La La (Means I Love You)

Good morning. It’s a lovely Sunday morning in New Orleans, as I look at the start of a relatively easy and short week for me at work. Good Friday is a paid holiday for me, so I only have four days to get through, and I have short days on both Monday and Thursday (horrifying long days on Tuesday and Wednesday, of course), so it’s kind of a ‘win some lose some’ kind of week. I ended up not writing much yesterday; instead I read Underground Airlines (which I am enjoying) and when Paul got home from his errands, I made dinner and we watched Rogue One and then the first two episodes of Five Came Back, a wonderful documentary about five Hollywood film directors (Frank Capra, John Ford, John Huston, William Wyler, and George Stevens) who spent World War II making documentaries about the war rather than directing films in Hollywood. It’s narrated by Meryl Streep, and is based on the book of the same title by Mark Harris (who also wrote the documentary). It’s very well done; and it does a really good job of capturing the era it’s about, while at the same time not only exposing how easy it is for film to be used as propaganda, but raising questions about the ethics of making propaganda during a time of war. As we as Americans are currently wrestling with the notion of news as propaganda, and how to tell what is real and what is not–a horrifying place to be, quite frankly–and how the news was controlled for the American public during the Second World War to keep them behind the war effort (which was prodigious) as well as buying war bonds to finance it, it raises difficult questions about truth, ethics, and the media. I cannot recommend it enough; I’m really looking forward to viewing the final episode.

I will undoubtedly spend today in a mix of cleaning, writing, and reading. My friend Stuart is in town, and hopefully we’ll get to have lunch or an early dinner together today, if not, it will be tomorrow.

Underground Airlines, like The Underground Railroad, is not an easy book to read. I’ve never read much alternate history (Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle being one of the few exceptions), and that’s what this book is; alternate history, and one that, as you learn more about the ‘history’ of the United States and its ‘peculiar institution’ the deeper you get into the book, is terribly disturbing because you can see how it might have gone this way.

American history, as it pertains to questions of race and equality, is difficult; and the truth of American history, as opposed to the deeply sanitized version we are taught in public school (or at least, the deeply ‘rah-rah-rah’ version I was taught in the 1960’s, predicated on the manifest destiny of white Europeans to take dominion over the Americas while eradicating the natives and enslaving Africans, required a lot of unlearning; I told one of my co-workers the other day that I’ve spent most of my adult life unlearning everything I was raised to believe while re-educating myself on the truth), is actually kind of ugly. I remember reading James Michener’s Centennial when I was in my teens, and realizing everything I’d been taught, read, or seen in movies about the native Americans, and their clash with white Europeans, was actually incredibly biased against the native ‘savages’. (If you’re interested in re-educating yourself on American history, please read Howard Zinn’s histories of the United States, starting with A People’s History of the United States.)

Anyway, when Underground Airlines was released, there was some controversy, given the subject matter and that author Ben H. Winters was white and writing from the perspective of an African-American who worked as a runaway slave catcher. Questions of cultural appropriation often dog the work of white people who write from outside their own experience; yet at the same time there is also a clamor for diversity within fiction and there has long been a Twitter hashtag #weneeddiversebooks. I don ‘t think–and I could be wrong–that the problem is so much cultural appropriation as it is that authors of color do not have the same easy access to publishing that white people do; it’s easier for a white author to get a book published with a person of color as the main character than it is for an author of color to do so. I’ve personally enjoyed seeing the progress made by film and television to cast people of color; when I was a kid I would have loved to find books or television shows or films where gay men weren’t tragic figures doomed to die, or the butt of the joke, or figures of contempt; I can only imagine the positive impact this is having on young minority children to be able to see characters like themselves on films and television shows, or finding them in books.

This is not a bad thing.

The book is very well-written, and I am enjoying it tremendously, but it’s not an easy read, as I said earlier. I had always, as I’ve said before, intended to read it and The Underground Railroad back-to-back, to get a sense of comparison and to see how the differences between how an author of color deals with the issues of race and white supremacy vs how a white author does. Both books have made me think about these issues–the racial divide/conflict that is so deeply woven into the fabric of our society and culture, and how it always has been there from the very beginning.

That’s not a bad thing. Being made to think, to reexamine your values and beliefs, to unlearn things you were taught that are wrong and to reeducate yourself is never a bad thing. I think we, as a country and a society and a culture, can do with some reexamination.

Heavy thoughts for a Sunday morning before I head back into the spice mines.

Here’s a happy Sunday morning hunk for you, Constant Reader.

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I Wish It Would Rain

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment and it looks lovely outside. I may clean the windows today. I have to get the mail, pick up some prescriptions, make a grocery run, and I also want to get the car washed, and of course, as always, there is laundry to do. I also want to spend some time reading today, and cleaning the kitchen and living room. Yes, I am feeling rather ambitious today; we shall see how it turns out.

I forgot my book (The Nest) at the office on Thursday night; I worked at the other office yesterday and it’s French Quarter Fest, so getting down to Frenchmen Street would be a nightmare and would make me tired and cranky, so I decided to just start reading another book–Ben H. Winters’ Underground Airlines, recently named a Thriller Award nominee for Best Novel. I’d always intended to read The Underground Railroad and Underground Airlines back-to-back for comparison sake; I forgot and started reading something else when I finished reading the Whitehead. The Winters book was controversial when it was released; it, like the Whitehead, is sort of magical realism/alternate history; Winters’ premise is that the Civil War was never fought as yet another slave-owner appeasement compromise was reached in 1860 that prevented secession and the war; and other compromises were reached over the years since. It’s an interesting concept, and at the time the book was released there was some controversy; the main character is a free man of color who works as a slave-catcher. I’m not very far into it, but it’s well-written and I’m enjoying it thus far.

I also got a lot of work done on “Quiet Desperation” this week; the story is now well over four thousand words. I stopped working on it the other day (Thursday, to be exact) because I felt that I was getting impatient and rushing the ending, so I decided to pull back from it for a few days and then get back to it over this weekend. I also think the story may have meandered a bit. The goal is to finish it and the chapter of the new Scotty I’ve been working on, so I can really get going on both the Scotty book and another short story next week. Ambitious goals, yes, but do-able.

And I want to get to the gym tomorrow morning.

A truly ambitious plan for the weekend, no?

We’ll see how it all works out, won’t we?

Here’s a hunk to see you through your Saturday.

The Horse

A cold front blew in last night, dropping the temperature here in New Orleans to the low sixties/high fifties; it’s only 65 right now, in fact. I have some errands to run today, and it’s a late night of bar testing ahead for me, so I am going to try to get some chores done around the house, maybe do some reading, write a little bit, etc. (My inbox definitely needs to be emptied…) Maybe vacuum, etc. I want to get as much done today as possible so I won’t have to leave the house over the weekend; a strategy I’ve been enjoying. I do want to make it to the gym this weekend, though–which will be a start. I’ve lost almost ten pounds since Fat Tuesday, which is great, and I want to drop at least another fifteen. Another trip to the gym or two per week in addition to the slight tweaks in diet should do the trick, methinks.

It’s hard to wrap my mind around the notion of 200 pounds as a goal weight, honestly, but there you have it. ‘Tis what it is, you know?

I was tired yesterday–Wacky Russian did a number on me during our session yesterday–so I didn’t get as much writing done as I would have liked, but I did make progress on my short story, “Quiet Desperation,” despite getting a case of the self-doubts. I am hoping that was just because I was tired, you know? One would think, after all this time, that self-doubt would have been banished from the dark, cobwebby corners of my mind, but no. I suppose they will never, ever go away completely, no matter what happens with my writing and my career.

I’m always a little suspicious of self-confident writers, frankly; although I suppose suspicious is a rather strong word. I don’t get it, really. My mind is constantly at war with itself. You can’t become a writer without believing in your own ability to tell a story and to write; you certainly can’t submit work to be considered for publication without having the confidence that your work is worthy of being read, and liked, by others. Yet we–at least I was, at any rate–are trained almost from birth to not be humble; pride in one’s self is okay, but only to a point. It was so ingrained into my psyche from earliest childhood to always be gracious and self-deprecating; to accept compliments graciously but never, ever do so without shrugging off the accomplishment. It has, over the years, become so reflexive and automatic for me to be dismissive of any talents, abilities, or accomplishments I have that I sometimes wince when I hear the words coming out of my mouth.

And when you’re in the lifelong habit of dismissing your achievements, it also has an effect on the subconscious: I’ve pretty much convinced myself over the years that I am not special, not particularly talented, and that if I can do something–well, anyone can, really.

This, I have come to realize, isn’t healthy. It also keeps me from being ambitious, or talking about any deep ambitions that I might have–this sense that well, of course you don’t have an agent and of course they rejected your work, there are so many others who are more talented than you are…but at the same time this defeatist mentality doesn’t remove the sting of the rejection, either. I fear rejection of my work.

I am working on getting out of this mindset; but it is work. I’m always afraid of seeming arrogant; that’s a trait I despise in others, so it’s not something I want as part of my personality.

Self-confidence. Someday I might get there.

Here’s a hunk for you for your Thursday.

Turn Around, Look At Me

Well, in perhaps the most exciting news (at least for me) of the week thus far, I actually wrote fiction yesterday.

Hurray!

I think writing that essay finally on Monday flexed the atrophying writing muscles, because yesterday I opened my document of “Quiet Desperation” and wrote well over fifteen hundred words in a very short period of time, until I was interrupted. Of course, once interrupted the flow stopped–which is why interruptions annoy me so very much. I might have even finished the story had I not gotten interrupted…but the great thing is that in writing so much on it today, I also was able to figure out how to finish it and what the core of the story is; what I am trying to say. Whether I will succeed or not remains to be seen–but it’s yet another one of those stories about a writer. I’m not sure why I keep writing these stories about writers, but it’s also what I suppose I know the best. But I like the direction “Quiet Desperation” is taking, and I’m also enjoying working on Scotty again–I also managed over a thousand words on the new book yesterday, which made me feel terrific. Even after all the writing I’ve done over the years, when you hit a fallow stretch or period, when you don’t feel like writing, or you do and you can’t, there’s always this terror that the well has, indeed, finally run dry; followed by constant self-reassurances that always ring hollow–because the only thing that can make that terror go away is actually writing something.

So, thank you, Sisters in Crime, for kicking me in the ass and getting me to write that overdue essay. I think I’m over the hump now–and I am really looking forward to writing today.

I am tired, though. Wacky Russian basically made me do legs today, the bitch, and so even though my legs are usually fried from the small leg workout I get every time, today they are particularly tired and sore, the bastard. That’s okay, though. I think I am going to go in on Saturday and do legs on my own, some cardio and maybe some stretching. I need to get in better physical condition.

And since it’s Wednesday, here’s a Hump Day Hunk for you as I head back into the spice mines.

Cry Like a Baby

Well, I finished my essay for Sisters in Crime finally yesterday and got it all turned in. Woo-hoo! That’s something–the first thing I’ve really finished this year since turning in the last manuscript, and I am going to ride that particular triumph all week, and hopefully get the other things I want to get written finished this week as well.

I can hope, at any rate.

I’m not really sure why I struggled so much with that essay; I’m not really sure why I am struggling so much to write in general since I turned in my last manuscript. Even this blog sometimes seems like a slog; although I do suspect in some ways it has everything to do with my usual inability to focus on what I am working on; deadlines can certainly make focus much much easier to deal with. But I really want to get these stories finished this week, and I am also wanting to get some editing done and some work on the book as well. Maybe I am overestimating what I can get done reasonably in a week, I don’t know. But it will be enormously satisfying, for example, just to get one of these stories finished. I actually was rereading one yesterday, also incomplete (“The Scent of Lilacs in the Rain”, for the record) and it’s actually quite good. It’ll probably need to be edited down some, but not bad–there’s about three thousand words or so already, and that’ll probably need to be sliced in half at the very least since there are at least several thousand new words needed to finish. I also have no idea where I would publish the story–I don’t know where I would publish any of the stories I’ve written/am writing. But I am enjoying working on them, so there’s that.

One of the things I am trying very hard to do is remember that I actually do ENJOY writing. It’s so easy to hate doing it, really–and that often has to do with the pressure of deadlines, or the frustration of it not going well, or it not going at all. I don’t miss the pressure of deadlines, in all honesty, but I am starting to get concerned about not getting enough done.

Heavy heaving sigh.

But we finished watching Big Little Lies last night, and got deeper into this final season of Bates Motel–which is so deranged it’s amazing! I am going to miss this show, and seriously, if Freddy Highmore is NOT recognized by the Emmys this year…I don’t know what is wrong with the Emmy voters. PAY ATTENTION.

I am still digesting The Underground Railroad (and the show Big Little Lies), but I hope to blog about both relatively soon.

And on that note, back to the spice mines!

Here’s a Twofer Tuesday hunk fest!


A Beautiful Morning

Well, I finished reading The Underground Railroad yesterday, and will most definitely be blogging about it, once I’ve digested it some and thought about it some more. It was, to say the least, very powerful, and not only did it made me think about the subject matter–it also made me think about a lot of other things, which I will be more than happy to discuss once I’ve digested them. I also started reading The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, which I am enjoying as well.

We were supposed to get heavy weather yesterday, but it arrived over night instead–everything out there is wet and dripping, which is always a joy. Ah, well.

I didn’t write yesterday, or at all over the weekend, which is, of course, terrible. I did get some cleaning done and some organizing–not as much as I would have liked–but we’re also working on getting caught up on our shows and I did want to power through and finally finish the Colson novel, which I did manage to do, and then we got caught up on The Walking Dead, watched last night’s Feud, and then it was bedtime.

I am greatly enjoying Feud, and am very impressed with how it’s taking on the issue of how Hollywood/entertainment treats women; which also, in some ways, goes along with another show I am looking to finishing watching–the season finale of Big Little Lies was also last night; which we will undoubtedly watch tonight as well as continuing to get caught up on Bates Motel (a show that is KILLING it now in it’s final season). The way two of my favorite old Hollywood actresses–Bette Davis and Joan Crawford–are being depicted is brilliant, and the two women playing them, Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon, are turning in stunning, award-worthy performances. Last week’s episode, in which both Davis and Crawford are still not fielding any offers before the movie opens–and then it becomes a huge hit–was particularly brilliant; the moment when Joan Crawford, leaving the theater after the preview of the film that ended with a standing ovation, is recognized in the lobby and then mobbed with fans–when this happens, the look on her face–surprise evolving into pure joy at being treated like a star again, is so poignant it’s heartbreaking.

Last night’s, Oscar night when Crawford was snubbed in favor of Davis, was also almost painful to watch; the naked need Davis had for that third Oscar, the pain and anguish Crawford felt about being overshadowed once again by her rival (the scenes where Crawford talks to Geraldine Page and Anne Bancroft, asking them if she can accept for them, and the pity and sympathy Page and Bancroft feel for her, agreeing to let her do it because she needs to…wow)–and Judy Davis is also killing it as Hedda Hopper.

And last night, for the first time, Catherine Zeta-Jones actually delivered as Olivia de Havilland.

I got the idea for an essay yesterday about women’s fiction–using three novels to not only compare and contrast to each other but also to talk about how fiction by, for, and about women is so regularly disdained and dismissed as somehow lesser–the three being The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe, Peyton Place by Grace Metalious, and Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann. I’ve been toying with the idea for quite some time, and I thought about it again yesterday, partly because of Feud, but also partly because of Big Little Lies. Of course, I have no idea where to publish the thing…and it’s not like I don’t have a million other things to write as well.

Heavy heaving sigh.

And on that note, back to editing.

Born to Be Wild

Apparently, a nasty storm will be buffeting New Orleans most of the day; at this moment the sun is still shining but there’s also that creepy, weird, pre-storm quiet/stillness outside of my windows this morning, which means it will be particularly nasty.

Yesterday I did chores; the bed linens are all clean now, two loads of dishes, and two loads of clothing were also run through the washing/drying cycles; I still have some dishes to put away this morning but at a glance, the kitchen is clean. We also watched the World Figure Skating championships yesterday, and got caught up on Big Little Lies, Supernatural, and Riverdale. We also are about five episodes behind on Bates Motel, but having now seen the first two episodes of this final season…well, wow, they are really knocking it out of the park on this season. Today I am going to answer emails, read, and do some writing while also doing some organizing of my work station–as always, there is filing to be done, which is incredibly annoying.

I’ve been doing some scattershot research lately; as I have mentioned before my mind is all over the place right now. I am reading up on the seventeenth century, to get a better knowledge of the politics of the time (I am pretty up on them, but getting better informed is never a bad idea, especially if you’re planning on writing about the period at some point); I am also researching Alabama history because of another project I am thinking about; and I am also reading up on New Orleans history and Louisiana politics. My knowledge in regards to both, considering how much I write about both New Orleans and Louisiana, is not as up to snuff as it should be. I know basics about it, of course–the city was founded by the French; became Spanish after the French and Indian/Seven Years’ War; was given back to the French and then sold to the US in 1803; fell to the Union army/navy in 1862; and so forth. Lots of gaps there, though, and more knowledge is always crucial in writing, even if most of it remains off the page.

Later this month, of course, I am off to both Alabama and Mississippi for events; I’m hoping that the trip to Alabama, in particular, will help in some ways for the Alabama project–which will probably result in a trip to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa to do research at their library and archive. Paul and I are also considering a trip to the beach at some point; a lovely, relaxing long weekend would be absolutely lovely, methinks. I am thinking it’s about time I got a tan again–although some basic research in tanning salons in Uptown New Orleans slapped me in the face with the knowledge that tanning beds apparently are no longer in vogue and people seem to prefer spray tans…which doesn’t appeal to me in the least. I don’t want my skin dyed, I want an actual tan, which apparently means going to beaches now. Although I suppose now going to the beach and getting sun is much worse for the skin than it used to be.

Heavy heaving sigh…but I think it’s a good sign that my vanity is starting to resurface, which means I will be taking better care of myself. Paul and I have both decided to start eating more healthy, with a treat on the weekends–yesterday we got shrimp po’boys from the Please U; next week it will be deep dish pizza from That’s Amore, which has now conveniently opened a location in our neighborhood.

I also want to get some reading done today….in fact, I’m probably going to do that before trying to write. I can’t help but think reading Colson Whitehead will help in some ways. Or maybe I’ll dive back into Mississippi Noir again. The day is rife with possibility.

Or…I may end up doing nothing today at all. It happens sometimes.

And now, back to the spice mines. Here’s a hot guy to liven up your Sunday.

Dance to the Music

Saturday morning in New Orleans, and I can see blue sky up there outside my windows and above the crepe myrtles. I slept pretty well last night, but am a little bit foggy this morning; not sure what that’s all about, but I am sure some coffee will clear that problem right up. I stopped at the grocery store on my way home from work last night, so I don’t have to leave the house at all this weekend if I don’t want to–and right now, in my foggy headed state, that sounds absolutely lovely, quite frankly. All I really feel like doing this morning is reading; I may even finish The Underground Railroad at long last. There are some chores to be done today, and I do seriously need to do some cleaning around here, but right now I am just going to relax and enjoy my coffee and maybe fold the laundry once the dryer is done fluffing them again.

I need to do some writing this weekend, but it may wait until tomorrow. We’ll see how I feel later on. Right now I’m too foggy to even think about it, quite frankly.

The more I look about the kitchen, the more my skin crawls. These windows are also thoroughly revolting. Maybe it’s time to get out the ladder and get to work on them.

But it’s also lovely to have a normal weekend again. Paul was at the office working the three weekends prior to the Festivals, and the one before that was the last weekend of Carnival, so we’ve not had a normal weekend in well over a month, which sucks. It’s part of why I think I’ve been in a bit of a writing rut, to be honest. (I just can’t seem to motivate myself to write, and when I do, it’s a real struggle to get words down. But I WILL GET SOME WRITING DONE THIS WEEKEND OR HEADS WILL ROLL. Whose heads, of course, remains to be seen.)

And we can get caught up on all of our television shows, at long last.

Okay, tis off to the spice mines with me. Here’s a Saturday hunk for you.

Midnight Confessions

Friday morning, and another week done on my slow descent into the grave. Wacky Russian was thinking about turning forty during our training session the other day, and along with it came the horrifying realization that I will reach sixty before he reaches forty. YIKES, right?

But I really don’t mind getting older. I miss the energy and the way my body used to bounce right back from exertion (of any kind) but other than that, I don’t mind. I don’t even think about myself being the age I am; it’s always a bit of a shock to realize I think of myself as being younger that I really am. But other than that surprise, I’m fine with it. I’ve certainly lived longer than I ever thought I would–being of the generation of gay men that I belong to, I never thought I would live to see forty, let alone get so close to sixty and still be going.

I’d thought about going to Costco this morning but I think I am going to wait until tomorrow. I may change my mind–it’s not even ten yet and I don’t have to be at the office until two, so there’s a window–but right now I’m not feeling it.

I didn’t finish “Quiet Desperation” yesterday, but am hopeful for today. I had every intention of getting it done yesterday, but I just wasn’t there mentally. Maybe I was being lazy; it’s always possible. But I am most pleased about having survived the post-Festival week, quite frankly. That’s always tough; not just TWFest/S&S, but after any book event, readjusting to regular life again the next week, while trying to get rested and back to normality, it always difficult. The first few days you’re mournful, wishing you could spend every day in the company of writers and readers; then comes the adjustment period. But it usually only takes a week–and is there anything more pointedly ‘back to reality’ than going to Costco?

I think not.

I also want to finish reading The Underground Railroad this weekend.

And on that note, perhaps I should get back to the spice mines. There’s a load of laundry to fold and a dishwasher to empty.

The glamorous life.

Here’s a hunk to slide you into the weekend:

Hello I Love You

Ah, a lovely night’s sleep, only interrupted by having to get up at five to get Amie an Uber to the Amtrak station; after which I returned to bed for another few hours of sleep. During that second round of sleep last night (or rather, this morning) a major thunderstorm rolled into the city. The crepe myrtles are swaying outside my windows, it’s completely gray out there, lightning and thunder, a downpour of rain. Right now, the rain has ceased, but there was just another flash of lightning and some more thunder, so who knows? It’s supposed to rain until around two this afternoon, which will, of course, make getting to work a JOY.

Oh, well, I haven’t driven the new car anywhere in the rain yet (outside of Alabama; I was rained on almost all the way from Wetumpka to Mobile on that trip). So, we’ll see how it handles in the rain on the slick, uneven streets of New Orleans…

I feel rested and awake this morning, which is quite lovely. I don’t have to work a long day tomorrow, either (my day today is shorter than usual), and am planning on making a Costco run tomorrow before going into the office (must remember to make list). These next two days and the weekend are going to be spent getting caught up on everything that has been let slide in the madness of the last few months–I’ve really felt like I’ve had no grasp of everything lately, and I need to get back on top of everything–which includes cleaning the Lost Apartment, organizing, filing, you name it. I am delighted that I’ve gotten everything to my accountant so I don’t have the burden of the taxes hanging over my head again. But at least now we have some semblance of normality for awhile again (until my trip to Alabama and Mississippi in late April), and as far as I know there shouldn’t be any other trips on the horizon at any time soon–although I do have to go back to Kentucky at some point, and Paul and I really want to go spend a long weekend at the beach at some point).

I didn’t write yesterday because, of course, because my mind was bouncing all over the place and I was so physically tired and mentally sleepy. I hate those days, when I can’t focus and know I just have to somehow just get through the damned day. Paul is very excited about this weekend, as there’s a major tennis tournament, the LSU gymnastics team is competing at regionals, and the World Figure Skating championships are also this weekend–so I doubt very seriously if I am ever going to be able to get him off the couch, but that’s also fine. He deserves some rest, frankly.

I’m hoping to get a first draft of “Quiet Desperation” finished today. Here’s hoping.

Here’s a Thursday hunk for you: