Tag: Amber Glenn

Just Like a Woman

Thursday, and my last day in the office for the week. I am feeling so much better than I did over the weekend and the first few days of this work week and also am feeling a bit more centered than I have since that morning last Monday when there was no water pressure and we were in a boil water advisory. I wound up spending all of last week off-balance, got sick over the weekend (I was coming down with it on Friday evening, and it peaked on Sunday and Monday, with some left over on Tuesday when I went back to the office), and now I finally feel more like myself. Thank God, right? It was so lovely waking up this morning without a head full of snot and a sore throat and post-nasal drip *shudder*. Tomorrow morning I have a meeting in the morning and then have doctors’ appointments in the afternoon, and we do need to go to Costco. I’m not sure how this weekend will turn out–productive or restful, or some combination of the two. I’ve not done any chores these past couple of days, and I really should take care of them tonight so I don’t have to come down to a messy kitchen/office space again, and there’s some laundry I should also get done. It’s always so tempting to sit in my chair and catch up on the news before watching more of The Traitors (yes I am obsessed with that show, and I am revisiting things that spark joy in me–anything Alysa Liu or Amber Glenn related, anything Heated Rivalry, anything Ilia Malinin and US women’s hockey, too) with Sparky not helping matters any by sleeping in my lap.

Obviously, it doesn’t take much to kick me off-track, does it? It was lovely to finally feel good again yesterday, and I feel like I should point out that my Achilles tendons are doing much better. The left is fine, but the right is still a bit tender and tight, so will ice it again thoroughly tonight and periodically over the weekend. I want to start stretching again too. The Achilles tendon issue has delayed my return to working out and exercise, but there’s no reason I can’t start stretching again before I feel up to returning to the gym.

I remembered something over the weekend that I’d completely forgotten about, and once I did, I stewed about it for a few days before deciding what I wanted to do. If you will recall, my close friend Victoria died about a year ago, and she left me a gift in her will, which was an absolute shock. I signed the letter from the probate attorney and forgot about it. His office contacted me on Friday that the estate has been probated and I would be getting the gift in a short amount of time, which was a lovely surprise. But this weekend when I was moving things around I came across copies of a book I wrote that I completely forgot about, which is wild to me. In 2009 or 2010, Victoria decided she wanted to start a small press for diverse children’s and young adult fiction. I wasn’t sure it was a great idea–2009 and 2010 weren’t a good time in publishing; this was during the indy/trad author wars, when ebooks were really changing the entire industry–but she knew I had written a couple of young adult manuscript in the earl 1990s and they were collecting dust in a drawer (we’d talked about this when I met the y/a editor from a major press who was familiar with my work and wanted me to submit a manuscript–but Katrina happened and I let that opportunity slip through my grasp), and she wanted to publish one of them (the other two were Sleeping Angel and Sara, which I sold to Bold Strokes). They weren’t doing anything and I wasn’t doing anything with any of them, so I thought, knowing the odds of me making any money off it were slim to none, but…she was my friend and I wanted to help her out, so I let her publish Sorceress. Like I said, though, it wasn’t a good time to be launching a traditional publishing company (she hated ebooks), and I didn’t worry about it. I promoted the book the best I could, but have no idea how well it sold, if it sold at all, because I never got a sales statement or a royalty check–but I want to be very clear about this: I loved Victoria and I didn’t care. She had wanted me to write a sequel, which I did a first draft of, but never revised or anything. I never brought it up, she never brought it up, and I had no desire to make her feel bad or guilty about it, so why bring it up? People I know who did read it liked it–it was my first real stab at writing Gothic suspense/horror–but like I said, I gave it to her freely with the full expectation of never seeing a cent.

But now that she’s no longer with us (at least once a day I miss her still) I kind of would like to have the rights to it back, and maybe revise it and put it up as an indy book. (I know, I have to get Jackson Square Jazz up and going, too.) And since she left me a gift, why not use that gift to get these two books–and my next short story collection–up independently? But what about the sequel? It’s not necessarily tied to the first book–different characters, for one–but the same California mountain town (same as Sleeping Angel, too). Anyway, it’s something to ponder.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a marvelous Thursday, and I’ll be back in the morning yet again!

Greta

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment and all is well. I got up early this morning on my own–I think my body expects at least four mornings in a row of getting up early, and this would be the fourth–I guess we’ll see how early I get up tomorrow, shall we? I did manage to do some reading yesterday after I finished working, and had Season One of The Traitors on while I picked up and did other chores. I started a new project in the pantry this morning, and if I can manage to stay motivated this morning, I should be able to complete it before working on the living room and kitchen. I ran two loads of dishes in the dishwasher and the sink is filled with dishes yet again somehow. I also did all the bed linens yesterday, too. I need to run uptown this morning to get the mail and swing by the Fresh Market for a couple of things. I managed to go through my lengthy to-do list yesterday and mark off a lot of things, too. So that was pretty cool–I even had groceries delivered, which was amazing and awesome and all of that. I felt very good about the day when I finally slid under the covers last night, and I slept well, too.

I have to say, I love how the world has fallen in love with Alysa Liu and Amber Glenn after the women’s free skate the other day. There really is something about witnessing someone having the Olympic skate, the one you always hear about that epitomizes the Olympic spirit, right? She was just radiant out on the ice, just epic energy and joy and having the best time. Amber’s support and sportsmanship for the other skaters after her epic long program also won over hearts and minds. (Someone on social media said that she’d watched Alysa’s skate over and over again, because it sparked so much joy, and it ranked with Tom Holland’s Rihanna number! I heartily concur with this sentiment.)

I also remember the good feelings the Paris Summer Olympics back in 2024, and how they made us all forget temporarily the horror of the present times. Our athletes make me proud to be an American, and that’s a feeling I’ve not had in a very long time–and these Olympics have reminded me, also through Alysa and Amber, that joy is so very important, and we should grasp it whenever it’s within reach to us–we should probably look for it more, too. This actually is how the bastards win–by taking away our joy and our hope. This is why I am embracing how much fun I am having with The Traitors, because I enjoy it, it makes me forget the worries and cares and strife of the world and the burdens we all carry on the daily–and why on EARTH would I consider that a guilty pleasure? I need to rediscover my love of reading and writing. I am going to do some writing today if it kills me–and who knows? It just might.

It was in the low eighties and sunny all day yesterday (!!!!), and it looks to be that way today, too–although I thought it was going to be colder this weekend. I looked, and yes, it’s going to be in the seventies today, but thunderstorms later this afternoon! Huzzah! I do love me some rain, you know. That would be a fun time to watch some episodes of The Traitors’ second season (I told you I’m addicted) and maybe do some reading then. I think once I finish this I am going to try to get some cleaning and organizing done before I run my errands. I also need to organize the refrigerator better, too, and finish the pantry project I started yesterday, which is hella exciting. My taxes are also being figured right now, so that should be done soon and my refunds arriving by the end of March, too. Huzzah!

Okay, I think I’m going to take my coffee into the living room and read some for a bit. Have an absolutely delightful Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning for another Gregalicious update.

You can never go wrong with Joe Manganiello.

Juliet

This is an Alysa Liu fan page, for the record. How amazing was her free skate at the Olympics? She was just joy personified on the ice, and seriously, you can never go wrong skating to anything by Donna Summer (I would love to see ice dancers skate to “I Feel Love,” honestly). I was at work while the women skated, but had it playing on my phone while I worked, casting glances at it here and there throughout the hours it was on. I happened to look when Amber Glenn was skating, but at the point where she messed up the landing on that damned triple loop jump, and thought, oh no, poor Amber so I stopped watching for a bit…so was thrilled and surprised to see that Amber had climbed into first place. Isabeau Levito had a tough time out there, too. I watched Alysa skate and it made my heart full. I didn’t see the silver medalist skate–the young woman I thought would win it all–but came back in time for the final skater to see Alysa still in first. The young Japanese girl who got the bronze didn’t have a clean go of it, but she is also beautiful and a gorgeous skater who will be fun to watch in the years to come, and Alysa won the gold medal! I couldn’t wait to get home to watch again, so I could see her do it. (I actually came back to it when she had finished and said, into the camera, That’s what I’m fucking talking about! I also loved that she swore a few more times after coming off the ice. Amber climbed all the way up to fifth–just missing out on a medal by a few points; had she not missed the landing on that loop she may have climbed up into third. Alysa’s individual medal is the first for the US since Sasha Cohen got silver back in 2006, and the first gold since Sarah Hughes in 2002.1

Sigh, I love the Olympics, and I especially love the figure skating. I was also happy to see Ilia Malinin bouncing back from his difficult men’s final, hanging out with other athletes just watching in the stands, or with Martha Stewart and Snoop (I’ve yet to forgive him for his homophobia and his MAGA appearances), hanging with Simone Biles (one of the many superstars of sport who reached out to him), or my personal favorite–the pictures with Tara Lipinski’s daughter Georgie. I also loved seeing skaters supporting each other, cheering for each other and congratulating each other (or consoling, whatever the case may be), which is a very refreshing change over the last few years. The sports broadcasting narrative–the competitive rivalries were also personal ones–always made it seem like the skaters hated each other (true in some instances) but for the most part, they’ve known each other and competed and toured with each other since they were kids so2…

Work at home Friday and here we go! I had a nice day at work yesterday, with not a lot of clients so I was able to get caught up on almost everything. I have some quality assurance work to do and some data entry, around getting the house under control. I’m going to have some things delivered either today or tomorrow, and I’m going to run uptown tomorrow to get the mail and stop by the Fresh Market for fresh meat and berries. My Achilles tendons feel okay this morning, but I’m going to ice them anyway while I hopefully sit in my chair doing the quality control stuff.

I’m sorry the Olympics are coming to an end. So many feel-good moments, as always, and so many athletes I’d never heard of before having great Olympic moments, you know? I do think my favorites of these Olympics were Nazgûl the Olympic dog (google it if you’re unaware–he was a very good boy!), and the absolutely charming Japanese figure skating team–their joy in skating and each other was delightful to see. And in a selfish way, I’m kind of glad Ilia got a gold but not an individual medal, which means we’ll get at least four more years of his amazing skating and technical achievements. Is a quint next?

We also watched this week’s episode of The Traitors, and I was terribly disappointed to see Johnny and Tara come so close only to blow it in the end. We have another week to find out who the last murder victim will be (my money’s on Johnny or Mark; if I were Rob and Eric I’d murder JOhnny so Tara can be a wreck and a distraction for the other faithfuls. God how I love this show! We also started watching this week’s episode of The Beauty, which is so off-the-rails and insane–and every time I see him on my screen I loathe pedo-defender Ashton Kutcher more and more. He’s also terrible in this show; how did he ever have a career past his “oh isn’t he cute and dumb” phase. I never thought he was all that, to be honest, and very one-note. Kind of perfect for a show called The Beauty, now that I think about it. It really is a terribly written show, and most of the dialogue is very cringe, as the kids would say. The cast is talented (except for Kutcher) but it’s a shame watching them try to create something out of the beautiful nothing they were given to work with. It’s definitely a hate-watch, at this point, and this last episode–are we really supposed to believe a billionaire would go to that much trouble to shut down an FBI investigation when all he would have to do is donate money to whatever MAGA bullshit grift going on at the moment and the DOJ would shut that shit down faster than Usain Bolt could run at his peak.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines for the morning. I am going to try to get some things done before my workday starts with an online meeting. Have a great Friday, darling Constant Reader, and I will see you tomorrow morning.

Seriously, dude–why not just wear the black tights underneath? But definitely pretty. Professional wrestling is so homoerotic!
  1. Not that she would ever do such a thing–and especially because she lost gold to Americans in 1998 and 2002, so it doesn’t make sense–but I actually wondered if US Olympic skating was cursed after Michelle Kwan won silver and bronze despite being favored. ↩︎ ↩︎
  2. Tonya-Nancy being the most famous–and they had been friends before. ↩︎

Do You Believe in Magic

Saturday morning and here we are in the Lost Apartment as New Orleans slowly shakes off it’s blizzard break and returns to what passes as normalcy around here. As I look outside this morning after sleeping really late this morning (I was tired, okay?), the snow is almost completely gone. Yesterday after work I did go to the gym, and we did go to Costco, so I was pretty worn out when that was all completed and didn’t get anything else much done once we got home. We got one of those pre-made Costco pizzas (they really are quite good) which made for an easy dinner, which we ate while watching LSU Gymnastics; they were off last night, alas–but were also missing some of their best athletes. We’d started watching Prime Target on Apple Plus (queer main character? Oh hell to the yes, thank you very much), which we are also enjoying, but…I don’t think we watched anything other than news clips after the meet ended and before we went to bed? I also did my usual Friday chores around here, too–yay, me. Today I need to write and I need to run some errands. I wanted to go make groceries today, but am thinking I may need to wait for a few more days, after the stores are able to take deliveries and restock their shelves; even Costco looked a little picked over yesterday–we still spent over four hundred, and I forgot to look at the price of eggs–and there wasn’t too much traffic, despite the highways and interstate still being closed. I am pretty sure the city is back to what passes for normal around here today. Its cold outside, but sunny and the sky is blue, so whatever bits of snow that are left from the blizzard (it still feels weird saying that, you know?) will most likely melt off today.

It’s been quite a year already, and it’s not even fucking February yet. 2024 seems like it was last century already. This weird past week, though, as I said the other day, was a much needed respite, a forced period of rest for a city still reeling from starting the year with a terrorist attack, with both the Super Bowl and Carnival still on the horizon. I feel like I also kind of needed it, myself–I feel a lot more rested than I did last weekend, of course, and I do think returning to the office on Monday is a nice return to my usual routine. I need to work on the book this weekend as well as some other writing projects that need doing, and of course there are always chores to be done. I did the bed linens and two loads of laundry yesterday, got the sink all cleared out, and finally was able to do some more cleaning around here, too. Tomorrow I’ll walk back over to the gym for another workout–my shoulder and arm are tight and sore a lot more these days, so I am taking it easy for another week before advancing the workout to the next step. I am getting some exercise in, I am burning calories, and so my physical goals should be much easier to achieve this year than in years past. I am feeling more centered than I have in years.

It was also delightful this morning to see that Madison Keys won the Australian Open; good on you, girl! The US even had a man in the semi-finals, too. I’ve not been as big a tennis fan lately as I used to be; the Williams sisters and Rafa retiring left a big gap, and I don’t know many of the players as well as I used to. I guess I’m kind of a homer when it comes to international sport…but it just seems like there’s not been any newer players coming along with the kind of charismatic star power the Williams sisters (and Rafa) had. I really don’t follow figure skating as much as I used to, either; Paul and I primarily focus on US ice dance, of all things; who knew that would gradually become our strongest discipline? We’d even forgotten that US Nationals were this weekend (congratulations to Amber Glenn for winning again), but now that we do know, we can actually watch this weekend (thank God for streaming, right?).

The world continues to burn to the ground all around us, and what else is there left to say? The surrender of everyone to MAGA, from corporations to celebrities to the press, the capitulation in advance, went exactly the way it did in Germany in the 1930s. That’s yet another reason why I think being a writer in these trying times means being an activist. My books, my stories, about queer life through a crime or horror lens, kind of are important in that regard, and as I get older and I become more and more progressive (yes, I am going the opposite direction of the trope that everyone becomes more conservative as they age; hey, don’t blame my generation for the fucking Boomers who sold out everything they believed in after college) I find myself dancing around things in my work. And yes, I do want MAGA voters to suffer, and am saving all my empathy and sympathy for the victims of MAGA voters. I have no sympathy for mediocrities who need the state to made them feel better about their snowflake loser selves, and laughed excitedly about how they were fucking us over. I’m supposed to not want them to suffer the consequences of their actions? People who enjoy the suffering of others and voted for inhumanity? You can miss me with that kind of moral superiority, and if that’s you, just because you think you’re morally superior doesn’t mean you actually are.

And your education certainly doesn’t make you more intelligent and more moral than anyone else. All that means is you knew how to perform for professors by giving them what they wanted, kissing their ass, and not questioning them–which I did all the time, earning their enmity, and the little Napoleons in college English departments aren’t very interested in opinions other than their own correct ones, and punished me accordingly. (I have more publications than all of my professors, across all disciplines.) I don’t like to talk myself up (sing out, Louise!) because it seems arrogant and egocentric, and I don’t like those parts of my personality very much, but yes, I do have more publications than all of my instructors I’ve had throughout the course of my life, so…forgive me for interpreting essays, stories and books differently than a boring Lit professor’s1 (or writing teacher’s) dogmatic devotion to closing their eyes to any new interpretation. I’ve also always felt that you don’t learn by memorizing things; you learn by examining them, thinking about them, and evaluating. Theory is great, but implementation is far far better and way more important.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back at some point.

  1. As long as I live, I will never forgot my Shakespeare professor, talking about the many versions of Hamlet Shakespeare wrote, and how in earlier drafts Queen Gertrude was complicit in the murder of her husband and how that changed. The professor insisted that Shakespeare did this deliberately; which made Hamlet’s dilemma even worse–could he trust his mother? I raised my hand, and pointed out that at the time Hamlet was put on, James I was king of England, and his mother was believed to have been a party to his father’s murder, and married his murderer and the parallel was too close for comfort. He dismissed this with a condescending wave of his hand and said, “Shakespeare was an artist and wouldn’t worry about such mundane things” to which I replied, “several months in the Tower of London and running the risk of being hung for insulting the King isn’t a mundane thing.” That was the last day I went to class, only showing up for tests, and my paper was “Murderous Mothers: The Parallels Between Queen Gertrude and Mary Queen of Scots”, for which I did a lot of historical research. The paper got an A, and I also got one in the class, and I never really trusted professors again after that. ↩︎

Hard to Say I’m Sorry

Saturday morning and I slept late blog, which is perfectly okay and not a cause for panic anymore over the “lost hours” I “wasted” this morning sleeping longer. I feel good this morning, actually, rested and alert and clear-headed, too. I had planned to not leave the house this weekend, but I may have to make a slight grocery run today to pick up a few things. I did spend some time in bed this morning awake and cuddling with Sparky while wondering if I do indeed need to go out into the rain or if it can wait until tomorrow or even Monday. There are a few things I do need, and if I go out of the house I can maybe get a burger somewhere, like Five Guys or Sonic. Decisions, decisions, you know? I’ve not had a burger in weeks, either, or red meat of any kind. This hasn’t been a conscious choice, of course, just how things have worked out. I weighed myself at work the other day and was still at around 203-204 (with my shoes, belt, wallet and keys on my person) so I am much closer to the 2024 goal weight I wanted to achieve.

And yes while it would be nice to go back under 200 again, I don’t really think that’s going to happen. And I don’t care if I do! At some point, I made progress on that score, too, which is really nice. Maybe it’s being over sixty and being seriously out of fucks to give? Whatever, it does feel lovely not to be worried about people thinking I look out of shape or gross or something. (I also haven’t set foot in a gay bar in practically a decade, if not longer. Coincidence? Probably not.)

Yesterday was a nice, quiet day around here. I spent the day doing chores around work duties. Sparky was his usual Big Energy Kitten self, galloping around and leaping at me and climbing me to ride my shoulders (his favorite place, I swear), but I managed to get dishes done and laundry finished and some picking up around here done before the LSU Gymnastics meet last night at Missouri; they didn’t win the meet and they had a below-par performance, especially after logging one of the highest scores of the year the week before against Kentucky. But it’s a long season and you can never count them out, as we discovered last year when they made the Final Four at the end of the year. After that we watched the figure skating, which wasn’t great, frankly. But I am happy for Amber Glenn to finally win the national title, even if she kind of backed into it, and it’ll be fun to watch the ice dance and the men this weekend. It was also a nice day because Paul worked at home, so he was here all day too, which I liked. I hate being a Festival widow, seriously. But it’ll be past soon, and then we’ll be heading into the summer with all that entails–stinging caterpillars, swarming termites, and high Entergy bills.

I’m hoping to get some good writing work done this weekend and not to be lazy, which is always a struggle for me. I want to get this first draft of “When I Die” finished, and I really want to finish the first draft of “Parlor Tricks” this weekend, as well as some other writing as well. I also have a stack of mail to get through, and some filing and other mess to straighten up here in the office space, which is all too often a victim of Big Kitten Energy, and it is again this morning as well. I also want to do the floors on the first floor again, and we also need to change the vent filter for the HVAC system, which is undoubtedly seriously overdue. (I need to order more filters, too, since the one I have is the last one, and there are some other things I could use from Lowe’s I could have delivered as well. Yay, delivery! I also need some things from Office Depot, but I don’t mind walking over there in the rain to get it, either. Maybe I can order a pizza for lunch from U Pizza as well as some things from Office Depot, which I can pick up in one fell swoop? I’m really getting back into pizza again, if you hadn’t noticed, but it had been years since I had a real pizza before Paul brought that one home from Midway on Freret–which is what I really want, actually–but I suppose the smart thing to do is finish this, do some email and cleaning around here while eating breakfast, then figuring out what I need to get from places and making an errand plan for either today or tomorrow. Of course, I could save the groceries until tomorrow as well….hmmm. Decisions, decisions.

Choices, said in Tatianna’s voice.

Looks like someone’s Big Kitten Energy has awakened as well, as I hear things crashing to the floor from the counters behind me. Sparky sure is lucky he is so darned cute and sweet, you know? LOL. He actually is, and he is definitely the boss around here too, with both of us wrapped around his monstrously sized paw.

All right, I think it’s time to bring this to a close and get on with the day. I need to empty the dishwasher and do some filing and cleaning, and I also need to make something to eat because I woke up very hungry this morning. So have a lovely Saturday wherever you are, Constant Reader, and who knows? I may be back later; I may not be back until tomorrow; it’s a mystery!