Tag: Alabama

Ghost Town

Monday morning and back to the office with me in a little bit. It is very dark this morning, and I kept waking up all night, too. But I feel okay this morning, if a bit tired, and that’s perfectly fine. It is the last week of October, after all; but I am going to run my Halloween Horror Month into the weekend as well. It was a nice weekend overall. I loved the rain and the coziness of it all on Friday night and most of the day Saturday and even into Sunday. Next weekend we also gain an hour of sleep–which means it will definitely be dark every night when I come home from the office. That always feels a bit oppressive, but I’ll live through it, I suppose.

LSU fired Brian Kelly yesterday, after Saturday night’s embarrassing debacle in Tiger Stadium (the students apparently were chanting “Fire Brian Kelly” in the fourth quarter), so the season is pretty much over now for sure. Interesting that we’ve fired every coach since NIck Saban left two decades ago…but Kelly also breaks the streak of three consecutive coaches winning a natty, too. I was never a fan of Coach Kelly–he never impressed me when he was at Notre Dame–and I also thought the way he fucked them over to come to LSU was kind of shitty. But he was hired and deserved a chance to prove himself, but after that first season’s win over Alabama and Jayden Daniels’ Heisman Trophy (both of which were more due to Daniels’ talents rather than anything else), he kind of has been on a bit of a skid. I have no idea who the new coach will be, or what will happen with the players, but here we are. Things are really not looking well for Louisiana football this year, with only Tulane really holding up the state’s football honor.

Who would have thunk it? Roll Wave!

I started reading Scott Carson’s Lost Man’s Lane, but after binge-reading Holukoa Road on Saturday (you can read my review of it here, if you like) my reading brain was a bit fried yesterday and I didn’t get very deep into the book. We binge-watched the rest of Alien: Earth yesterday, which was a lot of fun and very interesting. I also got the Scotty epilogue done and turned in yesterday, so for now I am going to bask in the glow of being finished with that before diving into anything else. I don’t think I have anything else promised anywhere, so I can focus on things I want to write and see what happens to them when I throw them at the wall, right?

I also watched Scream 2 yesterday, and rewatching it so soon after a Scream rewatch reminded me of how much better the first was than the second. The second was good, don’t get me wrong; but it wasn’t as ground-breaking and clever as the first, nor was it as layered. But it was clever; it just wasn’t as clever as the first. Next weekend I’ll probably watch Scream 3, the original trilogy, and will most likely watch the next three before the release of Scream 7.

Tonight after work I have to run some errands on the way home, and then I hope to get a few chores (dishes, mostly) taken care of once I get home. The weather is going to be more fall-like after today–this week has highs in the upper sixties/lows in the fifties, which won’t be a ton of fun, but I am embracing it this year. LSU also has the weekend off, so I won’t be as pressed to watch football games this weekend, and that’s also fine. I have better ways to spend my time, although I can always read while a game is on in the background. I’d like to get the Carson book finished by the end of the weekend, so I can move on to Church of Frendo, but after that I think I am going to read a new-to-me classic crime novel; maybe something by Dorothy B. Hughes or a revisiting of Charlotte Armstrong. I also want to get a lot of books taken to the library sale Saturday morning.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines with high hopes for another marvelous week here in New Orleans. Have a terrific day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow morning.

The Number of the Beast

Last day in the office for the week Thursday, and I am dragging a little this morning. My legs are a bit fatigued, but my brain is alert and the coffee is hitting, so…so far so good? I’m working in the clinic by myself again today, and I am not sure how busy we’re going to be. I think it was all afternoon appointments and none this morning? I don’t remember, but I think that’s right, unless something changed overnight. I slept well again last night–it’s been getting cold at nights here lately, which is absolutely lovely. Next week the temperatures are going to drop even more, and of course we have to keep an eye on Melissa out there in the western Caribbean. I have to get up early again tomorrow to take the car in for a new battery, two new tires, and some other minor maintenance–which will be horribly expensive but better that than having the battery die on me (it’s lasted five years, whereas the original one only lasted four) or having a tire explode while I’m driving. (These are the last two original tires that came with the car, I think, which is a pretty good track record. I also can’t believe how old the car is now, either. Still don’t have fifty thousand miles on it yet! Probably wouldn’t even have thirty if not for all the trips to Alabama and Kentucky.) My injectable medication is also arriving today, so I’ll have to go uptown to get the mail on my way home. And then I get to go home and have my Thursday night bonding session with Sparky; Paul has to go to some important thing tonight so we will be home alone, and maybe I might watch Scream 2 or A Nightmare on Elm Street. I think we are going to Costco and running some other errands tomorrow after I finish my work-at-home duties. We’re forecast to have thunderstorms all day Sunday, too, which will make staying home under a blanket in my easy chair reading all the more cozy and comfortable.

The apartment needs work, too. There are dishes to be washed and loaded into the dishwasher, and there’s crap scattered everywhere around the entire downstairs. I’ve not been terribly motivated when I’ve gotten home from work. Last night I did a big grocery run at the Carrollton Rouse’s on my way home; it was nice getting that out of the way. I know I’ll have to run to make groceries on Saturday morning for some things I am going to make this weekend, and perhaps pick up the mail, but other than that I plan on not going outside much other than to start taking walks. I finally got wired earbuds for my new phone, so I can listen to books while I am taking my walks. This is my plan to start getting back into shape, slowly and carefully and not trying to rush anything.

I did watch The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City last night, and I must say I never thought I’d see an argument about farts between women on a reality show. Very interesting.

I also need to update my to-do list and pay some more bills. In fact, I don’t even remember what is even ON the to-do list, but…I’ve noticed that I am better about NOT forgetting things. When I made groceries last night, for example, Paul asked me to get him crackers (saltines). I forgot because I couldn’t find my list, but once I got back to the car and put everything in the trunk, I remembered! I ran back in, grabbed a box, and checked out at the service desk. I was very pleased with this, for the record. Yesterday I also remembered to do some things at work I’d been asked to do and hadn’t written down, so I am getting better with my memory, too. Maybe that’s also part of the recovery process? I certainly hope that is the case.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the day. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will see you tomorrow; probably not until I get back from the dealership.

Unholy

Monday and back to the office with me this morning. Huzzah, I think. I felt good yesterday, and read a lot further into Hokuloa Road, which I am also really enjoying (more on that later). It was, overall, a nice and relaxed day here in the Lost Apartment. Sparky was good cuddle-boy all day, too, for the most part. He still does his best to get me up at six every morning, but much more intensely when he hears the alarm go off. He knows that means I have to get up, and so he is more persistent on those mornings (like this morning). But I feel rested and good, which is always a better way of starting the week rather than feeling tired, which is how last week developed, and that tired feeling lasted through the week and most of the weekend.

I did some chores yesterday and made progress on getting everything organized and filed away, around reading the book. I also made some progress on other things, too, which was very cool. It was nice having a productive weekend for a change, other than one where I am trying to get rested and nothing much gets done. The LSU loss Saturday morning also kind of killed my interest in watching games on Saturday, which helped me get things done. They play at night this Saturday, hosting undefeated Texas A&M, who have never won in Baton Rouge since joining the SEC–they beat Alabama before they beat LSU, in fact–but they are pretty good this year and LSU is not, so…probably be a long night this Saturday.

I also need to revise and update my to-do list this morning at some point. I’m not sure how busy we will be in the clinic today, but when I checked Thursday it wasn’t bad–that obviously could have changed between then and now. We shall see.

It was both weird and nice to spend so much time reading yesterday. I always forget how much I love reading (I have noted, before, many times, how weird it is that I have to force myself to do things that I love), until I really get caught up in a book. I was hoping it would rain yesterday, but alas–it was not to be. That would have been lovely–raining outside, snuggled under a blanket in my easy chair with Sparky and a cup of coffee, all snug while I read. It just doesn’t get better than that, you know? I am planning on reading some more tonight when I get home from the office before doing some chores–Sparky loves to sleep in my lap once I get home for the day–and if I can do that every night, I can make some progress on this out-of-control TBR pile.

As I said, I am enjoying Hokuloa Road. It’s a slow burn, which I like, slowly picking up speed as you go. It’s set on a made-up island in the Hawaiian Island chain (best I can tell; apologies if I am incorrect and the unnamed island actually does exist), which is fun. I love Hawaii, even if I haven’t been back there in thirty years. It was my parents’ absolute favorite place to go in the world; so every year I worked at the airline we’d go. I fell in love with Hawaii myself more every time we went, and the last time we went I broke away and did gay things; went to the gay bars, went to the gay beach every day, and even got laid a couple of times while I was there. It was a lot of fun, and I had always wanted to write about Hawaii–but only did once, in an erotic short story and like Elizabeth Hand, I never named the setting as a Hawaiian beach. (The story was called “The Sea Where It’s Shallow”–one of my all-time favorite titles–and I don’t remember where it was published originally, but I do know it’s in my collection Promises in Every Star.) I worry about exoticizing Hawaii and it’s native people, as a haole. Maybe I should revisit it? I do know that some novels I’ve read set in Hawaii were very much that…

I also started writing a short story this weekend, with the working title “Even Katydids Dream,” and yes, that’s a very obvious Shirley Jackson reference. It was inspired by that call for submissions for one (!) lucky writer to get into that Stephen King The Shining appreciation anthology–and the furor that followed the announcement. I really don’t like when authors call out anthology editors for opportunities they don’t think are “fair.” Fairness has nothing to do with it, for the record, and it’s their anthology; they can make the rules whatever they want them to be. I was criticized by people for the last open call I did for an anthology because they didn’t like my rules–and I replied to every whining email “don’t submit.” (I also tracked them, so I could be certain not to accept a story from someone who established from the very fucking beginning they would be difficult to work with and entitled–and I almost always back the writers, so for me to be critical of writers…yeah.) Nothing is fair in publishing, so get used to it unless you want to be angry all the time.

I’d rather channel that energy into writing, frankly.

The more I thought about the pompous and pretentious complaints I saw over the course of a few days last week, the more I started thinking about writing something in that universe. But what? And then the idea came to me, followed by the title, so I started writing it. I probably won’t submit it to the call–one of the submission rules (the timing) is something I’m not sure I would be able to handle. They are only considering the first five hundred stories, so when the window opens you have to have everything ready to go so you can hit send when the minute turns–and I know myself too well to think I’ll remember to get up early on that day. But I like the story, and I can always strip all that Overlook Hotel stuff out of it and use it somewhere else if I want to. I may not ever finish it. Who knows?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.

Thunder Island

TIGERS WIN!!!

It’s been a very hot minute since LSU won a season opener (it was Joe Burrow’s senior season, for the record), AND it was over a Top 5 team AND it was on the road AND it was Clemson and their faux Death Valley. GEAUX TIGERS! It was a nerve-wracking game, and because the score was so close, I was worried the Season Opener Jinx would strike. When was the last time the LSU defense won the game? Last night was the first time since 2019 where I was impressed by the defense, and they were amazing. Like Tiger teams of old. It was an excellent capper to an interesting day of football that saw both Texas and Alabama lose. Of course, now I am going to get my hopes up for the season, but I am trying to be cautiously optimistic. Both Texas and Alabama looked terrible, frankly, and it was kind of a shock. I wouldn’t want to be the Alabama coach this morning…but Alabama always has down years after a legendary coach retires after rebuilding the program from mediocre to the heights of college football again. It happened when Bear Bryant retired, after all. No one has ever come into Alabama when they’re at the pinnacle and keeps them there.

And it could have just been a hiccup for both Texas and Alabama, you never know. (I said to Paul during the second half of Alabama’s game last night, “The alumni group chat is probably lit right now raising the money to buy DeBoer out.”) But it’s very nice to have a season opening win. It’s been so long…

Tulane also thumped Northwestern; they’re calling it the “Beatdown in Uptown” here locally, which I find amusing.

Yesterday I went uptown to the AT&T store on Magazine (in the same strip mall where I used to do my laundry whenever I don’t have a working washer or dryer) and finally got the phone situation squared away, which was great. I made a small bit of groceries, and went by the post office, too, before coming home to do some light cleaning while watching the football games. I was feeling pretty fatigued yesterday–oh, the aching of my tired legs–so didn’t think I’d get much of anything done and was right for the most part. I think I needed that do-nothing rest day, in all honesty. I also realized, in the 36 hours or so I was without a phone, that I’m horribly addicted to mine. Yesterday during the games I was scrolling endlessly through the damned thing until I finally made myself put the damned thing down. I do not like being addicted to screens or the Internet, frankly. I think less screen time will be a goal for 2026.

Today, Paul has his trainer and will be gone most of the afternoon (he always does cardio for a couple of hours after) so I should be able to get some things done today. It’s also nice that I have tomorrow off as well (thank you, three day weekend!). I should be able to get some things done that I want and/or need to get done by the time I have to return to the office Tuesday morning. I’m going to do some more reading this morning with the rest of my morning coffee before I get cleaned up and spring forth into another day. The kitchen looks much better than it did Friday, and hopefully will look even better by the time I go to bed this evening. I also have some filing to do, both from around my workspace and my digital files as well, which is always something mindless to do but it’s amazing how much time it kills.

I was also thinking a lot yesterday about books, short stories, and essays I am working on, which is always a good thing. I didn’t take many notes, just let my mind wander through the fertile fields of my creativity. I need to get this fatigue shit under control so I can do more work…or at least figure out a workaround so I can get things done anyway. I always think I’m being lazy, you know? But when you’re too fatigued to focus…well, that’s rarely if ever a good thing, you know?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back on the morrow.

I Did Something Bad

Wednesday! Short weeks really do seem to zoom past, don’t they? Yesterday was actually a good day. I felt rested and not tired–but by the time I got home from running my errands I had to rest a bit before doing the chores, which I did do: unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, and folding a load of clothes. Now the week is half-over, and I am staying on top of the daily chores so this weekend I can do some more deep clean, organizing, reading, resting, and writing. I also spent some time reading both Moonraker and Murder Takes a Vacation (which I am loving, but I knew I would because I loved the character, Mrs. Blossom, since Laura Lippman introduced her in one of her Tess books).

And it’s always a pleasure to read good writing, you know?

In other exciting news, the weight loss has stopped. I weighed 177 at the doctor’s office last week; yesterday I weighed 192. It was also a good day; I , I was walking better, and I even walked across the street at lunchtime to CVS to get ice cream and a candy bar (still have some weight to gain back, after all!) and didn’t get worn out. I was tired by the end of the work day and while running my errands, but that’s fine. I stayed at the office all day and didn’t leave early, so that should have been expected. I finally got my new debit card, the purple LSU eye of the tiger card, and it’s gorgeous. I’ve also been kind of overeating lately but am hungry all the time and craving things. This weekend I am going to try one of those delivery apps to get lunch; I need to pop that cherry.

I also picked up my copy of Summer House by Yigit Karaahmet, translated by Nicholas Glastonbury; which came highly recommended by Kristopher Zgorski’s BOLOBooks blog, which always has great tips for books to read. I also swung by the library to pick up Sisterhood of the Lost Cause: Confederate Widows in the New South racism, which I am reading as research for my lengthy entry on the Lost Cause mythology, and an even deeper dive into the history of racism in this country and how it was allowed to perpetuate after the Civil War–which was a huge fucking mistake. It’s also going to be helpful as I continue to unpack my own grooming into prejudice and bigotry as I try to be a better person than what I was raised to be.

I am feeling so much better these days, and people are noticing that I look better, too. I look healthier and not as gaunt and skeletal (that fifteen pounds came in handy, clearly), which is also incredibly nice. I’m still not there and I know it’s going to take a hot minute, and I have to be patient, but I’ve also tentatively scheduled a trip to Alabama to meet Dad for their anniversary in late June. That will be the real test, won’t it? I’ve gotten behind on my audiobooks in the car listening, too, so that trip will probably help get me going on that as well. If someone would have told me twenty years ago that I’d love audiobooks, I would have laughed in their face. I’ve never liked being read to, but somehow audiobooks are different.

As far as the Patti LuPone discourse on-line is concerned, all I have to say is she needs to play Helen Lawson in a remake of Valley of the Dolls and leave it at that.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely midweek Wednesday, and I’ll be back later.

Bold Strokes retreat, Bombay Beach, album cover photo

The Devil Went Down to Georgia

God, how I hate that fucking song. Maybe it was okay the first two or three hundred times I heard it, but now? It sets my teeth on edge and I kind of root for the devil now.

Sparky got me up early this morning, which is fine. I feel a little tired and sore from standing out on the parade route for a couple of hours yesterday (three or so, to be exact) for the Iris parade. Iris is my favorite of all the parades, and always has been. I fell in love with the ladies of Iris that first time I came here for Carnival back in 1995, and that has never changed. It was a beautiful day for parades, too. It was sunny, not a cloud in the sky, and the temperature hovering the mid 70s. I also forget how much fun the parades are from year to year. It is fun out there. Everyone is in a good, festive mood; everyone is friendly; and you meet lots of people out there on the route. The parades always create this incredible feeling of community that’s kind of hard to describe. No one is completely wasted, everyone is just buzzed and vibing and having fun. We got buried in beads like we always do at Iris, and then we came inside and skipped Tucks. My legs feel fatigued this morning, so I don’t know if I’ll be going out today (there are four: Okeanos, Mid-city, Thoth, and Bacchus. Bacchus and Thoth are extremely popular, so it will be madness down at the corner too. I may wander out there, I may not, it depends on how I feel. I took tomorrow off so as not to have to deal with traffic and parking (I’d have to leave the office at two anyway, at the very least), and we’ll be going out for Orpheus tomorrow night. Today I really need to be more active–I need to clean and I need to write and I need to get my act together.

A running theme on this blog, methinks. Some things never change.

I did get a chance to speak to my sister yesterday as well, and found out that I was correct–we had both had the measles when we were kids (“freedom freckles,” as someone said on Threads yesterday), which confers immunity so I don’t need to get a booster. I thought we had, but wasn’t sure. (She currently has shingles, despite the vaccine, but it’s a much milder case than had she not.) We had the mumps and the measles at the same time (and I just realized how terrified our parents must have been back then, since measles could kill or do even worse damage; I can’t even fathom 1/10th of how much worry they had when we were small kids), and chicken pox by itself at a later date (hence immunity from all poxes). I also remember getting the polio vaccine and rubella; I remember lining up in second grade to get them. So, fuck you, anti-vaxxers, your kids aren’t going to give me anything that could potentially kill me. Can’t say the same for your kids, though. The recent rubella outbreak in Texas? Hey anti-vaxxer trash: why don’t you go ahead and google what happens when a pregnant woman gets rubella, you fucking self-absorbed bitches? Isn’t it bad enough that you’re entire thesis is “I’d rather have a dead child than an autistic one”? All those tombstones for children in those old Alabama cemeteries…interesting how few recent graves there are for children. So, just go ahead and miss me with your Dr. Google research on vaccines, trash. If you want your kids to die, have at it. But why should other people’s children have to die to satisfy your egocentric narcissism?

And miss me with your “pro-life” stance and your Christianity. Suffer the little children wasn’t a directive.

Honestly.

We got caught up on our shows last night, and started watching this new Robert De Niro show on Netflix called Zero Day. It was entertaining enough and has an incredible cast–Joan Allen, Angela Bassett, Connie Britton, De Niro himself–and the writing seems pretty top notch. It’s a political thriller about the aftermath of a massive cyber attack on the United States, and De Niro is a retired president (Bassett is the current), asked to head up a new agency to find out who did it and how to stop them from doing it again. It’s not an action show–De Niro isn’t getting into fistfights and gun battles with bad guys–but more cerebral with twists and turns. (Seriously, the fistfights and gun battles all start to seem the same after awhile, and some of the shows–The Recruit, The Night Agent, Prime Target–also start running together, too. Reacher remains fantastic, though.) Political thrillers are kind of hard to watch now for me–the insanity running the country currently kind of makes them quaint in a way–but here we are, you know? I also saw that Fletcher Knebel’s old thriller about an insane president–Night of Camp David–is making the rounds again (I read it the first time around with this bullshit), but not even Knebel, who wrote a lot of political thrillers, could have imagined a United States where a political party would rally around a sociopathic narcissist, with the media working hand in glove with them to present this as normal and sane. Not even John LeCarré or Robert Ludlum could have come up with this kind of story. (Stephen King foresaw it also with The Dead Zone–a book that I don’t think gets enough appreciation for its brilliance– but even he couldn’t see it winning in the end.)

We’ve taken our country for granted for so long that none of us could ever believe it could come to an end…kind of like the Trojans and the Carthaginians and Rome itself. Everything ends. I had hoped it would last until I no longer had to worry about it, but I guess I lived longer than I should have.

And on that grim note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will talk to you later.

Love Is The Answer

Thursday morning and heading out on the highway to Alabama this afternoon, after I put in some hours at the office. I can also get on the highway not far from the office, which will save me a little time–not much, an insignificant amount to be sure–but it’s going to be smooth sailing….I hope. I slept pretty well last night; I ran errands on my way home and managed to get my chores done once I got home, and packed. I feel a bit tired this morning, though, so I hope that means I am going to be able to sleep tonight when I get there. I also just realized I forgot to pack some things, so I’ll have to go home and get them before I head out–but at least I remembered. It would have sucked to get up there and realize oh no, I forgot this stuff, which has happened before. It’s never pleasant–I’ve gone on trips where I’ve forgotten my sleeping meds and thus didn’t sleep the entire trip (most unpleasant) and been miserable.

Well, didn’t finish that this morning, did I? I am now in west/central Alabama, checked into my hotel and a little tired. I hate driving these back country state roads after dark, seriously. The last hour or so of the drive was nerve-wracking; it’s so pitch dark at night here, there are no lights anywhere, and it was a little foggy. I don’t know the roads enough to anticipate hills and dips and hollows and stop signs and curves, and of course there’s always some inbred in a raised hundred-thousand dollar pick up truck (but bitches about the price of eggs) tailgating you for miles before they can pass. (I think I wrote about this in Bury Me in Shadows; how spooky and scary it is to drive up here after dark.) I am now here and very tired. I may lay down in a moment and see what happens. If I fall asleep, so be it.

After I got off 59N/20E in Tuscaloosa (Lurleen Wallace 1Boulevard, to be exact) and as I drove through, I couldn’t help but think you know, Tuscaloosa is a pretty little city…and then I saw an enormous billboard reading THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP NO PRESIDENT HAS DONE MORE FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE and remembered that beneath the beauty is the same moral decay and rot that’s been here since statehood in 1819. It’s really a shame. There’s an entire essay (or nonfiction personal memoir of being a gay Southern white man) I could write about the South’s pathetic longing for a past when everything was better2 because everything is so “awful” down here now. I mean, Black people can use the same bathrooms and water fountains now! Perish the thought!

That billboard, by the way, was sponsored by a church. Imagine how many hungry children that colossal waste of money could have fed. Glad to know there are no hungry children in Alabama–or Tuscaloosa, either, so that a church could waste parishioners’ tithes in a manner worthy of a Medici pope during the Renaissance. Cannot imagine why people are turning away from Christianity–and the Christian Nationalist fascist government that is currently being installed is only going to drive more and more of the faithful away. Evangelicals deny Christ every day with their words and actions, rather than bearing witness by doing good works. Faith without works is dead, after all–which means showing up twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday isn’t going to get you into heaven when your piety is only for when you’re inside the actual church building.

Someday I am going to explore my relationship with religion in a long-form essay because that will be just fascinating, won’t it?

And on that note, I think I’m going to go lay down now. Have a lovely night, COnstant Reader, and who knows if I’ll be here tomorrow? I certainly don’t!

Screenshot

  1. Lurleen Wallace was the first woman elected governor of Alabama. It wasn’t as big of a deal as it should have been because she was also George Wallace’s first wife, and back then a governor of Alabama couldn’t succeed himself. She ran in his place and won. It was all for naught, though, as she died of cancer one year into her term as “governor.” But tell us about the corruption in blue states again? ↩︎
  2. NARRATOR VOICE: It was, in fact, not based in reality. ↩︎

Get Used to It

Wednesday Pay the Bills Day blog! And it’s also the middle of the week, and the three day weekend looms large. I don’t feel tired or groggy this morning, which is odd, but hey–what can I say? I slept well and feel good. The coffee is also good this morning, and I had the last piece of king cake this morning (yes, it’s all gone already and no, I didn’t have more than three smallish pieces); I’ll pick one up on the way home from work tonight, as I have to make some groceries to get us through until the weekend. I can’t wait for next week, when miraculously all prices will suddenly drop by at least 75% and gas will be back to a dollar. Woo-hoo, life-changing! As if. The presidential troll has already walked that lie back, as he is walking all of his campaign lies back, and things will just be worse, and of course, it’ll be the fault of Democrats somehow, despite the Right controlling all three branches of government and are going to overplay their hand (they always do)–but they will not give up power voluntarily so we’re looking at violence in the next election (should there be one) as the republic continues to limp on and try to recover from the latest Republican attempt to turn the entire country into Alabama. (And I say that as someone from Alabama–although Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee would work just as well.) I mean, if you want to get a sense of what one-party Republican rule looks like, pick a fucking red state and see how it’s doing on every scale of quality-of-life metrics. Funny how regularly blue states aren’t on government welfare, isn’t it? So why would a view of politics and government clearly doesn’t work on a state level work on a national one?

Oh yes, Black and Brown people. You can never go wrong boiling everything right-wing to bigotry and prejudice of some sort. People will always vote against their best interests if you consistently tell them they are oppressed and play to their most basic instincts–it’s not YOUR fault, it’s Black/Brown/gay/trans people’s fault! THEY’RE TAKING AWAY YOUR BIRTHRIGHT!

Ironically, the “party of personal responsibility” loves to blame everyone else for their utter and complete failures.

The Internet continued to roil yesterday over the latest publishing scandal, and it’s even more amazing how many people “just had that vibe about him” and “everyone at his publisher knew not to leave female interns around him” and so on–to me, the latter goes to show how people in power covered for their cash cow, and while I know it’s generally not smart to take shots at big name people who are generally beloved, some of this anger should be directed at the institutions that covered for him and allowed him to get away with it for so long? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with trusting someone who has been kind or generous or supportive of you; I tend to not ask people who are that way with me whether or not they have problematic behaviors or values or beliefs; no one does. When you get a good impression of someone you tend to not look for reasons to not like them. Abusers are generally masters at gaslighting, and sadly, you can’t tell by looking at someone that they are a predatory abusers with a trail of victims in their wake. I also don’t feel like the gaslit people an abuser fooled need to publicly made statements or so forth to distance themselves. I get that the natural instinct is to make sure no one thinks you sympathize with them, or are a collaborator or are complicit, but I also don’t think it’s necessary, either. I also get that it’s hard when your hero takes a fall–which is why I think hero-worshipping is usually a mistake. People are fallible; that design flaw is baked in. You’re always going to be disappointed when someone you’ve given your money and your affections to do something that is against your values and system. But…no one’s values or beliefs are going to perfectly align with yours, and sadly, art doesn’t discriminate–people who do bad things can create amazing (and influential) art. Can you enjoy the art after (or already) you know the artist is a problem? I think that’s up to you. Caravaggio was deeply problematic, but his gorgeous art has lasted for centuries. And granted, someone who’s been dead for centuries is a bit different than a rapist who is still alive. Personally, having the works of a problematic current day artist in my house makes me a bit uncomfortable, but your mileage may vary.

This recent public rending of garments and gnashing of teeth in the wake of the latest “good guy turns out to be predator” publishing news seems funny (in the weird/strange meaning way, not haha funny) to me. For one, I’ve never completely trusted men who claim to be feminists; maybe it’s because I learned feminism from lesbians, but I refuse to identify as a feminist–as a male, I can’t truly be a feminist because I will never completely understand or appreciate the experiences of being a woman. I call myself a feminist sympathizer–please note I don’t say “ally” for the simple reason that I grew up in a society and culture of toxic masculinity, and no matter how much I think I’ve recalibrated that out of my system, every once in a while I’ll have a thought, immediately followed by man, it’s so hard to break that programming, isn’t it? I’m not sure why people feel guilty simply because they knew a predator and thought he was nice. The reasons predators succeed for as long as they do is because their carefully constructed persona is camouflage for the darkness within. Last spring someone I knew in the crime community1–well enough that I not only had his email address but I also had his cell number stored in my phone (if I have your cell number saved in my phone, I consider you a friend and have let you inside a bit). Was I surprised when he was arrested and charged with possession of (an incredible amount of) child pornography? Absolutely. Had I ever seen any sign of such a possibility at any time in any of my interactions with him over the last fifteen or so years? No. I didn’t berate myself for not seeing it sooner, or not having my primordial instincts triggered by his badness. There weren’t many, if any, kids around at writers’ conferences and award ceremonies and other professional environments where I ran into him. Granted, he also wasn’t a hero of mine, either. But…Stephen King’s support of J. K. Rowling was disappointing, and I don’t read him anymore. I didn’t get upset about it, nor did I mind donating all my copies of his books to the library sale. I didn’t know him personally; we met once and had a lovely, if brief, conversation. I don’t know if I have an equivalence for Neil Gaiman in my life?

But it does make me think that I am right to be so guarded with straight white men.

Which reminds me of another book I’ve wanted to write. Sigh.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader!

  1. An anthology I was in with him is being reissued with his story removed in a week or so; more to come on that. ↩︎

Take Me Home to Somewhere

Sunday morning and it’s sunny outside. It rained off and on for most of the day yesterday, with marvelous thunderstorms bracketing the day. The sky is clear and blue and the sun is out, so I suspect we’re done with the storms. I slept well–and late–this morning, and I’ve already decided to let the day take its own course. I have some dishes to put away and laundry to fold, and I also need to run a couple of errands this morning. I do feel rested this morning, which is a good thing. There are only three days left in 2024, and while I would ordinarily think good riddance to 2024, I don’t have very high hopes about how 2025 is going to go for any of us. Louisiana continues to circle the drain, as our governor seems determined to destroy the state and impoverish everyone (but there won’t be any of the woke nonsense down here, you betcha!), and we all know Republicans can’t govern for shit–already proven from 2017-2021–and they are already fighting a nasty civil war between their Techbros and the MAGA base currently, which gives us a pretty good idea of how the next four years are going to go. Yay.

I really didn’t do much of anything yesterday, really. I rewatched a classic LSU football game–Paul was out with some friends–and went down a bunch of rabbit holes on Youtube doing research. Researching the 1970s is trippy for me, and being reminded of things I’d long forgotten about–products, commercials, movies, books, etc.–inevitably brings a bunch of other memories back with them; buying Hardy Boys books at the Zayre’s, riding my bike to the 7/11 to get milk and a comic book, walking to the bus stop at St. Dominic’s (and walking home from there after school), and reading in bed on the weekends with a bag of either Taco-flavored Doritos or Bar-B-Q Fritos. Research is research, after all, and opening my mind to recollections of my past–which was a very long time ago–is kind of weird, since I spent so much of my life never looking back. I may try to do some writing today–stranger things have happened, after all–but I am not placing any demands on myself this weekend. I have Wednesday off for New Year’s, which is weird, and will probably wind up having the play-offs on all day while I do other things. I still haven’t finished reading my book, either, and I really need to get back to that this week, if not today. It ain’t going to finish reading itself, you know.

And I can’t get deeper into the TBR pile without actually, you know, reading the books.

Memories are tricky things, actually, and one of the most important tricks our (writers on a grander scale, and people in general) brains play on us is how it colors the way we remember things. We not only remember how things were said and who said them, but we also remember how we felt at the time–and those feelings also color how we remember things. I am sure all people, once they’ve reached a certain age, are stunned at how differently our parents remember things from our childhood, and how little we actually did understand when we were younger. It’s also possible for those memories, colored so strongly by protective emotions, to change and become more embedded in our brains with our coloring firmly in place. One of the reasons I never bothered to re-examine disputes or disagreements with people from the part is because I know my memories may not be exact and are definitely have been rewritten in my head to make me the innocent victim, or merely confirmed that I am a terrible person. The first few decades of my life were very chaotic; one of the things I’ve tried to work very hard on as an adult the last few decades was to remove chaos–or agents of chaos–from my life. If you’ve either hurt or deeply offended me, I don’t want to waste any more of my time on you. I don’t want to argue with you, I don’t want to explain why you were hurtful because I shouldn’t have to.

If I have to explain to you how you’ve been hurtful you really aren’t worth my time.

Part of the problem with writing about the past and going from your own memories and experiences is that tendency to make one’s self into a hero even when you have not been very heroic. I’ve kind of always considered myself cowardly for not coming out sooner, for not facing up to who I am, and not getting it all worked out in my head long before I actually did. Wanting to capture that sense of having a dark secret that you so desperately want to share, wishing the world was different yet knowing that it isn’t and probably never will be, looking ahead at the rest of your life as it yawns before you as endless misery and self-denial and self-loathing isn’t exactly inspiring, and capturing all of this on the page from the perspective of a twelve-year-old about to start high school is going to be hard without making him seem self-pitying and kind of pathetic. My own self-loathing about who I was as a child is also kind of self-defeating; I need to forgive myself at some point for not being a good little straight boy because that was never who I was supposed to be. If anything, I should loathe the middle-class cookie cutter suburban existence everyone tried to force me into–a square peg into a round hole, as it were. I suppose writing The Summer of Lost Boys will force me to face those feelings and work through them by writing about a character similar to me but not really me, if that makes sense? I know writing Bury Me in Shadows helped me come to terms with my family’s history–and Southern history in a broader context; #shedeservedit helped me come to terms with my own high school experience, and so maybe, this is the last step to letting go of a lot of things over which I had no control that I’ve punished myself for most of my adult life.

Chaos is never fun, really. I’ve also always felt bad for people who chose chaos rather than cutting it out of your life. I don’t want to waste any more of my life doing emotional labor for undeserving people who are determined to hold onto being miserable rather than letting things go and living more positively–who wants all that negativity in their life? Why would anyone choose that? And yes, I am sure I am vastly over-simplifying here–many people are trapped in horrible jobs and horrible life situations over which they have very little, if any, control over their lives.

There are several books I want to write about my suburb, in all honesty–just as there are any number of Alabama and New Orleans and Kansas books I want to write…which is never going to happen as long as I continue to not write.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines and go run my errands. Not sure what I am going to do for the day other than that, but I like having a day with no plans to do much of anything, frankly. Have a great Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later or tomorrow before work! Thanks, as always, for stopping by this morning.

Sail On

And another Sunday fun day has rolled around. It was cold in New Orleans yesterday, but I did drop books off at the library sale, picked up the mail, and made groceries. Irony of ironies, when I got home I realized I didn’t have one of my bags–containing the things I went to the store for in the first place. Sigh. So I will have to go out in the cold this morning to rectify that error, but that’s all right. I got some things done yesterday around here, and worked a bit on my editing of my own stuff (which is going slowly because it’s horribly depressing to see how shitty the writing is, despite reminding myself first drafts are always shitty first drafts are always shitty– it still wears me down).

Okay, I bit the bullet and went to the store to get the things I paid for yet didn’t have when I got home from the store yesterday It was actually pleasant; mayhap in the future I should go early in the morning to make groceries. It’s only forty degrees but sunny here this morning, that always odd combination where it looks like it’s hot and steamy outside but it’s not! Now that I have that out of the way–which is also part of it, the putting it off and putting it off until such time as my day is interrupted and never quite recovers. Now I have that out of the way and don’t have to worry about it, and because it wasn’t a crowded shitshow the grocery usually is right before a holiday, I feel neither tired or burned out from the experience. I know it sounds weird, but a crowded grocery store overstimulates me and wears me out.

I did sleep a little later than usual this morning, and the bed was warm and comfortable and inviting and I didn’t really want to get out from underneath the blankets. But Sparky was hungry and would not rest until I was up, which is just as well. He’s fed and if I’d lounged in bed even longer this morning I would have not gone to make groceries, so everything was a “win-win”. I did have the games on yesterday, for what it was worth. Talk about snooze-fests. Is this what we have to look forward to with this new system? Blowouts in the first round? I also don’t like the home field advantage half the teams get in the first round. It makes a difference. I was at least hoping, despite my antipathy toward everyone playing this weekend, for some good, fun games to watch.

It was a good thought.

Was anyone surprised that disgusting grifting POS Krysten Sinema is going out the way she has chosen to? What a despicably corrupt narcissistic bitch. May we never hear her name again except for her obituary and the outpouring of contempt sure to follow. She betrayed her constituency, she betrayed queer people, and she betrayed her party to cozy up to Fascists and block progressive legislation while taking bribes and enriching herself. One of the problems with our current situation is that anyone can run against a horrible MAGA candidate and look good, rally votes and win an election as a viable alternative to something worse–but there’s nothing stopping said person from selling out for personal enrichment once they are serving. I’d like to see an IRS investigation as well as a DOJ one to find out who’s been paying her to be Mitch McConnell’s little beta bitch since she took office. She was so hated in Arizona that Kari Lake would have beaten her in the general1. I hope she spends the rest of her life getting drinks thrown on her and pies in her fucking face, like the clown she actually is. Good riddance to some serious raw sewage.

I was thinking yesterday (fleeting thoughts I’ve had a lot over the last few months) about James A. Michener and how no one today would read any book as long as his were, back in the day. I enjoyed Michener–Hawaii was a bit much–but I’ve been thinking how amazing it would have been for books in that style to have been written about Kansas, Louisiana, or Alabama. I certainly would never write such a thing–I don’t have the patience to do that much research, let alone turning it into a million words or so of a novel. (Although Michener would have written about three hundred pages about the forming of the Mississippi River delta, let alone the lakes and the swamps.) I was revisiting one of my favorite New Orleans histories, Frenchmen Desire Goodchildren, and I was also remembering that Gallatin Street, one of the worst sections of the old French Quarter, no longer exists. It was a vile place of bordellos and sleazy, dangerous bars; murders and rapes and muggings happened there with a stark regularity until it was demolished to extend the French Market. I’ve been wanting to write another Sherlock story in the 1910’s Quarter, and having either him or Watson visit a nasty dangerous gay bar on Gallatin would be a fun scene to write…if Gallatin was still around by that time; I think it’s badness was over by the time Storyville was set up, but who knows? I’ve resisted writing about Storyville, because it’s already been done so many times…but I also think it would be fun to write about New Orleans during Prohibition, too, when New Orleans became known as the Liquor Capital of the United States. That…could be a lot of fun. Maybe even an ATF agent coming to the city to root out liquor sales, only to hang their head in utter and complete defeat?

Thinking of Michener also reminded me of how much I used to read when I was a kid. Granted, the distractions of a gazillion streaming services didn’t exist back then; there were only three real channels, and we didn’t spend most of our times looking at our phones because there were no images on it. It also has made me think about how my primarily formative years–the 1970s–were awash in cynicism and mistrust of everything and how huge conspiracy theories, or all kinds of other “unexplained phenomena” struck people’s fancies. There was, of course, the JFK assassination conspiracy theories–but there were so many others. The Amityville Horror (on which I called bullshit at the time and still do), the Bermuda Triangle, UFO’s…you name it, people were interesting in it. I read Erich von Däniken’s books about “ancient aliens”, and of course there was all kinds of deconstruction of religion and the Bible, which was also interesting–The Late Great Planet Earth was a huge bestseller, detailing how the prophecies of Revelations and the end times were coming true right before our very unseeing eyes! End times Christian theology took hold–and never really let go, either. The X-Files could have been made in the 1970s (although it would have never been greenlit) but there was a lot of media, especially film, that tried to cash in on all of this. During the shutdown I did my “Cynical 70s Film Festival”, and it’s really amazing how a thread of paranoia runs through so many films of that decade. It was a strange decade, that saw the further inward collapse of the social engineering that took place after the second world war–that excluded everyone outside of the straight white cisgender male. The center wasn’t holding, and now? We’re living in the midst of the backlash towards social progressivism in this country.

And on that note, I am going to make another cup of coffee and head into the morning spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later–one never truly knows, does one?

  1. That’s pretty fucking hated. ↩︎