Tag: Baton Rouge

Sexy Eyes

Well, we survived a Friday the 13th in October–terrifying!

It was actually a rather beautiful day in New Orleans, in all honesty. I had a bit of a morning–there’s been some anxiety building inside my head since I got home from work on Wednesday to discover a jury duty summons in the mail. (For the record, I am not one of the majority of Americans who hate doing this little part of their responsibilities as a citizen; I always think, these are probably the same people who bitch constantly about our flawed criminal justice system–which is not incorrect–but you don’t get to complain about juries and the system when you resent serving on juries or try to get out of doing it. The system is only as good as the jurors selected, after all. Anyway, I digress. I got the summons on Wednesday afternoon, and I was supposed to report this morning. Obviously, it was delayed or went out late or something, but the last thing I need to do is deal with jury duty between now and my surgery; all those tests and appointments and so forth that i have to do before the surgery, etc. etc. I decided to fill out the form on-line and ask for a deferment; alas, it wasn’t until I finished registering that I found out if I wanted to be excused, I needed to go to the courthouse and ask in person as well as provide a note from my doctor. Wow, I thought, kind of like being back in high school. I had an MRI scheduled Friday morning, so I figured I’d ask them then. Well, my surgeon wasn’t in the office and no one else wanted to do it, suggesting I check with my primary care. As my primary care office is near the courthouse and I had to pick up a prescription there anyway, I went by. Primary care wans’t in, and was advised to try my surgeon. Jesus fucking Christ, apparently I woke up in a Kafka novel. So, I decided to go to the courthouse and see what happened….and they literally told me to have my doctor email it to the court clerk, gave me a card with her name and email address, and sent me home.

Who knew the Orleans Parish Courthouse would be the easiest, “no big deal” part of this? Certainly not one Gregalicious, that’s for sure.

I came home and did my work-at-home chores, as well as my laundry chores, and then Tug settled in for a nap in my lap while I finished reading the Riley Sager (which I enjoyed; more on that later) and started Elizabeth Hand’s A Haunting on the Hill and am quite liking it as well. Paul and I watched a horror film from 2007 called Trick r Treat, which was kind of clever yet neither of us had heard of it before. That was in honor of both Friday the 13th and it being spooky season and all. I do love fall in New Orleans. It was lovely running around this morning doing all that stuff with lovely sunny but cool weather; the kind where you can wear sleeves and jeans outside comfortably.

The refrigerator is being delivered today, so I have to make room for the delivery guys and hope that they come earlier rather than later. I have no control over this whatsoever, so I am just going to roll with it and see where things wind up. While I wait for the refrigerator I am going to try to get this done as well as some other things; trying not to get anxious or worry about things that cannot be controlled. They have my cell phone number, after all, and if I keep it with me…it’s really irrational to get anxious about things like this, isn’t it? Just like it was irrational to get so worked up and tense over the jury duty thing this morning. It’s just wasted energy and it just leaves me tired, and I really don’t need anything else in my life to make me tired; I can do that quite well and need no further assistance with that, thank you very much. UPDATE: it is out for delivery and expected between 3:30 and 7:30, which means most likely groceries will have to wait until tomorrow and I can actually spend the morning cleaning up down here and making it not quite the disaster area it currently appears to be. A quick glance at Twitter shows that Tulane won at Memphis last night, and apparently Colorado blew a big lead and lost to Stanford.

I slept really well last night–and woke up at five, like always. I fell back asleep until Tug (Paul has started calling him Sparky because he gets the zoomies–but the next time he does I’m getting the laser light out–nothing like the red dot to wear your kitten out of his BIg Kitten Energy.) wanted his breakfast at six–can’t blame him, and I’m kind of awake already anyway. I stayed in bed until about seven before rising, thinking that was a lot m rore rational than trying to stay in bed–especially since I knew the delivery window was between eight and eight; hope springs eternal that it was going to be a morning delivery. DENIED. Tug now is completely at home and curious about everything; there are bottle caps everywhere from him chasing them around, and of course I always have to be careful with what I leave on surfaces. It’s also election day here in Louisiana, and I must go vote so I can vote against our evil attorney general’s bid for governor, which would be a disaster so great people would start remembering Bobby Jindal’s disgraceful tenure in Baton Rouge with nostalgia.

The salt intrusion has been slowed significantly–the last I heard the salt water wouldn’t be here until around Thanksgiving–a month later than projected, and there was a chance it would dissipate before then, too. I should probably pay more attention, but I have a flat of water and a two-gallon jug (which I will save for hurricane season in the attic, if the salt doesn’t get up here after all, and I should always be prepared for hurricane season anyway), but probably won’t have to buy any more of that.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. There’s a lot I can get done this morning, and I intend to do it before curling up with my book with whatever game is on at eleven in the background. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader; I’ll probably be back later.

Green Light

One of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is how we don’t really have a Louisiana crime writer who explores and illuminates the damage we are doing to the ecosystem and environmentalism of the state the way John D. Macdonald infused many of his Florida novels with so frequently. Condominium, published in the 1980’s, is a stinging indictment of crooked developers and corrupt politicians putting up massive condominium buildings along the coastline of Florida, despite the damage they do to the environment, all in the name of a quick buck. I have been thinking about this because I spent a lot of time in the panhandle in the 1970s, back before Panama City Beach developed into what it is now. I’ve not been back there since 1980, at the latest; but just looking at Google Earth images it’s horrifying how different and over-developed that whole area has become. (I was looking at the images because I was thinking about setting a book along the Redneck Riviera/Baja Alabama/Emerald Coast/Miracle Strip, whichever name you use for the region.) Louisiana, nicknamed “Sportsmen’s Paradise” because of the abundant fish and game and the stunning natural beauty of the state, has pretty much spent the last hundred or so years (at least) destroying and despoiling the natural resources of the state of Louisiana, killing off wildlife species while introducing new invasive ones–and don’t even get me started on Cancer Alley, that stretch of the river between New Orleans and Baton Rouge lined with petrochemical plants parked next to poor, mostly Black communities that have, surprisingly enough, large instances of cancers in the residents. Now the level of the river is so low that it can’t keep the Gulf water pushed down, and the salty water is making its way up the river and intruding into our drinking water supply here in southeastern Louisiana. I’m sure the loss of so much of the wetlands to ensure oil company profits hasn’t affected this in any way, shape or form. There’s a really good environmental thriller to be written about Louisiana (if not more), and I think maybe part of the problem in writing about the destruction of Louisiana in the name of unfettered greed is that I don’t feel knowledgeable enough on the subject to tackle it, nor do I have the time to spend on the research necessary.

It’s really disappointing to me that James Michener never wrote one of his two thousand page plus books about Louisiana. Louisiana history, no offense, is a lot more interesting than Texas’.

And Sportsmen’s Paradise is a great title for a book about Louisiana’s environmental disasters.

I suppose I should just go ahead and do it, regardless of how difficult and long and tedious the process may be. I also think part of the reason I’ve resisted this aspect of writing about Louisiana is because no matter how dark my books may get, I always want justice to be done in some way and to end the book with some sort of hope; there literally is no hope for the future of Louisiana because our politicians are all too greedy and corrupt and only focused on the now rather than the future, no matter how much they beat the “but the children!” drum publicly to fool those incapable of deeper thought. There have been so many environmental disasters in Louisiana over the nearly three decades I’ve lived here I can’t remember them all; and yes, I definitely count boil water advisories in that, too. There was the sinkhole at Bayou Corne (anyone remember that?) and of course Deepwater Horizon, whose true impact and the damage it wrought on the Gulf and the coastline will not be fully known for generations.

The one consistent thing throughout Louisiana’s history has been the entrenched systemic political corruption. I have written about that.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about Jackson Square Jazz, as I get into this revision, and remembering why I wrote it and what I was trying to say within the book; there was a thread in it that ties directly into the new one, and there are also some thematic commonalities with S. A. Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed, which I am really enjoying reading. Shawn is such an extraordinary writer, with a gift not only for language but character, dialogue, setting and story; the complete deal, as it were, and definitely is going to be considered one of the definitive crime writers of this new generation of exceptional talent that has risen over the last few years. I am going to spend some more time with Shawn’s book this morning, too; I am really enjoying it and wanting to see where it goes and how it all ends. I also have the new Lou Berney on deck, and Lou’s books are always high-quality, clever, and engaging.

College football was interesting yesterday. My Tigers prevailed in a three-point nail-biter against Arkansas in Tiger Stadium 34-31, running the clock out and kicking the winning field goal on the last play of the game. Paul and I were stunned, as was the crowd in the stadium..,and then I laughed. “LSU fans aren’t used to smart clock management in tight games,” I observed, and Paul started laughing with me because the crowd in the stadium didn’t know how to react to the end of the game either. It almost seemed ant-climactic rather than exciting…how many games have we lost this century because of poor clock management skills displayed by the coaching staff? So it was lovely, for once, to see the Tigers play smart at the end of a game for a change. Alabama finally looked like Alabama for the first time this season–but only in the second half as they iced Mississippi. LSU now has to play Mississippi in Oxford next weekend; it’ll be interesting to see how LSU stacks up against our old Magnolia Bowl foe. Colorado finally lost, which brought out all the racist college football fans on social media. The Texas A&M-Auburn game was just sloppy, ugly and unimpressive, while Mississippi State fell to South Carolina. But the big game of the day lived up to its billing–Ohio State v. Notre Dame in South Bend, with the Buckeyes scoring the winning touchdown on the literal last play of the game, 17-14. I literally only saw the closing minutes of the game, switching over once the LSU game concluded. The Saints play at noon today at Green Bay, so the grocery run I need to make will happen around that time–no fool me; everyone knows the best time to make groceries is during a Saints game here.

Yesterday was pretty relaxing, over all; a lovely day for the weekend and a restful and nice one, despite the stress of the LSU game. I’ll probably have the Saints game on in the background because it’s too anxiety-making to watch the games. (I have yet to learn how to control the anxiety during a game; it was certainly there last night and while I tried very hard not to get negative during the game, I could feel the adrenaline spiking and my heart rate going up, but I managed to keep my mind from spiraling and going super-dark as well not getting overly emotional It is, after all, just a football game and LSU football success isn’t necessary for my mental well-being.)

My goals for today are to read Shawn’s book for a few hours, get cleaned up and make a grocery run; while finishing the first chapters of the new Valerie and Jem books (tentatively titled, thus far, The House of the Seven Grables and You Gone, Girl) and also wanting to do some short story work as well, which is always fun. This Friday I am getting fitted for my new teeth (hurray!) and I have also reached the point where I can eat and enjoy noodles, so yesterday I made box mac’n’cheese (not Kraft, but one that came from the refrigerated section and simply needed microwaving and stirring; it wasn’t bad, either). Tonight I am going to make ravioli for dinner; we’ll see how that goes, although I am sure I won’t be able to eat any garlic bread. (I am able to eat Cheese Puffs, though.) I really want a burger, more than anything else. We are also making a trip to the SPCA to adopt a cat this coming Friday, which is perhaps the most exciting thing of all! I’ve really missed having a cat; they are such darling animals, and of course we want to get another ginger boy.

And on that note, I think I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back–if not later, than tomorrow.

Rollin’ With The Flow

Thursday morning and another lovely night’s sleep. I think the exhaustion from the excessive heat is helping me sleep better, ironically; I’m not getting much more used to it, either; it bothers me just as much as it did when we went into our insanely long streak of excessive heat advisories that I swear began in May. I’ve noticed that there aren’t Creole tomatoes in the grocery store anymore, which is bitterly disappointing; I love Creole tomatoes, and I’d have been willing to swear last year I could get them through August and into early September–but maybe the heat is killing them, I don’t know. It wouldn’t surprise me. When I lived in Kansas I remember one brutally hot summer where the corn wilted in the fields; that wasn’t pleasant. But today is my last day in the office for the week and Paul gets home on Saturday, which is marvelous and delightful and I cannot wait to see him, of course. I won’t say that I’m lonely, but last night when I got home after running errands I was just beat, you know? I didn’t write anything, either, or read. I’m afraid I went into a wormhole on-line, sitting in my chair and just scrolling through my social media feeds until I went to bed. I guess I needed the night of nothing and not thinking, so I am not going to regret the lost time last night (a whole new Greg, as you see I am being kinder to myself about these things) and while today is probably going to be a more intense day at work (my schedule is busier than it has been lately), I am caught up on everything else and everything is going smoothly. Not being fatigued or foggy in the morning helps. I think I am now officially used to this work schedule, much as I loathe it.

But do I really loathe it, or is it just the habit of a lifetime hating waking up to an alarm? I think the latter is far more likely. I always feel like I could sleep more when the alarm goes off, but lately I’m awake before the alarm goes off, and then hit snooze twice because a. the alarm is set eighteen minutes fast and b) each time I hit it, it gives me another nine minutes. So when I turn it off after the second time, it’s actually six a.m. And I am already awake.

I have some more proofing to do and am waiting for the edits for Mississippi River Mischief to arrive so I can get that out of my hair. I’ve not been particularly motivated to write this week–and have been blaming the heat for my laziness (see? doing it again)–but hopefully this weekend I will be able to get some done. I have to look for the stuff for my driver’s license today, so I can get up and go in the morning–I really don’t want to have to wait until next week when Paul is back, because the license expires on my birthday next weekend, and that’s shaving it a little close for my liking. Something always goes wrong, you know?

College football season is nigh, and while I am always excited and hopeful for a new football season (GEAUX TIGERS!), I am seeing a lot of hype about where LSU is going to be this year and how much more improvement there will be over last year. I don’t think anyone took LSU very seriously last year (the early losses to Florida State and Tennessee being directly responsible for that), and it wound up being a surprise banner year. LSU had never beaten both Auburn and Florida in away games in the same season EVER, and of course, LSU hadn’t beaten Alabama in Baton Rouge since 2010 (which is why they stormed the field, haters–no one beats Alabama regularly so whenever you do you celebrate the hell out of it. How many times has Georgia beaten Alabama this century? Once? Maybe twice? Tennessee snapped a 17 year losing streak against them last year…), so clearly they overperformed and surprised people. No one expected to see LSU in Atlanta playing for the SEC championship–and at least LSU kept the score closer than TCU did in the national title game. So the expectations are high amongst fans and sportswriters, which means the possibilities of bitter disappointment are also high. I’m just looking forward to an enjoyable season–and this season is the last one of college football as we currently know it before realignment changes everything for next season. But it’s always fun to see how the season plays out–even if LSU underperforms.

And that first season of football will take place while I am in San Diego for Bouchercon. I think LSU plays Florida State that Sunday night, and I may get home in time to catch the end of the game. The last time I was traveling during an LSU season opener was when we were flying back from Pisa and they were playing Wisconsin. I kept checking the score while we were waiting to board, and LSU was behind. When we landed in New York I checked and LSU had come from behind and won. Let’s hope that tradition holds, shall we?

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Y’all have a great day, and I will check in with you again later.

Speak No Evil

Well, if there was any doubt left, summer has returned in full force to New Orleans. It’s a heat wave; in which the heat index has been over 110 for several days. When I ran my errands yesterday I was completely exhausted after getting back home and the groceries inside; this kind of heat saps your strength and your energy and sometimes, even your will to live. Opening the apartment door was like opening a preheated oven. I managed to get all my work-at-home duties taken care of, but tried to spend the rest of the day battling feeling tired and getting chores done. This is a three-day weekend, and I have a lot of work to try to get through over the course of this holiday weekend. I am also hoping to not set foot outside at any time until I have to go back to work Tuesday morning. It’s nice having another short work week, and then of course the next week I am heading north to spend some time with Dad. It’s hard to believe this year is nearly half over, isn’t it?

I was thinking yesterday that Elmore Leonard’s most famous piece of writing advice was “never start with the weather,” which is a “rule” that I break all the fucking time. The weather, especially in New Orleans, is almost a character here; it tells you everything you need to know about the time of year the story is set, for one thing. You can’t set a book or story in New Orleans in the summer time and not mention the weather; you just can’t. The weather impacts everything here, because we have what I lovingly and sort-of-jokingly refer to as “aggressive.” The heat and humidity is aggressive; hurricanes and thunderstorms here certainly are, and even the cold spells we get every winter (brief, always brief) can be also considered aggressive. It impacts people’s moods and what happens, really; so that advice cannot be followed when writing about New Orleans. I was primarily thinking about this yesterday when I was out in the heat and losing my will to live, mostly, which was completely understandable. Paul walked to the gym to ride the bike for a while yesterday and went through two bottles of water. So, yes, the weather here is aggressive and oppressive, and impacts story and character and setting and scene and place in New Orleans.

We started watching an ID true crime documentary series about the serial killers in Baton Rouge around the turn of the century and just after, Butchers on the Bayou, which is kind of interesting. I remember when it was happening–yes, a serial killer in Baton Rouge will make the news in New Orleans–and I remember when the first one was caught; I didn’t remember there was a second one operating at the same time. No wonder the police were overwhelmed; especially with all the crossing of jurisdictions and so forth–it’s the same problem they had with trying to solve the murders of the Jeff Davis Eight (eight women murdered over a several year period in Jefferson Davis Parish). And yes, I do at some point want to base a novel on the Jeff Davis Eight case; I keep thinking it fits more as a Chanse story but I’m not really sure I want to write another Chanse book. It wouldn’t really work as a Scotty story, and I have wondered and considered writing a new series–I have a character, Jerry Channing, who writes true crime and is a gay man that has appeared in several different books of mine; the problem with Jerry was when I was fleshing him out I realized what I was doing was combining Chanse and Scotty into a single person, and that wasn’t working for me. This also probably had something to do with me trying to come up with something whilst I was immersed in numerous other projects and not really being able to give it my full attention. I still might just go ahead and do it once I have all these current projects off my plate once and for all.

It is a good story, and it makes sense for him to be the one to investigate it–since he writes true crime. My primary concern about this is, obviously, there’s tons of novels about true crime podcasts and true crime writers and bloggers–Only Murders in the Building, anyone?–but it does make sense and works better. I guess there’s naught to do but give it a try and see.

I’m hoping to be able to spend some time reading this morning, too, before i head into the spice mines. I want to finish writing this and maybe write another Pride post over the course of the weekend; I’ve started several, but am trying to decide if I want to be Angry or if I want to be up-lifting. Some of the posts are angry–it’s hard to write about homophobia you’ve experienced without getting angry; and in one of them I am calling out homophobia I’ve personally experienced from the mainstream crime community. Sometimes I wonder if I should call this stuff out; there’s a part of me that sees talking about it and calling it out as vengeful–like ha ha ha, you were awful to me so now I am calling you out years later–and there’s a part of me that worries that I’ll come across as self-serving. (There’s nothing I hate more than the narcissistic activist; those who are only in it for themselves and don’t care about the broader picture and the macro.) I’ve known and seen some of this over the years more times than I’d care to–like the author who was all over #ownvoices, until she won a major award and now no longer mentions it at all, or “we need diverse books”–so, now that you’ve made it the work no longer needs to be done? Way to pull up the ladder behind you, sister! I certainly don’t want anyone to think that my primary concern is revenge or for me to become more successful; my mentality is “this happened to me and I don’t want it to happen to anyone else because it really sucked for me.” But times have changed, and while there are still instances of it that pop up from time to time within the community, it’s becoming a thing of the past and people are starting to call it out when they see it–which is a huge switch from when I was first getting started. The crime fiction community is a lot more welcoming to queer people in 2023 than it was in 2002. It’s lovely, of course, but I do think we should never forget our less progressive past–particularly since it wasn’t that fucking long ago.

Some things for me to ponder, I suppose.

And on that note, I am going to drink some more coffee and do some chores around the kitchen before I read for a bit and then work. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again at some point.

Grail Overfloweth

Work-at-home Friday morning, and I have some errands to do in a moment before I do my work-at-home duties. Or maybe I’ll do it later…wait, it’s summer again, so earlier is better but not by much in New Orleans. I was very tired when I got home last night from work–not sure why; I think the heat and humidity sapped my energy on my way into the house from the car (seriously, that’s all it takes) but I did get some of the laundry going. I slept really well last night, which was marvelous, despite waking up before seven yet again. I stayed in bed for a while though, just relaxing and luxuriating in the comfort until I decided that coffee was sounding good and it was time for me to get up. But now I am awake, sipping said coffee, and really looking forward to my three-day weekend. I have to revise a manuscript (as always) but that’s it; and I don’t think this is going to be as hard as the last one. Maybe I’m deluding myself, but whatever works. I’m not dreading it at all, which is a significant change from the past.

We watched The Other Two–this season’s not quite as good as previous–and another episode of The Crowded Room. I think I’ve already figured out what’s going on, two episodes in, but it’s a slow burn show; and it’s not easy to figure out what is going on. It’s extremely well cast, and everything about the show is top notch, but the story itself is being played out a little too slowly? Maybe the pacing will pick up as the show goes, but I worry–as we have noted with other series; the need to fill out eight or ten episodes often leads to a lot of filler and sidetracked episodes that don’t advance the story. That’s a story-telling problem fairly unique to the streaming services–sometimes shorter is better. Not everything needs to be eight or ten episodes long. Tom Holland is really good in this–I think he’s a much better actor than given credit for; but playing a Marvel super-hero stacks the odds against him (although I think he does a good job playing Peter Parker) when it comes to praise for acting and awards. (I thought he was brilliant in Cherry, but no nominations for anything.)

My desk area is a mess and so is this kitchen, so I’m probably going to spend a little time cleaning up around here after finishing this. I am my mother’s son, after all, and now that I have gotten some of the authorial pressure off me, maybe I can spend some more time cleaning up this place and reading and relaxing and so on. I really want to finish the book I’m reading, and I have some absolutely amazing ones on deck to get to–with even more coming out the rest of the summer. I will never get caught up on my reading, will I? Ah, well. I can listen to Carol Goodman on my drive up north in a couple of weeks, and on the way home, too. I’ve not taken an entire week off in a very long time, so that, too, is going to be weird. I am going up to meet Dad in Alabama for their anniversary, and then we’ll convoy back up to Kentucky. I should be able to finish a Carol Goodman on the way up as well as one on the way back.

God, and football season is looming again. What kind of season with the Saints and LSU have? There seems to be a lot of excitement around our new quarterback, Derek Carr (a fellow alum of Fresno State), so there’s no telling. There’s also a lot of expectation for LSU this season, after their remarkable turnaround last year under first year coach Brian Kelly; I’m going to not over-anticipate so as not to be horribly disappointed. Can LSU beat Alabama two years in a row? That’s a feat that only two coaches have accomplished in consecutive seasons–Les Miles at LSU (2010-2011) and Hugh Freeze at Mississippi (2014-2015). Freeze is now the Auburn head coach, and in 2024 Texas and Oklahoma join the SEC (LSU plays host to Oklahoma that year, I think; while Alabama goes to Norman and also gets to host Georgia). College football has changed so dramatically from when I was a kid…I of course remember when the SEC was merely ten teams, before Arkansas and South Carolina were added to make twelve, and Texas A&M and Missouri were added to make fourteen in 2011. It’ll be an entertaining season, to say the least. (In 2024, LSU also goes to play USC in Los Angeles, and UCLA comes to Baton Rouge. LSU doesn’t have an easy schedule that season…)

Okay, time to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday before the holiday weekend, Constant Reader, and I’ll most likely be back again at some point soon.

Die Another Day

At some point, with all the book -bans and censorship that’s going on, I am going to have to recap and go over my own experience with being banned; but that will require logic, rational thought and revisiting my blog entries from that period to refresh my memory. Yesterday I got political on here for the first time in a long time, and you know–it kind of felt good to get that out of my system and into the public sphere. I do feel very complicit for not speaking out sooner, but…I’ve always worried, more so after turning fifty, that my opinions might cause trouble for others I am associated with; I work at a non-profit for one, and of course, I had a very long volunteer service ‘career’ with Mystery Writers of America. It was probably at least nine years of service all told; and I didn’t want anyone claiming I was speaking for MWA (particularly when I was serving as Executive Vice President) when I was expressing myself personally; nor did I want anything I might say or do to reflect poorly on the organization–or have my words used against it in any way. As EVP, I was one of only two people authorized to speak for the organization publicly; and that last year after pandemic restrictions were lifted I traveled a lot, representing the organization at several conferences and events. And even though I personally knew where the lines were drawn and what was and wasn’t separate, I couldn’t count on other people to keep or recognize those same distinctions…and I was far too busy with everything to willingly risk more things to have to deal with by opening my mouth on here. That’s part of the reason I dialed that all back–along with the “preaching to the choir” element–but yesterday morning I realized you don’t have to be careful about what you say publicly anymore and it was incredibly liberating. So yes, I will sometimes be taking on things that I feel strongly about and not keeping my mouth shut the way I have for so long. (In my narcissistic hubris, I also sort of blame myself for the state of the world right now because I kept my mouth shut for so long.) Besides, if you read this blog or my books (hopefully both), it should be readily apparent that politically I am basically a Jacobin–albeit one who understands how our government runs and functions and how it is supposed to work…which some people serving in Washington don’t seem to know, which is odd. Surely the ones in my age group had to take Government or Civics in high school? I don’t see how they could have passed it, but here we are.

So be prepared, Constant Reader. There’s a lengthy tome coming on the Virginia Incident.

But I finished editing the manuscript I was working on (not one of my own) last evening and sent it back to the author, and I can breathe. I have a ZOOM call scheduled with my editor, so we can talk out all the issues and scheduling for Mississippi River Mischief, which I am actually itching to get back to work on. I think I’ll take today and tomorrow as free days from writing, and then I will jump back into the book on Sunday. I want to do it the way I always do my editing and revisions; by chapter as opposed to entire manuscript, which is what I had been doing and I think this change of work habits, on top of the depression and everything else, made it impossible for me to get the book finished. I don’t think I’ll get it done by the end of May, but surely I can get it finished by mid-June, and then can move back to Chlorine–which will also require me going over and revising the opening chapters again so I can get the voice down again. I am also going to go back to my chapter-per-week project I was working on before my life blew up late last year, and I feel marvelous about everything. I feel very excited about this, and about getting back to writing again. This hasn’t been the best year for me thus far, really, and I also need to stop thinking oh I need to understand why I feel like this or trying to deconstruct everything in some kind of pseudo-psychological processing. My mother died after a slow, lengthy decline, at an extremely difficult time for me professionally. I need to stop feeling guilty about grieving, or being unable to do anything because of depression. Of course I am experiencing some depression; I’d have to be inhuman not to feel anything. And like with all previous traumas, I am learning to navigate grief as I go–although maybe I should read Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking–and like all previous traumas, it creates a bipolar existence where one day you are fine and the next you’re back in the pit of despair. Sometimes the day will start out great and will flip as it goes on. I have nothing wise or profound to say about loss or grief; although there is something to be said about the numb emotional deadening the HIV/AIDS crisis brought in its wake. I would never want to be that zombie-like ever again, drifting through the days waiting to hear someone else is in the hospital, someone else has died, and there’s another funeral in a few days–but I also have to start recognizing, at this great advanced age, that I’ve never processed or dealt with that time either. (It’s a Sin was a strong reminder of that very thing. I was also thinking Longtime Companion deserves a revisit; it’s always been hard to watch for me, but the beach scene at the end always makes me sob. I’ve also been thinking about the literature of the plague; has anyone ever compiled a list of the classic HIV/AIDS writings? There’s a thesis for a grad student.)

Last night I slept like a log; the sleep of the righteous for finally finishing that editing job. I feel great this morning–rested and relaxed. I do have some work at home duties to accomplish today, and the kitchen is a complete disaster area. I have decided that I am going to finish reading Lori Roy’s Let Me Die in His Footsteps (which is fucking brilliant in every way), as well as reread the openings of the Scotty books this weekend, to see if I can get his voice back into my brain–I feel like that’s the big problem in Mississippi River Mischief–I haven’t nailed the voice and tone in any of the drafts yet, so I need to re-familiarize myself with Scotty’s voice and his wicked, wicked ways. I am actually excited about getting reacquainted with him. This is our ninth outing together, and I always wonder with each one if this is the last or not. I think there’s at least two more Scottys within the reaches of my brain–Hurricane Party Hustle and Quarter Quarantine Quadrille for sure–but you never know what is going to happen next and what may come along your road to write from out of nowhere. I’d like to get both Chlorine and Muscles finished this year, as well as the novellas, and maybe a short story collection by the end of the year. I have also been thinking that one thing that is missing from the annals of New Orleans (or Louisiana, for that matter) crime fiction is the environmental novel. John D. MacDonald deplored what politicians and greedy developers were doing to the tropical paradise of Florida, and slipped that social commentary into almost every Travis McGee novel and many of his stand alones (Barrier Island comes to mind). Louisiana has been in an environmental crisis for decades, and yet no one ever writes about the eroding coastline, the greed of the oil companies and the politicians they buy and pay for every year; Cancer Alley along the river between Baton Rouge and New Orleans being a hotbed of toxic waste; and of there was the Bayou Corne sinkhole a few years ago. I don’t know that I have the knowledge or the time to do the necessary research to write such things, but it’s something someone needs to write. And you know what I always say–if you think someone should write it, that someone should be you.

For me, though, the problem with research is how do you stop from going down wormholes and wasting days? Where do you draw the line, and when do you know you’ve done enough? As Constant Reader knows, I can never get enough of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of European history; I can spend days in wormholes of research about politics and wars and the powerful; it was an interesting time–when white Europeans began their colonization of the world, when Christianity had it’s huge splintering that led to war after war after war, the Hapsburgs continuing to expand their empire by marrying it, and on and on and on. Remarkable female leaders proliferated in the sixteenth century more than perhaps any other century before or since; which makes the sixteenth a bit more interesting than the seventeenth. The seventeenth interests me because it was the century when the world empires continued to grow and oppress natives around the globe, but it was also the time of the rise of the modern state, when the political games became more about state power rather than faith or old inheritance claims–when politics became more about the country than the King’s whims. I also go down New Orleans and Louisiana history wormholes a lot, too. I will never have the time to write everything I want to write, or research history enough to write about it. I really, for example, want to write about the German Coast rebellion of the enslaved; I want to write about Freniere, Louisiana being wiped off the map; and I want to write more historical stories set in New Orleans.

And I want to write a romance. I had that on my list of projects for this year, but then everything blew up in my face and my control over the year slipped right out of my fingers. But even though it’s mid to late May, it’s not too late to salvage the rest of the year from the wreckage of the first five months.

And on that note, I’m heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I will check in which you again later or tomorrow.

(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

And here we are, on the final day of the year 2022. Happy New Year, I guess? It doesn’t feel like the year is turning, but everything has felt so totally out of whack since the 2020 Shutdown that it’s not a surprise, really. As I sit here bleary-eyed with my coffee trying to wake up for another thrilling day of writing and cleaning, it seems very weird to look back to a year ago at this time. I was on deadline then, too–and was way behind on that book, too (A Streetcar Named Murder, for the record), but other than that I don’t remember what my mood was like or what I was thinking about going into the new year. We were still in the midst of the pandemic (that hasn’t changed–what’s changed is it isn’t news anymore and everyone seems to be pretending it’s all over), and I know I wasn’t exactly going into 2022 thinking oh this is the year I’ll get the coronavirus! That did happen, and my ten-day experience with COVID-19 was bearable for the most part. I just had intense and severe exhaustion as well as the brain fog, which hasn’t entirely lifted. I still have no short term memory, and am struggling to remember things every day–which has made writing this book more difficult because I can’t remember small details and things that are kind of important. I also think being so scattered isn’t much help in that regard; I’ve never been able to handle getting a grip on things and have felt like I’ve been behind the eight-ball for the last three years, floundering and struggling to keep my head above water, and never confident that I had a handle on everything. It’s been unpleasant, really; I prefer to be better organized and to have things under some sort of manageable control, and this constant feeling that I am behind and will never catch up on everything has been overwhelming, depressing, and damaging.

I read a lot of great books this year–I was going to try to make a “favorite reads of the year” list, but as I went back through the blog for the last year looking at all the books I talked about on here, there’s no real way for me to quantify what were my avorite reads of the year. I managed to read both of Wanda M. Morris’ marvelous novels, All Her Little Secrets and Anywhere You Run; Marco Carocari’s marvelous Blackout; John Copenhaver’s The Savage Kind; Carol Goodman’s The Night Villa, The Lake of Dead Languages, and The Disinvited Guest; Ruth Ware’s The Death of Mrs. Westaway and The Woman in Cabin Ten; Raquel V. Reyes’ Mango, Mambo and Murder; Ellen Byron’s Bayou Book Thief; Rob Osler’s debut Devil’s Chew Toy; Mia P. Manansala’s Arsenic and Adobo; Kellye Garrett’s Like a Sister; Alex Segura Jr’s Secret Identity; Laurie R. King’s Back to the Garden; Tara Laskowski’s marvelous The Mother Next Door; James Kestrel’s Five Decembers (which would be a contender for favorite read of the year, if I did such things); and of course several Donna Andrews novels as well. I am forgetting some great reads I truly enjoyed this past year, I am sure–I will kick myself later for not remembering I Play One on TV by Alan Orloff, for one example–but it was a year of great reads for me. I know 2023 will also be a great year for reading.

I also watched a lot of great television this past year as well, and again, I won’t be remembering everything and will kick myself later. If nothing else, it was a year of some amazing queer representation on television; this was, after all, the year Netflix not only gave us the wonderful, amazing, adorable Heartstopper but the equally charming and adorable Smiley (which you should watch, absolutely). It was also the year where Elité continued, but the shine is starting to go off the show a bit. I was very vested in their Patrick/Ivan romance, which they ended in this last season with Manu Rios, who plays Patrick, leaving the show at the end of the season along with his two sisters (spoiler, sorry), which was dissatisfying. I am looking forward to seeing what else Manu Rios gets up to in the future…we also enjoyed 1899, Andor, Ted Lasso, Sex Lives of College Girls, Peacemaker, The Sandman, House of the Dragon, Ozark, and so many other shows I can’t possibly begin to remember them all this morning. But I have no problem saying that without question my favorite show of the year was Heartstopper. Even just looking at clips on Youtube, or those “Ten Cutest Moments on Heartstopper” videos, always makes me feel warm and fuzzy when I view them. The soundtrack for the show was also terrific, with some songs so firmly engrained in my head with scenes from the show (one in particular, Shura’s “What’s It Gonna Be” always makes me think of that scene where Charlie comes running after Nick in the rain to give him another kiss, which is what was playing in the background). Wednesday was another highlight, a surprising delight when I was prepared to have my hopes dashed, and The Serpent Queen was also a lot of fun. We also enjoyed The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself, but it was cancelled after its first season, which was disappointing.

Professionally, it was a pretty good year in which I had three book releases: #shedeservedit in January and A Streetcar Named Murder in December, with the anthology Land of 10000 Thrills, thrown in for good measure in the fall. I sold some short stories that haven’t come out yet, as well as some that did this last year: “The Rosary of Broken Promises,” “A Whisper from the Graveyard,””The Snow Globe,” and “This Thing of Darkness” all came out in anthologies this year, with “Solace in a Dying Hour” sold and probably coming out sometime in the spring. I also sold another story to another anthology that will probably come out in the new year as well, and I still have one out on submission. In what was probably the biggest surprise of the year, last year’s Bury Me in Shadows was nominated for not one, but TWO Anthony Awards (Best Paperback Original and Best Children’s/Young Adult) which was one of the biggest shocks of maybe not just the year, but definitely one of the highlights of my career thus far. I lost both to friends and enormously talented writers Jess Lourey and Alan Orloff respectively, which was kind of lovely. I had been nominated for Anthonys before (winning Best Anthology for Blood on the Bayou and “Cold Beer No Flies” was nominated for Best Short Story), but being nominated for one of my queer novels was such a thrill–and to have it nominated in two different categories was fucking lit, as the kids would say. The response to A Streetcar Named Murder was an incredibly pleasant surprise; people seemed to genuinely love the book, which was very exciting and cool.

I traveled quite a bit this year as well–going to Murder in the Magic City/Murder on the Menu, Left Coast Crime, the Edgars, Sleuthfest, and Bouchercon. I went to Kentucky twice to see my family, which further fueled my love of audiobooks for long drives–on both trips I listened to Ruth Ware on the way up and Carol Goodman on the way back–and also did some wonderful podcasts and panels on-line, which was nice. We didn’t go to any games this season in Baton Rouge, but in all honesty I don’t know if I can hang with a game day anymore–the drive there and back, the walk to and from the stadium, the game itself–I would probably need a week’s vacation afterwards!

College football was interesting this season, too. This season saw the reemergence of Tennessee, USC, and UCLA to some kind of relevance again; the slides of the programs at Texas A&M, Florida, Oklahoma, Auburn, and Texas continued; and LSU turned out to be the biggest surprise (for me) of the year. Going into the season I had hopes, as one always does, but after two years of consistent mediocrity (with some surprise wins both years) they weren’t very high. The opening loss to Florida State was a surprise and disappointment, but at least the Tigers came back and almost made it all the way to a win. The blowout loss to Tennessee at home was unpleasant, certainly, as was the loss at Texas A&M. But LSU beat Alabama this season! We also beat Mississippi, so LSU was 2-2 against Top Ten teams this season–and I would have thought it would be 0-4. And 9-4 is not a bad record for a transitional year, with a new coach rebuilding the program. And LSU beat Alabama. The Alabama game will undoubtedly go down as one of the greatest Saturday night games in Tiger Stadium. It was incredibly exciting, and I still can’t quite wrap my mind around it or how it happened. It certainly shouldn’t have; LSU was simply not an elite-level team this past season, but what a job Brian Kelly did coaching in his first season in Baton Rouge. Did I mention that LSU beat Alabama this year? (And one really has to feel for Alabama, in a way; they lost two games by a total of four points on the last play of each game. Four. Points. That would probably be what I would call this season for Alabama: Four Points from Greatness. The LSU-Alabama game this year is definitely one of those that gets a nickname from the fan base, I am just not sure what it would be. The Double Earthquake Game? (The cheers when LSU scored in overtime and then made the two point conversion registered on the campus Richter scale) The Conversion Game? I don’t know what it will be named for all eternity, but it was an amazing game. I do think it also bodes well for the future for LSU. Will both LSU and Tennessee (which also beat Alabama for the first time in like fifteen years) be able to consistently compete with Alabama now? Has Georgia taken over as the SEC behemoth? Has the Alabama run ended? I don’t think so–they have an off year where they lose two or three games periodically (2010, 2019, 2022)–and they could bounce right back. next year and win it all again. You can never count them out, even in their off years.

As for the Saints, they swept Atlanta again this year, and that is enough for me.

I did write a lot this year, even though it didn’t seem like I actually did while the year was passing. I also worked on Chlorine and another project I am working on throughout the year, as well as the novellas, and of course, I was writing short stories and essays for much of the year. I also read a lot more New Orleans and Louisiana history, and I had tons of ideas for things to write all year long. I did make it to the gym on a fairly regular basis at the beginning of the year, but then it became more and more sporadic and after my COVID-19 experience, never again. I also injured my arm a few weeks ago–when I flex the bicep it feels like I have a Charley horse, so not good, but it doesn’t impact my day to day activities. I also had my colonoscopy at last this past year–the prep was horrific, and I am really dreading doing it again at sixty-five, should I make it that far.

Yesterday was a nice day. I was exhausted, and after my work-at-home duties were completed I did some chores–laundry, dishes–and I also spent some time both reading (A Walk on the Wild Side) and writing. I also watched the Clemson-Tennessee Orange Bowl last night before Paul got home from his dinner engagement and we watched a few more episodes of Sex Lives of College Girls. Today I am going to read a bit this morning with my coffee before getting cleaned up and diving headfirst back into the book. Paul has his trainer today and usually either goes to the gym to ride the bike or to his office to work for the rest of the afternoon, so I should be able to have some uninterrupted writing time, which will be lovely. And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a happy and safe New Year’s Eve, Constant Reader, and I will check back in with you later.

Callin’ Baton Rouge

I have decided, at long last, to throw away my ratty old LSU sweatshirt.

This sweatshirt, for the record, predates Paul, that’s how old it is. It’s either thirty or twenty-nine; I cannot really remember one way or the other. It was, however, my very first LSU sweatshirt–the first of many–and I bought it at the bookstore on the LSU campus. I don’t remember which drive from Houston to Tampa it was when I stopped on campus and bought it–it was either a time when I was driving my new car from Houston back to Tampa, or when I was riding with a friend who was driving from Phoenix to Tampa–I flew into Houston, he met me at the airport and we drove on to Tampa from there, but for a very long time it was my only LSU sweatshirt, and I’ve always had a deep fondness for it. It’s been worn and washed so many times that it’s incredibly thin and threadbare; the neckline is fraying and so are the sleeves at the wrist. It’s stained and ratty and messy, so much so that I won’t even wear it to run errands. I only wear it around the house and usually only when all the other sweatshirts are dirty (I live in sweats when I am at home), and the other day as I was putting it on I realized not only how old it was but how bad of shape it was in. Why are you holding on to this sweatshirt? I asked myself, and then Saturday morning as I was folding it out of the dryer I thought throw it away, why are you keeping this? Sentiment? You pride yourself on your lack of that emotion, so I decided to take a photo of it, write a farewell blog entry to it, and put it in the trash–which I should have done years ago, really.

I don’t even remember why I decided to stop on campus and buy it, to be honest. I have no memory of that at all. Even now, when we are on campus for games and go by the store, it doesn’t look familiar at all from back then. Maybe they’ve built or redesigned the campus store, I don’t know; it’s certainly possible. But I don’t remember it being right by the stadium, either; it’s possible there are two stores on campus. I couldn’t say for sure.

Despite growing up as an Auburn and Alabama fan (in that order; the rule was you always rooted for Alabama unless they were playing Auburn), I’ve always kind of been partial to LSU, even though I had no connection to either the school or the state until much later in life. I’ve tried to remember why I always liked LSU, even as a kid–I think it was two things: purple has always been a favorite color of mine, especially when paired with gold, and the live tiger on campus (which I am now on the fence about–I see the arguments both for and against keeping a live tiger on campus as a mascot, but I love that tiger). My cousin actually was on the Auburn team that lost the Earthquake Game back in 1988–my family is still bitter about that 7-6 last minute loss–and when we moved to Louisiana, I got Paul into college football and he became an LSU fan because we lived here. I still rooted for Auburn and Alabama and LSU, in that order. I was still rooting for Auburn and Alabama when they played LSU, though; even in 2003 when LSU won its first national championship since 1958. It was 2005 when everything shifted for me on the college football landscape; that horrible 2005 season after Katrina, when LSU’s football team was about the only positive thing Louisiana had going for it that season, that was when I went full-on bleed purple-and-gold LSU fan, and have never looked back since. Paul of course had already gone full tilt LSU fan, and his enthusiasm was catching. I used to only care about college football; now I pay attention to almost every sport, from basketball to gymnastics to baseball to track so I can root for the Tigers.

Even before LSU moved to the front of the list, I was writing about LSU. Chanse played scholarship football for LSU, and would have possibly played pro had he not suffered a career-ending knee injury in the Sugar Bowl his last season of eligibility. Chanse was a tight end; and I had always intended for Chanse to go back to LSU and solve a murder on the campus, at his fraternity house. That story, “Once a Tiger,” is about four thousand words in; I’ve debated turning it into both a novel or a novella rather than a short story. Scotty is an LSU fan–I wrote about Mike the Tiger in Baton Rouge Bingo–and of course, in A Streetcar Named Murder Valerie’s twin sons are in their first semester up there.

Looks pretty bad, doesn’t it? It served me well for nearly three four decades!

Paul and I went to our first LSU game in Tiger Stadium in November of 2010. It was the Mississippi game, the Magnolia Bowl; there’s not much love lost between LSU and Mississippi–their fans still can’t get over Billy Cannon’s Run back in 1959. LSU has ruined many a season for the Rebels, and vice versa, but I do think they hate us more than we hate them. The game was amazing, and we had a great time. We went to several games in 2011, and it wasn’t until the COVID year of 2020 that we went the entire season without going to a game; the only game we went to in 2021 was the first time the Tigers ever lost when we were at the game (Auburn, ironically; it was also Auburn’s first win in Baton Rouge this century). We didn’t go to any games this year, either; not sure if we will be going to any more in the future, either; but one never knows, and I would like to go to at least one more Saturday night game in Death Valley. We’ve been to some great games over the years, and I am very happy to say that we got to see that great 2019 team play twice–and we were at the Florida game, which was amazing and exciting and I couldn’t talk for at least three days afterwards.

And of course, this season was all over the place, but the team did something never done before in LSU football history: won at both Florida and Auburn…so obviously, the team has never won in Gainesville and Auburn and beat Alabama in Baton Rouge. Not even Joe Burrow could do that; in his first year as a Tiger he was 1-2 in those three games. So, if nothing else, Jayden Daniels has won a place in LSU history for that, and Brian Kelly did something in his first year in Baton Rouge that no LSU coach had ever done before–including Nick Saban (even the year Saban led LSU to a national title, that team lost to Florida in Tiger Stadium).

And so it’s goodbye to my old sweatshirt at long last. I don’t know why I didn’t throw it away sooner–it’s been ratty and stained and threadbare for years–unless it was an unconscious kind of sentimentality. I haven’t preserved much of my pre-Paul life–I’ve always viewed those years as a prologue to the rest of my life–but this was one of the few things left from that time.

But its time has passed, so farewell to you, old LSU sweatshirt. You served me well…and now I get to buy a new one to replace it. YES!

And here’s my Christmas gift from Paul this year:

Miranda

Monday morning and it’s very bright this morning. The time change–I’d forgotten that it means getting up in the light and coming home from work in the dark. It’s also interesting how much that changes in one day. It was already getting dark before four yesterday, and was completely night by five. I don’t like the change, to be honest; it doesn’t help me get up in the morning and it makes me feel like the day’s been wasted by the time I get home because there’s no more daylight. It’s another one of the reasons I don’t like winter, to be honest, but at least down here in New Orleans it never gets super cold or snows, which does make it somewhat more bearable. I still don’t like coming home after dark, though.

Yesterday wasn’t a great day for me. I was very tired all day, despite sleeping really well, and never really felt like I had any energy. I tried to write for a while yesterday morning but got nowhere with it, which is causing me more than a little bit of stress today, and so I ended up watching a lot of television. We finished off the first season of Interview with the Vampire (more on that later), the first season of The Serpent Queen, watched the most recent Andor, and got caught up on American Horror Story. We also watched a movie called Nobody with Bob Odenkirk, which was interesting and a bit of a different approach to the usual “Dad gets vengeance” movie before finally toddling off to bed. I didn’t sleep especially well last night either–I kept waking up and had trouble falling back asleep, but it was a better night’s sleep than Saturday’s, so I will take it.

I think I had trouble sleeping Saturday night because I was so emotionally caught up in the LSU-Alabama game; I was a bundle of nerves and raw energy and anxiety the entirety of the game (which I still can’t believe we won; who would have ever thought we’d beat Alabama this year; everyone is very high, obviously, on Coach Kelly now). And now, of course, that we’ve actually beaten Alabama (first time in Baton Rouge since 2010) people are talking about LSU running the table this year and making it to the play-offs as the first-ever two loss team to get that far. One thing for sure is that LSU could certainly mess things up for the play-offs this year; who do they take if LSU does the improbable and hands Georgia its first loss of the season and wins the SEC? One loss Tennessee, who lost to Georgia and didn’t win their division? Georgia, defending national champion with one loss but didn’t win the SEC and lost to LSU? A two loss SEC champion LSU that lost to Tennessee? How do you decide between the three of them? And if you take two, as has been done occasionally in recent years, which two? This year is very reminiscent of the chaos of 2007–when a two-loss LSU team won the BCS title over Ohio State; the only two loss team since 1960 to be crowned national champions, and the only one of the championship game era (Georgia also only had two losses that year, and were highly ranked; they had a good argument but losing their division and not playing for the conference championship ruled them out–although both Alabama and Georgia have both won the national title without being SEC champions). It will be interesting. I am that Doubting Thomas still; certain we can win out the regular season by staying focused and disciplined, but I don’t know if LSU could match up with Georgia. I still think it likely that both Tennessee and Georgia are the most likely two to go to the play-offs, if the SEC winds up with two; but I also didn’t think LSU would beat Alabama this year, either.

Which shows how much I actually know, you know?

I wasn’t able to finish this before leaving the house for work this morning–I told you, the time change, combined with some insomnia and low energy days, have really messed with my mind; I was so tired this morning I even considered hitting the snooze button a third time–so here I am on my lunch break, trying to get it finished and posted so I don’t miss a day. (Being a completer can sometimes be a real problem, you know?) After I get off work today I have to run uptown and get the mail as well as pick up some groceries from the store–nothing much, just a couple of things, but might as well stop and get it over with, you know? I also hope to get some serious work on the book done tonight as well. I hate having lost the weekend, but low energy is low energy.

I did manage to read some of Wanda Morris’ new book this weekend (at the rate I’m going I won’t finish it until probably my trip to Kentucky), but also managed to read a new-to-me Daphne du Maurier short story, included in the collection Not After Midnight and Other Stories (it also includes, as every du Maurier collection does, “Don’t Look Now” and “Not After Midnight”). I’d gotten the book from eBay after finding out that it included “A Border-line Case”–which I enjoyed–as well as two other stories I’d not read, “The Way of the Cross” and “The Breakthrough.” This weekend during Georgia’s mauling of Tennessee I read “The Way of the Cross”, and really liked it. It’s long, as all du Maurier stories often tend to be, and it’s actually quite a nasty little story that spins out over the course of a twenty-four period with a small group of British tourists visiting Jerusalem and the Holy Land, most of them from a small village. Their vicar was supposed to be their tour guide for this visit; but he was taken ill and another available minister-type, who doesn’t know any of them and isn’t really completely comfortable taking over, has been asked to fill in. It’s one of du Maurier’s nastier little stories, but the reason it is so nasty is because of its brutal, unflinching honest view of the characters, none of whom really come out of the story well. What is particularly interesting is how illustrative this story is of du Maurier’s own cynical view of humanity, but her gifts make the characters so absolutely real it feels like the reader is literally looking inside their souls. The characters all have definite opinions of who and what they are; as well as their own histories. What happens throughout the course of this story is everyone is gradually humbled and made to take off their own rose-colored glasses and inevitably are forced to look at themselves and their lives very clearly–usually by overhearing two of the other characters talking about them. It’s a terrific story, and one I will definitely be revisiting at some point. (I also like they are visiting the Holy Land but definitely are not very Christian…)

And now it’s time to head back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader–and oh yes, for the record: the reaction to Jayden Daniels’ overtime touchdown and later, the two point conversion did, indeed, register on the seismograph on campus. So, it, like the 1988 Auburn game, qualifies not just as an “earthquake” game but a double earthquake game.

GEAUX TIGERS!

When the Sun Goes Down

Work-at-home Friday has rolled around again, and today I get to do data entry and quality-assurance on forms until my eyes cross. I have a couple of errands to run this afternoon–but other than that, I am looking forward to a nice, peaceful day at home doing my work-at-home duties and my chores. Later on, I hope to get some good work done on the book before I repair to my easy chair with the latest Wanda Morris novel. It was a tough choice between that and the new Donna Andrews, but I am thinking since Dashing Through The Snowbirds is a Christmas tale, I may save that for Christmas reading this year–it makes the most sense, and since I generally don’t watch any Christmas movies or specials anymore (I do sometimes watch A Charlie Brown Christmas–it’s my favorite), maybe I could read Christmas-themed books and stories this year in December; maybe call it “The Twelve Reads of Christmas” or something like that. Hmmm, it’s a thought.

It really is amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for you after a few days of insomnia and exhaustion/fatigue.

Last night I didn’t sleep as deeply or as well as I did on Wednesday night. I kept waking up, partly due to Scooter’s restlessness and sometime need to let me know his outrage about something, but was always able to fall back asleep. I had to have bloodwork done this morning; I got an email from the lab telling me I had lab orders waiting for me, so I scheduled it. I got there this morning and checked in–mind you, I needed to fast, so I didn’t eat last night or have anything to drink or eat this morning before leaving the house–only to find out they didn’t, in fact, have lab orders for me. Hilariously, I am terrible about remembering to do the labs after my doctor appointments, so this last time in July I made the appointment for Labs the same week as my doctor appointment and had them done. Once they told me I didn’t have orders in, I looked in the app and saw that I had, indeed, had them done back in August. So, no need to fast overnight, no need to not have coffee before leaving, no need to leave, in fact. Heavy sigh. But I did start reading Wanda Morris’ new book while waiting to be told I didn’t really need to be there, and it’s quite marvelous already. I knew it would be–her debut novel was superb–and it’s such a delight, as always, to see exciting new voices grow and become even stronger as their career progresses.

Last evening as I relaxed before heading to bed I watched another documentary about the history of gay pornography–I’ll probably watch another one later today–which of course put me in mind of writing about that history. I really do need to focus on getting this Scotty book and the next thing I have to write finished so I can get back to Chlorine; my goal for the rest of this year and 2023 is to get these two books finished, finish two other in-progress projects, and wrap up some other things that are unfinished but need to be finished so I can cross them off the list. I may do another short story collection; I’m not sure but I think I have enough sold and/or published for another collection to actually be possible. This one, when it materialized, will be called This Town and Other Stories, because the strongest story I’ve done since the last collection was “This Town”, which was in Holly West’s anthology Murder-a-Go-Go’s. At least in my opinion, although The Affair of the Purloined Rentboy and Other Stories would probably sell better…

And of course, tomorrow is a big day for the Southeastern Conference, with division championships on the line. LSU can actually get a leg up in the West by accomplishing the gargantuan task of beating Alabama in Baton Rouge for the first time since 2010–but I don’t think that’s going to happen. Sure, it’s possible–anything is possible in college football on any given Saturday; I am sure no one would have thought Kansas State would shellack Oklahoma State the way they did last weekend–but despite all the hype chatter, I’m not getting my hopes up terribly high. Yes, I want the Tigers to win–but I don’t have any expectations, just as I really haven’t all season. I’m just delighted the program seems to be on the rise again after the last two horrible years. I certainly would have never thought LSU would be coming into the game with Alabama tied with them and Mississippi for first place in the division. And earlier in the day Georgia and Tennessee will play for the leg up in the East–which again, no one would have seen coming before the season started; no one really give Tennessee much thought as the program has been moribund since at least 2007, the last time they won their division (which also happened to be the year a two-loss LSU team won the national championship–see how you can see omens and portents in everything?). I am not a Tennessee fan by any means–I rooted for them during the Peyton Manning years because I thought he was a phenomenal athlete plus I despise Florida with every fiber of my being, but that was about it. I only root for them in non-conference games and bowls, but I am happy for their fans–just as I was happy for Georgia fans last year as they finally beat Alabama and won the national title; I always think back to what a glorious ride 2019 was for LSU fans, so it’s always nice to see a long-starved fan base finally get something they can be excited about. Pundits and fans are already comparing 2019 LSU and 2022 Tennessee…but it’s really not even the same. Sure, no one thought LSU would be as great as they were in 2019, but they were also coming off a 10-3 season. Tennessee was 7-6 last year, so it’s an even bigger turnaround for them on that level. I plan to get my writing and my errands and chores finished tomorrow morning well before the 2:30 Georgia-Tennessee kick-off, so I can spend the rest of the day nervously cleaning with the games on in the background. Paul also comes home tomorrow (yay!) so I am going to need groceries, too.

And my kitchen, as always, is a disaster area on a Friday morning, so it’s perhaps time for me to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you later or tomorrow.