Tag: books

Unconditional Love

Saturday morning and all is well here in the Lost Apartment. Yesterday turned out lovely, after the rain, there was this lovely chill dampness to the air that was quite nice. I got all of my work done without a problem, and worked on the house. The kitchen looks terrific now–I still need to do the floors and some touch up; same with living room–and it was nice to come downstairs to a very clean kitchen and work space. I also did all the dishes and all the laundry! I also spent some time icing my ankles, and will probably do that some more today. I never got around to writing yesterday, and I didn’t read anything I have in progress already (I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with my brain lately), but as I was moving things around I picked up a couple of books that I paged through a bit (The Last Picture Show and Michelangelo, but more on those later), so that’s something. I watched the reunions for The Traitors seasons 3 and 4, which were fun (more on those later). When Paul came down, I finished the day’s chores and settled in for the LSU-Dartmouth baseball game, before we switched over to the LSU Gymnastics meet against Alabama (yes, if you didn’t know already, we are a very LSU house), and then it was off to bed. I slept really well for the first time in a while, and feel rested. My Achilles tendons also need icing this morning before I head out for my errands later this morning.

Today, I am going to pick up the mail, and make some groceries on the way back home. I had planned on washing the car, but now I don’t think I am going to. I also need to get mailing envelopes because I’ve been terribly lazy about sending the copies of my book to the people I need to; but this whole month has been kind of weird in some ways, which I am still thinking about and processing. I am also a little freaked out that tomorrow is March 1 already, but that’s how time passes in New Orleans in the first two months of the year. It also looks gray outside this morning, but it’s supposed to be sunny and warm by the early afternoon.

As I had mentioned, as I was moving books around yesterday, I came across copies of Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show and Michelangelo by William E. Wallace, both books I enjoyed, and The Last Picture Show was influential on me, I think, as a writer. The Last Picture Show was basically another, male-driven version of Peyton Place–the dark, dirty sex secrets of a small town, and it also made me a lifelong fan of McMurtry. (I also loved the film version.) I was going to reread it a few summers ago, but I gave up on the read when we got to the calf-fucking and taking Billy to the hooker who bloodied his nose. Billy was unable to give consent to anything, so from a modern reading this entire sequence is pretty disturbing, but I think I will give it another go because of how the book treats homosexuality; I’d like to see the book through that lens, and see precisely how the future Oscar winning screenwriter of Brokeback Mountain dealt with it in an early novel.

Left Coast Crime is criming right now, and of course I am enjoying everyone’s social media posts, but…I don’t have any FOMO? Considering FOMO has been a major driving factor throughout my life, and often to my own detriment, I think this is some serious personal growth. I never really liked the “pick me” side of my fractured personality, and I am not in the least bit sorry to banish that part of my brain into some remote, dusty and not easily accessed back wrinkle in the very back of my skull. I think this is a big step forward for me, you know?

Connor Storrie is hosting Saturday Night Live tonight, and I may stay up to watch some of it–I can also replay it on Peacock tomorrow morning, or find clips on Youtube if I can’t stay up that late. They are also bringing on one or two of the Hughes bros–trying to rehab them in front of the audience Connor will bring them (straight women and gay men–yeah, I am sure they’ll be embraced by the live audience and we should be prepared for NBC to mute any negative audience reactions to their stain of an appearance. Since NBC also hosts the Olympics, obviously they feel the need to rehabilitate the men who can’t say sorry, ladies, we totally fucked up in the moment and we are so sorry to spit in your faces about your accomplishments like that. You see how institutions always rally to the cause of infantile boys who never grow up? I do love the way the country has stepped up for the women, though. My favorite thing this past week has been reading the comments on the social media posts of the NHL or the teams’ accounts.

And I think a harsh critique and rebuke of that infantilizing “boys will be boys/locker room talk” enabling bullshit is in order, and could be the introduction to my essays series on masculinity. Hmmm.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow morning.

David Florentine is a great New Orleans photographer; check out his work! I especially love the spectral mist in this shot. You can check out his website here.

Destiny

Thursday and my last day in the office this week, praise Jesus. It’s not been my best week, what with the insomnia and tiredness. It’s kind of ironic that after finally getting past the endless fatigue of the past few years, and finally getting excellent sleep for months…that the insomnia has come back. I think it’s over-caffeination, frankly–lots of coffee these last few days, which wasn’t smart; yesterday morning I really felt the effects. Not to mention the endless irritation that social media has become, with bots flooding feeds with racism, misogyny, homophobia, and the most disgusting ableism and infantilization of people with people with medical conditions that I despair of this world and start rooting for the meteor strike–failing that, any extinction event on this planet would probably be a boon to the rest of the universe. I think maybe my weariness at this insane dumpster fire we’re living through might be seeping into my soul.1 I won’t let the bastards win, though–and if they send me to a camp, well, I’ll be defiant until they kill me.

I’m not, and never will be, a good little German.

And I did sleep better last night. I feel better this morning, if my legs are a bit tired. I definitely hit a wall yesterday afternoon after lunch, and was so tired that I thought it was Thursday by the end of the day. I ran an errand on the way home and had groceries delivered, and I also did some chores and picked up a bit before collapsing into my easy chair with Sparky for the evening. We finished off Season 3 of The Traitors–so much traitor on traitor violence!–and did not see that ending coming at all. Maybe when the show has been around longer, and people are more familiar with it and how it works, the players will watch past seasons and catch the patterns and shifts in how people inevitably end up going along with other people when they can’t make up their own minds–or how easily people can be manipulated and steered, which is part of its appeal, I think, and when the players talk about learning lessons about themselves from playing, I can totally see that. We at home viewers can roll our eyes at players being deceived, or making insane leaps of logic, often outsmarting themselves in the process–but we also aren’t there, and we are only being shown bits and pieces of their days and their interactions–and it is possible to bond very quickly with people when you’re completely immersed in a group with no outside contact–like fraternity hell weeks, or boot camp–and it’s also a very good lesson in how perceptive and intuitive you are–as well as making you doubt yourself. The finale of season 4 airs tonight, and we shall see if Alabama Rob can pull it off with his sweet demeanor, blue eyes, and prettiness.

Never trust a pretty Southern boy from rural Alabama. Just sayin’.

The hockey mess continues, and the Olympic players keep digging themselves in deeper, and the NHL and the teams aren’t helping matters at all, either. Every social media post gets ratioed, and apparently they are hoping to ignore it till the season ends and hope it all goes away before next season. That’s how ignorant they are in their misogyny; they don’t understand women in the least. Women are, as a general rule, incredible in their ability to maintain a grudge (I admire that because I am similar). I sure as hell carry grudges to the grave with me. I’ve been to Colorado exactly twice in my life since they passed anti-gay legislation decades ago; it has since been repealed an Colorado is mostly blue now…but I still won’t spend my money there, and my visits were work-related. I just mentally crossed Colorado off my list of places to visit, and never thought about it again. Likewise, I am not too keen on ever doing anything to help Florida economically, either. When I visit my family over in Panama City Beach-which is rare–I buy gas before I cross the state line into Florida, and make sure I wait till I cross it again on the way home. Any little bit I can do to not help their economy, I am so there.

But it looks like the women’s team–and all the women medalists–are going to have a massive celebratory party in Las Vegas thrown by Flavor Flav, and companies are stepping up to participate or sponsor it. Hope those cold double cheeseburgers and Aquafina water bottles (warm, I’ll bet) and ketchup packets in that back-ass tacky conference room was so much better than anything the women will experience in Las Vegas–and the women are also getting a lot of endorsement deals. The men’s accomplishment is forever stained and tainted by allowing themselves to be used as political props for a pedophile who hates women. Job well done, assholes. The “honor” of a White House visit? There’s no honor in being used like that, and then lapping it up as you lick the very boots of the monster who is stealing your glory and using it to prop his unpopular ass up. This will haunt you until the days you die…because the Internet is forever and if you think the women players are going to forget how you pissed all over the “friends” you pretend to “support”?

But no worries guys–there’s always prostitutes and gold-diggers to fuck. And as for the NHL’s so-called “Girl Dad” campaign? It’s kind of abhorrent now that we know those dads are okay with the sex trafficking of children. That’s a very specific version of utter ick.

Ugh.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great day, and I will be here again tomorrow!

  1. Those of you thinking the next election will change things, may I direct you to the elections of 2008 and 2020? ↩︎

Rose Garden

Good morning! I’m feeling good this morning after a lovely evening of sleep and an even lovelier day of doing very little. I must confess I did feel a bit on the guilty side last evening when I went up the stairs and slid under the covers; but the way I feel this morning makes me think that it was a very good thing that I took a rest day, really. Paul also took a rest day–he wore himself out with a couple of all nighters–and so things were quiet and calm around here all day. I had intended to only sit for a moment and ice my ankles, but Sparky curled up into my lap and I put on season 2 of The Traitors, Paul came downstairs and got under the blankets on the couch…and that’s primarily what I did yesterday: binge-watched The Traitors all the way through the reunion. I have figured out how they keep us hooked and watching–all those cliffhangers and twists and turns–because every time the credits roll I have to see what happened. Paul’s been calling me an addict all week, but yesterday he was the one with the “We have to see who they killed” or “start the next one so we find out if the recruit said yes” and finally I said, “yes, but I’m the addict” and we had a marvelous laugh. We finished up the second season around eleven thirty, but “had to start the third” to see who was in the cast.

I don’t think I’ve been this involved in a show in quite some time? Certainly not a reality show, in any case. We also want to watch the Tyra documentary on Netflix because we used to marathon America’s Next Top Model when they would do marathons on some network–I want to say Bravo but I know that’s wrong–Bravo was our go-to for marathons of The West Wing and Law and Order back in the day. We gradually stopped watching–some of the stuff they did on the show made me uncomfortable, honestly–so I am interested in watching. I knew the show had to be a train wreck behind the scenes, because well, Tyra Banks, and I’d also like to watch the one about The Biggest Loser–a show I never watched because (blech) Jillian Michaels (vomit), plus I worked in fitness for nearly ten years, so I knew, just from the commercials, that it wasn’t good for the contestants and no one seemed to be concerned about their safety, physical and mental. I’ve also never watched any of the romance ones (although I loved the fictional show unReal) because it just seemed…I don’t know, absurd; at first they seemed cringy to me–“who wants to go on television to find a life partner?”–but there’s an audience for them apparently. (Also, I found out it incredibly insensitive and insulting that “marriage equality” was undermining the sanctity of marriage while straight people not only mocked marriage with these shows but made it blatantly obvious how little the actual undermining of the sanctity of marriage truly bothered anyone; it was just the usual homophobic trash with a cross up their ass…and that’s not even mentioning adultery and divorce…)

Sigh. The hypocrisy of the straights never ceases to surprise me.

I did spend some time yesterday cleaning the boxes of books off the top of the cabinets. I have two more to go; it was difficult with the Achilles tendons tightness to climb up and down the ladder, but I also cleared off the top shelf in the pantry for this contents of these boxes. The kitchen is a mess–a bad one, at that–so I am going to spend some time on that this morning when I finish this. I would like to read and do some writing, too, but I am also not going to beat myself to death if I don’t. I feel good this morning but I do need to ice the ankles again today, so I am not entirely sure I won’t get sucked into the comfort of my easy chair and purring kitty sleeping in my lap with the remote control right there on the side table. I did get a lot of the laundry done–there’s very little left going into the week–and I would like to get the pantry/laundry room into some sort of tidy order. Ah, dreams are lovely things, aren’t they?

But in taking the boxes down I also found some books that reminded me of how my childhood interest in history took off–the juvenile histories of Genevieve Foster, “parallel histories” is how she described them, which is kind of what A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman is, so yes, there must be a blog essay about these books and how they inevitably got me incredibly interested in history and how it is all connected (also how it constantly repeats). I paged through some of them while bingeing The Traitors yesterday–I bought copies after Katrina, probably in an attempt to reconnect with my personal history, which I did a lot of in those years–and memories came flooding back; and I also remembered a lot of the contents of those books, too. The first one I read–and I checked them out of the library at Eli Whitney Elementary regularly–was George Washington and His World…and I loved the concept of all that historical information being given to give context to that time and that world. So, my wanting to write that kind of history of the sixteenth century was probably already wired into my brain before reading A Distant Mirror, and probably partly why I loved it so much. I also pruned books out of the bookcases and some of the boxes, which is more progress on the house. Next weekend, I’ll drop some boxes of books at the library sale and will also probably drop off beads at ArcGNO.

And on that note, I’m going to get more coffee and make some breakfast. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning! See you then!

A terrific shot by Linda Minutola, who does great work! Best place to get a burger grilled under a hubcap!

Juliet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blue Eyes

Its the morning of Ash Wednesday and I am up at my normal time, trying to get back to normal and back into my normal day-to-day life now that Carnival is over for another year. The city is probably still in ruins, because there’s only so much they can clean up overnight, you know? The trees of St. Charles are dripping with beads and crepe paper and, of course, toilet paper from racist Tucks, er, Sucks1. I am so tired of the insidious nature of racism in incredibly stupid and small-minded white people. I can’t imagine how exhausted racialized communities feel. The closest thing I can think of would be how tired I am of homophobia and homophobes.

You haters are fucking tedious, you know? Get a fucking life already.

Readjusting back to normality after Deep Gras is always tricky. It’s Fat Tuesday that always winds up throwing me off–I am always aware that it’s Monday during Lundi Gras, but it felt like Sunday yesterday and I keep thinking today is Monday, and it’s not. That will take some mental adjusting, as will that tomorrow is my last day in the office again. But I feel very rested this morning, too. I spent a. great deal of time yesterday icing my ankles, so the Achilles tendons aren’t very tender this morning, but I am sure that will change as the day gets longer. I’ll ice them again tonight, of course, and I have some errands to do after work on the way home, too. I made potato leek soup in the slow cooker yesterday–it was sublime, probably the best I’ve ever made, and I added shallots this time, too–and that was quite lovely for dinner. I did chores and picked up a lot around the house, but never got around to the floors, which I hope to get to this weekend. I also managed to read some, which was very lovely, and I had a very strong burst of creativity yesterday that resulted in me making significant headway on an essay for the newsletter after sending a promotional one out over the course of the lengthy weekend, while getting an idea for another one–and I thought I was finished with the promotional Scotty newsletters; so that is a very good thing.

I also need to pack up more beads to donate to ArcGNO this weekend, and should also probably drop off a box of books at the library sale. I made some other reorganization decisions about the apartment this weekend, too–I need to clear out a shelf in the pantry so I can take some boxes down from the tops of the cabinets–and I really need to get the floors done. The house always looks so much better when I’ve done the floors, and maybe this weekend I can get the workspace windows cleaned, depending on the weather; I’ve not bothered to look ahead just yet. If it rains or is too cold, the windows can certainly wait.

While I did things yesterday, I was bingeing Celebrity Traitors from the UK, and even with a majority of the cast being people I had NO idea who they were, it was an excellent cast and an even more enjoyable game. I primarily wanted to see how the game ends, since I’ve never seen a season finale, and now that I know, I am pretty pleased, as I was afraid the way they wrap it all up might be a let down, but it’s not. And there was someone I’d actually met and had dinner/drinks with years and years ago in the cast! Yes, I am going to humblebrag, but the British actress Celia Imrie and I have mutual friends in common–and I had dinner with her and our mutual friend when they came through New Orleans a while back, which was marvelous. Naturally, I was rooting for her, but she was one of the last murder victims, alas. Stephen Fry was also on, and he was the first person I’ve seen note how badly the game is stacked in favor of the Traitors; I also observed to Paul “they really shouldn’t feel bad for banishing people who aren’t Traitors; the Faithful outnumber the Traitors by a 19 to 3 ratio, so of course they are going to banish incorrectly more often than not. I suspect I would be terrible at this game unless I was a Traitor.

If you’re a politics junkie2 and love watching MAGA eating themselves, pay attention to the Louisiana Republican primary for Senator Bill Cassidy (the pro-life OB-GYN who looks like a Muppet gone wrong) for some hilarity. Cassidy, as you may remember, committed the egregious sin of voting for Trump’s impeachment after January 6–hoping the person with no long-term memory would forget that six years later. About a month or so ago, Orange Foolius handpicked congresswoman Julia Letlow to endorse for the race. I’m not entirely certain she’d even announced? Cassidy’s dark money PACs are now going after Letlow, tying her to DEI and Nancy Pelosi and President Biden as a “dangerous liberal” (it took me a while to type that while laughing hysterically); does OF still have pull in Louisiana now? After a couple of weeks of silence, Letlow has finally released her own attack ads on Cassidy and seriously, this primary race can easily be called A Confederacy of Dunces.

I was sorry to hear that both Jesse Jackson and Robert Duvall died over Deep Gras. Both contributed significantly to society in their own ways, and giants cannot be replaced. I mean, look at this iteration of the current Democratic Party–where are all the great Democrats I grew up watching legislate? I mean, even the Kennedy in the forefront of public policy today is a very poor imitation of his father and uncles, pissing and shitting all over the family name. I also find it interesting that Hunter Biden was targeted and hounded for having addiction issues, while MAGA celebrates the brain worm guy who had addiction issues and clearly has something wrong with him.

After finishing reading The Secret of Hangman’s Inn, I started writing a newsletter essay about the Ken Holt series and this book in general, with a particular look at the series’ homo-eroticism–based on my recent reread of the book itself. The series, expertly written by Sam and Beryl Epstein under the name Bruce Campbell, is very much of it’s time–and you could easily see how things had changed since they were written. I remember there was a clue in one book that had to do with the cotter pin holding automobile tires on–they don’t have those anymore–and of course, no television, no automatic transmissions on cars, having to depend on phone calls and being home to take them, newspapers and syndicates with journalistic ethics, and so on. But this particular reread made me realize something about the juvenile series that I hadn’t ever caught on to before–and that will also be a strong piece of the newsletter essay.

I also decided yesterday what my next Scotty book will be and when it will be set. I wanted to jump ahead–the most recent, this new one, is set in August of 2019, and I am going to skip ahead to Mardi Gras 2022, when the parades rolled again after the canceled parade season of 2021–and I even know what it’s going to be about. Huzzah!

So yes, I had a very productive and good day yesterday. I feel rested, my right Achilles tendon has a bit of a twinge but the left feels good, and I feel rested and relaxed and motivated to get things done. And as always, we’ll see how long this feeling lasts. I am going to head into the spice mines now, and hope to have a great day post-Carnival.

Have a great Ash Wednesday if you “celebrate”, and if you don’t, have a lovely Wednesday–the rest of the work week is the downhill slide into the weekend, which will be here before I know it or am ready for it!

American swimmer Caeleb Dressel is an Olympic champion. And has pretty blue eyes.

Photographed at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Mandatory Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY ORG XMIT: USATODAY-451287 [Via MerlinFTP Drop]
  1. I saw yesterday that the racist assholes who hung black dolls by the neck with beads from their float have been kicked out of Tucks. Good. They also should be named and shamed, but I doubt that will happen. ↩︎
  2. This is an example of a time when I really miss Victoria. ↩︎

Escape from Berlin

It’s Lundi Gras morning, with my favorite parade–Orpheus1–rolling tonight, and I have two more days before returning to work. I am enjoying this little mini-vacation very much. My Achilles tendons are still a bit sore, so after I get home from the errands I have to run this morning, I am in for the day until Orpheus arrives tonight–unless it rains. It looks a bit gloomy outside the windows, if I am being totally honest. It does happen–and it’s been a hot minute since it’s rained, you know? I slept really well the last two nights, and I feel pretty good. I think another easy day of reading and hanging out around the house while doing some chores sounds lovely. I also spent most of yesterday off-line, and that was marvelous. I like that I am spending less and less time on social media. The world is burning, and doomscrolling isn’t much help with that, you know?

We made art during HIV/AIDS, didn’t we?

I did wake up early yesterday after a lovely night’s sleep, and had a pretty good day around the house. I emptied the dishwasher and ran it again, did some straightening up and organizing around here, and had the pairs figure skating short program on the television while I finished reading The Secret of Hangman’s Inn, and started reading another old series book, The Egyptian Cat Mystery, a Rick Brant science adventure. (Rick Brant is another one of my favorites.) I am going to try to read some of the Eli Cranor today, with some more of the Brant, too. I think I may also start Sarah Weinman’s Without Consent as well. I think going forward I will stick with the three–a new fiction read, a reread, and a nonfiction–going forward is my reading plan. I do need to start reading voraciously again; I miss it. I also need to write about Hangman’s Inn. I also managed to send out another promotional newsletter about Hurricane Season Hustle, which you can read by clicking here.

If the weather does hold and my ankles feel okay, I may take a walk later today to get some pictures of the bead trees blooming and all the debris along the sidewalk and in the trees. I feel rested, and Sparky was very cuddly this morning under my warm pile of blankets in the bed. I want to do some writing today, but I may not; it depends on how I feel when I get home from the errands.

We binged more of season four of The Traitors, and I love everything about this show. I cannot believe none of y’all told me I needed to watch this show. I mean, it checks ALL my boxes–murders, pettiness, camp, a castle, robes with cowls, lanterns and torches and executioners! Alan Cumming is having the best time camping it up as the host–and there are some iconic lines on this show; currently my favorite is “snatched tighter than a housewife’s jawline.” And there are three previous seasons to catch up on! It’s all so deliciously Gothic, which I love. We have one more episode from this season before we are caught up, and we’ll probably watch that either tonight or tomorrow; I’m sure Paul has to work, and I know he has his trainer today, too. I should be able to get some reading and writing done today, and today I can finish the floors–which I’ve put off all weekend.

The emails can wait until Wednesday, seriously.

And on that note, I am going to go get cleaned up so I can run my errands. Have a lovely Lundi Gras Monday wherever you may be, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow for Fat Tuesday.

Two Kinds of Love

Muses Thursday! Happy shoe day to you, and you, and you! There are three parades tonight down the Avenue–Chaos followed by Babylon followed by Muses–and we will see if we can keep our 16 year streak of getting at least one shoe. I’ll probably be a bit tired by the time Muses gets to the corner–I am leaving the office early again today–so I can ice my ankles and hips before the parades, and rest and relax. There’s no figure skating to watch today for the Olympics (more on that later) so I can get some things done today and maybe be productive (maybe not); we’ll see how things shake out. I slept really well, which is always a plus, and my legs aren’t very tired, the Achilles tendons are still making their complaints known, if not as urgently as before. I also need to organize both the refrigerator and the freezer, because it’s out of control after going to Costco and making groceries.

Yesterday turned out to be a very good day. The weather was lovely, and we had some slight sprinkles of rain throughout the day, so the air was cool and damp. I left the office early (parade street closings; will be leaving even earlier today) and made groceries on the way home. There wasn’t much traffic on the way home, so the slalom course on St. Charles was much more fun to navigate (why people slow down to five miles per hour to drive around the barriers is a mystery to me; when no one is in front of you, you can go through it at about 20 mph and it’s like a Grand Prix) than usual and then I was home. I did a lot of chores, watched the disgraceful judging of the ice dance, and did even more chores. I was so pissed at the ice dancing (more on that later) I didn’t even want to finish watching Glitter and Gold, which I will probably never finish–but I can also always skip over the #metoo team parts, can’t I?

I saw an ad yesterday for a touring musical coming to the Saenger (I think)–an adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Seriously, who asked for this? It just seems to me that the story isn’t strong enough to carry a musical, nor can I think (I don’t think in terms of music or songs, sadly) of any potential songs that could be added to enhance and improve on the story.

I have now read The Great Gatsby at least four times throughout my life, and to this day I don’t understand why everyone loves it so much; I’ve never understood it, and my antipathy to this so-called Great American Novel goes all the way back to being forced to read it for a Lit class when I was a sophomore in high school. That class was responsible for me always feeling out of step with the Literary Academy and its holy gods and saints. (I was also introduced to Hemingway in that class, and I’ve never read any other Hemingway because I hated both A Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea–the sharks! The sharks!) It always puzzled me, but I hated being forced to read something because reading, for me, was always a joyous experience. Having to read something for a grade was an entirely different matter. The first books I was assigned to read were in junior high. I didn’t mind Sterling North’s Rascal, about a pet raccoon, but absolutely loathed The Adventures of Tom Sawyer with the white hot passion of a dozen burning suns. As someone who was just a few years older than Tom at the time of the story–I don’t remember how old he was; I’ve pretty much blocked out all my memories of the book I hated it so much–I didn’t think he was amusing or funny; I thought he was an asshole, someone I wouldn’t want to know, and would probably grow up to be an asshole. It was such an unpleasant experience that I developed an antipathy to Twain (I also hated the story about the jumping frogs) that kept me from reading him until my late twenties, when I decided to give him another try–and enjoyed his other work tremendously. There was an essay he wrote about becoming a steamboat pilot on the river, included in Life on the Mississippi, that has always stuck with me; I may have had to read it in high school or college, but I loved the essay so much that it did lead me back to reading Twain.

I went back to The Great Gatsby three more times over the course of my life and I hated it every single time I read it. I kept thinking, what am I missing here? These people are all awful and terrible; was that the point? They weren’t even interesting. I even read other Fitzgerald novels, and failed to see the genius every time. If forced to pick a favorite, I would say This Side of Paradise, if pressed–and I wouldn’t give it another read, either. Rebecca is a much more interesting take on the awful people of the upper class. Hell, Saltburn was a better take; so was Dynasty, for that matter.

And Fitzgerald has nothing on the Real Housewives.

Ironically, a writing teacher recommended I read Faulkner, As I Lay Dying to be exact, and that led me to Sanctuary and Light in August and The Sound and the Fury; and of course, I love “A Rose for Emily” because it was such a perfect capture of small rural Southern town dynamics. Every Southern town had a Miss Emily, didn’t they?

Hilariously, I’ve always considered myself to be dramatically under-educated in classic literature, but as I was thinking about this last night I realized that isn’t the case; I am self-educated in classic literature, and that always subconsciously fueled an insecurity about myself as a writer and as a reader because I did so poorly in college…and I need to get it through my head and into my subconscious that college failed me, not the other way around. I also need to get out of my own way with ambitions and goals and bury self-deprecation once and for all.

I am not going to talk about the figure skating judging farce from yesterday because I am still bitter and angry about the rewarding of the “#metoo” couple from France. Figure skating still has a lot of issues, and this was an incredibly glaring example. I will discuss this when I am more calm about it and can be rational and logical (the French team currently is “Abuser and the Rape Apologist” in my head). There was also some farcical bordering on insane judging in the team event, too. How did Ilia Malinin place second in the short? #madness.

And on that note, I am going to forget about Olympic medal-fixing for now and focus on tonight’s shoe. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow with a report on Muses…if I am not too tired to go out tonight.

Whole Lotta Trouble

Tuesday in the Lost Apartment, and a lovely day was had by all yesterday. Today is MY PUBLICATION DATE FOR HURRICANE SEASON HUSTLE!!! Woo-hoo! Honestly, sometimes I thought that book would be the death of me, my writing career, or both. (It’s a lengthy story I’ve bored you with many times already, Constant Reader, and won’t again.) But now it’s out and I get to be happy for a little while before the reviews start coming in.

And no, I don’t read the reviews. Anywhere. I don’t mind bad reviews as long as they are thoughtfully critical; give me something I can use to improve my writing, thank you. But I have no patience for people who just want to score points off authors–or use their reviews to avenge themselves for some perceived slight, and that has happened to me more than once. It’s one of those things I never forget, you know? I remember my editor sending me a bad review copy with a post-it note attached with the words this one reeks with the stench of failed author–something I’ve kept in mind ever since. One of the reasons I don’t review books negatively or to score points off someone I dislike is because who has the fucking time? There are better uses of my time, and I’d rather not write something negative as an author, especially about another author, no matter how awful they are (I do always make an exception for Stephenie Meyer, though. She deserves far worse). If I genuinely hate a book that much I usually don’t finish it, and why talk about it? I’d rather uplift other authors and talk about books I loved, you know? Doesn’t that make more sense? I love books, I love to read, and I appreciate the work any author puts into writing a book.

At the very least, it’s a big commitment of time and work–and it isn’t easy for anyone.

I felt pretty good yesterday. My Achilles tendons felt sore by the end of the shift again, so I iced them when I got home (as well as other places that were sore and achy) and woke up this morning feeling pretty good physically, for a change. I hope it lasts! Yesterday was lovely, temperature wise, and I ran errands on my way home–mail, prescription, made groceries–and tonight we are going to Costco after I get off work, which I assume means I will be terribly tired when I get home and put everything away. Oh, well. I don’t work full days the rest of the week, as tomorrow night the parades start up again and I have to leave work early. Friday I work at home, Monday I took off, and Tuesday of course is a holiday. Tomorrow is also a “pay the bills Wednesday,” too. All kinds of things going on around here, right? I even managed to work on my short story yesterday and got another hundred words down. The writing is still very slow going, but something is better than nothing, or so I’ve always believed. Besides, it’s Carnival and it’s hard to do anything during the parade season, even on the days when there are no parades because scheduling life around the parades is exhausting in and of itself. I’m hoping after tonight there won’t be any need to make groceries unless I run out of something–hopefully nothing I can’t get by walking to the corner Walgreens, since the car won’t move from Thursday afternoon till Monday morning, if not later. I don’t know if I will go out for parades on Wednesday night, but I definitely will go out for Muses on Thursday night. I love me some Muses. I may be out on Friday night, too, for d’Etat and everything else, but for sure I will be out for Iris this Saturday and Orpheus on Monday night. Bacchus is always a zoo, and so I’ll most likely skip that one.

Parade planning!

I think we’re finally going to get rid of all the beads in the house and utilize Paul’s toy chest for blankets and pillows or something. I love catching throws, but it’s all just stuff to add to the already heavily cluttered apartment. I am very proud of the fact that we’ve been clearing stuff out in the last six months, but we’ve barely scratched the surface–but it’s already looking neater and tidier. Huzzah! Maybe this will turn out to be the year that I clean out the attic! Woo-hoo! Stranger things have happened, after all.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will be back in the morning!

Uncaught beads end up as parade debris!

No Spoken Word

Thursday, and Parades’ Eve! The fencing and bleachers are up all along St. Charles Avenue, and last night I got to drive the slalom course they turn the Avenue into ever since the terrorist attack onNew Year’s last year. Tomorrow there are two parades, there are six or seven on Saturday, and I think three on Sunday. This is the warm-up weekend before the big final weekend, so we’ll see how it goes. I have to run a bunch of errands tomorrow, too–once my work-from-home duties are completed. I don’t know how productive I am going to be, either. I don’t know that I have the stamina to be out there as much as I could be, either. We shall see. It’s also in the thirties again this morning–it got up in the seventies yesterday, which was weird–and I could feel the floor getting colder last evening through my house shoes. I think the parade weather is going to be in the fifties/sixties, but sunny. We shall see, and we shall also see if my Achilles tendons can handle it just yet–they still are sore and achy. Note to self: look up what to do with sore Achilles tendons.

I wasn’t terribly tired when I got home last night. I was able to fold laundry, do a load of dishes and put them away, and reload the dishwasher to run tonight when I go to bed. The kitchen is in much better condition than it usually is on Thursday morning, so I am not going to have to spend time over the weekend catching up on all those things. We watched another His and Hers (we’ll probably finish it tonight, as there are only two episodes left. There’s also another episode of The Beauty, which I am hate-watching. Paul doesn’t care about that show anymore, so I’ll probably watch it while I am relaxing into my easy chair and bonding with my Sparky. We still haven’t watched the final season of Stranger Things, or the new season of Bridgerton, either. We’re also in the midst of the final countdown to the festivals, the Olympics are starting, parade season, and AUGH. I need to stop procrastinating, don’t I? MY to-do list keeps growing, but very little ever seems to come off of it–which would have led to a complete breakdown before anxiety medication.

Better living through chemistry is definitely a thing I embrace whole-heartedly.

Neil Gaiman tried to come back to social media in light of the Epstein horrors, and I am not really sure what he was thinking. I believe he was driven off social media yet again, but this led to some serious conversations about other author/predators, which led to me discovering precisely why Marion Zimmer Bradley had been canceled, and I might add, ew. I knew it was something bad but I never paid much attention; I’d never read anything of hers other than The Catch Trap, her gay circus romance between aerialists, which…I had some issues with. I have my original copy of it around here somewhere, because I’d always meant to go back and read it again. Overall, I’d enjoyed it, but there was something terribly off about it to me, that kind of made me uneasy as I read it. I also knew that her Arthurian novels were very popular with women, because she told the story through the point of view of the women; but I loved Mary Stewart’s Arthurian novels so much I didn’t think I would enjoy the Bradley novels–and would always be comparing them unfavorably, and there are lots of other things to read, you know. Now, I’m glad I never did, and a critical reread of The Catch Trap knowing what Bradley and her evil husband were doing to their own children will color it. It also makes some of the stuff that didn’t sit right with me in the book make a lot more sense to me now. Anyway, thank you, Karin Kallmaker, for letting me know.

Okay, I looked up the Achilles tendon stuff and the recommendations are rest, ice, and stretching, which means getting my ice machine down from the attic tonight, and we shall see how that will go.

And on that note, y’all, I think I am going to head into the spice mines. Enjoy your day, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow morning.

So pretty!

Thriller

Congratulations to everyone!!!

2026 ITW THRILLER AWARD NOMINEES

We’re thrilled to announce the finalists for the
2026 ITW Thriller Awards:

BEST STANDALONE NOVEL

Megan Collins – CROSS MY HEART (Atria)

Ruth Knafo Setton – ZIGZAG GIRL (Black Spring Press)

Gilly Macmillan – THE BURNING LIBRARY (William Morrow)

Sarah Pekkanen – THE LOCKED WARD (St. Martin’s Press)

Olivia Worley – SO HAPPY TOGETHER (Minotaur)

BEST SERIES NOVEL

James Byrne – CHAIN REACTION (Minotaur)

Robert Crais – THE BIG EMPTY (Penguin/Putnam)

John McMahon – HEAD CASES (Minotaur)

Christopher Reich – THE TOURISTS (Thomas & Mercer)

Vincent Zandri – TERMINAL MOONLIGHT (Down & Out Books)

BEST FIRST NOVEL

Chris Chibnall – DEATH AT THE WHITE HART (Pamela Dorman Books)

Kelsey Cox – PARTY OF LIARS (Minotaur)

Sophie Stava – COUNT MY LIES (Gallery/Scout Press)

Zoe B. Wallbrook – HISTORY LESSONS (Soho Crime)

Liann Zhang – JULIE CHAN IS DEAD (Atria)

BEST AUDIOBOOK

S. A. Cosby – KING OF ASHES (Macmillan)

      Narrated by Adam Lazarre-White

Mark Edwards – THE WASP TRAP (Simon & Schuster)

      Narrated by John Hopkins, Anna Burnett

Marisa Kashino – BEST OFFER WINS (Macmillan)

      Narrated by Cia Court

Xan Kaur – WHEN DEVILS SING (Macmillan)

      Narrated by Michael Crouch, Anjali Kunapaneni,  Jennifer Pickens, Landon Woodson

CN Mabry, N’Dia Rae – THE CHEATER’S WIFE (Simon Maverick)

      Narrated by Ruffin Prentiss, Machelle Williams

Michael Robotham – THE WHITE CROW (Simon & Schuster)

      Narrated by Katy Sobey

BEST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL

Liz Lawson – MURDER BETWEEN FRIENDS (Delacorte Press)

Margot McGovern – THIS STAYS BETWEEN US (Penguin Young Readers)

Clay McLeod Chapman – SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE (Delacorte Press)

Diana Rodriguez Wallach – THE SILENCED (Delacorte Press)

Julie Soto – THE THRASHERS (Wednesday Books)

BEST SHORT STORY

Katrina Carrasco – LEVEL UP (Bywater Books)

Scott William Carter – THE SEDUCTION OF DR. DIMENSION (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

Lee Child – ELEVEN NUMBERS (Amazon Original Stories)

David Lagercrantz – FALSE NOTE (Amazon Original Stories)

Jessica Van Dessel – THE VIOLENT SEASON (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine)

ITW will announce the winners at ThrillerFest XXI on Saturday, May 9, 2026 at the New York Hilton Midtown, New York City.

Congratulations to all the finalists!

Tosca Lee
ITW Board of Directors, Vice President, Awards