The Beginning of the End

Turned out yesterday that I didn’t need to get up early after all; the person I was covering for didn’t need me to cover for him after all, and so was able to come home early and get back into my work-at-home duties, which was kind of nice, really. I had a lovely afternoon working at home, and then when my duties were completed I actually went to the gym and worked out again, and yes, it felt marvelous. Then I did some more work around the house as well as some work on an anthology I am co-editing, and all in all, , despite the bizarre hiccough with which the day started, it actually turned out fairly well, to be honest.

And what more can one ask of a Monday?

I slept deeply and well last night, and I don’t feel either tired or sore this morning; my muscles feel rested, stretched and pleasantly worked. My shoulder needs babying, of course, and I am resisting the counter-productive urge to throw myself full-force into the renewal of the workout program, which would inevitably lead to tired soreness and skipping workouts. I will go again tomorrow after work, hoping to get in a good workout but knowing it will most likely have to be abbreviated, since I’ll be getting there later than I did yesterday, but can go again on Friday morning, which will be lovely. The parades start up on Friday, which means any kind of errand I usually do on the weekends will have to be done on Monday; and I need to be all stocked up because my next time to run errands will be in the morning of Lundi Gras. It’s always interesting when you have to plan your life around parades and road closures. Paul of course worked all night last evening, so I was busy trying to get caught up on all the reporting about this latest Olympic figure skating scandal–I don’t see how either figure skating or the Olympics get past allowing a country to cheat by using performance-enhancing drugs and doing absolutely nothing about it. I think Russia should be entirely suspended from competition on the international level in every sport for at least three Olympic cycles–and the next violation is an outright ban for all eternity.

Either sports are clean or they aren’t, and please stop pretending that this is merely an isolated incident involving one single skater. We all know it’s not, and they’ve basically got an abusive system in place that churns out these young women skaters–and God knows what all kinds of abuses these girls are subjected to by their coach and her program. It’s hard not to be cynical about the Olympics anymore; as much as I have enjoyed these games over the decades, maybe it’s time for them to go the way of everything else we’ve lost in the twenty-first century. Sure, it’s a shame to lose this massive world-wide exposure of the best humanity can offer in the world of sport and training, but if it’s simply going to devolve into doping and child abuse–like it hasn’t already–maybe it’s time to pull the fucking plug on this.

And if it’s the only way to get the Russians to stop fucking cheating, then pull the damned plug.

Sorry, but if I want to watch athletes with great bodies who use performance-enhancing drugs, I’ll tune into the WWE, not the Olympics.

I am in a really good mood this morning. I feel rested–really rested, which I suspect is a direct result of the gym visit last night–and feel like I can handle a lot of things that I generally don’t want to deal with because I am either tired or conflict-avoidant. I got a lot done last night while Paul worked–I feel a lot more confident about any number of things on my to-do list–and even though the month is suddenly over half over (in fairness, February is a short month) I still think I am on track to get everything finished that I want to get finished this month. Yay for Gregalicious!

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a happy Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow on Pay-the-Bill Day redux.

Love Child

Monday morning, you gave me no warning, of what was to be.

I had thought the Super Bowl was an evening game–what can I say? I never watch as a general rule, and when the Saints won it, it was a night game–so was very pleasantly surprised to find it on early last night, so I started watching. I was sorry to see the Bengals lose, but as I said yesterday–if I learned anything by watching Joe Burrow play at LSU, they won’t lose next time, and it will probably be next year. The Bengals are also only going to get better with every passing year. So, heads up, Cincinnati fans–you have decades of greatness before you. Congratulations to the Rams are in order as well; the Bengal defense didn’t get the job done when they needed to in the end.

It was a good weekend around here, in which I did manage to not only get rested but got a lot done. “The Rosary of Broken Promises” is out of my hair now for good; I worked on the anthology; and I started getting the draft of “Condos for Sale or Rent” underway. I do still have a ridiculous amount of things to get done this week, but am feeling much better about the entire thing now. Parades start on Friday, which makes working and getting home from work and running errands entirely problematic for the next two weeks; but when it is all over it will be March and time will start running out across the board. Heavy heaving sigh–where did February go? I have emails to answer this morning and more organizing to get done today–it’s really non-stop, to be honest–but I am no longer tired the way I was last week and feel more motivated than I have in a while, which is a good thing. That fatigue last week was the fucking pits, frankly, and now I worry that I’ll require time from every trip to recover going forward, which wasn’t something I had in the cards for this year.

But…you have to play what you’re dealt, right?

I also reread Chlorine yesterday, and was…well, in all honesty, I was a little underwhelmed by what I have written already in this manuscript. Sure, the voice and tone are right–but the word rhythm is off, and I could also tell that I worked on chapters without revisiting what had already been written; lots of contradictions and changes from chapter to chapter which, obviously, will need to be corrected and changed when I start working on it full force again around April, most likely. But I managed to get some needed and necessary research taken care of over the weekend that will help pull it all together in some ways, plus it anchors the book in a time of the year which I hadn’t been doing up to now. It kind of messes with some other history, but that means I can play around a bit more with fact and fiction, which is also incredibly fun.

And on that note I am going to head into the spice mines. Don’t have much to say today, really–sorry about the brevity of the entry–but I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.

There’s No Stopping Us Now

I make no bones nor apologies for loving Joe Burrow–or as I call him to myself, Joey B (which is also his twitter name and how he signs his name). I have said it before–and will say it again–I really do not pay much attention to the NFL outside of the Saints. I watch the Saints games and that’s really always been about it for me (I might watch the Super Bowl if nothing else is on, but it’s usually just background noise while I read–sometime it’s a good game and I’ll watch, but I generally don’t care very much who wins or loses if the Saints aren’t involved). It’s hard for me to root against teams that have players who played for LSU, for example, but at the same time they are on SO many teams I can’t keep track of them and I certainly am not going to invest in watching all those games. But it’s nice to see players from LSU–like Tyrann Mathieu, Leonard Fournette, Odell Beckham Jr, et. al–doing well in the NFL; I am always pleased to see their names in the sports news.

But…that 2019 LSU team was so damned special, I find myself looking for highlights of players who were on that team alot, and being really happy for them as they make names for themselves in the pros.

And then, of course, there’s my hero, Joe Burrow.

It’s probably untoward for a sixty year old gay man to worship an athlete the way I love this kid (in fairness, I felt that way about Drew Brees for a very long time, and I will always be grateful to Brees for what he did, not only for the Saints but for post-Katrina New Orleans), but I do. I really like this kid a lot, and not just because he led the Tigers to only their second-ever undefeated season and fourth national title, either. He seems like a genuinely good guy–or he is one hell of an actor. Even at LSU, as he was breaking national records, making headlines and the cover of Sports Illustrated, he never made anything about himself: it was always about the team, and he immediately, inevitably, always gave credit to his offensive line first. Joey B became a beloved icon in Louisiana in just two seasons with our Fighting Tigers of LSU–and the entire state cheered when Joey B and the Bengals won the AFC championship and made it to the Super Bowl in only his second year with the team.

Kind of….like how he won everything in his second year with LSU.

So, now I kind of follow the Cincinnati Bengals because I love this player so much and want to see him continue to succeed. I do wonder about this attachment from time to time; just as I wonder about the whole concept of fandom in general–like when I think about how amazing an experience it is being in Tiger Stadium on a Saturday night for a big game. Joe Burrow’s story is everything you’d want in a sports story–the kid no one really recruited much and didn’t get many offers; who didn’t succeed at his first, chosen university so he graduated early and went elsewhere and in two years had the greatest season ever by a college quarterback, including a national championship and the Heisman Trophy and drafted Number One for the NFL by a team that hadn’t won in decades and had slipped to the level of the pre-Drew Brees Saints; and then got injured his first season only to come roaring back in his second to take them to the Super Bowl. This kid is special, he’s funny and quirky and introspective and not really into the whole “star” thing (although I do love the gold chain with “JB9” he has taken to wearing to press conferences, and when asked if it was real, replied, “I make too much money for it to be fake.”). I will forever be grateful that I got the opportunity to see him play in person several times, and the 2019 LSU-Florida game is one of the most fun experiences I have ever had watching a college football game live.

The Bengals and Joey B may not win the Super Bowl tonight–but one thing I do know from watching him play for four years is that Bengal fans need not fear should the Rams win tonight. I will promise you–Joey Burrow may lose his first Super Bowl, but he will not lose his second.

And my money would be on a win next year if they lose tonight.

He’s that kind of player.

GEAUX JOE!

I’m Gonna Make You Love Me

I’ve always considered myself to be a child of the seventies.

Sure, I was a child for during the sixties, but I turned nine in 1970. While I am sure that turbulent decade provided some (a lot of) influences on me, my personality, my likes/dislikes, and my future, I am equally confident that my values and thoughts and beliefs probably weren’t as shaped from that turbulent decade as they were by the 1970’s. The seventies are really the first decade for which I have a lot of recall (recently, a friend was amazed that I remembered those horrible Rag City Blues jeans for women that were, for some reason beyond my thought processes, popular in the latter part of the decade; what can I say–I do remember the decade fairly well for the most part–or at least as far as my memory can be trusted). I’ve always wanted to write books either set in the seventies completely or even partly; Where the Boys Die, my 70’s suburban Chicago novel, keeps pushing its way to the forefront of my increasingly crowded (and clouded) mind. (NO I AM WRITING CHLORINE NEXT WAIT YOUR TURN)

I remember Watergate and how the scandal grew. I remember the 1972 landslide reelection of Nixon, and the country’s negative reaction to the Ford pardon of the man who brought him to power; I also remember Jimmy Carter running for president out of seemingly nowhere and getting elected. There was The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family and Archie Bunker and Mary Richards; Sonny and Cher and Carol Burnett and Donny and Marie and the Jackson 5 and Grand Funk Railroad. Top Forty radio ruled the AM airwaves; not every car came equipped with FM capabilities, and the only way you could play your own music in your car was with an eight-track player. I started the decade reading the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and The Three Investigators; by the end of the decade I was reading John D. MacDonald and Sidney Sheldon and Harold Robbins. It was a very weird decade…of odd color and fashion choices; avocado greens and browns and American cheese orange were ridiculously popular, as was shag carpeting, velour, clingy polyester shirts, corduroys, bell bottoms and slogan T-shirts. Baseball shirts and rugby sweaters also became popular later in the decade. People had feathered hair parted in the center, and there was this weird sense of, I don’t know, missing out? Movies were grittier, harsher, more realistic; actors went from the polished shine of the old Hollywood system glamour to warts-and-all realism. Television was also beginning to change but was still heavily censored. Boogie and truckin’ and shake your booty became part of the vernacular; the decade began with the break-up of the Beatles and ended with disco’s last gasps while new wave and punk and rap started their rise.

It was the decade I went through puberty and realized that I was attracted to other boys instead of girls; I wasn’t quite sure what that meant but definitely found out in the seventh grade it meant I was a faggot, fairy, queer, cocksucker, and all those other lovely words that were burned into my brain that year. It was the decade where I read Harold Robbins’ Dreams Die First (a truly execrable novel) over and over again because the main character had sex with both men and women, and if I am not mistaken, contained the first male-on-male sex scene I’d ever read (oral); it was also the decade where we moved from Chicago to the suburbs to the cornfields of Kansas and I graduated from high school. (Ironically, it was in Kansas that I discovered gay books with explicit gay sex scenes in them–the News Depot on Commercial Street not only carried The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren and her other novels, but also Gordon Merrick; and their magazine racks also had gay porn magazines–which, now that I think about it, meant there were others there in Lyon County and environs; I didn’t realize it at the time, of course.) It was when Norah Lofts’ The Lute Player made me aware that Richard the Lion-Hearted was like me, too; and Susan Howatch’s Cashelmara and Penmarric also had gay characters and plots involving them…

I’ve always thought the seventies was a much more important decade than ever given credit for; usually it is merely considered a connecting time from the 60’s to the 80’s…but almost everything that came after–socially, politically, culturally–got started in the seventies. So I was glad to see this book about that frequently dismissed time.

As I mentioned previously, the Seventies were turbulent; they were the decade that also saw the beginning of the end of the post-war economic/prosperity bubble. Gas shortages, skyrocketing inflation, and the insidious use of racism to break the Democratic coalition began–everything we find ourselves dealing with today had its roots in the Seventies–and it did seem, to those of us growing up in the shadow of the mushroom cloud, that the world had lost its mind and our country (or rather, its mythology) had lost its way. Schulman’s study of the decade, breaking down how the shifts in culture, politics, and our society began, were exploited for divisive purposes, and permanently changed attitudes moving forward was a fascinating, if chilling, read. I remember the terrorist attacks. I remember watching the Munich Olympics that ended in bloodshed on an airport runway and murdered Israeli athletes. The book brought back a lot of memories; I am not so sure I agree with all of Schulman’s assertions about the decade–there certainly wasn’t very much about the burgeoning gay rights movement, other than how it chased lesbians off into the Women’s Movement–but it was interesting to read the book and relive the decade a bit, as well as the memories it triggered.

I do highly recommend this book for people who weren’t around for the Seventies and might be wondering how the fuck did we end up in this current mess?

The Way You Do The Things You Do

Sunday morning, and not only is the Super Bowl today, but it’s also our Costco run day. Hurray! And in a moment of perfect timing, this morning I also got the emailed rebate coupon from my Costco Visa, so we have almost a hundred dollars off whatever we spend there today. One really has to love serendipity when it happens, doesn’t one? It’s been a hot minute since we’ve been to Costco, and I am really missing my dark chocolate sea salt caramels…we’ve been out for a while. And with the next two weekends lost to parades, this is the last opportunity we have to go until after March.

Is it insane that I am excited about going to Costco? It also says a lot about the quality of my life, doesn’t it? LOL. Yesterday was a good day–I also had another good night’s sleep, which was lovely–and I got a lot accomplished around the Lost Apartment as far as cleaning and organizing are concerned. Everything looks, if still a bit cluttered, neat and tidy–at least the clutter is stacked nicely–and it really does make a difference in how I feel about the place. I also worked on “Condos for Sale or Rent” for a bit yesterday, made groceries (got Doris Day parking and everything), and settled in to watch the Olympics. I wasn’t thrilled with the ice dancing results–as always, the Americans were under-scored–but we’ll get a medal of some kind; the French were always a lock on the gold anyway. And both of our top teams won a silver medal in the team competition, so…really, can’t complain about too much at all here.

I got the edits for “The Rosary of Broken Promises” yesterday, and it took me about ten minutes to get through them and make corrections where necessary. The story turned out a lot better than I had obviously thought, but the good news is the story is finished and turned in and the edits are done; so I can put the file away, add the title to the Table of Contents for my next short story collection, and move the electronic file into the This Town and other Stories folder. I have ten published stories, which is about half of the new collection, and of the other ten, well, four have complete drafts–and of course, I have two more stories to finish in the next few months as well. So, that will give me sixteen at some point, which is lovely, and even closer to a finished collection–would be, should I decide to throw a novella in there at some point. I also retrieved my folder on Chlorine so I could again read over what I’ve already written–with an eye to getting back to it in March or April; I’ve not really decided yet what I should do next other than these short stories. I also started writing a blog post about Joey Burrow that I will try to get finished today–I don’t think I’ve been such a fan of any pro quarterback since the glory days of Drew Brees–otherwise there isn’t much point. I won’t be watching the Super Bowl–or certainly not all the entire thing–since I have to get up early tomorrow (all week, in fact; I have to go into the office four mornings and I have to get up early again on Friday to take the car in for its oil change), but obviously the first thing I will do upon rising tomorrow is see how it all turned out.

I also want to go to the gym today after we go to Costco–I know, crazy, right?–but it looks lovely outside today (yesterday was so beautiful I got out the charcoal and barbecued burgers) so the walk to the gym will undoubtedly be lovely, and I want to get a lot of work done today once that’s over and done with. Paul is still working on Festival programming, so I need to make certain I am utilizing my free time wisely. After organizing the books and making them look more orderly yesterday, I am debating not buying any more books until I can get some more of these read and donated and out of the house. It does seem weird to be continually buying books when you have so many that you’ve never read–many of them classics and award-winners–and so maybe, just maybe, the time I usually was spending in the evenings writing could be utilized for reading for an hour or so every night, which will gradually bring me through the books. (I doubt I will get much reading done during parade season, frankly.) The only parades I really care about this year are Muses and Iris, frankly; but there are reasons Paul and I might end up going out there every night of parades, or many of them, at any rate. (Not my story to tell, but being supportive of a friend.) Note to self: get more take home COVID tests from the office.

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and start doing some more clean-up around here before we go to Costco. Paul’s alarm just went off, which means he’ll be getting up soon (later rather than sooner, of course) and I need more coffee to fortify myself for the journey.

Have a lovely Super Bowl Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later.

Will This Be The Day

I kind of feel like normal at long last this morning. It shouldn’t take one a week to recover from a weekend trip, but…in order to be fair to myself (something I’ve always had trouble with accomplishing, frankly, and is a goal of this new year for me) I also did some binge-writing before and after, so it was no surprise that I’d pushed myself on every level hard to the level of practically cratering everything. But I will undoubtedly forget the toll binge-writing takes on my body–binge work is always hard on my body, frankly–and will find myself in the same situation yet again when my next manuscript looms due. Heavy heaving sigh.

I did start cleaning and organizing last night after my work-at-home duties were finally complete. The living room looks much better than it did, even though it’s not completely done (more work for today, alas) and the same holds true for the kitchen. I also managed to launder the bed linens yesterday around my work, and today–today I have to make groceries and get the mail and put air in my low tire, hoping to keep it going until Friday, when I will have to get up early to take it to the dealership on the West Bank (I am still not happy about oversleeping yesterday, but I am also choosing to look at it in terms of clearly I must have needed the rest more than any other way; yes, it means I have to get up early five days next week but then I can sleep in that Saturday and on and on it goes and goes.) and get that over with at long last. Parades also begin on Friday, which should be a fun experience (he typed sarcastically)…heavy heaving sigh. But that will take us through the end of the month–Fat Tuesday is March 1 this year, and then the madness of spring truly takes over, and then…it’s summer time again.

I also intend to drop books off at the library today and since I flatly refuse to drop off a box of books that isn’t completely full (to the point of bursting seams) I am afraid I am going to have to do another run through the books this morning to find some more that will find good homes through the Friends of the Library. I was doing such a good job of pruning it down last summer (or whenever that was) and have allowed them to continue to gather and be hoarded and become dust collectors here in the Lost Apartment, and that’s wrong. I need to get them out of my house so they can be shared and read and enjoyed the way they were meant to be; and I need to keep that mentality alive so I can slowly but surely get rid of all the clutter here in the apartment.

Imagine a clutter free existence. It’s possible and it’s a reality and there’s no reason why that goal for 2022 cannot be accomplished.

I also, around the cleaning and organizing and so forth yesterday, figured out how to end “Condos for Sale or Rent”, which I am hoping to spend some time with today to get it closer to a finished first draft. I’m also going to spend some time doing Bouchercon anthology grunt work, and tomorrow we are going to Costco, since the parades mean we won’t be able to go again until after Fat Tuesday. So I also have to make a list for that, and I am wanting to get back to the gym tomorrow. Fingers crossed–the stretching alone will make the walk over there worth it, frankly. And it will be nice to get back into that routine again, too. The working out also should help me sleep better–although if this past week is any indication, I don’t really need to be so concerned about sleeping anymore, really–but I want to feel better, I want to get into better physical condition, and if it helps me burn off some extra fat, so much the better. I am not worried about ever getting back into “Greg dressing as a pro wrestler on Fat Tuesday” shape ever again–that’s too much work and too much worrying about diet; I am old enough now that I don’t care to go on a specialized weight loss diet again (even though it would make the weight loss easier in the long run) because no one is grateful, as they lay dying, that they didn’t have that bacon cheeseburger or that piece of cheesecake. NO ONE.

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and get back to doing some cleaning and organizing and going through the books in order to fill up that box before I head out for today’s round of errands. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later.

Some Things You Never Get Used To

I had intended to get up early and take the car in–oil change and tire repair–but of course I overslept and now it’s too late–I would be at the dealership all day and that’s simply not an option for me today. Sure, it can be put off easily for another week–I just need to re-air the tire at some point this weekend and it should be fine–but it’s annoying because I really wanted to get it over and done with this morning. Instead, I’ll do chores around here until it’s time for my work-at-home duties. At some point tomorrow I’ll need to run to make groceries–which is fine, I’ll need to get the mail tomorrow and I can drop off a box of books at the library sale while I am out and about; and I can also make a grocery list as well as take some time to select some more books to dispose of as well. It’ll be fine, ultimately; I just don’t like when my plans get disrupted by oversleeping and having to recalibrate as a result. I’ll live, really–am just a trifle annoyed, and ultimately, truth be told I must have needed the sleep, right?

I did work pretty hard this week–the last two weeks, really–and I still have things to get done, of course. But the pressure isn’t quite as extreme as it was before, and I just have a lot of tedious housekeeping to do on one project that needs to be finished by the end of the month–and time, as always, is slipping through my fingers the way it always seems to do. But that’s okay; since I cannot get the things done that I had scheduled for this morning I’ll utilize the time productively around here at the Lost Apartment. I think this weekend I am going to begin the “tossing of paper” project in order to clear out the filing cabinets so the filing can start getting under control (a long term goal of the year); every little bit helps, of course, and gets me closer to the end goal of getting rid of significant amounts of clutter.

At least, that’s the theory, at any rate. (I just looked into a file cabinet drawer and wondered if all those files could, in fact, be as easily tossed as I’d like to think; I suspect that won’t be the case because my default instinct to hoard paper will kick into gear–but this file was created over thirty years ago–I am going to have to be absolutely heartless while I do this, I am aware.)

Everything sounds good in theory, right?

But it’s weird to not have a writing deadline looming over my head–oh, there are still some out there, of course, I’m never completely free from deadline-stress–but there’s plenty of time left before any of them become critical and stressful. (I am very happy that I made that to-do list this week, Constant Reader! It’s amazing what a difference such a little thing can make in one’s life and productivity; but as I have always said, getting and staying organized is my goal for this year and every little bit helps.) Another goal is not to wait till the last minute on short story deadlines, to relieve stressors (the over-arching goal of the year is to relieve my own stress levels so I can make it to retirement in five years) so that my psoriasis doesn’t keep making a return (love seeing a patch of crusty, scaly red skin appear somewhere on my body with a smirk and saying I’m baaaaaaaaaack, bitch) and so that the insomnia remains at bay. This week has seen an amazing string of deep restful sleeps for me every night, which has been absolutely lovely, as Constant Reader can probably imagine. I also think my body clock is starting to adjust to getting up early so many days of the week (this morning’s oversleep being an exception to that rule) and I’ve also kind of decided that I should just go ahead and get up when my body wakes me up from a deep sleep rather than lazing in the bed for another couple of hours (I still can’t get over the oversleep this morning), but so far on my work-at-home days and days off that hasn’t really happened…I just manage to stay in the warm comfort of the bed and fall back asleep with the greatest of ease.

But I am hoping to change that and add more hours of productivity to my days. I’ll keep you posted on how that turns out.

I also intend to return to the gym (!!!!) this weekend; there will be updates of this momentous occasion to come, of course.

And on that note, time to clean out some files, do some filing and organizing and cleaning; my work at home duties do not officially begin until noon. Talk to you tomorrow, Constant Reader, but for now–it’s off to the spice mines with me.

Forever Came Today

Thursday, and the last day this week I have to get up so damned early. I was, however, delighted to wake up and find out that Nathan Chen had won the men’s gold in figure skating (YAY!)–I was watching, fell asleep in my chair, and couldn’t stay up to watch it all. (I’ll watch Nathan on Youtube sometime today–probably when I get home from work this afternoon.) Naturally, I am delighted for Nathan after his disappointment at Pyeongchang four years ago.

I am starting the recovery (or rather, further along in the process) from last weekend’s trip and the deadline crunches that nearly wiped me out; I am still trying to get caught up on my emails that have, well, festered in my inbox now for the last month or so–the deadly crunch of trying to get the book done–and I still have some other things that I left pending for quite some time that need to be handled as well. But I think I can get all that finished (or caught up) over the course of the next few days as well as the weekend, and I am looking forward to coming out of the weekend on Monday (four days in the office next week, sob) with a fairly clean slate and ready to get going on everything else. The weekend, with no writing that needs to be done, looms large; I am sure part of my chores this weekend will also include cleaning the Lost Apartment and doing some filing, since that’s also gotten completely out of control over the last few months as well. My primary goal is to get organized again–I’ve felt unorganized and unable to get caught up for several years now–and I feel like once that miracle occurs, I should be able to stay that way, or at least let it slide for a bit before getting back on track on the weekends.

That’s the plan, at any rate.

But I had another great night’s sleep last night, which felt marvelous. I do feel more rested and more together today than I have all week, which is odd–given that usually on my third early morning I am usually more tired than I have been all week–but I’ve been sleeping really well since I got home, and sleeping late on Saturday (I may have some car things to do tomorrow morning, which I am not terribly thrilled about, frankly, but I don’t ever want to buy another car and so I have to make this one last forever, even if it means getting up early on a day when I usually don’t have to) is going to be very appealing. Ah, well, nothing to do but bite the bullet and get up and go and get it over with (oil change, nail in tire). I can, at least, take a book with me tomorrow morning and utilize the time to read–and since I will be on the West Bank, I can make groceries over there and get lunch at Sonic before heading home to make condom packs and data entry. Yay for an exciting Friday!

And it wouldn’t hurt for me to start looking through my Chlorine file, to get a sense of what’s been written and what needs to be written and some of the inspirations–I’ve been snagging photos from old Physique-style magazines, as well as beefcake shots of hunky movie stars from the olden days of Paull Wilson and so forth from that same time period to use for help in creating my own world of marginally talented beautiful men who allowed gay men in positions of power in Hollywood to use their bodies to get ahead in the business–and am actually kind of looking forward to digging into it again, frankly. Writing a historical is, by its very nature, problematic–you have to research things, you have to remember or find out how things worked (could you direct dial a local number in Los Angeles in 1952?)–but I am going to push through the first draft, methinks, and then do the research painstakingly as I edit my way through the bitch once it’s finished. I have another story request for the end of this month (time is running out here) and another one that is due in early April; but both should be easier to put together than this one I just had to desperately finish at the last minute to get in on time. I think this year might be a good short story year for one Gregalicious; I think I have several stories in the pipeline that will be coming out this year–all of them remarkably different in subject matter, voice, and tone–which makes them all the more fun, don’t you think?

I also just got another book idea–seriously, it never ends in my head–and on that note, I think I will head into the spice mines.

You’ve Been So Wonderful To Me

Wednesday morning and hope today is better and there is more energy to be had for me today. Yesterday was a drag, in a lot of ways; I was mentally awake but also physically and intellectually drained, if that makes any sense. It probably doesn’t. The one-two punch of turning in a book one week and a short story less than a week later bracketed around a out of town trip combined to kick my ass. I didn’t want to get up again this morning–I don’t think I will ever hear an alarm and cheerfully sit up, stretch and get up, fully awake and ready to go, once in my life. Which is fine, of course; some of us simply aren’t meant to be wrenched from sleep every morning before we are ready to get up. But I don’t feel as drained this morning as I did yesterday–which is a good sign as the sun rises over the West Bank (don’t ask. tl;dr: “West Bank” means west bank of the river, which doesn’t flow perfectly north and south). I was exhausted when I got off work last night; so exhausted that I couldn’t do much of anything other than watch Youtube documentaries about the Hapsburgs while Scooter purred in my lap. I am hoping (hopeful) that I will not be so tired today, and will be able to get some things done tonight when I get home.

I am very tired of being too tired to read, too.

I do have another story (!) to finish by the end of the month, but I think perhaps the best thing to do this week is let my creative batteries recharge so next week I can dive back into my writing. And yes, I am well aware that this could simply be my deeply engrained subconscious desire to be lazy justifying and excusing not doing any writing this week–but like I said, I am very tired and drained; and I don’t think this is subconscious so much as it is conscious. Parade season looms, and while I know we’ve been planning on skipping what will, for the most part, be a super-spreader event (crowds of people catching things thrown from strangers? No one masked? ) I cannot help but feel that it will be hard to NOT heed the siren song of the marching bands and walk to the corner “just to see.” I really did miss Parade Season last year; I love Carnival every year even as it exasperates and aggravates me at the same time. And I want to write more about Carnival…there’s another Scotty Carnival book in my head somewhere, and there’s the potential new series, too. And short stories! So many potential short stories…I think my creative batteries may be getting some charge stored up in them again, after all.

Huzzah!

It’s nice to start feeling like myself again–whenever the exhaustive malaise sets in, I always worry that this time it might be permanent which, of course, is an absolutely terrifying thought. I wonder if I will ever stop worrying about the ability or desire or need to write going away; I suppose once it finally does, if it ever does, that will be when I can be fairly certain that the end is drawing near. Well, there’s a cheery thought for a Wednesday morning, wasn’t it?

So, I have some clean-up stuff to do with another project this week–I should be finished with that part already, but what can I say? I’ve gotten far behind on everything while I was in “finish the book” mode; as I inevitably do, and of course playing catch-up is not my favorite thing to do–my emails alone are a Sisyphean task–but I am hoping if I can get everything on track this week and over this weekend, next week I can get back to possibly writing and getting organized for what I want to get done for the rest of this year. It’s kind of a surprise that it’s so late in the month already (Valentine’s Day is Monday!) and March is already looming, so I’ve really got to get my act together and start getting things in order. A Greg at rest can no longer stay at rest, no matter how much I want that to happen…and on that note, perhaps it is time for me to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Hump Day, Constant Reader! Talk to you again tomorrow.

Time Changes Things

I was a late adaptor to audiobooks; just like I was with ebooks (which I still kind of recoil away from, for some unknown reason; during the early stages of pandemic shutdown I revisited Mary Stewart and several other favorites on my Kindle or iBook apps and enjoyed them heartily–yet for some reason I never go back to the iPad to read…probably the enormous stack of hard copies in my TBR pile glaring at me from directly across the room from my chair). I always worried, you see, that I would get so caught up in listening to the book that I wouldn’t pay attention to the road, or my mind would wander and I’d miss something important. Several years ago on a trip to Kentucky I listened to A Game of Thrones on the way up and End of Watch (by Stephen King) on the way back; both turned out to be highly pleasant experiences and yes, while my mind did wander at times–my subconscious was listening so I never got lost when I was able to give the book my attention again. The last time I drove to Kentucky I listened to Foundation on the way up and Donna Andrews’ delightful The Falcon Always Wings Twice on the way back. Audiobooks make the time pass much faster than listening to music and singing along (I am quite the rock star in my car), and so, when it was time to drive up to Birmingham this past weekend, I selected Lisa Lutz’ The Passenger to listen to on the way up and back; it wasn’t quite long enough to last the entire drive…but I also had some Lisa Unger short stories downloaded as well, and I figured once the Lutz was finished, I could listen to one of those.

But the Lutz…my God. Why on earth did I wait so long to read/listen this impressive work?

When I found my husband at the bottom of the stairs, I tried to resuscitate him before I ever considered disposing of the body. I pumped his barrel chest and blew into his purple lips. It was the first time in years our lips had touched and I didn’t recoil.

I gave up after ten minutes. Frank Dubois was gone. Lying there all peaceful and quiet, he almost looked in slumber, but Frank was noisier asleep than he was awake. Honestly, if I had known what kind of snorer he was going to turn into, I never would have married him. If I could do it all over again, I never would have married him even if he slept like an angel. If I could do it all over again, there are so many things I would do differently. But looking at Frank then, so still and not talking, I didn’t mind him so much. It seemed like a good time to say good-bye. I poured a shot of Frank’s special bourbon, sat down on Frank’s faux-suede La-Z-Boy, and had a drink to honor the dead.

In case you were wondering, I didn’t do it. I didn’t have anything to do with Frank’s death. I don’t have an alibi, so you’ll have to take my word for it. I was taking a shower when Frank died. As far as I could tell, he fell down the staircase all on his own. He had been suffering from vertigo lately. Convenient, I know. And I doubt he mentioned it to anyone. If I had waited for the place and told them the truth, maybe life could have continued as normal. Minus Frank.

This book was recommended by practically everyone I know; I’m not really sure why I never got around to reading it. I did read her next novel, The Swallows, and absolutely loved it; I also have her new one sitting on my coffee table waiting for me to get to it.

And as I said, now that I’ve listened to this one, I am really pissed off at myself for taking so long to get to it. I am not joking. When I arrived at the hotel in Birmingham on Friday, I literally stayed in the car until the chapter finished. When I got in the car to drive to Wetumpka Sunday morning, I even left earlier than I needed to in my eagerness to get back to the book, it was that good–and I had no idea how it was all going to turn out.

That opening! How do you stop reading after that? Who is this woman? Why does she have to go on the run after her husband’s accidental death? Who and what else is she running from? And most importantly–who is she? We’re never sure who “Tanya” really is; she picks up and discards new identities (who knew it could be so simply done? Even if it’s only temporary? But something bad happened in her past–something she is still terrified about, and doesn’t want the police to find her, so clearly it’s pretty fucking bad. As she goes on the run yet again, we start to understand who she is, in some ways–there are some things we’ll simply have to wait for Lutz to let us know about “Tanya”–but you can’t help but root for her. She has a sense of humor about her horrible situation, and you also can’t help but like her, whatever it is she did in her past. As the narrative continues, we are also fed some email communications between “Jo” and “Ryan”–one quickly picks up that at some point in her past, “Tanya” was also “Jo”–that rather cryptically talks about the past and the original situation that set her on the run.

And while “Tanya” never talks about what that was, or much about her past, we do get some information from her on that score: a distant mother who was alcoholic and went through men like Kleenex; an unstable home environment, she used to swim competitively–and each new piece of the puzzle fits securely into place.

As the book continues, she breaks the law to survive from time to time, and each new identity she takes on comes with its own challenges and difficulties and dangers. We follow her from one end of the country to another and back again; it’s almost like a series of vignettes, really, strung together into one over-arching narrative that you can’t stop reading. How is she going to get out of this? you wonder every single time, and the book just keeps barreling along until all the threads of her many lives come together at the very end, with a startling final twist just before the final resolution.

Do yourself a favor, Constant Reader, and get every Lisa Lutz book and read it. I certainly intend to.