Hanky Panky

I honestly believe that a lot of our problems in this country are a direct result of an attempt to enforce some national prudery standard that relentlessly tries to shame any and every one of us for the perfectly natural and normal human functions of our body. We are seeing this again in this modern age, as the Morality Police (who are all-too-frequently hiding some horrific skeletons in their own closets) try to get books banned, discussions about sex and sexuality and gender stifled and silenced, and entire segments of the population erased from public view and hidden away again because it makes them, well, uncomfortable.

Well, semi-automatic weapons, religion, and bigotry make me uncomfortable, but that doesn’t matter, apparently, as I am (to borrow a phrase from John Irving and The World According to Garp) a “sexual suspect.”

Ironically, I distinctly remember what television was like back when it was heavily censored and what was considered wholesome family entertainment was aired. It didn’t mean sex wasn’t talked about, it just meant that it had to be implication rather than outright said–which led to incredibly stupid phrases to stand in for sexual contact, or sexual intercourse, that were completely transparent and frankly, kind of stupid. That was the kind of television I grew up with, where everything was plastic and phony and created a false sense of what the country was really like (where, for example, are Mayberry’s Black people?), and some people watch those old shows and think, oh, what a better and simpler time we lived in then! We must get back to that world of innocence!

Which, of course, is complete and utter horseshit. Television of the 50s and 60s most certainly were not reflections of culture and society as a whole, no matter how much someone might want that to be the truth…it was not.

When I was a child, I hated the stupid, coy euphemisms screenwriters employed to mention sexual activity and escape the censors; “hanky-panky” is perhaps one of the worst. “Making love” is another one that puts my teeth on edge; “making whoopie” still another, and perhaps the worst offenderof all was ‘vo-dee-oh-doe’ from LaVerne & Shirley. Even when I was a kid that kind of “nudge-nudge wink-wink” kind of thing annoyed me; I can remember thinking, many times, “just say fuck, for Christ’s sake.” “Making love” is one that was really popular on soaps, and it’s always said tearfully; it also made me want to slap the speaker (and of course the movie Let’s Make Love really should be Let’s Fuck). The fact that we don’t have a common, easy to use word to substitute for fucking that delicate sensibilities won’t consider profane is part of the problem in this country, frankly. Oh, no! Sex is dirty, we can’t talk about that! We can’t come up with a non-offensive word for it because just thinking about sex upsets some people. God forbid we actually have a realistic, honest conversation about sex and sexuality. I hate to break it to you prudes, but sex is normal and healthy. The fact that our culture has tried so desperately to appease the prudes by turning sex and sexuality into something we’re just not supposed to talk about has put braces on our brains, and anchored fear and loathing to our sexuality; if our mightiest God in this country is Money, the second mightiest is SHAME. Having your body react to stimulation by getting aroused? SHAME ON YOU.

When I was growing up–and granted, things have gotten a little better since then–even masturbation was considered something shameful that no one would ever admit to; nothing like learning repression when you’re going through puberty. It was an insult to call someone a jack off; you mocked boys by talking about them jacking off…which was something I did pretty regularly, so even more SHAME. And when you take into consideration the fact that even as young and sheltered as I was, that I knew my sexuality–my physical and intellectual and emotional attraction to other men–was wrong and something else to be ashamed of; not only was I masturbating but I was thinking about men while I was doing it: DOUBLE WHAMMY.

It took me years to shake off that prudish conditioning, and it wasn’t until I stopped feeling shame about sex and my sexuality that I finally started to actually live my life, rather than having a life that just happened to me. Fear and shame had made me passive; afraid that being myself and living the kind of life I wanted to would cost me friends, family and employment; afraid that embracing having sex with other men (and exploring every element of what that meant) would lead to an infection that could kill me; afraid afraid afraid.

I often say that I refuse to live in fear, but that I am also sensible; I always am acutely aware of my surroundings and everyone around me–while that may have developed from being gay and knowing that made me a target, I think it’s prudent and smart to always be aware, regardless of who and what and where you are.

Given my prudish upbringing and conditioning, as well as the shame and fear I lived with for so long, it is kind of interesting that I started write erotica in my late thirties. Writing erotica for me was an education in many different ways. I learned a lot about myself while writing it, for one thing; for another, I taught myself how to write short stories by writing erotica (beginning, middle, end is never as apparent or obvious as in an erotic short story), and I was also able to work through a lot of my own issues with shame by writing erotica. The first erotica story I ever wrote, “The Wrestling Match,” was a liberating experience for me; I found myself blushing with embarrassment as I wrote it, which was an interesting (to me) phenomenon. Why was I so embarrassed to write about desire, lust, and sex?

Because years of conditioning to associate shame with desire and sexuality had taken firm root in my mind. It was an interesting experience–and the next time I wrote an erotic story, tit was an entirely different situation; there was no shame or embarrassment. Apparently, all it took was writing that first story to work through it…it was also interesting, because around that same time I was trying to get caught up with all the queer fiction and nonfiction I hadn’t known existed for such an extended period of time, and reading has always been how I learned about anything. I was reading Dorothy Allison’s essay collection Trash (which should be required reading, really), and Dorothy’s point that if we spoke honestly and openly about sex and sexuality (and other aspects of human life that for whatever reason we’ve been conditioned to think we can’t talk about) a lot of the stigma and shame most people feel would be eliminated. As long as your fantasies don’t involve hurting anyone or children–if everyone involved is able to give informed and full consent–there’s nothing to be ashamed of, really. But we’ve been conditioned in western civilization since Catholicism conquered the Roman Empire to consider anything of the body to be sinful and shameful; things of the mind and spirit are what we are supposed to focus on while denying the earthy sinfulness of our sexual desire. (This also goes for other bodily functions, like waste and gas) This is particularly true when it comes to kink. We’ve been conditioned in this country to think anything besides missionary position between a man and a woman is something so beyond that it must be shamed, and reacted to with revulsion. Why? As long as no one is being hurt and everyone is on board, I don’t care if you like being spanked, or lashed with cat o’nine tails; or if you like to wear leather and get a thrill from it. My own kinks primarily are focused around the domination/submission play of wrestling; I’ve written about that extensively enough to not feel the need to go into it again here (but check out my erotic pro wrestling novel, Going Down for the Count, available at any bookseller on-line!).

We don’t have honest conversations about sexuality and desire in this country. Writing an erotic short story was incredibly freeing for me; it broke the bonds of shame that indoctrination had built up in my brain. It may not be the case for everyone else, but it’s always interesting to me that people never question themselves when it comes to their own prudery, lusts and desires. (The way they depict it on the hilarious animated comedy series about puberty, Big Mouth, is particularly genius: the Shame Monster.) If you feel shame about your sexuality and your desires, shouldn’t you examine that? Where did it come from? Why do you feel this shame, and what is its root cause?

I do spend a lot of time gazing at my own navel and trying to figure out where all of my phobias and fears and so forth come from, so it’s always interesting to me when people don’t and seem to have no interest in self-examination. Maybe it’s just another form of my own narcissism and self-absorption; that could easily be the case. I sometimes wonder if the reason others don’t reflect on themselves and self-evaluate is because they are somehow more comfortable in their own skins than I am in mine. It’s certainly possible.

But the only way we can stop a lot of the bigotry and hatred in this country is to start being open and honest about sex, sexuality, and desire. To stop shaming people for being interested in sex, and exploring their fantasies and desires. Almost all of our prejudices are rooted in this fear of sex and sexuality; white supremacy is, in some ways, about protecting the “purity” of their blood and “womanhood” from the sexual predation of non-whites. (That was really what the trial in To Kill a Mockingbird was about; but interestingly enough Harper Lee, in illustrating Southern white bigotry through a rape trial, was also unintentionally sending a very strong message to her readers about class structures in the South; but that’s a subject for another time. White people really love that book….)

Banning books and discussion of sexuality and gender doesn’t make those things go away; instead, it just makes them even more enticing as forbidden, things that are dirty and we aren’t supposed to talk about.

Then again, if we are going to talk about these things, people also need to listen–and the ones who need it most? Never are the ones listening in the first place.

Deeper and Deeper

Tuesday morning. I slept decently last night, which was lovely, but I did want to stay in bed rather than spring forth from under the covers wide awake and ready to face the day. I mean, I’m not worried about facing the day, but man, I’d rather be back in bed under the covers.

I did make some progress on the book yesterday; every drib and drab helps get me closer to the goal line, so I am taking that as a win-win-win for now. I wasn’t terribly tired when I got home from the office yesterday, either. We started watching The Watchful Eye last night, which is interesting and is obviously from the Only Murders in the Building school of thrillers. There’s all kinds of stuff going on in this building, mostly concerning the family who originally built the building and members of which still live there–and spy on each other and manipulate each other and yeah, it most definitely held our interest until it was time to go to bed. It’s not the greatest thing I’ve ever seen, and it does somewhat come across as a bit derivative (exclusive apartment building in Manhattan filled with rich people! Crime! Money!) but it’s entertaining enough. There seem to be several different storylines running, and trying to keep track of them before they are introduced is a bit of a challenge; apparently our main character, the new nanny, has lied and faked her resume to get the job because for some reason she needs to be in the building. She is working with her boyfriend, who also happens to be a cop, but we don’t find out what that’s about until the second episode. There also appear to be ghosts (or at least one) in the building, too–so it’s maybe kind of a cross between Only Murders in the Building and maybe Rosemary’s Baby?

Overall, yesterday was a good day, I think. I am hoping for a good week, after a bad weekend. I was a little mopey last night, not gonna lie about it, but not as bad as I was over the weekend. I also didn’t get much progress on the book done yesterday either, but what I did was good–it’s interesting how uninspired I can feel and yet still do really good work; I was thinking about this last night actually–how I have really not felt particularly inspired and how the writing itself has felt like drudgery now for going on several years, and yet I am still producing what is probably the best work of my life in this stage of it. How peculiar is that? My last four books (Royal Street Reveillon, Bury Me in Shadows, #shedeservedit, and A Streetcar Named Murder) are works that I am particularly proud of; I am sure at some point when this fucking Scotty I am currently fighting my way through is finished I’ll probably wind up proud of it too–although at the moment that is impossible to imagine or conceive. Some of the short stories I’ve done during this period are also ones of which I am inordinately proud–I am really looking forward to “Solace in a Dying Hour” seeing the light of day in the anthology This Fresh Hell. Go figure, right? I am doing my best work when I am not enjoying doing it? That sounds about like the story of my life, to be sure.

I went down an Internet wormhole over the past few days involving one of my favorite characters from history, Catherine de Medici Queen of France. I’ve always been interested in her and that particular period of French history: the dying out of the Valois branch of the ruling dynasty and the Wars of Religion that sundered France, and especially have always been interested in her Flying Squadron (l’Escadron volant); beautiful women she had trained in the art of conversation and seduction whose primary function was to bed the Queen’s enemies and spy on them, reporting back to her. I’ve always thought it would be interesting to write from the perspective of one of those women–intrigue! Suspense! Danger! Who is a Spanish spy, and who is an English spy? Who is a Huguenot and who is working for the Pope? The French court was rife with intrigue and conspiracy in that period, which would be so much fun to write about.

I still would like to write that popular history of the sixteenth century focusing on all the women who held power in that century, which I would be more than willing to go out on a limb and say was more commonplace in that century than in any other, before or since. (What can I say? When I am down and in the dumps, as I have been these past few days, Internet wormholes about periods of history that fascinate me draw me like honey draws bees) I’ve even been thinking about the introduction to it lately; it’s been in my mind. The more rabbit holes about the sixteenth century I go down the more it interests me, you know?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I hope you have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will check back in with you again tomorrow.

This Used To Be My Playground

Monday morning of Malice week. Ugh, all the little things one has to do to get ready for traveling. Make a list of what to pack, take inventory of the kitchen to make sure Paul has what he needs while I’m gone, and so on and so forth. Heavy heaving sigh. But my flight Thursday isn’t super early; eleven-ish, if I recall correctly, which means I don’t have to be at the airport until around nine, which isn’t bad. I’m going to take some books with me to read for pleasure at the airports and while in flight; I will be editing when I can in my room periodically trying to get this revision finished by the end of the month. The weekend wasn’t nearly as productive as it could have been–there was another wave of depression and grief to be gotten through this weekend, unfortunately–but I did make some progress, which I am taking as a win. I did also make a to-do list for the week; that should help in some ways.

We watched A Knock at the Cabin last night, which I enjoyed; a lot more than I usually enjoy an M. Night Shyamalan movie. I had also enjoyed the book on which it was based, The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay, who is one of our best horror writers today; I’ve enjoyed everything of his I’ve read thus far. The film follows the book very closely; it’s one of those claustrophobic horror stories where some city folk take a vacation in the country at a remote cabin–but remote and country are very much staples of horror; someone really should do a look at the trope of “city folk in the country” horror–and things of course go very south. The film is very well cast; Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge play Eric and Andrew, a gay couple who’ve adopted a young Asian girl they’ve named Wen and they make an adorable little family group. The location of the cabin is idyllic and tranquil and beautiful; the perfect spot for some city folk who want to get away from the every day and rest and relax. Wen collects grasshoppers in a jar because she wants to study them; the movie opens with her catching grasshoppers and then catching a glimpse of a very big man coming through the woods to talk to her. This is Leonard, played very well by Dave Bautista, who is the leader of a group of four people who have seen visions and have concluded that in order to stop the apocalyptic end of the world, they must come to this cabin and present the family with a horrible choice: they have to sacrifice one of their own in order to stop the end of the world. Are they crazy? They sound like it, as they try to reason with the family…but what if they aren’t? The movie’s ending is different than the book’s–there was no way they could film the book’s ending, really–but I do prefer the book’s ending than the film’s; it seemed like the inevitable outcome, and made the most sense. It’s a good movie, I do recommend it, but one thing I’ve always been curious about since reading the book and was only heightened by viewing the film: why a gay family? I gave Tremblay props when I read the book, because they were very real and didn’t seem forced or stereotypical at all; I thought it should stand as an excellent example of someone who is not gay writing gay characters. The politics of the representation–gays in peril–is one I am not going to give any time to; sure, the gay family was in danger almost from the minute the credits rolled, and it was nice having a gay couple to root for in a horror film. Horror by its very nature is disturbing and tragic; you cannot have gay representation in horror and then not expect the gay people to go through some things, you know? And having gay characters also adds another dimension to the home invasion situation–are they crazy, are they telling the truth, or did they target a gay family purposely? There’s an essay to be written about the book and the movie from a sociopolitical and sociocultural perspective, but I don’t know that I am the right person to write such a thing; I’m not an academic, after all, and have very little desire to ever be an academic.,.although that sometimes can explain my insecurities about thinking deep and heavy thoughts and wanting to write deep and heavy essays picking apart and deconstructing gay representation in modern fiction, with an emphasis on horror and crime.

I also read some academic treatises this weekend, one about being gay and the gay rights movement’s intersectionality and how it got away from that in the beginning only to circle back around to it in the present day, and the other about the television show Dark Shadows, which probably had more influence on me, my writing, and my preferences when it comes to reading, film, and television than anything else I’ve watched or read in my life. I know I used to watch classic black and white films with my grandmother (she was a big fan of the gay icons, ironically: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, and Katharine Hepburn; she also liked horror and noir, and she was a fan of Dark Shadows, as was our babysitter down the street, Mrs. Harris), so pretty much my course was set when I was a little boy–gay writer was my future. I should write more about Dark Shadows–I was actually thinking last night that I should write a memoir of being a writer; my influences and how they shaped my creativity and what I actually write–not that anyone would be interested in reading such a thing, of course; which is partly why I don’t write more personal essays. Just as I’ve never really been interested in writing a writing manual, or one of those Greg Herren teaches you how to write a novel things. I always feel like a fraud when I talk about writing; never does my Imposter Syndrome strike as hard as it does when I am talking about writing or teaching a workshop. I don’t know.

It’s back into the office with me today. It’s a light day for me; mostly busy work, like data entry, filing, resupplying testing rooms, that sort of thing. It’s always nice to ease back into the week with an easy day in the office. It’s also weird to know that I am leaving on Thursday morning; the trip doesn’t seem real to me yet even though I’ve already made plans to meet up with people while I am there. Looks like I’m going to have to take a Lyft or an Uber from the airport once there, which is fine. And then of course when I get home I have to make up for lost time with the manuscript. Heavy heaving sigh. It wasn’t a good weekend for working, really; I kept spiraling and had to finally, on both days, remind myself that my mental health was more important than a deadline and so focused on positivity and and worked when I was able to get things done. The house isn’t nearly in the kind of shape I would like for it to be in when I am leaving for a weekend (two in a row; the next weekend I am off to Alabama) but seriously–when is it ever? I just need to make sure everything is in order before I go away on Thursday morning. Heavy heaving sigh.

And my books that I’ll be taking to read with me are going to be That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street, Wined and Died in La,, Let Me Die in His Footsteps, and Monday’s Lie. I am not going to get through all of these, of course; I may even cut it down to two–like I won’t be buying books in the book room, please–and I will also be working on the revision while I am there, too. (I so wanted to be finished before I leave…)

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up and head into the office. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Rescue Me

Sunday morning and it looks to be a lovely day out there today. Yesterday, while I ran my errands, I was regularly amazed at how nice of a day it was, and how I wished I could take full advantage of it. It would have been a wonderful day to take a walk. Instead I was inside doing stuff and trying to get everything under control; the apartment mess, the book, and so forth. I have a long day in the spice mines ahead of me today, too. I also cannot believe that I’ll be at Malice this week; leaving on Thursday morning. I’ll need to make a packing list, of course, and I am looking forward to all the lovely plans I have for that weekend. I know I’m having dinner with some friends on different evenings, and brunch with another friend on Saturday after my signing, and of course Saturday night is the banquet.

I slept pretty well last night, and was already awake when the caterwauling began this morning. I stayed in bed for a little while longer after getting His Majesty’s breakfast for him, but finally decided to stop avoiding getting up and getting back to work. SO here I now sit, with a cup of steaming coffee in front of me, trying to decide what to have for breakfast. Toast? Cereal? A sausage, egg and cheese croissant out of the freezer? Or nothing at all, which is also always an option. I’ve also got some mess here in the office area I need to take care of this morning as well before I can really and truly dig into the manuscript.

We finished the second season of P-Valley last night, and got caught up on Yellowjackets, too. This means tonight we don’t have anything to watch–I am going to suggest we watch A Knock at the Cabin, and maybe the latest Scream is streaming already? I don’t know. I enjoyed P-Valley; I always kind of like shows about marginalized people doing what they need to in order to survive, as well as getting the occasional shot at higher stakes than usual. The next season is already set up so we’ll be watching out for that in the near future, but what I really want to see is the second season of Reacher. I did go up into the storage attic yesterday and found a box that can go directly to the library sale; alas, then I remembered I won’t be in town for the next two Saturdays so there was no point to bringing the box down. I also made the decision yesterday that I am most likely going to just go ahead and destroy my papers. I’m tired of having them around, frankly, taking up space and collecting dust, and no one is ever going to want to look through all that crap anyway. It’s all disorganized and scattered and in no particular order; who is going to ever have the time or inclination to go through all of that shit? And almost everything I have on paper is available electronically. There may be some things, some older manuscripts, that I no longer have electronic versions of anymore because the programs have aged out; old Word files and old operating systems no longer open with current systems anyway. But if I can clean out all that paper, and donate all those books in the attic, I can store other stuff up there and alleviate the clutter in the apartment itself. That is the plan for the rest of the year; and hopefully by December I’ll be able to close out the storage unit.

There’s a lot of files in my filing cabinet I can dispose of, too; I don’t need all my tax records going back to 2007, for sure (I saw them in there yesterday when filing away this year’s return) and do I really need contracts for short stories going back to 2000? Probably not. Anything where the rights have reverted back to me can certainly be tossed, and old file folders for ideas that may never go anywhere at this point might as well be discarded as well. I just really felt, yesterday, very strongly, for the first time utter and total disgust with all of this clutter and stuff. I’m thinking about it because of course my sister and nieces are helping my dad go through Mom’s stuff and things, and she was a bit of a packrat who didn’t like to throw things away as long as there was still a use for them–clothes and so forth, as well as papers; they found the receipt for the first washer and dryer she ever bought, back when we moved to the suburbs in 1971 and how pleased and delighted she was to no longer have to drag everything to a laundromat (kind of how I was when I got my first ones in 2005–there was something adult like about buying appliances, you know?) and realizing I don’t want anything to have to sort through all of this shit when I die; may as well make it as easy as possible for the survivors, whoever they may be.

Grim to be thinking in those terms, but once sixty is in your rearview mirror, you need to start thinking that way. How much mess is someone going to have to deal with when cleaning out my home? I’ve always been singularly unprepared for almost every life-changing thing that has happened to me; maybe I should actually prepare for this one. No worries, everything is still working the way it’s supposed to and while my working parts may not work as well as they used to, but overall I am still relatively healthy. And I am looking forward to getting back into the swing of regular trips to the gym next month as well.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I’m going to finish this, drink some more coffee, finish all this filing, and get cleaned up so I can dive headfirst into this revision. You have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.

Justify My Love

It’s a bright and sunny morning in the Lost Apartment today and I feel rested. I slept deeply and well, only waking once to deal with a hungry caterwauling animal before going back to bed for some more sleep. It’s funny how eight can feel like sinfully slothful sleeping in when your body has gotten sort of used to being untimely ripped from the clutches of Morpheus at six.

Yesterday wasn’t a good day, which caught me by surprise but I rolled with it. Grief can sucker-punch you when you aren’t expecting it, and last night was one of those nights. Days, really; the sucker-punch came while I was working but managed to hold off on the emotional crash until I finished my day job duties. I managed to get the laundry and dishes done, but not much of anything else the rest of the day once my day went off the rails. We did finally watch this week’s Ted Lasso last night together, and it was even better the second time; I think that’s what had been missing the previous episodes–that sense of, to be corny and play into the episode some, “everything’s going be all right.” The Jamie-Roy scenes were particularly lovely, and I’m hoping that Rebecca’s encounter with the boat man has made her regain some of that sense of self she really needs to get back. And of course, the Trent-Colin scenes were particularly lovely. We then watched the season finale of The Mandalorian, which was the best episode of the season, and then started our way through P-Valley again before retiring for a good night’s rest. This morning I feel good and balanced; I am going to have to run errands today, which will make today’s working on the book interrupted and a bit messed up. I am way behind on this, and really can’t allow myself to get sidetracked and/or distracted at all, because I have other things I need to be working on that I am not working on and that cannot be allowed to continue. The ability to juggle and keep many plates spinning at the same time has kind of slipped these days; I don’t know if it’s a skill set I’ve lost for good or if it’s a temporary thing; I hope it’s a temporary thing, quite frankly.

If it is, I’m going to have to rethink a lot of things about how I get shit done. Yikes. Adaptability is always important…even if I am fucking sick and tired of having to adapt all the time. Heavy heaving sigh.

I still haven’t selected my next book to read. The choices are Ellen Byron’s Wined and Died in LA; Lori Roy’s Let Me Die in His Footsteps; Jamie Mason’s Monday’s Lie; and Chris Clarkson’s That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street. I am leaning toward the Clarkson simply because it’s not a crime novel, and I feel like I need to take a little break from crime fiction for awhile. That Summer Night is a young adult romance novel, and it’s probably the only one I know of set in New Orleans (I know that can’t be right, but right now on my second cup of coffee I simply can’t think of another one–I know there was a really bad one about a ghost from Lafayette Cemetery #1 that i read about a decade ago whose name I cannot recall, and it did make me think writing y/a set in New Orleans was probably not the best idea, even though I had an idea for one or two because of course I always do), and I really liked Chris when we were on the panel together at Saints and Sinners…plus it’s a New Orleans book. I am really making an effort to get through the TBR pile before adding more to it–although I will always be adding more to it–and I think 2023 is a good year to do that. Now if I can only stay motivated….

It’s weird to think that I’ll be leaving town on Thursday, too. I definitely need to make a to-do list and start working my way through it. At this time next Saturday I’ll be signing in the book room at Malice Domestic, dealing with exhaustion, and trying to find some downtime to get work on the book done. I am flying home on Sunday, so I also took Monday off so I can recalibrate and get caught up on things like groceries and so forth. It’s almost May, Christ. I need to get this fucking book revised and out of my hair so I can move on to writing something the fuck else.

I also saw this morning that Alex Segura won the LA Times Book Award for Best Mystery/Thriller for Secret Identity, an award which I whole-heartedly endorse. It was one of my favorite books of last year, and Alex also happens to be one of my favorite people in this business. Yay! I love when this sort of thing happens to wonderful people who write wonderful books. Yay!

And on that, I should probably head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later. If not, tomorrow.

Like a Prayer

For me, one of the great joys and pleasures of being an author and being part of the business is getting to meet and discover new-to-me talents. I am very quirky when it comes to reading; I do things like always leave one book by an author unread so I know I still have one more book of theirs to read–there are a couple of authors I am caught up on completely and waiting for another title is agony (looking at you, Laura Lippman and Megan Abbott and John Copenhaver).

I had heard of Scorched Grace before this past Saints and Sinners; Paul had asked me if I knew the author and explained everything about her and her debut novel several months before the event. I was of course completely fascinated; how can you not be fascinated by “her main character is a chain-smoking tattooed lesbian former punk rocker who is now a nun”? I immediately ordered a copy–isn’t that cover amazing?–and then at Saints and Sinners, I heard Margot read from it, and then attended a panel she was on and was terribly impressed. I decided it absolutely had to be my next read. It took me a lot longer to read than it should have–particularly since I was enjoying it so much–which has more to do with other obligations and pure exhaustion so shouldn’t be used as a gauge of the book’s quality.

Because this book deserves your full attention.

The devil isn’t in the details. Evil thrives in blind spots. In absence, negative space, like the haze of a sleight-of-hand trick. The details are God’s work. My job is keeping those details in order.

It took me four and a half hours to do the laundry and clean the stained glass, and my whole body felt wrecked. Every tendon strained. Even swallowing hurt. So, when my Sisters glided into the staff lounge for the meeting, folders and papers pressed against their black tunics, I slipped into the alley for some divine reflection–a smoke break. It was Sunday, dusk.

Vice on the sabbath, I know. Not my finest moment. But carpe diem.

An hour to myself was all I needed. An aura of menace taunted me all day. The air was thick and gritty, like it wanted to bare-knuckle fight. Sticky heat, typical in New Orleans, but worse that day. The sun, the swollen red of a mosquito bite. Slow simmer belying the violence of the boil. I couldn’t sit through another reprimand.

Sister Holiday is easily one of the most compelling, and interesting, main characters to come along in crime fiction in quite some time. And while there is a good and involving mystery at the core of this novel–who is setting the fires at the convent school? Who killed the maintenance worker? Was the fire set to cover up the murder or are they part and parcel of the same thing?–the absolute strength and power of this book comes from the narrative voice of this peculiar, not your average not-taken-her-vows-yet nun. She’s fascinating, and the voice is so strong and powerful: cynical yet innocent, bitter yet hopeful, Christian yet not. Her back story, which we learn through her progression of following clues and interviewing suspects and trying to put all the shifty pieces together, is enough in and of itself to keep the reader involved and turning the page.

And the language! My word, the power of Douahy’s language choices, sentence and paragraph structure! Here are some examples I marked:

Revenge is a stupid way to feel in control. Like all drugs, it doesn’t last, but it sure is fun in the moment. (p. 75)

Most boys couldn’t be trusted. Testosterone poisoning, Moose was fond of saying about guys and their bluster. I imagined the cartoon poison flowing through boy veins whenever my brother said that. (p. 79)

There is a sublime wholeness in holding one another, fitting into other bodies. We eat the body of Christ. We drink the blood. So many years later, Nina’s taste still laced my mouth–champagne, sweat, graphite licked off a thumb. (p.106)

New Orleans was ornate in every way, especially in its punishment. Like wispy fiberglass, the city doesn’t feel like it is of this world. (p. 107)

Everything in New Orleans is overdue, overgrown, dripping. The oak trees decked with boas of Spanish moss. Frogs creaked and peeped until the moon set. Morning glory vines strangled pink roofs and wisteria tentacles swayed in the cross breeze. A row of traditional, one-level shotgun homes: bright orange window frames, mint-green wooden shutters, and bright white columns A cat meowed on a nearby porch. (p. 123)

We are all like stained glass, beautiful and complicated and fragile as fuck. We all need care. And some of us don’t get what we deserve. (p. 233)

What a glorious read this was. I look forward to the next in the (planned) trilogy; and will probably revisit this one, too. Get a copy now.

Keep It Together

Friday morning and I slept deeply and well last night (huzzah!). I was very tired last night after I got home from work–very very tired–so I didn’t even try to get anything done. I thought I might sit in the chair so Scooter could sleep in my lap and wouldn’t howl at me for a while, and watched Vanderpump Rules (I really don’t know why; I’ve been meaning to write about the “Scandoval” and the last season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for a long time; just haven’t gotten to it yet) and remembered why I stopped watching a long time ago, then tried Real Housewives Ultimate Girls’ Trip since it was the last episode, but it opened on the continuation of the search for Gizelle’s tequila bottle (talk about made up drama) and I thought, nah, I’m good and switched it off. The point is, I kept dozing off while sitting in the chair and Scooter remained in place; finally around nine-ish Paul wasn’t home yet so I went upstairs to bed–and slept so soundly I didn’t even hear him come home and go to bed. So yes, this morning for the first time this week I feel very rested, which is marvelous. It’s work-at-home Friday, of course, so I have data to enter and things to sort and reports to read and so on and so on and so on, all while trying to get caught up on the housework when I need a break from the computer. There’s dishes to empty from the dishwasher and reload it with; the bed linens need laundering; and I started a load of clothes last night that needs to be finished this morning. Later today I need to run some errands–groceries and the mail, of course–and later, of course, I am terribly behind on the revision of this book. The goal for this weekend is to try to get caught up and try to get as much done as possible. Thursday I am leaving for Malice Domestic–and while I will try to get work done while I am there, it’s highly unlikely. I also need to select books to read for the flight, while aI am there, and the flight home (for me, one of the best parts of traveling is reading on the plane and at the airport; what can I say? I fucking love to read, get over it).

I am glad that I’ve made it to the weekend, although I hate looking ahead like that most of the time because I always remember my mom saying “you’re just wishing your life away,” which is kind of true, and now that I have so little time left (just in general, not a diagnosis; I am just more aware of where I am in the timeline of my life than I used to be) I probably shouldn’t waste time as much as I do. But even that sense–wasting time–is part of the programming about life I got as a child that has also proven to be so terribly incorrect so frequently as an adult. There’s nothing wrong with rest. And that’s really what “wasting time” is; resting and relaxing and turning your brain off for a while to recharge your batteries when they’ve been drained. I do work a lot–between the day job (well into year eighteen now) and the writing and the editing and the volunteering I do on top of all the day-to-day things I have to take care of in my life so that it functions–groceries, dishes, laundry, cooking, etc.–so whenever I am tired, I don’t feel guilty about stepping away from the world and turning my brain off so it can recharge and continue to work properly. We all need down time–and the people who don’t? Well, those are the enormously driven and successful Type-A personalities we all admire and wish we could be more like…but it’s also a lot of work and their drive is almost pathological.

It’s also supposed to rain today and it’s already gray outside. The handyman painted our steps and railing (it’s really amazing what a difference something that small can make), and of course the entire apartment is a disaster area, the way it always is on Friday mornings. My desk is not as bad as it usually is, but I am definitely going to have to do some chores before I start working today. Sigh. I am going to miss my work-at-home Fridays if and when they finally take them away from us.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Sorry to be so dull, but hey, it’s Friday. Have a good one, Constant Reader!

Dear Jessie

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week, with no health fair to drop in for tomorrow morning. I can just sleep late and can relax with no worries about getting to the office. Our schedule is full today, for the first time since pre-pandemic, so it’s going to be a day where I probably won’t have time to breathe much.

Paul worked late last night writing a grant, so I did go ahead and watch this week’s Ted Lasso without him, and yes, I will definitely be happy to watch it again. I usually watch each episode twice anyway, and what a delight this episode was. I know there’s some grumbling out there about this season, and I will admit so far this season hasn’t been quite up to the high standard the first two seasons set–it is still quite excellent–but this week’s episode? Chef’s kiss, perfection, no notes. (If you haven’t already seen it, stop reading right now and skip to the next paragraph.) The sequence where Jamie teaches Roy to ride a bike, set to “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head”? (People who’ve never seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid might miss the reference, but it made me smile.) Absolute perfection. It never ceases to astonish me that Jamie Tartt has become one of my absolute favorite characters on the show; his journey from self-absorbed narcissist to a kind, caring and considerate person has been one of the best character arcs I’ve ever seen done on television. Then add in Trent and Colin’s scenes, where Trent comes out to him and tells him he already knows about Colin? That conversation was filmed in front of the Homomonument in Amsterdam that commemorates the queer people killed in the Holocaust or those who were later prosecuted and persecuted for the crime of being themselves, which made it all the more touching and moving. Colin’s whole thing about two separate lives, wanting to just be himself, being able to kiss his fella after a win like the other guys kiss their girls, and live his life and not be a spokesperson? Oh, darling Colin, that’s really what we all want, and it broke my heart just a little as I realized, once again, that no matter how far we’ve come, we still haven’t made it to home base. It was so heartfelt and real, I got tears in my eyes. And then Higgins and Will at the jazz club; Rebecca and her boat man; and of course the vast silliness of the team trying to decide what to do for their free night in Amsterdam, while Ted shrooms? Absolute perfection, from the very first scene to the last. It warmed my soul and when the closing credits rolled, I felt satisfied and happy. I am really going to miss this show when it comes to an end. Thank you to the writers, because that scene with Trent and Colin easily could have become maudlin and melodramatic; instead, it was honest and real and a little heartbreaking. The writers of the episode deserve an Emmy for that scene alone.

I did get some work done on the book last night. I was tired when I got home–I guess I should be getting used to that by now; getting up early means flagging energy later in the day, which does make sense–but I slogged through some of it, anyway. I feel pretty good and lively this morning, though; but we have a full schedule which means I will be exhausted by the end of the day. Paul’s grant gets turned in today, so he should be home this evening, so I’ll get to revisit this magical episode of Ted Lasso before we dive in and get caught up on both Yellowjackets and The Mandalorian. I also managed to put away the clean dishes from the dishwasher and then reloaded it; so that will need to be unloaded tonight and reloaded again; we’ve gone through a lot of dishes this week for some reason. Go figure. Tomorrow is a work-at-home day, which will be lovely. I keep hoping that someday I’ll get caught up on the housework, but it never seems to happen. I really need to focus on revising the manuscript this weekend, too–it’s horrifying how far behind on it I actually am. I really wanted to be lazy this weekend, but that’s clearly not going to be an option. I need to get up every morning, do some cleaning and organizing, and then open up the manuscript and dive in headfirst. It sometimes feels like I’ve been working on this book for-fucking-ever; and I long for the day when it is finished, once and for all. It’s also supposed to rain tomorrow, which should make for a very cozy at home day.

I guess I still feel a little off-balance, more than anything else. I don’t really feel like I’ve been able to find my center in a very long time, and as such, my life has felt off-kilter for about three or four years now. I remember joking when the pandemic first shut down the world in March 2020 that “LSU had a perfect football season and broke the world,” but in a very real sense, that’s kind of what happened–they weren’t connected, simply sequential–and even that Carnival in 2020 felt wrong somehow; people got killed at the parades by falling under floats; the Hard Rock Hotel construction site had collapsed, closing down several streets around and including Canal; and of course, racism and homophobia have been running rampant during these times. It’s been a very tiring period, frankly, and getting older during it hasn’t helped matters much. So many changes, so many adjustments, so much exhaustion. I do sometimes think I am getting too old for this life. Slings and arrows, slings and arrows, slings and arrows.

However, the irony that the United Kingdom and the United States, the two countries that led the world in the war against fascism in the 1940’s, are currently sliding headfirst into fascism needs to be noted regularly. As I say to Paul all the time when the latest insanity breaking news flashing across our phones and TV screens, “I’m glad I’m old and don’t have any children to worry about.”

Anyway, I am going to bring this to a close now. Not quite as fiery as yesterday’s post, of course–I was in quite the mood when I wrote yesterday’s, but it still stands as truth–but that isn’t going to happen every day anyway. I’m so tired of being outraged and aggravated, you know?

And I do sometimes wonder how different my life would be had I not been born into a homophobic society and culture.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines, Will check in with you again tomorrow, Constant Reader. Have a lovely Thursday!

Vogue

Ladies with an attitude.

Fellas that are in the mood.

Well, we made it to Wednesday. I slept really deeply and well last night–didn’t want to get up this morning out of the warm and comfortable cocoon that is also my bed–but here I am, bleary-eyed and trying to wake up, because we have site visits from funders at the day job today. Huzzah! (Yes, that was sarcasm.) But for now, I am waking up with my coffee and thinking it will be a great day. I was exhausted when I got home last night–to the point where I even considered the possibility that I will just feel tired for the rest of my life–but did get some things done around here and did get some work done on the revision. It was just a drib, but it was the first step on a long journey, and it’s way past time that I took that first step. Now I have to step up my game so I can get the damned thing finished. I’ll have quite a bit to do tonight as well when I get home–dishes, mostly, and of course the damned book–but I am really looking forward to this week’s Ted Lasso. Paul got home too late to watch last night, but I did look at spoilers on Twitter this morning, and the spoilers just made me want to see it all the more.

I may just go ahead and watch it when I get home tonight. I don’t mind rewatching with Paul, and I’ve kind of have already done this a couple of times this season already (shhh, don’t tell.)

I feel good this morning, the best I’ve felt all week. I don’t know how long this is going to last–probably until the caffeine rush wears off around two this afternoon, most likely–but I am hoping this is going to be a good and highly productive day; if not, I hope it’s one filled with joy and laughter. I don’t feel as though we laugh as often and as regularly as we as a society used to, if that makes any sense? I was reading an article about how the 2016 election and the four hellish years that followed actually changed the country–and it’s true. People always want to go back to “normal” when there’s been some kind of seismic paradigm shift (Hurricane Katrina, the pandemic, the 2016 election) but the truth is we can’t ever go back. Things change. People change. Society changes. There was no way in 1946 that the world was going to just back to the way things were before September 1939; likewise, the 2016 election was another one of those massive paradigm shifts. I think a lot of white people lost the blinders they’d been wearing most of their lives about this country and its reality–or at least started to notice what they’d overlooked or been too blind to see before. I’m frequently surprised or startled to find out people I knew and liked are actually terrible people or at least are nice people who have some terrible beliefs and values (there’s a difference; the latter can change, the former not so much); I’ve found myself blocking and cutting people off more since that election. I don’t get upset any more when I find out someone I know has reprehensible beliefs or values; sadly, it’s not really a surprise. I also don’t subscribe to the notion that it’s my job to talk to people I used to care about to try to convince them to change their abhorrent values or beliefs. Life is short, and I’ve already spent enough of my life trying to educate people about queer equality, and I’m tired. Especially when it comes from people who should know better.

Especially.

It’s tough when people think they don’t need to change, or refuse to even take a moment and reflect to see where they might do better. Not being a racist is more than not saying the n-word. Being a queer ally doesn’t mean you support part of the community and can hate the rest. The fundamentalists who are trying to wipe us off the face of the earth–and make no mistake, that is their end game–aren’t worth engaging with because they aren’t coming from a place where they are open to anything other than their goal. To them, we are all the same–gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transfolk, aces and aros and queers and everything else that fits under our rainbow flag; the fundies do not differentiate. We are all the enemy equally and all need to be destroyed. You cannot claim to be an ally while trying to deny the existence of trans people. Period. It’s terribly sad to realize that someone’s ally-ship is actually just a “gay men love me!’ because you like going to gay bars where gay men will share their drugs with you and buy you drinks and fuss over you, and that’s as far as it actually goes, and you’re out there retweeting fundies and haters because they agree with you about transpeople. FUCK YOU, fuck your fake ally-ship, and you’d better not be using me as “your gay friend” which proves you aren’t homophobic. Get thee behind me, Satan, and I am sorry I ever knew you and truly regret being fooled into thinking you were a decent human being, which you clearly are not.

That’s why, I think, I’ve really been enjoying things like Schitt’s Creek and Ted Lasso–shows that make you feel better about people, and seeing that positive growth and change is possible if you’re willing to do the work and think about being a better person. I try all the time to be a better person, and I often fail. I have always been deeply pessimistic about human beings and prone to think and expect the worst; years of retail and working for an airline will do that to you. I will never understand why people find it easier to be cruel and hateful than empathetic and kind; which really should be our default when dealing with other people. I will be the first to admit I don’t always automatically default to that myself–don’t come for me or people I care about–but at least I am trying to do better. Granted, I am going to be sixty-two this year, but I also don’t think you are ever too old to stop growing and changing and evolving as a person. I’ve always feared calcifying; I recognize the comfort of tradition but also do not believe things should continue to be done a certain way “because that’s how we’ve always done it.”

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and we’ll touch base again tomorrow, okay?

Oh Father

Tuesday and somehow we managed to survive yet another dread Monday. I was tired and not feeling well most of the day; I wasn’t completely sure whether I actually was sick or was just so damned tired that I felt sick. In either case, it was a thoroughly miserable day for one Gregalicious. I was very close to calling in sick, but I knew I had things in the office that needed doing today–I was right; we’re having site visits from our primary funders this week–so I am glad I went in, even if I felt like shit for most of the day. I was so tired when I got home yesterday that I retired to my easy chair almost immediately, and I got little done. Which was fine. I slept better last night than I did Sunday night, and feel more rested today, but will without doubt be tired when I get off work again tonight.

We continued with P-Valley, and it did pick up with the second episode of the second season. I think watching in a binge–going from the season one finale to the season two opener–was the problem. The season finale was a non-stop adrenaline rush, with things blowing up and a shoot out and fights and violence and just in general insanity; the season two opener was bound to seem a bit slow and not quite as entertaining, particularly since they had to deal with a pandemic. But it definitely picked up again, and we were quite absorbed in the story. We may be able to finish it off tonight; I don’t know how many new episodes are left for us to see. And then we’ll need to find something else to watch. Yippee.

I also am looking forward to deciding on my next read, too. I have several strong contenders, but I think I am going to dip out of my field for a change and read something different, not a crime novel. I am leaning toward Chris Clarkson’s That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street; we did the y/a panel together at S&S, and I really liked him a lot–and he’s a local; lives even in the same neighborhood, and probably not really all that far away, either. We’re going to try to get together for coffee sometime when I have I have some free time. Ha ha ha ha. Well, when I can carve out some time from a weekend, that is. This is my last weekend at home before Malice Domestic, and of course that next weekend I am going to Alabama. Heavy heaving sigh. No, it’ll be okay, methinks. I’ll be able to somehow get everything done that I need to get done; it always gets done and I have yet to collapse under the stress and weight of too much to do and not nearly enough time to do it in.

Which, of course, is absolutely nothing new in the life of one Gregalicious.

Note to self: update to-do list from last week. I actually was able to cross some things off it, which is always a pleasant feeling, but I really need to get a new one together. I hate when I am so tired on Monday, as I was yesterday as well as not feeling good; it gets my week off to a very bad start, and since I have to get up at six every morning until Friday…starting the week off tired is never a good thing. I feel better this morning–I don’t feel sick anymore, which is nice, and of course I feel rested somewhat–but I also tend to think that the reason I felt sick was because my blood sugar was low. I didn’t eat much over the weekend and so of course yesterday felt like I was starving to death at times. (Okay, that’s wrong and extreme; I simply felt hungry, and since I rarely do, it felt much worse than it probably would to someone else.)

I’ve been spending a lot of time going down wormholes when I’m tired–don’t ask, it’s mindless and a nice diversion when I’m really too tired to think–and wondering if it is indeed possible for me to write about the past, even if they are decades I lived through. New Orleans history is so rich and varied–I came across another article about the Trunk Murders yesterday, which I’d love to write about sometime; there are so many marvelous crimes in New Orleans’ past to build books around the fictionalization of; the kidnapping of that little boy, for example, whose name is escaping me at the moment, or the lynching of those Italians who were found not guilty of killing the chief of police–that would also make an interesting book. I’m kind of casting about for another Sherlock in New Orleans before the Great War story, to be completely honest; I really enjoyed visiting that world when I wrote that story and would love to do another. I don’t think I’ll ever write a gay Sherlock book, even though he’s now in the public domain and anyone can do anything they want with him–primarily because I do NOT want to raise the ire of the Sherlockians. I think I captured the essence of the character in my story, but…not being an actual Sherlockian makes the Imposter Syndrome very strong with that one.

And on that note, I should get cleaned up and get started on my day. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later.