.

Time, and exhaustion, is always such an issue. I do remember driving somewhere–I’m not sure where or why–that required me to cross the lake to Slidell on my way; I was writing something that required me to take a look at that far reach of New Orleans east that heads out to the bridge over the Rigolets, and so I detoured on my way to get a good look. (I also used that visit to base a scene in Royal Street Reveillon on as well; two for the price of one!) I’ve also noticed that, now that I have take up my proverbial quill again, my process of writing is a little different than it used to be; again, rusty out of use muscles might have something to do with it, but it could also be a change, who knows? My process has evolved and changed so much since Ye Olden Days when I first starting treating writing as a job and a vocation as opposed to a dream. (It’s also why I hate process questions, mine is rarely ever the same, especially when it comes to writing short stories.) I do like this story and like where it’s going; I really like the idea of my four unsuspecting, slightly drunk and high college students out visiting a supposedly haunted location in the Manchac Swamp (putting some of those New Orleans-area history wormholes I’ve gone down since the pandemic started) and I think it could be a terrific (if macabre) little story. And it’s something I am actually writing, not something I’m just thinking about. The story will probably always be special to me for being the first thing I wrote and finished after the surgery.

I’ve also been watching, with no small amount of amusement, as the right wing anger cancellation machine (you know, the thing they bitch about from the left while doing themselves because they are nothing if not the biggest hypocritical pieces of shit in recent American and world history) has decided to come for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. I have enjoyed so many cruel laughs at their expense over the last few months! Why stop there? Why not come for Beyonce, too? They never learn, do they? Their refusal to look at factual history–even factual recent history–showed itself when Ron DeSantis chose to follow the Southern Baptist playbook and come for Disney to bolster his dead-before-it-started presidential campaign? The Mouse is undefeated, and remains undefeated. Taylor Swift is the biggest pop culture star in the world right now whose fans absolutely worship her–and her fans are of all ages, and they protect her from scavenging low-life scum whenever and wherever someone tries to come for her. The irony that this romance is actually the culmination of every Taylor Swift longing teenaged love songs–she’s dating the star football player AT LAST–does not Fox or Newsmax in their quest to humble Taylor Swift, who is laughing at them as she sits on her piles of gold and the love and admiration of millions around the globe. I wouldn’t call myself a Swiftie1–I do like her music, and listen to it occasionally, but it’s not my go-to–but I do admire her as an artist, a businesswoman, and a person. She stands up for the underprivileged, she supports queer people and queer rights, and above all else she fights misogyny (which a lot of the right-wing hate is predicated upon) whenever she encounters it, calls it out, and is not afraid to go to court to fight it, either. The way she outsmarted the douche who bought her original masters deserves a five minute standing ovation.

I may not know a lot about Ms. Swift, but I do know better than to fuck with her or activate her fans. And frankly, the profas (if the the left is antifa, then it stands to reason that their position makes the right profa, right?) are soooo stupid and blindly wrapped up in their cult of Golden Calf worship that their rage makes me like her all the more. I listened to her Red album in the car on my way home from the office yesterday and it’s still a banger (“Red” is my favorite Swift song, don’t @ me), and I’ll probably be listening to more of her music in the coming days as well. I also love that the derangement extends to rooting against the Kansas City Chiefs in the upcoming Super Bowl–which means they have to root for San Francisco.

(laughs evilly in gay.)

And on that note, I need to head into the spice mines and start paying the bills. Have a lovely Wednesday and you never know–I may pop in again later.

  1. Although I did start writing an essay during the pandemic that I called “A Sixty-Year Old Swiftie.” ↩︎

Let It Whip

Tuesday, and we survived Monday again! I believe in celebrating even the smallest of achievements, so here we are. I left work early yesterday for PT–I beat the kettlebell this time, and some of the exercises that were dreadful last time were much better this time; still dreadful, but more easily borne than before. I easily could have slept longer this morning, but alas, it was not to be. I also worked on the story some more last night and I was correct; the missing piece of the puzzle I’d worked out over the weekend was exactly what was wrong with the story and why it wasn’t gelling, but the revision is working quite well, which is very pleasing to our eyes. I am slowly waking up–the coffee is quite marvelous this morning and most definitely hitting the spot for sure–and while I didn’t want to get up, I think it’s going to be a terrific day.

The other day I came across something while wandering around on-line which caught me off guard and yet was kind of cool at the same time–Ann Patchett doing a tiktok or a Facebook reel or something like that, in which she was talking about how she’d recently read So Big by Edna Ferber and really enjoyed it. Edna Ferber! I’d had a Ferber phase the last two years of high school, when I read everything I could get my hands on that she’d written–So Big, Come and Get It, Cimarron, Giant, Ice Palace, Saratoga Trunk, Show Boat–and I really enjoyed her work. Ferber was a very successful and very well known writer of the early to mid-twentieth century; many of her books were made into Oscar winning films; and they were mostly Americana, books set in some region of the US during its history and shining a light on the time. She was very well-regarded also as a playwright and short story writer. She was also a member of the Algonquin Round Table. So I thought, “I should reread Saratoga Trunk, which is partly set in New Orleans and I barely remember it” (although I also remember enjoying the film, with Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman) so I went on ebay and found a decent old copy.

Because I don’t already have enough to read on my plate, right?

I also met Ann Patchett a very long time ago, before she published Bel Canto and became ANN PATCHETT. She was very kind, very nice, and I liked her an awful lot. I think her only book at the time was The Patron Saint of Liars, which I read and enjoyed. I doubt very seriously she remembers me, of course; she’s become a huge literary star since I met her and I was just another face among many others that she’s met over the year, but I can say that I met and liked Ann Patchett very early in her career. Watching her success explode has also been a pleasure because it’s always lovely when someone super-nice actually finds enormous success. It restores my faith in humanity and the world.

I also started reading something over the past couple of days–exhausted brain, really–that I am enjoying for its bitchy wit but am not quite ready to talk about just yet, but it’s not anything I’ve been talking about reading on here lately. It’s also not that I am not enjoying the book I was reading–which I was, and look forward to diving back into when I can get it my full and not tired attention–but this is an easier read, if that makes sense? I already know the characters and the story because it’s one of my favorite films, and that’s all I will say about it at this time.

I also made the Saltburn connection that I’d been trying to make since seeing the film the first time–everyone keeps talking about it in reference to either The Talented Mr. Ripley or Brideshead Revisited, and while I could see that, there was always a nagging sense that there was another, more obscure film that it was more like than either of its regular comparisons/influences, and then this weekend it hit me between the eyes what film it was–because in rearranging the books, I discovered the book the film was based on, and the proverbial lightbulb went on over my head. Yes, yes, this film is more Saltburn than the others, and I did wonder if Emerald Fennell had seen the bizarre little film I watched during the pandemic while making condom packs and revisiting (or watching for the first time) /classic films from the Cynical 70’s–and now I have the hook for my essay/blog entry on Saltburn, so watch this space because I’ll eventually get around to writing it; I inevitably do, and I do think this conversation about the film is actually timeless, so there you go.

But it’s time to start getting cleaned up, pack my lunch box, and head out on the highway to the office to start my work day. I get to come straight home from work tonight, which is lovely, and maybe can get some chores done as well as some writing before Sparky bonding time. Until my next appearance, have a lovely one, Constant Reader!

Keep the Fire Burnin’

Monday morning and back to the office, with parades starting this weekend and how did it get to be parade season so damned fast? I slept decently last night, but it’s cold (not as cold as it’s been though) again this morning and the heater ran all night so downstairs doesn’t feel chippy the way it was when it was ultra cold. I have PT tonight after I get off work, too, which is going to be challenging again as I suspect my weights will go up. I don’t know about the kettlebell exercise; how well will I do with it today? Balance has never been one of my strengths. after all, and that was the primary problem I had with the kettlebell thing the other day. I am not client-facing today, either, which is nice. I didn’t get nearly enough done this weekend as I would have liked–what else is new, really–and so I am facing down yet another week of work in the office with parades on the horizon and next weekend being even a wilder weekend of parades and so forth.

We did watch the figure skating yesterday to see Ilia Malinin take his second US title; Paul mentioned this was probably the first time he could remember all four winners in all four disciplines not skating a clean final program. He may be right–its unusual for ice dancers to make major and noticeable mistakes–but I can’t remember who has won national titles over the years anymore. I used to remember, but I don’t anymore. I am comforting myself with this particular lack of memory being explained away as “well, you’re older and thus have more to remember than you used to”, which is a bit of a comfort. I also kept track of the football games without watching; happy for Taylor and the Chiefs as well as a little disappointed that the Lions didn’t make their first ever super bowl; remembering that magic year when the Saints went to and won their first always makes me hope that some other city and fan-base gets to experience that magical delirium the way we did all those years ago. (I inevitably always will root for the underdog; it’s just how I’ve always been.) But congratulations to both the Chiefs and the 49ers for making the Super Bowl. One fanbase is going to be really happy in a couple of weeks. So does that mean the Super Bowl is also on Bacchus Sunday? Guess I won’t be watching–not that I would have in the first place, not being a fan of either team…but it is fun watching Taylor Swift trigger the MAGAts.

I didn’t read much this weekend either. I didn’t write or read much, but I did put a lot of thought into writing–you know, the writing-in-your-head thing that we all do and absolutely it counts as writing, thank you very much. I had kind of gotten lost in the story currently under construction, and then of course while watching something this weekend it occurred to me that I needed a different opening and then it hit me how to finish the story, and how the end needed to be threaded throughout the story…so I decided that I am, indeed, going to start rewriting it from the beginning and hopefully that will give me the impetus to get the story’s first draft finished so I can move on to the next one whose ending I’ve also solved in my head already before moving on to one that I already know the ending of but don’t know the middle. Heavy heaving sigh–it’s always something, isn’t it?

(I did start reading the novelization of The Last of Sheila, which will be discussed at greater length once I finish it.)

And now January is almost finished. I cannot believe this Thursday is the 1st–yay, all the bills are coming due again–but that’s cool. I think I am going to just take Lundi Gras off so I can have a four day weekend and won’t have to mess with trying to get to work or dealing with getting home that day. PT is also going to be a major bitch to try to figure out along the way as well. This week isn’t so bad, I have it scheduled for Friday morning and I have another appointment that morning as well, but next week? Monday should be fine, and if I can schedule it for Friday morning that should be perfect. I can also go on Lundi Gras in the morning, and then we will have made it through parade season. I also have an appointment with my surgeon later in February, so I can find out how much more PT I have to endure before I am considered healed again.

It’s kind of weird that I’ve been dealing with this for over a year now, isn’t it?

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