Tag: A Violent Masterpiece

Treat Me Right

So here we are on Tuesday, the second day of Pride. I didn’t see many of the haters yesterday anywhere on-line, but I suspect that was algorithms working in my favor for a change, and who am I to question a mostly positive experience on social media for the first day of Pride Month? I even got all caught up on the complete meltdown over the so-called “state fair” and enjoyed a few cruel laughs at the oh-so-deserved (but not nearly enough) humiliation.

Not even close to enough.

There may not be enough possible.

It was a nice day easing back into the work week after a recuperative weekend. Paul’s physical therapy went well and they are very pleased with his progress, which I knew they would be. I was able to leave work early, and ran some errands (mail, groceries) on the way home. It was muggy as hell yesterday morning when I left the house (I finally left my work hoodie at the office yesterday) but we had some rain during the day so it was cooler and nicer out as I went about my business leaving the office. I am now scheduled to tape Susan Larson’s “My Reading Life” show for local NPR; I have my labs scheduled for Friday; and I think I got entirely caught up on my emails yesterday. I was a bit sluggish yesterday, too, but I think that was to be expected. All in all, it was a nice day, and Paul and I settled in once the groceries were put away for an evening of television–the news, the finale of Euphoria (I didn’t much care for this season, honestly, as I did previous ones, although Zendaya was fantastic as always) and started The Four Seasons’ second season, which was…off to a slow but not terrible start.

I also cleaned off my desk, which is a pretty big deal around here lately. It still needs some work, of course–the workspace is not really functional for much other than typing at this point–and I have some newsletters to work on, too. I sent one out yesterday, which you can click here to read. It’s my first pride post of the month, and there will be some more, undoubtedly. Half Man is still resonating in my mind, but fortunately it addresses masculinity and sexuality so I can write about that this month. I also want to write my essay about A Violent Masterpiece, but I may just schedule that to drop on July 1. (I am so delighted I learned how to schedule newsletters, Constant Reader, you have no idea!) Now that the stress and release from Paul’s surgery has passed, I need to recenter and refocus. Maybe today between clients I can go through the to-do notebook and figure things out.

Our weather forecast–rarely, if ever, correct–shows thunderstorms for later this afternoon, probably during the time I’ll be driving home from work. There are worse things, but that will make me just want to curl up in my chair with Sparky. I also need to get back to reading. Friday I have to get some more lab work done and I have to go into the office for an in-person meeting. Blech. But that’s okay; it’ll get me up and out and about, and once I do the labs, I can come home to the peace and quiet of the Lost Apartment and chill….which, let’s face it, is my favorite thing to do.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning.

I do think bibs can be sexy, and they’re so comfortable! Probably my years in Kansas and summers in Alabama.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot

Monday and back to the office with me this morning. I feel rested this morning, which is a good thing, but i am not going to predict how the day is going to go–yesterday was another day of rest and recovery for me, as it turned out. Paul is doing great–he doesn’t need the walker at all–and the pain is manageable for him, which is also a relief. He has physical therapy today for the first time; it’s also the first time he’ll be home all alone all day, too. But…he’s doing great and he’s getting rest, too. I had hoped this would be how it goes–he recovered very quickly with his hip replacements–but you never know; you always wonder if this is the time that will be different, and it’s delightful to know he’ll not be in any pain soon enough.

I did manage to get some things done yesterday. I managed to get things delivered, and cleaned out the sink and ran the dishwasher. I definitely have some catching up to do this morning–checkbook, emails, etc.–but it’s also lovely to avoid the Internet for the weekend, too. We finished Half Man yesterday, and I am still processing that this morning. We also watched last week’s Euphoria, and I honestly don’t remember what we watched after that, so it clearly didn’t register very much in my tired brain. It could be that my brain hasn’t awakened yet entirely? But, long story short, we spent most of yesterday hanging out together in the living room for the third straight day, which was lovely. We used to do that every weekend, until Paul gets so busy with work that he has to work on the weekends. It’s really nice, actually. Sparky was a love bug all weekend, too. Oh, yes, we were watching the second season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, which is always visually stunning even if the plot is kind of insane. It’s funny, when I was a kid monster movies like Godzilla and King Kong always gave me nightmares (likewise, I couldn’t watch Nate’s death on Euphoria–buried alive in a coffin, only for a rattlesnake to join him? All three of my biggest phobias, combined in one scene? I left the room.), but this show and the recent Godzilla movies don’t bother me in the least.

And yes, Half Man was also a bit triggering.

Half Man was an interesting show to kick off Pride Month, at any rate. It was probably the best depiction of a trauma bond that I’ve ever seen. Richard Gadd is an exceptional talent, and I was right–he gained a hundred pounds of muscle for this show. He and Jamie Bell were an excellent acting team–I’ve loved Bell since Billy Elliott–and it will take me a moment to get it processed enough through my brain so I can write about it. And yes, it is Pride Month; cue all the tiresome bigots whining about how “the military and veterans don’t get a month” (which shows how little they actually do care about the military and the veterans) and on and on: “we should have Straight Pride!” (I always want to reply, “yes, by all means, celebrate your mediocrity and the damage you inflict.”) I want to switch my newsletter to focus primarily on queer stuff–books and so forth, tales from my gay life–for the month, but I also want to get my thoughts on A Violent Masterpiece sent out as well; so who knows?

I am also not sure how busy we are in the clinic this week, nor do I know if I am working by myself. One can never be sure, and since I didn’t bring my laptop home (because I was off on Friday), I won’t be able to find out until I get to the office. It’s kind of weird going in with no idea what I am looking at till I get there–I usually do have the laptop at home on the weekends, but since I took Friday off, why lug the damned thing around? That, in the olden days, would have made me anxious, so we’re really getting somewhere, aren’t we? Anyway, I am hoping to be able to leave the office tomorrow and head over to UNO to tape Susan Larson’s NPR radio show, “My Reading Life,” which is always lovely.

And on that note, I am bringing this to a close and heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning.

The Quarter is so beautiful a night.

Heartbreaker

Well, here we are on Memorial Day Monday–it’s now been 22 years since that dreadful one back in 2004–and I made myself get up early so tomorrow isn’t such a complete and utter shock to my system. I’m about to get another cup of coffee, so bear with me this morning. I feel good and rested, if a bit groggy, but that’s to be expected when I’ve been sleeping late the last few days. It was a lovely long weekend, at least so far, and I do feel pretty good about things. I need to do some chores this morning and get the house under control. Paul is going to be at the gym today, so I have the afternoon here by myself to get some of this mess under control. I think I’m also going to do some reading this morning, too. I’ve selected my next book to read, and there’s also my lovely reread of The Ivy Tree to look forward to getting into. I also want to do some writing today, too, but we’ll see how that goes.

And yes, moving on to my next read means that yes, I did finish A Violent Masterpiece by Jordan Harper yesterday afternoon, which I really enjoyed. I am still processing the book and my thoughts, honestly, and will take me a few days to process what I just read (and thoroughly enjoyed). Jordan Harper has, I will say, joined the ranks of the straight men I will read–and while I know that doesn’t mean a thing to him, for a queer man who’s completely over the entire “complicated white man” narratives, which usually also means completely unrealistic women–and don’t get me started on how they write about racialized people and queers–that really is something. It also didn’t hurt that I am also writing a book about the corruption and filth under the shiny surface of Hollywood, so it was timely in that regard; it’s an excellent continuation of Everybody Knows, which I also loved.

Paul was sleeping on the couch while I was reading, so put on The Traitors Season 3 for background noise while I did and it never ceases to amaze me how well this show is put together. Having now watched every single episode of every season on Peacock, I am not sure if I am ready to write my newsletter about it, either. (I am not sure I am ready to write much of anything at this point, honestly.) I ordered pizza from Reginelli’s for dinner, and we started the new season of Rivals–I didn’t remember much of it–which took a bit of getting oriented to with the first episode–and then caught another episode of House of Ashur, which is getting better (although I saw this morning that Starz cancelled it, so no second season), and there are some other shows of interest on my streaming platforms; I just have to remember to pick one and to remember all the ones I do pay for. I really need to be more on top of my life, don’t I? Heavy sigh.

It’s gloomy outside, and I just heard a bit of thunder, so I am sure it’s going to rain again today. Yay! And yes, it’s going to rain most of the day and overnight, so I am definitely not going to want to get out of bed tomorrow morning–but at least my car is getting washed. And I did have that on my to-do list for the weekend…so progress is definitely being made on the house. Paul’s surgery is this Friday, too, so I should be able to get some reading done during the surgery and he’ll probably be zonked out for most of that day when I get him home. And then there’s the recovery, and then he’s getting the other one done. Sigh. But at least once he’s healed he won’t be in pain anymore. Always a plus, and I know from experience how nice it is to finally be free from pain. It’s like a brand new life.

I also managed to do a lot of scribbling in my journal yesterday, and some of it was very good work for the current book project and made me feel like I was accomplishing something. It’s also inspiring me to do more, and as I said, reading a good book inspires me to be more creative, to work harder, and be better. I never understand being jealous of other writers. You read writers whose work you enjoy because it’s inspiring, rather than seeing it as competition. We aren’t competing against each other in the first place for anything other than awards, and who cares about those anyway? Having been a judge numerous times, it always comes down to the personal tastes of the judges, so losing isn’t really losing in the first place; it’s no different from preferring Coke to Pepsi, really, or Raising Canes to KFC. No book is exactly like another, and if they were, who would want to read them?

And on that note, I am going to get a second cup of coffee, wash my face thoroughly, and adjure to my easy chair, where I’ll start reading my next read–and maybe check the news to see what fresh horrors there are. At any rate, enjoy your holiday and I will be here again, bright and early, in the morning.

Out queer actor Angus O’Brien, from Boots

Rated X

Sunday morning, a good night’s sleep, and the rain continues today. It was very cozy inside the house all day yesterday, and I had a lovely, relaxing day of scribbling in my journal, working on newsletters, and reading more of A Violent Masterpiece, which I am really enjoying even as the plot kind of makes my skin crawl. It’s also so well-written it’s kind of inspirational. We also caught up on Hacks, and watched more of House of Ashur. Overall, it was pretty much a lovely, chill, relaxing day and this morning I feel very rested and relaxed, which is great; I’ve not really felt like this since getting back from my trip. I also slept a bit later–blame it on the rain–than I had intended to this morning–Sparky was a cuddlebug this morning rather than an “I must be fed!” immediacy he will use if he hears the alarm. Paul is going to the gym today, so I should have most of the afternoon free to do with as much as I please. I may try to write some today–I was making notes on revisions to make and writing to do yesterday–but there’s also some mess I have to clean up and organize and straighten today. Sigh–it never end, does it?

This week, while running errands in the car, out of nowhere I commanded Siri to play Pat Benatar’s Crimes of Passion album, and almost fifty years since it’s release it’s still a fucking banger of an album. I haven’t heard much about her in years, but I’ve noticed she hasn’t been “rediscovered” by the Gen Z reaction videos, nor is she mentioned in conversations about great women singers of the second half of the 20th century, which is a disgrace. The power and range in her voice! Her songs often were from the perspective of a strong woman who won’t put up with your nonsense, and she was fun to sing along to–and she had a lot of great songs, too.

I’m loving all this rain, not going to lie about it. It was amazing curling up with Sparky with a blanket and my book yesterday while the rain fell outside and on the house–absolutely perfect. It also helped that the book is so amazing and like its brilliant predecessor Everybody Knows (that weary sounding title being absolutely perfect) takes on a subject I feel very strongly about. It’s also inspiring me to work some more on Chlorine and to make that book darker still than I had originally planned. There’s so much darkness in Hollywood–and it has always been there, from the very beginning. I certainly don’t ever have to worry about it being too dark, can I? Hollywood’s decay and rot and absolute cruelty in chewing people up and spitting them back out again, bereft of success and their soul hollowed, into the gutters of the Dream Factory (has anyone written a Disney Babylon book?). I read a lot of trashy Hollywood novels in the 1970s, and that was pretty much the entire thread-line to all of them; Hollywood is cold and cruel and will use you up–and is there anything more cruel than deliberately setting someone up to shatter their dreams?

I see our flash flood watch has been extended through tomorrow evening at seven pm, so that most likely means it will keep raining and there are thunderstorms on the way–and it is delightful for me. It sounds to me like there will be plenty of opportunities for me to get some reading done. I am also trying to decide whether or not to go make groceries or simply have them delivered; I don’t know what I am going to make for dinner tonight. Maybe shrimp scampi, or something like that? Shrimp tacos, maybe? I guess I need to put some thought into that a bit more, don’t I? Swedish meatballs is also a possibility. I think I’ll just let that thought simmer in my head until I subconsciously figure it out.

A friend mentioned one of my favorite books on social media this week (Thomas Thompson’s Celebrity), which I’ve not thought about in a very long time and am considering a reread, once I finish the reread of The Ivy Tree. It’s truly a splendid, well written and plotted book about three men, high achool friends who do something awful on Graduation Night and it haunts them as they get older and more famous as a writer, movie star, and cult leader; it’s rich and layered and sad and tragic and the men aren’t heroes you root for; they were deeply flawed men with complicated moralities–and one has to wonder how that tragic rainy night when they were eighteen shaped them into the flawed, complicated men they became. The movie star–Mack Crawford–had a very complicated sexuality, which should be my primary focus on the reread; how his sexual dysfunction and self-loathing also shaped who he was. Thompson also wrote one of my favorite true crime books of all time, Blood and Money–which I should also revisit.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines to drink some more coffee and spend some more time with my book, blanket, and cat puddle in my lap. I will be back tomorrow morning, so have a lovely day!

Panama City Beach, Florida

My Maria

Thursday morning and my last day in the office before a glorious three day weekend, which is lovely. It rained overnight–it started raining just as I got home from the office yesterday, and then off and on all night. It even rained a bit this morning while I was washing my face and doing the usual morning ablutions. I’m not even sure what the day’s weather forecast is! Although it would be lovely to have rain all weekend, wouldn’t it? I ran some errands after work on the way home yesterday and had some things delivered last night in the sprinkling, and I even did some chores when I got home before I plopped down into my easy chair with Sparky in my lap for the evening. I felt pretty good all day yesterday (I feel good this morning too–I’m getting used to getting up at six again), and probably could have done some more last night, but I am done berating myself for not getting everything done that I want to anymore. I am going to try to not be overly ambitious this weekend; if I am productive, great; if I just get rested, that’s also fine. I want to finish Jordan Harper’s A Violent Masterpiece, and dip into my reread of The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart. I also need to get a newsletter ready to go for Saturday; my latest one went out yesterday; click here to read!1

I also have to run make groceries and get the mail uptown before I make it home for the weekend. Tomorrow morning I have to have labs drawn for my GI specialist, and have an online meeting before my quality assurance work. The apartment is a mess, but not nearly as bad as it was going into last weekend–I’ve managed to pretty much keep up with the chores this week, thank God; so tonight when I get home I have laundry to fold and a dishwasher to unload. I also have a recipe for tomato cucumber salad I want to try (it seems silly to have a recipe for salad, doesn’t it), which sounds amazing, and I also want to pick up a watermelon tonight.

After I settled into my easy chair, we finished The Boys and caught this week’s episode of Widow’s Bay, which is really wild; I am enjoying the slow burn, Gothic sensibilities of the show very much. (I’ve been feeling kind of Gothic lately, haven’t I?) I think I’m going to let my imagination and creativity run free and drive what I write for a while; I’ve been trying to force it–to no avail–these past few weeks , and so think it’s time to try something different for a while and see how that goes. As I said the other day, Paul’s going to be recovering for a while this summer which is going to hinder my productivity, but it’s also going to be the hottest, most miserable summer this year. (It’s always awful, I don’t know why I am quibbling about the degree of awful it will be.)

Our moronic governor’s trip to Greenland–where he fled after Louisiana harshly rejected and rebuked his MAGA agenda–went exactly as I thought it would. Why send someone who is resoundingly hated by the electorate that knows him best to try a charm offensive? It went as well as could be expected.

As I was scrolling through Youtube the other day I came across an old song from the 1970s I’d forgotten about–“She’s Tight” by Cheap Trick–and it was just as horribly sexist as it sounds from the title. (I only just now realized “cheap trick” is also a prostitution reference.) What would a man be singing about in a song called “She’s Tight”? Yup, you guessed correctly. There were so many of these horrible sexist songs back in the day–and the odes to jailbait are horrible; the list is far too long to even attempt making one. But the majority are about fucking some underage girl who’s sexy and irresistible to the adult male. Gross, but it was also taken as a matter of course and “how things are.” And don’t get me started on the male teen virgin and the experienced older woman–which was a subgenre of film and novels and songs for most of my life. (This will be explored at some point in the future in a newsletter.)

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for this rainy gray day in New Orleans. Have good one and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning.

Lovely Jacob Elordi for Chanel Bleu
  1. I’m really enjoying the newsletter, to be honest with you. ↩︎

Half the Way

Saturday morning here in the Lost Apartment!

I am very worn down this morning, after our big day of appointments and picking up medications and Costco yesterday. I had an amazing dinner at Lilette with my friend Laura–I had sizzling shrimp and blackened onion and garlic soup; chef’s kiss, really, along with a very dry martini and a very delicious glass of white wine–and then came home, exhausted, and watched another episode of The Traitors Canada, which I’m really enjoying, before heading up to bed and sleep. It was a very good day, but I didn’t get any chores done and I never got irritated all day, despite all the driving an not taking my medications in the morning before leaving the house. Over all, it was a pretty good day, and I was most pleased with myself last night when I closed my eyes with my head on the pillow.

It’s also election day in Louisiana, and you can best bet I’ll be walking over to the International School on Camp Street and voting against everything our POS governor is trying to get passed; he and the rest of the racist trash in Baton Rouge need to be delivered a stinging rebuke from the voters–they need to know how sick we are of their fucking bullshit and their war on New Orleans. Maybe it’s time for New Orleans to withhold its tax revenues from Baton Rouge and give the criminal fucks nothing to steal for a year or two. I’d actually love for the IRS to audit every elected politician in the state, as well as being investigated by the FBI for fraud and bribery. I have faith in our newly elected mayor and city council to flip them the bird and refuse to knuckle under; history isn’t on their side. Baton Rouge has historically never been able to make New Orleans buckle under; I see no reason to infer our city leadership won’t defy the authoritarianistic racism coming from the capital. Fuckers, seriously.

I started reading Jordan Harper’s A Violent Masterpiece while waiting for Paul at his appointments, and whoa, it’s really excellent. It’s a continuation of some of the unresolved issues from Everybody Knows, which I thought was amazing. Good writing is always inspirational and aspirational for me; so I am probably going to spend some time reading it around all the chores and things I need to get done around here today. The place is a wreck, from top to bottom, and again I am very disappointed in myself for letting it get to this state over the course of the week. I need to empty the dishwasher and do the bed linens and a load of clothes today. I also need to have some groceries made and delivered. I also need to resist the temptation of Youtube wormholes today. I will watch some more of The Traitors Canada–Paul will be out of the house all afternoon, and we are thinking about starting Amadeus and House of Ashur this weekend. I also want to rewatch The Mummy Returns for a Mummy newsletter to add to my Egyptian series–and of course, I scheduled one to go out today at noon. I’ll probably spend some time working on newsletters today and a short story–that’s the plan, and to edit the first chapter of the new version/draft of Chlorine. Maybe a hair too ambitious, but I always think I can do more than I actually can. Some things never change, medication be damned.

Sigh.

Okay, I think it’s time for me to bring this to a close for this morning and get started on the cleaning and go vote and get cleaned up. I am not going to overdue it this morning, but I definitely want to get some things done. We’ll see how it goes. So have yourself a lovely little Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow, all rested and perky.

One would hope, right?

I’ve always blasphemously called this statue Drag Queen Jesus, because it looks like he’s dancing and the chorus of “It’s Raining Men” just started playing.

Passionate Kisses

Friday morning in the Lost Apartment after a very good night’s sleep,, and Sparky let me sleep another hour, which was delightful and felt fabulous. My dinner date is tonight–not last, as I had thought–so I have that to look forward to after a day of driving Paul from appointment to appointment and running some errands for him out in Metairie. (My reward is we’re stopping at Costco on the way back into New Orleans…I make it sound like we were are crossing the ocean deep, don’t I, rather than the fifteen or so minutes it takes for me to get there….it’s a New Orleans thing.) Tomorrow I need to go vote, and find out where the recall petition signing is for low-life scavenging scum skank Liz Murrill. (I have already signed the recall for the governor’s stupid ass.) I also need to drop books at the library sale, too, and swing by Fresh Market, so might as well do all of that tomorrow. I also am voting in the state election tomorrow, and planning to vote no on everything that is Janky Jeff’s agenda. I am actually feeling inspired by how many people are rallying here against the bastards in Baton Rouge. Maybe with some massive voter turnout for a change down here we can make the state better.

It wouldn’t take much.

The other day, when I was talking about New Orleans sinking, I did what so many people do–focused on what is going to happen to New Orleans only–when the entire state is sinking. The coastline keeps rapidly moving further and further inland, the barrier islands are mostly gone, and it affects the entire state. The loss of New Orleans tax revenue will certainly bankrupt Louisiana, but what will be left of the rest of the state as the Gulf continues to eat away at the coast and move north. This is a state crisis, not just a city one, but no one in Baton Rouge or Washington seems to give two shits. It really is astonishing how quickly this entire country has gone downhill, and everything eroded so rapidly. Again, I am glad I am closer to the end of my life than to the beginning, because there’s no telling what the fuck is going to happen in the next four years.

I was tired last night after work, and when I got home, I just sat in my chair and got caught up on the news before watching another episode of The Traitors Canada–which I am enjoying–and after Paul got home we watched the latest episode of The Boys, and I would imagine if they hadn’t already lost all their MAGA viewers, this week’s would do the trick. I am not really sure how an action adventure super-hero show that satirizes and critiques the current state of the country so blisteringly is airing on Amazon, the same production company that gave us the biggest bomb in documentary history, Melania. Obviously, no one has told Bezos or his lizard-wife about it.

I am hoping to have a good weekend. I am taking Jordan Harper’s A Violent Masterpiece with me this morning to read while Paul is being seen at his various appointments, and I am going to try to finish reading it this weekend. My next newsletter is scheduled to go out tomorrow morning, and so I also need to work on the next one, too. Then there’s all the cleaning and organizing I need to get done, too. Heavy heaving sigh. Just looking around this morning from my desk, the Lost Apartment looks like the wreck of the Hesperus. I do hate when I let things slide like this during the week, and I really need to just do the chores when I get home from work before relaxing a bit–I end up stuck in the chair with Sparky in my lap and nothing gets done. And I do need to be a lot more productive in the evenings, and resist the need to relax for a bit.

And on that note, this place ain’t gonna clean itself, is it? So I’d best head into the spice mines, and get this weekend started. I shall be back tomorrow morning, Constant Reader–see you then!

Very few pro wrestlers were built like this when I was growing up, or I would have watched a LOT more.

Help Me Make It Thru The Night

Here it is Saturday, so this must be Alabama.

Yesterday was chill. It was raining pretty hard when I got up—it had rained through the night as well—and so I just kind of took my time getting ready and doing chores before it was time to take Sparky to the vet (I always worry he thinks he’s being abandoned again, which makes me terribly sad), ran some errands—which included picking up my copy of the new Jordan Harper, A Violent Masterpiece, which I am excited about reading—before heading out on the highway looking for adventure. It started raining again once I got on I-10 East, and this downpour continued with very low visibility, until I got past Hattiesburg on 59. It continued raining on me the entire way—sprinkling and light fog once I crossed the state line into Alabama, and the mapping app took me on a tour of rural Alabama shortly after crossing the state line. But it was snug and cozy in the car for me while the rain battered the car and I prudently put on my hazard lights to make me more visible to cars coming up behind me. It took about six hours, total, which is what it usually does, honestly, so I clearly didn’t lose any time to the rain. I felt pretty certain that it had slowed me down, but clearly it didn’t. Go figure.

I also was greatly enjoying listening to Alafair Burke’s superb The Note, which is simply brilliant in its premise and structured beautifully, as are all of Alafair’s forays into fiction. I’ve been reading her work for a very long time now—it really is startling how quickly time slipped through my fingers—and I am absolutely loving this one. I’ll finish it on the way south on Monday when we car pool down to the panhandle.

Well, now it’s evening and I’m feeling exhausted. Obviously, I didn’t finish this and post it; I got caught up in the swing of the day and there wasn‘t an opportunity until now, as I am preparing my weary body to head to bed for the night. I had an odd night’s sleep; I tossed and turned and never felt really asleep last night. I woke up at four, but went back to sleep, going into a very deep sleep for a few hours and sleeping later than I had intended. So, I got off on the wrong foot this morning, and kind of felt behind, or off-kilter, all day. We spent most of the day driving around from cemetery to cemetery, removing faded or weather worn plastic flowers from tombstones and side vases and replacing them with new ones (I kind of think of these little trips as Family Cemetery Tours, which is macabre but also a bit funny). I kind of like going to the cemeteries, to be honest. There’s so much history in a cemetery, and there’s a story behind every tombstone—oh, this man shot his wife and then himself, they had five teenaged sons; or why is the mother and son buried together, but no husband/father or wife; or—you get the idea. Some of these cemeteries are as old as the county, with Civil War veterans and a few Revolutionary War soldiers buried in them. Some headstones are so old they have been worn smooth by the weather and are unreadable. So many children, before vaccines and medications. Why did this woman never marry, in a time when that was unusual? Why are some graves—really old ones—covered with a slab of cement, or has a little triangular shaped metal tent on top of them? If this was to protect the corpses from scavenging animals, why aren’t all the graves from that time period done the same way? Naturally, standing in the cemetery on a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon in rural Alabama, my creativity started going wild.

I do feel like I do my best work when I write about Alabama, but at the same time so much of it is so steeped in the county and in the family history I am hesitant to publish any of it; partly because it feels so personal to me, and secondly, because I didn’t grow up here. I think that sense of not being where I was supposed to be, where we should have been, also played a factor in my always feeling like an outsider. I am of Alabama, but I am also not of Alabama, so even when I write about Alabama I feel like a fraud. Every step of the way writing Bury Me in Shadows I considered pulling the plug and writing something else to turn into my publisher to fulfill the contract I’d signed. There are so many Alabama stories and novel ideas in my files; I did publish another one last year, “The Spirit Tree,” and one of my personal favorites of my own short stories, “Smalltown Boy” is also one of my Alabama stories. I would love to tell all the stories I was told growing up, about the history of the county and legends of lore of my family history. So what if some (most) of it wasn’t true and were simply tales my grandmother reinvented for me? But that can work, too—I’d be writing fiction anyway, right? I used her story about the Lost Boys for Bury Me in Shadows, after all, and that worked out okay, didn’t it?

I really do need to get back to writing, don’t I?

So now I am going to go to bed. I am not entirely sure when I will be here again, but I also didn’t think I would get any entries done while I am away, so who knew? Take care till I am back again!

El Castillo at Chichen Itza. I was there over thirty years ago and loved it.