Category: writing

Heart Attack

Work-at-home Friday and here we are. Tug is still snoozing upstairs, and I have to go to my appointment at the pain management clinic later this morning during a break from work-at-home duties. I managed to somehow make it through the entire week without being completely worn out and exhausted by last night–a first–and I’m not entirely sure what that means? Am I getting used to this schedule? Was going in at eight on Monday better than going in at seven thirty? Maybe, but it may have been the evenings spent with a kitten donut sleeping in my lap while I watch an episode of Moonlighting and reread The Dead Zone. It’s actually been kind of a lovely week, honestly, one of the better ones in recent memory.

Last night’s episode of Moonlighting was “The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice,” one of the more legendary episodes and one that really made everyone stand up and pay attention to what they were doing. (I’d be curious to know if the guy who created The West Wing was influenced by it as well; while the shows were vastly different they also had a lot of similarities–the rapid fire overlapping dialogue, for one.) It’s a very simple premise; in the course of a job Maddie and David hear a story about an old LA club where a very noirish type murder grew out of a love triangle, in which the band’s singer and the horn player have an affair and eventually her husband is murdered. Naturally, David and Maddie put their own spin on it–Maddie convinced she loved the man who killed her husband and it was all for love, while David is convinced the woman was a Phyllis-type from Double Indemnity type femme fatale who suckered her lover into killing her husband and taking the fall. They argue, go home, and both fall asleep–to dream their own versions of the story. The episode was also introduced by Orson Welles–which I’d forgotten–and this is probably one of the best episodes of television ever produced. (I also realized, while watching “The Lady in the Iron Mask” episode, that the entire plot of my aborted fourth Scotty book, Hurricane Party Hustle, was directly lifted from this episode.)

I have to say, I am enjoying the hell out of my rewatch of this show, which is exceeding my wildest hopes and memories that it was as good and classic as it was when I originally watched and fell in love with it back in the 1980’s when it aired. It’s definitely one of the three most influential television shows on me and my writing–along with Dark Shadows and Scooby Doo Where Are You?–and I am so delighted that it’s streaming at long last.

I also read more of The Dead Zone last night and have reached the third and final act, in which almost all of the storylines introduced throughout the course of the book have wrapped up to set up the final denouement between Johnny Smith and Gregory Stillson, the monstrous populist politician. It’s really remarkable, you know, that King was so amazingly gifted and able to structure a novel so brilliantly so early in his career. I also remember that King wasn’t taken very seriously either by critics or the Academy in the those earlier days of his career; he got roasted pretty regularly by critics even as he was selling books in the millions; horror not being taken seriously as a genre, for one, and the enormous popularity he enjoyed naturally meant “well, he can’t actually be any good, can he?” But he was. Yes, there are some problematic stuff in his earlier work (the depictions of queer people aren’t great–but are there; he seriously has an issue with overweight people; and he does have a tendency to only use people of color as “magical” characters), but the world-building, the character building, the internal monologues of the characters, and the completely realistic way he develops and reveals the characters to the readers all the while telling a very compelling and fast moving story you cannot put down is all there from the very beginning. (Of course, the Straight White Male Literary Icons were the only people getting critical acclaim back then, your John Updikes and Saul Bellows and John Gardners and Philip Roths and William Styrons and so on…and the bestseller lists were peopled with mostly straight white men like Harold Robbins and Sidney Sheldon and Arthur Hailey and Irving Wallace and Herman Wouk–things are better now, I ‘d say) I’ve just finished the second act, in which Johnny is working as a private tutor for Chuck Chatsworth, with the inevitable call back to the lightning rod salesman’s futile foreshadowing attempt to sell the owner of Cathy’s, a steakhouse/hang out that always hosts Chuck’s high school graduation party. Johnny has a vision of the place being struck by lightning and burning rapidly to the ground with celebrating teenagers trapped inside. He tries to convince Chuck not to go, and even Chuck’s father, not quite believing, offers to host everyone at the Chatsworth house instead–getting about half the crowd…and it is during this get-together that Johnny’s horrible vision comes true and the news of the tragedy breaks. It’s really an incredibly powerful, well constructed scene, and the character of John Smith, the victim of fate who never really understands why he has been so cursed, is really one of King’s best.

I wish I could write a novel half as good as this one, which I am looking forward to finishing tonight. I think next up will be Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare.

And on that note, I need to get back to work and. get cleaned up for my appointment. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in on you again soon.

Gloria

Wednesday Pay the Bills day has rolled around yet again! I slept well again last night–I’ve been getting very good sleep lately, which has been lovely–and I don’t feel tired the way I generally do on Wednesdays, which is kind of nice. I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon so I have to leave work a little early, but not a big deal–this is a routine follow-up to all the tests she had ordered when I switched primary care physicians, which was a huge relief to my mind about everything–and I am going in for my next fitting for my teeth on Halloween morning. We’re having a pot luck at the office that day, so I am making a cheesecake–which I will probably do on Sunday so I don’t have to mess with it on Monday night, which I won’t want to do, guaranteed. It has been a hot minute since I’ve made a cheesecake, and I think this weekend I am going to make white bean chicken chili, too.

And no, I am not wearing a costume to work that day. I also have to go tape “My Reading Life” with Susan Larson that day, and yeah–not wearing a costume to the studio at UNO for this. I also can’t believe that it’s already almost November. LSU has a bye week this weekend, so technically there’s not any real reason to watch games this Saturday, but I will have it on in the background as always and hopefully there will be some good games on this weekend; I haven’t looked yet to see who is playing.

I also spent some time with The Dead Zone again last night, and marveling at the way the novel is constructed; I don’t think anyone today (other than perhaps King) could get away with structuring a book the way he did this one, but it actually, absolutely works 100%. One of the things I’d forgotten in the years since I’ve read the book the last time is how many point-of-view characters there are, and how King uses them to build the structure of the book. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say the main character–John Smith, the most simple and basic male name of all time, no middle name, either–is in a terrible car accident and is in a coma for nearly five years, only to wake up with some psychic abilities. This is compelling and interesting enough–the concept of losing five years, how much the world and society can change in that short a period of time (even now, if you think about it, if someone went into a coma in October of 2018 and just woke up this month…think about everything that happened in that five year span, and then imagine having to get caught up on all of that after suffering a traumatic head injury and spending five years in a coma–with a psychic gift/curse of some sort on top of it. But that structure he uses–the first person point of view of the Castle Rock Strangler (Castle Rock’s first appearance in a King novel, too); the lightning rod salesman, and of course the book’s big bad, Greg Stillson (and yes, the similarities between Stillson and a real life politician struck me as far back as 2015)–all of these things are set-ups for story that comes later–the Castle Rock Strangler pov was something else–even all these years later the the words I’m so slick raise goosebumps on my skin. I’d also forgotten how sad the story actually is; Johnny’s mother’s descent into religious mania, in part triggered by his accident; his broken father, crushed by his son’s accident and losing his wife to insanity; Sarah, who was falling in love with him and would have married him but for the accident; and so on. As a teenager reading the book I marveled at how real all the characters were, how fully realized and actualized and developed; they seemed like people I would know and King’s marvelous skill at depicting the conflicting thoughts and impulses through internal monologues was something that blew me away, something I as a writer wanted to try to emulate.

I worked briefly on a short story last night; I wasn’t really tired when I got home, but Tug wanted to sleep in my lap and the story was a struggle, so it wasn’t hard for me to walk away from the computer, in all honesty. Tonight I am going to let him play with the red dot; he needs to play and exercise as he is a kitten, and I have to break myself of the oh Scooter just wants to sleep and never wants to play mentality; he had the zoomies again this morning and it amazes me how he can just leap and bounce off surfaces to launch to a new spot and then flies off the counter and gallops into the living room. My arms and legs are, of course, all scratched up (I also have a long scratch next to my nose; he launched onto my face from the ledge above the bed one night last week), but he’s so cute and adorable; it’s hard to stay mad at him even as he scampers over my keyboard and fucks things on the screen up.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and sorry I am so dull this morning. My life generally tends to be not all that exciting, really. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Truly

Tuesday and back to normal around here. Yesterday was kind of nice, actually; I felt rested and was able to get a lot done at the office, and wasn’t exhausted when I got home after running errands. This was unusual, particularly because not only did I do things over the weekend I actually left the house and was social. I assumed that I would be, naturally, quite tired and exhausted–but it was actually kind of lovely. The weekend itself was lovely, and yesterday was really nice at work. I felt rested all day-to the point I was a bit worried I might not be able to sleep. But I did sleep, fairly well, and now that I am up at the hour I usually am, well, I’m thinking that maybe getting up this early every day isn’t necessary? Leaving the office at five instead of four thirty doesn’t really spare me much traffic grief on the way home, and staying in bed yesterday until seven didn’t stop the world from turning on its axis. If I didn’t have appointments this week and thus needed to make up time at the office, I might actually start getting up at seven to be there for eight thirty every morning from now on.

Last night was nice. I stopped on the way home to get the mail, which was very lovely. I got the Christmas cards I’d ordered, for which I already have the stamps, and I think I am going to get a jump on that this year and have them all ready to go and to drop into the mail in early December. I got home, finished the laundry I’d started in the morning, and then we started watching the new season of Big Mouth–I felt like I wanted to laugh rather than enjoy the high camp drama of Elité, so that’s what we did. The show is so wrong on so many levels, but so hilarious about the sex obsessions of raging hormones during puberty and dealing with those physical and emotional changes that I laugh out loud multiple times per episode. It was a lovely evening to spend with a cat donut in my lap.

I do love a kitten donut.

I also did some things yesterday that I’d been avoiding–avoidance is always a sign of depression for me, I’ll look at an email I need to answer and think ugh I’ll deal with it later or if I answer this then they’ll answer and I don’t want to deal with that, either and so…yeah, it’s always been a problem for me. But at least I recognize the problem, right? I always think that should count for something, whether it actually does or not. I feel like I’ve kind of come out of the funk I’ve been in for a long time? I feel like myself again for the first time in a long time, and that’s a good feeling, frankly. Maybe having to leave the house this past weekend and be social shocked my system back into place? I did spend a lot of Sunday reevaluating my life and my attitudes and so forth; and some harsh truths were also brought home to me at the wedding itself. I realized, among other things, that the people I work with, while no fewer than twelve years younger and as many as forty–well, I’ve kind of kept myself aloof from them for a number of years now. My mentality was, oh, you’re sixty and if you show any interest in them they’ll think you’re a creepy old gay–something I’ve never wanted to be seen as–and so I let them do their thing and I do my thing and while I am deeply fond of all of them, I don’t really mix with them outside of work and don’t really know much about their lives. When two of them showed up, they said “Oh, we were wondering if you’d come” and I replied, “If for no other reason than to prove I do exist outside of the office” and they both started laughing–because they’d made the same joke in the car on the way there. I also commented to one of them how much I love the way they dress when they aren’t at work; some of my co-workers have the most amazing sense of style, which I love to see (just like I’m thrilled to see young celebrities pushing the boundaries of male fashion and formal wear on red carpets besides the traditional, incredibly stuffy and tired tuxedo. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved a tuxedo, but the reason I never developed a sense of style and fashion is because I always found men’s clothes to be boring, and I try to liven it up a bit with things like shoes. But when I was younger, you could never get away with going different stylistically, and so I never bothered to care or try) and I made that very observation to one of them, who joked about how I always just wear jeans and work T-shirts every day…which I do because it’s easy and I don’t have to think about…which made me think about it and so this week I’ve been wearing the collared polos that have been collecting dust within the closet for years now–even tucking them into the pants rather than just letting the shirttails hang free.

And oddly, it does make me feel better about being in the office and more participatory in my life.

I also realized, as I watched my co-worker marry his partner, that I’ve only been to same-sex weddings over the last decade (I don’t go to a lot of weddings; I hate them for any number of reasons that will be a subject for another time). I got a little misty during the ceremony, which never happens, and realized it was because I was delightedly happy for my co-worker. Standing there in the beautiful but simply decorated back yard, I started thinking about Paul and me getting married, where we would have it and what that would be like, who would we invite and who would we not, and what it would look like and I think that played a little part to my being misty during the vows and ceremony?

Having dinner with my friend Ellen on Sunday night was also incredibly helpful. Sure, I interact with other writers in emails and social media, but there really is something lovely about a face to face conversation–with wine–and conversation about publishing and writing and so on and so forth. It kind of brushed away the cobwebs that have been in my brain since the last Bouchercon, and woke me up a bit about writing and procrastination and depression and so forth. Dealing with the anxiety is also tiring, but the strategies and coping mechanisms are working. (For example, I am always early; ridiculously early in some cases, because I get anxious about getting there and anxious about being late and work myself up into quite a state until I leave early and then wind up arriving at parties and events waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too early, which is awkward and embarrassing. So Saturday the wedding was 4 to 9; I didn’t summon a Lyft until 4. Sunday the reservation was for 6:45; I got there at 6:39 and walked around the block taking pictures and came back at 6:45; Ellen was early! That was a good laugh)

And ultimately, this week I feel better about myself, my life, and my career. Of course tomorrow I could slide back down into the Pit of Despair, but for today…I’m gonna roll with it. Have a great Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you again tomorrow.

She’s Out of My Life

Sunday morning and it’s below sixty today in New Orleans, which is fine. I slept super-well last night, which was great, and feel pretty rested this morning. I have a lot of things to do today before I meet my friend Ellen at San Lorenzo (the restaurant in the Hotel St. Vincent, which used to be an orphanage and then a very inexpensive hostel in the Lower Garden District for a very long time but has been gentrified into a lovely boutique hotel with a café, fancy restaurant, and poolside bar) for dinner. And having left the house yesterday for a wedding last night…that’s two nights on a weekend where I’ve left the house. Peculiar, isn’t it?

Yesterday was a very good day. I woke up feeling rested, did some chores, finished reading Angel Luis Colón’s Infested, which I really enjoyed (more on that later) and then did a reread of Daphne du Maurier’s marvelous long story “Don’t Look Now” (more on that later) before watching some football games before it was time to summon my Lyft and head over the bridge to the wedding. Today I am going to start a reread of The Dead Zone–which might not be as thorough as it could be–and I need to get to work on some things. There are also some chores I never got around to yesterday that need to be addressed this morning and I really should write today since I didn’t anything yet this weekend. I worked on “The Blues Before Dawn” a bit on Friday after finishing my work-at-home chores; I’d like to work some more on that today. I also should work on the mess in the laundry room and should finish the organizing and filing, etc. I haven’t ever finished reorganizing the files at all; and I really need to get back on top of that. I need to finish the dishes and run the dishwasher too; and I am going to make potato leek soup in the slow cooker today–I can’t believe it’s never crossed my mind with this soft food diet to make a batch of that soup. It’s incredibly filling, for one thing; usually one bowl is all it takes, and it will last for a week at least. Same with my white bean chicken chili–all soft, will last a long time, and it’s both filling and delicious. Obviously, I didn’t think this soft food diet through beyond “oh, no burgers or pizza.”

The wedding was lovely. One of my co-workers (whom I absolutely adore) married his partner in their backyard on the West Bank last evening, which was marvelous. It was nice seeing my co-workers outside of work in their fancy clothes (they all looked fantastic) plus it was nice to spend time with them outside of the work environment. I had some nice conversations, and I realized that I’ve kind of isolated myself from them because of my age; I feel the age difference far more than they actually notice it. I do like them all, and find them all very interesting; it’s my loss more so than theirs. Anyway, it’s something to think about going forward anyway. I am glad I went for any number of reasons–I will only attend same-sex weddings pretty much now, as they are an act of defiance now more so than ever–but not the least of which is spending more time with my co-workers, or as I like to always call them, “the kids at work.”

Football was interesting yesterday; I’ve not really looked at the results from yesterday much. LSU was ahead of Army 14-0 when I got into my Lyft and checked my phone; by the time I got home it was 28-0 and still the first half. It wasn’t much fun–I only enjoy LSU games where they score 62 points if they are playing an SEC opponent–and so I didn’t feel guilty for switching over to Auburn-Mississippi (Auburn ended up losing), or for watching Skate America once Paul came back downstairs (he got bored with the game as well). Checking the scores and results, it looks like this could be another chaotic year like 2007–which will make the play-off decisions interesting once the season concludes. LSU can still win the West with a win over Alabama if Mississippi stumbles again–they have to play at Georgia, so chances are good that will happen–and winning out. I also realized this is the fourth year of LSU’s championship cycles: they won in 2003, 2007, and 2019; played for it and lost in 2011, with 2015 being the only four year cycle that didn’t end in them playing for the national title. Perhaps this will be the second time that cycle is broken.

Twitter continues its slow death spiral, and I am checking it less and less these days, and staying there very briefly. I do have some friends still there that I like to interact with, but of course the others are slowly becoming what Twitter became as well. Yesterday a straight white man came barging onto a thread of George Takei on Threads, in which George was talking about how difficult it is for queer people–for any minority–to deal with elections, when our rights hang in the balance every fucking time, and how sometimes as a queer person or a person of color, you have to grit your teeth and vote for the Democrat because no matter what or who, the Republican option isn’t an option for queer people or people of color—unless we really hate ourselves to the point that we hate other people like us, or only care about our money rather than our rights. The example George was using was campaigning and voting for Bill Clinton after he signed both DADT and DOMA into law during his first time despite his avowed belief in the rights and dignity of queer people in 1992 on the campaign trail. Fox News and the right used his support of queer rights–along with a ridiculous scandal with no evidence of wrong-doing by either Clinton (remember Whitewater? I sure the fuck do)–to take back the House in 1994 and handicap any attempts at being progressive. I also remember Bill Clinton trying to get a form of the Affordable Care Act passed–the right also used that battlecry of “socialism” to scare people into giving them that House majority with Newt Gingrich as speaker (I remember it all too well). The reason I remember this all too well is because HIV/AIDS was still killing people and there was no cure as of yet; a positive test meant a very good chance of death relatively soon. I fucking lived through the 80s and the 90s, thank you very much.

I also remember that Bill Clinton was the first presidential candidate to mention HIV/AIDS, and to notice that queer people actually exist–so you can fucking miss me with the Hillary hate, thank you.

Anyway “straight white man” (hereafter referred to a Mr. Mediocre) barged into George’s thread to lecture him about compromise voting and how if we would all just really get behind true progressives, change would be that much easier and how he could just never ever bring himself to the point where he could vote for someone who ever voted for a war.1 That told me everything I needed to know about Mr. Mediocre–the “ally” who couldn’t bring himself to vote for Hillary in 2016 because she voted for the war, believing the lies the Bush Administration and his fully supportive Congress were pushing on us all, calling those of us who didn’t want the war cowards and/or traitors, questioning our very patriotism. Blaming Hillary for believing the lie so you threw your vote away in 2016 so you could remain “pure” fucked over your so-called “allies,” you miserable piece of shit. And instead of ignoring and blocking, which is what I usually did, the audacity of Mr. Mediocre lecturing George fucking Takei, a gay Japanese-American who grew up in an American concentration camp for American citizens of Japanese descent on purity politics just didn’t go down with me, so I replied, Oh, look, another straight white man who will be okay no matter who is in power lecturing those whose rights are on the line with every election about his purity. Don’t hurt yourself patting yourself on the back while you screw over minorities over some purity test that we don’t have the privilege of applying to our votes. “Allies” like you gave us Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016. Thanks for that, by the way.

If you think Mr. Mediocre would let that go, let me introduce you to The Progressive Straight White Man. They can never let that shit go. You know he read my response and climbed back up on his High Horse–how dare a gay man call him out and speak to him that way! He told me “You should want better, but I’ll still keep working for women and minorities.2“

I replied, I do want better but am realistic as a minority in this country to know that no matter what I have to vote for the least damaging candidate because my rights are actually on the line with every election, so don’t condescend to me about your purity tests and progressive bonafides when a real ally will show up, hold his nose and vote for the Democrat. We warned you the Supreme Court was at risk, but her emails! That pesky vote for the war! So forgive us for not applauding you for your purity. Now the Supreme Court is poised to take us back to 1860 but hey, at least you can sleep at night for not voting for the warmonger.

Asshole. After all, Dobbs didn’t affect him–and when his daughter is forced to carry her rapist’s baby, I hope he remembers that purity vote in 2016 with pride.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I need to eat something and make another cup of coffee and get the potato leek soup started, no easy chore. Plus I want to write up what I read yesterday and the impressions they left with me. Have a great Sunday, COn

  1. which means he wouldn’t have voted for the two most progressive presidents we’ve ever had, I might add; FDR declared war, and LBJ voted for it, as well as intervention in Korea. Some progressive this dude is, right? ↩︎
  2. Love that pathetic attempt at progressive shaming, which again tells me everything I need to know about his politics–if he doesn’t get the perfect candidate that aligns with everything he believes (a pipe dream that will never happen), he won’t vote for them no matter what that means for women and minorities. Some ally. ↩︎

Lost in Love

Saturday morning and we’ve at long last made it to the weekend! Huzzah! I have a lot to do this weekend, and I even have to leave the house both nights. This afternoon I am attending a co-worker’s wedding; tomorrow I am having dinner at San Lorenzo with my friend Ellen. Woo-hoo! Yesterday was a good day. I did my work-at-home chores, along with chores, and then ran some errands so I wouldn’t have to do them today–a decision I am very grateful for this morning, believe you me. I then read Angel Luis Colón’s Infested for a while, finished my reread of Death Drop, and watched an episode of Moonlighting. I also rewatched the last two episodes of Our Flag Means Death again–glad I did; I slept through most of them and they were most witty and clever and funny. When Paul got home we started the new season of Elité, but it’s more a habit and completionism to continue watching it at this point. It’s glory days are long past, I barely remember who any of the characters are, and I don’t really remember much of last season, to be honest.

Sigh. But those first three seasons are still epic television. This is kind of what I mean when I talk about shows that keep going because they’re successful when they should have stopped when they were ahead; the season three finale was an excellent stopping place–but at the same time I would have been terribly bummed had the show ended there, too. Be careful what you wish for, right?

The sun was bright and high this morning, just as it was yesterday morning, which leads me to believe the time change should have been this weekend instead of two or three weeks from now. It used to always be in October; and I don’t know why or when it was changed to November, but if we’re going to have to do this every year, can’t we at least have it happen when it always used to happen? I slept really well last night–I’ve been sleeping well all week, actually. I think the change in the weather has helped with that dramatically. I still feel a bit groggy this morning, but that’s okay. I am going to write this and read some more of Infested once it’s posted, and then I have some things to do around here. The wedding window period is from 4-9, with the actual ceremony around five. I am going to try really hard not to be that person who always arrives ahead of the scheduled time and has to sit around waiting for everyone else to show up–the story of my life–and I am quite determined not to even summon a Lyft until four o’clock.

I’m really enjoyed Infested, but I knew I would. I’ve been a long-time admirer of Angel’s work for quite some time now, and his narrative voice is absolutely perfect in this book. I’m not sure if it’s considered middle-grade or y/a–that line is always so blurry–but it’s quite engaging and I really like the main character. I’m also not entirely sure I’ve read a book before that’s set entirely in the Bronx? (And why is it “the Bronx”? It’s not “the Queens” or “the Brooklyn” or “the Manhattan”, but just saying “Bronx” without the article is weird…although I suspect that’s entirely from years of hearing it said with the article.) I am really enjoying it.

I’ve thought about writing for middle grade (I’ve literally thought about writing everything other than fantasy –I even have some science fiction, incredibly bad, in the files) but am not sure if I can do it, which is precisely the reason I should try writing it. I’ve always wanted to do my own kind of Nancy Drew-style series for kids, have wanted to ever since I was a kid reading those books, and I’d really like to at least give it a try at some point before I finally exit the planet or am unable to write anything anymore. Although can I really write for middle-graders when I don’t know any kids that age? Writing is writing, I suppose, and the best thing to do is try it and write the very best book I can with the very best characters I can; I do think two of my strengths as a writer are likable characters and a good narrative style that draws the reader in. Can that translate to middle grade mysteries? I guess I will never know unless I try–and maybe, just maybe, I could write one set in New Orleans?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines with my book to read. Have a lovely Saturday; I may be back later; you never know!

Brass in Pocket

Imagine my delight and surprise to discover that the meeting I thought I had to go into the office for later this morning had a virtual option, so I am not leaving the house today–other than to run a necessary errand later.

I may even put that off until tomorrow.

Yesterday was a lovely day at the office. Everyone was in a pleasant mood, and everything flowed well. I enjoyed all my client interactions and everything ran smoothly the way it is supposed to always run, and that was lovely. I wasn’t even terribly tired when I got off work, but knew I’d be in a mood by the time I got home. Why? Because there was a Saints game last night in the Superdome, and traffic in the CBD was going to be a nightmare. It was, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be, and I made an impatient decision about the route home that was a big mistake. It took me about forty-five minutes to get home from work–what usually takes at most fifteen minutes; Wednesday night, for example, I detoured up to the Carrollton corridor to go to the Rouses, and still managed to grocery shop and everything and get home less than an hour after I left the office. Saints game also meant crowd at the bar on the corner, which meant difficulty finding a place to park. No big deal, I did find a place to park and then came inside.

Heavy sigh.

So, we have guys here working on the roof and the gutters. There’s also a bridge from the patio upstairs over to the carriage house gallery. It had apparently rotted; so they’ve been working on that. The patio is directly over my kitchen. I came inside, and there was debris all over the stove and that counter. “Weird,” I thought, and actually said out loud, annoyed, “well, I’m glad I cleaned in here” before looking up to see a blue sky. Yes, while they were working on the bridge yesterday, they were trying to do something and the kitchen ceiling/patio floor gave way. Unable to help myself I yelled, “Oh, fuck!” Well, the thing about a hole in the ceiling is the poor workers–who hadn’t really done anything wrong; it wasn’t their fault that portion of ceiling/floor had rotted out, of course–heard me. And then I went outside to see what they were doing and one of them sheepishly asked me how I was doing, and I replied in full candor, “well, I’m not thrilled about the hole in my kitchen ceiling” which led to apologies and explanations and they even came by several times to apologize again. They also cleaned up the mess in the kitchen and put up a piece of plywood to cover the hole, reassuring me this was a stopgap measure and they’d repair it. It was amusing–well, it is now, not so much at the time–but I then found myself reassuring them I knew they didn’t do it on purpose, thanking them for cleaning up the mess and covering the hole, etc etc etc. I had intended to work on my short story in progress, “The Blues Before Dawn,” when I got home and maybe read some of Angel Luis Colón’s Infested, but that of course disrupted the entire evening so I grabbed Tug and he slept in my lap while I watched the last episode of the first season of Moonlighting (it was a late midseason replacement and the first season was only six episodes, including the pilot). Paul came home, he went through the stages of grief about the kitchen ceiling that I already had, and then we watched The Morning Show and Our Flag Means Death before I went to bed (I actually fell asleep during OFMD so have to rewatch at some point today or tomorrow).

I slept deeply and well, not arising this morning until eight (other than the usual “Tug needs food NOW” daily five a.m. wake-up) and now am facing my day. I am going to get this done and posted, probably work on some emails before starting my work-at-home duties, which will also include chores around the house (laundry’s first load already going in the laundry room) and hopefully, I will get some work done on that short story. I had decided to write this as a Sherlock-in-New-Orleans story, but not told by Watson–which is a risk on top of a risk–and then see how it went. In talking to a friend yesterday I also realized part of the reason I am having trouble writing and/or getting started on a new project is because everything is in limbo because of my arm surgery. I don’t know how long the recovery process is going to be and I also don’t know how much writing I’ll be able to do in a cast and sling (and not the good kind of sling, either–see what I did there?) I’m afraid to commit to a deadline knowing that I can’t even self-delude myself that I’ll make that deadline (I never do, but I never agree to one knowing ahead of time I won’t make it). It’s also been an extremely rough year for me, and there’s nothing wrong with not being as productive as you would like because other things are going on in your life that you simply can’t avoid dealing with–which is usually my preference, immature and childish as it is–and recognizing patterns of behavior within yourself. I’ve done a lot of self-examination and reevaluating my past as well as who I am along with why I am who I am, if that makes sense. A lot of that had to do with Mom dying, as well as me recognizing that probably my absolute best work inevitably always winds up being set in Alabama. That Alabama tie, those roots, run so deep inside me that they’re inescapable, really.

I also started reading Death Drop last night. Reviews are starting to come in, and friends are reading it and telling me they’re enjoying it, and the truth was I couldn’t really remember a lot about the book so thought it was probably a good idea to reread it. So much was going on during the process of writing the book–it and Mississippi River Mischief, which doesn’t even take into consideration the fact that I was actually writing two books at the same time (not recommended, aspiring authors, don’t be a Greg; be smarter)–that I couldn’t really remember much of it (I may need to reread Streetcar too) and being familiar with your own work that you’re promoting is usually smart. Now that my memory isn’t what it used to be, rereading my work is like reading something new by another author because I don’t remember anything about the book itself other than the drudgery of writing, editing, and revising the damned thing. But I was very pleased with it–I wasn’t able to finish the reread, but got pretty deep into the book–and it flows well and there are parts that are seriously funny. Of course, like always I started nitpicking at it, but after about chapter three I turned off the internal editor and just read it as though I was reading it for pleasure rather than reminding myself of what I had written. The characters are likable and all of them–even the minor ones–seemed fully realized and with their own agency; by which I mean they aren’t always just dropping everything to rush to help Jem out at the expense of their own lives and aren’t there to simply feed him information or help him work through his problems. I also liked the voice, and I really like my main character Jem Richard, the glam artist just dipping his toes into the world of drag performance. I intended it to be a drag queen origin story–the answer to the question “so how did you start doing drag?”–and it absolutely works in that regard.

And the book itself is gorgeous, simply gorgeous. I couldn’t be more pleased.

It’s also weird having two new books drop in such a short period of time. It certainly wasn’t planned that way, and entirely happened because my life blew up and I didn’t make deadlines for either. But I promised myself I would be better about promotion and so forth, so here we go.

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

Steal Away

Thursday morning and the week is almost over.

I withdrew a short story I had submitted to a magazine in September of 2022; thirteen months is more than enough time to decide whether or not you want a story or not, and if you haven’t gotten to it by now, well, how long do you need? There’s a serious conversation about short story publishing that needs to be had at some point–but I think that aspect of the business isn’t taken as seriously as “book” publishing, and there aren’t many people who primarily focus on the short form for the abuses of writers that occur in that small part of the business to really be brought to public attention because, let’s face it, nobody really cares. I know that one of the big name prestigious crime short story publishers always takes twelve to fourteen months to respond to submissions…and when you know that going in, that’s one thing. This market I’ve published in before and it’s never taken even a fraction of this long to get a response to a submission; it had been pending on Submittable since the day after I clicked “submit.” It may be right for another market I am looking at right now–and I had wanted to include it in my next short story collection as a republished story. Heavy heaving sigh.

Maybe someday I will do a blog post about the slog publishing short stories can often prove to be. I was in one anthology that sat on my story (and everyone else’s) for at least three years (more like four, if not five); finally released the book but never sent me a print copy (I did get the electronic one) and I never did get the really nice check they offered me to get me to write the story. There were rarely any updates, either–and certainly none since it finally saw “print.”

Sigh. The glamorous life of a writer is mostly spent tracking down payments and author copies, seriously. Well, maybe not mostly, but it takes up a lot more time and energy than a non-writer might think.

I slept really well last night, with Tug making his usual five a.m. supplication, and I’ve already discovered a quirk: if I give him food, he will squeak at me until I dump out his water bowl and refill it–every single time. He won’t even start eating until he hears the water running in the sink. Granted, I always change out the water every time I feed him–but it’s part of his routine and he won’t eat until he knows he’s getting fresh water to go with the food. I think he’s completely settled into our lives as our house cat, too. He certainly believes he’s Lord of the Manor, and when he’s full grown he’s going to be a terror–because even pint-sized as he is now, he can get up to places you wouldn’t think; he’s a climber, so any possibility of a Christmas tree again is completely gone; which is fine, really. I do love Christmas, but it’s really for kids, and the older I get the more I care about the time off than holiday joy and gifts and things like that.

I made groceries on the way home last night at the Carrollton Rouse’s, which is becoming my favorite Rouse’s; the ones on the CBD and on Tchoupitoulas are convenient, but the one on Carrollton has more selection; which means going there I can get everything in one stop, whereas at either of the others I need to go to another vendor to get the rest of the things I need, which is very frustrating; and so even the extra time it takes to get up there and back is actually made up by the times savings of only going to one store. I was also very tired when I got home–we’d had a rather busy day at the office–so I didn’t read or do anything much other than put the groceries away; Paul had a board meeting so he didn’t get home until late, either. I did work on my story “The Blues Before Dawn”, and made some decent headway on it; the question is whether I want to make it another “Sherlock-in-New-Orleans” story, which I kind of want to do; I think I’ll do that for a draft and then do a second where the detective isn’t Sherlock, but I like the idea of writing a Sherlock story from someone else’s perspective, as well. I really like the idea of writing a bunch of Sherlock short stories in 1916 New Orleans, with Storyville (cliché, I know) and the Italian immigrants in the Quarter and the little Chinatown district on either side of Canal and illicit queer bars servicing sailors and so forth; how fun is that? And of course the Opera House was still there in the Quarter too–and people still spoke French in New Orleans, or at least the bastardized Louisiana version of it. I think my goal for the weekend is to finish a draft of the story and do some more work on the second Valerie novel.

And I have to go into the office tomorrow for my work-at-home day; which I may switch over to Monday; I’m not sure and I haven’t really decided yet, to be honest. I have to go in for a benefits meeting, and was thinking that maybe the thing to do would be to work in the office since I have to go there anyway; but….now I am thinking I should just go for the meeting and maybe work at home around it; I am not sure, and I suppose I will decide tomorrow morning when I get up–depending on when I get up, that is. Frankly, I am leaning towards just going in for the meeting and being done with it and coming back home. I like not having to get up on Friday mornings–even if I rarely sleep past seven as it is–but the lack of alarm going off is actually quite lovely.

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

Let’s Get Serious

Tuesday morning and I feel bleary.

It has turned cold (for New Orleans) here; the high yesterday was in the mid-sixties, and I felt cold all day. I had to run uptown to the Sports Medicine institute to get my letter for jury duty and then had to drive to City Park for a work thing. And, thanks to the strange vagaries of New Orleans geography, it turns out Tulane University’s campus is closer to City Park than it is to my house. I still can’t wrap my mind around that logic, but as it starts to spiral off I just think yes, but that weird geography is part of what makes the city unique and then I can stop thinking about it for a while. From there we went to the Dillard University campus for a training (they served us lunch) and from there to Ralph’s on the Park for a final presentation and dinner. I discover that I can eat pasta and meatballs and softer bread; I was able to have the soup and blackened redfish for dinner, which also worked. I would have rather had the steak filet, but I felt pretty certain that wouldn’t work for me. I then came home, and we started watching The Fall of the House of Usher, which spans a lot of Poe’s work, and repaired to bed relatively early. I slept well, but feel a bit under-rested this morning. I certainly don’t feel as awake and alert as I did yesterday. I think we have a busy day at the office, too. This weekend is also going to be a bit off for me; I have a wedding to attend Saturday afternoon, and I believe I have dinner plans with a friend from out of town for Sunday. I have to swing uptown after work tonight to get the mail; tomorrow after work I’ll make groceries, I think.

I’ve selected Angel Luis Colón’s Infested as my next read; it’s a middle grade or y/a, methinks, from the MTV Fear imprint of MTV Entertainment Books. I enjoy Angel’s work; I think we met in either Toronto or St. Petersburg? I could be wrong. But I know I read some of this short stories from his collection Meat City on Fire, and I always have meant to go back and read more. I am hoping to get through it this week, spending the weekend rereading The Dead Zone, and then moving on to Adam Cesare’s Clown in a Cornfield. I’d like to get to Elizabeth Hand’s Curious Toys after that, if there’s still time; I may let it spill over into November. I really enjoyed her A Haunting on the Hill and want to read more of her work, and apparently her backlist is pretty deep, which is cool. I also want to get to Lou Berney’s new one Dark Ride, and then I am definitely going to start working my way through the rest of the TBR pile, which is staggeringly enormous and deep.

I suspect I’ll be doing a lot of reading after my surgery next month, too. At least I hope so, at any rate.

As I was saying the other day, having my routines messed with always throws me off track. This weekend I got a lot of rest, did some reading, and cleaned and organized because of the unknown delivery time of the new refrigerator, but I was also clearing my mind and looking ahead to see what needs to be done, and when. I made a to-do list for the week on Sunday but yesterday not being a normal Monday messed me up, and I keep thinking today is Monday, which it most definitely is not. I want to get back to work on writing things; I know I have a short story to finish by the end of the month for a deadline and I know there are some other places open for submissions that I would like to get something sent in for. Whether that will work or not remains to be seen. LSU plays Army this weekend, and it’s a night game, so I should be able to get home from the wedding in time to catch at least part of the game, and then its two weeks until the next game–at Alabama; as usual, the game that can make or break the season. I have no idea how that will go, but Nick Saban’s Alabama has rarely lost to the same team two years in a row; the exceptions being LSU (2010 and 2011) and Mississippi (2014 and 2015). Obviously, I’d love for the Tigers to win out, take the West again and go to Atlanta to face Georgia–but I’m not sure how distant from reality that hope might be. I guess we will find out that weekend.

We also have a very busy week here ahead of me in the clinic, which can be exhausting.

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

Sexy Eyes

Well, we survived a Friday the 13th in October–terrifying!

It was actually a rather beautiful day in New Orleans, in all honesty. I had a bit of a morning–there’s been some anxiety building inside my head since I got home from work on Wednesday to discover a jury duty summons in the mail. (For the record, I am not one of the majority of Americans who hate doing this little part of their responsibilities as a citizen; I always think, these are probably the same people who bitch constantly about our flawed criminal justice system–which is not incorrect–but you don’t get to complain about juries and the system when you resent serving on juries or try to get out of doing it. The system is only as good as the jurors selected, after all. Anyway, I digress. I got the summons on Wednesday afternoon, and I was supposed to report this morning. Obviously, it was delayed or went out late or something, but the last thing I need to do is deal with jury duty between now and my surgery; all those tests and appointments and so forth that i have to do before the surgery, etc. etc. I decided to fill out the form on-line and ask for a deferment; alas, it wasn’t until I finished registering that I found out if I wanted to be excused, I needed to go to the courthouse and ask in person as well as provide a note from my doctor. Wow, I thought, kind of like being back in high school. I had an MRI scheduled Friday morning, so I figured I’d ask them then. Well, my surgeon wasn’t in the office and no one else wanted to do it, suggesting I check with my primary care. As my primary care office is near the courthouse and I had to pick up a prescription there anyway, I went by. Primary care wans’t in, and was advised to try my surgeon. Jesus fucking Christ, apparently I woke up in a Kafka novel. So, I decided to go to the courthouse and see what happened….and they literally told me to have my doctor email it to the court clerk, gave me a card with her name and email address, and sent me home.

Who knew the Orleans Parish Courthouse would be the easiest, “no big deal” part of this? Certainly not one Gregalicious, that’s for sure.

I came home and did my work-at-home chores, as well as my laundry chores, and then Tug settled in for a nap in my lap while I finished reading the Riley Sager (which I enjoyed; more on that later) and started Elizabeth Hand’s A Haunting on the Hill and am quite liking it as well. Paul and I watched a horror film from 2007 called Trick r Treat, which was kind of clever yet neither of us had heard of it before. That was in honor of both Friday the 13th and it being spooky season and all. I do love fall in New Orleans. It was lovely running around this morning doing all that stuff with lovely sunny but cool weather; the kind where you can wear sleeves and jeans outside comfortably.

The refrigerator is being delivered today, so I have to make room for the delivery guys and hope that they come earlier rather than later. I have no control over this whatsoever, so I am just going to roll with it and see where things wind up. While I wait for the refrigerator I am going to try to get this done as well as some other things; trying not to get anxious or worry about things that cannot be controlled. They have my cell phone number, after all, and if I keep it with me…it’s really irrational to get anxious about things like this, isn’t it? Just like it was irrational to get so worked up and tense over the jury duty thing this morning. It’s just wasted energy and it just leaves me tired, and I really don’t need anything else in my life to make me tired; I can do that quite well and need no further assistance with that, thank you very much. UPDATE: it is out for delivery and expected between 3:30 and 7:30, which means most likely groceries will have to wait until tomorrow and I can actually spend the morning cleaning up down here and making it not quite the disaster area it currently appears to be. A quick glance at Twitter shows that Tulane won at Memphis last night, and apparently Colorado blew a big lead and lost to Stanford.

I slept really well last night–and woke up at five, like always. I fell back asleep until Tug (Paul has started calling him Sparky because he gets the zoomies–but the next time he does I’m getting the laser light out–nothing like the red dot to wear your kitten out of his BIg Kitten Energy.) wanted his breakfast at six–can’t blame him, and I’m kind of awake already anyway. I stayed in bed until about seven before rising, thinking that was a lot m rore rational than trying to stay in bed–especially since I knew the delivery window was between eight and eight; hope springs eternal that it was going to be a morning delivery. DENIED. Tug now is completely at home and curious about everything; there are bottle caps everywhere from him chasing them around, and of course I always have to be careful with what I leave on surfaces. It’s also election day here in Louisiana, and I must go vote so I can vote against our evil attorney general’s bid for governor, which would be a disaster so great people would start remembering Bobby Jindal’s disgraceful tenure in Baton Rouge with nostalgia.

The salt intrusion has been slowed significantly–the last I heard the salt water wouldn’t be here until around Thanksgiving–a month later than projected, and there was a chance it would dissipate before then, too. I should probably pay more attention, but I have a flat of water and a two-gallon jug (which I will save for hurricane season in the attic, if the salt doesn’t get up here after all, and I should always be prepared for hurricane season anyway), but probably won’t have to buy any more of that.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. There’s a lot I can get done this morning, and I intend to do it before curling up with my book with whatever game is on at eleven in the background. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader; I’ll probably be back later.

Stomp

And here we are at work-at-home Friday again today. I have an MRI scheduled at Tulane Institute of Sports Medicine this morning, but other than that I will be here at home, getting prepared for the refrigerator to arrive and doing other chores around my work-at-home duties. It was an exhausting week, both for me personally and for the world politically. I generally don’t comment on world events, primarily because I am at best a distant observer who depends on news reports and because I don’t feel informed enough to have an opinion. I do know that I abhor brutality and think all death is unnecessary, especially in the name of politics, religion, and racism. The situation in the Middle East–volatile for my entire life–is one without answer, I fear. I also remember how foolishly we all were for thinking the Camp David Accords would bring peace to the region. The only peace it brought was between Israel and Egypt–and that has lasted. I don’t have any answers, and I feel making comments that are uninformed without solutions does not add to the discourse nor move anything forward in a positive manner, so I just keep my mouth shut and hope for an end to the death and slaughter and trauma.

Yesterday was an exhausting day overall. Everything at the office was some kind of haywire in an almost “Mercury must be in retrograde” kind of way, and most of it went on while I was the only person there–which was kind of unsettling. It was also Mom’s birthday so my subconscious was already raw and on edge. But I worked through it, there wasn’t a body count, and I stopped to get the mail on my way home–where I picked up the Box O’Books for Death Drop (yay!) and my Ben Pierce Photography calendar “Beneath the Waters: Images of the Atchafalaya Basin Drawdown”. Ben Pierce is an extraordinary photographer of the natural beauty of Louisiana. I follow him on Facebook and often share his work because it’s so breathtakingly beautiful and evocative; and doesn’t Atchafalaya Basin Drawdown sound like a Scotty title? I’ve been meaning to look into what precisely that means and why they are draining the basin since he started sharing images from it earlier this year; I should perhaps put that on the to-do list? While I was waiting for Paul and playing with Tug (trying to wear him out, in all honesty; he was wired like a circuit party queen last night), who met the laser light/magical red dot for the first time last night. He soon figured out where it was coming from, but still chased it none the less, and eventually when I set it down it also became a toy so there’s no telling where it is this morning. I watched another episode of Moonlighting last night which didn’t seem to hold up as well as previous ones–too much speculation about Maddie’s sex life, which was completely untoward and bothered me–and I also got caught up on Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, which I’ve never really watched very much but started this season at the urging of friends. I’ve yet to watch the reboot of New York, either. I think there’s a blog entry I need to write about reality television shows like these, which I had already started after the completion of the most recent season of Beverly Hills. The out-of-touch narcissism of the SLC women still seems fun and funny to me, while the other franchises have kind of gone off the rails with repugnant behavior (looking at you, Lisa Rinna)–but I’ll save that for the blog post about reality television; which is why I don’t really talk about these shows much on here.

I also read some more of Riley Sager’s Final Girls, which I am enjoying–even if it doesn’t seem like it. One of the casualties of the pandemic was my ability to read quickly; I don’t know what happened, but it’s entirely due to my attention span and not the quality of the books I’m reading; look at how long it took me to read Shawn’s book, which was fucking brilliant. It’s going with me to Tulane this morning so I can read more of it, and then I am coming home to work for the rest of the afternoon. I slept really well again last night. I woke up at six (I do that every morning now, regardless) but the alarm was set for seven so I stayed in bed for another hour, which felt marvelous, really. I feel very rested and centered this morning–which is lovely after the chaotic yesterday I had–and am looking forward to the weekend. I have my to-do list, which is necessary; the refrigerator is being delivered tomorrow, so there’s no point in making groceries until after it arrives (so probably Sunday morning, most like); and of course there’s always, always, always housework to do. Boxes started accumulating again in the living room in front of where the bead chest sits (and the floor’s not terribly stable), so those have to go, and I can do some cleaning before the refrigerator is delivered (we currently have an 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. window, which I assume will change tomorrow morning). The LSU game isn’t until Saturday night, and I am not certain there are any other games of interest this weekend…which doesn’t mean I won’t have a game on all day from eleven a.m. on, of course; I most likely will. (Of course, I just looked, and yes, several games of interest–Notre Dame-USC, Alabama-Arkansas, Texas A&M-Tennessee, and of course Auburn-LSU.)

And on that note, sorry to be so brief but I think I am needing to get headed into the spice mines this morning. I may be back later, I don’t know; but stranger things have indeed happened, so one can never rule anything out. If not, for sure tomorrow morning. Have a terrific Friday, Constant Reader!