Good morning to you, and how are we all feeling this lovely Saturday morning? Sparky let me sleep in a bit this morning, for which I am eternally grateful; it’s weird how he’ll try at first, but if the alarm doesn’t go off, he’ll just cuddle and wait. He really is a darling, isn’t he? I was thinking yesterday evening as he slept in my lap. Yesterday was a nice day, really. I got my meetings out of the way and did my work before my errands and some cleaning and reading. We started watching Harlan Coben’s Lazarus on Prime last night, and it’s very interesting and very different than Harlan’s other work. I like the idea of a psychiatrist losing his father and then starting to see ghosts of murder victims that his father saw as patients, and then sees his own father, who tells him he didn’t commit suicide but was murdered. Very enthralling and interesting, I must say.
LSU plays this morning; I believe the start time is 11:45. They’re playing Arkansas at home, and who knows how that will go? There are other interesting games to have on in the background (Alabama-Oklahoma could be interesting), but I also want to make progress on things today and at least finish cleaning the house. I have to run an errand this morning in a little bit, but other than that I’m not planning on leaving the house again until Monday. It was stunningly gorgeous yesterday, and is again today from the looks of things, which is marvelous.
I picked up three books I’d ordered: Without Consent by Sarah Weinman; More Adventures of the Mad Scientists’ Club by Bertrand R. Brinley, and The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey. Sarah Weinman is one of the finest writers in our genre, and her nonfiction works–which study, through the lens of crime and the judicial system, the gradual rise of women’s rights and equality in this country. This, about the Rideout case, and protecting women from spousal rape, is going to be a very intense read. The Brinley is a sequel to one of my favorite juvenile books from the Scholastic Book Club, The Mad Scientists’ Club, which I’ve never forgotten but didn’t know there was more than just the one book in the series, so it should be very fun to read. The Lindsey is something I remember reading as a kid that I kind of wanted to revisit, with all the missed raptures of the last few years as well as an example of End Times mythology; it may have been one of the first books about this that may have ever been published. As a suburban Chicago teenager I was very interested in the occult and unexplained mysteries, which there seem to have been a lot of back in the day. Was the 1970s the heyday of bizarre conspiracy theory? Between this and the “ancient aliens” bullshit (and we must never forget the Bermuda Triangle and Area 51, either) it seemed like that was an intense decade for conspiracy theorists. (I also found a copy of Stranger Than Science on ebay during the shutdown…)
The Lindsey is the basis for my first entry (or the second) on religion for my newsletter, and how there probably could be no The Omen without it. See, I am making progress on the newsletters! One thing I definitely want to get this weekend is the two ongoing essay series for the newsletter (religion and masculinity) organized, as well as working on the background for Chlorine and finishing the first draft of “A Holler Full of Kudzu,” which will undoubtably either turn into a novella and perhaps even a short novel (I am not pushing that, though).
And on that note, I need to get going on the day. Have a terrific Ides of November, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning.
For the first time in decades, I am not taking my birthday off.
That’s why I am up at this ungodly hour, swilling down coffee and consuming coffee cake like it’s going out of style. I need to conserve my PTO, because I am going to the panhandle (barring unforeseen circumstances) for a week with my dad in October after a weekend in Alabama for Dad’s and Mom’s birthdays. I also have to take some time off during Bouchercon–there’s no way I can work all day and then host Noir at the Bar that Thursday, and probably not going to be able to do much work that Friday, either. I think I’ve managed to get it all planned out so that I will have just enough vacation time left to do the family thing in October, and then let things start building back up again for the new year. It’s going to be weird going to work on my birthday–I generally take the day off because I don’t need or want the attention that comes with it–but I will survive, I am sure.
Sixty. Four.
Christ on the cross.
I never planned for my future because I never thought I would have one. When I was a kid, I was certain I wasn’t going to have much of an adult life; I always had nightmares about not only dying but how I would die; either in a car accident, or a fall from a high place. This is why I am always, to this day, a little bit tense when I’m in a car and a LOT tense when I am the passenger. In my early twenties, I thought I was going to seroconvert and die from AIDS–why would I ever think that I would survive that pandemic? The next thing I knew I had somehow made it to fifty, then sixty–and now I am sixty-four, with another milestone birthday just a year in my future, should I make it till then. I am woefully unprepared for retirement, so most likely will continue to work for another few years to at least try to get my debt down to a manageable place. Ha ha ha ha, I’m so adorable, aren’t I?
I guess the ship has sailed on me dying young, hasn’t it?
But it’s been a pretty good life thus far, I have to say. I’ve written and published a shit ton of work, which can never be taken away from me, and neither can the awards I’ve either won or made the shortlist for…how many authors never make a shortlist of any kind? But the childhood conditioning that celebrating myself and things I’ve accomplished is a hubristic tempting of fate; how many stories and myths and fables are there about hubristic humans who anger a god? Like I often say, I live in the city I love with the man I love doing work that I love. All of my dreams came true, no matter what happens in the future.
My sixties haven’t been easy on me, and I don’t have the energy I used to have so recovery from physical, emotional, and professional blows doesn’t happen as fast as it used to; but I’m still pretty pleased and happy with my life. I try not to worry about future outcomes that I can’t control, and can only prepare for the things I can. If my thirties were about getting myself mentally healthy so I could have the life I wanted, and the forties were about getting started in my career and the fifties were about getting further along and getting better as a writer, my sixties have been a time of revisiting and rethinking my past, finally getting to understand myself and where a lot of my neuroses stem from. The anxiety medication has helped me enormously in that regard, too. Realizing how emotionally crippling my anxiety was when I was a minor also has enabled me to remember, and those memories aren’t painful anymore because so much of my misery was directly attributable to said anxiety.
So now I am sixty-four. I am older than my grandparents were throughout my childhood, which is also a staggering realization. It’s also weird to think that I was born sixteen years after the end of World War II, the country was sinking into the depths of the Cold War, and President Kennedy hadn’t even been in office for a full year yet. I never imagined what it would be like to be this age, mainly because I, as stated earlier, never thought I would live this long. I’m trying not to be that old person–you know, “When I was your age” or “We used to call it” and that sort of thing, because no one really wants to hear it. I’ve seen a lot in my life, witnessed all kinds of events (the Challenger explosion, 9/11, Watergate hearings, on and on), and lived through all kinds of things. I’ve lived in Alabama, Chicago, Kansas, California, Houston, Tampa, Minneapolis, and New Orleans. I went to two high schools in different states, and two colleges in different states. I went to Italy for a week over ten years ago. I’ve had so many jobs, but being a writer/sexual health counselor were the only things that took with me.
Life’s been good to me so far.
After work, I am going to head home and just hang out with Sparky. If I had to hazard a guess, Paul will probably get us Hoshun for dinner tonight. But I got my vacuum cleaner last week, and that’s all I really cared about.
Happy birthday to me! And may my next year be a lovely one!
The only picture of my face as a baby, my first day home from the hospital.
Monday morning and I have an ophthalmologist appointment before I head into work. I slept super-great again last night, but didn’t really want to get up this morning. The appointment is pretty far out for me in Kenner (near Clearview), and I have no idea what time I will get to work. This is to check me for Stargardt disease, which my sister has and is genetic. I also have errands to run after work tonight–post office, make some groceries–before I come home to an apartment and all my chores. I was very tired yesterday–drained from the trip and all the driving over three days or so–and was able to only get some filing and organizing done, as well as ordered groceries for delivery and put them all away. The sink has dishes in it, there are dishes in the dishwasher that need to be put away, and the floors are always the worst. If I can stand it, I can do a bit every night before really focusing on it Friday, which is a holiday I don’t feel much like celebrating or acknowledging this year, given the dismantling of everything since January. I also have to get the bills figured out–I am terribly confused about these medical bills I am getting–and have a shit load of writing to do.
I need to finish reading my current three reads (Summerhouse, Sing Me a Death Song, The Crying Child) before moving on to my next three. I also need to get back writing again; it seems like months since I’ve worked on anything, which is silly–I worked on writing last week, but the trip makes everything seem like it all happened an eternity ago, which is one of those weird time things I’m becoming more and more aware of the longer I live. I also need to clean out my email inbox, pay some bills, and pull my life back together–I’ve not been on top of things since I got sick after Saints and Sinners, really. Definitely need to. make a to-do list and a grocery list before heading out this morning, and maybe do some things around here before leaving for the appointment.
I did go down a research rabbit hole on Youtube again yesterday, though–more 1970s research, and I was also remembering the Bicentennial and how it really started overpowering the zeitgeist after President Nixon resigned and was pardoned. Next year is the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence; I am a little surprised that it’s not as big of a deal, or even a deal at all, so far. But we were a different country in 1976 than we are now, aren’t we? I was still in high school, we’d just moved to Kansas, and the Olympics were coming up, too–Montreal and Nadia Comaneci–so that was a busy summer for me, and one of major changes for one Gregalicious. (If you think it wasn’t a major change to go from a suburban Chicago high school to a rural one in Kansas, think again.) I also have Alabama stories bouncing through my head since I drove home on Saturday.
But now I have to get back to the spice mines and make that to-do list before cleaning up for the appointment and a short day in the office. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow as the month changes and the summer ratchets everything up even hotter than it was in June.
Monday morning and back to the office with me this morning. I slept well again last night and had no trouble getting up; I am neither groggy nor tired as I sip my coffee and eat my morning coffee cake slice. It was a nice, if not terribly productive weekend. The Festivals are this weekend, so Paul will most likely be moving to the Monteleone on Wednesday, leaving me home to deal with a lonely, needy kitty in the meantime. I do have a lot of work to get done this morning at the office, so pray for me. I’m taking a long weekend for the Festivals–Friday and Monday, mainly for the recovery aspect–so hopefully next week isn’t too terrible. I also managed to blow off my taxes for the entire weekend, so I need to get that done this week as well.
Sounds like a to-do list is in order to me, don’t you think?
Spring is here! It was gorgeous yesterday when I walked outside to take out the trash. Paul had to go to the Quarter for the annual Stanley/Stella shouting contest at Jackson Square. I couldn’t justify going and taking the afternoon off from chores and writing (should writing be considered one of my chores?) for the day. Maybe next year I’ll remember that I don’t need to be turning books in during the first third of the year. Meh, fall is football season so there’s always something else to take me away from it, isn’t there? We did finish watching Paradise last night, and it really is quite excellent. It’s also one of the best produced and written shows I’ve seen in a while. The acting is stellar, and the writing is very clever and everything that happens in earlier episodes matter in the later ones, so everyone really needs to be paying attention. It’s also incredibly smart, and I am sure any parallels to our current world are purely coincidence and unintentional.
I also watched a documentary–a short one–that explained how the creators and writers of the Game of Thrones show didn’t stick the landing and ended up ruining one of the greatest television programs ever made. Like most everyone, I didn’t much care for the final season, and especially not the last episode…but I put everything aside for the pure pleasure of watching the spectacle–and it was a spectacle. Everyone watched Game of Thrones1, didn’t they? Everyone at my office did, and we always talked about on Monday morning, sometimes re-watching the episode in the upstairs lounge of our old office on Frenchmen Street. There were some incredible cinematic moments on the show, and of course, the acting was always topnotch. Every so often, when I think about it, I’ll go in search of clips from the show on Youtube, which is what I was doing when Paul got home yesterday afternoon with Chinese food for dinner. (I was not one of the people who had a problem with Daenarys going full-on Mad Queen and destroying Kings Landing.) I don’t know, but I can’t help but think a re-watch and a full-on binge of eight seasons could be fun. I know the weekend after the Festivals will most likely be one of those “can’t get off the couch from exhaustion” weekend, so perhaps that is the right timing for a massive binge.
I didn’t get nearly as much done this weekend as I would have liked, and while that is a consistent issue for one Gregalicious, it’s also one that needs to stop being an issue. It’s very easy to get distracted and lose time down a wormhole, especially when I start doing my researches on-line. It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the concept that the 1970’s were actually fifty years ago; my fiftieth high school reunion is in three years. (No, I am not going if they have one; although I am a little surprised that the majority of my classmates, I think, are still alive.) I told Paul last night that I was watching World War II videos yesterday morning, and I realized, to my horror, that the war had only been over for slightly more than sixteen years when I was born, which had never occurred to him before, either. YIKES. Certainly made me feel every second of my age, let me tell you! But it was true. My maternal grandparents were born before the Archduke was assassinated; so when they were born, Austria-Hungary was still a thing, the Germans had a kaiser and the Russians had a czar. The war was still in recent memory when I was a kid, and I grew up in a neighborhood of Chicago that was full of war refugees and post-war immigrants. A friend’s father had numbers tattooed on his inner forearm. The past was still very much the present when I was a kid, and we were also still in that post-war “America is the greatest country EVER” glow, and we were all taught white supremacy, obedience to the patriarchy, and American exceptionalism…but even when I was a small kid things seemed a bit wrong; committing genocide on the natives never sat well with me as a kid, nor did the fact the way US History was taught (and written about for kids) to justify everything we did as a country as “right” and “pure” and “moral” seem correct to me…and I’ve spent a lot of my adulthood recognizing and correcting the fallacies and bald-faced lies and justifications I was taught and groomed to believe.
We were all groomed to be good little citizens who obeyed and never questioned authority. Yeah, that worked, didn’t it?
And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back later or tomorrow morning.
I spent the day with Dad, going around to cemeteries and visiting graves and getting family history lessons. We went to the oldest known grave1 in Alabama–which is in the county, and Dad’s sister-in-law is descended from the Revolutionary War veteran buried there. We had lunch in a little diner in Carbon Hill which was phenomenal–old-style home Southern cooking (didn’t care for the cornbread, but no one could make cornbread as good as my mom, and you could tell it wasn’t baked in cast iron). It’s weird being here, a bit melancholy and always a bit sad–most of the older folks from when I spent summers here as a kid are all gone. I’m sixty-three, so that’s really not a surprise but I generally don’t think about that a lot when I’m not here; being here reminds me of things and people. I remembered one of my dad’s uncles, which shocked him because that uncle died when I was about seven. (I also remember my mother’s younger brother, who also died when I was seven, less than two weeks after he turned eighteen.) I even have a single memory of our first apartment in Chicago, when I just over two years old. It’s very faint, but I remember it–it was my first time hearing the air raid sirens (which used to be tested every day back then) and it scared me, so Mom picked me up and carried me out to the back porch and told me it wasn’t anything to be scared of, and it never bothered me again.2
I’m also glad to spend this time with Dad, and also get a break from every day life and the world burning to the ground3 for a brief respite. I was listening to Nick Cutter’s The Troop in the car yesterday (yes, I picked a book that wasn’t on my list of choices, but in fairness to me I’d forgotten I’d downloaded it), and really enjoying it. I’m looking forward to listening to the rest of it on the way home tomorrow. It’s surprised me; I don’t know what I was thinking the book was about other than knowing a Scout troop was having a camp out on a remote island, and it was horror. It is that, but I thought the threat, the big bad, was going to be a psycho killer; it’s such a slasher story set-up that my brain defaulted to that trope. But it’s not that at all–and it is so much worse than that. So much worse. It did get a slow start and I had to acclimate to driving from being at the office, so my mind was also wandering a bit…but once it gets going, it really gets going. I hope my mind is receptive enough to pick up on it again right away. There had been a big twist and shift to the story right as I got here and stopped listening, too. DAMN YOU CLIFFHANGERS!!!
Okay, I didn’t finish this on Friday night because I got sleepy–I was very tired–and then this morning I got up, packed, got cleaned up, packed the car, and had breakfast with Dad before I departed for my drive home. It’s always amazing how much faster and easier driving home to New Orleans always is than driving anywhere else. I love when I first spot the Laurel New Orleans exit sign as 20 veers off east and 59 continues heading south. It was a lovely day for a drive, really. I got home around three–really good time–and collapsed into my chair, cuddled with Sparky, watched the LSU-Oklahoma gymnastics meet (it was a replay on Youtube; I knew they’d won but wasn’t able to watch Friday night. The Tigers won and broke 198.00 again, which is the kind of score you need to win at nationals), and then settled in for a lovely binge of Arrested Development. I finished listening to The Troop on the drive–finishing just as I pulled up in front of the house (more on that later, I promise) and I really enjoyed it.The Bell in the Fog is definitely going to be my next read. I was really tired, so I figured I was going to sleep well last night, and I did. So, here I am on Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment, slipping back out of my little bubble back into the real world. I am sure the world continued burning and more fuel was added to the fire…there are measles outbreaks popping up all over the country just in time for an anti-vaxxer to be in charge of health and human services. The dismantling of the CDC has already started, apparently. It was kind of odd to be visiting cemeteries with Dad on the same day, so I started taking pictures of children’s graves–and there were a lot of them. That will be a newsletter post, methinks. I wonder how many of their children have to die before the anti-vaxxer bloodlust ends?
We certainly live in the stupidest timeline–one where anti-vaxxers see themselves as pro-life somehow but want their kids to die instead of “catching autism” from them? It’s amazing how much damage an idiot D-list celebrity (Jenny McCarthy) can do to a country, isn’t it?
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I recommend taking the day off from the world so you can take care of yourself, your own business, and prepare yourself for the fight.
I got to the hotel after dark Friday and felt very tired. Dad had gone to his alma mater’s football game with two of his teammates (I started to say old in the generic sense and then realized Dad IS old and so are they so best not to, or at least write a caveat so here we are). It was a peaceful, lovely drive and I was listening to my audiobook (Paul Tremblay’s Survivor Song and I HAVE THOUGHTS), and there wasn’t much traffic, if any. It was a beautiful drive, and I never cease marveling at how beautiful Mississippi and Alabama are. I had planned on stopping to eat at the Whataburger in Tuscaloosa, but for some reason the map app did not take me that way this time; it seems like I never come up here or leave the same way twice in a row. It always takes the same amount of time, though it’s been interesting seeing parts of both states I am not familiar with. I almost stopped at a Jack’s in some small town I passed through after leaving 20/591; but I thought there would be somewhere else before getting here.
NARRATOR VOICE: There was, in fact, nowhere else.
I always forget how little there is between Meridian and Tuscaloosa, or between Birmingham and Chattanooga. It’s best to eat when you get hungry, and get gas before you get down to a quarter tank else you could be fucked. I know I’ve been ravenous sometimes when I’ve had to wait till past Chattanooga to eat, and same for going up from Mobile to Montgomery. It’s weird to feel so anchored to Alabama, isn’t it? I don’t remember living here; I was two when we moved north. We came down to visit a lot, and I know for Mom and Dad (and my grandmother who also lived in Chicago) they always referred to these trips as “going home” and so I, too, have always thought of Alabama as home in a corner of my mind. I never felt like I belonged almost everywhere I lived once I became more aware of just how different I was from everyone else. I felt displaced, like my life was supposed to have happened in Alabama but it didn’t, so in addition to feeling different I felt almost like a transient everywhere. New Orleans is home now, was always meant to be my home, and I have never felt more like I belonged than I do there. I think my life would have been very different had I grown up here, maybe even harder or more difficult; I don’t know. New Orleans and Alabama are, oddly enough, the only places where I don’t feel like a tourist.
I’ve always written about Alabama, and I do sometimes think that somehow my Alabama stories are my best work, as far as the writing is concerned. The story I’m revising right now was the first work I turned into a college writing class (after the first course I took was such a horrific, unmitigated disaster that basically pulled the rug out from under me and derailed my life for years) that not only the professor was incredibly enthusiastic about, but the entire class was as well. This was the story that made me start believing in myself a bit more after the asshole professor derailed my life2 when I was seventeen. Anyway, I digress. Driving through the countryside after getting off the interstate up there always is weird to me in many ways, because it’s so different than I remember. When I was a kid, most houses in the county were old and made of wood, and there were still tin roofs around, although mostly on barns and out buildings on the farms. Now the houses are mostly brick, there are a lot of McMansions, but there are still a lot of blighted buildings rotting and falling to pieces where they stand. There are abandoned country stores and dead gas stations, the store built from cinder blocks and the rusting pumps still out on a crumbling concrete island. It’s also funny because I wrote Bury Me in Shadows from memory, having not been up there in over twenty years, and seeing the differences now…I guess I never had to worry overmuch about basing that book in a county based on where we’re from, and the differences are so striking no one would recognize it as the same.
Saturday I went with Dad to his high school reunion lunch, which was at a nice restaurant where we always eat every time I’m up there (they have the most amazing chicken fajitas), and that was nice. We headed back to the hotel after and spent the rest of the day watching college football games. The LSU game was amazing, but they sent me into despair a lot during the night. They won the game without ever having the lead! A bitterly disappointing loss for Mississippi (how many times have their dreams died in Tiger Stadium? It’s really no wonder why they hate us so much), but a very exciting game. The Tigers are now ranked in the top ten–which is great, but a big win does not a season make, if you know what I mean–and the rest of the schedule isn’t easy, either. Two road games in a row, then Alabama before one more road game at Florida before finishing out the season with two home games in a row. There has been a lot of great football games this season already, which has made it a lot more fun to watch than it has been in years. Saturday alone, there was the LSU game; Alabama-South Carolina (Alabama eked out a two point win); Tennessee beating Florida in overtime; Penn State-USC went to overtime; Oregon beat Ohio State by one point; and Vanderbilt kept up its winning ways by beating Kentucky. I ain’t going to lie, I am rooting for Vanderbilt to have a great season.
Yesterday I drove home, finished listening to Survivor Song, and then listened to the “My Dad Wrote a Porno”. I was very tired when I got home, very tired, so I spent the day in my chair getting caught up on the news from the weekend before we started getting caught up on our shows. I went to bed early and slept well–I was tired all weekend, but had slept well both nights, but not long enough. I did sleep a little later this morning (I took the day off) than I was expecting (but I also woke up at 5:30 the first time), and feel good. There’s still some residual trip hangover today, but I don’t mind that in the least. The apartment is a mess–I left it one when I left Friday afternoon, and so that needs to be handled today and I am also going to have to run some errands and get reoriented back into normality before heading back into the office tomorrow morning bright and early. I also have some things that I need to get done today–probably will be able to get all that done this afternoon–and then probably will settle into a relaxing evening. We started watching season four of Outer Banks last night, so we’ll watch some of that I am sure.
I didn’t have time to do much reading or writing this weekend, either, but I feel like today I can get to some of that. I do want to finish Gabino’s book this week, so I can move on to another as well.
And on that note, I’m heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; one never knows.
I’ve always been weird, even when I was a little boy. I was different from other kids. I didn’t want to play outside, I wanted to read or play with my toys and make up stories. My parents were always urging me to go outside to play, so I’d just take a book and go sit on the back stairs of that little apartment on Komensky in Chicago. When I started school, I remember it being a bit of a shock to me. There were other kids in our neighborhood, but I didn’t really play with them much; they were mostly girls and friends of my sister’s, and while she let me tag along a lot (a running theme of her unfortunate childhood–always being saddled with her weird younger brother), I preferred my solitude and a book. School was strange for me; thrust into a world where I was surrounded by kids I didn’t know, and I didn’t understand how they all seemed to know each other and be friends already. I stayed by myself for the most part until someone asked me to join a game or something, and entertained myself for the most part. No one picked on me, no one said anything hateful to me or called me names, and for the most part I got on with my classmates. I got up in the morning, went to school, went to Mrs. Harris our babysitter’s house for lunch, back to school and then finally home. We only lived a block away from my elementary school, which made life ever so much easier for my parents; they didn’t have to worry about us coming and going to school safely. We only had to cross two streets to get there–down one block and across to the other side–and there were crossing guards. I knew instinctively that somehow I was different from the other kids; no one liked to read as much as me1, and only as an adult did I find other people who read as much, if not more so, than I do.
But reading–and watching television and movies–began defining “normal” to me; and I couldn’t understand in my childish brain (so advanced in so many ways but lacking in just as many) why the real world was so different from the fictional realities I lost myself in while consuming media. Riverdale in Archie comics seemed like such a nice place, but that was definitely not my high school experience. Whenever I took a chance on reading something age-appropriate (ah, those Scholastic book fairs!) I generally didn’t like it unless it was a mystery. I read so many of the kids’ series books for many different reasons; ironically liking the two most popular (Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys) the least (Ken Holt, Judy Bolton, and the Three Investigators were much better).
It was when we moved to the suburbs that I began to realize that I was not only different but I was weird. I was a boy who didn’t care that much about sports, didn’t want to play them, and there was all kinds of stuff messing with my brain. Sixth grade wasn’t too bad, but that was also the first time that other kids began to wonder about my masculinity, but the worst it got was being taunted by other boys as a “sissy,” and then the next day the group of boys in the neighborhood I met through school acted like nothing had happened the day before–which was when I first learned that you couldn’t really trust other people; they would be your friend one day and cruel the next; and then back to being your friend again. (That group did turn on me completely in junior high school one day; it was weirdly coordinated with other kids at school who weren’t in our neighborhood.)
I hated being shamed more than anything else, for something I couldn’t control. It was in junior high also that I began to understand my sexuality at the same time so many kids began understanding mine and laughing and mocking me for it. I was always in fear of violence, and the kids in my middle-class mostly white desegregation-refugee suburb weren’t above ganging up on one person and beating them. (The suburbs, where we moved for “more stability” and “to have our own house” was far more dangerous for me than living in the city.) I ignored it all, but inside I burned with shame and embarrassment because I also knew the other kids were right about me; I did like boys, and how on earth did I ever learn, in a world that in which homosexuality was erased from public view, what men did together sexually? How did I know? I don’t remember reading about it anywhere, and whenever a gay person appeared in any media it was very negative. But there we were.
The irony lies in the fact that I never really cared that much about having friends or being popular–but media convinced me otherwise; that it was important to be liked and popular and have lots of friends. So I would always allow myself to try to imagine what that would be like. So, I kind of made myself miserable as a teenager, more so than I should have been, because it had been made very clear to me that no one could ever find out. I felt like a pariah, and I also felt like the few actual friends I had weren’t really my friends, because if they knew I was gay they wouldn’t like me anymore. It wasn’t even that I really wanted to be popular, but I thought if I was, the cruelty would go away and no one would question my sexuality.
High school and college was more of the same, really. Lonely and wishing I had friends, forgetting that I didn’t need any. I even joined a fraternity, but even that wasn’t enough; some of the brothers were homophobic trash who loved making fun of me and laughing at me behind my back–which is where I also learned the valuable lesson that men are bigger gossips and much crueler about it than women. Such fraternal love, right? But it was in the fraternity that the seeds of not giving a fuck were beginning to be sown. It was a very bad decade, and it was the last decade of darkness controlling my life.
I was tired of being afraid all the time, you know?
I decided, when I was thirty, to leave that closet behind and get on with my life. It took another three years before I started the long reboot of my life, and when I found Paul I realized I don’t need anyone else, do I? I had long thought, for any variety of reasons, I would always be alone for the rest of my life, and once I’d accepted that (also, part of the shame PTSD went along with believing that I wasn’t deserving of someone’s love) I decided to embrace being weird and different from everyone else. The one piece that was still missing was being a writer…and once that really got started, I didn’t need anyone else. I had Paul, and I had my characters, and devoting myself to a writing career made things a lot easier. I mean, I still prefer being liked–who doesn’t–but if people don’t like me, it’s not my problem.
I’m weird that way. I think everyone who is a creative is weird. You have to be disconnected from the main fabric of society in some way to create; I don’t believe you have to suffer in order to create, either; but I’ve done my fair share of suffering over the years. I am always startled to hear how other people view me and my work; I prefer being liked, as I said, but it’s really not essential for me. It makes writing conferences a lot more fun to have friends to hang out with, but I always have my guard rails up.
Being weird, to me, is a good thing. It’s who I am and I don’t want to fight it anymore. I’m not going to worry if people like me or not; and I don’t owe any apologies to anyone. As Bette Davis once said, “other’s people’s opinions of me are none of my business.” I don’t mind being disliked; no one is liked by everyone and there certainly are a lot of people I wouldn’t cross the street for if they were on fire unless I’m carrying a can of gasoline (you know who you are, but you wouldn’t be reading this anyway because you’re sewage).
And people who dismiss me because I’m gay–or whatever surface reasons they may have–aren’t people I want to know in the first place because homophobes are never good people. Homophobia is usually the first step on the ladder to a soul full of bigotry and prejudice, and rarely if ever do homophobes stop with hating queer people.
Who wants to be normal? I saw that as a horrific existence when I was young, and part of my own misery for the first thirty years of my life was from being gaslit so constantly into what I knew would be a hellish adulthood that would most likely end in suicide.
One of the reasons that the MAGAts hate being called weird so much is because their entire identity is vested in being “normal”–it’s everyone else who is weird, strange, and different. But it’s not normal to want to check everyone’s genitals. It’s not normal to interfere in other people’s lives and tell them how they should live. It’s not normal to think you and your fellow believers are the only ones who have it right and everyone else is going to hell. It’s not normal to think skin tone makes a difference to intelligence, ability, and work ethic. It’s not normal to fetishize Israel because of your apocalyptic religious fantasies. It’s not normal to worship guns over other people’s lives. It’s not normal to see attacks on your faith when no one is even thinking about you. It’s not normal to want to regulate and track women’s menstrual cycles and fertility. It’s not normal to prioritize the unborn over the living. It’s not normal to hate your country unless your golden calf is elected. It’s not normal to claim to be religious but not follow the teachings of your holy book.
They’ve never been normal. Never. But they think they are, and it’s really all PTSD from NOT being popular in high school. They weren’t homecoming queens or cheerleaders or football players; and if they were, they peaked then and are still bitter that their personal glory days are far behind them. (Also: not normal.) Being called “weird” in a dismissive, you don’t matter way gets under their skin because they are not used to be questioned. They claimed to be the normal ones, the correct ones, the true American patriots–and we just let them without challenge. They aren’t used to being challenged, and when they are, it just causes them to melt down completely. They wore their hates and prejudices proudly–embracing being racists and homophobes and TERFs and misogynists3—but challenging their normality hits them hard because they know they aren’t really normal deep down inside.
The best way to deal with bullies? Withering scorn and contempt and outright mockery, as well as constant reminders that they aren’t normal and actually have sociopathic tendencies.
And it’s working. They have no response other than “no, you’re weird!” That doesn’t work on me because I am weird and I’ve embraced my individuality rather than being bullied into being like everyone else. I have no desire to go back to some fantasy halcyon past for straight cisgender white men, where everyone else is merely here to be used for their convenience. I’ve lived in that world and I have no desire to go back to it, in any way.
Ah, the wonderful world of daytime soaps. It’s so weird to me that there are only four (The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, Days of Our Lives, and General Hospital) left on the air. At the height of my soap addiction, I watched more than four of them. I mean, you literally could spend the entire day from about eleven till three thirty watching them back then–four and a half hours solid of soaps. Usually there would be some kind of Good Morning America show on, followed by game shows, and then came the dramas. A lot of those game shows came and went, but ones like The Price is Right never seemed to go out of favor with audiences while the others waxed and waned.
Dark Shadows was the one I really loved when I was a kid, and to this day I still remember it fondly.
When we moved to Kansas in the mid 1970s, the town where we lived was only able to pick up one television station, a CBS affiliate out of Kansas City–less than half a year after we moved there we were able to get cable–but that first summer we lived there and I didn’t know anyone? All I did was read and watch television…and with only one channel, there really wasn’t much choice during the day so Mom and I started watching the CBS shows, and I am sure I am going to forget one here: Love of Life, The Young and the Restless, Search for Tomorrow, As the World Turns, Guiding Light and Edge of Night. (The latter was always one of my favorites, because there was a shit ton of crime. It was really a law-and-order soap, originally created to compete with Perry Mason on radio and had all the markings of a soap, with the usual love triangles, adultery and questionable parentage like all the others–but there was also always a very tangled and complicated murder mystery story running, usually connected to organized crime and sometimes not–but the main characters of the show were inevitably district attorneys and lawyers. Everyone on this show was eventually either murdered or went on trial for murder, which I thought was interesting.)
But the next summer, when I was at home all day, Mom still watched Y&R, but she’d moved on to shows I used to watch with my baby sitter in Chicago (General Hospital and One Life to Live) and a newer one I used to watch with my sister, All My Children, before switching back to CBS for Edge of Night. This was, of course, the beginnings of the General Hospital phenomenon of the late 1970s/early 1980s, primarily focused on Laura (and later, Luke and Laura) and while I did enjoy those stories…my favorites quickly became the Quartermaines, and Jane Elliott as Tracy, in particular. I became obsessed with the shows, watching them whenever I could, and then one day I found this book at a second hand store when I was about seventeen:
It was already out of date; at the time it was published the most popular show airing was NBC’s Another World (General Hospital was breaking all ratings records in the present day), so a lot of the book, when talking about modern times, focused on Another World, and its primary ratings driver, the love triangle between Steve, Alice and Rachel (George Reinholt, Jacqueline Courtney, first Robin Strasser and then Victoria Wyndham as Rachel; Reinholt and Courtney made the book’s cover). By the time I got to the book, Another World‘s ratings were already in free fall and ABC was in firm control of daytime’s ratings. It was also more of a puff piece rather than any in-depth reporting and digging. It was all about how talented and hard-working every one involved in daytime was, and conflicts and other off-camera issues were completely ignored. (It was updated several times, and the last edition I had a copy of, Soap World, was much better and not so “aren’t they all AMAZING?”)
But what was interesting to me about the book the most–and Soap Opera Digest–was that they both had summations/summaries of the soap’s plots from the beginning (not everything, obviously, but the main through plots and popular stories); that was how I actually learned how to write a synopsis. Interested in soaps and fascinated by these summaries, I started doing my own–inventing soap operas, coming up with the family relationships and marriages and so forth, and then would start writing the summaries. I also used to always have a bit of fun writing soap spoofs, generally casting my friends as “characters” and coming up with story lines and writing those summaries, even mini-episodes. I did several of these over the years, but the best was the one I wrote around my fraternity friends, The Young and the Pointless–and I have to say, I learned a lot writing that one. The others I’d done earlier didn’t last long and I’d get bored with it and stop; Y&P (as I called it) ended up being three “seasons” of twenty or so “episodes”, and I soon began understanding the struggles of soap writers–how do you top yourself with a story line? The need to constantly bring in new characters and subplots and balancing everything, until it became a bloated mess and I “canceled” it myself after the third season.
The first book I ever wrote, which I’ve mentioned before, was a sprawling soap opera about a small city in Kansas. Again, it was a learning experience and a difficult one at that; writing this book taught me about overwriting and filler; how bad dialogue can be if you don’t speak it aloud as you write it; and again, balancing characters and plots and subplots and story and keeping track of it all was insane. I’ve borrowed things from it over the years–plots, subplots, characters, locations, etc.–but always knew there was no point in trying to trim it down and use it as is. Murder in the Garden District’s case, in fact, was lifted fully from that manuscript; it was the main story. And I’ve used names from that manuscript repeatedly; they pop into my head unbidden and it isn’t until later that I realize where they came from and I change them.
I watched many soaps over the years; I’d often watch other soaps with friends who watched those shows and would get into them for a bit before going back to my solid three: All My Children, One Life to Live, and General Hospital. I wrote a paper in college for a graduate level course on American culture in the 20th century; the paper was called “How Storylines on Daytime Television Drama Series Reflected Changes in the Mainstream Culture.”1 It was over a hundred pages long, and traced how the soaps went from being primarily marriage and divorce drama to mining social issues for story. I got an A on the paper, of course (I always got A’s on anything I had to write), and I’ve always had some of that information left in my head; and of course as the 1980’s began, they began casting beautiful young men with exceptional bodies to play heroes and villains on the shows–John Wesley Shipp is one I’ve never forgotten, and he’s still a handsome older man today, and so I was also able to occasionally see beautiful men shirtless or in speedos. I approved of this trend 100%.
John Wesley Shipp also did these kinds of photo shoots. My God, that body.
I eventually stopped watching them in the mid-1990’s, when I realized I could keep up with them or use that time to write; I chose to write instead. But even though I no longer watched, I kept up with them some on line and so forth. The twenty-first century purge was horrible to watch, as shows that had once been a popular mainstay of daytime television were mercilessly canceled between 2001 and 2012. It’s hard to believe there are only four left airing, and there haven’t been many in prime time for decades–although the continuing nature of the soaps is now the nature of almost every television series–that cliffhanger shit really does get people to tune back in.
But I always remember them fondly. There were so many wonderful stories over the years–including some completely insane ones–and characters, too. Luke and Laura on General Hospital, Greg and Jenny on All My Children, Viki’s dissociative identity disorder on One Life to Live, and all the wonderful murder mysteries and insane courtroom dramas are all remembered fondly by me–and then of course there was Erica Kane.
It just doesn’t seem like daytime anymore, without Susan Lucci chewing everything in sight as Erica Kane every afternoon, does it?
Saturday morning and we had a marvelous thunderstorm last evening. Paul got caught in it, coming home from the gym, but it was also a flash-flood alert storm, too. I should have curled up in bed with a book, but settled for the easy chair, my chair blanket, and a sleeping kitten. We wound up watching Godzilla Minus One, which was enjoyable. It’s funny that I can watch these movies so comfortably and easily now and enjoy them, when they terrified me as a child. I think it was WGN in Chicago that would run them and call them “creature features” (which was probably the case everywhere) and that always stuck in my head. I had such bad nightmares that Mom and Dad banned me from watching the monster movies, but the vampire/wolfman/Frankenstein monster movies also were nightmare material for me. I know I also used to have Dark Shadows nightmares, too.
Having a big imagination when you’re a child isn’t always a good thing.
I haven’t had nightmares in years, at least not ones I remember–I don’t remember any of my dreams anymore when I wake up, which used to be a thing for me. Not sure how or why that changed over the years, but it did. Maybe it’s because I use my imagination so much to write and create that it’s too drained for me to dream anymore. That might be the case, but then again who knows?
I spent some time in the laundry room working on the shelves, and I did purge more books to take to the library sale today. I am going to do that and go to the gym today–errands are first, of course–and then I think tomorrow morning I’ll cross over to the West Bank to go make some groceries. I have to clean out the refrigerator today, too. I’ve been kind of low energy this three day weekend; and not getting nearly as much done as I would have liked this weekend, but that’s life these days, you know? There’s also today. I want to work on the files and do some writing today, get rid of these boxes of books, and maybe clean some. I need to do the dishes and the kitchen, too. I also need to clean myself up; I haven’t shaved since Monday and my face is itchy and scratchy. I’ve really been a slacker this weekend thus far, but I am also not beating myself up over it. It is what it is, and sometimes I need down time just like everyone else. (I do miss my old energy levels, though.) I haven’t checked today’s weather, either. I am hoping for some rain this morning so I can curl up with my book for a while this morning before lugging the books to the library–but that’s going to open up so much space in the living room! I am really enjoying this progress I am making on the house, you know. I may even attack that last file drawer today, too.
As you can tell, the coffee is starting to work its magic on my brain and I am starting to feel alive and awake. I definitely am going to get through some of this stuff this morning, huzzah! (A quick check of the weather indicates rain at ten, so huzzah!)
I have also been thinking about the book projects a lot these last few days, which has been cool and helpful. I keep getting Imposter Syndrome every time I think about the WIP–but not the usual kind, thank God; this time it’s more “are you sure you’re telling this right?” before realizing that the plan for this book was to always over-write it to begin with and then trim it down and turn it into something I can take pride in; which isn’t how I usually write books in the first place. I also realized that I am not in fact finished with Chapter 3, either; I rushed it and did one of those “I can fill this in later because I want to call this done now” things that I always regret and resent during the revisions, so this weekend I need to get back to that chapter and really finish this draft so I can move on to the next. I also need to get back to work on some short stories, too. I’ve really got to stop letting my mind have the night off more regularly!
And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. I need to get the books organized in their boxes for ease of transfer, get the dishes finished, and maybe–just maybe–work on the floors some. I’ll also probably be back later at some point, too. Have a lovely day and catch you later, Constant Reader!
Saturday morning and Sparky flatly refused to let me sleep in this morning, but in fairness, I got a little more than an hour of extra sleep. My back feels a bit stiff this morning, but I do feel rested, and the coffee will most likely clear the cobwebs. I have to run to the grocery store today, and that may be all I need to leave the house for today, which is perfectly fine with me. It looks beautiful outside, but I am sure it is the usual forecast for New Orleans: hot, humid, chance of rain. I haven’t looked at the hurricane center yet to see what’s going on with the tropical systems trying to form, but I’ll most likely do that once I’ve finished this.
Yesterday was a nice work-at-home day. I did pick up the mail (got my copy of James Polchin’s Shadow Men, a queer true crime case from the 1920s, which is all kinds of awesome). After I finished working for the day, Paul and I finished watching season 3 of Bridgerton, which we both greatly enjoyed, before moving on to The Acolyte and the new season of The Boys, which is its last. I did some writing–I started pulling the novella apart, in order to do an outline and get a better idea about how to expand it; I actually want to start writing today, if I could be so lucky, I also intend to spend some time reading today; I need to reread some things I have in progress, and would also like to get started on my next read, Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay, which I am really looking forward to; Tremblay is one of my favorite writers. I also want to get the house cleaned up some, as well as make a grocery run at some point in the afternoon. (We don’t need much, really, but really need what I have to get.)
I also worked on my body culture pride post, which actually has now turned into quite a lengthy personal essay; so much so that I may not ever post it here. The essay itself can go on my Substack; I’ve been putting the Pride posts there as well as here because, I don’t know, it just seemed like a better place for them–which seemed silly to post them in both places. Last night, the recognition that the essay was probably a Substack only post made me think about what I am doing with a Substack and a blog, and last night I realized that I should use the Substack for longer form personal essays and keep the blog as it has always been; a daily report on my life and the occasional discussion of a book, television show, or film I’ve greatly enjoyed; the reviews might go in both places, too. I think I can still make the body culture post, but the essay will have to be whittled down and revised; maybe I should do it from the perspective of life lessons learned from getting in shape and actually working as a personal trainer. (Again, seeing that turn into a longer form essay even as I talk about it here and think about it as I type.) Writing these is also an exercise in memory for me, which also is kind of helpful as I am researching the early 1970s in the Chicago suburbs.
I have to admit I greatly enjoyed season three of Bridgerton. Penelope has been one of my favorite characters since the show started, and I’ve always deeply empathized with her as she was ignored, made fun of it, and made to feel invisible. It made sense for her to be Lady Whistledown, and the choice given to her by the show–either Lady Whistledown or the love of her life–was very cleverly done. I wanted her and Colin to resolve everything and get their happily ever after, but I didn’t think it was fair she had to give up who she was in order to get it, you know? This season really emphasized how shitty life really was for these society women during that period, and I’ve always been fond of the actress who plays her mother (she was magnificent in Rome as Atia of the Julii), and this season gave her a chance to really shine as well, as she realized the daughter she always overlooked and never thought would amount to anything was actually the true jewel of her children–and who made the best match in the end. (I also predicted the end several episodes in, involving the Featherington money and title.) It was, all in all, very well done, and I think it may be my favorite of all the seasons, and precisely because Nicola Coughlin is such a compelling actress. It’s nothing serious, of course; Bridgerton is a light fluffy confection, meant to look beautiful and present this wonderful tapestry of what Regency England could have been like, and who doesn’t love a tricky romance with obstacles that must be overcome?
I’ve always wanted to write a romance, but in all honesty am not really sure if I can. I think I’ll put that on the writing agenda for 2025. Why not try? It would most definitely be a challenge to write, and I always prefer challenges.
And on that note, I am going to finish this, get another coffee, and get my day underway. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later on. I’m tricky like that. 🙂
This is NOT why I am a football fan, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. 🙂
Queer and Loathing in America 