Tag: American Revolution

Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)

Saturday morning and I have a couple of errands to do this morning. I need to go by the bank (I haven’t made a deposit in person in eons) and I have to swing by the grocery store. Sigh. I really didn’t want to leave the house today, but here we are. It’s also a struggle these days to get through as we go through and experience the collapse of the American experiment in self-rule. I think another significant part of our history that isn’t taught the way it should be is we aren’t taught about how many Tories there were in the colonies during the lead up to and aftermath of the Revolution. We aren’t taught New England threatened to secede during the War of 1812, or that there were people on both sides of the Civil War1 that sympathized with the other side; North and South weren’t monoliths the way we are taught. We aren’t taught about how many Americans were Nazi sympathizers and isolationists before Pearl Harbor, using the slogan “America First”–so you see why I have always raised a cynical eyebrow whenever anyone uses that slogan; it was tied to Nazi sympathizers to me.

Watching the collapse of our country is challenging and more than a little bit depressing. It is terrible that just as I approach the age of retirement and the final chapter of my life…well, the retirement may turn out to be involuntary, as my clinic’s funding is definitely on the chopping block, Social Security is about to be looted and destroyed, and I don’t want to even look at the paltry 401k, which has also probably evaporated. No job and no retirement funds is going to be awesome when I turn 64. Paul got the notice from the NEH to not bother applying for grant funding, as it’s all been cut, so his job may not survive this, either–no more festivals in the spring. So, miss me with “we need to be nice to MAGA voters now finding out”–fuck them now and forever. I will never forgive them, and their suffering lightens mine. You want to embrace them, be my guess. Me? I will never stop laughing and pointing, let alone mocking them and enjoying their tears. My patience has worn out for ignorant haters, sorry not sorry– and as they so eloquently put it, “fuck your feelings.”

Yesterday was a nice day, overall. I got up, had a virtual meeting at work, and then did my Admin work before running some errands. I got that done, and then Paul and I made a Costco run and spent an insane amount of money. After getting home, lugging everything into the house and putting it all away, I was tired. I collapsed into my chair for a while as Paul went upstairs to work on the NEH grant–but got the email so didn’t have to bother for the rest of the evening and we dove further into The Residence, which I am greatly enjoying. Uzo Adoba is fantastic as Cordelia Copp, the world’s greatest detective, and it’s very well cast, high production values, and the writing is quite crisp. The chief usher at the White House (the divine Giancarlo Esposito) is murdered during a state dinner, and Cordelia is brought in to solve the murder. I think what’s most interesting is the divide between the White House domestic staff v. the White House political staff; the domestics work for the House, the political staff comes and goes. I’d never really thought much about the staff of the residence, so it’s an interesting look at how that all works, and it’s very cleverly structured. Highly recommend.

I do have some errands to do today, and a lot of straightening up to do as well. I want to get some reading and writing in this morning, so I can go to the gym tomorrow (I know, right?) and get some more done. I’ve been letting things slide a lot lately, which probably means I am depressed, which isn’t surprising, given the state of the world and everything else going on in my life. I think there’s an element of why bother with this book, to be honest, which is counter-productive and quite self-destructive, but it’s hard to be productive when your default is almost always pessimism. I always knew Republicans were working very hard to destroy everything decent about this country (unfettered capitalism is sociopathic in nature), but I never dreamed they might actually succeed. To paraphrase Game of Thrones: “Whenever I wonder why the Republicans would do something so counter-productive to democracy, I like to play a little game: what is the worst reason they would want to do this?”

Littlefinger was right, even if he did end up with his throat slit for his treachery.

Yesterday I also realized that one of the great American traditions, going back to colonial days, of evading paying duties and tariffs was smuggling. I used to love to read about Colonial smugglers (John Hancock was one), and some great fiction was built up around smuggling. I’ve always thought the years of Prohibition (and alcohol smuggling) in New Orleans would be an interesting time to write about. That decade saw the rise of Huey Long to power in Louisiana, and there are some fantastic stories about that post-Storyville time here. Jean Lafitte was a pirate, too–but he was also a very successful smuggler. But again, one of the great problems of New Orleans/Louisiana research is going down wormholes and sidebars–my ADHD does not matters at all in this regard; I do remember wanting to write about “Mrs. Officer,” the first woman cop in New Orleans, who was hired because they needed a woman to search and interrogate criminal women, which was a problem during Storyville days. I mean, what a great decade to research and write about! Imagine what “Mrs. Officer”2 endured in terms of misogyny as the only woman cop in an era where women couldn’t vote.

There’s also a protest today scheduled in New Orleans, as well as around the country. I’m hoping to make it, it just depends on how tired I am after getting things done this morning. I feel pretty good right now, but that also doesn’t mean I won’t flag later, either.

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

  1. This is a classic example of why I say we don’t teach history properly (which will end up being a longer-form essay for my newsletter at some point). There were plenty of Tories during the American Revolution. There were Southern sympathizers in the North and Unionists in the South–I knew about the North, but whenever I’d come across that about the South I figured it was after-the-fact apologia, excusing Southern whites for their inhumanity. But over the least few years as I’ve done more deep dives into Alabama history, and hearing more old family stories, I’ve come to realize it was actually true. Erik Larson discusses this in more detail in his The Demons of Unrest, which I do recommend. ↩︎
  2. SHe was always referred to as “Mrs. Officer,” which also makes a great title. ↩︎

Take Me Home

Tuesday morning and we made it through Monday. I was correct; after running errands yesterday I was very tired when I got home from work. I spent some time with Sparky and did some chores, but overall, didn’t do a lot once I got home. We did watch some Arrested Development, too, before I went to bed. It’s very cold again this morning, but I’ll just wear layers to work and it’s also super cool that I came home to a warm apartment yesterday (as opposed to how it felt when I got up yesterday morning in the bitter, bitter cold–okay, maybe I was the bitter one and not the cold). Tonight I have to get the mail on the way home, before settling in to get my chores done and maybe do some reading and writing. I feel like I’ve already acclimated back into my regular life, but it’s also still relatively early in the week. There’s no telling how I will feel by Thursday. And next week is jury duty, and this weekend is not only parades but rain, so not sure how that is going to go at all for parade season.

I did breakthrough yesterday on something I’m working on with a bunch of other writers (to be honest, I’ve done very little thus far and have basically been one of those who came along for the ride) and did the things I was supposed to have been doing mostly yesterday, and must say I was very pleased with the result. Huzzah! I felt very accomplished, I have to say; that’s been hanging over my head for months, and I’ve certainly been checked out since the election. I’m not sure that I’m checking back in completely–it’s kind of been nice staying insular in my own little world these past few months–and I do think, going forward, that some of the decisions I’ve made about my peace and peace of mind are going to be a definitive priority in my life. I don’t need people upsetting me and/or pissing me off, and the methodology I use for social media now–annoy me and you’re blocked–is going to be the foundation for dealing with people from now on. I used to let things slide with people, and it’s definitely worn me down and out with those folks…because they always get worse. So, yeah–no more Mr. Nice Gay.

And I am finished apologizing to other people for not living up to their expectations. That is your problem, and it’s never going to be mine. I disappointed you? That’s on you.

Just like I got tired of people telling me, in excruciating detail, of what a bad person I am and a terrible friend. Well, I never claimed to be anything other than who I am. You don’t like it? I don’t give a fuck.

We’ll see how long that lasts, won’t we?

Probably not long. I think sometimes I might have too much empathy? I mean, I feel bad for fictional characters that don’t exist, too.

But I am going to try to not let the bastards get me down, and I feel like the best way for me to fight back, given my old age, is to write. Writing is activism, and always should be. Writers have changed the world for the better–the writings of French philosophers about the ancien regime and its abuses eventually led to the French Revolution; Marx and Lenin also wrote manifestos; and that’s not taking into consideration all the writers who opposed tyranny and wrote about freedom and justice led to our own revolution–and the Civil War. I am not a journalist nor a political scientist nor a historian, but I’ve read enough history and followed politics (and the combination of the two) over the course of my life to understand where all this bullshit we’re dealing with originally came from1, and while I am certain, better analysis of things would come from experts in that field…but I can write about them as a citizen, what I think about these issues and why, can’t I?

And I could never be as entirely wrong about everything as MAGAs and Andrew Sullivan.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be here again tomorrow morning.

  1. Helpful hint: remember how Hilary Rodham Clinton was mocked for talking about a “vast right-wing conspiracy” in the 1990s? Once again, she was right–and had people listened to her maybe we wouldn’t be where we are, here today. ↩︎

La Marseillaise

Nothing to me was more amusing in the “brou-ha-ha” that triggered MAGAs during the Paris Opening Ceremonies. Their myopic and narrow view of what art and history can be, as well as their whining about blasphemy (while being the target audience for the Trump Blasphemy Bible), made me laugh really hard as I watched it unfold on-line the other night. Nothing shows American tribalism in its purest form (and earns us the scorn and mockery of the world) than criticizing the art and culture and history of another country–one that has existed centuries and centuries longer than ours can ever dream of lasting–and being offended by probably one of those strongest and most respected cultures of all time in the fucking world is why Europe is currently laughing at us as uncultured idiots.

(And for the record, there would be no United States without France. Period. We had no navy and therefore couldn’t have trapped Cornwallis at Yorktown. Know your own fucking history, MAGA morons, and miss me with all the “We saved France from the Germans twice!” bullshit. We were repaying a debt that can never be fully repaid, and if you think the French aren’t grateful–they honor our fallen soldiers far more than we do…especially taking into consideration the MAGA’s hero wouldn’t even visit the cemeteries in Normandy because it was “raining”, i.e. “it takes too long to do my face and hair to go out into the rain.”)

My personal favorites were the uneducated whines about the French mocking Marie Antoinette by showing her holding her head and singing from the disembodied face. Um, the French hated her, and whether she was to blame for France’s cratering economy or not is besides the point. She wasn’t a martyr, and the French have never regretted executing either her or her husband Louis XVI. France doesn’t regret its revolution and toppling its monarchy in the least. There is no revisionist history in France, like how the Russians have done with rehabilitating the Romanovs–and that was more about distancing themselves from the Bolsheviks more than anything else. There have been a lot of books over the years that have tried to rehabilitate her, and make modern readers have sympathy for her. I’ve never really understood this, even as I myself was convinced into pitying her for being stupid and pretty vapid (Victoria Holt’s The Queen’s Confession was the first of these apologist books I read) and getting unfairly blamed by the French people for their problems–which existed long before she came from Vienna to be their dauphine and eventual queen.

In a nutshell, she never had a chance with the French people. She was Austrian, and Austria had been a mortal enemy of France’s since the marriage of Maximilian of Austria to Mary of Burgundy in 1476. The rise of Prussia as a militaristic power in the early eighteenth century had both France and Austria alarmed; so France changed its natural alliance with Prussia (an enemy of Austria’s) and partnered up with Austria and Russia. The result was the Seven Years’ War, which ended with France losing its global empire and bankrupting the country–which was already on shaky economic ground. The unpopular alliance with Austria was further cemented by the marriage of the young dauphin to the Austrian princess in 1770. The people and court hated her almost from the start, but even without the “enemy princess” stuff, she was the symbol of a hated alliance that had cost the country a lot of its pride and income sources, making the economic issues in France even worse1. The smears from rival factions at court–in which politics were treated as a game everyone was playing, for good or bad, no matter how much it weakened the monarchy and aristocracy–or even more egregious: how it weakened and destabilized France on the world stage. The inequality in France–and the carelessness of the aristocracy in believing the people would never rise against them–was a gathering storm all through the 1780’s, and even worse, the French support of the American Revolution caused France to default on its debt not once but twice that decade. Louis XVI was an ineffectual king at a time when France needed a strong king who could take the reins and fix things with reform, but it was not to be.

And in the end, the Bastille was stormed on July 14, 1789, and four years later the French executed their by-then deposed king and queen–and most of the aristocracy that hadn’t fled abroad when they could.

The French are very proud of their revolution; their national anthem (this entry’s title) was the song of the French Revolution, and their national flag is the flag of the revolution. Why would anyone think the French have rehabilitated the reputations and historical views of the king and queen they executed in a revolution that is still a source of national pride?

I’ve always found the way English and American writers love to rehabilitate the reputations of reviled kings and queens throughout history. Do the British celebrate Charles I as an English martyr and saint? They do not–although modern writers definitely are apologists for him and his awful wife. The way Americans–the original anti-monarchists in the world–are so fascinated by royalty and apologists for their awfulness is an irony that would have confused the founders…as well as how many Americans seem to be on board with authoritarianism.

Seriously, Americans. Read a fucking book sometime, and stop embarrassing us all on the world stage.

French Olympic gold and silver medalist for ice dancing Guillaume Cizeron.
  1. This is why Les Liaisons Dangereuses was such an electrifying work when it was published in the 1780s; we’ve enjoyed it as a modern entertainment, but the time that has passed since it was published has removed the sting from what was at the time an indictment of the French aristocracy’s immorality. ↩︎

Just Ask Your Heart

Thursday and my last day in the office this week. I wasn’t as tired yesterday as I had been the day before, thank the Lord, but was still a bit raggedy as I got to the end of the workday. I was efficient at the office yesterday, but man, there was a very weird vibe to the day. Maybe it was the use of the National Guard on college campuses? I don’t care what you think or what your opinions, values and beliefs are we should never be calling out the military to handle “security” on college campuses. I get that the right hates college students–they always have; they cheered the Kent State shootings fifty-four years ago–and it’s just astonishing to me that no one makes the connections to the last years of the North American colonial period? It was all protests until the war actually started in 1775–the Boston Tea Party was particularly a notable one. What did the British do to maintain order in Boston? They brought in the military to quench and quell dissent, outlawed protesting and criticism of the King and Parliament…and none of it worked, it simply agitated the colonials to more protest and eventually violence. I always laugh a bit when the right wing–the ones who scream about liberties and freedom all the time–call for ending protests, driving cars into protestors, etc. They are the British in this scenario. And yes, the conservative colonists were actually on Britain’s side. It was the radicals and the progressives who defied King and Parliament and created a country.

The right to peaceably assemble and protest is imbedded in our national DNA and included in the Bill of Rights. But no one seems to care about the actual Constitution anymore (looking at you, SCOTUS), just what they think it means so they can defend their indefensible and unconstitutional beliefs and values.

I also wrote a great opening line for my future project The Crooked Y: “I hated the place they took me to after they arrested Mom.”

We did watch some more of Vigil last night, and there’s only one episode left in the first season, which will we watch tonight and most likely move into Season 2. It’s very good; it’s. a murder mystery/suspense thriller where a lot of the action takes place on a British nuclear submarine on patrol. It’s very well written, well acted, and riveting. The British are the best at crime series, seriously–and they are consistently good. I’m not sure why our crime series aren’t as consistently good as theirs are, but there it is.

I continued on my research wormhole yesterday about the French Quarter Stabber–seriously, once I get something in my head it gnaws at me until I give in–and it’s okay, I think. I feel more rested this morning than I have all week, really, and so hopefully that will carry me through the rest of the day and into the evening. I think I’ll probably just come straight home from work tonight, since i can run errands on my lunch break tomorrow, and that way I can get here and get the laundry started while finishing the dishes and doing some writing before Paul gets home. I also want to get back to reading Suicide Notes and even dipping into some poetry. (Who am I?) But I am starting to feel like I am also starting to get it; I like discovering it for myself without having professorial expectations loaded onto me–which always made me hate whatever I was being forced to read unwillingly–and I always love figuring things out for myself. Perhaps I’ll be wrong, but at the same time, everything is dependent on the reader, right, and their interpretations? It’s subjective, so therefore there’s no wrong way of reading it. It’s not like I plan on starting to write it or anything.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. I hope to have a great day where I get a lot done, and perhaps I’ll be able to finish another draft post…stranger things have happened! Thanks for stopping by–I appreciate you taking the time from your very busy day to check in.

Johnny Are You Queer?

I have been wanting to rewatch Johnny Tremain for quite some time now.

When Disney Plus went live, the first thing I did (after subscribing) was search for it there; I did this at least once every two weeks since the service launched, to no avail. I would look for it on Amazon Prime, Netflix, everywhere; whenever I would sign up for yet another streaming service I would look for it. I never quite understood–and still don’t–why Disney Plus doesn’t have it; but the other day at work I realized I hadn’t looked for it for a while, so signed into Disney Plus on my browser: nope. Oh might as well give Amazon Prime a try, I thought, although Disney not having one of its own properties while another streaming service had it was, I thought, highly unlikely.

And yet, there it was: to rent or buy. I didn’t want to buy it, and I really hate paying to rent to stream something when I already pay for far too many streaming services (I really need to get past the mentality of subscribing when I want to watch something when it’s far cheaper in the long run to merely rent the movie or show), but I’v been wanting to rewatch this movie for years and there it finally was; so I did, and rewatched it yesterday whilst making my daily allotment of condom packs.

I also remembered, when I found the film, that Johnny Tremain was my gateway drug to not only my lifelong interest in American history–which eventually led to an interest in history in general. We had an assembly at my elementary school to watch the movie, and I saw it again when it aired on The Wonderful World of Disney (it may even have still been Disney’s Wonderful World of Color). I eventually read the book, which I got from a Scholastic Book Fair, and it became a treasured favorite. I also recognized, before rewatching the movie as a sixty-year-old, that it was a Disney film aimed for kids made in the 1950’s during the Red Scare when we were all living under the shadow of the mushroom cloud; Walt himself was, among many other things, a deeply conservative pro-America anti-Communist homophobe, and given all those things, it was going to most likely be–if looked at with a cold, judgmental, independent eye–a barely disguised propaganda film. (I am also curious to reread the book; since it was published in 1943, during the height of the second world war, it was also probably pro-American propaganda, when all the country needed to be united to believe that we were fighting evil to make the world a better place, and since American democracy was the be-all end-all…you see what I mean?)

I mean, once you recognize and identify Lost Cause mythology as an ideation to perpetrate and protect white supremacy, it’s also relatively easy to start reexamining all of American history and see the mythology that has been built up around the founding and creation of the country, as well as the deification of the Founding Fathers.

But while I was researching the book and movie the other day, I also came across a paper–queer theory–by Dr. Frank Henderson at Furman University that essentially reexamines the text of the novel from a queer perspective looking for subtext: the piece is titled “Could Johnny Tremain Be Gay? Reinterpretation as a Subversive Act” and was published in the Journal of Homosexuality (I read the abstract, and an article about it, rather than paying $40 to access the actual paper and read it; seriously, how do academics research if this stuff is so expensive? I will probably try to track a copy down through the library; which I guess, actually, is what academics do), and it gave me some pause for thought. I do remember that Johnny was more bratty and selfish in the book than he was in the movie (I remember being startled by this when I read the book the first time) and he literally had nothing but disdain for Cilla or any other girl in the book (which, at the time, was part and parcel of that weird societal norm or belief that prepubescent boys think girls are icky and don’t like them or want anything to do with them–again, very odd in a heteronormative culture) but when he becomes friends with Rab, an older boy involved with the Sons of Liberty, he almost idol-worships the older boy and allows himself to forget his innate selfishness and get involved with something bigger than himself–the revolutionary thinking that led Boston to revolt in the first place. That can be read, as Dr. Henderson states, as a queer relationship between the boys, and that Johnny could be read as queer. I seriously doubt that was what Esther Forbes was thinking when she wrote the book–the book was meant for boys and there was, as I said, that weird “boys don’t like girls” norm for a very long time (it certainly was a consistent theme in Disney productions aimed at boys; same with the Hardy Boys book and other mystery/adventure series aimed at boys from the time). This was in theory erased from the film…but I’m not entirely sure it was.

First of all, there’s absolutely no question that Hal Stalmaster, who played Johnny but never really worked much afterwards, mostly guesting on television shows, was a stunningly beautiful young man.

He also wasn’t a very good actor, but the heavy-handed direction of any Disney live-action film aimed at kids for a very long time didn’t inspire the best work from the cast (Mary Poppins, of course, being an exception).

The young actor who played Rab was also ridiculously good looking–and turned out to be a younger Richard Beymer (billed as Dick) who would go on to play Tony in West Side Story and later, Twin Peaks–and they certainly had more chemistry together than Johnny had with Cilla, who was turned into a love interest of sorts, with him giving her a quick peck on the cheek (their only intimacy) as he runs through the streets of Boston with the news that the British would be leaving Boston “by sea”.

The movie was very typical Americana–so yes, propaganda–which sterilized and cleaned up the period in Boston before the outbreak of the war, with rather stiff pronouncements about ideals and principles and freedom and the rights of man and liberties and tyranny–all the patriotic buzzwords cast about by people who want to silence those who don’t agree with them–without any real explanation of what that means.

And yet, as oversimplified and “cleaned up” as this is made to be in the movie, it’s still effective–it’s very stirring to think about the nerve of the American rebels, doing something practically unheard of in history–not just defying their king (there was a long history of rebellions against the worst abuses of kingship throughout the centuries; just the century before the British actually beheaded their king and did without one for eleven or so years; 150 years before Louis XVI went to the guillotine in Paris) but defying the might of the most powerful and richest empire the world had ever seen. It’s hard not to think about–although everyone in this movie is a revolutionary, all Bostonians except for the villains, and the villainous American loyalists are actually worse than the British military themselves–what that period must have been like to live through; the divided loyalties, the betrayal of neighbor by neighbor, spies and treachery and murders. (I’d love to write a historical mystery set in Boston during this period, actually.)

It’s not a bad movie, but it’s also not a great one; and it certainly does its part in upholding the mythology created about the American revolution.

And yes, this could easily be yet another essay.

True Faith

Saturday morning and I am about to head back out to Metairie; I just got an email that my computer is repaired and ready for pick-up! This is very exciting, obviously–I am terribly relieved to not have to buy a new one–and I am excited to have a desktop computer again. Hurray for a big screen to make up for my failing eyes! I am also going to be dropping off books later today at the library sale, and donating beads to ARC of New Orleans; the living room is slowly being dragged back from hoarder’s hell and starting to look functional and bearable and usable again, which is incredibly lovely. I managed to hang one of the laundry room doors by myself yesterday; this morning I’ll also be rehanging the other door, clearing up more space and opening up the living room even further.

We finished watching The Crime of the Century last night–quelle surprise, disgusting piece of shit Marsha Blackburn helped pass a bill gutting the DEA’s ability to investigate and punish drug companies for lying to the public, reminding viewers again she’s always been trash and a cosplay Christian without a soul–and the documentary is further evidence that our country and our system has been corrupted and is broken. It’s more than a little infuriating to know that so many people have died and/or become addicted thanks to the complicity of our elected officials, and there is never any accountability for corporations or the rich. Back in the 1990’s I used to simply shake my head and thin we are becoming very similar, as a nation, to 1780′ France and the last days of Czarist Russia and when it comes the second American revolution will be far worse than either of those revolutions, which were widespread and incredibly bloody…I hope I don’t live long enough to see it or experience it, quite frankly. I had an idea–when don’t I have one?–back then for a book about a dystopian future after the collapse of our government and society; dystopias aren’t so much in vogue anymore, but it’s still a valid idea and concept, but it’s been foremost in my brain lately.

We also started watching Halston on Netflix last night, and it’s quite fun; definitely worth watching for the acting, and Ewan MacGregor is fantastic in the title role. I’ve actually been thinking about the 1970’s a lot lately; not sure why I’ve been going down this nostalgic trip down memory lane, but I have been and so Halston kind of plays into that for me. It has everything to do, no doubt, with my idea to write a book about a suburban serial killer, a la the Candyman/Gacy, called Where the Boys Die; I’ve been looking up things (classmates.com has copies of my high school yearbooks even; mine were lost years ago) all over the place when I get bored and when I don’t feel like reading or writing. What will eventually happen with that, I don’t know–if anything–but I realize this morning that I haven’t been writing much this month–I’ve definitely been off, if not my rocker, but my game. I kind of have been ever since my desktop computer ceased functioning properly; I don’t think getting my computer back is going to be some kind of magic cure-all, but it should be a start.

After I dropped off the computer at the Apple Store and while I was waiting for my next appointment, I stopped at the Barnes and Noble on Veterans’ to kill time. I can’t remember the last time I set foot in a B&N; obviously it was pre-pandemic, but it was much longer ago than that, obviously. It was a bit strange to be in such a public space (the Apple Store opens two hours before the rest of the mall, so walking through the almost-deserted halls and past all the closed stores had a sort of Night of the Living Dead feel to it–I know that’s probably not the right zombie/Romero film, but I’ve actually never seen any of those so sue me) but B&N was more confined and had more people–it was still pretty empty, but it was a strange experience. But it was lovely being in a bookstore–I resisted the urge to spend hundreds of dollars and limited myself to a lovely, inexpensive B&N edition of The Iliad and The Odyssey–and it was also interesting to walk around looking at books and seeing so many friends on the shelves, tables, and end-caps. The MWA handbook, How to Write a Mystery, was prominently displayed on the NEW RELEASES shelves, and I found myself examining books and just enjoying being around books.

Speaking of which, I started reading Robyn Gigl’s By Way of Sorrow, and am enjoying it. I need to get it finished, though, so I can read From Here to Eternity on my trip next week (yikes, I leave on Thursday).

So, my plan for today is to get my computer set up again, rehang the other door, run those errands and swing by the grocery store as well. With all of these other things taken care of, I also intend to clean today so tomorrow I will have the day free to answer emails, do some writing, and go to the gym….then it’s three days of work and the trip to Kentucky, and then before I know it, May will be ending and it will be June. #madness.

And on that note, I need to get cleaned up so I can head out to the Lakeside mall. Happy Saturday, Constant Reader!

Chemical

Well, we have apparently survived yet another Monday, so here it is Tuesday morning again.

My manic Monday wasn’t too bad, other than the utter insanity of an issue with my car insurance that is going to end up wasting more of my own time than it’s worth, to be completely honest. I did start getting tired in the afternoon–it’s not easy being a Gregalicious–but I got some emails answered (I will never get all of my emails answered, and that’s just a sad fact I need to accept; because there will always be more) when I got home and then repaired to my easy chair where I finished watching Sons of Liberty. (Paul didn’t get home until just before it was time for me to go to bed.) And here I am this morning with the space heater on–it’s chilly in the Lost Apartment this morning, but I am sure it’s going to warm up during the day time–and apparently our new HVAC unit will be installed today; they’ve been doing all the other work the last few days; it was quite astonishing to come around the last corner to the apartment last night and see a big blank space where the big unit used to be. Better late than never, I suppose, and I hope this means a stronger unit that will help offset the loss of the trees when the sun will shine directly through these windows in the summer time, creating a glass house effect in my kitchen. (I’ve been trying not to think about that too hard.)

I bit the bullet and asked for more time for the book–deadline extension–and they gave me longer than I asked for, which was an enormous relief and pressure release on me. They were actually very lovely about it, and apparently I am much more fragile emotionally than I thought because the kindness of the response almost made me choke up…which wasn’t the response I was expecting to have. I feel like I’m doing a fairly decent job of soldiering on through everything that’s going on in the world and around me these days–so much PTSD, from so many past traumas, I suppose–not to mention that it seems like almost everyone I know is going through a rough time. Two friends lost their fathers over the course of the past week, for example, and there have been so many other issues for everyone I know and care about that it’s almost like one body blow after another. And yet I keep moving forward because there’s no other option, really, and just keep sending out positive energy to my friends while keeping them deep inside my heart and mind and soul. I’ve said it before and I will say it again here–there’s nothing worse than seeing people you care about suffering when there’s nothing you can do about it.

Hell, I don’t even know if people in Texas have recovered from the horror of last week. So many people I owe emails to…heavy heaving sigh. The emails are endless, aren’t they?

The other good news is Paul has finally been scheduled for the vaccine, round one, on Thursday. That’s one less stressor off my plate, and it just now occurred to me that there’s another, buried stressor inside my head–now that I am older, I fear I am going to see a repeat of the past where I keep living while so many people I love and care about do not. After all, it’s happened before, and I think that’s part of the issue of my facing my age and so forth lately–the fear that I will outlive everyone I care about again. Obviously, I am not hoping that I die soon or anything like that–but recognizing a fear that’s been imprinted on my brain, no matter how unrealistic or nonsensical it may be, will certainly help me figure out how to cope with it or conquer it entirely, I think.

Watching Sons of Liberty (and did they ever take liberties with history!) was a pleasing enough diversion; I always enjoy the Revolutionary period–it’s been a favorite of mine since childhood–so when I was finished with the final episode–the signing of the Declaration of Independence–I got down my copy of The Wars of America by Robert Leckie and started reading the bridge section between The Colonial Wars and the Revolutionary War; Leckie’s book is really a history of the country as told through the perspective of the wars and the lead-up to them in the periods between them. Leckie is a very good writer–The Wars of America is one of my favorite histories–but he definitely is a subscriber to the mythology of American exceptionalism, even as he talks right up front about the evils of slavery and the slaughter of the indigenous. (The copy of the book I have now is not the one I had when I was a child; this is an updated version including the Korean and Vietnam wars, and he is very much a drum-thumping anti-Communist right-winger when it comes to those two conflicts, to the point that I’ve never read those chapters because the native jingoism is too much for me to stomach) As I mentioned yesterday, I am now thinking a series of mysteries set in revolutionary Boston, with John Adams as defense attorney and investigator, would be highly interesting. I doubt that I will ever have the time to research or write such a series, but I do wish someone would. I believe–and could be wrong; it just flitted into my brain as a memory–there was at one time an Abigail Adams mystery series; I never read it, but now am curious enough about it to go looking to see if it’s a false memory or not. I mean, why not? Both Eleanor Roosevelt and Margaret Truman have been the main character in crime series, so why not Abigail? (A very quick search has, indeed, offered up an Abigail Adams mystery series written by Barbara Hamilton; it’s nice to know it wasn’t a figment of my imagination….alas, yet another series of books to go not ye olde wish list.)

And tonight, of course, once I am off work I must go to the gym. I am sure I will have to force myself to go–the temperatures will undoubtedly start falling again after I get off work, so there will be that…but it will feel good, as will the protein shake and shower afterwards. I also have another load of laundry to get started tonight when I get home.

The glamorous life, that’s me.

Have a lovely day, Constant Reader!

The Samurai in Autumn

Autumn seems but a distant dream these hot New Orleans August days.

I slept really well last night–dream-free, for the first time in awhile–and have lots to do today. I have, of all things, a mammogram scheduled for today. I have a lump–two actually–one in my right pectoral, close to the center of my chest, and another one directly below it. They’ve been there for awhile, and my doctor believes they are merely fatty cysts and not a problem of any kind, but also thinks its perhaps better to be safe rather than sorry. I knew that “breast cancer” was a possibility for men, even if on the low side, and again, I am not terribly concerned about it–but having a mammogram, something women do (or should do) all the time, is going to be an interesting experience.

I was very tired when I got home from work yesterday; too tired to write, too tired to read, too tired to do much of anything, so I just collapsed into my easy chair and read some more of the section in Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly titled “The Renaissance Popes Trigger the Protestant Secession.” It’s a book I’ve reread many times over the years–it has four sections; the first about the Trojan War, the second about the Popes, the third about Britain forcing the American colonies into revolution, and the fourth is “America Loses Herself in Vietnam.” I’ve never actually read the fourth section; my knowledge of the Vietnam conflict is very limited, actually, and I should eventually read up on it more–but what I do know of it hasn’t really encouraged me to read any more about it, frankly. It was a mistake from beginning to end, and it also triggered an enormous societal divide in our country that endures to this day; much of our social unrest, and the partisan divide, was initially started because of Vietnam, and then politicians used that divide in a very short-sighted and, as Tuchman would call it, have engaged into a march of folly for short-term political power that has ultimately further divided the country and undermined our democracy.

I’m going to eventually read that section, of course, and at some point i really need to learn more facts about the war than simply things I’ve heard and the movies I’ve seen; fictions based on the reality are still fictions, of course. I have an idea for a story or book that comes from the war–but also am not sure I am the right person to write it. The “#ownvoices” movement is an important one, and while nuanced, is one i have very strong opinions about. The problem is one cannot make general statements, because there are examples of people writing from other experiences that have been done exceptionally well; Barbara Hambly’s Benjamin January series, about a free man of color in pre-Civil War New Orleans, springs to mind. But there also egregious examples in the other direction–and plenty more of them to choose from to use when arguing about the need for #ownvoices–but you know how cisgender straight white people get when their privilege is even slightly, politely questioned (American Dirt, anyone?). But writing a noir novel from the point of view of a young man of Vietnamese descent–while born and raised in the United States–makes me a little squeamish; I certainly don’t want to take a publishing slot from an #ownvoices Vietnamese-American writer, and who knows if I’d even do a good job writing from that perspective? I’ve also always wanted to write a book (or some short stories) from the perspective of Venus Casanova, my African-American police detective from both the Scotty and Chanse series; I have an idea for two books with Venus as the main character, and have actually started writing two short stories centering Venus: “A Little More Jazz for the Axeman” and “Falling Bullets”, but have, over the last few months, began to question whether I should be telling those stories as well as potentially taking publishing slots away from actual African-American writers who can easily write authentically from their own experience. And yes, I know I could write the stories and then ask someone of color to be a “sensitivity reader” for them; but at the same time that always sort of reeks of the standard defense of white people who’ve said or done something racist: I have a black friend so I can’t be racist!

Um, yes, you can have friends of color and still say or do racist things.

We also watched two more episodes of Babylon Berlin last night–Paul commented at one point, “they really have an enormous budget, don’t they?”–and it’s quite enthralling, and quite an interesting lesson in history. As I said yesterday, not many Americans know much about the Weimar Republic phase of German history, other than it collapsed under the rise of Hitler. While exploring the case the main character, Gereon (I think that’s his name), is investigating, it actually stretches tentacles out in several other directions, and as one of the episodes last night showed a riot of Communists and the brutal suppression of the protest by the police, it occurred to me that what the show is doing is putting a face on the turmoil in the capital city of a collapsing republic, showing, in terms of humanity and human suffering, how someone like Hitler could rise to power. In our modern era, it’s very easy to forget how very real the threat (and fear) of Communism was in the west, and to Germans in particular. It’s very brilliantly written and very well-produced and filmed beautifully; the acting is stellar, and it’s providing insights into the situation in Germany in that period that we, as Americans, rarely see…and it brought to mind last night the line in Cabaret, “The Nazis will take care of the Communists and then we’ll deal with the Nazis.”

I also found my copy of the book, and have move it to the top of the TBR pile.

I do highly recommend the show.

And now back to the spice mines.

Roll With The Changes

Ah, Tuesday.

There’s a potential hurricane out there in the Gulf; yesterday the Gulf parishes and those adjacent went into hurricane watch status, with flash flood warnings and all that entails. Hurray! Only nineteen days into hurricane season…and we’re off to a good start. But I am very happy that this hurricane season I have a new car; which I still am in love with, I might add. I am still not used to the easy maneuverability; it catches me off guard sometimes with how easy it is to turn, or park, or get out of  parking spaces. All of which, of course, is lovely, as is the smooth ride.

Anyway, tropical storm conditions should be here sometimes this afternoon, which should make the drive home from work pleasant. It’s already gloomy and gray out there this morning; they’re saying this one might be named Cindy, and while I haven’t read everything on Weather.com thus far, it looks like Bret’s coming into the Caribbean Sea as well; although he looks to be more of a danger to South and Central America, Heavy heaving sigh. Looks like we’re going to have a highly active hurricane season this year.

Yay.

It looks like we might be giving up on Between; the third episode, which we watched last night, passed the campy enjoyability of overacting and bad writing to just bad. We may give it another episode–primarily because we don’t have anything else to watch as of yet, although we might go back to Turn, which we lost interest in during its second season (primarily because of a bad storyline that they seemed determined to drag out as much as possible) but was otherwise quite enjoyable; plus Jamie Bell, who plays the lead, was Billy in Billy Elliott when he was younger, so I am rather partial to him. I also love the time period, having a lifelong fascination with the Revolutionary War/colonial period (well, I love American history, and all history, really) but it was my fascination with the colonial period/Revolutionary War that initially triggered my interest in history.

I managed to rip through two chapters of the revision yesterday, and if I keep this pace going, I should be able to get the revision completely finished going into my long weekend of the 4th of July, which is when I intend to do all the polishing I need to get done. Paul will be off seeing his mother, which means I will get a lot of cleaning and reading done, and will probably be looking for old movies to watch–I’ll probably watch the live-action Beauty and the Beast while he’s gone, and of course there are a couple of shows we started watching that I can go back and finish–like MTV’s Scream–in order to keep myself entertained while he’s gone.

I also started writing a short story yesterday for a romance anthology I want to submit to; “Passin’ Time.” This is a story I’ve wanted to write for a long time; it’s kind of a sequel to “Everyone Says I’ll Forget in Time”, which was, I think, in the Foolish Hearts anthology (or was it Fool for Love?) about ten years or so ago. I’ve always wanted to write the sequel story, revisiting the burgeoning romance set up in the original story. (I very rarely want to revisit short story characters, so actually thinking about a sequel to a story I’ve written is in and of itself a curious enough occasion to make me want to do it.)

It’s now dark and raining outside; so I guess the outer, initial bands of  this storm i are starting to come ashore, or a storm front coming in ahead of the storm is here. (The bands weren’t supposed to be here until later this afternoon.)

So, I should probably head back into the spice mines before work.

Here’s your Tuesday morning hunk:

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