Tuesday and I am going to be hitting the road to drive north in a little bit. Twelve hours in the car with a Laurie King audiobook will be absolutely delightful. I am so glad I finally took a chance on listening to audiobooks in the car for long trips! I slept really well, which is nice, but I do worry about getting tired on the way, most likely after the adrenaline rush from the horrific traffic in Chattanooga and trying to get on I-75. But it’s Tuesday, and I am assuming there won’t be heavy traffic anywhere the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and hope that I will not be proven wrong. I had a pretty good day at work yesterday, too. I wasn’t in the clinic yesterday and was able to have an Admin Day for the first time in about two months, which certainly made my life a bit easier for when I get back. I started listening to Laurie’s audiobook yesterday, and I am intrigued; although I am going to have to get used to the narrator’s voice, because in reading, Mary’s voice sounds in my head like Laurie, and I have had the privilege of many conversations with her. She’s an absolute delight.
I got off work early yesterday a bit and came home, feeling good, but rather than doing much of anything, I kind of just wanted to chill out and hang with Paul and Sparky, which is what I ended up doing. It was nice, as always; it really is my favorite thing to do. There wasn’t much of a news day–today seemed rather anti-climactic, other than the possibilities of a Republican congressional revolt…most everything was gossip and innuendoes and what if’s, which don’t interest me much, and then two more episodes of Devil in Disguise. As I said recently, this is so well done and so realistically–it really exposes Ryan Murphy’s serial killer shows as the beautiful but ultimately hollow creations they are. This is the anti-Murphy serial killer series, I suppose. There’s an essay in there somewhere, methinks. I still have to pack, but I have also made a list, and I need to do some chores before cleaning up this morning and hitting the road. I was originally thinking about leaving at seven or thereabouts; I can still try to make that happen, but if it doesn’t…oh well. There’s no rush, no hurry other than getting it over and done with; but I shouldn’t feel any anxiety or concern about how long it is taking me or what time I actually hit the road….or how long I dawdle when I stop. But again, no rush, no need to hurry, just relax and take my time and hit the road when I am ready to, you know?
It is a beautiful drive for the most part, too. I imagine my mind will wander a bit from the narrative of the book, of course; that happens sometimes because the book will get to a spot where the language is particularly lovely, or the plot will take a turn, and that will trigger my mind to start thinking and creating free form.
And on that note, I am going to start getting those chores done and my bags packed. I don’t know when I will be back here–I usually have breakfast with Dad when I wake up, and don’t have a free moment until I retire to my room preparatory to sleeping, but at the same time…you never know. So, I am going to bid you adieu; I will be definitely back for sure on Sunday morning, bleary-eyed and tired. Have a lovely holiday, Constant Reader, and see you soon.
And Saturday has rolled around yet again here in the Lost Apartment. I slept well; didn’t really want to get out from under the pile of blankets, yet here I am, swilling coffee and eating coffee cake. I have some errands to run this morning–library sale, mail, make some groceries–and of course, it’s a college football day. LSU plays tonight, their final home game of the season, against Western Kentucky, but there aren’t a lot of games of interest to me, so I hope I can get a lot done around here while games play on the television. I feel pretty rested this morning, which is a good sign, methinks. I want to read and take notes on works-in-progress, preparatory to doing some actual writing tomorrow. I also got a very good start on cleaning the apartment yesterday, which should be easily finished this morning/afternoon; I don’t clean in the evenings.
I also need to update and revise my to-do list, and update my check register. I also want to work some on my next newsletter entry, too; which probably won’t be sent out until I get back home next weekend. I know from past experience I am not going to get much, if any, writing done while I am in Kentucky; I won’t even really be able to deal with emails much while I am up there. But it’s also a holiday week, so there shouldn’t be much of anything other than Black Friday and Cyber Monday spam. I also remembered that a later released Mary Russell novel by Laurie R. King actually should be read third in the series; O Jerusalem (Laurie herself told me this), so I went ahead and got the audiobook this morning, and will pack the hard copy so I can finish it while I am there (the audiobook is thirteen hours long, which means there should be an hour left when I arrive Tuesday night).
Yesterday was an interesting news day, wasn’t it? I don’t care to speculate about Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resignation from Congress; maybe she’ll try politics again, or being a commentator on cable news, but I don’t really see it. MS NOW (nice rebrand, eye roll) won’t have her, certainly Faux or Newsmax won’t now, so…CNN? It wouldn’t surprise me, to be honest. I prefer to take it at face value because she isn’t very complicated. She was roped in as a true believer; her echo chamber kept reminding her how hard she had to fight against the “deep state;” and when she had to face the brutal reality that the people she so fiercely defended simply used her and didn’t give a shit about anything she thought they did? Her behavior, and her demeanor, is something we’re probably going to have to get used to from former MAGA cultists; its shock and betrayal, and who could blame her?
People never listen, do they?
And the Mamdani visit to the White House? Holy shit. I was so focused on the Greene resignation and the Mamdani visit I have no idea what else went on in the news yesterday, but this morning on social media I’m seeing that vengeance criminal prosecutions also blew up in MAGA faces? I know the Comey prosecution is most likely going to end with Lindsay Halligan and Pam Bondi being rightfully disbarred (remember, Nixon didn’t go to jail but his Attorney General did); but I am going to have to look at some news websites to see what I may have missed. I also know New Orleans is preparing to handle the ICE invasion, which isn’t going to go well for them. Pity. Thoughts and prayers, fascists.
And I do mean that sincerely, bless their little hearts.
I ordered Christmas presents for my supervisor, Dad, and Paul; and just got the notice that they are being shipped, and will most likely arrive while I am gone. Look at me, being all prepared before the season even gets underway! Maybe I’ll send Christmas cards this year…one never knows, does one?
And on that note, I am going to take my coffee over to my easy chair and read some more of my Donna Andrews mystery. I’ll be back in the morning, though, so have a lovely day and I shall see you then.
Carlos Alcaraz, tennis star from Spain, is just adorable.
Tuesday morning, and we have survived to another day, haven’t we? And of course, my daily posts usually starting with some kind of commentary that boils down to “proof of life” at its most basic level is why people get concerned when I am not here every morning, isn’t it? The more you know…or more like, the more you think about something…which is certainly always the case with me.
Well, I slept really well last night and I feel pretty good thus far this morning. We weren’t terribly busy at the clinic yesterday (today, on the other hand, is a different story), and I ran errands on my way home from work. I’ll probably stop to make groceries on the way home (maybe), and this Friday I am taking the car in for some necessary maintenance (need to replace two tires, the air filter, and some other things need to be done). Tomorrow is pay-the-bills day, and maybe I can get everything done that I need to get done before the weekend so I can just stay home and read/write/clean. Yay! I’d like to get some writing done this week; I woke up to an email from my editor about Hurricane Season Hustle, and we need to schedule a call to discuss what remains to be done. Huzzah!
I also ordered the next dose of my injection medication yesterday from the specialty pharmacy, because I get to dose myself again in November. Look at me, staying on top of things and not blowing them off until the last possible minute. But I can also tell that it’s coming up, because I am having some slight stomach issues–but nothing serious; it’s what reminded me to go ahead and order it. Not to worry, Constant Reader–it’s the same thing I noticed in the last few weeks before I had my first injection last month. I don’t mind having a physical reminder, to be honest. I’ve become so forgetful lately that I worry about forgetting to order it–not as bad as I would have before anxiety medication, I need to point out–but am also hopeful those issues won’t be so bad once I am fully recovered physically from being sick this past spring. Now that I have sort of recovered from the trip, I am starting to feel more lively and alive this week, which is terrific. Alas, I do have to drive to Kentucky for Thanksgiving, which will be a TEST.
I am already dreading that drive, but will be listening to a Donna Andrews audiobook, which is really the best way to travel on long trips in the car. I cannot reiterate too much how delightful it is to listen to books in the car; I wish I had figured that out years earlier. Another one of those better late than never things, isn’t it?
We caught up a bit on Alien: Earth, which is a very interesting addition to the Alien IP. It looks like its going to finally get into what the xenomorphs are, where they came from, and what they want. I don’t remember a lot of the movies other than the first two (classics); I may have even not seen some of them and the prequels never really made a lot of sense to me. But we’re enjoying the show, and October seems like the right month to be watching it.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have yourself a lovely little Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow on Pay the Bills Wednesday!
Tuesday morning as I get back into the swing of my reality again. Yesterday was an easy way to slip back into the work grind, and I was tired most of the day. I was very tired by the time I got home from work and errands and things, collapsing into my chair and bingeing more of Boots, which we are really enjoying before retiring pretty early. I had hoped to get some more things done around the apartment, but I can only do what I am capable of doing, you know? It’s still going to take a bit longer for me to get reacclimated, and that’s perfectly fine. I can only do what I can, right? I also need to stop berating myself for being a little wobbly when I get back on the bicycle of my reality.
One of the goals for 2025 was to be kinder to myself–and I am constantly having to remind myself of that very thing. My default is to always take the blame, or to be self-critical, and that’s a cycle from childhood that I need to break. I also cannot believe how quickly this month has passed. What the hell? How is tomorrow the 15th already again? Heavy heaving sigh.
I’ve been thinking I might start trying to listen to audiobooks in the car while I run around doing errands and driving to and from work. I’m never in the car for very long, which is why I’m thinking it may not work–it could take weeks to completely listen to a book all the way through this way–but I could also listen while I take walks. I’d just need to get earphones with a connecting wire; I refuse to sell pints of blood so I can afford ear pods, which I would lose. And since the weather is now cooling down, going for walks in the evening and in the morning might not be a bad thing; and an easy way to start getting my endurance back after this hellish decade for me, health-wise. Although I suppose at my age, my health now is really about the time between illnesses and surgeries. Heavy sigh.
And yes, you can still get wired headphones for iPhones. I checked.
I’m also getting caught up on my day job stuff, and perhaps by the end of the day I can triumphantly shout from the rooftops that I am finally current on those duties. Huzzah! LSU plays at Vanderbilt this weekend, and the game is at 11. YIKES. I hate early games, and the Tigers also tend to not play as well early. Vanderbilt is a good team again this year, and we don’t know if LSU is actually a good team or not. I guess we’ll find out early Saturday morning, but at least the game will be out of the way early and the games the rest of the day won’t matter as much whether I pay attention or not, which means a good time for cleaning the apartment.
I also need to start going through the calls for submission that I’ve bookmarked as interesting ideas for me to try for. The entire time I was in Alabama, I was thinking about a novella-in-progress I have that I would like to get finished…yes, another Alabama story.
And I need to start cleaning out the storage attic. That shit’s not going to empty itself out, is it?
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back again tomorrow. I am off to make a to-do list!
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
I spent the day with Dad, going around to cemeteries and visiting graves and getting family history lessons. We went to the oldest known grave1 in Alabama–which is in the county, and Dad’s sister-in-law is descended from the Revolutionary War veteran buried there. We had lunch in a little diner in Carbon Hill which was phenomenal–old-style home Southern cooking (didn’t care for the cornbread, but no one could make cornbread as good as my mom, and you could tell it wasn’t baked in cast iron). It’s weird being here, a bit melancholy and always a bit sad–most of the older folks from when I spent summers here as a kid are all gone. I’m sixty-three, so that’s really not a surprise but I generally don’t think about that a lot when I’m not here; being here reminds me of things and people. I remembered one of my dad’s uncles, which shocked him because that uncle died when I was about seven. (I also remember my mother’s younger brother, who also died when I was seven, less than two weeks after he turned eighteen.) I even have a single memory of our first apartment in Chicago, when I just over two years old. It’s very faint, but I remember it–it was my first time hearing the air raid sirens (which used to be tested every day back then) and it scared me, so Mom picked me up and carried me out to the back porch and told me it wasn’t anything to be scared of, and it never bothered me again.2
I’m also glad to spend this time with Dad, and also get a break from every day life and the world burning to the ground3 for a brief respite. I was listening to Nick Cutter’s The Troop in the car yesterday (yes, I picked a book that wasn’t on my list of choices, but in fairness to me I’d forgotten I’d downloaded it), and really enjoying it. I’m looking forward to listening to the rest of it on the way home tomorrow. It’s surprised me; I don’t know what I was thinking the book was about other than knowing a Scout troop was having a camp out on a remote island, and it was horror. It is that, but I thought the threat, the big bad, was going to be a psycho killer; it’s such a slasher story set-up that my brain defaulted to that trope. But it’s not that at all–and it is so much worse than that. So much worse. It did get a slow start and I had to acclimate to driving from being at the office, so my mind was also wandering a bit…but once it gets going, it really gets going. I hope my mind is receptive enough to pick up on it again right away. There had been a big twist and shift to the story right as I got here and stopped listening, too. DAMN YOU CLIFFHANGERS!!!
Okay, I didn’t finish this on Friday night because I got sleepy–I was very tired–and then this morning I got up, packed, got cleaned up, packed the car, and had breakfast with Dad before I departed for my drive home. It’s always amazing how much faster and easier driving home to New Orleans always is than driving anywhere else. I love when I first spot the Laurel New Orleans exit sign as 20 veers off east and 59 continues heading south. It was a lovely day for a drive, really. I got home around three–really good time–and collapsed into my chair, cuddled with Sparky, watched the LSU-Oklahoma gymnastics meet (it was a replay on Youtube; I knew they’d won but wasn’t able to watch Friday night. The Tigers won and broke 198.00 again, which is the kind of score you need to win at nationals), and then settled in for a lovely binge of Arrested Development. I finished listening to The Troop on the drive–finishing just as I pulled up in front of the house (more on that later, I promise) and I really enjoyed it.The Bell in the Fog is definitely going to be my next read. I was really tired, so I figured I was going to sleep well last night, and I did. So, here I am on Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment, slipping back out of my little bubble back into the real world. I am sure the world continued burning and more fuel was added to the fire…there are measles outbreaks popping up all over the country just in time for an anti-vaxxer to be in charge of health and human services. The dismantling of the CDC has already started, apparently. It was kind of odd to be visiting cemeteries with Dad on the same day, so I started taking pictures of children’s graves–and there were a lot of them. That will be a newsletter post, methinks. I wonder how many of their children have to die before the anti-vaxxer bloodlust ends?
We certainly live in the stupidest timeline–one where anti-vaxxers see themselves as pro-life somehow but want their kids to die instead of “catching autism” from them? It’s amazing how much damage an idiot D-list celebrity (Jenny McCarthy) can do to a country, isn’t it?
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I recommend taking the day off from the world so you can take care of yourself, your own business, and prepare yourself for the fight.
Don’t let the bastards win.
Screenshot
According to my dad, who was told this by a high school friend he saw Friday. So, proverbial grain of salt involved, but…it’s also a great story. ↩︎
Maybe not a good thing to get so used to air raid sirens that you don’t notice them? ↩︎
Typical American arrogance; the world isn’t burning, but the government is collapsing and the Constitution becoming nothing more than a scrap of paper to be ignored. Yes, our country collapsing into a nightmare Christian National Socialist country will eventually set the world ablaze, and that meteor cannot get here fast enough. ↩︎
Up far earlier than usual on a Sunday morning1, because of course, later on today I am driving to Kentucky. Twelve hours in the car, but I’ve figured out what to listen to on the drive, which is cool. I don’t know what traffic is going to be like, but that’s cool; I am also going to go a different way than I usually do–going thru Nashville instead of the nightmare that is always Chattanooga–so that will be interesting.
I was very tired yesterday morning, the way I always am on Saturday, but I got errands done and then came home to work on the house and get ready for today. We mostly watched football all day before going to bed; starting with Vanderbilt-Auburn (Auburn lost) and Mississippi-Arkansas, then Georgia-Florida, capping the night off with South Carolina’s big win over Texas A&M. The SEC is indeed crazy this season; it almost seems like no one wants to win it all this year. Now, all the one-loss and two-loss teams are going to continue knocking each other off the rest of the season, which is wild. LSU still has a chance, but they have to win out…and that won’t be easy (Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, and Vanderbilt remain on the schedule). Interesting season, this first year of super-conferences and paying players and a play-off, hasn’t it been? All in all, a very nice, relaxing day was had by everyone in the Lost Apartment, including demon kitty Sparky–who turned himself into a love bug for the entire day. I’ve not yet packed or loaded up the car–I got up early this morning to do that specifically, as well as to add to the “I’m really tired so will sleep well tonight” feeling when I get there tonight. I’ll also be on the road for the Saints game today, so GEAUX SAINTS and I hope they do well.
It’ll be nice spending some time with Dad, resting and relaxing and reading. I don’t know if he’ll want to go do things–like sight-see historical sites in the area (I am not going to the Ark, rest assured of that)–or if we’ll end up just sitting around chatting and watching television. The weather will be similar up there to what we’re having down here, which is great as I don’t want to take a coat with me, either. I decided to finish listening to Gabino’s book in the car on the way up, move on to The Reformatory, finish reading it over the week, and then listen to Shadowlands in the car on the way home, so I can finish reading it when I get home Friday. I have a lovely weekend when I get home before I have to go back to work, and then of course it’s only a few more weeks to Thanksgiving. Paul is probably going to visit his mom for the holiday, which will give me a long weekend alone at home with Sparky, which could be a lot of fun.
And of course, once I get home from this trip I need to really get back to work on the book and everything else around here that I want to get finished by the end of the year. I need to do some research on actual hurricanes (as well as the ones that have hit New Orleans over the centuries, including from before when they got names), and I hope to spend some time brainstorming on the book’s plot. I know I want it to shift direction several times, but I am still not sure of how everything comes together and why, which is part of the fun ohf writing these types of novels, isn’t it?
And on that note, I think I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely, lovely day, Constant Reader, and I don’t know how much I’ll be here posting this week, so hang in there without me, okay? MAKE SURE YOU VOTE.
But not as early as it usually feels, thank you for the extra hour this morning, Daylight Savings Time. ↩︎
Ever since reading The Sea of Lost Girls several years ago–I think after we met at Bouchercon in St. Petersburg at the Harper Collins party?–I’ve considered her one of our best current novelists in the crime genre. The more of her canon that I read, the more convinced I become (The Lake of Dead Languages, The Night Villa, The Uninvited Guest), and so naturally I was very excited to listen to The Night Visitors on my drive this past weekend. I finished listening somewhere around Satsuma, Alabama (Alabama really has the most interesting town names), and loved every minute of it.
Oren falls asleep at last on the third bus. He’s been fighting it since Newburgh, eyelids heavy as wet laundry, pried up again and again by sheer stubbornness. Finally, I think when he nods off. If I have to answer one more of his questions I might lose it.
Where are we going? he asked on the first bus.
Someplace safe, I answered.
He stared at me, even in the darkened bus his eyes shining with too much smart for his age, and then looked away as if embarrassed for me. An hour later, he’d asked, as if there hadn’t been miles of highway in between, Where’s it safe?
There are places, I’d begun as if telling him a bedtime story, but then I’d had to rack my brain for what came next. All I could picture were candy houses and chicken-legged huts that hid witches. Those weren’t the stories he liked best anyway. He preferred the book of myths from the library (it’s still in his pack, racking up fines with every niles) about heroes who wrestle lions and behead snake-haired monsters.
The Night Visitors has two point of view characters; Alice, an abused mom on the run with her son, Oren, and Mattie, a social worker in a small town in upstate New York. This is an excellent example of differentiation between voice; while the authorial voice never falters and you never doubt you’re reading a Carol Goodman novel, the two voices are clearly that of two very different people. Alice and Oren arrive in the town, where they are greeted by do-gooder Mattie, and then begins the dance of the story. Both women take the other’s measure, and both women are hiding horrific secrets that their close relationship is going to bring out over the course of less than thirty-six hours. Mattie is a social worker who lives in an enormous if crumbling house; that first night–even though it’s against all the rules–Mattie decides to bring Alice and Oren home with her, rather than leaving them at the safe house, Sanctuary. And that’s when the strange things begin to happen.
Thirty four years ago, Mattie’s entire family–early onset Alzheimer’s mother; hanging judge father; change of life baby brother Caleb–all died from carbon monoxide poisoning from their faulty furnace. Mattie found their bodies, and her life–already severely off-course and altered–runs aground against the rocks. She has thrown herself into her work–even though she sometimes thinks her social work training is bunk (which I, as a counselor, sometimes think myself in weary frustration; it’s easy to see how social workers burn out from their jobs)–and has never completely gotten over the loss of her little brother. She sees a lot of her lost brother in young Oren–which alarms and worries both women. Alice is also being chased by her abuser, and everything–the past, the present, the futures–all come crashing together one night during a blizzard and power failure at the crumbling house, as all the secrets from the past slowly start coming out, with both women forced to face not only their own truths but the other woman’s as well, as they fight for their lives in a blizzard in the dark against a killer who wants them both gone.
The book is simply extraordinary. The suspense and tension once the power goes out is almost unbearable and are impossible to turn away from; it was incredibly difficult waiting two days to finish listening to it, and it was hard to get out of the car yesterday at the Civic Center in Wetumpka and stop listening. I highly recommend it, as I do anything by Carol Goodman.
Well, I forgot my power cord in New Orleans, so have been trying to use this laptop as sparingly as possible so that I can at least get this posted before I head to Wetumpka this morning for Murder on the Menu. Today was nice; the Homewood Library always has a nice turnout for the panels, people bought my books and were very lovely to me–always a plus–and I got to spend some more time with friends I don’t get to see very often, like Dean James and Erica Spindler (name-dropping!) and I also got to spend time getting to know Debra Goldstein and Christopher Swann better, and I got to spend some time with Bobby Mathews, whom I met briefly at Bouchercon this last fall. He’s quite funny, and I picked up his Working the Gimmick, a pro wrestling noir! How fun is that? And since one of my in-progress projects is a pro-wrestling adjacent gay noir, I’m kind of looking forward to reading it! I am going to listen to Carol Goodman on the drive to Wetumpka (The Night Visitors), and when I finish it–probably about halfway between Wetumpka and New Orleans, I will switch over to Ruth Ware’s The Lying Game, which I am also looking forward to. I’ve also been writing lots of notes and ideas in my journal during yesterday’s panels. Alas, after mine today I am departing back to New Orleans because I do need to get home–parades start next weekend, so I really need to start preparing for the coming limitations on running errands that is the inevitable and unenviable result of parade season.
I did sleep really well Friday night–the key is that even if I am now in that partial sleep that is the bane of my existence, my body and mind are resting, which makes such a difference. My Fitbit does actually monitor my sleep; the goal is to always have a sleep score of 80 or higher; I think there’s only been one night since I came home from New York where the score wasn’t over eighty, and usually it’s averaging in the high eighties, which is great and not very common for me. I slept really well again last night–at least, rested well; not sure how deep the sleep actually was but the rest was lovely.
I did not manage to finish this entry this morning. The battery in my laptop did indeed die as I was typing (I’d managed to save it as I watched the battery very quickly evaporate once it got to 15% charge) and now I am home. Today I had a lovely drive to Wetumpka, and the panel and signings and stuff there went well. We managed to sell thirty (!) copies of A Streetcar Named Murder, which was very pleasant and a very pleasant surprise. I really love Wetumpka, and the folks there seem to really love me, too. They are absolutely lovely, they read my books and like them, what a pleasant surprise, you know? Small town Alabama–who knew that was my sweet spot?
I am home now and very tired. The drive home was smooth–and I did start Ruth Ware’s The Lying Game before I got to Mobile (the Goodman novel is fantastic; more on that later), and I am really enjoying the Ware as well. I really want to set a book in Wetumpka–I have a Ruth Ware kind of idea for a book to be set there, and I have a cozy idea that could easily work in a town like Wetumpka. Although the Wetumpkans may not like what I may do to their town….LOL. But the more I listen to/read Carol Goodman and Ruth Ware, the more I think I want to write something more along those lines, too. That’s me, the sponge; anything I read that I also enjoy I always wind up wanting to write something in that style. The 70’s book that I am thinking about–I almost have the title down–is also something entirely different than what I’ve written before or want to write in the future, which of course makes me want to write it all the more. But this week I need to start tearing manuscripts apart and stitching them back together, getting these other two books finished so I can get back to the others I want to write, so I can then write the 70s book. (I am resisting the urge to start writing it, you have no idea how hard it is to resist that urge, especially with that little voice in my head whispering you can always start editing the manuscripts next week why not take this week to get it started which is how this stuff always winds up getting out of hand. I also think that my creativity sometimes gets a bit over-stimulated when I do events like this.
But what a problem to have, right?
And on that note, I am going to go start digging out from under everything that has piled up since I left Friday afternoon. Have a lovely rest of your evening, Constant Reader!
Well, I’ve decided on my audiobook for the drive to and from Alabama this weekend: Carol Goodman’s The Night Visitors. Carol is one of my favorite writers (and has become a friend! I love my life) and I love her works; if you’re not reading her already you need to get on it–and there’s a healthy canon to dig into as well (always a plus). She also has a new book coming out this spring, called The Bones of the Story, which is a great title. I’m working on a short story this week while I am letting my novel manuscripts rest, and it’s definitely some slow going. I got about two thousand words into this story about a year ago, and I think it works perfectly for this anthology a friend of mine is putting together; I just need to finish the damned thing. But tonight I have a ZOOM call I have to do and I have to pack for my weekend in Alabama, and tomorrow morning I’m getting up, writing a post and hitting the road while listening to the divine Carol Goodman.
Does life get better? I think not.
It’s actually kind of funny; after I finished yesterday I realized I could, for the first time in quite a while, take some down time to myself for a minute or two without guilt or something looming over me needing to be done. After I sent the manuscript (such as it is) in along with my editorial thoughts and analyses, I thought, wow, I’ve sure written a lot since just before Christmas and showed an incredible amount of discipline–the kind of single-mindedness you’ve not had for quite a while, and I should feel drained and tired but I don’t. That was an incredibly over-confident assumption to make, even though it was true at the time I thought it. When I got home from work I realized my candle wick had burned down so far that it needed to rest and be replenished for a while. I am still feeling motivated and creative, though; I was simply drained yesterday. Before I went to bed last night (after watching another episode of The Recruit, which I am really enjoying) I kind of felt like the batteries were already starting to recharge. I feel very tired this morning, too–I slept well, don’t get me wrong, but I think I needed to sleep longer. Ah, well. I don’t have to get up before the sun rises tomorrow, so that’s something.
I always like Thursday nights.
But the kitchen is still a mess. I wasn’t in the mood to clean last night when I got home, either. I just felt disoriented, emotionally and intellectually spent, and physically tired. I used to call it the malaise, because it felt like melancholy brought on by the utter exhaustion of my creativity and drive to write. It’s very weird. Usually, the malaise also brings with it the feeling that I don’t even want to think about writing anything else ever again–which is not the case this time, which is very weird to me. I am champing at the bit to get to work on more things, new things, even to start working on the editing of everything else. It is very weird, and I will keep you posted on how this weird new version of malaise works itself out.
But I’ll have to clean the kitchen before the ZOOM thing tonight. That, or turn off all the kitchen lights.
Heavy heaving sigh.
I watched an interesting documentary on Youtube in my tired malaise last night, a new one from James Somerton called The Death of Queer Privacy, which was interesting. The primary focus of the documentary–Somerton does popular media critiques from a queer perspective–was, to begin with, about outing as well as the potentially problematic tropes in Paul G. Tremblay’s A Cabin at the End of the World and it’s film adaptation, A Knock at the Cabin. It was another look–deconstruction, if you will–if whether a straight identified (I don’t know how he actually does identify) writer centering a gay couple/family at the heart of a horror novel/movie is either good representation (they could just as easily have been a straight couple, a mixed-race couple, lesbians, etc.; sexual orientation didn’t play a part in the plot and if anything, the fact that the gay family was presented as normal and not a big deal tends to undermine any critical analyses of this as intentionally or unintentionally sinister) or if the book/movie, at heart, centers the trauma of a queer family as entertainment for the masses. I may want to watch that again; I wasn’t paying a lot of attention because I was tired and scrolling through social media on my iPad, so I may have missed some things, but the critique and look at the film itself was merely an introduction to the main topic, which was the attack on queer people’s right to privacy–which served as an interesting counterpoint to a lot of the public discourse about queer celebrities and how much of their lives, if any, needs to be shared with the audience. The recent forced outing of Kit Conner from Heartstopper is perhaps the best example of this; the idea that queer people in the public eye need to–nay, must–come out and be publicly queer, no matter how they themselves feel about revealing that much of themselves to the world, is problematic on its face. Somerton then went on to talk about how gossip blogger (and garbage human being) Perez Hilton essentially dragged a couple of people out of the closet. And really, are the personal and private lives of any celebrity any of our business? Simply because we enjoy someone’s performance in film and television, or like someone’s music, doesn’t really give us the right to know intimate details of their personal lives. I’ve never cared, beyond mere idle interest in hearing gossip; but I don’t care that much about it because I don’t know these people. What does who Taylor Swift is dating have to do with her music–other than her break-ups tend to spawn some amazing music–and why do I care? Why would I care who Tom Hiddleston is fucking, unless it’s someone I actually know? (There’s an interesting dialogue to be had about our billion-dollar celebrity gossip industry…) To circle around back to Tremblay, I knew he was publicly identified as straight as far as I knew (and didn’t care to know more). I was a fan of his before reading A Cabin at the End of the World (having greatly enjoyed A Head Full of Ghosts and Disappearance at Devil’s Rock–I’ve not read the others yet–and so I was delightfully surprised that the family the book was centered on was a gay couple and their adopted child. It was yet another entry in the “people go to secluded place and then horrible things happen” trope of horror, but with a remarkable twist that made it even more intense and terrifying. (I’m really looking forward to the film.) I read the book and enjoyed it, and I didn’t read anything sinister into it; but I was also reading it from an entertainment perspective rather than to gain a sociopolitical perspective for writing a critique…which now I kind of want to do, thank a lot, James Somerton–this is how this kind of thing always happens to me.
In fact, an essay exploring three mainstream novels by non-queer writers centering queer characters could prove interesting–and the Tremblay, S. A. Cosby’s Razorblade Tears, and Laurie R. King’s Back to the Garden would be the perfect trio to look at as they are relatively current, critical successes, and often award recognized.
And on that note I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely morning, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.
Queer and Loathing in America 