Be My Lady

Tuesday morning and it’s feeling a bit chilly in the Lost Apartment this morning. I am propping the brace on the edge of my desk so I can use both hands–and it doesn’t seem to bother the arm too much to use my fingers. I actually don’t feel any pain, but it feels a bit weird, if that makes any sense.

Yesterday was the first time I’ve felt like me again after coming home from the surgery. I cut up an old T-shirt (well, Paul did; one needs two hands to cut cloth) so I could fit it on over the brace without having to use the arm or move it; my left nipple peeks out every now and again, but that’s okay. Tomorrow morning is my first post-op visit to the surgeon, so I want to think about the things I need to ask about and write them down to take with me. It’s an early appointment–8 am–so I won’t be thinking as clearly as I would later in the day. I’m getting used to sleeping in the chair–I’ve been sleeping ten hours a night on average since that first sleepless night after the surgery, which is very-un-Greg-like, but I attribute that to my body recovering from the trauma of the surgery. I wish it would last forever, though, I really love sleeping.

Paul and I did go run those errands yesterday, and driving wasn’t an issue at all. I think the prohibition on driving in the instructions had more to do with the painkillers (which I don’t need) than any lingering after-effects of the surgery. It felt very nice to get out of the house, since I hadn’t even gone outside (I don’t think) since coming back home last Tuesday–hey, it was a week ago, wasn’t it? It seems like an eternity. I am very impatient to get through this, but of course you can’t rush recovery. I am trying not to get frustrated or impatient, but it isn’t easy for me–I haven’t gotten to the acceptance of things I cannot control yet, sadly–and my emotions are still all over the place. I had a couple of emotional moments yesterday which weren’t great–but those moments are also becoming fewer and farther between, which is a relief. I hate subjecting anyone to my particular brand of crazy, least of all Paul–who is usually the only person who ever sees it, and that is something I don’t like, either.

I didn’t write anything yesterday, the errands exhausted me, and so I spent the rest of the day in my chair. I watched a marvelous documentary series about film horror from Blumhouse–four episodes–which was a lot of fun but nothing really new that I hadn’t already known. It did give me an idea for a slasher thriller in two parts–the original occurrence than a revisitation ten years later; but the worry is, of course, that it’s been done already or I have nothing new to bring to the genre. It’s an interesting conundrum and puzzle I’d like to get figured out; one that will need to percolate for a while before actually getting to work on it. I always worry about how much preparatory work I do for my books, and I also worry I don’t do enough research for them, either. (I love research but also find it frustrating because I never know when I’ve done enough research, and as someone who is always spotting historical inaccuracies in all media…I don’t want anyone doing that to me or thinking that I’m a lazy researcher…although on second thought why the fuck do I care? There are always going to be those people, after all.) I was thinking about that very thing yesterday in terms of two other books-in-progress I’ve been working on for years; I’m not certain that I chose the proper career path given how my brain is actually wired–for someone who gets anxious to the point of shaking sometimes (it was really bad when I was a kid) why would you choose a career where you have to do things that trigger anxiety? I don’t ever get anxious about the day job, for example.

It’s weird but all this down time sitting in my chair unable to focus enough to read a novel (short stories are easier) has given my addled brain the opportunity to think and reflect. This whole past week has been an emotional rollercoaster–I think surgeries tend to make you emotionally raw to begin with–but I’ve also spent a lot of time grieving my mother since coming home last Tuesday. I was always able to engage my mind before and not think about it–even when I was too tired to do anything more than watch Youtube videos in the evening. But this forced inactivity is an entirely different thing, and I can’t seem to get control of my mind when it starts to wander. I’ve been thinking about my career and where it’s gone and where it may go in the future over this last week; my stubbornness at keeping going when maybe I should gave given up. I’m proud of all my work, and I’ve also come to accept that my old work maybe isn’t terrible the way I’ve always feared. I always approach rereads of my own work with my mind subtly shifting into editorial mode, and once I recognized that recently, I do go ahead and shut that off before I do read. I’m a different writer than I was twenty-two or more years ago, and I have always wanted to continue to improve, grow, and get better with each new story, book, or essay (I don’t care how bad these entries are, actually; it’s rare that I go back and revisit these); so of course I would write the older books etc. differently were I to write them today; that doesn’t mean the old ones aren’t good.

And honestly, how many award nominations do I need to get before I finally accept that I’m pretty good at this whole thing? That I have the respect of my peers?

I’m proud of all my work, but I also have preferences as far as that is concerned; some children I love more than the others. The ones I am not as fond of are the ones that I think I could have made better than they were; the ones I wish I had another pass at. That’s what I am thinking with finally re-editing and preparing Jackson Square Jazz for rerelease; here’s a chance to give it a bit more polish, make it come together better, and remove inconsistencies and continuity errors from the series as a whole. Reediting the manuscript is something I can do in my easy chair, and then I can slowly input the changes into the word document gradually until the entire thing is finished. Slow and steady wins the race, after all. I’m very happy, seriously, with my career as far as the work itself is concerned. I would like my writing to be a lot more profitable than it’s been thus far (what writer doesn’t dream of fame and fortune) but I couldn’t care less about the fame–I’ve always cared more about the fortune, actually; I’m pragmatic that way.

I’m hoping to write more today–after I finish this I have some emails to attend to–and I also have bills that simply must be paid so I can stop getting stressed about that, too. I don’t know how long I am good for in this chair sitting upright with the brace balanced against the edge, to be honest…but I need to give it a try. I am just not wired to be inactive, I guess,

Have a great Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will see you again later.

What About Me

Well, here we are on Monday morning after my surgery, and I’m not really sure what I’ll be doing today. I really need to pick up a prescription in Uptown, and we need to pick up the mail at some point, but I’m not really sure how I’m going to do that. I don’t know that I should risk driving yet, because New Orleans drivers are so horrible, but it has to be done and I need the prescription. I suppose I could take a ride service, but I hate spending the money as well. I guess I don’t have a choice though, so I’ll deal with that later. I also need to make groceries.

We had had an issue a few weeks ago with the apartment. They were doing some work on the patio deck above my kitchen, and unfortunately there was rotten wood up there. The ceiling kind of gave way; they ended up nailing up a piece of plywood over the hole in the ceiling. Unfortunately the next time it rained, of course, it leaked , but they finished the work up there and never came back to repair our ceiling. We had a massive thunderstorm Saturday night, and so i woke up Sunday morning to water on the floor in the kitchen, on the stove, and on the counter. The carpets in the kitchen were also  wet; so I got out towels and a bucket for the dripping and hoped that the ceiling wouldn’t cave in. About two hours later, yeah, some of the plaster came down with a loud, startling crash, and so now there’s another hole in the ceiling. The insulation up there is soaked, so I had to leave the bucket for the dripping to continue. Needless to say, this is a really shitty time for this to happen and it spiraled me into a really bad depressive state yesterday. I have noted already that my emotions have been all over the place since the surgery — so something like this really sent me into a spiral. The anxiety really ramps up, so yeah, yesterday was just not a good day for me.

So, I repaired my easy chair with a Gatorade and Nurse Sparky and put on one of my comfort movies, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. I’ve always loved Indiana Jones, but I haven’t seen the most recent movie yet. I’ve always wanted to write an Indiana  Jones type book; I love historical treasure  hunts and have always thought that it would be fun to write those kind of stories with Colin as the main character — away from Frank and Scotty, to kind of fill in the blanks when he’s away from New Orleans. I have an idea that’s tied into the 4th crusade and the sack of Constantinople; a treasure hidden away in the Hagia Sophia since the Nicaean Council that established the dogma of Catholic Christianity. The Orthodox patriarchy had been keeping this treasure secret from the Pope and the Vatican for centuries, at least since the schism of 1052. My idea is that the Venetians and the Crusaders knew that the Pope would be furious to learn they had sacked Constantinople, but the Doge, Enrico Dandalo, not only knew about the secret but also knew presenting it to the Pope would get them forgiven. The primary problem with this is that I have never figured out what precisely was hidden in the Hagia Sophia; but I wanted to tie it into the Assassins and the Old Man of the Mountain. I thought that would make for a fun adventure, particularly setting it in a fictional Middle Eastern country. However, with everything that’s going on in the world nowadays, writing about the Middle East is probably not a good idea at this point.

I also read a lot of short stories over the weekend. I read all the stories in one of my Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies, Stories That Scared Even Me, and that was a lot of fun. The book was published originally in the 1960s or early 1970s and it is amazing how much attitudes in society and cultural attitudes have changed since that time. The contributors were almost entirely male — all of these anthologies are underrepresented with women — and there are a lot of really racist and patriarchal  tropes in some of the stories. Several, for example, are set in Mexico; I’ll let your imagination do the rest rather than quote what they said so casually. I’m also writing a story set in Central America — I was writing it to submit to a horror anthology — and it was one that I had started writing back in the 1990s, I believe. I was kind of horrified by what I wrote — I feel like by the 1980s I should have known better about these kinds of tropes  — but the story is salvageable; with some strong changes and a fictional country. But you can still get into trouble, even with that, and the last thing I ever want to do is write something problematic that will offend people. (I have already mentioned the story that I submitted to a anthology that’s not going to happen now about the South, which I recently  reread and was horrified by.)  A lot of these stories have those twisty type of endings that I always loved; that little hint of irony that really made the story sing. I always try to give my stories those kinds of endings because that’s what I grew up reading as far as short stories are concerned, and I often have to struggle to not try that with every story, because it’s not right for every story and I have a bad tendency to try to force things to work the way I want them to, instead of the way that they should work organically.

Dictating is much slower than typing, as I’ve noted before; this is taking me a lot longer to dictate then I would like. Where I actually typing this entry, I would probably already be finished by now. But you do what you have to do. I also started dictating my next book, figuring it’s better to get started on it while I’m at home recovering from the surgery, rather than waiting until such time as my left hand can be used for the keyboard. I’m still not having any pain  — my primary issue is mobility, not being able to use my left hand for  much, occasional nausea from the antibiotic, and the mood swings and depression. I wish I had already started on my anti-anxiety medication protocol before the surgery, but what can you do? Yesterday morning, I was thinking that I made a lot of bad decisions about this surgery and that I didn’t do it knowing everything that would result from it; but I was worried about not ever being able to go to the gym and workout again unless  and until this was done, and pushing it back to next year wouldn’t have changed any of these issues, I don’t think, other than possibly better planning on my part. But that’s also part of the anxiety—I always question my decisions, and never really believe that I made the right choices afterward. I guess it is just a part of that hindsight being 20/20 thing that always drives me crazy. I never really am confident in the decisions I make, so I always try to not second-guess or doubt myself afterward; there’s no point in rehashing things that you can’t change. Why obsess over something I have no control over anymore? That’s the easiest way to drive yourself crazy, I think.

We’re also really enjoying the show Bodies on Netflix. It has everything that I like; a bit of science fiction, crime, surprise twists, and gay content. You can never go wrong with me when you have gay content. (That’s not entirely true; there are some really terrible shows in movies with gay content that are basically unwatchable) I also finished watching a Jane Seymour series on Acorn called Harry Wild, which wasn’t great but was entertaining enough. I don’t know what all I’ve been watching to be honest with you, Constant Reader, but I’ve been watching  an awful lot of television.

I did watch a terrible adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d, and the less said about that the better.

I’m hoping today or tomorrow to be able to read a novel; I’m really enjoying the one that I was reading before the surgery and would like to finish it, but my mind is all over the place and has been since coming home from the surgery. I haven’t even been able to focus on the TV I’ve been watching as much as I would like. Part of it is the depression, part of it is the holiday without Mom, and of course, the surgery. You see how I am? I’m being hard on myself after a major surgery for not getting anything done or being productive. Heavy sigh. Welcome to the wonderful world of what goes on inside my head.

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and see if I can figure out what I’m going to do for the rest of the day, and what I can do about these errands. I hope you have a lovely Monday and as always, thank you for checking in and thank you for reading.

Everybody Wants You

Here it is Sunday morning and I am coming back to you once again from the spice mines where I am recovering from my biceps tear repair surgery. I haven’t had a lot of pain; they had given me what’s called a “pain ball”—which is a nerve deadener that was attached to my shoulder so I wouldn’t feel any pain. I was skeptical, but it really did work. The most pain I ever felt was the equivalent of a Charlie horse, at least so far anyway! I do worry that I jinx myself a little bit by talking about not having any pain, but that’s just how it all shakes out. I try not to be superstitious, but it doesn’t always work. I was worried about the transition from the pain ball 2 not having anything other than painkillers on demand, but it hasn’t been that bad. The brace is bulky and uncomfortable, but i can live with that. It was the ice machine that was really bad, and I am off of that now unless I need it for swelling or pain or something in the meantime. It wrapped around the brace and blew cold air into the attachments that were around my arm to prevent swelling and to reduce pain and I took it off for the first time Friday to see if I could go without it. I managed to get through Friday night and last night without needing it, which i think is a good thing probably, right?

I have been a slug ever since the surgery. I haven’t really done much of anything except lay in my chair, let sparky sleep on me, and watch a whole lot of streaming. Some of it was really good, some of it was really bad, and some of it was just laughable. It is also really amazing to me that with all of these streaming options that I have on my Apple TV, that it is really hard for me sometimes to find something to watch. Is there too much choice? Are so many options that it’s difficult to make a choice? But there’s also the issue of getting into something that’s not very good. Paul and I do stick to our 15 minute rule with movies and our one episode and a half rule streaming series. And there’s so much to look for that I don’t even know what to look for anymore! I find myself forgetting shows that I wanted to watch because new shows are coming out all of the time and then we move on. It does remind me of the olden days of cable where you could have over 300 channels and nothing to watch all the fucking time. (Interestingly enough, I have discovered that dictation will turn curse words into asterisks instead and will not spell out the word so I have to do that manually! Who knew Microsoft was such a prude?)

Interestingly enough, I have also developed an enormous pimple on my nose. I am 62 years old and I am still getting pimples. I suppose this is payback for my adolescence when I didn’t have hardly any at all during high school and college! I don’t mind really, it’s just kind of funny to me and it’s also on the bridge of my nose, which is where my glasses rest. Of course! I am also hoping that I’ll be able to run some errands on Monday. I have a prescription to pick up and the mail, and it probably wouldn’t hurt to do a small grocery run to pick up a few things. Navigating all of this with one hand is not going to be easy of course, but it needs to be done and at least I’m not on pain medication so my mind is clear. I have the wagon to help me bring the groceries back, and I also think on Monday I’ll try to get back to normal around here answering e-mail, reading, paying bills (always a joy!), and maybe even trying to get some writing done through dictation which might be a little frustrating but—the more I do it the easier it will get I am sure.

This hasn’t been the easiest of years for me. Over the course of the last 12 months, I lost my cat and my mother, injured myself severely, had all of my bottom teeth removed and got new dentures, and had a major surgery. But the teeth removal was great because now I have dentures and can chew much better than I have in years; which is difficult to get used to again. But at least I no longer look like a hillbilly from the holler! It’s unfortunate that I didn’t have this done before mom died because I know my teeth really bothered her, even though she never said anything. WHEW! Just dictating that got me overwhelmed and sad, and a bit teary eyed.

I think that’s been the hardest thing about the surgery recovery; that anesthetic and the painkillers and just the recovery of from that trauma to my body has made my emotions all over the place. Also, just sitting around thinking about things and your mind starts to wander and you can’t help but miss your mom. Facebook also gut punched me the other day by bringing up a memory within adorable picture of scooter. But sparky wouldn’t be here if we still had scooter, and i am very glad we were able to rescue them both. I think I will always be sad about mom. I don’t think you ever get over losing your mother no matter how old you are. And of course, I always think about dad saying that your mother is always the first person to love you. I had thought about going to visit dad during this recovery time, and i still might—it just depends on how my arm feels and if I think I can handle 12 hours in the car in two directions. It’s probably a stupid idea but I really hate the thought of not seeing dad during any of the holiday season. However hard this has been on me, it’s been 1000 times if not a million times worse on my dad . Paul is also thinking about going to visit his mom during the Christmas season too—but I think by the time he’ll be able to go I should be functional on my own. At the very least, I’ll be going back to work before then. I’m still not sure exactly how I’m going to put shirts on; I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it I guess.

We’re also watching bodies and Netflix which is really good, LSU won yesterday which was very cool, and Auburn lost the iron bowl in the most Auburn way possible. Heavy sigh. But for all intents and purposes as far as I’m concerned anyway, college football season is effectively over anyway.

And on that note, I’ll bring this to a close have a great Sunday everyone!

On the Wings of Love

So, I have figured out how to use the “dictate” function in Microsoft Word, which I can then turn around and cut and paste into my blog. This is very cool; because now I don’t have to wait until I have both hands to make blog entries, write emails, or just write in general. I do have to remember the punctuation, though. Ah, technology is wonderful, isn’t it?

The surgery itself went very well. It was difficult that morning, because I had to get up at 5:00 to be there for the surgery in Metairie at 7:15, and had to fast after 10:00 PM the night before. I couldn’t have coffee that morning and I had trouble sleeping; so as you can imagine I was tired and groggy when I got to Lakeview Hospital. But I also was worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle the recovery period and I had a lot of anxiety about it; which is a big surprise, right? Anyway, it’s been a roller coaster since getting home Tuesday morning. My emotions were all over the place the last couple of days, and I think that had a lot to do with reaction to the anesthetic, the medications I’m taking, and basically, the trauma to my body; it would be a surprise if my emotions hadn’t been all over the place the last few days– which kind of sucks. I also couldn’t sleep Tuesday night for whatever reason, and so was exhausted all day Wednesday. I did sleep really well Wednesday night though and the last two nights as well. I don’t think I have ever been this inactive for this long for a very long time–if ever. It’s starting to get to me a little bit, and I think that has something to do with the mood swings and the emotions—being unable to get up easily from my chair and navigate the apartment whenever I need to (and having to plan every time I get up) hasn’t been easy for me to deal with emotionally. I suppose I shouldn’t really be surprised, since I I’m such a control freak and have so much anxiety.

But voice to text may be a lifesaver for the next two weeks; unfortunately, I don’t speak as fast as I can type, which is very strange!

I am hoping that today I will be able to read a little bit; my mind has been kind of loopy due to the medications and things since getting home so it’s just been easier to watch television and not even try to engage my brain.

Paul has been very helpful during this whole thing, which has been really nice. I am also learning that I am a terrible patient because I don’t like to bother anyone to do things for me, which has always been a problem — it makes me feel like I’m a burden to people. But being loopy and on drugs has also sent my mind into bizarre directions and into weird memories these last few days. Since Mom died, I had to do a lot of rethinking about my life and my own history, remembering things that explain why I act the way I do or why I react the way I do to certain things. It helps to know I have anxiety just like she did, and once I’m on the road to recovery from the surgery I’ll be able to start treatment for the anxiety at last, and will finally be on the right medications. I cannot stress enough how important it is to advocate for yourself with your doctors. Do not be afraid to ask questions, do not be afraid to not take their word for everything, or their immediate answer, and keep asking questions because the only way you can get better is if you talk to your doctor and get the right kind of medication and the right kind of treatments so that you can live your best life and not be suffering all the time. I always believed that I was mentally normal anyway and that everyone’s brain worked the same way that mine did. I wish I had known sooner that mom had anxiety. Oh well. Hindsight is always 20/20.

It’s funny, too, because dictating engages my brain in a different way than writing with my hands does. My brain works a lot faster when I am typing, rather than when I am dictating, and having to think about what I am going to say, whereas I can just put my hands on the keyboard and things just start coming out of me without much thought really; it kind of is a subconscious thing for me, which kind of explains a lot.

We watched the new Spiderman animated movie, which i think was called Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse? Anyway, I really enjoyed it almost as much as I did the first, which I guess was Into the Multiverse? I wish I had known that it was a “to be continued”, though; that was very disappointing to not get to the end of this story to see how it all works out for Miles and Gwen Stacey! I also have been rewatching episodes of Moonlighting in addition to finishing Happy Valley, All The Light We Cannot See, and some football games. I feel more rested than I have in a very very very long time; which says something really terrible about my life really. I apparently never take time off of work to just rest up and relax. Usually when I do take time off it’s to go to a conference for self promotion for the books or to go visit my family which is a 12 hour drive in both directions—not optimal for rest and relaxation.

And of course whenever I travel I have trouble sleeping.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines for this wonderful Saturday of the holiday weekend. How the lovely rest of the day, and hopefully I’ll be back at some point to let you know how things are going in the recovery process for me. Thank you for always reading!

A Penny for Your Thoughts

Black Friday.

I don’t know long this will be; typing one-handed is an exercise in frustration. But here i am, giving it the old college try. Things have been challenging since the surgery; i am attached to a cooling machine which keeps the arm iced, which I then have to unplug and carry around if I want to get up and out of my chair. (It’s complicated, but if I detach the easy way I can’t hook myself back up to it one-handed, so Paul has to do it for me.) The most difficult thing has been the anxiety and depression, which I think is normal, given the situation. I’m having my first cup of coffee since Monday, since I had to fast for the surgery itself. Yesterday was hard, because it was the first “family” holiday since Mom died; I thought having the surgery this week would make the holiday easier.

I was incorrect. It did not. Retrospectively, it would have been hard to go; but it wasn’t any easier here and I probably should have spent it with Dad. Ah, well, neither the first nor the last time I’ll be a disappointment to Dad.

This morning is the best I’ve felt since the surgery. I feel like me this morning, and mot as tired. The dressing can come off today and I can shower, which is going to be amazing. Paul has a meeting this afternoon, so I am going to wait until he gets home from that to shower. That will definitely make me feel better, I am sure. I think my head is also clear enough this morning/today to read rather than try to watch television. Thank God, because I’m running out of things to watch. Yesterday I watched a Netflix series based on an award-winning novel that was so fucking terrible all I could think was I hope the book was beautifully written because this is so fucking problematic I can’t believe it won awards. We also started watching Shining Vale, a Courtney Cox show from Starz that is wild and crazy and over-the-top; it’s oddly fascinating but I think it’s quite odd in a David Lynch/horror way that is kind of fun.

I’m not sure how much I will be here until such time as I can use both hands to type; this has already taken a ridiculous amount of time already and I haven’t written much, have I? (I just tried to use the other hand and clearly not ready for that yet.) But writing this is, in a very small way, progress and a return to normalcy–at least a step that way–is a good thing, right?

Hope your holiday was awesome!

Love Come Down

AH, the surgery is this morning. I won’t finish this before I head out to the hospital and I doubt very seriously that I’ll be able to finish this after I get home today–whenever that may be. So it’s kind of a pre-surgery time capsule here.

I was extremely anxious yesterday–all weekend, really–but of course last night it just kept getting worse and worse. I knew it was anxiety, I knew it was adrenaline from the anxiety, and I wasn’t certain I’d be able to sleep. Sleep wasn’t a problem, after all; somehow I managed to fall into a deep sleep and woke up right before the alarm went off at five. Tug was his usual loving and purring self, rubbing all over me once the alarm did go off–because he’s Pavlov’s cat and associates the sound of the alarm now with getting fed. I am also really hungry, but can’t eat until after the surgery, of course. Last night was a total, absolute perfect storm of anxiety–but I staved off the panic attack and brain spiral so it wasn’t that bad. We finished the first series of Happy Valley and started the second; it really is quite good and the actress in the lead (Sarah Lancashire? Susan Lancashire?) is phenomenal; all the acting is terrific, frankly, and the writing is exceptional. It’s also very weird knowing that when I am back in the apartment I am going to be in a weird loop of pain and recovery and pain meds and anesthetic hangover, probably heading directly to my easy chair and getting under a blanket and dozing in and out of sleep all day. It’s going to be weird to be out of the office for three weeks–this is the longest period of time I’ve been out of the office since I started working. I don’t think I’ve ever taken three weeks off from work–other than times between jobs, of course–my entire life? It’s going to be weird. I just hope my brain won’t be too fuzzy to read or follow along with a movie or television show. I think I’ll be fine–the painkillers won’t make me fuzzy if I am in pain, after all; they’ll just take the pain away–and that’s actually kind of a tip-off; if the painkiller makes me loopy, then I probably don’t need them anymore.

I’m allowed to drink black coffee this morning and yikes–how dreadful. They told me I could have two cups, maximum, but I have to say, I don’t even think I am going to finish this first cup.

I am going to be starving when we get home because I am starving right now, to be honest. I just hope I’ll be able to eat when it’s all over. This is my first time ever having surgery since my tonsils were out as a child–I’ve had some in and out procedures, like wisdom teeth and a lesion removal–but not surgery that requires recovery time and physical therapy, which is also kind of terrifying, to be completely honest. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, I guess. My post-operation appointment is a week from tomorrow, so that’s when we find out when I start PT and when and how often and all of that kind of stuff. The day job is being very accommodating, which is nice (I still need to get that damned form filled out and turned in; taking it with today). I am curious as to whether or not I’ll be able to test people once the three weeks is up, but I think I will be able to–I only use my left hand to hold theirs when I am sticking their finger, so I will have to figure out how to do that once I am back in the office. Driving one-handed is also going to be an issue when it comes to parallel parking–thank God I have a car with power steering now; I’d never be able to drive that old Buick one-handed.

Well, what do you know? There’s enough here to make a post, so I guess I am just going to go ahead and finish this and post it as a kind of fare-thee-well until I am able to post again. Have a great Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you again later at some point. Try to do without me as necessary, dearest reader.

Blame It on the Edit

I love Alyssa Edwards. She’s the perfect reality star; a completely delusional human living in her own reality, yet also funny and witty with a highly expressive and thoroughly meme-able face, and basically harmless. I’ve always meant to catch her reality show on Netflix about her dance studio–which is so fricking cool that she does that–but have never gotten around to it. I was amused by her on her initial season, but really hated her feud with Coco Montrese, and of course that was also the season won by the marvelous Jinkx Monsoon. Alyssa was also terrific on All Stars 2, which made the rigging of the season all that much more disappointing. (We also gave up on Project Runway after one season where it was clear they’d already decided who was going to win at the start of the season. Don’t give me a rigged competition, thank you very much; if I want that, I’ll watch professional wrestling, thank you very much.)

Which makes it interesting for me to write a book about a drag pageant. I already have tons of ideas for the book, and it’s going to be very brutal in how it approaches the homophobes who have wrested control of Florida from the sane people (hey Moms4Liberty, how’d those elections turn out for you, you pathetic soulless pieces of shit? Your tears are as delicious as mimosas at a gay Sunday drag bunch, you miserable fucking bitches.) and have taken the state, once a beautiful place with scenic beaches and lovely weather, on its final steps to a complete and utter hellhole. Bravo, by the way; nicely done.

Anyway, back to drag; sorry about that sidebar. But that kind of shit will always enrage me. Nothing makes me angrier than misplaced self-righteousness. I may no longer be a practicing Christian, but I know that faith far better than many–if not most–of its most ardent public proselytizers and purveyors.

Gender-bending, of course, is nothing new. For centuries, women weren’t allowed on the stage so female roles were always played by men. This was certainly true in Shakespeare’s day, and often he wrote plays with characters pretending to be the other gender. So there’s a long, proud history of men doing drag in theater and performance art. Who decides what is masculine and what is feminine, anyway? As I have said numerous times, I love this new young generation of leading men and actors who are abandoning traditional black-tie male drag for new and inventive outfits that showcase their youth, beauty, creativity, and personal style; there’s nothing quite so stifling as toxic masculinity and it’s regular insistence that there is only one way to be a man–which is not only stultifying but incredibly limiting. Film and television (and theater, to a far lesser degree) have long influenced what is considered masculine in this country–the prototype being, of course, John Wayne. (Probably the funniest scene in both La Cage aux Folles and it’s American version The Birdcage is when the more butch of the gay couple tries to get the more feminine partner to be more masculine–telling him to walk like John Wayne…which was the first time I ever noticed how peculiarly John Wayne walked. Also amusing is that Mr. American Macho Man John Wayne–and Mr. Patriotism Ronald Reagan–didn’t serve in World Was II…but played war heroes in movies about it. Style over substance.)

But the history of the colonizing of this continent is very queer. Do we really believe those frontiersmen, trappers, hunters and explorers simply went for months and even years without having sex? There weren’t enough women to satisfy the need–and cattle drives? Pshaw. In any purely male society like that–the cattle drive, the explorations, etc.–there is always male/male sexual contact; “helping a buddy out.” This has been erased from history as effectively as if it had never happened–as though homosexuality is some modern thing that never existed before.

It’s always struck me as odd that the masculine ideal (as shown to us by Hollywood, at any rate) inevitably is depicted in all male environments–war movies, cattle drive movies, Westerns–with the occasional token female thrown in as a supporting love interest. These women are often set up to be abused–spanking was often popular in these films; how many times did John Wayne spank a woman in a movie?–and mocked and made fun of; if they had any kind of mind of their own, well, they had to be tamed.

Anyway, I digress.

I also know there are women who despise drag, see it as mocking women and misogynistic. I can actually see how they could feel that way, and far be it from me to tell a woman–any woman–how she should or shouldn’t feel about something, particularly when it comes to misogyny. (I sure don’t want anyone telling me what to think is homophobic or not.) I don’t think drag is misogynistic; if anything, it’s critiquing the misogyny of society. Dolly Parton also exaggerates femininity to the point of being a drag queen–she even says it about herself. Mae West was so good at this exaggeration that people believed she was an actual drag queen for years. Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, and Jane Russell became sex symbols (and stars) by exaggerating their bodies and the way they dressed and their make-up and hair; how is that not female-drag as the converse of over-exaggerated masculinity (John Wayne, Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood); establishing exaggerated norms of masculine and feminine that subconsciously altered what the over-all culture thought in terms of gender roles.

If I had a dollar for every time someone has told me to be more manly…

But the reason gender roles exist are because they are more comfortable for most people than thinking about it at any great length. You were born with a penis, so you should be interested in sports and guns and hunting and wear pants; your parents don’t have to think about it and neither do you. But for those of us who weren’t comfortable in those comforting boxes society so gladly constructed for us all to fit into–it’s not quite that easy. I hated having to do “boy” things and hated the expectations that since I was a boy I should like something in particular–and being incredibly stubborn, being told that I should like something was much more likely to make me disdain it. I didn’t want to play sports or even watch them when I was a kid; I just wanted to read. My struggles with wrapping my head around my gender and my sexual identity as a child were difficult, and those scars are still there–some of them are still scabbed over and not healed. All the messages I was being sent through popular culture, school, and society were telling me that something was wrong with me–and you don’t get over that overnight. I’m still unpacking a lot of that to this very day.

Writing Death Drop forced me to start thinking about these things again–gender markers, gender identities, the duality of our natures (no one is 100% one or the other, I think; I will always believe that gender and sexuality are a lot more fluid than anyone thinks)–and what makes one male and what makes one female. I hope, in writing more about Jem in the future, that it will help me understand myself better as well as society.

And what more could a writer ask for?

Get Closer

Monday before the surgery and all is peaceful in the Lost Apartment this morning. I still don’t know what time the surgery is going to be–they’ll be calling me later today with the time to be at the hospital (in METAIRIE)–and I am trying to have an easy day of staying calm and centered as I prepare mentally and emotionally for tomorrow. Last night I had a complete anxiety attack about everything, and even as I spiraled I knew what was happening, what was causing it and why–but that only made it a bit easier. I was concerned I might not be able to shut my mind off and sleep, but that wasn’t a problem. I fell asleep in a matter of moments after going to bed. I also slept deeply and well, feeling great and rested this morning. I have to check up on a few things to make sure things that needed to be done were done and taken care of–the anxiety from last night spiraled out of worry that the form my surgeon needed to fax to HR at the day job wasn’t sent–but even if it wasn’t, I can stay calm and probably get it all taken care of either today or tomorrow before the surgery; I can bring the form with me and Paul can FAX it to HR for me in a worst case scenario if I am too drugged out to deal with it when we get home. I am completely calm and rational about it all this morning–maybe sometimes I need to spiral and work through it to be calm the next day, I don’t know. But I am calm this morning, and rested, and relaxed. Once I finish this, I’ll check with HR to see if the form was received and if not, I’ll work on getting it filled out and returned. I don’t have to go into the office today–today is prep for surgery day, and I didn’t really see how that would work with me going in.

Why does everything have to be difficult? I suppose because otherwise life would be too easy to navigate.

We watched more Happy Valley last night, and this show is exceptionally good. British crime dramas are somehow always better than American ones–even Paul pointed out last night that “British actors look like real people and are super talented. Why do Americans focus on appearance so much?”–which is the source material for an entire other essay; you don’t see Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith and Judi Densch getting their faces shot up with poison and fillers and having everything nipped and tucked and made more generic with a scalpel to the point where their faces don’t move and they’ve become basically voice actors. Paul stayed up super late Saturday night writing a grant, so he slept most of the day and I was left to my own devices. I finished reading Lou Berney’s superb Dark Ride and started J. D. O’Brien’s Zig Zag, which I am also really enjoying. I also did some cleaning and organizing around here to try to make my workspace more functional and more Big Kitten Energy proof–it gets old having to pick up papers and re-sort them every morning because he went bounding around over everything while having the middle of the night Zoomies. It does look better organized this morning and more functional, even if it’s not complete, so we will see how it goes. I also watched another episode of Moonlighting–some are kind of hit and miss, which I didn’t remember from my original watch as it aired back in the 1980’s. Moonlighting had become a hit by then, and was starting to draw big name guest stars. Yesterday’s was Lisa Blount, who enjoyed some success in the 1980’s, but probably is best known for her supporting role in An Officer and a Gentleman–a movie I am relatively certain did not age well. It wasn’t a great episode–it was merely okay, with a clever enough plot and some good banter between David and Maddie; the chemistry was clearly there for them, but it’s another one of those “opposites attract” kind of things, which was only just then turning into a thing for television shows, primarily triggered by the popularity of the Sam and Diane pairing on Cheers that dominated the ratings and the Emmys for the entire decade of the 1980s. Now we’re so used to it that it’s tired, but back in the 1980’s the question of when David and Maddie would get together was something everyone was talking about every week.

I’m trying not to worry about the recovery for the surgery too much–thinking about the physical therapy and so forth was what sent my brain into the spiral last night–how can I be trusted to do things correctly when I’m such a fuck-up? I had one of those moments when Paul came home after his original eye surgery–I am not a trained caregiver! What if I do something wrong?–because I had to, among other things, clean the socket for him every day and apply antibiotic drops and things, and once he was home I was fucking terrified. And it was fine. His socket healed, I didn’t kill him or cause an infection, and we both survived the entire thing. I am a little anxious about Paul as caregiver, but that’s terribly unfair. On the rare occasions when I am actually sick he’s taken very good care of me, and so what if he doesn’t have a lot of experience with caregiving? Neither did I, and I’ve become very good at it over the years.

It’s kind of easy when you don’t have a choice.

And on that note, I am going to do some cleaning and organizing before reaching out to HR to see if there is anything I need to follow up on today. I’ll probably be around again later–I keep meaning to do more blatant self-promotional posts, but as the surgery date draws closer my mind just hasn’t been in that place. So have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later.

comfortably numb

Lou Berney is not only one of my favorite writers, but he’s also one of my favorite people in this business.

I met Lou for the first time many years ago, because we shared a panel together at Bouchercon in Raleigh (the moderator was Katrina Niidas Holm, and the other panelists were Lori Roy and Liz Milliron; none of whom I knew before and have been grateful ever since that I not only got to meet them and become friendly but also because–even better–I discovered incredible new-to-me writers whose work I’ve been enjoying ever since). Shortly after this I read his novel The Long and Faraway Gone and was completely blown away by it; it won every conceivable award for crime writing the next year, and he followed it up with the completely different but just as fascinating and brilliant November Road several years later. I’ve yet to go back and read his earlier work, but plan to eventually–but I also like having them in reserve; Lou’s not nearly as prolific as I would like. I kind of think of him as a male version of Megan Abbott: brilliant, insightful, and exceptionally gifted writers with piercing perceptions into the kinks and flaws of character that make people human.

And Dark Ride is exactly what is promised in that title–a dark ride.

I’m lost, wandering, and somewhat stoned. This parking lot, when you’re in the middle of it, deems much vastr and more expansive than it does from the street. Or do I just seem much less consequential? That’s the question. One for the ages.

It’s July, hot as balls. I stare up. The sky, pale and papery, looks like it’s about to burst into flame.

How would you describe the sky to someone who’s never seen a sky? You’d have to explain how it’s different every day. So many shades of blue, of grat. And we’re not even talking about sunrise or sunset. Plus the clouds! How would you describe clouds?1

“You need some help?”

“What?” I say.

Some dude in a suit is about to climb in his car. He’s about my age, probably a couple of years out of college. With the suit and haircut, though, he’s all business. Me, I’m wearing board shorts, flip-flops, and a vintage faded Van Halen T-shirt I found for five bucks at Goodwill. I haven’t cut my hair in almost forever and I’m a minimum-wage scarer at an amusement park fright zone.

Jesus, what a fucking great opening. (Although I did wonder if any T-shirt costs $5 at Goodwill.)

Dark Ride has about the most unlikely main character you’ll ever meet in a crime novel–Hardy “Hardly” Reed–and that above paragraph is a master-class in character. In fifty-two words and two sentences, Lou Berney created a character that I absolutely, 100% know and believe is real. I’ve known any number of Hardlys over the years, and I can also certainly identify with being in your twenties and kind of drifting aimlessly, with no plan for the future other than you’re afraid of it and you don’t want the path everyone else seems to wnt for you that you know isn’t right.

The story opens with Hardly going to the city building of some unnamed city in the Midwest (since it’s Lou Berney, I’m going out on a limb and saying it’s probably Oklahoma City or Tulsa) to get a thirty-day continuation on paying a parking ticket. A tedious, horrible, day-disrupting chore that most of us have had to deal with at some point in our lives. Personally, I despise having to go to any city or state office for any kind of business, and feel pretty confident in stating that’s probably pretty much how everyone feels about that sort of thing. (Even worse is getting the camera fucking ticket in the mail.) Hardly is, by every definition of the word, a loser–despite being very likable and relatable; the kind of man whose relatives just sigh and say, “well, that’s Hardly” when they talk about him. But Hardly doesn’t have relatives. His mother died when he was a child and he would up in foster care–and even admits he and his foster brother, a successful rising architect, got very lucky with their foster family. But he came out out of it with no purpose, no sense of direction, and no goals or desires for life. He just does his minimum-wage job, lives in his shitty rented room, and smokes a lot of weed. So do most of his friends.

And the opening paragraph and that meditation on the sky and clouds? Such a stoner thing to do. (I’ve had some experience with cannabis–especially in my twenties, but that’s a story for another time.) So, why is this amiable, stoner loser the main character of this book? we soon find out. As he waits in line to get his continuance, he sees a woman with two very young children–and notices on both a pattern of cigarette burns on each child. Horrified, he looks for someone in authority to report this to–but no one seems to care. The woman and her children leave, and he manages to meet someone who works there who pointedly won’t tell him their names but that he needs to sign in, which makes him realize he can her name that way–Tracy Shaw. He finally calls CPS and makes a report over the phone. Relieved that he’s done his duty, he goes on with the rest of the day, which includes going to work at the crappy amusement park where he works (a fair played a major role in The Long and Faraway Gone, which makes me think at some point in his life Berney must have worked for an amusement park or a fair) where we meet his co-worker and friend, a mentally challenged 16 year old named Salvadore, who is one of my favorite characters in the book.

It begins, though, to bother him that CPS never calls him back with questions or for more information–he’s sadly still young enough to believe in the efficacy and efficiency of Authority–and it begins festering in his head. He’s worried about Tracy, but he’s even more worried about the kids, seven and six by his estimate, and how their lives are being shaped and ruined by the abuse. It keeps bothering him until he decides to do something about it, and what follows is a delightfully entertaining, beautifully written saga of someone who has been completely written off by society as a loser and a wastrel yet still manages to find the strength of character and moral purpose to try to save those kids, however foolhardy–and dangerous–it may turn out to be for him.

I’m not really sure how to describe the book, to be honest. I feel like “stoner noir” is the best fit, even though the cover calls it a thriller, I don’t know if that’s actually correct or not. Hardly’s sense of purpose, his sense that he’s the only person who cares about saving those kids, reminded me of a knight’s quest from classic literature; another time he reminded me a bit of Don Quixote tilting at windmills. I loved this book. I loved the main character, I loved the voice, I loved everything about this book–except the fact I didn’t write it.

Buy it, read it, cherish and love it–and thank me later.

  1. “Bow and flows of angel’s hair, and ice cream castles in the air” per Joni Mitchell. You’re welcome. ↩︎

You and I

Sunday morning after a relaxing Saturday in the Lost Apartment. I went by to get the mail and stopped at the Fresh Market, then went back later to CVS to get my booster vaccine for COVID-19 and pick up my post-operative medications (my BASTARD insurance refused to cover the oxycodone, of all things. I hope this surgery costs them a fucking fortune). The games on television weren’t very interesting, frankly, and the only one that had any potential at all turned into a blow-out (Georgia-Tennessee). It was kind of a laid-back bland boring kind of day, which was kind of necessary. The prescription issue–I stopped by CVS on my first trip uptown, but one of my prescriptions wasn’t ready (the one I had already called to approve over the phone) but it turned out the reason they kept not filling it was because the insurance wasn’t paying for it and I had to say, “yes, I will pay out of pocket for it, thank you” which was why I had to go back later in the afternoon–so I figured I may as well make a vaccination appointment for when I do go back. You know me, always trying to be as efficient as possible and to utilize my time more effectively; seriously, I know now it’s an anxiety thing. I never quite understand my anxiety and what triggers it or causes it, or how many coping systems I have engineered over the course of my life to work around it–which turns into compulsive behavior.

I’ve yet to figure out how the obsessive part of me comes from the anxiety, but I am sure I will at some point.

My arm–the one I am having the surgery on–is sore this morning because I figured I might as well get used to that arm hurting and had the booster shot in that arm. I slept deeply and well last night; I went to bed shortly after the LSU game concluded with a 56-14 score with Jayden Daniels tying the school record for most touchdowns in a game (the other was Joe Burrow’s eight against Oklahoma in the 2019 play-offs…but Burrow scored seven in the first half and the eighth on the first drive of the second half before sitting out the rest of the game (LSU could have scored a hundred that day had they been so inclined; that game still boggles my mind that it actually happened–as well as how). If there’s any justice in the world Daniels will win the Heisman Trophy (he is clearly the best player in the country), but welcome to 2023 and college football. An impressive showing against Texas A&M won’t hurt his chances, for sure–but the fact LSU has a terrible defense this year shouldn’t overshadow what he’s accomplished with our offense. As an LSU fan, it boggles my mind that we have one of the best offenses of all-time, and yet our defense–always a point of pride in Tigerland–is one of the worst when our defense has historically always been vastly superior to our offense. We used to lose because the offense couldn’t score; now we lose because our defense is terrible. Even last night at first it looked like “same-old same-old,” with Georgia State scoring on their first two possessions before the defense clicked into gear and they never scored again.

Tulane also won again yesterday. Well done, Green Wave!

I spent some time reading Lou Berney’s Dark Ride yesterday and I am loving this book so much. Hardly, the stoner burnout loser main character, is probably one of my favorite characters I’ve read in quite some time; he resonates with me, especially with his newly awakened sense of right and wrong–which does not, I might add, change anything for his normal circumstances–he’s still a stoner burnout, still gets high as he puzzles his way into figuring out what to do next, and whether he should keep carrying about these random two kids he saw one day that might be victims of physical abuse. He reminds me in some way of a modern day American Don Quixote; I don’t know if that was what Berney was going for, but I can tell you this–he has nailed the voice of this character, and the story itself is quite good–and of course the writing, as always with Berney’s work, is spectacular…and it’s quite inspiring.

It also feels weird knowing I don’t have to go into the office tomorrow. Tomorrow is the last day I have to get everything ready in the apartment before the surgery–laying in supplies and getting everything ready to go for Tuesday. I suspect that I am going to be in some kind of drugged stupor for the first two days at least, and maybe by next weekend I’ll be lucid enough to be able to write a blog post; I don’t know. I suspect yesterday’s low energy was in some ways triggered by the knowledge of the surgery coming along with slight irritation over the prescription issue. But I made my meatballs last night (Paul astutely pointing out that I really make meatball stew rather than meatballs in gravy, and that is a very thin line) and they were very good. I also did some straightening up around here–I was expecting Paul to go work with his trainer and then go to the office for the afternoon, but his trainer canceled on him and he stayed home–moving down to lay on the couch and (hopefully) make a bed for Tug/Sparky; unlike Scooter, Tug’s a little more restless and he’s kind of gotten used to using my lap in the easy chair as his bed–and sure enough, he spent most of the day sleeping in my lap as I lazily scrolled through social media, looked things up on Google, and basically did nothing productive while watching yesterday’s (mostly boring) games. I probably should have watched Kansas-Kansas State, which the Wildcats won in a shoot out 31-24 (when was the last time both teams in the rivalry game had winning records? The futility of the college football teams in the state of Kansas is astonishing, even with KSU turning things around in the last thirty years–they’ve beaten KU fifteen straight times now). I’ll go look at what happened around the country in the sport once I finish writing this and move on to the easy chair to finish Lou’s book so I can write about it later. And I need to do some more blatant self-promotional posts before I wind up not being able to post anything at all for who knows how long?

Heavy sigh.

And on that note, I am taking my coffee and Dark Ride to my easy chair, only to emerge from it to get more coffee until I am finished reading it, and have started my next read, Zig Zag, by J. D. O’Brien. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later on today at some point as well….and I just remembered there is no Saints game today, so I have no excuses.