No Charge

Good morning, Constant Reader! Hope this Tuesday morning finds you alive and well and alert and happy to get going on your day.

It rained again last night, a marvelous soaking downpour that was so loud I even could hear it without my hearing aids in. It was a nice day back at work yesterday, too–I wasn’t all that tired when I got home, which was lovely. I didn’t have to run any errands last night, so I was able to come straight home and write for a while. I managed 1400 painful words, but again–transition chapter, and I always have trouble with those, so nothing to see there, really. I felt good writing though, even if it was a struggle, and that means I am really back at it again. I’m just so grateful that I haven’t lost that ability. I think it’s realistic for me to stop fearing that will happen. It’s not likely at this point. I am writing my forty-third (I think) novel, and if the writing thing didn’t dry up after some of the things we’ve been through here ever since my first book was published, as long as my brain functions it shouldn’t be a problem. Ah, the loss of anxiety is a really lovely thing.

We watched the first episode of Fallout last night; I was reminded of it during the Emmys the other night. I’d not heard a lot about it, so we gave it a try. It’s dystopian, of course (I’ve clearly had that on the mind for a while lately), and the point is that just over two hundred years after a nuclear war essentially altered the world completely. There are people who live and have a civilization in huge underground bunkers, where an below-the-surface civilization has taken hold, and the underground dwellers are afraid of the surface and what has changed in the centuries since the war; there’s also some kind of discord between surface and below surface dwellers. The show seems to focus on three characters; a young woman who lives below ground and ventures out to find her kidnapped father; a soldier in a surface military; and the bad guy–a ghoul who is dug up from his grave by some criminals who want him to help them do bad things which aren’t specified. It was well-produced, and very well put together; the attention to details was greatly appreciated and helped make it seem fairly realistic. It reminded me a lot of The 100, only in reverse, with the survivors underground instead of in space…but there are tropes in this genre, and so there are always going to be similarities between dystopian shows/movies. I’m not sure if we’ll continue watching, but it wasn’t terrible. I try not to judge shows based on the first episode, as first episodes are often working too hard on setting up the show and the characters and their relationships to each other, and this show also has to world-build, so we’ll probably give it another go before crossing it off entirely.

Likewise, we started watching the new gay show, English Teacher, and while the first episode was fine–a little preachy, a little soap-boxish–the second episode really took off, and we were howling with laughter. Highly, highly recommend, if for no other reason than the Trixie Mattel guest spot! Looking forward to watching more of this show, for sure for sure. (And it’s so nice to see gay male lead characters on television…so a refreshing change from the past.)

I feel pretty good this morning, honestly, and it’s a very nice feeling. I am feeling more in control of things these past few months; at least it’s better than the treading water trick I’ve been doing over the last few years or so. I was also thinking about the Scotty series last night, as I am working on Book Ten (which is a truly scary thought; have I really written that many books in a series?), and wondered if it’s time to let him go? I still have ideas for more Scotty books, mind you, and I think of titles all the time (I thought up one this morning: Pearl River Peril), but going through the Scotty Bible and pulling that all together made me start thinking about potentially winding the whole thing down. It’s not the longest running series with a gay male lead by any means; I think Mark Zubro’s series have vastly more volumes in them than I have in mine, but I’m proud of the accomplishment and the haphazard, meandering way the series developed over time. Alas, that also led to continuity errors, but rather than making me cringe I just kind of laugh at my laziness. Before the new meds, this would have created a spiral of a professional wouldn’t have made those mistakes and all those people who discouraged you from pursuing writing were correct and….yeah. Don’t miss those episodes any more, and I also like being able to look at my writing and my career with the proper distance I could never have achieved on the old medication protocol.

Better living through chemistry is, indeed, a thing.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, and I may be back later, and I may not. One can never be certain with me!

You Can’t Be a Beacon (If Your Light Don’t Shine)

Ah, back to the office Monday and what passed for normality this week. Tropical weather, even the smaller ones, are so disruptive. It generally takes about a week for everything–grocery stores, traffic lights, and other little things like that–to get back to normal. (Although after Ida it took weeks and I swear the grocery stores have never completely recovered from that, but I’m also older and crabbier now. Scary thought, ’tisn’t it?) The light at Prytania and Felicity, for example, is dead–not blinking, just dead to the world. It’s not a busy intersection, but….New Orleans drivers, and I’ll leave it at that.

Yesterday wasn’t nearly as lovely as Saturday. It wasn’t super hot, but rather muggy. I think that’s even worse than super-hot and humid; this is that unpleasant feeling where you know you’d be more comfortable if you’d start sweating, but you never do, you just feel greasy instead. It’s yucky, seriously. I did a big grocery run because we were out of things, but I forgot perhaps the most important thing–sweetener for my coffee. DISASTER! But I can drink my coffee unsweetened, I just don’t enjoy it as much. I’ll have to walk across the street at work today and get some from CVS. Ah, well. But the Saints trounced the Cowboys yesterday, in Dallas. They’ve scored over forty points per game so far, and are looking really good. Or, the two teams we’ve played really stink, who can tell? But I should probably start paying more attention to them again. I know that sounds band-wagon fannish, but what I mean by that is paying attention to the NFL overall; I only do that when the Saints are playing well. If they aren’t, I don’t care enough about pro football to pay attention to anything but the Saints themselves. If anything ,I am fair-weather fan of the NFL.

I also watched Civil War yesterday afternoon. I wasn’t sure what I’d think going in, and I know it was kind of controversial at the time–but while it didn’t really do anything for me one way or the other, I can see why it disturbed people. It’s very graphic, shot in an almost documentary style, like the filmmakers are following and documenting journalists covering what looks like the end of a prolonged, and bitter, American civil war. The backstory isn’t really explained much, either–so you can’t say it’s pro one thing or the other, so it’s kind of like a true news documentary in that way. It’s very realistic about what the country would look like in that situation, and how the weary journalists don’t have an opinion about what they are witnessing (and experiencing the danger right along with whoever they are photographing; they also still shot some of the images they are taking, showing the action through endless shots in one case, which I thought was an interesting technique. The acting was good, it was completely unsentimental, and while I wouldn’t say it worked completely, it’s not a bad film and if you’re curious about it, check it out for yourself. But I was inured to the whole “disturbing” aspect of America at war with itself, because there’s a long history of this sort of thing in popular culture and I’ve come up with at least three or four book ideas that are variations on the very same theme of American collapse, what would come in its wake, and what kind of dystopia/civilization would rise from the ruins. I think about those ideas from time to time, usually when I’m watching some kind of dystopian movie or television series. I’m just kind of ambivalent about the movie, but it really left me without much of an opinion one way or the other.

I did sleep really well last night, and my supervisor is out for the week at a conference, which leaves me in charge of my program and the answer-man for questions with other testing. Yay, responsibility. But hopefully this week will be normal; a quick look at the Hurricane Center reveals Tropical Storm Gordon out in the Atlantic heading west and something forming along the coast of the Carolinas….so at least a week without having to worry about another disruption. Huzzah, I suppose.

We watched the Emmys for a while last night before going to bed, and it wasn’t a particularly good show–it rarely is, most awards shows are incredibly tedious (and getting even more tedious with every year), and the older I get the less I care about who wins them. I know this makes me a bad gay, but I was very into them for decades and they were a part of my formative gay years, so they did have an influence on me, but I’ve never considered the Tonys or Oscars to be the ‘gay Super Bowl’. There are some good shows coming out this month, everything from Grotesquerie to the Menendez Brothers series, and English Teacher is something I’m hearing very good things about, so we’re going to try to check that out this week, too. I didn’t read yesterday, but I did work on the Scotty Bible and did some planning on the next chapter, and want to get back to work on it as soon as possible.

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

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If You Love Me Let Me Know

I slept late this morning, but feel good now that I am awake. I did stay up later than I should have watching games last night, but I couldn’t turn off the Georgia-Kentucky game until the end. Georgia survived their closest non-Alabama game in quite a while, before prevailing 13-12 in a nail-biter in Lexington. My coffee tastes wonderful this morning, and I am slowly swimming up from the depths of Morpheus-induced slumber (strongly aided by Trazodone). When I first got up I debated maybe you don’t have to make groceries today but I really do need to. The Saints game starts at 1, so I’ll probably go during that to avoid traffic and other shoppers; New Orleans is a ghost town during games, and as long as I am home to catch the second half, that should do the trick. I did have a good day yesterday, despite all the games I watched; I was able to get more work done on the Scotty Bible (finding more discrepancies in the series), I did read some more of Everybody Knows, I got the dishes done finally, and did some cleaning around here, which is cool; it was nice coming downstairs and not seeing a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. I also worked some more on the books and straightened up the living room. Still need to do more cleaning, but am very pleased with the State of the Lost Apartment.

LSU played early yesterday, and it was a nail-biting, sloppy game with lots of penalties (and I feel like the officials kind of had their thumb on the scale a bit for LSU; some of the calls they made raised my eyebrows, and I was rooting for LSU. They did wind up winning, 36-33, but they look like they haven’t completely gelled as a team. Garrett Nussmeier can throw for sure, but there was also some incredibly stupid play-calling by the offensive coordinator (I was reminded of the Les Miles era; I wasn’t the only one because a headline on the Times-Picayune reads “Les Miles would have enjoyed LSU’s sloppy 36-33 win”). It was also weird because we actually don’t know how good South Carolina really is; they trounced Kentucky last week, and last night Kentucky almost knocked off Georgia, only to lose to LSU this week. After the LSU game ended, I watched Florida’s season start circling the drain again as they got trounced at home by Texas A&M, who lost to Notre Dame last week; you see how this is going? This is, I think, going to be an extremely strange season, and right now I am picking Texas to win the SEC.

Tulane also lost to Oklahoma yesterday, but they gave the Sooners what-for before going down to defeat.

I did run out yesterday to the Fresh Market to pick up a few things–fresh ground hamburger for grilling, and a meal kit of shrimp scampi for tonight–and so heading over to the West Bank today (which I was on the fence about when I got up) doesn’t seem as daunting now that I am waking up. Paul might have his trainer today, and thus will be gone for a bit anyway; perfect timing, and I can also stop for lunch at either Five Guys or Sonic; this decision is a tough one, frankly, but will probably go for Sonic. (These are the important decisions I face down every day, you know.)

I also took notes on the next chapter of the book, which I hope to tackle at some point this week. It’s Chapter Five, where I always have trouble in a first draft (come to think of it, Never Kiss a Stranger also stalled out at Chapter Five), but the good thing to come out of Hurricane Francine is now I remember how it goes and how it feels and how it sounds to ride out a hurricane. I know this is where Venus and Blaine turn this into an actual crime story–the dead body in front of their place the boys find in Chapter One–and it’s going to be really fun figuring out the rest of this book, I think. But I think I have an excellent grasp of what this chapter needs to be to move the story forward, plus it’s more of an intellectual puzzle of sorts because they can’t really go out and do any investigating because of the storm conditions. It’s so nice to feel excited about writing again, Constant Reader, you have no idea.

The story of Springfield, Ohio, and its perfectly ordinary Haitian immigrant population, working hard and building a better life for themselves and their families in this country with the opportunities here, despite the deeply imbedded racism and xenophobia they’ve surely encountered since being recruited to immigrate to Springfield to keep the town from dying. Now that the right’s candidates have decided to target that small town with blood libel and slander and racism, the town’s public schools, city hall, and hospitals have all been receiving bomb threats, because the Right has embraced stochastic terrorism for years now. There’s nothing American or patriotic about any of this, and the Right thinks it’s funny and laugh about it, particularly their Queen of Sewage, Chaya Raichik, who should be in a women’s penitentiary trying to explain how she’s not a racist to the brown women in there. Imagine being a “brand” and making money on being a stochastic terrorist, and celebrated for it. I’d actually like to see an IRS audit of Moms for Liberty and their bitch goddess to see where their money is coming from. We really don’t utilize the IRS nearly enough when it comes to lawbreaking cults and psychopaths when they are white, which is completely despicable, but part of those horrific baked-in values of racism in American society, carefully developed and nurtured over four hundred years. When I first saw they were targeting Haitian immigrants, I had two thoughts: 1. I was surprised the old blood libel about Haitians and HIV/AIDS weren’t dug up (it took just another day and 2. since it was pets, I was a little surprised it wasn’t the blood libel of Haitian satanism/voodoo’, i.e “they’re stealing our pets for ritual sacrifice!” Thanks, by the way, to perennial presidential candidate and new age lunatic Marianne Williamson, for making that connection for everyone. She’s fucking trash, and someone else Oprah owes us all an apology for platforming. She actually has quite a track record for charlatans and frauds, doesn’t she?

And on that note I am going to get another cup of coffee and perhaps some coffee cake for breakfast before I head into the spice mines. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I may be back later, one never can be sure.

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Rub It In

Saturday morning of this disrupted and off-track week. I went to the office yesterday and did walk-in testing, primarily because I’d already been home for two days getting paid and didn’t really think it was right to then work-at-home on Friday, too. But it has thrown my routine off, just as the hurricane did, because now my days are all messed up. LSU plays at eleven this morning, which means I should make a grocery run this morning before the game starts, but I also slept late and am not really sure if I have the energy to do so before the game starts. There are also good games on for the majority of the day–which will make that trip even trickier to do later, so i really do need to get to the Fresh Market before hand. Sigh. I didn’t do much when I got home from work, either, as I was very tired; mostly watched the news and cuddled with Sparky until Paul got home–late–and then I went to bed shortly after.

I also have to go to make groceries tomorrow, too. Sigh. The run to the Fresh Market is to get some fresh meat and shrimp for the weekend. I want to barbecue burgers today–a college football Saturday thing–and shrimp scampi or maybe even shrimp creole for tomorrow night. But I need to clean this goddamned godforsaken kitchen first. I have a sink full of dishes that I’ve just let sit there all week (we were supposed to use water sparingly after the storm, because the sewers were full of water already) and of course, now it’s going to be a major undertaking. I let the entire house slide this week, which is shameful. I’m going to work more on the Scotty Bible today while I watch games, try to read some more of Everybody Knows (which is fantastic), and try to pick up around here. Next week isn’t going to be an easy one, as my supervisor will be out at a conference (which basically means everyone will come to me with questions and concerns) so it will be a lot more hectic. Sigh. I have so much to do! I guess today I’ll go ahead and make a to-do list today before I start working on the house.

Ah, there’s the coffee kicking in at last! I was getting worried as I was feeling a bit groggy still, and thought ugh is this going to be a tired day? I fell asleep in the afternoon one day this past week, during the storm days, which was wild, but hurricane fatigue is a thing. Yeah, running over to Fresh Market after finishing this and getting a bit cleaned up before the game is definitely do-able. I want to seriously clean off my desk and organize this area a bit–the great thing is I can play whatever game I’m watching on the computer while I am in the kitchen, which is very cool (something I always forget–that my desktop AND laptop are also television screens).

I also want to get some progress made on the book this weekend. I’m sure the Saints are playing tomorrow, plus the grocery trip (I may go to the West Bank, now that they’re finished installing the lights on the bridge, and may even treat myself to Sonic while I am over there), so the window for writing tomorrow could be a little tight. It’s always hard to write on the weekends during football season! But I’ll get it done. It really is impossible to be able to focus completely to write when there’s a storm on its way, or even immediately after. But the positive is the book itself is set during a storm, and now I have fresh memories of time-lines, what it’s like outside, and the tension. No matter how much you try to relax, you’re always on edge because you never can be certain the roof isn’t going to come off or there won’t be a tornado or the wind won’t pick up a tree and deposit it on your house–sometimes hurricane winds can rip the facade off a house, too. I also need to do some brainstorming on the rest of the book. I’ve got some ideas about how to write the rest, but the primary trick is going to be not using anything that can slow the narrative down–like over-explaining (what I call “filler”), because it really does need to keep moving.

And see? After a tropical weather break, I am getting right back into it again. Huzzah!

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines and get that grocery run out of the way…and perhaps start on cleaning up this kitchen, too. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader; I doubt I’ll be back today but you never know. GEAUX TIGERS!

I Can Help

Friday after the storm and I am heading into the office in a bit to see what is the situation with our testing supplies, which have to be in controlled temperatures. The exciting day job responsibilities of a Gregalicious. These interrupted weeks are always a bit difficult to re-acclimate back from, especially these sudden and unexpected ones; the ones you plan for are disruptive enough. But I have to go in on a Friday after being home for two days, to then be home again for another two days, and then go back to normal, whatever that may be now. My mind and body clock are sufficiently scrambled now, and it may not be easy getting back into the old routine again–which may not be a bad thing, if I can perhaps establish a new one out of this chaos?

Always a plus!

We finished watching The Perfect Couple, which really didn’t stick the landing, but otherwise was a lot of fun to watch. I imagine the book was probably better. Yesterday was an odd day; it’s weird to have a hurricane day (let alone two in a row) and not have to worry about working at home and so forth; it was like having a weekend in the middle of the week and now I have a day to go into the office when I usually don’t before the weekend, which is very odd. I also started reading Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows, which is phenomenal, and I also collected all the marked information from Who Dat Whodunnit for the Scotty Bible. The next book up is Bourbon Street Blues, and what’s interesting is catching the continuity errors I’ve made over the years, which points out the need for the Scotty Bible, which I should have done after the first three when I went back to write the fourth.

The Internet is out this morning–it survived the storm, but a day later goes down? Excellent service, Cox. Fortunately I have an iPhone hotspot so I can check my emails and everything before I head into the office. The email communiqué yesterday afternoon about the office being open this morning mentioned that we’d be using generator power if Entergy was still down; which means limited access to the Internet and so forth. It could make for an interesting day, but I kind of think Entergy might have the power back on across the city by now? There are, per the outage map, still some parts of the city that are without power, but most people have it. It does look like the office is still down, but there was so little red on the outage map I doubt it will be out for much longer.

The aftermath of a hurricane–no matter the size, whether’s it’s a tropical depression or a Category –always feels like awakening from a disorienting dream. The release of tension–because no matter how calm you feel, you’re super tense waiting for the unknown–and once the storm is past, you just kind of let all the internal pressure out and feel exhausted. I didn’t work on cleaning up the house much; I have a sink full of dishes to do and bed linens to launder today, and I should probably stop on the way home to get something to make for dinner, as there is very little of anything in the house. I got a pizza for us last night (I was starving), and have to do some writing tonight when I get home. I think I am going to take some of the Bible information and put it into the first four chapters, and I may even go ahead and do second drafts while I am in there. There’s a lot of “riding the storm out” bits and pieces I can add in–the tension, the worry, the hurry-up-and-wait of it all; how the day before is simply stunningly beautiful, the howling of the wind and the steady downpour of rain. Figuring this book out isn’t going to be easy, but the time frame I was originally looking at does work–so the entire book will take place over about thirty-six hours, from start to finish, with some flashbacks to the past. I am still excited about this book, and compiling the Bible, to be honest. I don’t know why it took so long; the post-it notes have been in volumes of the backlist since before Royal Street Reveillon was published–the last two books don’t have post-its in them.

The weekend is going to be fun, methinks. A plethora of college football games to watch; LSU plays at eleven, so that will free up the day later. I am going to try to do some writing tonight when I get home from work, and I definitely am going to read more of Everybody Knows. I have errands to run and some things to get done this weekend, and I definitely need to clean the damned house. Sigh. Stop being lazy, Greg!

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; one can never be entirely certain!

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Sweet Surrender

Well, we survived. I can’t speak for the rest of the city or state, but we managed to even maintain our Lower Garden District hurricane privilege and didn’t lose either power or cell service. I know there was a lot of flooding in the city, and a lot of power outages. Our office is closed this morning–no power and street flooding–so I have another day at home today (I will definitely be going into the office tomorrow), which is nice, even if I had to get up at my usual go-to-work alarm time to be sure.

I don’t know if our street flooded, but I didn’t want to go out and look last night once the eye wall had mostly passed. I went to bed and slept through the last three or four hours of the storm. But even before I went to bed, I couldn’t hear most of the wind gusts until right before I went to bed. I could see tree limbs and lots of leaves shining wetly in the light of the outside lamp, and chose not to brave going out into it; some things are best left unpacked once the tension is released the morning after. There were still some tropical pockets left to pass when I went to bed last night, but none of it had rain and it was mostly wind gusts that would peter out the more time passed. But…I did get a lot of impressions for the book, so that was a good thing. Everything is material, after all, and this storm reminded me exactly of how the hurricane timeline works–as well as the reminder that it’s never the same, so I don’t really need to worry so much about that part.

I wrote a lot in my head yesterday. I hope I remember it all.

I just hope my car is okay, which I will go check on once I finish this and am more awake.

So yesterday was one of those tense days where you wait, watching weather reports to see where the storm is now and wondering, hoping, that you don’t lose power or get wind damage or anything. We were lucky again–that Lower Garden District privilege working once more–so we were able to stay up-to-date all day while luxuriating in our climate controlled apartment while watching television and basically–outside of the tension and nerves–a free day to stay home (which is again today).

We binged The Perfect Couple on Hulu, which is quite interesting and kind of escapist rich people drama murder fun, like Big Little Lies. Nicole Kidman is terrific (although her fabulous life as a wealthy and successful crime novel “who keeps cranking them out because they need the money” is why people think all crime writers are rich, because that’s all you ever see in movies and television; no one wants to read about mid-list authors, other than Ben Mears in ‘salem’s Lot) and, frankly, so is everyone else in the cast. The plot is interesting, more so because of how it’s structured, going back and forth in time to before and after the murder. We have only one episode left, and we also got caught up on Bad Monkey, too.

I bit the bullet and just walked out to the car. Our path is covered in leaves and branches, and so is the street; it’s also in the sixties out there right now which felt marvelous. But the street didn’t flood (filled with branches and other assorted debris), and my car is also fine, so we made it through this with little more than inconvenience, really. I went ahead and checked the inside to be sure the mats weren’t either wet or damp, and the car started right up without a problem. Today does feel a bit anticlimactic. Francine wasn’t nearly as bad as Ida, but Ida was a bigger and more powerful storm. We lost power for Ida before she even made landfall, and that was a miserable experience. Ida was also terrifying. The wind gusts shook and rattled the entire house, the rain was torrential and the lightning and thunder were horrifying. I kind of decided after Ida that I’d never ride out anything more than a Category 2 going forward. We’ve been lucky since Ida, too.

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up, get some more coffee, and get to work on some chores around here while also doing some reading. I’ll probably be back later, of course, and until then, have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later on.

There Won’t Be Anymore

Hurricane mornings are always weird and a bit off-putting. It looks right now like we’ll be getting close to a direct hit later today. Yesterday it looked like the eye would come through around seven tonight; it may be later than that now. It started raining yesterday afternoon, but it wasn’t difficult getting home because there was very little traffic and very little standing water. I was able to fill the tank on the way home (just in case), and I was able to get a loaf of bread when I stopped at CVS, needing something else so I thought I’d look, and lo and behold, they had bread! Ida was bigger than this and more powerful, but the thing about hurricanes is every one is different and so is their impact. The summer before Katrina, for example, Hurricane Dennis (a category 1) came ashore before Tropical Storm Cindy, which did more damage and knocked power out for half the city, while Dennis was a big nothing despite being a stronger storm. Go figure.

We’re in a lull, where everything is quiet and peaceful and even the rain has stopped. There are a couple of things outside that I need to secure this morning. The office did close today, so we’re all working at home for a few hours; I may take the day off, frankly. I overslept this morning because I stayed up watching the debate last night, which was far better than I ever could have dreamed, with the Vice-President demonstrating why I have been a fan for over a decade. Then social media exploded with the perfectly timed Taylor Swift endorsement, and all in all, it wasn’t a very good night for the Republicans. Thoughts and prayers.

I am choosing, however, to see the positive side of this disruption (even at their best, tropical weather like this is always an interruption of day to day life). I am writing a book set during a Category 1 hurricane, so it’s almost like I spoke this into being, but I am now remembering how they actually work when you don’t evacuate, and so that is enormously helpful; I want the book to take place over the course of a hurricane–from the outer bands to the final bands, and I wasn’t really sure how they work because my memories inevitable block this sort of thing out. But I do have the timeframe now that I need (thank you for something, Francine), and I just need to make notes throughout the day on conditions and how it looks outside and what the wind and torrential rain sounds like. So, turning this into a positive is how I am looking at it. Doesn’t mean I am looking forward to it or anything like that, but at least make use of it. Everything in life is material for a writer, after all.

So, I am going to try to do things around here today. I decided to use paid time off today and not have to do any work stuff–there is some, but I just am not up for it, really. And so I am most likely going to focus on picking things up and getting organized, maybe going through another Scotty volume for information for the Bible (my biggest fear is catching discrepancies and mistakes in the overall series), and going back into what is already done and adding corrections–names and so forth that I couldn’t remember. I had forgotten that I’d already named one of Scotty’s Mom’s siblings, and that he was her only brother. It’s really odd how amorphous Scotty’s family is outside of the immediate family, isn’t it? We don’t really know a whole lot about either side of the family, although we did explore the Bradleys a bit in Who Dat Whodunnit.

Despite the imminent threat of potential destruction, I’m still feeling good about writing still, which is awesome.

It’s also Pay-the-Bills Day, which feels superfluous, but needs to be done today for sure in case we lose power.

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close so I can eat something and get cleaned up and get my day going. It’s getting dark again outside, so another band will be here soon. Have a great day wherever you are–and oh yes, heavy thoughts about today too because it’s 9/11. A hurricane on 9/11. Sheesh.

World of Make Believe

I woke up reluctantly this morning to rain, which will be off and on all day, and probably getting worse as the day progresses. Okay, pretty much the same as yesterday. We were on the edge of the cone yesterday, and today we are just outside of it, expecting tropical storm conditions at worst for the moment when she gets here, and it’s going to be relatively nasty both tomorrow and Thursday morning. The whole thing should be over and past by Thursday afternoon. The models kept shifting yesterday; first we were outside, then inside, then back outside again. The agency hasn’t made any announcements yet, but I think I don’t want to drive in tropical storm conditions so might just take tomorrow off and ride this out at home.

The irony that I am writing a book set during tropical weather has not escaped me. I really didn’t need a reminder of riding out a storm.

I am also seeing recommendations that everyone stay home Wednesday and Thursday, and little as I want to use my paid time off to not go into the office, I think my own personal safety and that of my car is more important than my job. Of course, we are completely unprepared–no bread, and probably won’t be able to get any at this point as people have probably already lost their minds about the storm. I still have a case of water from last year’s salt intrusion in the Mississippi, so we’re at least ahead on that score, and of course, we have a lot of candles. God, I hope we don’t lose power. We won’t lose much food, thank heavens, because I’ve been trying to use up everything in the house in order to combat my food anxiety (from being poor in my younger years) and not have a fully stocked house filled with food I never get around to eating.

Yesterday was a low energy day; I managed to get all my work done at the office but was dragging by the time I came home. I didn’t do any writing when I got home, but we watched The Deliverance last night, which was really interesting. It’s based on a true story, apparently, which makes it even more interesting, and the acting was phenomenal. I love urban horror–it’s so much more creepy when horror is set in an urban area, where the suspension of belief is even harder to pull off. A remote creepy big house in the middle of nowhere? Easy to go down that path than to think the house at the end of the block or across the street is haunted, you know? I’ve always wanted to write a great ghost story set in New Orleans.

Also, This Fresh Hell, an anthology I contributed a story to last year, has been short-listed for the Ditmer award for Best Collection! That’s exciting, and I am delighted for the editors. The story I contributed, “Solace in a Dying Hour,” is one of my personal favorites, and is one of my few Louisiana stories that isn’t set in New Orleans. That’s also a story I wrote post-pandemic, and so I guess I have been doing good work since the world shut down four years ago, but it was such a completely miserable time that it seems like I didn’t really write anything good. I also didn’t get as much work done as per my usual, which was a part of the entire self-recrimination thing. I’ve also realized, going through these old Scotty books, that I’ve always considered the ones after the first three as different from the first three. And they are, in many ways, but as always, rather than thinking it through I just thought I wasn’t doing as good of work on that series…but in thinking it through, I realized that mentally it’s like two different series; because there were the first three over four years, and changed publishers with it, starting it again about three or four years after the third came out. By the time I wrote another Scotty, things were different. Publishing had changed. There really weren’t ebooks when the first three came out. Working on the first three was a matter of getting corrected manuscripts in the mail, fixing everything, and then sending them another two copies of the corrected manuscript, and on and on. By the time I wrote Vieux Carre Voodoo, everything was being done electronically, and thus could move a lot faster than the olden days. It’s not that I worked harder on the earlier ones, but it was harder to publish and edit the old way, and time-consuming. And since that was the way I learned how to revise and rewrite and make corrections, in my mind I defaulted to this is the way it’s supposed to be done and I’ve never gotten comfortable with the new way, even if 90% of my books were done that way.

And the clinic is closed for the storm tomorrow. We don’t have bread, and it’s probably impossible to find any now…but we do have crackers. And protein shakes. And lots of soda.

I hope we don’t lose power.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, and everyone in the path, stay safe!

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If You Talk In Your Sleep

Well, here we are in the cone of uncertainty for a tropical storm that should be forming due south of Louisiana in the Gulf, which should make for an interesting week, don’t you think? How things have changed since I posted my blog yesterday morning… I imagine we’ll be hearing about contingency plans today at the office.

Sigh. Wednesday is also Pay the Bills Day, which should make everything all the more interesting. According to the hurricane center, landfall should be around seven pm on Wednesday, so who knows? It might impact work on Thursday, too. And of course, I am writing about experiencing a Category 1 with this new Scotty, and this one will be a Category 1, too, if not stronger. Yay. Needless to say, we won’t be evacuating as this has come up a little too quickly; we’d have to get packing and on the road today, tomorrow morning at the latest. There’s no call for evacuation, so we should be okay. But…we may lose power, and that truly sucks. If the weather is going to be cool…it might be kind of nice, but I don’t think that’s going to be the case. Guess I’ll be getting that case of water down from the attic and tossing a few of them into the freezer. But there doesn’t seem to be much concern in the news or on the weather channels, so I am assuming it’s nothing to be terribly concerned or worried about. It’s 3’s and up that are the real problem…and of course, now that I’ve said that…

Since it’s a Monday, it’s back to the office with me this morning. I had a lovely, restful weekend, how about you? Yesterday was a really lovely day here. I overslept so was a bit off for the rest of the day, but the weather was gorgeous. I didn’t do a whole lot of anything, but one thing I did was start the Scotty Bible, going through the already post-it noted copy of Mardi Gras Mambo and getting some interesting (and necessary) information out of it (the first names of his grandparents and his dad; the street the Diderot mansion is on) that I needed, and I felt very accomplished getting that part of it done and it’s off to a start. It was also kind of nice revisiting the old book, something I wrote almost twenty years ago. I’d forgotten how insane the plot of this book actually was, and I’m kind of impressed that I managed to pull it off, especially given how many aborted starts I made on it. But I certainly picked the right back-list book to start compiling the Bible with; it had all the answers I needed for this one in it. Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop doing it, mind you; I am planning on getting through one book per day (I already marked the places I need to get information from in the entire series, many years ago); today is Who Dat Whodunnit when I get home tonight. I’m also going to correct the chapters I’ve already written with the right names and places and so forth.

I ran an errand and the weather was stunningly beautiful–the 70s and cool; the breeze was nice and cool, a lovely change from it feeling like the air coming out of a floor vent in Minneapolis in January. I watched the Saints win, which was also lovely, and then I had a ZOOM call with some friends before settling in for the evening, where we got caught up with Bad Monkey and Only Murders in the Building.

So, all in all, a pleasant if lazy weekend here in the Lost Apartment, if not a particularly productive one. Which is also fine, you know. Weekends don’t have to be productive anymore.

It’ll be interesting to see how this storm–which is now projected to be a Category 2 when the eye comes ashore–is going to interrupt the week and my work. If we lose power, we have plenty of candles and things to drink, and I can catch up on my reading. Now that I’ve broken through my “reader’s block” and binged an entire novel in one sitting (Alison Gaylin’s We Are Watching, available now for preorders and being released in January), reading isn’t going to be as big an issue as it was. I am also making progress on getting through Rival Queens, and am revisiting some Ira Levin classics, preparatory to a longer essay for Substack about one of my favorite writers that I sadly forget about when asked about influences; Levin’s work had an influence on mine in some ways, but he was definitely a master. He wrote one of the greatest crime novels of all time (A Kiss Before Dying, which still amazes with its twists and turns and surprises), and three others that became part of the zeitgeist and had a lasting impact on our culture: Rosemary’s Baby, The Stepford Wives, and The Boys from Brazil. (I also want to reread “A Rose for Emily” this week, too.) I also haven’t reread Rebecca in quite some time, nor The Haunting of Hill House, either. I am going to be trying to read horror all month for Halloween again; I have some terrific horror novels collecting dust that I need to get around to, and Halloween Horror Month sounds like a great idea to me.

I also want to watch The Deliverance this week.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. It’ll be an interesting day, for sure, and maybe I’ll be back later. Stranger things have occurred.

A Very Special Love Song

Sunday morning and the Gregalicious slept late. I also went to bed early last night, so my body must have needed the rest. I did feel tired yesterday and even fell asleep a few times while I was watching football games yesterday. LSU played terribly but did win in the end, and Tulane played fantastic but had the game stolen from them by shitty officiating from SURPRISE! officials from their opponent’s conference and an insane, completely stupid offensive pass interference penalty that wasn’t even interference or holding to steal the tying touchdown from them in the final moments. There were some other interesting results yesterday, too, but I didn’t feel particularly into any of the games, in all honesty. I was kind of unemotional during the LSU game–the only time I actually felt any actual emotion was when that bad call was made during the Tulane-Kansas State game. Which is odd–there was one upset loss that made me laugh laugh laugh yesterday–but we’ll see how it goes next weekend, when the Tigers play at South Carolina.

I did break through the reading glass ceiling yesterday morning and tore through the ARC of Alison Gaylin’s January release, We Are Watching, and my god, that thing moves at the speed of a bullet train! I also realized that my problem with finding time to read is because my mind is still in the headspace of having to limit time doing anything because there’s so much else to do! I did my daily German lesson, too, while I was watching the Tulane game, so my Duolingo streak continues. But I’m so used to having to limit my reading time because I am a binge reader–once I get into the book I’m going to probably want to read it all the way through, and doing so usually costs me some writing time or cleaning time or something, with a million things hanging over my head. I realized yesterday morning that I can read for as long as I want whenever I want because I don’t have all those responsibilities any more. So, probably when I finis this, I can make some time to read after doing some things. I don’t know what time the Saints game is on today, and should probably check. It’s also not raining and sunny outside, for the first time in nearly a week. I do have to run an errand at some point today–I need charcoal, which I forgot to pick up the other night at the store–but I can probably get that at Walgreens and not have to get in the car.

I am probably going to work on the book today around some chores in the kitchen and finishing the dishes. I am starting to get into the swing of the weekends with very little to do and am starting to acclimate to it. It’s nice seeing how everyone else does these things, and I am also starting to realize that a lot of my tendency to being reclusive and not wanting to leave the house for anything other than work has everything to do with exhaustion, and now that I am not exhausted from everything and knowing that there was no end in sight for tasks and things, I’m thinking this may not be so bad. I just haven’t had the opportunity to really sit down and recognize that my life is different now than it was before Mom died, and the year I’d planned to spend transitioning into a normal life again was spent grieving and having surgeries of my own. It’s very weird, and I know it’s not my first time bringing it up, but I’m not used to having free time this way, and realizing if I hadn’t split up my energies the way I mostly have for the last decade or so, I could have gotten a lot more done. I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done, for any number of good reasons, but it’s still kind of odd and I do find myself wondering how did you manage to do all that, write a shit ton of books and short stories, and edit two to three manuscripts per month?

It’s a mystery to me.

But we’re supposed to have some cooler weather now that the storms from that tropical system have passed, but there’s another depression out in the Gulf just off the Yucatan with a good (70%) chance of forming into something stronger, and there are two out in the Atlantic currently. Hurricane season theoretically peaks in mid-to-late September, so we’re almost out of the woods–unless there’s a surprise in store for November. That’ll be nice and will bring the power bill down a bit (it’s been brutal this summer), which is always a plus.

And on that note, I think I am going to get cleaned up, run my little errand, and plop my ass back into my chair to get some writing work done. Have a great Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll see you perhaps later on.