Pleasant Valley Sunday

It’s Sunday morning, I overslept, Sparky is chasing a bottle cap and I’ve been watching kitten videos since I got up while slurping down my morning coffee. Kitten videos really do have a lovely effect on the soul, don’t they? I would definitely foster kittens if we had more room in the house. Humans really are not good enough for our pets and don’t deserve them (I woke up this morning with Sparky cuddled up with me on my pillow). I will never understand people who give their pets up or just abandon them to fend for themselves.

Then again, I’ve never really understood how people could abuse or kill or give up their children, either. I thank God every day for my parents, you know? I really hit the lottery with mine, despite their conservative values and beliefs because they were terrific parents in almost every metric that is measurable. I ended up taking yesterday off. We were in a heat advisory for the day, so I didn’t want to go out in the misery and I did manage to get some things done before Paul got up, and my favorite thing to do is just hang out with him in the living room watching television, which is what we did. We finished Outer Rang1e and began watching Evil, which becomes really interesting once it revs up and gets going (I particularly enjoyed the ‘ghost hunter’ episode). I also finished off one journal and began another, and most of what I scribbled in there was work on the new book–which I must absolutely 100% work on today before I go make groceries. My plan for today is to do some work in the kitchen, do some writing and then head out to the store. I don’t need much, actually, which is great for my budget, but it’s all stuff that is entirely necessary and needed. (Sparky needs treats!) It felt good not to do much of anything other than journaling yesterday. I made Swedish meatballs for dinner, and that was probably the best batch of them I’ve ever made (and sadly, will never be able to make them the same way as I do it from memory and so it’s always different every time). I’m having fun cooking again, and I’m looking forward to trying to make some new stuff and teaching myself more recipes and so forth.

I’ve also got some scanning to get done today. I also managed to get down some boxes from on top of the cabinets and got rid of two of them. I have more books to donate next weekend to the library sale (need to fill the box up first), more paper to throw away, and now I can start on the other side of the kitchen cabinets. Once the tops of the cabinets are cleared, I can start taking things down from the attic and getting rid of/going through those boxes. I’d like to be able to move all my own books up there and get them out of the way–which would open up an entire bookcase, which would help the books stacked on the floor situation, which would be super nice. I am determined to end this year completely decluttered and a former packrat. Stranger things have happened, after all.

I’m going to try to avoid the news and social media today. All it does is enrage me, and I can’t afford to waste that much energy on things I cannot control. My identity as a gay male pretty much decides my politics for me, and for the record, I am far more socialist in my beliefs and values than we are even remotely close to as a country, but I am also pragmatic, and my own brush with the world of politics back in the aughts only served to reaffirm that stance. I don’t think it speaks well of the wealthiest country in the history of the planet that we do not care about the most vulnerable citizens and don’t care if children go to bed hungry. I’ve never understood the vicious, selfish mentality of punishing children for the sins of their parents, and poverty isn’t a crime in this country yet; neither is mental illness. We should as a society be far more concerned with helping the less fortunate…but then we’d be a Christian nation, and despite all claims to the contrary we are most definitely not a Christian country–because the best measure of a truly Christian nation is how we take care of the poor and the sick and we definitely fall down in that respect…but ironically the Nat C’s are, as always, only interested in symbols and ideas, rather than actually living a Christ-like life. I don’t know how anyone can read the New Testament and come away from it not caring about the sick and the poor. It’s pretty clear.

But then, the Nat C’s aren’t big on reading comprehension.

Glancing at my Substack, I see yesterday’s post there (“Tell Me Why,” an entry I posted yesterday about art v the artist) apparently cost me a subscriber. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. This is one of the reasons I never wanted to do a newsletter in the first place; having people unsubscribe made me self-conscious about what I say in one if I can see those numbers either going up or down, and obsess about them. I don’t want to censor myself. I’ve censored myself for so long…but seriously, if you don’t support my values and my beliefs, or understand how my sexuality colors those, why are you even here? Not everyone agrees with me, not every queer agrees with me, and certainly not every white cisgender gay man does, either (Log Cabin Republicans do exist, after all). There certainly are plenty of gay men who are transphobic or racist or misogynist (or any combination of the three), which I don’t understand and will never understand how the cognitive dissonance doesn’t drive them mad, but here we are.

And I am done censoring myself to coddle the feelings of people who think I’m a disgusting pervert pedophile? They can fuck right off. They don’t care about my feelings, why should I give any of my time, brain space, or energy worrying about theirs?

And on that defiant note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a terrific Sunday, Constant Reader, and remember–under Project 2025 everything will be closed and nothing will go on other than spending time with loved ones, most likely at church (but hey, doesn’t the preacher work on the Lord’s Day? Maybe he shouldn’t get paid…) on Sundays, and no more NFL. What a glorious future.

NOT.

I’m not really sure about this pose, to be honest. It just looks weird and not sexy at all. Not sure what they were going for here, frankly.
  1. Really enjoyed this show’s second season, and not sure if there’s a need for a third, even though a lot was left up the air and it was never fully explained other than “time is a river.” Okay then, but it did feel rather satisfying when it ended. ↩︎

Tell Me Why

The question of whether one can enjoy art by an artist who is, in some way, problematic in modern sensibilities has been raging off and on almost this entire century; the conversation will die down without any real resolution until someone everyone hero-worships is exposed. This always lends itself to the rending of garments and the gnashing of teeth as people question whether it’s okay to continue enjoying art by someone who your ethics and values find to be problematic. I understand why people have these reactions, and there is something to be said about a world in which there was no social media or Internet around to expose artists the way they are now, you know? With the changes in publishing, artists have had to start putting themselves out there a lot more than ever before to connect with readers and hopefully sell some books to keep our careers going; as someone who (despite the blog) tends to be a very private person (“never bleed in public!”) I try not to be controversial about things that, to me, aren’t controversial; anyone who thinks I am not going to support queer equality or fight misogyny and racism with every breath in my body and every keystroke in my fingers…that isn’t controversial to me.

And if you think a gay man who constantly has to justify his existence as a human being and therefore should have the same rights that everyone else has isn’t going to belittle, insult, and rip to shreds people who think I’m subhuman? Go fuck yourself with rusty razor wire and do the world a favor and don’t breed.

And don’t even get me started on the abuse I’ve endured over the years.

The first time I ever was confronted with this ethical and moral question about art was, I think, with Orson Scott Card. Card was a highly successful science fiction writer, and his book Ender’s Game is (was?) widely regarded as a classic of the genre. I read it and enjoyed it, but there were some kind of creepy things in the text that set off an alarm in my head, and the book didn’t leave me with any desire to revisit that universe or any of Card’s other books. So when he turned out to be a devout Mormon actively working to stigmatize and deny rights to queer people…well, that was an easy decision for me. I don’t actively work to deny him rights as a Mormon, do I? So, yeah, his homophobic activism was actually causing harm to an entire community, and was pushing to do more. As far as I know, he’s still a homophobic POS, but he had the decency to fold his tent, pick up his marbles, and go home with the marriage equality fight ended with Obergefell.1

This question has reared its ugly head again recently, in the cases of immensely popular and respected writers Neil Gaiman and Alice Munro2. Gaiman for sexual predation and Munro for not supporting her daughter who was being raped as a child by Munro’s second husband (and yes, Lolita came up a lot in those conversations, and it never ceases to amaze me how many warped people DO NOT understand that book in the slightest. It’s not a beautiful romantic story of forbidden love and a child-temptress; it’s a horrific story of abuse and survival, even if beautifully written. Nabokov was too good of a writer to tackle this subject, clearly). I was going to address this question regarding them in the abstract; I have no skin in either game. I’ve enjoyed Gaiman’s work in the past, but have never met him and don’t have any connection to him other than his work and mutual friends. But hold the presses–someone I actually know was arrested for possessing child sexual abuse pornography.3

That was a shock.

And the more news that came out about this crime, the worse it has been.

There’s no question he’s guilty; possession of child sex abuse pornography cases generally don’t lead to an arrest unless they are 100% certain of conviction; 91% plead out and those who go to trial have a 95% conviction rate, so they have you dead to rights. The sheer volume of this vile imagery on his computer negates any excuses that a defense lawyer could conceivably come up with. I did see, as soon as the news broke, some people urging others to not jump to conclusions and “everyone is presumed innocent”–yeah, that clamor has died down as more information has come out. It’s also made me think about other instances where someone’s horrible behavior has been exposed; there’s always the people who don’t want to believe it–which I think is more of a subconscious defense mechanism in some way; we all want to believe that we can spot these people in polite company, that there are little tell-tale signs we may not have noticed at the time but now make sense, and we don’t want to believe that someone we’ve met, worked with, been around and liked can be a monster.

But as the queers can tell you, people can pretend to be supportive and pretend to be your friend while happily voting against your rights in every election. They can equate drag queens with pedophilia, and deep down think queer people shouldn’t be around children–or when presented with queer people around children, shudder and say “well that’s inappropriate”–so deep down your instant reaction is homophobia, so you’re actually homophobic at heart and need to do some self-work…and don’t be surprised when you spew out something homophobic you get dragged for it, and then pull the “I didn’t mean it that way”–yes, dear, you did.

And it’s not my fucking job to educate you.

It’s a shock, of course, anything like this will rock your world. We don’t want to believe we are in the company of monsters…but you’ll never go wrong as a queer person slightly holding back on straight people. Given the chance, they will always throw queer people under the bus to maintain their own privilege.

That’s how the monsters get away with it, after all…they look like everyone else. We do ourselves no favors thinking we should be able to tell when we’re in the presence of evil. The fact that we can’t makes knowing and liking a monstrous pedophile feel like a personal failing, like “how did I not see it?” Because they are very adept at fitting in…which is how they get away with it for so long.

The crime community has done a very good job this week disassociating with him, but it’s a excellent reminder to always be careful. Always.

And another reminder: Brendan DuBois? Not a drag queen.

  1. I don’t know if he has resurfaced in his role as unrepentant homophobic asshole in the years since, but he’s no longer on my radar and I don’t care what he’s doing. ↩︎
  2. A NOBEL PRIZE WINNER! ↩︎
  3. Not even the first time this has happened; the last time was someone I knew much better than the colleague arrested this week. ↩︎

The Girl I Met Somewhere

Saturday morning and how are you, Constant Reader?

My work at home day was lovely, although I allowed nonsense to get under my skin yesterday. I am so over everything these days, you know? Just tired of the endless stupidity and tired of always being Cassandra, never listened to but inevitably correct in the end. It’s out of my control, people are going to fiddle while Rome burns, and fifty years from now people will look back and wonder, what happened? I just need to focus on me and getting through everything, and the best and easiest thing to do is focus on my work.

I can never go wrong by focusing on my work.

I still have the occasional doubts, of course; that’s never going to change, but at least the medications have calmed it down to something I can reasonably handle without spiraling.I am a good writer, this book is going to be terrific and a complete departure for me, and that excites me, quite a bit. I did get some chores done, too, and then after everything was done and it was time, we watched the season premiere of The Serpent Queen (well done, and very wise to do a time jump after the last season1) before getting back into Outer Range, which is much better in the second season and a lot more interesting. We also got caught up on The Acolyte; Paul still didn’t care for it, but I think it got better from episode four on. I also had my journal in my lap and was scribbling madly away in it all evening–focusing on the next few chapters of the book, fleshing out a bit more what’s going on in his new apartment and him getting to start his new life in New Orleans, and starting to feel free for the first time in his life; free to be whomever he wanted to be, and comfortable at last in his own skin. I also loosely sketched out the next chapter after that as well–which is very pleasing. I also had some other ideas while scribbling, so there was that, too. I also managed to get all my angst about the future of the world scribbled out in there, so I should be good for at least a little while here. It felt somehow more freeing to write it all out in longhand, my beautiful cursive2, and so maybe that’s what I should do–get the journal out when I am tempted to vent here and probably shouldn’t. I just get so angry when people literally forget that my life and my rights hang in the balance for every election, and seeing people who will be fine no matter the outcome being so fucking flippant about it is enraging.

So much godly concern for the welfare of others there, isn’t there?

Today I slept in a bit. I went back to bed after Sparky got me up for food at seven, and stayed there for another two hours. I don’t think I am leaving the house today for anything, but I definitely need to do some things around here. I want to write this weekend, if it kills me (sometimes I wonder), and I also want to finish reading my book. The fact that it’s taking so long isn’t an indication of the quality of the book–which is superb–it’s just my mind hasn’t been in a reading phase lately and I have to just go along with it and start reading when my mind is ready. I’m going to try another hour today and see if that leads me to break through the reading obstruction in my brain. I do not like that I can’t read while I am writing these days, which I’ve always been able to do before. Maybe it’s an age brain thing, I don’t know…but this getting older thing is definitely for the birds. I am not very fond of it, honestly.

There’s a mess in my kitchen this morning I need to clean up, too. I really have to stop letting things slide until the weekend; it’s so much easier to clean as you go rather than just keep going and letting the messes to stack and grow until I feel like I have the “time” to get it all caught up, which is dumb as it never takes very long to do, really.

I’m very interesting this morning, aren’t I?

We’re in a heat advisory yet again until seven this evening, which is another reason I don’t want to leave the house today. I’m sure we’ll be in one tomorrow morning, too–but I can go make groceries long before the sweltering really and truly begins. Which means making a list–which I can do this morning. I also need to make a to-do list, and take a look at my calendar to see if there are any short story calls I want to submit to at the end of the month (or next month). I also really need to get back into actually writing, even if what I write isn’t very good because it’s never very good the first time around. Why do we always forget what it’s like to write a book, about how that first draft inevitably will convince you that you don’t know how to write anything and you were stupid to ever believe you could and it was always just a matter of time till the drive to write finally became merely a path to write and the talent and creativity (such as they were) dried up without me knowing it? Every. Single. Time.

Or maybe it’s just me. Who knows?

And on that note, I am going to finish this and head into the spice mines. I am going to clean the dishes and run the dishwasher, get cleaned up and get this mess organized and make that to-do list and dive into the next chapter I am working on. I’ll probably be back later; there are a couple of posts that are almost finished and I should get them done this weekend and posted. Have a great rest of your Saturday!

Screenshot
  1. Because we’re getting to the Wars of Religion, and that’s really the most interesting part of her life. ↩︎
  2. I have the loveliest handwriting. I get compliments on it all the time. ↩︎

Take a Giant Step

Seriously, what the actual fuck, George Clooney? I was never really a fan, but you’re a fucking asshole. For one thing, you’re a rich straight white man who lives in Italy with a wife who’s half your age. Trump wins and you’re going to be just fine, so miss me with your “macro” concern for the country. Gays, women, and minorities NEED for the Democrats to win this election; Project 2025 quite literally spells out what they are going to do to us. And once they start mass deportations and have all those internment camps just sitting there waiting for people…well, deportation is hard and messy and complicated, why not add some Nazi showers and ovens and be done with the whole problem right there? And if you think queer people aren’t on the list, what color is the sky in your fucking world? It really upsets me when narcissistic trash like George Clooney suddenly decide that their opinion is so smart and so important and matters so much that he has to spew bullshit in the New York fucking Treason Times.

You’re dead to me, George. Take an acting class sometime. It couldn’t hurt. And maybe learn some fucking humility, you arrogant piece of smug shit. So you’re worried and millions of votes should not matter anymore because George is uncomfortable and “concerned”. We threw out King George III 250 years ago; and you sir, are NO George III. Fuck you, shut up, and keep your skanky ass in Italy. I guarantee you any project you appear in I will review bomb with one-stars. You deserve to lose everything, you arrogant piece of shit. Will you wrinkle your brow and feel shame?

Or are you just that fucking fond of your tax cuts, Richie Rich?

It has not been missed by me that the only people calling for Biden to step aside are all rich, white and straight. Coincidence? I think not. Which is why you can never trust rich liberals–right, Susan Sarandon? Their narcissism and smug sense of superiority will always pick their money over vulnerable populations.

Nothing makes me sicker to my stomach than a limousine liberal. I’ll never forget that witch Susan Sarandon manhandling Dolores Huerta, who has shit out more progressive acts than Sarandon has ever done in her entire cosplay liberal acting life, for not supporting Bernie in 2016 and then claiming DOLORES FUCKING HUERTA is a part of the “establishment.” Does she even realize she’s mouthing the language of 60s anti-war protestors that no one else has used in over fifty years?

Then again, she’s old and should probably step aside for someone younger who can do the job better.

What’s amazing to me is how straight white people always get so defensive when their allyship is questioned. Is there anything worse that a mediocre straight white man who is so convinced of his own importance that he just has to express his opinion, which is so much more important than anyone else’s because he had relatives in the business and some desperately sad women thought he was hot? Where’s that Jim Jordan exposé documentary you promised us years ago? Yeah, that’s what I thought: sell out. Straight white people cannot ever be trusted to not throw everyone else under the bus, and the richer they are the more likely it is.

As a gay man, I’ve watched the Democratic Party throw us under the bus “because it wasn’t time” so many times that I understand the impatience of other minority groups when progress doesn’t move fast enough. I’m so inured and immune to it that it’s really hard for me to not expect disappointment from my fellow progressives. But this? This isn’t the party heirarchy. It’s not the rank and file voters. It’s CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, and The Washington Post, and it’s definitely coastal elites driving all of this. Go fuck yourselves. You jettisoned Hillary’s candidacy in 2016, which put us into the situation we are in now. We should be ending the last year of her second term, and we’d still have Roe, regulations, and a President who is not above the law.

But you just wouldn’t listen, would you?

And even now, as they undermine the President and his reelection campaign, when he doesn’t step down and if he does en up losing, they won’t take any responsibility for the fascism they’ve loosed on all of us, and will smugly assert “well, that’s what they deserve for not dropping the President,” you know, the Susan Sarandon playbook.

And for the record, a thousand curses on all of you. History will not be kind to you for abetting the fall of the United States. But you’ll be long dead by then–along with the mound of graves for anyone who isn’t a straight white cisgender Christian.

Seriously, such beautiful eyes….

(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone

Friday and I am working at home today. We’re probably going to be losing our work-at-home day in the near future, so I am going to have to get used to going back to the office five days a week. It’s been a hot minute. I haven’t had five office days since March of 2020, so it’s been over four years. And what a four years that has been. Yeesh. Pre-March of 2020 seems like a different world, doesn’t it? But that’s my entire life, really.

I have come to the conclusion that social media and the news–particularly as it’s being reported by the MSM–has been so infuriating lately that I just can’t with it. I am resigned to the election now and knowing that there are enough people willing to risk it, despite the potential consequences of that risk, but narcissists are incapable of thinking beyond themselves. Idiot pundits and rich white “Democrats” seem to be willing to just toss the election to the fascists without a qualm, because ultimately fascism won’t harm them. I honestly think CNN and MSNBC have decided they’re better off under Project 2025 than under Biden–and it’s those expiring tax cuts doing their thinking for them. I don’t know what else to do, myself. I do not know a single person who voted for Biden in the primaries who has changed their mind; this is entirely a pundit/rich white people issue–you know, less than one thousandth of one thousandth of a single percent of voters.

They learned nothing from 2016 and her emails.

No surprise that rich white straight people are willing to throw the rest of us under the bus because they’re “concerned.” They always put themselves first, which is why you seriously cannot trust anyone in a higher tax bracket. Tax the fuck out of them, since they can’t be trusted to use their extra money in a positive way, ever.

Last night was a bit of a loose one; I didn’t do a whole lot when I got home from work because I was a bit tired and worn out from the excessive heat. It didn’t rain yesterday at all, so it never cooled off, and getting into my car was like getting into a sauna. I didn’t stop anywhere and just came straight home because I wasn’t in the mood to handle cross-town traffic. I’ll go later on to get the mail and stop at the Fresh Market for a few things, and hopefully get some writing done. I think I’ve thought about Chapter Four enough so that I can actually write the damned thing now. I also realized a deadline for a short story I need to write isn’t until December, which is a bit of a relief. We watched The Boys and finished Outer Range, which is just incredibly bizarre–and more like Dark than anything else I’ve already compared it to–and that’s a really high bar to clear. I also plan to finish reading my book this weekend and move on to the next. I also want to get some of these other blog drafts finished before the end of the weekend. I also have chores and cleaning to do around here–the living room looks so nice now, but the workspace still needs some additional work. I also need to figure out meals for the weekend. I think I’m going to just order a pizza tonight or Sunday, but we’re both home at night now, which is awesome, so I am going to start experimenting with meals again.

I also need to clean up the recipe files, and my address book. Those are projects that have been languishing for years, because I will always just shove recipes or scraps of paper with addresses on them, into the folder or file box where they go without concern to organization with a flippant I’ll organize this later but never do. I did get my easy chair area carefully set up so I can use my laptop in my easy chair, and so we will see how that goes.

It’s hard to believe football season is drawing nearer, too. (The laptop set-up in the living room will be surely tested during football season.) And the Olympics! So much has been going on that I keep forgetting that is happening this summer.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I have ZOOM meetings starting soon, and lots of things to get done for the day job today. Have a lovely Friday, I’ll probably be back later, and if not, I’ll be here tomorrow morning again.

I’m a Believer

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week, Huzzah! It’s been a pretty decent week, overall, which is pretty amazing and pleases me endlessly. Is it just me, or is this summer just swimming by? It’s almost mid-July already, holy crap. I’d fully intended to be further along in my book than I am, so I need to kick it up a notch. Now that I have most of the busy work done around the apartment, I don’t need to spend as much time on that on the weekends and can start focusing on getting back into a strong writing groove again. I’m spending a lot of time thinking about the book and developing the characters out further–I need to do some more work on that as well before moving on–so I am working, just not in the way that gets me closer to a finished first draft. A chapter a day for the rest of the month should do the trick, really, but that’s also a lot of writing to cram into a short period of time and I don’t know if I have the mental stamina to do that without burning myself out a bit.

I guess I need to stop being afraid to find out, right? Fear is such a useless emotion when it comes to living your life, really. Sure, if a spree killer is coming for you, you should be afraid–but you need to stay calm so you can think your way out of the situation. (I’ve always wanted to write my own take on a slasher movie; I have a couple of ideas that could be a lot of fun to explore.)

Yesterday wasn’t a bad day at all. I managed to make it through the entire day without getting tired or worn out. I came straight home from work between the rain storms (Beryl’s remnants are still plaguing us in New Orleans, but there was no flood warning last night, either) and we watched Presumed Innocent and more of Outer Range, which is very strange. There’s only one more episode and there’s no way they could possibly get everything wrapped up and explained in one, so it’s either going to be continuing into a second season and a lot is going to be left unexplained at the end of the series. It’s entertaining enough, and the acting is pretty good, so it’s involving us, but part of that involvement is “what the hell is going on?”

Not a way to end a first season or a mini-series, I’m afraid.

I was a bit tired when I got home yesterday, not going to lie about that. Not worn out must lie in chair all night doomscrolling social media while the television plays as background noise, but still fatigued. Today is my last day in the office for the week, so here we are at the end of another week with the weekend looming. I really need to get a to-do list together, because I know I am forgetting things I need to be doing. I think I am going to try to use this weekend to do a few things on the apartment, but get everything looming finished and caught up. I also want to finish Hall of Mirrors this weekend, so I can select my next read, and I have a pretty good idea of what that is going to be–it’s either the new Lori Roy or the new Wanda Morris–and of course I have some other blog posts I need to get finished. Ironically, I was already writing one about “the art v. the artist” re: the recent publishing community scandals when another broke yesterday, involving someone I know slightly and have always liked…so now I can write it from a more personal headspace. All of the scandals were surprises, but once the surprise wore off, it really wasn’t as surprising as I’d initially thought.

I also discovered yesterday that a short story I need to write isn’t actually due until December, so that was very good news. One of the things I need to do is also keep working on short stories. Maybe I’ll work on editing some this weekend; there are quite a few in progress and I really would like to get the collection finished and turned in. It can be very daunting sometimes when I think about all the things I have in progress and the fact that I am probably going to work on two of the more recent ones before I go back to anything else. I also think I am going to start working on the next Scotty book, too. I mean, what’s another thing to have on my plate, really? But I’ve written two at the same time before–going back and forth; when I’d get stuck on one I’d go work on the other, and by the time I’d get back to the original I wouldn’t be stuck anymore. It IS a lot to be juggling two books and a short story collection at the same time, but I have a lot of free time now, which I am still trying to get used to and wrap my mind around and figure out how to manage that time the most effectively I can–it is very easy to get sucked into doing nothing, particularly since I am so damned lazy and “a Greg at rest tends to stay at rest,” which has been true most of my life.

Ironically, I was writing a post about the “art v. the artist” argument this week in the wake of the last two authors outed as shitty people from the outside perspective of someone with no skin in the game (I’ve admired Gaiman’s work, but was never really vested in it; was aware of Munro but hadn’t read her; I bought a collection when she won the Nobel Prize), as has been the case pretty much always; I’d read the Harry Potter books as an adult so wasn’t vested in them, so that author’s descent into homophobic TERFdom wasn’t hard for me…but yesterday news broke about someone I actually do know and have worked with before, which means scrapping that post and starting over again. But even that acquaintance wasn’t much, and while I admired his writing successes, as I do with everyone, but I’d only ever read some of his short stories…so it’s again not something emotionally wrenching for me. So this brings a whole new perspective to it, and so I need to roll it around in my head a bit more.

Jesus, the world in which we live.

And on that horrific note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back probably later.

Last Train to Clarksville

Well, we made it to Wednesday, didn’t we? This is my first full week of work in over three weeks, thanks to holidays and a canceled trip, and I am rather surprised at how well I am doing. Monday was a drag, but yesterday? I was wide awake and energized when I left the house yesterday morning, and listened to Berlin’s Pleasure Victim–which is still a bop, forty years (!) later–and got to work early. I also got to leave early, which was delightful, despite the remnants of Beryl dumping rain on us off and on all day.

The concept of the art vs the artist has reared its ugly head again this past week or so, and yeah, I don’t have any answers to this question. I’m not particularly vested in this most recent pair of artists being exposed as bad people outside of their craft; I don’t have a dog in either fight. I have enjoyed one’s work in the past, and admired their craft, but…but the other I’ve never read. It’s easy for me to say the credible accusations are enough for me and to never read them again, but it’s not painful. I think the message from all of this is to be very careful who you make into a hero? I myself have been disappointed by celebrities and authors who’ve turned out to be terrible people in the real world; but actors aren’t their roles and authors aren’t their books, either. Performances and writing are necessarily of the person, of course, but…just because you love a character doesn’t mean the creator or the actor is a good person; the character is. Someone I’ve been reading for years and was probably my biggest favorite writer of my life has been disappointing on social media lately, and yes, I’ve allowed my politics and values to impact how I feel about him as both a person and as a writer…and if I cut other people off for being TERFs or homophobes, it’s hypocrisy to not cut off someone I admire for the same things. It helped me clear out some room in my bookshelves, and relieved me of the need to catch up on his work, which I was years behind on anyway, and you know what? I’m not sad about it, either. The books I loved I still love, I just don’t need to spend any more of my money buying new ones. Does it make me sad? It’s more disappointing than sad. They don’t care if I don’t buy another one of their books; one amongst millions is beneath even being noticed. But I blocked them on social media, which I didn’t have on my 2024 bingo card (didn’t have the media trying to pick the Democratic presidential candidate this late in the game either–and I will never forgive legacy media for this 2016-like “but her emails” reaction to ONE bad debate after three years of extraordinary leadership, either. I also didn’t have “legacy media not learning anything after 2016 and 2020” on my bingo card, either. I will not watch anyone ever again on television who are doing Project 2025’s dirty work for them (bye bye Rachel, we had a very good long run) and I will certainly never subscribe to or click on a link from a newspaper whose editorial board has gone all-in on Fascism under the arrogant guise of “we know better than Democratic voters who turned out for President Biden and have never once questioned his ability to do the job so best do what WE say”….um, excuse me? Who fucking died and made the opinions of arrogant political writers and pundits who think they know better than the voters? I trust the people around the President to help him run the country the right way, as opposed to the other candidate’s people; we’ve already seen the grifters and criminals he’ll surround himself with so they can loot the country. He doesn’t even have to be impaired for this to happen.

I certainly never thought I’d see the day when a third of the country and the media would be all-in on Fascism. Do the people at CNN, MSNBC, and the New York Times actually think they’d survive a Fascist government in this country? Or are they prepping for their collaborationism by collaborating now, so they can say see, we helped your rise to power?

And that cadaver James Carville, who’s been out of touch for at least twenty years, needs to crawl back into his coffin. Don’t forget what he married; the fact that he could happily marry a reich-winger, and stay married to her after 2016, tells me all I need to know about how craven and shallow his beliefs and values are.

God, the world has changed so much since I was a kid, hasn’t it? And I cannot say for certain it’s for the better in many instances. I do think trying to end bigotry of all kinds is an improvement, for sure, and while schools aren’t 100% safe for queer kids today, at least they may not feel as isolated as they did when I was a kid–even if they live in a red state.

Even in trying to look back to the world as it was in 1994 for my WIP shows such incredible changes in the country and the world in that thirty years (half my life at this point) that it almost seems like a different world, like that Earth was in a parallel dimension. But that’s the thing about the past–it was a different time and things that are problematic now were just normal and every-day things back then. And let’s not forget it wasn’t that long ago that marriages between tweens was an acceptable practice–and still is in some parts of the country.

Some deep thoughts on this damp Wednesday morning. We’re going to continue having thunderstorms on and off through the weekend–the tail end of Beryl moving through–which is fine with me; as long as I don’t caught in a flash flood or something. We were in a heat advisory all day yesterday, and then a flash flood warning from about seven p.m. on. Just another typical summer in New Orleans. We got caught up on House of the Dragon last night, and watched two more episodes of Outer Range, which is very bizarre but really interesting. It’s reminiscent of shows like Lost or Fringe, where there’s some kind of strangeness going on that no one is really sure what it is; it’s fascinating but I have literally no idea what is going on in the show. But it’s very well done, the acting is terrific, and visually it’s very stunning to watch. We’ll probably finish it this week and then will have to find something else.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, and I’ll probably be back later.

Sexy pro wrestler Finn Balor is a favorite of mine for obvious reasons–and he’s a great wrestler, too.

A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You

Well, yesterday was one of those days at the office–the kind when you’re really grateful that you get to go home at the end of and shut your mind off completely. It wasn’t a terrible day, by any means; my job is never like that, but it was one of a lot of frustrations and small problems that usually are nothing but…the day went off the rails early in the morning and everything seemed to pile up on top of that, so the solutions, usually so easy and effortless, required thought and a moment to think it through…so yeah, not really a lot of fun there for anyone. But I got some writing done last night, and that third chapter I was really struggling with has managed to work itself out. I also am going to try, really hard, not to make every chapter the same length; there’s something to be said about the erraticism of varying chapter lengths…and the real truth is the reason I’ve always gone by chapter word counts and kept them around the same is to easily figure out the word count and where it all stands without having to pull it all into one document. I can’t work from a master document until I am in the final editing stage, and always operate by chapters. It’s methodical, and I also wonder if that methodology might be stifling creativity?

You see, I can always turn anything into a version of Imposter Syndrome, no matter what it is.

I am awake and feeling okay, too, which is a pleasant surprise. I slept well last night. I stopped and made some groceries on the way home, and spent the evening reading Rival Queens, which is about Catherine de Medici and her daughter, Margot. We’re almost up to the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre–a religious genocide–during which Margot saved her Huguenot husband from the bloodthirsty Catholic mob. It was, sadly, yet another failed attempt by the Queen Mother to end the religious strife in France by killing everyone who wasn’t Catholic. It sometimes feels like I’ve been reading this book forever, and that’s probably because I have been reading for well over a year now. I’m still having some trouble focussing on reading, and thus it’s taking me far longer than it should to get deeper into my TBR pile. I am hoping to finish Hall of Mirrors this week; I just need to manage my free/spare time better. I’m not used to having free time, or at least, not this much, and I am trying to adapt to that so I can still have relaxation time in addition to reading/writing.

A nice problem to have in my sixties, methinks.

It also was raining when I went to bed last night, which certainly helped me to fall into a good, deep sleep. It’s been a very wet summer thus far–the humidity has been brutal on my sinuses, frankly–which isn’t a good thing for New Orleans; the more rain the more soaked the ground becomes and the less able to soak up water when it comes, which makes it easier to flood. They’re putting up a house on the one remaining vacant lot on the block; it started going up a couple of weeks ago (which reminded me of my unfinished short story “Condos for Sale or Rent”), so yet another place where water can go during a flooding rainstorm is now gone. We’ve still been fortunate that our block has only flooded once in all the years we’ve lived here (and it wasn’t after Katrina), and can only hope that our luck continues to hold. I think it’s going to rain again this evening as I run errands on my way home from work (mail, prescriptions), which will be annoying but livable, really. I don’t think we’re going to be busy in clinic this morning or this afternoon, which is very cool…I did manage to get caught up on things yesterday, and just have a few more things before I can wrap up the month of June completely.

I also have some chores to do tonight when I get home.

So here’s hoping for a good day, rather than a slightly irritating one. Every day is a new day, after all; and it is what you make of it, methinks. I am going to take my leave of you now and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later, most likely.

I Want to Be Free

Monday morning and back to the office. I didn’t want to get up this morning–not really a surprise there, after a holiday weekend–and even now as I sit here with my coffee and can feel my mind and body coming back to life, my body really wants to go back to bed. This week will be my first regular work week in a while–four days in the office and one at home–so I imagine I will be dragging come Thursday morning. I did get some more work on the apartment done yesterday–the difference in the apartment is actually pretty amazing–but had some fatigue. I made groceries in the morning and came home to just kind of collapse and relax. I went down some research holes on Youtube (Louisiana bridges; the story of how New Orleans’ bridges were built and funded should also be a book; some of the nation’s longest bridges are in Louisiana; the top three, in fact–the Causeway, Atchafalaya swamp basin, and Manchac swamp bridge–all are in the New Orleans area) and then scribbled the rest of the evening in my journal. We started watching an odd show called Outer Range with Josh Brolin and Lili Taylor, which is different and interesting and very well filmed, and then I went to bed early.

Today is also usually my Admin day but I am in clinic this morning and afternoon, so I kind of had let some things slide to do today but I also found out late Thursday that I would be in clinic, so I am very behind and will be trying to get caught up around clients all morning. I am also trying very hard not to get stressed about it–it is what it is and it will get done at some point–and I also have some emails to answer. And it’s fine; I’ll get everything done like I always do, and not going to let anything get to me today. I slept really well last night, and now I am waking up completely. (I love when my body shifts from “want to go back to sleep” to “waking up and feeling rested”.) I’m also trying to spend less time on social media–primarily because it isn’t fun any more, and hasn’t been in a long time; it’s just another habit that needs to be broken. I need to resist the urge to waste time there “just to check in” and spend that time more productively. The precipitous decline in emails that need to be answered has been delightful, even if it still catches me off-guard, as does the amount of free time I now have.

It occurred to me last night that I dealt with my stress of the last decade or so in about the same way that I always did in the past–by taking on too much of a load so I don’t have time to focus on being sad or worried about things or concerned. The primary problem with that is I’ve slowed down some, and can’t keep up the way I used to be able to do. So, in order not to face unpleasant realities and keep myself occupied I replaced worry and sadness with stress and overwork. This time I finally burned myself out in a way I had never experienced before–the COVID in the summer of 2022 that basically wiped my short term memory and left it permanently on the blink also didn’t help matters any, either. The last two years or so have been so much stress and depression and sadness and fear (the surgery terrified me, as did the recovery process) that my memory and brain couldn’t really recover, and I went back into strictly survival mode–“just get through the day/week/month”–and I am now finally coming out of it at long last, and it’s been so long since I’ve not been buried in work and projects and things that I am having a difficult (but nice) time getting acclimated to my life again.

I also am resisting the urge to say yes to everything because I have free time, and if I have free time that means I’m wasting time….it isn’t the best way to have your brain wired, really. I would much rather waste time than spend the rest of my life worried about running out of it, to be honest. But like I said, I really went into a deep dive on the book last night in my journal, getting to the heart and core of my main character and why the experiences he is about to have are going to happen and how it changes him, who he is going to become. I think that’s important, and it’s something I always forget when I am writing a non-series book; I don’t have to really go into a lot of detail about who Scotty and the boys are; and with a non-series book I have to remember it must be written differently and the plan has to be completely different. (I do worry that this is more busy-work to do so I don’t have to write, but that’s always going to be something I wonder about, and no, this was incredibly productive because I am starting to get a grasp on who my character is and what he wants and why he is where he is in his life…)

And on that note, I’d better start getting ready for work and my not-Admin day. Have a great one, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; one never knows. It depends on how busy we are and if I can get caught up on my work or not. We shall see.

The Streak

Good morning, Sunday, how are you all doing? I’m feeling pretty good. Yesterday was a pretty good day. I took four boxes of books to the library sale and was thus able to pretty much finish the overall of the living room. I also worked on the filing, finished the laundry room, and got the kitchen back under control. I do have to spend some time this morning working on the work space here, but I feel like I have the apartment back for the first time in years. I feel very accomplished, not going to lie. There’s still more to do, but at least it doesn’t look like the abode of a hoarder who hasn’t seen the floor in years anymore. There’s still another book purge to come, of course, and there’s the boxes on top of the cabinets that need to be removed as well. I think most of it is paper, too; I don’t think I have that many copies of my own books still in boxes anymore–but I’ve also kind of decided that I can dispose of the vanity book case soon, too. If I can clear out enough other spaces, I can box up my books, carefully archiving and labeling them, and store them in places where I have books that can be donated; and then I can pick up all the stacks of books off the floor and store them in bookcases.

I’m feeling very ambitious about the apartment this year, can you tell? And it was marvelous to come downstairs to an uncluttered and more spacious living room this morning. There are just a few more bits and pieces to get done today down here–things to put away and so forth–and then I can vacuum the entire downstairs! HUZZAH!

I slept late again this morning, much to Sparky’s dismay, but now I am up and my coffee is tasting magnificent this morning. I do have to make a grocery run today, which means organizing the fridge and so forth this morning, too, so I know what we need as well as make room for it. I am resisting the temptation to stock up the freezer–part of being prepared for hurricane season, empty your freezer and don’t fill it with anything other than things you’ll use right away; there’s nothing more frustrating and maddening than throwing away a lot of food after a power outage in the summer–which isn’t easy because yet another mental issue for me is food anxiety; I am always afraid we won’t have food in the house and I won’t have money to buy more (I think Mom was the same way, which is why there was always so much food in her house). I’ve always been this way; living paycheck to paycheck when you don’t make a lot of money can be very scarring for the rest of your life. Maybe some day I’ll get over it, but at least I recognize that it’s an actual thing now and can resist it.

Also, no need to stock up on anything fresh, as everything spoils quickly here in the heat, too. It’s amazing how quickly bananas will ripen here in the tropics, you know.

I am hoping to get some writing done today, too. Tomorrow I am going to get the mail and go to the gym on the way home from the office, and hopefully that will start a real streak of me going to the gym. My arm actually looks better than it did, which is yet another reason I really need to get into the three times per week habit again, even if I’m not doing heavy weights just the exercise itself will help my metabolism. I am getting closer to two hundred pounds and my goal weight (I remember back in the aughts when that was my goal weight to build up to; now it’s a weight loss goal. Sigh. The ironies involved with being gay never end until you’re in the grave.

I read a comic book yesterday; it was a Comixology original and it was quite good. Liebestrasse was the name of it, and it’s main character is a very closeted gay businessman returning to Germany in 1952 and remembering the Weimar times there, when he moved there for work and lived openly as gay and fell in love…as the Nazis were rising. I may give the comic its own entry, but then again I may not. Gays in Weimar Berlin always interest me (especially these days, as the similarities between now and then are even more sharply drawn), but the stories never end happily–how can they–and it’s all really just another version of Goodbye to Berlin, which is a seminal work in queer canon, methinks. I also got a copy of Stephen Spender’s novel of the time (he, Isherwood, and Auden were all friends in Wiemar Berlin) The Temple, which I am also looking forward to reading at some point if I can ever get all my reading caught up (it’s never going to happen, and I really need to stop deluding myself that it will). I’ve always been interested in that time, once I learned about the queer freedoms, and I started clocking the similarities in the 1990s…even coming up with a book idea about the fall of democracy in the United States, when dissidents, queers, and racialized people were imprisoned in “relocation centers.”

Of course, I’ve been saying this for years and no one has ever listened…and here we are.

Chilling thoughts for a Sunday morning, am I right?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; stranger things have happened, after all, and continue to happen.

I really wish I had discovered rugby players years ago. I actually would have loved to have played, too.