Tag: Cardinal Richelieu

Strawberry Wine

Sunday morning and I do hope all is well with you, Constant Reader! It rained overnight, so it’s a bit chillier this morning than it was yesterday (yesterday was a beautiful day, sunny and in the low seventies); the cold weather comes in tonight around bedtime. How lovely! I slept late this morning, and Sparky let me, for the most part, cuddling rather than trying to get me up most of the time. Yesterday was, for its part, mostly quiet and restful. I didn’t push myself to get things done the way I had hoped, but Paul didn’t have his trainer yesterday and decided to hang out rather than go to the office, so I spent most of the dat in my chair watching television with Paul. I watched two more French history documentaries–this time, histories of the Capet and Bourbon dynasties. We also watched Caught Stealing with Austin Butler, which was different than what we were expecting. The previews made it seem like a black comedy, and yes, there were moments of black humor in the movie, but it was more of a thriller than anything else. My primary takeaway was that Austin Butler is incredibly beautiful (which I’ve known since The Shannara Chronicles), and has the kind of charisma that is very hard to stop watching. It was one of those ‘endless nightmare’ movies, where doing a punk neighbor a favor takes the main character down a path of violence and endless, deadly mess. It also has an insanely good cast, too–Regina King, Zoe Kravitz, Liev Shrieber, etc.–and of course, was directed by Darren Aronofsky.

I did finish scanning my notes from my journal yesterday, which felt like a win, and I did some cleaning and organizing, too. The house feels very snug this morning–warm and cozy–which is really nice, and means I will get to spend some more time in my chair this morning reading and watching another history documentary; I found one on Louis XIII yesterday–the King of The Three Musketeers–who has always been overshadowed in French history by his father and son, as well as his chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu, who remains one of my favorite people in history. (I never could have picked an era of history to concentrate on had I become an historian…) The reign of Louis XIII is a very interesting period in French history, and that could very well be because of The Three Musketeers and my fervent desire to write the story from Milady’s perspective. That’s probably a pipe dream because I’ll never have the time to research and write the story, but it’s always there in the corner of my mind, like an annoying splinter that nags at me from time to time.

Today is going to be only slightly less relaxing from yesterday. I do need to clean and organize some more, and I do need to both read and write today. I also finished my old journal and started a new one this morning (and I put the date in it this time; I had a sense of time in the old ones based on the notes on short stories and novels I was actively working on at the time I was recording things in the journals, but the date will be ever so much more helpful, you know?). I also found a safe, out of the way place to store them going forward. I will continue to have to periodically do this with them, as I move on to other projects I’ve taken voluminous notes on in them–as well as short story and essay ideas that never moved from there to the active files–but it’s kind of fun to scan the pages and label them and put them away in the computer files. (That OCD thing never has gone completely away, and probably never will. Yay for chemical imbalances that are useful!)

The new season of Percy Jackson has dropped, too, which I am also looking forward to watching. I loved the world of Percy Jackson, and those are the books you should be giving your kids, not that other unoriginal and entirely ripped off fantasy series for kids whose author is raw sewage on a good day and a fiend from hell on bad ones. I greatly enjoyed reading the Percy Jackson books, and Rick Riordan’s other mythology based juvenile series are really the best, most engaging books. I would have loved them when I was a kid, because I loved ancient history and mythology growing up (thanks to Time-Life’s Great Ages of Man series, which my parents got for me). I’ve been trying to unpack my childhood and my life-long interests, and where those interests came from. Egypt, of course, is my favorite ancient empire; I’ve always had an affinity for Egypt and have always been drawn to it. (I’ve recently started another essay series about my Egyptian interests…beginning with the Time/Life Ancient Egypt book, a juvenile book called Cleopatra of Egypt and another one that was a mystery, The Mystery of the Pharaoh’s Treasure–and others along the way, including Amelia Peabody and Robin Cook’s Sphinx.)

And well, on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines for the day. I have to run to the grocery store, which I am going to do this morning, methinks, before coming back here and getting cleaned up and get that all over with…but first I am going to watch that documentary on Louis XIII while drinking coffee, eating breakfast and waking up completely. Have a lovely Sunday, wherever you find yourself, Constant Reader.

These lights–from the former human trafficking site Houmas House–are gorgeous.

Frankie

Saturday and a big day of being out of the house. I had planned on not doing much outside the apartment vis-a-vis errands, but Paul’s state ID expires today (and he only realized it last night) so somehow only getting the mail today has morphed into the DMV, Costco, lunch out, and the mail. Ah, well, I can come home and write in my easy chair. I finally figured out why my Macbook Air doesn’t sync with my Microsoft accounts; it needed to have Word updated and the passwords reset…so now I can access everything from the laptop, which makes life ever so much easier for me. I was actually working on the revision of “When I Die” yesterday when Paul decided he was done for the day and came downstairs so we could watch Mary and George (still superb) and more of the second season of Vigil, which is absolutely fantastic.

I did get some chores done around here yesterday–I laundered all the bed linens and another load of laundry, and worked on the dishes, which need to be finished this morning, and did some picking up and organizing–and while I am relatively certain these errands are going to wear me out today, at least I feel rested this morning. I was still a big tired yesterday from the week, and when I woke up was a little groggy. This morning I feel ever so much better, frankly, and so I hope I can go ahead and make it through the day.

I have been watching with macabre enjoyment this bizarre civil war within the Republican party, and am not entirely sure how this is all going to end up. Yesterday the news broke and went viral about South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, one of the potential VP candidates for the right, who wrote in her self-promoting-I-am-to-be-taken-seriously-on-the-national-stage-book-about-me-in-an-election-year that she hated a fourteen month old puppy who “couldn’t” be trained (that’s a you failure, Madam Adulteress) so she decided to shoot him in a gravel pit–and then shot a goat she didn’t like on top of it when that didn’t sate her bloodlust. I immediately knew when I saw the Guardian article about it that she was 1) pretty much finished and 2) not really aware about the divide between urban and rural when she wrote that in her book. I know exactly the kind of mindset she has about animals–she’s rural–because it’s the same mentality my parents had about animals because they grew up on farms and you don’t have animals in the house as pets, for one thing, and for another, when you grow up on a farm and are used to killing animals for food–cows, pigs, chickens, etc.–you don’t get really sentimental about them because they die. I also knew it wasn’t going to play well with voters and most Americans, because most of us love animals and try to do whatever we can to save them, not shoot them. She also doesn’t get it, still; she defended herself with a post or statement of some sort where she talked about that very thing–and how many animals on her ranch/farm/whatever she’s had to put down recently. Way to throw gasoline on the fire, Madam Adulteress!

And way to not understand the American electorate. And if you don’t know that the vast majority of Americans love animals and especially dogs–you’re probably too ignorant and out-of-touch with most Americans to lead anywhere other than an extremely rural state, and most definitely not the entire country.

Interesting how many Republicans have been horrific dog owners–Noem, the Romneys, and the Huckabees of Arkansas.

My parents may not have had any sentimentality about pets, but they also didn’t have any.

Ah, Mary and George. I hope you are watching, Constant Reader–even if you aren’t into history, the show is the kind of bitchy back-stabbing plots and subplots and twisty/turny show that reminds me, with its wit and bitchiness, of some of the greater nighttime soaps and even of Real Housewives shows. I also like how fluid everyone’s sexuality is at the Jacobean court. I really need to read a bio of King James; I’ve certainly read enough about his mother Mary Queen of Scots and his son, Charles I, who lost his head during the second English civil war. I know Antonia Fraser, whose superb Mary Queen of Scots I read when I was eleven, wrote a bio of James that I always wanted to read but never did. Perhaps this is the proper time? I also should read bios of Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu to get a stronger sense of the time period…and I really am beginning to think I might be able to start writing Milady, my long-dreamed-of novel, later in this year.

And on that note, Constant Reader, I am heading into the spice mines to load the dishwasher and get the day’s business started. Have a fabulous day, and who knows? I may be back later.

Put It In A Magazine

Wednesday morning in the Lost Apartment, where it is a staggering 39 degrees outside. Brrr! But I slept pretty well (even if I didn’t want to get up), and my mind is slowly but surely coming back to life. Yesterday wasn’t a bad day at all, but I was out of sorts and off-track for pretty much the entire day, because my routine was disrupted when I got to work and so…yeah. I did run my errands on the way home from work last night and got home to a needy Sparky, so I had to spend some time playing with him and then transformed my lap into a cat bed for a little while. Tomorrow morning I have to get up super-early for PT–which I am not looking forward to, and of course there’s a department meeting on Friday morning, that I think I’ll go into the office for despite it being my at-home day and having the ability to call in for it. I have some on-line events Saturday for the January Bold Strokes bookathon, which I should post more about, and then the rest of the weekend is mine.

I did some more research into a story I am writing last night, and yes, I actually started writing the story. I’m writing about Julia Brown, the “witch” of Manchac Swamp who worked as the healer in a small town inside the swamp and along the lake shore, which was only accessible by railroad. Frenier was a small community, and it was completely destroyed by the 1915 hurricane; all that is left of it is the cemetery and it’s only accessible by boat now. I’ve always wanted to write about the 1915 hurricane since I first learned of it–it came up when I was down a rabbit-hole about the Filipino settlements on Lake Borgne, which were also destroyed in the 1915 hurricane, which led me to reading about Frenier, and the so-called curse of Aunt Julia Brown. (I do wish I’d known about all this before I wrote a Sherlock story set in 1916; no mention of the previous year’s destruction in that story is odd but maybe unnecessary; it didn’t impact the plot of the story at all, but…if I set another Sherlock story in that same time period I need to address that elephant in the room.)

I also went down another research wormhole last night, too–inspired by Mary & George–about George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham and his close relationship not only with James I but with his son, Charles I…although the relationship between Villiers and Charles I wasn’t quite the same kind of erotic friendship as Villiers enjoyed with the senior Stuart. Buckingham was also one of the real historical figures that appeared in Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, which I still want to retell one day from the point of view of Milady deWinter. It’s such a fascinating period, really, and the clothes! Mon Dieu, the clothes! I’ve always been fascinated by Cardinal Richelieu, and really need to get over my fear of writing about a historical period and just buckle down and write that damned book, don’t I? Sigh. I also need to get back to both Chlorine and Muscles, too.

Heavy heaving sigh.

But I am also starting to feel like I am settling back into my normal, every day life, and I feel better than I have in years. That cloudy feeling in my brain seems to be gone, and I am adapting to getting back up early in the morning without much hassle; I suspect the sleeping pills are working their magic and sending me into a deep healthy sleep every night, which pays off in being both awake and lucid in the morning. I’ve also got some blog entries to finish writing–my thoughts on Saltburn, because I know everyone is just waiting to hear what I have to say about it, and some analysis of the most recent chapter of the graphic novel Heartstopper, both of which are destined to be queer cultural artifacts.

And I hope to finish reading Tara Laskowski’s The Weekend Retreat before the weekend, too. I should have spent some time with it last night, but it was after six when I got home and by the time I was finished with putting stuff away and quality Sparky time and writing, it was later and so I just went down the Villiers wormhole. I also watched the final episode of season 2 of War of the Worlds, and am officially tapping out now. Not only was the shark jumped, the story became preposterous. I thought it might be a bit more interesting and intriguing once I realized the direction they were going in, but no. I also forgot part one of the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City was airing last night, so I’ll be catching up on that tonight after reading. I get to go straight home from the office tonight, so fingers crossed that I’ll get some good reading time in before I shut my mind off and dig into some reality television.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and who knows? I may be back later.

Under the Boardwalk

My last work-at-home day for 2022, and technically my last day of work for the year at the day job. It still freaks me out a little, or doesn’t feel right, to write 2022 on my clinical testing forms; 2023 is going to be even stranger to write. Where the hell has this decade gone already? It’s almost 2023. I certainly didn’t think I’d make it this far, yet here I am.

It got up into the seventies again yesterday–we literally went from the mid-sixties to a hard freeze back to the seventies in about a week–which is why you can never write about New Orleans without writing about the weather. Our weather affects everything here, and can change everything happening and going on in a matter of hours. It also messes with your moods and how you feel–how can your sinuses adapt to such dramatic weather changes in such a short period of time? And that’s not even taking into consideration the humidity and rain. You always have to plan your day and your life around the weather here, and you ignore it at your own peril (he said, having been caught unawares in enough flash-flooding events to know whereof he speaks). With a great HVAC system I didn’t find myself minding the cold quite as much this past weekend, but don’t get me wrong–I’m not sorry to see it gone, and good riddance to it.

I also had a ridiculous amount of chores to do last night when I finished work. Two loads of dishes, two loads of laundry, and of course I had to do something about the refrigerator, and since I was already doing chores I decided to go ahead and launder the living room comfort blankets and do something about the floors (a chore I’ve been avoiding for far longer than I dare to admit publicly, given my reputation as a housekeeper). I decided not to try for my quota for the day, which of course increased today’s quota, but thought it best to go ahead and reread everything I’ve been doing and get a better sense of things so I can figure out how to get to the end of the book from where I’m at now. Sometimes it’s best to relax and let the muscles rest when you’ve been pushing them for a while; burn out is always a fear, and I suspected yesterday that I was reaching that point and should probably rest from it for at least the night, while planning what to do next. I do have a lovely three day weekend looming, and if I ignore college football bowl games–which shouldn’t be difficult to do–I should be able to leisurely get this done and sent off Monday.

Whew.

I’m still a little tired this morning, and it’s gray outside. Ah, yes, a quick glance at the weather (I seem obsessed this morning with the weather, I know) and it appears that we’ll be having thunderstorms for most of the day. I do have to go out into the outer world at some point today–the postal service is closed tomorrow through Monday–so I won’t be able to get the mail again until after work on Tuesday. I should also spend a little time figuring out what, if anything, I need from the grocery store so I don’t have to leave the house again until Tuesday morning. That’s really turning into my biggest contest–how long can I go without leaving the house? (Along with “how few showers can I take this weekend? ” and “How long can I go without cleaning the house?” These do not speak well of me, I am well aware.) I also am going back to reading Nelson Algren’s A Walk on the Wild Side, after my break from it to read Donna Andrews for Christmas; it’s slow going because it’s an old book written in twentieth century cis-white male literary style, which is something I don’t really care for as a general rule. But I do want to read the parts where the main character (whose backstory is currently being explored) gets to New Orleans and experiences the demimonde; I’d also like to see the film, which I haven’t ever viewed. (I know, right? Barbara Stanwyck and Jane Fonda and I’ve never seen it? Bad gay, bad gay.)

After getting the chores done–Paul didn’t come home until late again–I spent some time read Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller, which takes a look at some gay men in history who weren’t exactly role models for gay men or behavior–some of whom I had heard of, others I had not– which is an interesting approach (usually writers and historians are always looking for positive role models, or take normal human beings and idealize them into heroes). I was a little disappointed to see that my favorite historical homo wasn’t included–Philippe d’Orleans, younger brother of Louis XIV and known as Monsieur (I’ve always wanted to write about Monsieur, he fascinates me to this day)–but the authors did include James I of England and Frederick the Great, so no complaints on royal representation in the book. (But if you’re looking for bad examples of gay men in history, choosing James I over Richard the Lion-Hearted or Edward II was an interesting decision.) I read the sections on Oscar Wilde and Bosie, Frederick the Great, and James I (primarily because the most ambitious book idea I’ve ever had involved James I’s successor as well as his last love, George Villiers Duke of Buckingham); and I enjoyed them. They weren’t very in depth, as they were only given a chapter, so they were at best slightly superficial, but it was interesting to read. I really do need to read a biography of Frederick the Great, who has fascinated me since I was a kid (again, interesting that even as a child I was fascinated by a king who turned out to be gay in the long run); I’ve read histories of Prussia and Europe and other monarchs of the period, but biographies of Frederick aren’t as easy to come by as say, biographies of any Tudor, the Wars of the Roses, or Louis XIV. (Try finding a biography of Louis XIII or said George Villiers, for that matter. There are quite a few of Cardinal Richelieu–but not as many as one would think. Americans seem to be more interested in British history than anything else, and not many of them at that.)

Lightning just flashed, and it’s getting grayer outside, never a good sign for the weather in New Orleans. Then again, spending a little time reading this morning during a thunderstorm while drinking my coffee before starting my work-at-home duties could be just the ticket for kick-starting this day into high gear, so on that note, I am heading into the spice mines.

Sabotage

So, yesterday was new washing machine day. Thursday evening I took the laundry room apart, went outside and measured the places that looked like they may be too tight for the washer to get through, etc. I also had to move some things around outside as well. But it was finally delivered and installed–right at the end of the window I was given–and then I ran a few errands before coming home to get caught up on laundry and, well, reassemble the laundry room. It didn’t take long, for example, for me to realize that rehanging the doors was a two person job, so the doors will stay down until there’s a day when the handyman is here and I see him outside; he’s very nice, so I can’t imagine he wouldn’t come in and screw the bolts back in while I hold the doors in place.

The new washer is lovely, really; but it is also computer-operated (the dreaded motherboard–which always makes me think, “oh yay, something else that can break”) and it is much more complex and complicated to operate. It also doesn’t have a traditional agitator inside; it’s hard to explain how it actually agitates the laundry, but it does somehow–and the spinning is so strong that the clothes feel merely damp rather than wet when they come out. I also have to get used to the new and different noises it makes–its sounds are vastly different than its predecessor’s, and since the flood when its predecessor broke last week, I am paranoid about washing machine noises.

It’s going to take some getting used to–as well as learning how to use it. My old washer was relatively simple–you chose the water-load size and then selected what kind of cycle and what kind of water temperature you wanted, pulled the dial out, and were done with it until it was finished. This one you choose the water temperature you want, the kind of load (at least eight options) and then the kind of cycle–again, eight options. The basket will spin one direction and then back the other a few times for the sensor to determine how big the load is and how much water it needs–you can also manually ask it to add more water, once the sensor has determined how much to use–and well, yeah, it’s complicated. It’s also “green”–it conserves energy and water, based on those afore-mentioned sensors. (And yes, every time I think “sensors” in the back of my head something whispers something else that can break….)

It also made me curious–when the old washer was taken out and the new one put in, I was able to retrieve some things that had fallen behind it or been knocked underneath it by one cat or the other over the years–we had it for sixteen years and two cats, after all, it was a miracle there weren’t more things underneath it–but the floor was filthy beneath, just disgusting–and of course the delivery guys were on a timetable so I could hardly ask them to wait while I cleaned the floor beneath; which makes me wonder, do people clean regularly beneath their washer and dryer? Considering, in my case, I would have to disconnect them completely and move them out, neither of which would be easy, I am resigned to having a disgustingly filthy floor beneath the two appliances (now I am also wondering about beneath the refrigerator). I would imagine most people probably don’t regularly clean beneath their washer/dryer sets; but I am willing to go out on a limb here and say that my mother probably does.

While reassembling the laundry room I also picked out books to donate to the library, and found lots of books, buried behind stacks of others, that I’d forgotten I even owned. “Oh, yes, I did buy Gloria Steinem’s essay collection, didn’t I? Oh, there’s Rabbit, Run, and that biography of Cardinal Richelieu I was wondering about a few months ago.” So many books–and of course, one of the delivery guys was like, after looking at the shelves in there, the stacks of books on the living room floor and the book cases, with books crammed into the shelves and stacked on top, in a voice of clear wonder, have you read ALL these books?

The answer, of course, is no–one of the things I’ve reluctantly been doing is donating the books I’ve already read to the library sale; figuring that I will never have time to reread them and if I do need to reread them, well, The Reread Project definitely taught me I can certainly reread books in Digital form, even if I may not necessarily want to read them that way originally.

It’s gloomy and raining outside this morning; thunder woke me in the midst of a downpour around four this morning, but the rain lulled me back into a very deep and comfortable sleep, and I suspect it’s going to rain all day–at least it looks that way right now. I haven’t gotten any emergency alerts, so flooding isn’t happening–it’s steady now, not torrential, which usually means the drains and pumps can handle it–but it is indeed a gray morning; perfect for curling up with a book. My emails–ignored yesterday–have gotten a bit out of control (as they always do) and so I am going to have to go through there today. The emails are an endless nightmare for me from which I never seem to be able to either wake up from or get caught up on…but I also kind of snapped this week about them; as always, the stress builds to the point where something in my brain just snaps and I think to myself, it is what it is and I can only do so much per day.

Like, right now I am thinking, go sit in your chair and read for a while—face it all later when you’ve had more coffee and are more awake, and it actually sounds like the plan for the morning. I have to do a ZOOM thing later today for the Northwest chapter of MWA–a question and answer thing for like half an hour about MWA–and I am also going to need some time to prepare for that. There’s also more organizing and cleaning to get done today, and I also started wanting to map out/work on Chlorine this weekend as well as some short stories, and I am going to get back to the gym tomorrow–no desire to walk there today in the rain, frankly–and I also need to start working on the edits for Bury Me in Shadows at some point this weekend. Heavy heaving sigh.

It truly never ends, does it?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader.

Sugarcane

My word, this week has not been an easy one for our Gregalicious. Suffice it to say that I am really looking forward to this week being over and leave it at that, shall we? I mean, Jesus Christ, already.

Being low energy low whatever it has been this week–started last week towards the end, really–has kind of sucked, to be honest. I’m not sure what the problem is–and it’s usually some kind of chemical thing in my brain, I think, these highs and lows came and go–and the lows really kind of suck; I just don’t have the bandwidth or energy to face or do anything unless it’s relatively easy and/or simple. It’a also incredibly easy for me, whilst in the grips of a low, to feel defeated by almost any and every thing that requires thought or some sort of energy, and I also find myself very short of temper–which means easily annoyed, easily angered, and easily aggravated. I got home from work yesterday evening and forced myself to go to the gym–but despite the energy and good feeling that came with the workout, it really didn’t last very long and didn’t carry over the way it usually does; pushing me into a whirlwind of getting things done and organized and dashing around the Lost Apartment cleaning and straightening. I did manage to get some laundry started, but the dishes are still is the dishwasher and the sink is starting to fill with dirty dishes again. Tonight I don’t have to go to the gym so after work hopefully I’ll have the energy to put the dishes away and finish the laundry and get my act together.

But I am glad I asked for a deadline extension. There’s no way I could have finished by Monday, and that would have made the entire low thing even worse.

I guess this is what I’ve always called the malaise before, only it usually comes around after I finished a manuscript–and yes, I know I finished Bury Me in Shadows, but usually the malaise doesn’t settle in until I have finished everything contracted–I’ve always thought it was triggered by the panic of being out of contract, but since I don’t really sign contracts far in advance anymore, I don’t think that’s what causes it and it certainly isn’t the cause of it now. Interesting that all these years I’ve always been wrong about the malaise, really. I guess I am not as self-aware as I like to think I am (nobody is as self-aware as they should be and I am very aware my self-awareness has massive blind spots; but I tend to think I am more self-aware than most people–which could also be one of the big blind spots, which is a sort of self-awareness and….yes, it’s a spiral endlessly circling back on itself, isn’t it?). I watched some history videos on Youtube last night–my mind wasn’t really functioning well enough for me to either read or write, so mostly I spent the evening with Youtube videos–some interesting ones on American history, Youtube really is a treasure trove of just about anything you could possibly want to watch to waste time–and social media, but I’m really getting a bit tired of social media. I hate the new Facebook design, and I find myself there a lot less frequently than I used to be; mostly I’ve just been sharing the blog there and not really interacting with anyone, and the same with Twitter–although I do enjoy replying to trash bag right wing elected officials with “resign, traitor”–but I also am not entirely certain that might not be a part of the general malaise.

I just want to get past it, really.

My muscles are tired this morning, the way they usually are after a workout day, and I slept deeply and well. The bed was a very comfortable and warm cocoon from which I didn’t want to emerge this morning; we’re back to the normal weather for this time of year in New Orleans–cold at night and warm during the day–which means you can never really properly dress for the weather because there’s going to be a twenty to thirty degree swing in the temperature throughout the course of the day, but rather this than last week’s frigid climes. Our new HVAC system is currently in process of being installed, which is good because while it can get stuffy in the Lost Apartment during the warm times of the day, I discovered yesterday that simply turning on the ceiling fans will take care of that issue immediately–coupled with the drop outside, of course. (I just checked today’s weather–it’s currently 46 but will reach a high of 75 today–if it was humid the apartment would be unbearable today when I get home; thank heaven for low humidity times of the year) It’s so weird to turn on the heat in the car on the way to work and have to use the air conditioning on the way home because the car has been sitting in the hot sun all day. Yay? But it also means that the temperatures are rising gradually to the peaks of the summer–and I am about to find out how the loss of the trees is going to affect the kitchen and my work space. I suspect there will be dark heavy curtains in my future….

Well, would you look at that? I never finished yesterday’s post, how unlike me this is–and yet another example of how off I have been this week; yesterday was much better than Tuesday, but there was still a lot of dragging and not wanting to get things done. I came home last night–Paul was filming a musical performance for the Festival on the roof of the Monteleone Hotel, and so wasn’t going to be home until late–and decided to finish watching It’s a Sin without him. The thought had (and has) crossed my mind that a lot of what I was experiencing this week, emotionally and energy-wise, was a reaction to watching the first three episodes on Sunday night–it certainly opened a lot of doors I had slammed shut in my mind many years ago. When we talk about representation, and how it matters…well, It’s a Sin, painful and heartbreaking as it is, was probably the first time I saw myself on screen–I saw myself in these characters, and some of the scenes could have come from my own experience. I have always compartmentalized my life–it’s how I’ve coped and not gone stark raving mad over the years–and I don’t think I was mentally prepared for all the memories this show was going to bring back to me. It’s a brilliant show, really; and while I can certainly question some of the choices made–I can also argue the counterpoint position as well. It also reminding me of so many choices made during the course of my life, and how, far too frequently, shame and fear controlled my life and the decisions made. When I rebooted my life in 1994–and yes, that is precisely what I did–I closed the doors for the most part on my past. Was that the right decision? I don’t know. But what I do know is that I also decided, in 1994, to live with the choices I made and stop feeling regret–even when you know damned well decisions were made out of cowardice. It was cathartic in some ways–I’ve realized over the course of watching the show that many of the decisions I made back in 1994 when I reinvented my life were for self-protection; a metaphorical wiping clean of the slate because remembering and thinking about things and experiences and losses was self-defeating.

I distinctly remember, at thirty-three, deciding that I could no longer live my life afraid of dying, and that no one at that age or younger should have to live with that fear. It’s also when I started getting angry, about injustice and prejudice and bias and casual hatred. There’s a lot more to unpack here, of course, and I suspect.I shall be processing this for a while.

I then decided, after the cathartic cleansing weeping from viewing the last two episodes of the show, to watch something fun and utterly escapist while I waited for Paul to come home, so I watched Richard Lester’s 1973 version of The Three Musketeers, which I actually saw in the theater when it was released. I’d not read the book (but had read the Classics Illustrated version; many literary classics have only been read throughout my life through Classics Illustrated comic books), but it was a historical and I loved history; so one Sunday after church we went to see it in the theater. It’s been a favorite ever since–the serious attention to period detail was astonishing–and again, Michael York. I think it was in The Three Musketeers that my early crush on Michael York was born–so beautiful, and those blue eyes! It was fun, even if, as I watched, for the first time I realized that the motivations for the characters–the royal and powerful ones, at any rate–made little to no sense. I have been thinking for well over a decade about writing what would basically be fanfic for The Three Musketeers…and in watching the movie again last night I was able to put my finger directly on why I’ve never been able to get that sorted and written, at least in my mind: it was precisely the motivations of Cardinal Richelieu in setting the action of the story in motion that I was never able to wrap my mind around. The antipathy that existed between Cardinal and Queen (the Spanish Anne of Austria) is well documented; and there has always been much speculation about it (I read one novel by, I believe, Evelyn Anthony called The Cardinal and the Queen that posited that Richelieu also loved the Queen and her rejections of him drove his hatred of her…although, per this novel, they eventually fell in love and Richelieu actually fathered her two sons! Yeah, I don’t believe that.) Richelieu was not someone who allowed his own personal feelings interfere with affairs of state and his plans, and his plans were to break the power of the Hapsburg family while building France–and its monarchy–into the preeminent power in Europe. The idea of exposing the Queen’s potential infidelity and humiliating Louis XIII in such a manner doesn’t fit into that plan–or perhaps I am simply not politician enough to see where it would…yes, it would be humiliating to Spain and the Hapsburgs (the Queen was of the Spanish branch of the family), but the marriage couldn’t be annulled as she had already been pregnant (losing all three children), and a divorce? I doubt the Pope would have granted such a divorce…and it surely would have meant war with Spain–at the same time that Richelieu was fighting a war against the Huguenots to unify France, and that war also meant maneuvering to keep England from interfering. But it’s good to know that there’s actually a good, historical based reason in why I’ve not been able to make the story work in my head or even as I scribble notes on it. Alexandre Dumas was able to get away with turning Richelieu into his villain without explanation of his plans and why it was politically important to publicly shame and embarrass the Queen (and the King by extension), and the flimsy “The Cardinal wants to ruin the Queen so he has more power over the King!” doesn’t work because the Queen had no power over her husband, or influence with him–she didn’t from the day they were married until the day he died, and even as he lay dying he tried to prevent her from being made regent for their son, so even then he didn’t completely trust her.

So, once I get the political situation worked out, perhaps I can finally write the book.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and apologies for never finishing this yesterday.

The Ghost of Myself

So, here it is Wednesday already, and I am worn down already. I was exhausted all day yesterday–physically, not mentally–and both days I had to force myself to get out of bed; I could have easily stayed asleep for hours more. I’m not sure what that is all about–it is most likely tied to the return of the warm weather, including some brutal humidity–but I am also hopeful that it’s a temporary aberration and will go away–but tomorrow morning I have to get up early again, and so we shall see how tired I feel yesterday. When I got home yesterday I was so tired I couldn’t focus–with the end result that my kitchen, an unholy mess from making dinner on Monday–remains an unholy mess still this morning. I did manage to fold some laundry, and then started watching Youtube videos while trying to focus enough to continue reading my Whitney novel (to no avail). I did see some very interesting videos on the Medici family, with a particular emphasis on Catherine de Medici (whom I find one of the most fascinating characters in history; she was also part of that sixteenth century legion of women who held power, and would definitely be a part of  The Monstrous Regiment of Women, should I ever have the time or energy to do the research and to write it), as well as another fascinating (to me) historical personage: Cardinal Richelieu. Richelieu videos led me to some more about the Thirty Years’ War, the decline of the Hapsburg family’s power, and how Louis XIV came to solidify and center the power of the crown…so it wasn’t an entirely wasted evening.

I may not have been able to focus enough to write anything new, or watch a television program, but those ten to fifteen minutes videos are quite educational, and they do spur me on to think of other ideas and thoughts and so forth (I especially love the Weird History ones).

I don’t have to work a full eight hour day today, and I am working from home; which means all kinds of things. Later on today–when I am finished with work for the day–I will run my errands–groceries and mail–and then come home to hopefully an evening where I can get some more writing done. I still feel very tired, even though the coffee is now kicking into gear, and hopefully the tired will eventually go away–at least long enough for me to do the dishes.

I did manage to do a load of laundry last night.

The only thing I’ve noticed that’s significantly different about New Orleans thus far with the Phase I reopening is that there’s more traffic. All the businesses still seem to be empty, and no one is walking around much; but there are more cars. One of the nice things about the Shutdown was being able to easily make use of I-10 for me to get around, to and from work–usually the I-10/I-90 exchange I have to use, getting off from I-10 West and getting on I-90 towards the bridge across the river, during normal times is so backed-up that it’s faster and easier for me to drive through the CBD and deal with rush hour traffic that way rather than sitting on the highway, not moving. Yesterday when I got on the highway I could see that further ahead, just past the Orleans on/off ramps, traffic was sitting still; so I got off at Orleans Avenue and cut through the CBD. Traffic is one of the reasons I always preferred to work later; so I wouldn’t have to deal with that irritation….and it looks like that irritation is finally back. Yay? I guess I should appreciate it as a sign of normalcy returning, but it’s frankly one I could have done without.

I imagine this exhaustion is somehow pandemic related in some way; much the same way I have credited the pandemic-concurrent shift and alteration of our reality with why I tire so easily these days. It’s obviously psychological; and while it was nearly fifteen years ago I do remember the post-Katrina time as being remarkably similar to these times physically and psychologically. There are differences between the two situations, obviously; Katrina’s impact truly wasn’t felt world-wide. The world wasn’t left in ruins after Katrina’s floods, and so there was also that weird sensibility of being in New Orleans, irrevocably altered and changed, and then traveling somewhere and having things be perfectly normal there–and then having to return from normalcy to the abnormality of life in New Orleans at the time. That was always jarring….like flying out of the deserted airport to one that was bustling, filled with people and airplanes parked at every gate; or leaving from one that was packed to landing in one that was basically a ghost town, with tumbleweeds blowing down the empty concourses. Now every airport is empty, streets are empty, businesses are deserted–and not just here but everywhere.

And on that cheery note, I am diving back down into the spice mines, and won’t be coming up for air any time soon–so have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader!

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Under the Bridge

 Sunday morning, and I must confess that other than doing the errands and some slight cleaning yesterday, I fear the day was mostly a bust for getting things done. But that’s fine; I am off today and tomorrow as well–tomorrow should include both the gym and a Costco run–and I intend to get a lot of writing done today. The kitchen and living room are still in need of some straightening as well, and I assume that I shall get to that as I pass the day. I was thinking about going to the gym this morning, but I think I shall go tomorrow instead, and then have a Monday-Wednesday-Friday workout schedule to try to stick to; with perhaps going in on the weekends simply to stretch and do cardio. I have now discovered a new show to watch for cardio–The Musketeers, and there’s at least three seasons, I believe–which will makes things ever so much easier. I certainly did a lot of cardio while I was watching and enjoying Black Sails, so The Musketeers might just do the trick. (I had high hopes for Netflix’ Troy: The Fall of a City, but it was so boring I had to give up. HOW DO YOU MAKE THE TROJAN WAR BORING?)

While I was goofing off yesterday and watching things on Amazon/Netflix/Hulu/Youtube–yes, I know–I was also reading through Bertrand Russell’s brilliant and informative The History of Western Philosophy, and I came across this:

The last dynastic pope was Benedict IX, elected in 1032, and said to have been only twelve years old at the time. He was the son of Alberic of Tusculum, whom we have already met in connection with Abbot Odo. As he grew older, he became more and more debauched, and shocked even the Romans. At last his wickedness reached such a pitch that he decided to resign the papacy in order to marry. He sold it to his godfather, who became Gregory VI.

I do find it interesting that Russell chose to word it that way: that the height of his wickedness was his decision to resign and marry.

This led me into an Internet wormhole, looking up Benedict IX, the dynastic papacy, and the Tusculan popes. As you know, Constant Reader, history always has fascinated me; I would love one day to write historical fiction, as there are so many historical figures that fascinate me, from Catherine de Medici to Cardinal Richelieu to the Byzantine empress Irene to now, Benedict IX; and the century before him, where a woman named Marozia had enormous influence not only over the papacy but on who was elected pope (Marozia, in fact, founded the dynasty of popes called the Tusculans; which concluded with Benedict.) The Fourth Crusade, which wound up sacking Constantinople, also interests me, as do the histories of Venice and Constantinople.

And one can never go wrong with the Borgias and the Medici.

Anyway, one of the debaucheries of Benedict IX was sodomy, and it appears that the historical record holds that he was homosexual; how can I not be fascinated by a gay Pope, the way I am interested in Louis XIV’s gay brother Philippe duc d’Orleans?

So, of course I am making notes for a historical fiction novel called Benedictine, the tale of the gay pope.

Am I nothing if not predictable.

Next up in Florida Happens is Eleanor Cawood Jones’ “All Accounted For at the Hooray for Hollywood Motel”.

Eleanor Cawood Jones began her writing career in elementary school, using a #2 pencil to craft short stories based around the imaginary lives of her stuffed animal collection. While in college at Virginia Tech, she got her first paid writing job as a reporter with the Kingsport Times-News in Kingsport, Tenn., and never looked back. Eleanor now lives in Northern Virginia and is a marketing director and freelance copywriter while working on more stories as well as her upcoming mystery novel series. She’s an avid reader, people watcher, traveler, political news junkie, and remodeling show addict. She spends her spare time telling people how to pronounce Cawood (Kay’-wood).

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Mona, lingering over a third cup of coffee, flipped through her collection of vintage postcards while the all-consuming sound of crunching cereal across the table grated increasingly on her nerves.

She took a sip of lukewarm coffee, gritted her teeth, and reminded herself of her husband’s many good qualities—of which turning mealtime into crunchtime was not one. Things were easier when she had to dash off her to accounting job. In those days, there was never time for another cup of coffee, much less prolonged crunching noises.

“Rodney!”

Rodney looked up from the Racing Times. “Mmmm?” At least he wasn’t speaking with his mouth full.

“I wonder if this hotel is still around?” She held up a ’50s postcard with a modestly clad bathing beauty posing in front of a diamond-shaped, brightly painted sign advertising the Hooray for Hollywood Motel. In the photo, an appealing, pink-painted building featuring a bright blue swimming pool practically beckoned vacationers. A single story structure in a horseshoe shape provided easy access to drive in and unload luggage. The fine print mentioned another pool in the back of the motel as well, as well as an onsite restaurant. Nothing about ocean front, but Mona knew the area well enough to know the motel would be right between the coastal road A1A and highway 95 in the heart of Hollywood, Florida.

Rodney perked up. “Alexa, phone number for Hooray for Hollywood Motel in Hollywood, Florida.”

Mona shuddered, once again, at having to share her vintage, mid-century kitchen with Alexa the interloper. But Rodney had retired two years before her and had spent his spare time acquiring gadgets, of which this conversational internet talkie was the latest.

This charming little story tells the tale of Mona and Rodney, a retired couple from Ohio who impulsively decide to take a trip to Florida, based on finding an old postcard. They’d honeymooned in Florida years earlier, and now that they’re retired, why not? But once they arrive at the vintage old motel, Mona finds herself helping out the crotchety owner, and soon Mona and Rodney are helping revitalize and bring the old motel back to life…until one morning they find the owner floating in the swimming pool.

And then things get interesting.

Very pleased to have this charming tale in Florida Happens, and now I must get back to the spice mines.

Crimson and Clover

Constant Reader knows I love history.

One of the (many) reasons I didn’t major in history was because I really couldn’t pick a period to specialize in; there are so many different periods of history that fascinate me. I talk on here a lot about the sixteenth century, but I am also interested in the seventeenth. I’ve actually been toying with a book idea set in that century for going on ten years now; periodically I will read some history of that century as background, but there is still so much I don’t know. I am reading Royal Renegades right now, about the children of Charles I of England–fascinating stuff; I knew basics about the English Civil War but not a lot–and the Stuarts of that period were particularly entwined with France. Charles I’s wife was Henrietta Maria, youngest sister of Louis XIII and aunt to Louis XIV; she fled to France for safety and some of the royal Stuart children also made it over there at some point. Henrietta Anna, Charles I’s youngest daughter, grew up at the French court; she eventually married Louis XIV’s brother, Philippe, the Duc d’Orleans.

And therein lies a tale.

My interest in Louis XIV–and Versailles–led me to discover that the Sun King’s younger brother, Philippe (whose existence, for that matter, completely invalidated the plot of Dumas’ The Man in the Iron Mask, although I’ve always loved that story), was, if not a gay man, then bisexual: he had children by both his first wife, Henriette Anna Stuart, and his second, Elisabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine. In fact, Philippe is called the Father of Europe because all of European royalty in the nineteenth century were his descendants.

As a small child reading history, I picked up on the homosexuality that most historians always tried to gloss over (Edward II and Piers Gaveston; James I and first Robert Carr, later George Villiers; Richard the Lion-Hearted; Henri III of France; etc) but there was never any real attempt to gloss over Monsieur’s (Philippe was known throughout his life as Monsieur, after the death of his uncle Gaston, from whom he inherited that particular title as well as the title of duc d’Orleans) sexuality. He had a long term relationship with the Chevalier de Lorraine, which started when he was a young man and lasted until the Chevalier’s death. Monsieur’s first wife put up with it but didn’t care for it; his second wife didn’t care one way or the other.

The story goes that his mother, Anne of Austria, made him that way–which is, in modern times, a laughable thought (a domineering mother, etc etc etc)–by dressing him as a girl when he was a child, and continuing to do so after he was of an age to start wearing male clothing. Apparently, Queen Anne was concerned that Louis XIV and his younger brother would have an adversarial relationship the way her husband Louis XIII had with his own younger brother, Gaston. The troubled marriage of Louis XIII and his Spanish wife is also fascinating; they were married very young, she had two miscarriages, and he blamed her for the second one and they became estranged, not living together as man and wife for a very long time afterwards (the second miscarriage was around 1619, I believe; Louis XIV was not born until 1638 and his younger brother in 1640)–this estrangement between King and Queen–and the way George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham shamelessly flirted with Queen Anne when he came to Paris to negotiate the marriage of Charles I to Henrietta Maria–were the seeds from which Dumas also wrote The Three Musketeers.

Since so much time had passed (almost nineteen years) since Louis XIII last slept with Queen Anne, there were lots of rumors and talk that her two sons were not Louis XIII’s; there are many who believed Cardinal Richelieu fathered the boys with the Queen (fictionalized in Evelyn Anthony’s The Cardinal and the Queen); but there was never any question that the two boys were Bourbons. (Like the Hapsburgs with their genetic ‘jaw’, the Bourbon ‘nose’ was also relatively famous; both Louis and Philippe had the nose–but then that could simply mean that their father was a Bourbon rather than confirmation that Louis XIII was)

Monsieur often dressed as a woman for court functions, even as an adult; despite this proclivity he was a great soldier and commander of the French army–he was so successful in the field that his brother was jealous of his successes and often removed him from command.

His second wife was a diarist and a compulsive letter writer; her memoirs and letters are one of the best sources for information about life at the court of Louis XIV.

I’ve always been a little surprised that, while there are scores of biographies of Louis XIV (who, despite his incredible ego, wasn’t as great a king as he thought he was; he accomplished a lot but he also succeeded in planting the seeds for the French Revolution and creating the court system that also played a big part in the downfall of his dynasty. He also wasn’t successful militarily and diplomatically; his wars were expensive and ruinous–although all of Europe had to unite against him in order to beat him.) there are very few, if any, of Monsieur. I would think a biography of him would be something a gay historian would be interested in writing, because of the ability to look at his sexuality, his difference from the others at court, and how, as a prince, he was able to be himself–despite his own religious mania, Louis XIV never seemed to care about Monsieur’s proclivities–and on his own terms. Not to mention how incredibly difficult and strange it would have been to be the younger brother of the egomaniacal Sun King.

Was Monsieur gay? Bisexual? Transgender? Was this a result of his mother dressing him as a girl when he was young or was that just a coincidence?

As I said, the seventeenth century is interesting. And a lot was going on as well–the Thirty Years’ War was the last European war over religion; there were civil wars in both France and England; the colonizing of North America by the British, French, and Spanish truly got into full swing; and it was also the time, of course, of Cardinal Richelieu, the first great modern statesmen.

I hope to write this book someday. But in the meantime, I am having a great time doing the background research.

And now, back to the spice mines.

Voulez-Vous

A final push today and the essay will be finished. Huzzah! I also need to pack today and prepare for the trip; I will also have to go to bed early as I want to get an early start tomorrow. The drive is about eleven and a half hours, not including stops; with stops, figure maybe twelve to thirteen. (The times are estimates, of course; I’ve made the drive in less than eleven hours before and it’s also taken longer.) I also need to clean out my email inbox before I go; make sure there’s nothing left hanging that needs to be taken care of, and then drug myself early into a nice, restful sleep (I really do need to go to bed around ten tonight, which is a minimum of an hour and a half earlier than I usually do.) I stocked the larder yesterday, have paid all of the bills that fall due before I get paid again, and other than the essay and packing, I’m pretty much done. If I can knock the essay out early, I can then go ahead and do some straightening/cleaning (I cleaned out the refrigerator yesterday after getting groceries, in an attempt to get everything to fit in there).

I did finish reading Gore Vidal’s Empire yesterday, and frankly, wasn’t all that impressed with it. Oh, Vidal was a great writer; he knew how to use words and string them together, but at least in this book he didn’t create great characters; his characters are emotionless ciphers that don’t engage the reader. Vidal was an incredibly smart man, and a very great thinker; no one can take that away from him. But just because he was smart didn’t mean that he was right, you know? Often as I read the book, I would think to myself, man, he really hated this country; and then I would also find myself wondering, or is my reaction to his cynicism about this country a part of my own brainwashing?

As a child, going through public school, watching television with my parents, I was instilled with values and beliefs, some of which I have come to not only question but violently disagree with as I developed, through reading, my own experiences, and my own witnessing, my OWN set of core values and beliefs. Periodically I do catch myself thinking something automatically and not critically; and then I have to examine the automatic thought, figure out where is came from, and whether it actually has any value, any basis in reality and fact. Much of what I learned as a child has been, in fact, unlearned as an adult.

I’m not sure I agree with Vidal’s analysis of our country and its history. To be fair to Vidal, I’ve not read his other fictionalized histories: Burr, Lincoln, 1876, Washington D.C., Hollywood, and The Golden Age; nor have I read his essays and nonfiction on the subject. I’d like to read Burr at some point; just to get some better idea of Vidal’s thoughts about American history and what was true. Obviously, Aaron Burr is not a hero of American history, and yet Vidal seemed to think he was; I am curious to revisit this. I have always been taught that Burr was a villain; and in the interest of confronting things I was taught to decide on their veracity and validity, it may be necessary to reexamine that period of time in American history (which is why I am also interested in reading Howard Zinn’s “People’s Histories”).

Interesting thoughts on a Sunday morning with an essay to write about writing crime fiction in New Orleans.

But the book I have selected as my new bathroom read is a book called Royal Renegades by Linda Porter. It is not published in the US, only the UK; I ordered my copy through Book Depository, and I don’t recall how I heard about the book in the first place. The focus of the book, which is nonfiction history, is on the marriage of King Charles I and Henrietta Maria, and the lives of their children. I have some knowledge of Stuart England, but am not as well-informed as I would like to be, particularly on the 1620’s (which is a period of particular interest to me for a secret project, which I have been trying to research for years, without a great deal of success). This particular royal marriage–which, of course, led to disaster for the Stuart dynasty; with repercussions well into the eighteenth century, only ending with the final defeat of the Stuarts in the 1740’s–started a string of Stuart marriages in which Protestant English kings married Catholic princesses and made them Queens: two of their sons not only became king but also took Catholic wives; their second son even went so far as to convert (and this led to his deposal). Henrietta Maria was not only French, but her mother was Marie de Medici–yes, so her lineage went back to Italy and Florence and the amazing Medici family, reestablishing Medici blood into the French royal lineage after it died out in 1589. This was also the period of Cardinal Richelieu, one of my favorite historical statesmen; the Thirty Years’ War in Germany; and the further colonization of North America by the European powers. Anyway, this history begins with the first meeting between King Charles I and his French wife; she would be the last French-born Queen of England, and she was, indeed, the first French-born Queen in nearly two hundred years, after centuries where a French queen was the norm, not the exception. I’m looking forward to it.

Yesterday evening, after chores were completed and work was done for the day, Paul and I watched the European Figure Skating Championships on our NBC Sports Apple TV app. we are both huge fans of the two-time defending world champion French ice dancing team of Guillaume Cizeron and Gabriella Papadokis; their performances are breathtakingly beautiful.

And so are they; Guillaume also, apparently, works as a model.

You can see why. I’ve never understood why American male figure skaters and male gymnasts don’t get contracts as underwear models, at the very least; those bodies are en pointe.

And now, back to the spice mines.