Tag: Carol Goodman

Grail Overfloweth

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps Some Other Aeon

Tuesday morning and heading out to Metairie for an appointment. I took the entire day off because I have no idea how long this might take or how I might feel after, so I figured it was better to not have to deal with clients. It’s nothing serious, and perhaps by being vague I am intensifying interest in what my appointment is; I’m just not comfortable talking about it just yet. Who knows? Tomorrow I might be here telling everything and more, always more than you could possibly want to know. Then again, you are here, after all.

I got some great work done on the book last night, and I am feeling most self-satisfied to the point where I can barely stand myself today. I hadn’t planned on using today to finish the revision when I asked for the day off, but how opportune this has turned out to be for me. When I get home, I can do some chores around here and then dive into the final two chapters of the book. Yes, I said the final two chapters. The end is clearly in sight, and the work I did today successfully pulled the story back in from some dead ends and subplots that were not absolutely necessary. I cannot wait to get home and finish it off this afternoon. But…we’ll see how it goes. One never knows when fate is going to throw a monkey wrench into your plans. (And what an odd phrase that is. I wonder what it’s origin was?)

We finished watching The Lake last night and it was quite fun and cute. I really like Justin Gavanis, and Julia Stiles is epic as Maisie the bitch no one likes and everyone fears. We also started watching the new Apple Plus Tom Holland series, The Crowded Room, which seems relatively intense and sad at the same time. But we’re intrigued and will most likely continue with it this evening. I also like Amanda Seyfried, and she’s the female lead.

I didn’t fall into a deep sleep last night but I rested, which is all that matters. I’ll hit a wall at some point this afternoon without doubt; but that’s okay. As long as I can get my work done once I’m back home from this appointment, that would be super great. I can also get some more chores around here done, too. Or I could get back to reading, if my brain isn’t too fried. Funny how reading used to be the thing for me when I was tired, to relax and refresh and reboot my brain, and now that I’m older I can’t focus enough to read when I’m tired. My reading has slowed down a lot this past year or so; the pandemic gave me a lot of time to read, but for the longest time I couldn’t. I did reread a lot of Mary Stewart novels to get me into reading again–I also reread some other marvelous older titles that I love, like Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters–and that broke through that barrier to reading. Maybe I should do that again, once I get my current book finished reading? But I’ve also got some killer reads to get to–new books by Kelly J. Ford, Eli Cranor, Megan Abbott, and S. A. Cosby, with a new Carol Goodman and Laura Lippman coming later this summer. And then of course there are all the books I’ve got here that I haven’t read, because I am a book hoarder.

And I got the notes for the other manuscript I am trying to get finished and out of my hair as well. So, if I can get the last two chapters finished today, and write the epilogue, I can start doing the macro edits. I have a long lovely weekend ahead of me, thanks to the Juneteenth holiday, and of course the week after that I am heading to Alabama and Kentucky to spend some time with my dad. Their anniversary is–was–June 26th, so I am going to meet Dad there in Alabama for their anniversary and then we’ll caravan back up to Kentucky. And then we’re in July–another truncated work week for me–and next thing you know it’s Bouchercon and football season and then the holidays and the year ends and that, my dear Constant Reader, is how you run out of time and how quickly life shoots past.

And on that cheery note, I am going to head into the spice mines and start getting ready for this appointment. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.

Shallow Then Halo

Monday morning and heading into the office to start the work week. I have tomorrow off, as I have a dentist’s appointment, and with no idea how long that would take or what they might be doing to me while I am there, I just figured it was easier, much easier, to simply take the day off so as not to worry about coverage and when I can get to the office and so forth. I am very sick of my mouth and very sick of dealing with my teeth; I am very tired of looking like someone from the holler and I’d like to get it all taken care of once and for all. I will spare you my rant about dentists and my teeth, but make no promises for how I may be after the appointment.

Probably safer to take the day off.

I slept well again last night and feel very rested this morning, which is a lovely way to start the week but I am not fully awake yet, I don’t think. Come on, coffee, work your magic. I did get progress made on the revision this weekend, which has me actually back on schedule, which, of course, is absolutely lovely. I shall just keep plugging away at this every day until it’s finished, which will be this week and then I have to do revisions on another book and when that’s finished, I can breathe again. Both of these should have been finished long ago, but then again here we are, you know? I didn’t expect everything to go off the rails the way it did after Thanksgiving (although things were already off the rails and had been for quite some time, frankly, I just refused to accept or admit it), but that also just goes to show you need to be careful when setting incredibly tight deadlines–you can never completely and fully prepare for everything life is going to throw at you, but it definitely appears as though scheduling tight deadlines is kind of asking for it, in a way. You’d think I’d eventually learn, but then again–I am a stubborn-ass kind of fool who never learns when it comes to deadlines.

It was a nice weekend, really. I couldn’t focus on reading non-fiction, so spent some more time with nonfiction, which is nice. I really should make the time to read for an hour every day. I think it would help stimulate my creativity, and reading is always a learning experience for me. I try to shut off the editorial brain when I am reading something for pleasure, but it’s not always easy–nor is the oh, that was a clever way to do that or I wish I had thought of that or what a lovely piece of writing that paragraph was! Nope, that’s just as hard to turn off as the editorial brain. I’ve also been editing a manuscript, and that also has something to do with the editorial brain; I am already in that mode and I was also revising one of my own; not really surprising that I’m not able to consume and enjoy fiction whilst in the middle of doing that. I did get some chores done and I did get some revising done and I also got some rest, which is always important. We finished watching Now and Then on Apple, which was full of surprises, and then moved on to season two of The Lake, a cute little half-hour comedy on Amazon Prime. The stars are Julia Stiles (who plays the uptight bitch stepsister to perfection) and the guy who played Felix on Orphan Black, whose name I can’t think of at the moment…JORDAN GAVARIS. I think he’s an out gay actor (or he’s an actor who primarily plays gay men) who was simply brilliant in Orphan Black (the entire cast was terrific, but it was hard to notice given Tatiana Maslany’s tour-de-force as all the clones), and he is fantastic as a self-absorbed drama queen on this show, which is clever and original and funny. I recommend the show; it’s witty and funny and pretty original–and no one is talking about it, which is a shame.

Of course I am going to spend a week with my dad later this month and hopefully, I won’t have to worry about having anything due or checking emails that week, so I should be able to get a lot of reading done while I am up there. I’ll probably listen to another Carol Goodman on the way up there, but I am also starting to run out of Carol Goodmans (write more, Carol!) but I also suppose I could find another author who’d be fun to listen to in the car. (Another author I was listening to on long drives really pissed me off with her last one I listened to, so won’t be going back to her for a while.) Oooh, Lisa Lutz! Lisa Unger! Jennifer McMahon! There are so many good writers and I have soooo much reading to catch up on, too…

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later.

Flowers on the Wall

I love Carol Goodman’s work.

I don’t remember which of her books I read first; I am thinking it was The Sea of Lost Girls, but that may be wrong (probably is; my memory is for shit these days) but I DO know I first met her in person at the HarperCollins cocktail party at Bouchercon in St. Petersburg, and she’s just as marvelous as a person as she is a writer. Since then I’ve delved into her canon of brilliant books–have yet to come across one that is even slightly disappointing–and each one makes my fandom flame burn even more brightly.

And then in Minneapolis, over lunch with a few friends at that wonderful Irish pub near the hotel, I discovered the clincher: she is also a Dark Shadows fan. She even joked, “I’ve realized that most of my books are really about Barnabas Collins and Maggie Evans”–which made me think even more deeply about how much of an influence the show was on my own writing (Bury Me in Shadows owes a HUGE debt to the show). She has a new book coming out this summer, which is very exciting–I have that weird thing about never wanting to have read everyone’s entire backlist, so there’s always one more book for them to read without me having to wait to get my hands on it–and during my trip to Alabama for the First Sunday in May I listened to The Ghost Orchid, which was so good that when I got home that Sunday night, I grabbed my headphones and listened to the final thirty minutes of the book while unpacking and doing things around the apartment.

I came to Bosco for the quiet.

That’s what it’s famous for.

The silence reigns each day between the hours of nine and five by order of a hundred0year-old decree made by a woman who lies dead beneath the rosebushes–a silence guarded by four hundred acres of wind sifting through white pines with a sound like a mother saying hush. The silence stretches into the still, warm afternoon until it melts into the darkest spot of the garden where spiders spin their tunnel-shaped webs in the box-hedge maze. Just before dusk the wind, released from the pines, blows into the dry pipes of the marble fountain, swirls into the grotto, and creeps up the hill., into the gaping mouths of the satyrs, caressing the breasts of the sphinxes, snaking up the central fountain allée, and onto the terrace, where it exhales its resin- and copper-tinged breath out onto the glasses and crystal decanters laid out on the balustrade.

Even when we come down to drinks on the terrace there’s always a moment, while the ice settles in the silver bowls and we brush the yellow pine needles off the rattan chairs, when it seems like the silence will never be broken. When it seems that the silence might continue to accumulate–like the golden pine needles that pad the paths through the box-hedge maze and the crumbling marble steps and choke the mouths of the satyrs and fill the pipes of the fountain–and finally be too deep to disturb.

Then someone laughs and clinks his glass against another’s, and says…

“Cheers. Here’s to Aurora Latham and Bosco.”

“Here, here,” we all chime into the evening, sending the echoes of our voices rolling down the terraces lawn like brightly colored croquet balls from some long-ago lawn party.

“God, I’ve never gotten so much work done,” Bethesda Graham says, as if testing the air’s capacity to hold a longer sentence or two.

Carol Goodman’s books are, above and beyond anything else you might want to say about them, incredibly literate and smart. She reminds me of Mary Stewart in that way; Stewart’s novels, often dismissed as “romantic suspense” (don’t even get me started on that misogyny), were smart, clever and incredibly literate, with Shakespearean references and quotes and allusions to classical literature. Goodman’s works are also the same; Goodman’s background in classics scholarship is utilized in every one of her books but not in a way that feels intrusive or showing off. It’s all integrated into the story and not only moves the story forward but deepens and enriches the characters as well as the plot, which is not easy to do. Her books are often built around some sort of academic/intellectual backdrop, from boarding schools to small colleges to actual archaeological digs (The Night Villa is absolutely exquisite; superb in every way), and her heroines, aren’t pushovers (as in most “romantic suspense”) but strong and smart and driven, if haunted by their own insecurities and past failures. Goodman is also not afraid to cross the line over into supernatural occurances, either; the previous one I’d read had a touch of the woo-woo, as does The Ghost Orchid, but it’s not intrusive and it actually plays out so honestly and realistically that you don’t question it.

The main character of the book is a young woman named Ellis Brooks. Ellis is a young author-to-be who is working on a novel based on what is called “the Blackwell Affair.” She had already written and published a short story based on an old pamphlet she found; the book research makes her a natural to be chosen for a residency at Bosco, an old estate in upstate New York that has become an artist’s colony, sort of like Breadloaf, but for a much more extended stay and for fewer artists. “The Blackwell Affair” actually took place at Bosco, when the original mistress of the estate, Aurora Latham, brought an experienced medium named Corinth Blackwell to Bosco to hold seances to try to reach the spirits of her dead children–any number of whom were either stillbirths or died shortly after being born; she had four children who lived but lost three of them to a diphtheria outbreak the year before. Corinth Blackwell and the only surviving Latham child disappeared one night after a seance; hence “the Blackwell Affair.” As Ellis does her research and gets to know her fellow artists better, she becomes more and more aware that the past at Bosco doesn’t rest, and the untold stories of the past must be unearthed before everyone at Bosco can be safe.

Goodman is also a master of the dueling timeline; one in the past and one in the present, and weaves the stories together so intricately that I marveled at the mastery, as the present day characters wonder about something and then we get the answer in the past. There are so many secrets, so many lies, so many spirits; but as always with the best ghost stories, the past is finally laid to rest when the truth is exposed.

I loved this book, and it reminded me not only of Dark Shadows (knowing she’s a fan I’ll always see it in her work now) but also of Barbara Michaels’ best along with Mary Stewart. Can’t wait to dig into another Goodman novel!

The Power of Goodbye

I got home last night around eight o’clock. I am very glad I went up there this weekend; it meant a lot to Dad and it was kind of helpful for me as well. I am still kind of in shock that I was able to sleep in the motel room on Saturday night; I actually slept better that night than I did at home on Sunday, but here we are. I am composing an entry about the First Sunday in May; I started writing it last night when I got home but don’t want to finish it while I’m sleepy or foggy from sleep. It needs a clearer head, to be certain. It was hot and humid yesterday, and I have a bit of a sunburn on my scalp from the incredibly bright hot sun as we went from cemetery to cemetery.

I am very tired this morning, but am really glad I went this weekend. I feel like some of the darkness has receded–perhaps not for good, make that most likely–I have long since learned to know that once the constant darkness starts to recede that there are still going to be bad days in the weeks and months to come, but that first wave of grief that I’ve been living with seems to be over. Stay tuned, and keep your seatbelt fastened; there’s still more turbulence to come.

I didn’t finish listening to Carol Goodman’s marvelous The Ghost Orchid in the car, but I can finish listening while doing some chores around the office that always need to be done. It’s really fantastic; with DNA from Dark Shadows, Mary Stewart, and Elizabeth Peters; another one of those books that make you think why do I even bother? But Carol’s one of my favorite writers (and favorite people) so I prefer to enjoy her work than beat myself up over not being able to write books as well–there’s no point in that kind of thinking in the first place.

I do feel like the cathartic feel from this weekend might help me buckle down and get back on top of everything. I am so behind on everything that it’s not even funny. I do have an eye appointment this Saturday–just getting my prescription checked; will order new glasses from Zenni if they are needed (and I suspect they are)–and hopefully I will be able to get deeper into the book this week and maybe–just maybe–get all caught up by the end of this coming weekend. I need to go over my to-do list and come up with a new one; I won’t be able to take books to the library sale because of the eye appointment but I should take a box down from the attic this week to get started on the ultimate purge, and hopefully think ahead and plan as much as I can while this good feeling lasts.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.

Rain

In a little bit I’ll be loading up the car and driving north.

We watched more of The Diplomat last night, and I must say, what a terrific show. Keri Russell is fantastic, the writing and production values are top natch, and the cast? Chef’s kiss, really. I also managed to get some work done on the book last evening, as well as doing some chores around the house on breaks from work-at-home duties. I laundered the bed linens, forgot to pick up my dry cleaning, and noted that the humidity has returned–the Formosan termite swarms won’t be far behind, either. There have already been sightings reported on social media, and yet it’s not yet Mother’s Day, which was usually the demarcation line of swarm season. The work on the house next door also looks like it may be winding down at long last, and while the house looks lovely, I still miss my crepe myrtles.

I slept very well last night, so we’ll see how I feel sleeping in a motel tonight. I don’t have much to do to get ready for the drive; my Carol Goodman audiobook is downloaded to my phone, and I just need to pack my shaving kit and a change of clothes to be ready to go, after showering and shaving. I also need to queue up the directions on my phone, too. It should be, all in all, a lovely drive. Mississippi, despite everything, is quite beautiful to drive through, as is Alabama (the entire South is beautiful, more’s the pity), and of course, I’ll probably be working through plot points in my own book while I listen to Carol’s read beautifully through my speakers.

I am not sure what time I will get back here tomorrow, but I assume it will be late, so I will be tired going into my work week. Maybe I should have taken Monday off? But even if I am tired, I should be able to drag my ass to the office. It’s my get-caught-up-on-things day at the office; and I generally am never there for eight hours. Since I am not client-facing on Mondays I am thinking I could probably manage the day despite being tired…and maybe being tired on Monday will help me sleep the rest of the week. I mean, I can dream, can’t I? And Lord, I am behind on everything. Hopefully getting this weekend out of the way will remove the cloud from my subconscious and I can move on ahead without the depressive lows or out-of-nowhere emotional collapses. Again, I can dream, can’t I?

So, when I get back tomorrow night I need to remember to make a list of everything that needs doing in the meantime–there’s a lot I have to do and get done, so I need to make certain that everything that needs doing is written down so I can remember to get to it. I have an eye appointment next Saturday, and I also need to figure out some things about getting the hearing aids and so forth. Heavy heaving sigh. It also looks kind of gray out there this morning; perhaps I should check the weather between here and there before I leave this morning. A thought, to be sure. Looks like rain both today and tomorrow–all the way there and all the way back, as well as here too. Yay, he typed in sarcasm font. That’ll make the drive ever so much easier.

But I don’t mind these lengthy drives, although I’d prefer to teleport wherever I need to be rather than drive or fly. It’s also unusual for me to be gone two consecutive weekends–although of course, after I went to the library events in Birmingham and Wetumpka I had to go to Kentucky the next weekend, and back to Alabama the next–three weekends in a row with me not home. The discovery of audiobooks for the drives changed everything, really. I also worked on cleaning up the piles of books, but haven’t bothered pruning much because I can’t get to the library sale to drop off books before next weekend at the earliest.

I don’t know if there will be an entry tomorrow morning or if it will have to wait until I get home, or Monday morning, one or the other. (And I just realized of course it’s raining today; it’s Jazzfest and it always rains on one of those weekends.)

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader–not sure when I’ll be back. SO hang in there, okay? You got this.

Erotica

Work at home Friday, woo-hoo! The excitement really never stops, does it? Ah, well.

Yesterday was a pleasant enough day, despite my complete exhaustion by the time the afternoon rolled around. I was fine in the morning, focused and getting things done, but once I went back to seeing clients after my lunch break, I was physically and mentally fatigued. I also had to pick up the mail on my way home–the traffic wasn’t nearly as terrible as it had been the day before; I do NOT know what that was all about, nor do I want to know, frankly. I came home, did some things, and then collapsed into my easy chair. We started watching that new HBO MAX show about the Watergate burglars starring Woody Harrelson and Justin Theroux (and if you would have told me in 1989 that Woody from Cheers would become one of our best character actors, I wouldn’t have stopped laughing until 1992), but while it’s exceptionally well done, E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy aren’t the kind of people I want to know better or see anything about as the lead characters of anything. It was eerie how well they reproduced suburban life in that period (also having Cersei Lannister playing Mrs. Hunt was an interesting twist), but again…I couldn’t get a sense of whether this was parody or striving for accuracy (which shows how insane Hunt and Liddy both are/were), so after one episode we tapped out and switched over to The Diplomat, which is amazing. I fell asleep during the second episode (I’ll rewatch it to get caught up at some point) because I was, simply stated, completely exhausted from a week of working and not sleeping well and emotional upset, I suppose. Last night I slept like a rock–completely dead to the world all night, and even slept for nearly ten hours before rising this morning rested and refreshed. It is quite lovely, frankly, and I feel terrific for the first time all week. Of course tomorrow I have to drive to Alabama (and back again on Sunday) but I have already selected Carol Goodman’s The Ghost Orchid to listen to on the ride to and fro, and I am kind of excited at the chance to listen to yet another brilliant book by one of my current favorite authors.

I’ve not had a chance to pick up Lori Roy’s brilliant Let Me Die in His Footsteps, which I was reading on the way home from Malice last Sunday and loving every word. Despite the fact she has two Edgars and another nomination from her first three books (which is pretty amazing on every level), I think her more recent work is even better than her earlier work. This book is also pretty fantastic, and I can see why it did win the Best Novel Edgar. Roy has a very hypnotic writing style, and is a master of voice; this story is told by two very different and very distinct voices with an alternating dual time-line, which is also something I love, love, love. The pity is that when I finally do finish this book, there will only be one Lori Roy novel left that I’ve not read, When She Comes Home, and I’ll have to hold onto that one until she publishes another book unless I want to (sigh) finish her entire published canon thus far.

I dread the day when I run out of Carol Goodman novels to read, for example.

It’s been a tough week, and I think that its my subconscious dealing with the issues of what this weekend means, really. Over the course of my life I’ve become really good at compartmentalizing my life into different rooms in my brain and shutting and locking the door on things, thinking I can’t deal with that now, I’ll deal with it later but some things are too big to be locked away, and they seep out through the cracks around the door in its frame and drag like a heavy stone at my being and emotions. I hit a major wall when I got home from work on Wednesday; I just got overwhelmed out of nowhere with grief and collapsed into my easy chair for some purring cat therapy. I also find that my moods can easily be shifted with essentially a snap of the fingers this week. I am unused to this kind of grief, and periodically wonder–with a sense of dread and horror–how much worse this will be when I lose Dad, as he is the only parent I have left. I know I am lucky. I had my mom for nearly sixty-two years; most people don’t get that long with one parent, let alone two. How much harder would this have been to deal with when I was younger and more immature?

But that is the kind of thing I always dismiss when it comes to mind–the path of regret is one of futility, wasted time and energy and emotion. You cannot change anything, so what is the point of trying to figure out or thinking about how different things might have been had you chosen A instead of B at this point, or D instead of Y then? The ripple effect of every choice we make reaches people we don’t know in ways we’ll never know, so maybe different choices made by me could have resulted in horrible things happening to other people, and why on earth would I wish bad things for people I don’t even know? That sounds terrible, frankly, and nothing I would ever want.

In some ways, this morning I am kind of looking forward to the drive north. I mean, yes, the destination is grim and sad, but it’s a beautiful drive; I have a great novel to listen to, and I really am looking forward to seeing my father. I want to get a good look at him, you know, and listen to him and see how he is doing. It’s so hard to tell via email or text, you know? Nothing like having eyes on someone for a proper assessment. I’ve decided to go up there this summer for a while, keep him company and spend some more time with him. (And yes, hateful little voice inside my head, I am very aware that I should have been doing this when Mom was alive. No sense in regrets, but I don’t want to feel this way when I lose Dad, so…changes in mentality and thinking are necessary going forward. I do wish it were easier to get up there than it is, though. I don’t think anyone can fault me for thinking that, either.)

Ah well, I have work-at-home duties to take care of as well as chores, so I am going to bring this to a close and head into the spice mines. I’ll check in with you again tomorrow before I leave, Constant Reader, and have a lovely day.

Mother’s Little Helper

I am a huge Carol Goodman fanboy.

I am having the best time reading my way through her (fortunately) deep backlist, and each book is unique and smart and intelligent and thoughtful in the best possible ways. I love books that make me think, and ones that inspire me.

I’ve never wanted kids–as one can imagine, this was a point of contention with my parents–primarily because I knew I would be a terrible parent, and having that much responsibility over the development of another human being (and the endless repercussions that come from being a bad parent) is something that has always terrified me. I can barely make time for my cat–and certainly don’t make as much time as he would prefer–and I can ignore his demands. Sure they make me feel guilty (“one day when you have to have him put down you’ll remember all these times you couldn’t make time for him”), but while you can feel pretty sure that you aren’t scarring your cat for life emotionally by ignoring his demands for a lap to sleep in, you cannot have that kind of certainty with a child. I was lucky that I had good parents who loved me; I’ll always be grateful for that, but I recognized early as a child that I was far too selfish and self-absorbed to have children and to raise them properly. I have nothing but the most profound admiration for anyone who chooses to have children and raise them–primarily because the worry and fears and concerns never let up until either you or the child are no longer around.

I also know that the worst thing anyone can ever do is criticize a parent for their parenting style. There’s no right or wrong way to raise a child or parent; no one really knows what they are doing and babies don’t come with a manual. I know from personal experience how an off-hand remark from someone, not even intended as shade or critique, can leave emotional scars that can last a lifetime (what is it about our brains that make the horrible things stand out while we forget the good things quite easily?). I know that women especially are vulnerable to the fear of being a bad mother, and that insecurity which results from that fear can often be exploited.

Carol Goodman doesn’t shy away from these sorts of fears; she builds entire novels around them, and around the things that society has done to women. In The Other Mother, the roots of the story lie in two women who meet in a support group for mothers suffering from post-partum depression, which must be terrifying for women who experience it.

She’s crying again.

I don’t know why I say again. Sometimes it seems as if she’s done nothing but cry since she was born. As if she’d come into this world with a grudge.

“We’re almost there, sweetie,” I call to her in the backseat, but she only cries louder, as if she can recognize my reassurance for the lie it is. The truth is I don’t know where we are or how far we are from our destination. The last time I looked at the map app on the new (cheap, pay-as-you-go) phone, it showed our location as a blue dot in a sea of endless green. As if we’d fallen off the map of the known world. When we crossed the river there was a sign that said WELCOME TO THE LAND OF RIP VAN WINKLE. I feel as I’ve fallen asleep and woken to an unrecognizable world–only who sleeps with a crying six-month-old?”

“Do you want your ba-ba?” I offer, even though she just finished a bottle half an hour ago. I root around in the diaper bag on the passenger seat but find only an empty bottle. Hadn’t I made up two at the last gas station? Or had I been distracted by the woman in pressed corduroy trousers and Burberry jacket who’d eyed me microwaving a bottle with that why-aren’t-you-breastfeeding-don’t-you-know-bottles-will-rot-your-baby’s-teeth-and-lower-her-IQ look. She was holding the hand of a toddler who had an iPhone in his other hand, his eyes glued to the screen.

Well, that’s an opening, isn’t it?

One can never go wrong with opening a crime novel with someone arriving someplace new, because it immediately pulls the reader into the story. What do we learn from these opening paragraphs? We have a mother and baby going somewhere, not sure where she is going or how to get there, so that in and of itself–the destination–is a mystery we need to get to the bottom of almost immediately, as well as who is this woman, who is this child, and why does she seem so determined to escape whatever it is she has left behind? Because that is the undercurrent of this opening–she’s taken her baby and fled and is heading for a sanctuary, one she isn’t so sure of, but might just be her only hope. We also get some characterization here–she’s a mother, probably a new one, who is terribly insecure and uncertain of her mothering skills, questioning herself all the time as to whether she is a good mother or not. Ultimately, we will discover that the theme of the book is mothering and mothers; both good and bad ones, as well as the fact that most everyone falls somewhere in between on that scale.

But what we actually have here is two mothers; Daphne and Laurel, both new mothers, both from different ends of the economic scale, both with incredibly different marriages. The one thing they share is post-partum depression and an insecurity about their mothering. They both love their daughters (ironically, Chloe and Chloë–the wealthier Laurel using the umlaut, because of course), and strike up a friendship. As they become friends and their lives become more entwined–something happens that causes Daphne to take her baby and run. As the story unfolds, bouncing back and forth between past and present, along with occasional peeks into each woman’s journal (which they are required to keep as part of their group therapy) shows us two vastly different women as well as two women whose original suspicion of the other gradually develops into something more–trust, love and friendship, while both deal with horrible husbands. There is a HUGE twist that comes about midway through the book, and therefore the second half of the book changes dramatically from the first, racing along like a runaway train with the reader turning the pages (or impatiently waiting for the audio artist to keep talking) to a denouement that is both earned and deeply satisfying.

Another terrific work by one of today’s strongest and best (and smartest) authors.

Souvenir

Happy Mardi Gras! Everywhere else it’s just Tuesday.

I was exhausted yesterday, and essentially useless. Scooter demanded a lap almost as soon as I got home, and apparently he missed me. I collapsed into my easy chair, he climbed into my lap and started purring as well as making biscuits before curling up and sleeping (and purring in his sleep), which was comforting and relaxing at the same time. I finally slept last night, and feel more human and Greg-like this morning than I have in a while. The bed felt wonderful, especially this morning, and i really would have been more than delighted and happy to have stayed in bed for another few hours. But I agreed to do a Facebook page takeover this morning to promote A Streetcar Named Murder (what better way to do promo for a New Orleans book than on Fat Tuesday?) several months ago, and at the time I didn’t know what the future held for this year’s Carnival for me and my family. I would imagine the neutral ground on St. Charles is crowded with parade-goers already; it was already a zoo on the neutral ground yesterday when I got home. I knew we would most likely be taking today as a holiday and not going anywhere or doing anything to celebrate, figuring we would be exhausted by Fat Tuesday and staying in to recover. I am out on bereavement leave from work until Friday, which is nice, and I will probably begin the process of figuring out where I am with things and digging out from under (my email inbox is out of control; I had it under control until a few weeks ago), and making groceries and getting organized. It’ll be nice to be home this weekend after three weekends in a row away. I’ve driven almost three thousand miles over the last three weekends, and my poor car is probably wondering what the fuck at this point.

But it’s good to be home, good to be feeling like myself again, and there is a lot of work that needs to be done around here. I really let everything slide these last few weeks–don’t even want to think about how much filing there is to do, and organizing–and of course, the kitchen/office is a total mess as always. I’d started making progress on the gradual thorough clean of the apartment I’d planned as a New Year’s goal before everything went up into the air; I’m not sure where I left off but do know that it won’t kill me if I simply start over again. I’d really like things to be neat and tidy (another of my mother’s legacies) so I can get to work on my manuscript editing that I am so terribly behind on. I also have a short story to write. So basically I have the rest of this week off to get my shit together before my work-at-home Friday and then my first weekend at home since January. I am going to probably do some bits and pieces around here today but after the Facebook page takeover thing I think I am simply going to spend the rest of the day relaxing and resting and recovering and hopefully regaining my equilibrium. I started listening to Tara Laskowski’s One Night Gone in the car yesterday after finishing The Other Mother, and I’m going to probably dedicate some time to reading more of it today. Just looking around this morning as I write this and sip my oh-so-delicious coffee I made for myself this morning (I do laugh at myself and how particular I’ve become about things I like, like my morning coffee; it’s never the same when I have to get hotel coffee or make it in one of those little coffee maker things they have in some hotel rooms). I need to take out the trash and put dishes away before cleaning out the sink again and running another load through the dishwasher. I also need to figure out what to do about our dryer situation; I’m going to try to fix it myself before giving up and buying a new one.

My toe is still slightly painful this morning, but I can walk on it without either wincing or limping so I consider that a victory. I’m going to wrap it again this morning as well as ice it and keep it elevated (hence the day in my chair reading Tara’s marvelous book); tomorrow is going to be errands day (which will require lists, and we all know how much I love a good to-do list) and probably laundry and other chores, and I’ll also probably start digging into the editorial process with my two manuscripts. I would also like to start back to the gym for stretching and cardio soon; maybe even go to some yoga classes, which can also help me with focus and relaxation. I need to start taking better care of myself; eating better, dropping some weight, getting some exercise, and so forth; it will make me feel better physically and mentally; and of course, I now have the great joy of audiobooks for the treadmill, elliptical, and stationary bike. I also have to accept that my work schedule may never go back to what it used to be, and the rest of my working life before retirement is going to be this schedule that I’ve been working now for months.

But I feel better about almost everything this morning–amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for you–and I know grief will sucker-punch me again at least a few more times–but I think I’ve achieved acceptance at last, which is a start to healing. I know I’ll never get over losing Mom, but I think I am starting down the path of learning to live with the loss.

One step at a time, one day at a time, one task at a time.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Fat Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later–I need to write up The Other Mother–and thank you again for all the kindness.

Our Lips Are Sealed

Back in the Lost Apartment on Orpheus Monday/Lundi Gras, and I am very tired and drained and exhausted. I’ve lost all sense of time and dates, and I am sure there are things I should have been doing that need to get done but I don’t know what any of them are and at this point, I don’t think I really care all that much. It’s depression, I know; I’ve dealt with it before and know how it feels and manifests, both emotionally and physically, in my life.

Interestingly enough, my toe seems to be getting better. The shoes I brought for the funeral were new and had never been worn before. I wrapped up the toe yesterday morning, put on the socks, and then the I was barely able to get the shoe on. It was so tight that it was almost painful, but as the day progressed it hurt less and less. This morning when I got up it was still red but the swelling had gone down a lot. I think if I wrap it up again, elevate it. and ice it a bit it may go back to normal entirely. I should probably talk to my doctor about it (I am very uneasy about the possibility of gout–how eighteenth century!–or psoriatic arthritis. That toe always has psoriasis on it, and my psoriasis causing arthritis is something my doctor has been concerned about. Yay) But it’s an enormous relief to not have to go to the emergency room or try to get into the doctor’s office; I’ll just message him on my medical app.

It’s funny, because as I was finishing listening to The Other Mother (by Carol Goodman, do yourself a favor and get a copy) on my way home today I was thinking about my mom and the fact that I’m listening to a book about mothers and that revisiting the places I based Bury Me in Shadows on and around also gave me a bit of pause because I realized that one of the major themes of the book was ,well, mothers and sons. I don’t know if I’d planned on writing it that way or if it just happened organically; I guess I would have to find my journals and notes for the book and reread them to see if it was a conscious choice or something that simply happened, or maybe I just have mothers and sons on my mind these last few weeks and it’s a coping mechanism my oh-so-clever-and-sly brain developed to help shield me. I don’t know. I don’t know much, honestly. I am very tired.

The drive was quick and easy. I had no idea of how to get out of where we’re from in Alabama, but I knew when the Google Maps app started giving me directions that they were different from how I got there–since I’d gotten off a highway to get the motel and the app didn’t tell me to get back on the highway to come back. It took me all through the backroads and countryside of Alabama, and then before I knew it I was crossing over into Mississippi and I still wasn’t on an interstate highway. I kept checking the phone to make sure I hadn’t missed something or had put the wrong address into it or something, but after a little while and some lovely scenery, I came into Meridian from the north and hopped on I-59 South and BOOM. Here I am. I made it in just barely over five hours, including one stop for the bathroom and gas. Why is it always faster for me to come back to New Orleans every time I drive north? Unexplained mysteries, for sure.

Well, Scooter wants some attention and I am hungry, so I am going to bring this to a close. Sorry to be brief, but I am also really tired. I’ll check in with you again later, Constant Reader. And happy Lundi Gras.