My Heart Is an Open Book

Well, yesterday was a pretty good day overall, I think. I managed to get some writing done (about a thousand or so words, give or take) which felt amazing, if too little; and of course I went to PT after work and it actually felt good. I think the working out after therapy is going to actually take hold this time? Of course, it remains to be seen what else life is going to throw at me in the meantime, but I feel pretty good about things, overall. After I finish this book I’m writing I may step away for the rest of the year and just live for a while? I’ll still write, and I want to be clear that I am thinking in terms of time off from deadlines, really. It would be nice to finish all these unfinished things I have lying around here, and I’d also like to clean out the physical files at some point in the near future. Operation Declutter is still working, but it’s an ongoing process. I am about to put a moratorium on new books, too, unless it’s a must-read book by a friend. I really need to make more progress on getting through the mountainous TBR stack without consistently adding to it, over and over. Just this week I added Angela Crook’s Hurt Mountain and Amina Akhtar’s Almost Surely Dead and Simone St. George’s Murder Road. The question of what to read next also has not yet been answered, so it may wind up being a reread, which is actually counterproductive–but something that breaks down the wall and gets me reading every day again for pleasure would be pretty fucking fantastic.

My short story that I am writing is starting to take shape, even if my gears have rusted and need to be oiled before I can really get to work on writing again. I like what I am doing with this story–which is more horror/Gothic suspense more than anything else, really, and it’s been a really long time since I finished a story. “When I Die” still needs to be significantly edited and revised, as do so many other things. I need to get working on the book again–I came up with a great name for the Miss Queer Utah queen, but alas, forgot it already. I am actually kind of getting excited this morning to write this book. I saw a news item on social media that DeSantis’ anti-gay legislation essentially got ended by a court decision yesterday–I’ve not read the entire article yet, but it was a “settlement”, which makes it more interesting because surely that would make it a civil case, rather than a criminal one? But anything that gets Rhonda Santis’ panties in a bunch, as well as a massive defeat for his hate-filled agenda (your daily reminder, Moms for Liberty, that real patriots HATE you and your hate agenda; have fun in hell, skanks), will always make me very very happy. I also saw that the West Virginia legislature, under pressure from constituents, dropped (or allowed to die) 21 anti-queer bills.

As Winston Churchill said, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing–after they’ve exhausted every other possibility.”

I didn’t sleep through the entire night, but woke up a couple of times but in both instances was able to fall back asleep and get some more needed rest, which was awesome. I actually woke up this morning feeling awake rather than foggy, which is simply marvelous to contemplate. Paul was working on a grant last night, so we only got to catch up on this week’s Abbott Elementary, and soon my widowhood will end when the festivals do next weekend (not this weekend) and a dear friend is coming to town this weekend, and I hope to meet her for drinks and a good gossipy catch up. I’ve also learned this morning that when the alarm goes off the first time and Sparky makes his appearance on my pillow, to just get up and feed him…because once he’s eaten, he’ll get back into the bed and cuddle like a sweet purr-kitty, which is lovely. I really have fallen completely in love with this crazy kitty, which makes losing Scooter ever so much easier. Losing him made rescuing Sparky possible, and I imagine I will always have a cat for the rest of my life, maybe even a bonded pair at some point after Sparky goes–assuming, of course, that I will outlive Sparky.

Some more things that I ordered arrived yesterday after I picked up the mail, so I’ll have to swing by there again this afternoon, which is fine. I have to get gas, too, so it makes sense to swing uptown, come back downtown via Tchoupitoulas, and then the Shell on Jackson Avenue on the way home. Tomorrow is also payday, which is lovely–pay-the-bills day, at any rate–and then I need to start prepping for my Saints and Sinners panel. There’s always something to do, isn’t there? I also need to stop by Physiofit and pay my bill, too. I got another camera ticket yesterday, which is super-annoying–but it gave me an idea for a story or a subplot for a Scotty book, so that’s a good thing, right?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will most likely be back again later.

The Happy Organ

I cannot believe today’s title was actually a hit song in 1959. I mean, the jokes here simply write themselves.

Monday morning and back to the office morning blog. It was a curiously relaxing weekend, but my energy levels were up and down the whole time. Last night, of course, when I needed to go to sleep? After two nights of falling asleep in my chair, here I was, having trouble falling asleep. I think it’ll be okay for tonight, though, since I have PT after work. It rained off and on yesterday for most of the day, and the temperature dropped overnight. Absolutely no huzzahs on that front, for sure. I do think not going to do PT last Monday messed up my week significantly, so I definitely have to go tonight. I was very happy to finish reading my book, too. It had been so long since I was able to commit to a book, it was nice to get drawn into one again, even if it did take me over a week to finish. I don’t read as fast as I used to, nor do I write as much or as fast as I used to. This is going to have to be overcome soon enough, but that’s okay. I think my full-fledged deadline panic mode will probably start kicking into gear again at some point this week.

We finished season one of The Tourist last night, and dipped into season two–which looks to be just as good as the first. I don’t know how long this show will be able to keep going on the basic premise that he has no memory of who or what he was before waking up in the hospital in the first episode of season one, and Jamie Dornan is wonderful in the lead role, menacing when called for, but delightfully funny at others. And Danielle Macdonald, who has been delightful in everything I’ve seen her in (including Dumplin’), is doing some really good work as Helen. Highly recommended, even though Dornan isn’t shirtless nearly enough. Dornan should be shirtless at least once per episode. Think of it as “fan service.”

I’ve managed to gain back all the weight I’ve lost since the soft food diet began after Labor Day. This doesn’t please me, to say the least. It’s actually disappointing. But if I am barbecuing burgers on the weekends and/or ordering pizza…it’s not really a surprise. I’ve also gotten my taste for hamburgers back, which is kind of nice. The new dentures have altered my tastes somewhat, but they seem to be shifting back at last, which is nice. Last year was a bit of a slog, wasn’t it? It’s not a surprise that it’s taken me a while to recover from everything–from the arm injury to the dental surgery to the arm surgery to Mom and Scooter dying and this endless war with my insurance company–any one of these things on their own would be leveling; having it all happen within the same year is pretty fucking terrible, frankly. But… I am also a firm believer in having all the bad stuff happen within a certain period of time, because you get so overwhelmed with everything that you really can’t focus on your own misery at any time. But I am hoping that once the PT is done and I can exercise normally again, that I’ll get to the gym at least twice a week.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Happy Monday, everyone.

Season of the Witch

I read a lot of Norah Lofts when I lived in the suburbs of Chicago.

I originally found her through her historical fictional biographies of royal women, or royal-adjacent. I was in a Henry VIII phase–the whole six wives thing–and I saw a copy of her book about Anne Boleyn–The Concubine–on the wire racks at Zayre’s, so I bought it. It was very well done, and Lofts tried to get into the head of Anne and who she was, the reasons she basically changed Western civilization, and gave me an entirely new perspective on the infamous Anne. From there I went on to A Rose for Virtue (Napoleon’s stepdaughter/sister-in-law Hortense de Beauharnais, Queen of Holland), The King’s Pleasure (Katherine of Aragon), Crown of Aloes (Isabella of Castile), The Lost Queen (Caroline Matilda of Denmark), and Eleanor the Queen (Eleanor of Aquitaine)1. I also read, from there, some of her historical fiction, which I greatly enjoyed (Nethergate comes to mind). What I liked most about Lofts was she was not, in any way, a sentimental writer; her stories didn’t end happily all the time (especially her books about royal women; they all died miserable). I always wanted to read her Nativity novel, How Far to Bethlehem?, or her book Esther (obviously, the Bible’s Queen Esther). I remembered Lofts sometime within the last four or five years, and got a copy of her ghost story collection, which I enjoyed.

And then I remembered one whose plot I really couldn’t recollect–The Little Wax Doll, and got a second hand copy on-line.

It was like reading an entirely new novel, and I am glad I revisited it, believe you me.

The interview had been arranged to take place in London at half past three on a Saturday afternoon. This was a time so extremely convenient to Miss Mayfield that she was disposed to regard it as providential. It had saved her from the embarrassment of having to ask for time off to attend an interview in which she might not be successful, and from which she might be obliged to return to face her present Head’s resentment. In her diffident attempt to maintain secrecy she had left Alchester without the precaution of obtaining a testimonial. This she recognised as the action of a fool, but she had taught in the ugly Midland town for a bare two years, and she carried in her shabby handbag a coolly eulogistic report of her twenty years’ work in Africa, If that did not suffice, and if the interview showed any sign of leading to a new appointment, then would be time enough to approach Miss Stevens and break the news she was contemplating a move,

Canon Thorby had written, “Claridge’s Hotel would be convenient for me, since I have another appointment there earlier in the day. I shall be waiting for you and if you ask at the desk someone will will point me out to you.”

He wrote on thick smooth paper which justified the term “cream-laid.” His writing was small, elegant, meticulously legible. It called up an imaginry vision of the writer, plump, rubicund, with a fringe of silvery hair and tranquil blue eyes. Kindly, perhaps a trifle pompous.

As I said earlier, I didn’t really remember much of this story, other than the main character was an older schoolteacher moving to an idyllic village in East Anglia to teach at the village school, and the little rural village has some pretty dark secrets that she’s going to stumble into. Another thing I’d forgotten–although I should have remembered from reading her ghost story collection–was how compelling a writer she was. There are beautiful turns of phrase everywhere, as well as observations about life–particularly in a small village–that are really spot on, clever and insightful.

I also love that her heroine is a woman many people would overlook–particularly in the time in which this book was written (originally published in 1960)–a dowdy, plain spinster in either her late thirties or early forties. I wouldn’t have thought much about it when I first read the book, but the deep devotion of her attachment to a woman named Ruth, with whom she built a school and hospital in Kenya and worked there with her for forty years, and her determination to save enough money so she and Ruth can retire together and share a cottage blissfully for the rest of their lives?

In this read, this friendship just screamed lesbian to me.

Deborah Mayfield could easily have turned into a stereotype–the old maid schoolteacher–but Lofts isn’t interested in stereotypes; she created a character who is interesting by virtue of the journey she takes over the course of the story. She is a bit unsure of herself at the beginning of the book, always afraid of calling attention to herself and just keeps her opinions to herself. But as she falls in love with this interesting little village and blossoms with not only her students but the other villagers–she still sees herself as a nonentity, not really seeing herself as the others see her–she also, slowly but surely, finds herself being pulled into a strange situation which makes her, always questioning herself, question herself further. Surely, what she suspects cannot be? There can’t be people who believe in the dark arts and witchcraft in this town? But it’s really the only explanation, and as she gets pulled further and further into the odd circumstances regarding her student Ethel and her grandmother Granny Rigby–to the point where she is willing to give up her comfy little home and job to try to call out what’s going on in Walwyk–she begins to get a sense of her own power; the inability to stand by and do nothing while something untoward is going on strengthen her resolve and makes her stronger.

Then about halfway through the book there is a huge plot twist, which throws everything into a different, just as suspenseful and thrilling, direction–and one in which Deborah finally comes into her own, managing to get her way back to Walwyk in order to stop a horrible outcome that isn’t predestined.

One of the other things I like about the book is Lofts’ lack of sentimentality. The ending of the book makes it seem as though the day has been saved…but has it, after all? I also love that we never really know if there is actually witchcraft going on in the town–or maybe it just looks like it? Lofts leaves this up in the air as well–which she probably wouldn’t get away with today.

A terrific reread, and a terrific author I am very happy to rediscover.

  1. She also wrote The Lute Player, about Richard the Lionhearted, his wife Berengaria, and the minstrel Blondel–which was my first exposure to the idea that Richard, the great English hero, was queer. That revelation was a bit life changing, as I began looking for hints of homosexuality being covered up in history books. ↩︎

Quiet Village

Sunday morning and Daylight Savings Time begins, which means it’s an hour later than my body thinks it is, and that’s fine. I would imagine that the real brick wall as far as the time change is concerned is going to be hit tomorrow morning when I get up for work. But there are worse things, after all; there are always worse things. But yesterday was a pretty decent day, overall. I got some things done, not nearly enough, and had my ZOOM panel for Murderous March around one thirty my time; ably moderated by Richie Narvaez, it was quite a lot of fun, but I am never sure how I am coming across when it’s ZOOM–no audience reactions to play off–so I will hope that it all went well and the audience enjoyed it as much as I did. I ordered a pizza from U Pizza (I’d been a-hankering for one all week, frankly) for dinner, and spent most of the day finishing reading The Little Wax Doll, rereading other books and stories in progress, before finally settling in to watch a couple of episodes of The Tourist–but I kept falling asleep (from being tired, nothing to do with boredom, because the show is bizarre and twisty and hilarious and kind of like a Coen Brothers movie, so clearly I am loving the show), and finally went to bed around ten. I slept very well, too. As for today, there’s still a lot I need to get done, writing wise, and at some point I have to make groceries today, too. The Oscars are tonight, but I’m not terribly interested in them, to be honest.

I also tried watching Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, but shut it off after about fifteen minutes. I love Jason Momoa, but not THAT much.

I did find the missing printer ink cartridges, by the way. I guess I was looking right at it all along and not seeing it. Heavy sigh.

Sparky is feeling rambunctious this morning, and has already gashed my right index finger with one of his talons. But this helped remind me that I took his hanging toy down yesterday so it wasn’t on camera, and didn’t put it back up. Problem solved, and now he’s jumping at it, and all’s well in the Lost Apartment. Big Kitten Energy. He’s lucky he’s so sweet and adorable, honestly.

But it looks to be a beautiful day outside already, which is great, and hopefully this good mood will last as long as my energy does. I’d like to be able to get a lot done today, and get prepared for the week. A friend will be in town this weekend, which is very exciting as I’ve not seen her in a very long time, which will be so delightful. I do miss my friends.

This week the news broke that Carol Gelderman had died. Carol, a writer and professor at UNO, was an absolute delight. I didn’t know her very well, but she was a frequent panelist at the Tennessee Williams Festival, and so I’d run into her quite a lot. Every time, she would give me a dazzling smile, shove her right hand at me and say “Hi, I’m Carol Gelderman” and I would smile and say “Lovely to see you again, Carol” and she’d make a wonderful “pshaw” noise and say, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me” and give me a big hug, and we’d laugh and laugh. She also always had a flask in her purse. Check out her biography of Mary McCarthy sometime. It’s very sad that I’ll never laugh with her at a Festival party again. RIP, Carol, and thanks for the great memories.

You’ll probably not recognize me should there be an afterlife, either, Carol, and I hope that is the case.

And on that sad note, I am heading into the spice mines for the day. Hope your Sunday is lovely, Constant Reader, and I may be back later. One never does know, you know.

Mr. Blue

Saturday morning blog, after a rather dreary and gloomy Friday. It clearly rained overnight, as everything outside is wet. I was exhausted yesterday after I was finished with PT and daytime work duties; by the time I ran my errands I was exhausted. I got a delivery from Sam’s last evening too, which had to be lugged into the apartment. I was dozing off in my chair a lot last night while watching documentaries about Spanish history, the Moors in Iberia, and the line of regnant kings and queens. It’s an interesting subject, to be sure; the physical and mental exhaustion did it, not the lack of interest or boredom. I even went to bed early and slept like a stone (I’ve always found that cliché odd; stones aren’t sentient so they don’t sleep).

I have an on-line panel today at 1:30 for Murderous March, an event put together by Upper Hudson Sisters in Crime, so I do hope if you have time, you’ll join us; they have panels and things programmed all day so head over to their website and take a look; you can also register there (it’s free!), and it should be a good and entertaining and informative conversation. I’m going to try to get some writing done before and after, as well as cleaning the apartment. I also want to do some more reading; I did spend some time with Norah Lofts’ The Little Wax Doll, which I am really enjoying. About a hundred pages in the story took a surprising turn; Lofts was rather good at that, if I recall correctly. I’ll definitely talk about Lofts more when I finish the book and write about it.

Tomorrow I’ll go out and make groceries, probably in the morning, and today is going to be the day where I make a definitive list for tomorrow, and I also need to check my to-do list to see what I’ve managed and what I’ve not thus far, as well as make one for the weekend. Ugh, I also have to start working on my taxes; a tedious chore to be sure, but one that needs doing. I’ll put that on the list for next weekend. I’m also going to try to get some of these pending blog drafts finished this weekend–with me luck, there are quite a few of them–but they either need to be finished at some point, or simply deleted and given up on. (It’s really hard for me to let go of ideas for things.)

But sometimes…sometimes you do have to let things go. Grim as it is to think, I know I am never going to write all the ideas I already have, let alone any new ideas that come to me. I really need to clean out the files–I have so many; ideas that are so old that I don’t even remember having them, and the way things are going I am not entirely sure I’ll even be able to finish writing the things I am currently working on, either. I do need to tackle the rust and grease the gears and unlock my writing drive. Heavy sigh. The malaise is gone, I think; I’m not really sure, to be honest, where it came from in the first place. I’m never sure where it comes from. I think it has to do with my faulty brain chemistry, if I am being honest. Sigh.

And on that dreary note, I am going to have my breakfast preparatory to heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday–I’ll probably be back later.

Kansas City

Friday morning work-at-home blog, in which I am up ridiculously early for a Friday morning thanks to a 7 a.m. PT appointment. What is great about that–for a change–is I’ll be back home around eight-ish and will be very wide awake, which is a great start to the day. I should really not sleep late on weekends, because it alters my body clock and makes Monday morning more difficult than it needs to be. But I’ve had a cup of coffee and am waking up some, which is great, even though I probably won’t finish this before I have to leave this morning. I have a department meeting after I get home, and then of course I have work-at-home duties and chores. Woo-hoo! Definitely living large this morning, aren’t I? So we’ll have to see how the day goes before I do any writing tonight. I’m going to be exhausted from the PT, I suspect. One never knows, does one?

Well, I was right. I didn’t finish before I had to leave for PT and I was even a few minutes late! It definitely woke me up while exhausting me at the same time, which happens. I am very tired now, but wide awake. I’ll probably feel some serious fatigue later, too. AH, well, at least I got it out of the way.

This week we had a site visit from one of our major funders, and I was told we all needed to dress up for the three days, so I did. (NARRATOR VOICE: I was one of the few who did all three days.) It was kind of fun to wear nice clothes and shoes for a change, but yesterday reminded me how much I hate my black slip-on dress shoes, so I decided then and there I was going to throw them away at last when I got home and order a new pair, preferable Oxfords, all black. I did find those shoes, and ordered them, but then for the hell of it I looked for what I’ve not been able to find for years, black and white Oxfords that look like classic saddle shoes. I had a pair in college and I loved those shoes. Well, yesterday I managed to find a pair, so I ordered them immediately. With any luck, they will make their debut at Saints and Sinners this year. I never really get to dress up very often, and so fancier shoes don’t get worn very often. (Some pairs I’ve had for well over a decade and maybe have worn five or six times, if that.) Dressing up also made me realize almost everything I own that is dressy is mostly red or black. I should probably go through the clothes in the closet since I have no idea what is even in there anymore.

I watched the season finale of Feud last night, and didn’t feel much about it; the performances were fantastic, as always, but I don’t like the fiction that Babe Paley regretted cutting him out of her life and even talked to the other women about forgiving him. She most definitely did not have second thoughts, and having her telling her husband and her friends all this stuff about how much she missed him and how she wanted to forgive him and talked to the other women about being kinder? This whole fantasy episode where (SPOILER) they are together again after death, happily spending eternity together? Bitch, please. It softens her character, certainly, which is audience-service, but it’s really a betrayal of who she was and how betrayed and hurt she felt. I would have much preferred that the others tried to convince her to forgive him and she wouldn’t. Maybe not the character arc Naomi Watts would prefer, but it would have been more poignant–answered prayers, indeed.

And on that note, it’s time for my meeting so I am heading into the spice mines. Have a marvelous Friday and who knows? I may be back later.

Stagger Lee

Thursday last morning in the office this week blog. I get to go in a little later because I have to stay until five tonight; and of course tomorrow morning I have PT at the ungodly hour of seven a.m. Gah. But it’s okay, really. I slept super well last night–probably the best night’s sleep of the week–and I finally got my keyboard for the iPad yesterday: huzzah! It works beautifully, too…which is the last excuse I had for not getting any writing done (or as much as I would like). Now I have a functional laptop and a functional iPad for writing anywhere in the house, which is kind of fun. I can get my iPad in the morning and write in bed if I want, or I can take the laptop up there, or…so many plethoras of options, and NO MORE EXCUSES.

Oh, I’ll still make excuses, of course, to get out of doing the day’s writing. And I did do some yesterday–I wrote about seven hundred or so words on “Passenger to Franklin” (an Agatha Christie title homage that really pleases me far more than it probably should)–but very little of anything else other than watching Part II of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reunion (Kyle Richards remains a disgusting piece of shit bitch who doesn’t need to be on my television screen anymore). I then spent the rest of the evening watching the news (or clips from the news) and despairing further about the future of the country and grateful again that I am old. It’s about the only benefit to being old, really, and not having children: the future isn’t really my problem, but at the same time, I also don’t want the adults of the future to have to deal with a destroyed and/or increasingly hostile and damaged planet, either, because I am not a monster. Sometimes I think I worry about the future more than people who actually do have kids, or are young.

I watched a really interesting conversation between Rachel Maddow and Nicolle Wallace last night–and they were both right: the Republican Party of today wants to eliminate our democracy and set up an authoritarian state where they are always in charge and they can get rid of everyone they don’t like. Sound familiar? See Berlin, 1933. It’s scary to contemplate, and even scarier to realize The Handmaid’s Tale was actually very prescient. I became worried about authoritarianism coming to the US during the Reagan years and what followed, when the Republican party became convinced that they had a divine right and mandate to always be in power. As I watched people get subsumed by Fox Propaganda in the 1990s (when the character assassination of Hilary Clinton truly began), I saw it for what it was: definitely not a news organization, and it’s partisan nature had everything to do with the rollback on rules about what is and isn’t news…during the Reagan administration. It’s astonishing how little people think about the recent past, or even try to put the present in the context of the recent past.

Let alone thinking about the older history, which no one knows1. Then again, I am from a part of the country that proudly claims hatred and bigotry as their heritage, so maybe knowing history might not help as much as I would like to believe.

Heavy heaving sigh.

Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.

I’m doing a panel for a Sisters in Crime chapter on-line event this weekend, do tune in to any or all of the antics this weekend. It’s called Murderous March, and it’s being put on by the Upper Hudson Sisters chapter, and you can register to view the panels here. My panel is at 2:30 eastern, it’s called “It Was a Dark and Stormy Night,” and is being moderated by the wonderful Richie Narvaez. My co-panelists are the amazing Carol Pouliot, Edwin Hill, Tina Bellegarde, and M. E. Browning. It should be a pretty good time, I think.

And on that note, I think I’ll head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later.

The Battle of New Orleans

Every once in a while, I need to remind myself of how much I love my home town.

I was thinking about this the other day. I think part of the malaise I’ve been experiencing lately has everything to do with my creative muscles being tight and unexercised for so long–and almost every time I manage to write fiction, it’s so exhausting and draining that I can’t write more, either. Monday got derailed early, and that night we had another torrential, street-flooding thunderstorm…and the kitchen roof started leaking again. I mean, it only does this during that kind of rain; but we have many downpours like that over the course of a year. That kind of kicked the malaise back up into higher gear–I just am so tired of having to deal with things like this over and over when all I really want to do is just go about my day, moving from A to B and getting things done and being productive. It all becomes so much, you know? The rise of queer hate to levels not seen since the 2004 election (may you roast forever on a spit in hell, Karl Rove), and it’s very tiring. It’s also tiring to think that I may be living in the last days of the American experiment with democracy, too–and the fact that far too many of my fellow Americans are just fine with that is kind of upsetting.

Such good Germans.

But I do love New Orleans, even if I have to remind myself of that from time to time. I do; there’s just something about this city that is in my blood, my DNA, and my being; I cannot imagine being happy anywhere else. I could exist somewhere else, of course, but I really don’t want to really just exist anymore. My blog is getting feisty again because I am feeling feisty again and pissed off about a lot of things. I’ve also been immersing myself in gay and queer culture again lately–Capote and Isherwood, anyone?–and remembering how hard life used to be for people like me (see Fellow Travelers and It’s a Sin), it invigorates my senses and intellect against injustice and unfairness as it always does. Recounting stories of my past recently as well as all the introspection I’ve been doing since losing Mom last year (and really, I started thinking about it more during the pandemic, and a lot of it was because of It’s a Sin) has me remembering things, how they used to be, and what New Orleans is like now as opposed to how it was when I first moved here all those years ago, or all the times I came to visit when I worked for Continental. The city is different now than it was then–sleepily crumbling away in the hot sun and heavy wet air–and I’ve been a bit resistant to those changes. I don’t like that it’s insanely expensive to pay rent or buy a home here now–one of the strengths of the city was how many working class people owned homes here, and that seems to be going away as the city continues gentrifying itself.

Monday I also gave a co-worker a ride home from the office, and since it was a torrential rain, I drove her into the Quarter and let her out at her door on St. Ann Street close to the corner at Dauphine. I honestly can’t remember the last time I drove through the Quarter, and I really don’t go down there much anymore other than for the TWFest/S&S. I took Dauphine out of the Quarter, and a lot has changed since the 1990’s, or even the last time I drove through. I think during the festivals this year I am going to explore the Quarter a bit more than I have the last few years, and hopefully drink in some more atmosphere. I’ve kind of felt a little phony writing the Scotty books lately, since I am rarely if ever down there now since my office moved, and have been telling myself I need to explore and take pictures again.

I was thinking Tuesday night when I got home from work that I was becoming as bad as all those locals who look back nostalgically for the past and the way things used to be. I also know I am glossing over what the mid to late 1990’s were really like here, as well as for us. New Orleans has changed and has never remained the same throughout its history, but the foundation of the city remains the same. I want to write about that time in New Orleans (“Never Kiss a Stranger”), so that’s it preserved forever, those days when the sodomy laws hadn’t been overturned yet, and when the gay bars always got raided in the weeks leading up to Decadence so that we knew they were “letting” us have Decadence; the people we thought were insane in state politics in 1996 are now running things and trying their damnedest to turn Louisiana back to 1860 and shoving their religion down everyone’s throats. My primary issue with still writing about the city has nothing to do with how much I love the city, or how I feel about things around here, but mainly because I don’t know what it’s like to go out on the weekends to the bars in the Quarter, or what it’s like for gay men in their forties here now.

So yes, I am looking forward to writing the next Scotty–and revisiting the Chanse series, as I’ve been doing, has me actually considering doing another Chanse story. I have two ideas for him, actually, but am not sure either is going to amount to anything.

And I will always love New Orleans.

Pink Shoe Laces

My blog has gotten a little more feisty than it’s been in quite some time. I’ve talked before about how I toned myself down a bit on here–I have no desire to argue with anyone about my opinions, thank you very much–but I’ve also started speaking out again against insanity and cruelty and stupidity. Despite the loss of the anxiety, I still get angry about cruelty and injustice. I also tend to not talk about things where my opinion isn’t perhaps as educated as others’; I defer. I also don’t want to ever speak for another marginalized communit1y other than my own–and I always make it clear I only speak for myself. I am not a tastemaker or an influencer or anything like that, not am I some great authority on anything other than my own experience, education, and feelings–and sometimes I even question that. I’ve also recently realized how I am not nearly as self-aware as I have always smugly told myself I am; in fact I am capable of self-delusion to an almost pathological extent. But as long as I continue to learn and grow, and don’t dismiss anything out of hand because something isn’t my experience. I do think I am different from most in that I listen to new perspectives and don’t reflexively react negatively to changes in culture and society. It gets frustrating for me when people are obtuse about queer issues and often refuse to listen (there’s nothing quite like being straight-splained about queer experience); so I always want to be open to anything that isn’t bigotry or prejudice (I will never be open to either of those). My trans friends have been an incredible exercise in educating myself and understanding and above all else, compassion…and so have my racialized friends (I saw a Black woman use that term on social media instead of non-white or people of color; I kind of like it because it’s true. White people invented the construct of race identity and racism to begin with, so using racialized seems appropriate to me).

I hate that I’ve basically had to spend most of my adult reeducating myself, but at least I never get tired of learning. Society and the culture have gotten a lot better about a lot of things, but we still have a long way to go.

I finally appealed an egregious medical decision by the most evil of insurers, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana, and faxed the form along with my letter of complaint (about multiple issues since they have taken over insuring me the first of this year) and all the necessary documentation–the entire thing wound up being fifteen pages and OOPS, I may have sent it to them twice. They were a shit company when I was saddled with them because of preexisting conditions before the Affordable Care Act; I couldn’t switch insurers fast enough once that became law, and now I am stuck with them again–and they are just as shitty as they were before (which I pointed out again in my letter, along with all the violations of the Affordable Care Act they’ve committed with just ME alone; God only knows what an audit would show). Y’all fucked with the wrong faggot, and if this isn’t resolved, I will not rest until they’ve all been fired.

Obviously, they’ve clearly never met me.

I slept better last night than I have all week so far, which is definitely weird. We’re in a dense fog advisory with potential rain today, but it’s bright and sunny and the sky is clear and beautifully blue this morning. I ain’t gonna lie, much as I love rain, I don’t like being out in it. I love rainy days on the weekend, when you can just snuggle up under a blanket and get some reading done. I’m starting to get better organized with everything, and my life is slowly starting to come back to what it was before the surgery. I’ve also realized that I’ve been in a kind of transitional malaise, the way I feel only after I’ve finished a book and need to get started writing another one. I also am coming out of the malaise, I believe. Both days this week so far had been a bit off, and today I feel…more normal than I did the last two days. I don’t know what that will translate into in regards to writing, but I am hoping to climb back up on that horse this week, maybe even tonight when I get home. The apartment is looking better still, doesn’t need a lot of straightening, but there are some incomplete chores that I do need to finish before the weekend, preferably tonight–but that will depend on how I feel when I get home–how I survive another day at the office.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, all, and I will probably check in again later.

Ballet boys (ballerinos) have unbelievable bodies. I’ve always wanted to write a gay noir set in a ballet company…I mean, look at that effortless perfect split!
  1. I will never forget–or forgive–the straight white bitch who responded to a tweet I made about Marianne Williamson’s horrific lies about HIV/AIDS in the 1990s who told me to “be quiet and listen to Marianne’s beautiful message”. I doubt that bitch will ever tell a gay man to shut up about HIV/AIDS again. ↩︎

Put Your Head on My Shoulder

Yesterday was one of those days.

If you will recall, I woke up feeling pretty good yesterday and was all amped to get to the office and get to work. As I pulled into my parking spot for the day I got a text message notification: the building had no power. Sigh. Since I was already there, I texted my supervisor that I had arrived and should I wait? (You never can be sure when power will be restored in New Orleans and there are any number of variables involved that you can’t calculate.) Apparently the outage was cause because someone in the Bywater neighborhood took a chain saw to a power pole? #idiot

But the power came back at around nine thirty-ish, so I sat there for two hours waiting, and of course, once you stop moving when you’re feeling ambitious, it’s not easy to kick everything back into gear and get moving again. Sigh. But I did get my work going again, which was great, and then when I got off work I came home for a ZOOM chat with some writer friends that I don’t see enough of as it is. It also struck me yesterday that when Bouchercon comes to New Orleans, I don’t have to register. I live here, and can see my out-of-town friends whenever I want to and just hang out in the hotel lobby. So…my future attendance and registration is going to depend on changes being made to the dinosaur the event is, hopefully dragging it into the twenty-first century or at least make steps to making it a more inclusive place.

Beginning with no more fucking diversity panels–which they are doing again in Nashville.

There are few things that make diverse writers feel welcome at conferences more than putting them on display like fucking zoo animals.

And the code of conduct? I don’t have any confidence that they will respond to any complaints made to them–I’ve seen how they’ve mishandled things in the past–so why on earth would I believe that they’d take a complaint from me about the Very Important Writer who said “faggy” to me face a couple of time and act on it? “Oh, it was in the bar” would be the first response, and you know what? Having a code of conduct is meaningless when you don’t have the balls to enforce it. For the record, going into a hotel bar and having a few drinks doesn’t make a Very Important Author using a homophobic slur to me okay.

Likewise, I had another incredibly uncomfortable experience at Left Coast Crime the one time I went–both racist and homophobic–that sometime I will have to share here. (And yes, I am white–but the woman assumed I wasn’t…it really is a story best told in its entirety at some point. And yes, I’m still shaking my head over it. In-SANE. Almost two years ago to the day, really, and I still can’t wrap my mind around it. I think the reason I haven’t posted about it because I’m not sure how a white man writes about racism he’s experienced? (For the record, I wasn’t offended because she didn’t think I was white, it was about her approach and what followed–including doubling down on the racism and going to town on homophobia– that I still can’t wrap my mind around.)

It was also pouring rain when I came home, so thank heavens I left early for PT…only to get home and think ugh, I am not walking to the gym in this downpour with the streets flooding, so I’ll have to go after work tonight. It shouldn’t be bad, no matter how crowded it may be, because my workout is actually pretty simple and quick and easy. (Not easy, but definitely can be done quickly and I don’t have to really take up a lot of space, is what I meant. I think there’s only one machine I have to use.) The streets were flooding too–I had to drive through some standing water, fortunately not too deep–and guess what? We’re having a thunderstorm right now, but it doesn’t seem as though it’s as bad as last night. I guess I’ll find out on my way to work this morning? Not a very appealing thought, really.

And on that sad note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in again later I am sure.