Six Feet Under

Ah, Murder in the Irish Channel.

I really enjoyed writing this one.

It was the sixth Chanse, and I was trying something different with the opening of this one. I hadn’t read Ross Macdonald before I became a writer, and I was very much in the “John D. is my favorite Macdonald crime writer” camp. I had been on panels with Chris Rice a few times and he raved about Ross every time, so I kept thinking you need to read Ross Macdonald and so, sometime after Katrina, I started reading the Archer novels, moving on to stand alones and the short stories eventually. When it was time for me to write this book, I thought, try to write an opening in Ross Macdonald’s style, and try to keep that world-weary, cynical pov through the whole book.

The house was a tired-looking single shotgun, badly in need of paint and listing to one side. It was in the middle of a block on Constance Street, facing the river. There was a rusted cyclone fence around the front yard. A statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary sat inside a circle of stone to the left of the walk leading to the front gallery. I put my car into park and verified the address—sorry I’d quit smoking for maybe the ten thousandth time.

In my line of work, it’s never a good idea to make a decision when you’re tired.

But I’d given my word, even though I’d been ready to fall asleep. It didn’t mean I had to take the job—whatever it was. All I had to do was find out what the problem was, maybe even just give some advice—which would most likely be either nothing anyone can do or this is a job for the police.

Besides, whoever lived in this dump sure as hell couldn’t afford a private eye.

I shut off the engine and got out of the car. It was already over eighty degrees, and it wasn’t even noon yet. Beads of sweat popped out on my forehead. Early April, and it felt like summer already. I sighed and pushed the gate open. It only opened about six inches before it caught on the cracked pavement of the walk and stopped. I sighed and stepped through, catching my jeans on the fence with a slight ripping sound. I swore under my breath and examined the tear. The jeans weren’t new, but it was still annoying.

This book had several different inspirations.

First, the casino used to have MMA fights every weekend, so we had MMA fighters in the city. One of their requirements to fight was they had to have a current negative HIV and Hep C test, and guess what we do at my job? For the longest time, all these hot young fighters would come into the office every Saturday to get cleared to fight, and they came in fairly regularly. I used to talk to them a lot–I wrestled, and MMA is a lot more violent–to get some kind of idea why they did this, how they got into it, and so on. I had thought about writing a mystery about a murdered MMA fighter, but could never really get my mind around it…and then I decided, what if he was the client? Interesting.

The second source of inspiration came from a decision of the Archdiocese of New Orleans to close some churches/parishes in the city, and my friend Billy Martin was involved in the protests to save Our Lady of Good Counsel (it was a gorgeous church), even getting arrested. I wanted to do something around this as it was something that actually happened, and I also got to skewer the Archdiocese (any place that could hire David Vitter’s horrific wife to be their legal counsel deserves every skewering it gets)…so I filed that thought away.

The third and final inspiration was serving on jury duty for a civil trial. It was, of all things, a Katrina insurance fight–in which the insurance company was trying to not pay out a claim (all of us in the jury were like, “why on earth would you allow a Katrina insurance case to go to trial in New Orleans? We fucking hate insurance companies.” The fact that it was Lloyd’s of London (who became famous in the wake of the San Francisco earthquake when the president of the company wired the San Francisco office, “pay every claim”) made it even more of an eyeroll for me. An apartment complex on the west bank had sustained damage in the storm, and the insurance company was claiming they didn’t have to pay out “because the claim is for issues that predated Katrina and the place was a shithole” while claiming the complex could have reopened after Katrina “because it was gorgeous” and so they didn’t have to pay out for lost income. The first person who was called to the stand was the complex’s forensic accountant who corroborated all of the plaintiff’s claims and basically made it clear that Lloyd’s was just trying to get out of a huge payment. After he testified, we took a long lunch as they were all in conference…and the claim was settled. I think the lawyers from Lloyd’s hoped that the plaintiff would eventually back down and wouldn’t go to court–and they called that bluff and were decimating Lloyd’s in court.

I mean, the place couldn’t be a shithole and a beautiful property available for rental. Make up your fucking minds, trash at the insurance company.

And what if the MMA fighter’s mom was fighting the closing of her church, had worked for someone suing an insurance company, and then she disappears?

Yes, that was a lot of fun to write. And I was pretty pleased with how it turned out in the end, too. It was also my first Chanse novel with Bold Strokes, and they gave me that beautiful cover above that I love. It made a lovely transition for the series.

Sleep Walk

Monday morning and back to the office afternoon a really lovely weekend, which wasn’t nearly long enough to satisfy anyone, really. I am wide awake, which is lovely, and I thought I wasn’t sleeping well last night–but this morning I feel rested and fine. Odd, right?

I really need to buckle down and start writing. I started three short stories ideas yesterday (“Passenger to Franklin”, “The Adventure of the Kaiser’s Spy1,” and “The Haunted Bridge,” for specifics) and I reviewed some of what I have already written on the next book, which was interrupted by the surgery. It’s now extended deadline is April 1, so yes, I need to get cracking. I did get a lot of work on the apartment done this weekend, and I was correct that I had ordered the wrong smart keyboard folio for my iPad, and Apple no longer makes them for mine because it’s too old. They recommended Amazon or eBay; I found one on eBay and ordered it so it will come later this week, which is terrific. Once I got home from refunding and returning that magic keyboard, I decided to go ahead and order two things from the Apple store to be delivered–an external wireless keyboard for my desktop, that is wider than the basic one and has the number pad, too, and a super storage flash drive that will also connect to my phone and iPad…and that resulted in an insane Kafka-like experience. The delivery was supposed to come between 3 and 5; their website showed that “Orrin” picked up my delivery at 4:46, and about half an hour later it was marked “out for delivery”–and the stuff can’t just be dropped off; it has to be handed to a person so you have to be available to go meet the delivery when it arrives. The website never updated, and the delivery never came. I finally connected with Apple Support on my phone, which was insane. Their records showed the driver had never picked it up–and it couldn’t be rescheduled for delivery today, all they could do was cancel it and refund the money. I don’t know if the “support person” I was communicating with was a real person or not, or if it was AI. Whoever it was, either they were AI, or English wasn’t their first language. I still don’t understand why they couldn’t just reschedule the delivery till today, but here we are, you know?

Thanks anyway, Apple. I have since decided that it was frivolous to buy those two items, so thank you for fucking this up and saving me quite a bit of money.

I did spend some time working on the apartment and it’s starting to look better. Hilariously, all the changes I made in the reorganization (the drawers, shelves in the kitchen, etc.) have already been forgotten so I have to go looking for things now–right now I can’t find where I put the printer ink–but that’s okay. I guess I am gaslighting myself!

I did spend some time this weekend reading Norah Lofts’ The Little Wax Doll, which I remember reading in junior high but as I read it, it feels very new to me. I don’t remember anything about it; maybe I never read it in the first place but had a copy which I started to read but never finished? Regardless, I am definitely enjoying it. It’s slow-burn horror, which is starting to slowly ratchet up (it’s one of those “rural communities that seem perfect but always have a dark secret” stories). I like Lofts’ writing style, which was more common in the mid-twentieth century work–she has a point of view character, Miss Mayfield, but her third person is removed; like a cross between an omniscient narrator and tight pov. It has a very Gothic feel to it that I really like, and I am looking forward to finishing it at some point.

We also started watching an Australian show, The Tourist, starring the always fun to watch Jamie Dornan (sigh) as a man who is in a car accident and gets amnesia, but he has to figure out who he is because a lot of people are trying to kill him. We’re two episodes into the first season (and there are two seasons thus far) so I am guessing he doesn’t find out for quite some time….

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a marvelous Monday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; one never can be sure.

  1. Yes, this is a Sherlock in 1916 New Orleans stories. ↩︎

Five Minutes Alone

Interestingly enough, the plot of Murder in the Garden District is the oldest of all my books, dating back to the late 1970s/early 1980’s.

Weird, huh?

But the murder mystery plot I used for this book was the same one I used for that dreadful novel I handwrote between 1980 and 1984. In the book, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks winds up marrying the wealthiest man in town, who is more than twice her age and has a daughter only slightly younger than she is–and he also has a monstrous, domineering bitch of a mother who hated her new daughter-in-law. He is shot and killed one night, and the young wife is the primary suspect. I always liked that plot and story, and so when it was time to write Murder in the Garden District I took that plot and turned it into a Chanse mystery. I also was able to pull out a subplot involving his landlady and employer, Barbara, that I had always wanted to do and thought it made the most sense to entwine the two stories in this book.

I also wanted to deal with Chanse’s estrangement from his family, with the possibility of reconciling with his mother, who was now dying of cancer at MD Anderson in Houston. This book was, on almost every level, about mothers.

Alyson’s original cover
The Bold Strokes cover for the new edition.

I climbed out of my car and immediately started sweating. Christ, I thought, tempted to loosen the uncharacteristic tie I was wearing, this better be worth it. I slammed the car door and headed for the front gate of the Palmer House. I’d been driving back from Houston when Barbara called, asking that I come by at four to meet a prospective client. She’d ordered me to wear a tie, which meant it was one of her society friends. And society friend meant deep pockets, which is always a good thing. I wiped the sweat off my forehead. So much for making a good impression, I thought as I opened the gate and headed up the walk to the house.

The Palmer House was a historic landmark of the Garden District, and also happened to be the home of my landlady and employer, Barbara Castlemaine, who’d inherited it from her first husband. Built before the Civil War, it was a monstrous looking Italianate house painted a dark burgundy with black shutters. Black wrought iron lacework adorned the upper and lower galleries that ran around the house. The big brick fence that provided it with a semblance of privacy on two sides of the lot leaned toward the sidewalk at a gravity-defying angle from the immaculately kept lawn. A black wrought iron fountain bubbled in the center of a two-foot high box hedge.

I rang the bell at precisely four o’clock. “Hey, Cora.” I said when the door opened.

Cora had been Barbara’s housekeeper for as long as I’d known her, and Barbara once told me that Cora had worked at the Palmer House since she was a teenager. I had no idea how old Cora was—her face was free of wrinkles and there were no signs of gray in her hair. She was wearing her black uniform with the white apron and little hat to match. Her face creased into a smile.

“Chanse! Always nice to see you.” She lowered her voice and stepped onto the porch, pulling the door almost closed behind her. “How’s your mama?”

I had always wanted to deal with Chanse’s family issues from the very beginning. If you remember, I originally planned this series as being seven books. At this point, it was Book 5 and I had gone off-plan with what I had envisioned, thanks to Hurricane Katrina. When it was time to write this one, I remembered that old plot from that old book of mine, which I saw as relatively easy to adapt to a New Orleans murder mystery–and a way, when I mapped out the old plot, to bring Chanse’s family back into the story and deal with his relationship, always fraught, with his mother. Chanse grew up in a trailer park with parents who were miserable with their life choices, drank too much, and weren’t the most loving of parents. As I thought about it, I also remembered a story I wanted to do with his brother–sending him back home to his small city in eastern Texas to try to clear his brother of a murder charge, and made notes on it, as well (it would become my story “”My Brother’s Keeper,” which was in Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories). I merged the original plot with the issue of his mother dying of cancer, and I also took the plot from a now-dead Chanse book (I think this was supposed to originally be Book 4) involving his landlady/boss’ past, and folded it into Murder in the Garden District. It is his landlady that drags him into this case, as a favor to someone who knows her darkest secret, which she eventually has to reveal to Chanse.

I also wanted to write about a powerful Louisiana political family, which became the Sheehans of the Garden District, with the murder victim having just announced his candidacy for state-wide office. Warren Sheehan wasn’t a good person, and as Chanse looks further and deeper into Warren’s history and past…maybe his murder was actually for the best as he was a monster. His much younger white trash wife from the West Bank, his daughter from a first marriage, the grasping hateful mother…yeah, I had a lot of fun writing this book, and I think it’s one of the standouts of the series, in all due modesty.

Chanse’s landlady/boss, by the way, was named Barbara Villiers Palmer Castlemaine, which was actually the name of one of the most notorious mistresses of King Charles II of England; but I’d always loved the name and gladly appropriated it for this character.

This was also my last book for Alyson, as they went through another upheaval and everyone I’d worked with on the previous book had been fired and I now had someone new to work with. Alyson folded up its tent and closed up shortly after the book came out. i was never paid my final portion of the advance…and never saw another dime out of them. They kept my books in print and kept selling them…but never paid me another cent. I wasn’t sorry they closed–it was really the only way I’d ever leave them and take the series elsewhere, and it was a relief. I’d been given the runaround from them and had to constantly get used to new people to work with on every title I did for them…yeah, wasn’t sorry about this, but I was pretty pissed about being robbed.

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Come Softly to Me

Sunday morning and as predicted, I didn’t get nearly as much done yesterday as I wanted to, but it was mostly about time more than anything else. I picked up the mail and stopped by Fresh Market, but then once I got home…well, there were chores still to be done (still have some more to do this morning) and I never did get around to writing anything besides blog entries yesterday, like a very bad Gregalicious. Today I have no choice, I have to write today…and I also have to drive out to the Apple Store in Metairie, and make groceries, both of which will be tiring. (I knew I’d regret putting that chore off until today, but at least it’s sunny out today; I think it’s going to be a rather lovely day out there.)

Sparky is always a problem for sitting at the computer as he always wants to sit in my chair–he will hang out and be obnoxious (right now he’s sprawled across the desk, his flicking tail brushing the keyboard as he knocks other things off…) and then jump into the chair the minute I get up for more coffee or anything, really. Heavy sigh, the joys of Big Spoiled Kitten Energy.

I did manage to watch Christopher and His Kind yesterday, which is Isherwood’s memoir about his life in Berlin during the rise of the Nazis, and it much more explicit than Isherwood’s earlier fictions about Berlin. During that “Staged Right” about Cabaret I watched the other night, he wrote it in reaction to the movie, to leave the record straight (as it were) about himself and his life; he hated that Cabaret made Brian/Christopher into a bisexual and that Sally was played by Liza Minnelli, when the actual Sally was marginally talented at best. It was an interesting film, but Christopher himself really came across as a bit of an asshole. There was also a lot of explicit sex, and there’s no question in watching this film about what his sexuality was, for sure. Matt Smith is simply stunningly beautiful, and Alexander Draymon as Caspar is just too beautiful for words. The two stories (Cabaret and Christopher and His Kind) are similar to each other, but I’m not really sure if a watcher didn’t know that both came from the same source, those similarities are simply base facts the story grew out of, and you might not even recognize them as the same story. I may need to revisit the books sometime when I have more time…as I recognize that a lot of the revisiting of fiction I talk about is probably never going to happen. But as always, I find rereading something as an easy way to shake off the not-reading mode I’ve been in for so long. We also watched the new BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder is Easy yesterday, which we quite enjoyed…although I am waiting for the racists to complain since they cast a Black man in the lead.

So I started rereading Norah Lofts’ The Little Wax Doll yesterday, of which I remember very little of my original read back in junior high school (I read her novels about queens and royal women before moving on to her other novels, which was very definitely an eclectic mix), and find myself enjoying it a lot more than I did when I was twelve–I did enjoy it, but I am certainly seeing it differently some fifty years later. As a kid, I just read Miss Mayfield as a lonely spinster who spent most of her life working in Africa in her colonial “white savior” role with her best friend, who hopes to save enough money to buy a little place she and her “best friend” could retired to; now it’s screaming lesbians at me. The book was originally published in 1960, and of course there are the queer deniers who like to think we never existed in the world before Stonewall. The phenomenon of spinsters sharing a home was just a fact of life, and the British never really inquired much further than that–the British cold politeness.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. There’s a lot to get done today and I am feeling like I will be able to make some significant progress today. Wish me luck, and I may be back later. Happy Sunday, Constant Reader!

Down by the Lazy River

There are few things I love more than digging my teeth into a good, solid Gothic story, and there are few modern authors who do it as superbly as Carol Goodman.

I love the modern-style Gothics, which evolved naturally as the role of women in our society and culture has; whereas in the Victoria Holt novels I loved so much, they were rarely professional, working women unless they were a paid companion or a governess (governess of an unruly, undisciplined child was a particular favorite of hers), while the heroines of Phyllis A. Whitney often had some kind of job or professional background. Goodman’s women are often teachers or writers, with a classics background and education, and Goodman is a very literate, smart writer as well.

River Road is no exception to that rule, either.

She came out of nowhere.

I was driving back from the faculty Christmas party. I’d had a couple of glasses of wine but I wasn’t drunk. Distracted, sure, what with Cressida dropping that bombshell and the scene with Ross, but not drunk.

I didn’t see her. It ws dusk, that dangerous hour when day slides into night and deer sneak out of the woods. I’ve lived here long enough to know that. I’ve braked a hundred times to watch a doe lead her fawns safely across the road. A lot of people hate the deer. They eat gardens and carry ticks. But I have always thought they were more beautiful than any garden I could grow and loved them for Emmy’s sake, who thought there were as magical as unicorns.

It was on that blind curve just before Orchard Drive. Everyone takes it too fast. I, of all people, should have known that too, but I was distracted nd my vision had gone blurry for a moment. I’d lifted my hand off the wheel to wipe my eyes and something hit the bumper. A horrible thump I felt in my chest. Then something white scrolling upward like a long scarf unraveling, its body weirdly elongated like one of those cave paintings from the South of France, a hunter’s dream of a spirit deer flying across the cosmos.

That throwaway, almost easy to miss because it just sounds poetic line about “scrolling upward like a long scarf unraveling” is actually incredibly important to the story, and serves as yet another example of Goodman’s powerful skill at her art.

Everything matters in her books–nothing is just by chance.

This book–with the terrific opening, where it becomes soon clear we’re dealing with a narrator who might not be entirely reliable–is set in the upper Hudson valley small town of Acheron which also is home to a campus of SUNY, which is where our unreliable (maybe) narrator is a creative writing teacher. Nan Lewis published a book some years ago, got the job and moved up to Acheron with her husband and daughter, Emmy–who is killed by a hit-and-run driver on the River Road–there’s a terrible blind curve on the road, and this is also where Nan hits the deer. Worried about the wounded deer, she looks for it to see if it needs help, walks into the woods looking and in the falling snow, ends up falling asleep under a tree. She eventually makes it back to her car and drives home, only to find out in the morning that a student of hers, Leia Dawson, was killed by a hit-and-run driver the night before on the River Road…and with the damage to her car, she is the number one suspect.

Had she had too much to drink? She was upset–she was denied tenure and found out at the party, screaming at her ex and department chair, Ross, before storming out to her car in the cold and falling snow. Was it deer she hit, or was it the student?

As Nan tries to get to the bottom of what happened that night–having horrific flashbacks to her daughter’s death, drinking too much, her life a complete mess–she slowly learns that while she was wallowing in misery and alcohol in her house, a lot was going on right under her nose at the campus, with students and teachers involved in strange schemes and secrets, all leading to a thrilling and suspenseful climax during the height of a blizzard, as a horrified Nan has to save herself while still processing all the secrets and lies she’s unraveled.

Layered, complex, with a strong cast of fully developed characters with interior lives, this is Carol Goodman at her finest.

Venus

Saturday.

Yesterday was a good day, productive both for day job business and chores and things around the apartment. My PT, as noted yesterday, didn’t seem as difficult as it had the last few times, which was awesome, and like I said, I got shit done yesterday. I started rearranging and reorganizing and making the kitchen more functional (which also required me to throw out a bunch of shit I was just hoarding, really), which is long overdue. I need to work on that some more today before I run errands. I had hoped to not have to leave the house either day of this weekend, but I decided yesterday to postpone the Apple Store trip until Sunday morning–and Paul ordered some things that require me to go by the post office, which means I am going to make a stop at the Fresh Market on the way home from the postal service. We watched this week’s Abbott Elementary, which is terrific, and then we finished True Detective: Night Country (I am guessing that all the men that hated this season? Misogyny, period. How dare a crime show center women? How dare a crime show be run and written by a woman? I enjoyed it, thought it was very well shot, and so they didn’t tie up every loose end? Ryan Murphy never does, either, and studios keep throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at him. And this season engaged me so much I am curious about rewatching season one and watching the other two, as well).

I also listened to the Bad Gays podcast on James Buchanan (shout out to myself for my story “The Dreadful Scott Decision,” which was in The Faking of the President anthology and centered on Buchanan and his “mysterious” sexuality), which I greatly enjoyed.

I feel good this morning. There’s a little bit of fatigue, but it’s not terrible in the least. (It always hits on the second day with full force, so tomorrow will be a challenge.) I want to do some writing to day (actually, need to) and of course I need to keep working on the apartment, and I have some things to assemble that I’ve order. I also want to read more in my book, and possibly watch some classic gay cinema later on today. I don’t know what Paul will be doing today, but I suspect he’ll go to the office and I won’t see him for most of it. I want to watch Christopher and His Kind first, and of course need to finish my rewatch of Saltburn so I can finally finish my entry on it. (Interesting how I’ve recently become obsessed with openly gay writers of the mid-twentieth century, isn’t it?) I’m still enjoying Feud, but it feels like it’s getting repetitive and is being too drawn out; like four episodes might have been sufficient instead of the planned eight.

All right, it’s a bit brief but I really need to get back to work around here this morning, so more coffee, perhaps a bit of breakfast, and a brief one-hour repair to my chair to read for a bit. And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will probably be back a little later.

Lonely Boy

Friday work at home day blog, in which I have PT in a little while and all kinds of things on the agenda to get done. I was productive last night, chore wise, and while I still have some chores to do, I am further ahead than I usually am when I wake up on Friday morning. The weather turned cold yesterday afternoon, and I came straight home. Sparky was feeling needy when I got home, so I had to spend some time cuddling and playing with him (he managed to get the hanging mouse toy off it’s string…but this morning he is playing with the string, and the mouse is nowhere to be found). I watched some news–always a downer–and then the Staged Right Youtube channel’s history of Ethel Merman’s career; from which my primary takeaway was Helen Lawson in Valley of the Dolls was so clearly based on Ethel that I can’t believe she didn’t sue…and it made me want to reread the book again. There was a downpour that started right before i went to bed–and it was even colder when I slipped under the covers. Although a quick check tells me it’s 58 outside…sigh.

But I am awake. My arm feels a bit fatigued, but that’s okay, I just need to monitor myself more at PT and at the gym. I am definitely mentioning it this morning, though–even if it makes me feel like a whiner. This is my arm, that had a serious injury and a major surgery, so I need to get past that kind of self-defeating mentality and understand that they need to know if it’s been tired, hurting, fatigued, etc. If I don’t tell them what I am feeling accurately because I want to please them (a problem my entire life, which has created more issues than its resolved, frankly), this could be bad for my arm.

It’s funny, because the other day I was emailing a friend who’d said something kind to me, and one thing I said in response was Oh, good. I always worry that I am a pest or am too much. He replied that he toned himself down sometimes, too, for the same reason: being too much. After I got his response, I started thinking about it, worrying that phrase and that feeling that both of us, gay men in their sixties, have to tone ourselves down because people think we’re “too much”, and parsed it some more during Ethel Merman’s career history and some other Youtube videos last night. Too much. How many times have I been told I am “too much,” that I’m not “masculine” enough1, that I need to change who I was and how other people saw me (narrator voice: you cannot control other people’s perceptions of you. All you can do is hope for the best) and that has impacted how I feel about people and how I act and behave, and how much of myself I reveal and share with them. Sigh. Keep unpacking that shit, Gregalicious, and remember, you are who you are and never let anyone dim your bright queer light.

And remember–no one ever tells a straight man he’s “too much”–even when they sexually assault women, so…maybe fuck all the way off?

All right, I am now home from PT. The sun has come out, but it’s supposed to rain all day and most of the weekend. I’ve decided to wait until Sunday morning to go to the Apple Store in Metairie. I don’t really want to deal with evening traffic to get there and back–traffic back into the city is always a nightmare around that time–and they open later, so I can get up later and go later and not have to worry about traffic and so forth. PT was a bit harder this morning, but some things were easier. I am going to make a to-do list for the weekend, as well as a list of all chores I want/need to get done this weekend, and figure out some other things.

And on that note–several hours later, my bad–I am heading BACK into the spice mines. Have a great Friday!

  1. I am writing another essay–which I hopefully will finish someday–about this very thing; the strait-jacket of toxic masculinity I was raised with and conditioned by education, school, and culture to think and believe was the only “normal” way to be a man. It’s called “Are You Man Enough.” ↩︎

Personality

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. Huzzah. I was tired after work yesterday–I made groceries and went to get the mail–but I did get some things donw last night around the house before collapsing into my easy chair. I watched another one of those “Staged Right” documentaries (this time about Evita), and then Paul came down and we watched another episode of True Detective: Night Country, which really took a turn last night! We’re enjoying the show tremendously, despite all the noise on-line about people hating it…and by people, I mean men. I don’t think I’ve seen a single post trashing the show that wasn’t by a (straight) man? Which sets off my “bullshit misogyny” alarm, frankly.

The weather had turned yesterday by the time I got off work; it had gotten a bit colder and the wind had dramatically picked up. It was also kind of gray, which reminded me of how it is before a flooding rain….borderline tornado weather. It feels cold in the apartment this morning, and the high for today is at about sixty. It may rain today, and there’s a 95% chance of it tomorrow. I have early PT tomorrow morning, and at some point I need to drive to Metairie to return something to the Apple store (I’d ordered a keyboard at long last for my iPad, but it’s the wrong size). Loathe as I am to do that–go out there–it was far too expensive for me to just slide and do nothing about. Heavy heaving sigh. But really, it’s not that big of a hassle, and in going out there, I can actually treat myself to Sonic or Atomic Burger as a treat for having to go to Metairie and deal with Lakeside Mall. Shudder.1

I feel good and rested this morning, which is very unusual for a Thursday. Last Thursday was like this, too–I ended the day feeling energized, and got a lot done when I got home. I hope that will be the case tonight. I have loads of laundry in both washer and dryer that need to be dealt with tonight; I need to empty and reload the dishwasher; the floors are looking horrific; and of course I need to assemble the shower caddy. I also need to redo my to-do list, and perhaps make one just for the weekend. I am going to have to go make groceries at some point this weekend, too. I need to go by Lowe’s at some point, too. We need more filters and I am going to splurge on a new barbecue grill, as the last one is well past its last legs, frankly. I also need to reorganize both the freezer and the refrigerator, as well as get rid of some more boxes of stuff that is no longer needed to be kept.

I love feeling reinvigorated in the mornings, frankly. I don’t know how long this will last, of course, and it’s possible I’ll get tired by the end of my shift, but that’s also okay. I don’t beat myself up over being tired anymore, and maybe the loss of anxiety is making me lean into my own stasis more than I ever have before, but I don’t think my creativity is gone–I’m having too many ideas and thoughts and making too many notes–but I need to refocus it on writing actual words down, rather than just thinking about them. I also need to start reading again. I hate how far behind I’ve fallen on my reading.

I did start listening to podcasts yesterday in the car, which was really cool. I found one called Bad Gays, which is hosted by the author of the book Bad Gays and someone who works at the Gay Museum in Berlin (which, if we ever go to Germany, is something I’d like to see); and I listed to the episode on James I of England (VI of Scotland) and his male favorites. I didn’t see an episode on two historical figures I am fascinated by, Henri III of France, and Louis XIV’s brother, Philippe d’Orleans; Philippe’s lover the Chevalier de Lorraine was the definitive bad gay of Versailles. I should fictionalize the Affair of the Poisons…which would give me an excuse to visit France for research. Plus it’ll give me the excuse to study up on the period more, too. I love seventeenth century France.

I think I am going to watch Christopher and His Kind this weekend, and I may even rewatch Cabaret for good measure. I also found some other gay movies on-line to watch that I’ve never seen, like Another Country and Maurice. I also want to rewatch Saltburn so I can finish my entry on it.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. May your Thursday be wonderful, cheery and bright, and I may be back later–one never knows.

  1. Hilariously, now that my anxiety is under control I’ve realized my hatred of driving and having to go places was always anxiety-based. Always. ↩︎

My Sharona

Wedesday pay-the-bills day, after a very good night’s sleep and this is the first time this week I’ve awakened feeling…awake, if that makes sense. I had a decent day at work yesterday, ran errands on the way home from work (will be doing that again tonight), and then got home, feeling inside out and tired. Sparky was feeling needy after being home alone all day, so I decided to just relax in my chair and let him cuddle up to me and go to sleep, which was pretty much how we spent the rest of the evening, with the occasional getting up for the bathroom or something to drink. We watched a documentary on Youtube about the backstory of Cabaret, which was interesting, from Isherwood’s Berlin Stories1 to the stage and film adaptation as I Am a Camera, and then finally stage and screen versions of Cabaret, along with the revivals. It was interesting; I knew there were a lot of differences between the play and the film, and that later revivals often used songs that were original to the film. That sort of thing always interests me. I spent most of the rest of the night reading news reports, trying to get back on top of what is going on in the world while I’ve been focusing on my recovery and getting through the days productively, and I have to say it was horrifying, absolutely horrifying. I’ve been aware of everything going on, of course, it’s just not something I’ve allowed myself to really think about and/or through until last evening.

The world is indeed in terrible shape.

My arm feels fatigued this morning, too, from Monday’s night’s PT. The muscles in my left arm were twitching/spasming a bit last night, but they did the same thing on Sunday. I don’t think it’s a big deal or anything that needs to be reported at any time before I have PT on Friday, when I can talk to my actual physical therapist about it, but again–I think that’s just a natural reaction to working hard, which the arm is definitely not completely used to yet. I still feel good about my progress, and I am trying valiantly to resist frustration at not being fully recovered yet. But hell, I’ve made it this far already so why complain?

NARRATOR VOICE: He can always complain.

I have to say, now that I made my decision about Bouchercon and posted about it, I feel a lot more relaxed and less anxious about the whole thing–and really, that should tell me something: if I am feeling anxious about something, or dismiss it when I think about it so it won’t stress me out, that should be when I decide not to attend or do something. It would definitely make my life easier. I still have a ton of entries in the draft folder I need to eventually do something with, but hopefully tonight when I get home I will feel like getting some work done and Sparky won’t be needy–since I cannot seem to resist his wiles ever. He’s just so sweet (when he isn’t being a terror).

And so, here I am on the midway point of my work week. Things appear to be picking up, after the slow start to everything this week. The apartment still has chores that need to be done–laundry and dishes and so forth–and yesterday’s mail had a shower caddy that I ordered; one that goes over the shower head. I bought one a while ago–and every time I got in the shower I’d think I need to get one that goes over the shower head because the one I got doesn’t fit there and is a pain in the ass, but I would never remember to buy and/or order one that works better. Of course, assembly was required (and a Phillips head screwdriver! What is this madness?) and I just wasn’t there last night to do it properly, plus Sparky was trying to knock everything off the counter and I just said fuck it and shoved everything back in the box to do at another time. I also got my new, magnetic measuring spoons yesterday, which means they will either stick together when not in use or will stick to the refrigerator or the oven hood. Huzzah!

And as always when I am feeling alive and energetic in the middle of the week, I am already thinking about all the things I can get done over the weekend. WHY do I always think I can/will do more than I wind up doing? I think this is part of the constant self-defeating thing that I do; I think I will be able to do more than usual but inevitably will wind up not doing it all so I can feel like I’ve failed and thus can self-reproach, which is really not the best way to live one’s life.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. There are, after all, bills to be paid. I may be back later, one can never be entirely certain. Have a lovely Wednesday at any rate!

  1. I am thinking it may be time to revisit Isherwood; and I don’t think I’ve read Christopher and His Kind, which would be a great place to start. ↩︎

Mack the Knife

Yesterday was a low-energy day. I felt fine, but not motivated, and that was partly due to feeling more tired than I have in a while. My mind wasn’t foggy and my muscles weren’t fatigued, but at the same time I just felt off-balance and getting things done just wasn’t going to happen. I did my work duties, of course–I always manage to get my work duties done, and I am still ahead of the curve on all of that–but I was more spacy than anything else mentally, having trouble remembering things and so forth, etc. I also managed to run errands on my way home from work, and then went to the gym for PT. It seemed a bit easier this time than it did on Friday, in all honesty. Once I was finished with that, I came home and showered and had a mostly quiet, slow evening. I fell asleep a few times in my chair and finally went to bed early, slept really well, and now feel pretty good this morning. My legs feel a bit fatigued from the walking, but other than that, I feel like today is going to be a good day.

I am completely awake now. This is something I’ve noticed since the change in medications–it doesn’t take long for me to shake off sleep and grogginess and wake up completely. That is something I much prefer to how I used to get up in the morning, to the point where I really don’t dread getting up in the morning so much. It’s also entirely possible that my body has finally completely adjusted to getting up this early every morning. How many years did it take, LOL? But whatever the reason, I am not displeased with this development.

It was a beautiful day yesterday when I set out for the gym to do PT. It wasn’t nearly as difficult walking over there in the late afternoon; I wasn’t feeling tired so I made good time walking. There was also no one there–I’d finally managed to time it so it wasn’t crowded. Several guys came in just as I was finishing up, and escaped. I’ve never felt really comfortable or relaxed at this gym since we joined it all those years ago. I knew everyone who worked at our old gym, I knew a lot of people who worked out there, and it was just a short two block walk up St. Charles. We also belonged to that gym for almost eighteen years or so, and so getting used to a new one was always going to take me a while. I never got used to it before because I never managed to get into a rhythm of going regularly, either. That’s one of the things straight white people get to take for granted, you know? They never have to worry about dealing with any kind of hateful, bigoted reaction to their existence, which can happen at any time, really.

You never get to completely relax when you’re in public.

Which is really a continuation of a theme I started in my “why I am not going to Bouchercon this year” post from yesterday. It’s very hard to ever trust straight people, really; I’ve been burned so many times in the past that you become paranoid and it then spreads from straight people to all people. You never can be sure if the group of people you’re hanging out with in a bar, laughing and having a good time, won’t start talking about you using slurs when you walk away. There are people who realize the optics of homophobia aren’t good, so they are very careful not to give you anything to make hay with in your presence. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t homophobic, it actually means they are worse–they know it’s wrong and socially unacceptable but do it anyway. I will never forget the self-styled Very Important Author who felt it was okay to smugly use “faggy” in casual conversation, while looking at me with a smirk on his face I so badly wanted to punch off it. (He has since outed himself to many others as a garbage human being since then; I just smugly smile when I hear tales about his most recent egregious crime.) It’s hard to explain what that is like, you know, so that people will understand? (And I think it’s also important, while making this point, to defend the other people around when he said it, because he got called out almost immediately. That was a good feeling.)

One last time for the arrogant straight men in the back: there aren’t many gay men who’d be interested, so stop flattering yourself that we are all such deranged cockmonsters that we froth at the mouth over straight guys. We don’t. And I would add further that we would never, unless they collectively start figuring out what anal hygiene is. Hilariously, they always forget that some of us are tops, you know–so if I were to ever sexualize a straight man, I wouldn’t be thinking about him fucking me or me sucking his dick; I’d think about fucking him.

Not something that plays into their disturbing male-on-male sexual fantasies, is it?

Seriously, straight men, stop flattering yourselves.

And yes, I have been rethinking a lot of things about my past and my life since Mom died. New information always is cause for a good rethink, and again it’s interesting (if sad) to realize how oblivious I inevitably was throughout the majority of my life. Heavy heaving sigh.

And on that glum note, it’s off to the spice mines with me. Hope you have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again probably later.