Tag: Black Death

The One You Love

Tuesday and back into the office. My energy spurt after getting home from the pre-operation appointments didn’t last for very long, I’m afraid, and by the middle of yesterday afternoon I was groggy and tired; adrenaline crash from the anxiety rollercoaster, no doubt. We started watching Happy Valley, which is certainly a grim show (I said to Paul, “it’s like a British version of Mare of Easttown“–although obviously Happy Valley came first, but they are very similar in tone and mood: bleak). But the acting and the writing is first rate, and we both are really enjoying it. They called in some prescriptions for me that I’ll need post-surgery, but apparently in checking the CVS website, I have to call them about the pain pills. Terrific. It’s always such a joy trying to reach a pharmacy on the phone. But I have to swing by uptown to get the mail after work today, and so I might as well call so I can pick everything up on my way home from the office.

I am way behind on everything, but I feel a lot better about the post-surgery period. I don’t know how long it’s going to take before the pain goes away, but I imagine I am going to be in a painkiller stupor for at least a couple of days, at the very least. I’ve never really had the kind of surgery where you’re put under and cut on since I had my tonsils out when I was three or four. That’s not bad–going sixty years between surgeries–so I really have nought to complain about, but I kind of wish I had more experience with it so I knew what to expect more; it’s the not-knowing that really triggers my anxiety. Now I am wondering about putting on shirts with the arm-brace on; am I allowed to take it off to put on a shirt if I put it right back on again? Doesn’t the arm need to stay in the same position, even when I am showering? Heavy sigh. They did send me home with a packet of information to read over, so I’ll be doing that today as well. I also have to get the paperwork for my leave finished and turned into Admin today. Heavy sigh. I do have the letter from the surgeon that is required, and I think I have everything I need. (More anxiety, hurray.)

I also need to practice putting the brace on, too. The demonstration wasn’t enough to make me think oh sure I can do this easily on my own with a bent arm.

For the record, I tore my biceps muscle in my left arm back in January. For a number of reasons I am not in the mood to go into right now, I am now finally getting the surgery to have the muscle repaired. It’s a long and slow and painful recovery process; I need to wear the brace for at least three to four weeks, and then it’s physical therapy for months until I get the clearance that it’s all healed and working properly again. I got the distinct impression yesterday that it’ll take about a week for me to be weaned off the pain medications–again, that’s fine, what choice do I have? I don’t know how much, if any, typing I’ll be able to do that first week, and besides, if my brain is scrambled on oxycodone, I wouldn’t be able to write and/or create much anyway. But it didn’t sound like things were going to be as terrible or as worst-case as my mind always seems to want to come up with.

It was also a cold and wet rainy day yesterday; we’ve not had rain in quite some time–not nearly as much as usual in our tropical clime–so the whole day had that undercurrent and wet and cold that I’ve not experienced in quite some time (last winter, to be precise) and so that was also off-putting. I felt cold all day, was wrapped up in a blanket in my easy chair as I doom scrolled social media, watched some documentaries on Youtube (the wives of Charlemagne; the separation of power between the Church and the Holy Roman Empire; and the Black Death), and also caught an episode of Moonlighting, in which Maddie’s mother thinks her husband is cheating so David and Maddie investigate. I also saw some social media posts about Moonlighting not aging as well as I had originally thought, which was worrying. I have such fond memories of the show, and I’ve been enjoying rewatching it, and I thought I was paying attention to the “well it was a different time” things–but I didn’t really see the show as misogynist as I feared it would be, and there were other things that I was certain wouldn’t hold up on–casual homophobia? Casual racism? Casual misogyny? It was written and filmed in the same decade that gave us such great misogynist comedies as Porky’s, Sixteen Candles, and Weird Science (don’t @ me; I don’t make the rules), so how could it not be problematic on some levels today? I’m also a little disappointed that my rewatching didn’t somehow note the red flags (I actually posted at one point that I was surprised it wasn’t more offensive); but it’s also the classic set-up arrangement for old-style screwball romantic comedies–one prim and proper character, another who is spontaneous and always up for a good time and both learn from each other as they grow together into coupledom. I know there are some issues in the old movies too–but I still love them.

Perhaps that might make a good essay?

And today is the official release day for Mississippi River Mischief!

And on that note, it’s off to the spice mines with me. Have a great Tuesday, everyone!

My October Symphony

At this point in the summer, the cool warmth of October seems a distant futuristic dream. It’s always that way in August, and I no longer have Southern Decadence to look forward to; and haven’t in years. There’s no Decadence this year, of course, thanks to the pandemic, but I have also not participated in the madness of wild partying over the course of that weekend in over a decade. My participation has been primarily limited to passing out condoms on Friday night before escaping to the deep cool of my air conditioned home for the rest of the long weekend.

But my, did I used to have a great time during Southern Decadence! (See: Bourbon Street Blues.)

We started watching Babylon Berlin last night, at long last, and are already quite mesmerized. It’s a fascinating period–pre-Nazi/post first war Berlin was quite decadent, if you believe freedom from repression of all kinds is decadent. I’ve read very little about this period, although I have read Isherwood and of course I’ve seen Cabaret about a million times, but other than as a prologue to the rise of Hitler and Nazism in histories of the second World War, I’ve not really read a lot about that period of Germany’s past; certainly not anything that goes to any great depth. I also have a copy of the book somewhere; I’ve always meant to get to it as well as other books set in Europe during the same period. I don’t read nearly as much historical fiction anymore as I used to, or as much as I would like; I’m not really sure why that is. I love to read, I love to write, and I love history, so one would think art forms that combine those things would be something I would be all over, and yet–I’ve written precisely two short stories set in the past, and not even that distant. “The Weight of a Feather” is set in the 1950’s during the gay purge of the government, and of course, “The Affair of the Purloined Rentboy” (which might be my favorite title of anything I’ve ever written), is set in 1915 or thereabouts; a nebulous period of time during which the Great War was raging in Europe but the United States had yet to get involved. I have some things in progress that are historicals, or period pieces, or whatever may have you; the one I am really itching to sink my teeth into is a story set in Black Death era Rome, “The Arrow in the Cardinal’s Cap.” But I really need to be focusing as much creative energy on Bury Me in Shadows as I can right now, and so everything else isn’t going to get any real attention for the next few weeks or so. My plan is to, of course, do my day job to the best of my abilities, try to keep treading water as far as emails and everything else is concerned, and focus as much as possible on the manuscript. It’s in decent shape but very rough; the skeleton is there, but there are bones that need to be removed and replaced, others that simply need to be reset, and I also somehow have to manage a soul-transplant; replacing the one I originally created for the book with a completely new one–and these are all tricky things to manage that will require focus and energy.

And of course, one of the best things for stoking my creativity is to read really good writing, and I have Blacktop Wasteland to not only read and savor, but take inspiration from as well.

Then again, you never know.

We also finished I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, which was really quite lovely; I’m not certain that I want to read the book now, but I might. I’m not a huge reader of true crime–which doesn’t, when you think about it, make a lot of sense–and there’s so much else for me to read that I am behind on–oy, the ever-growing TBR pile in my house is as out of control as kudzu in rural Alabama–but I know I really need to start reading more of it. I think one of the main reasons I avoid it is fear that I’ll want to adapt it into fiction–just as Ethan Brown’s Murder in the Bayou sort of inspired what might eventually become another Chanse novel–and I’m not really all that interested in serial killers or rapists, if I’m going to be completely honest. I’ve toyed with the idea for a serial killer novel for quite some time now–and it has occurred to me that setting it in the past, when people weren’t quite as aware of them as we are now and before the creation of profilers (although I wanted to include a profiler who was wrong about everything in this one) might be a better way to go with it–but I’m not really sure I am the right person to write such a book.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines.