So, “Festival of the Redeemer” is now over 10,000 words. Yup, the hole in the page opened and I fell into it (to paraphrase Stephen King’s Paul Sheldon in Misery) and the next thing I knew I’d written over four thousand words. SURPRISE! I certainly was. It’s been a really long time since the days when I used to be able to write over three thousand words at a time; I’d actually begun to think I couldn’t do it anymore, or was incapable. How lovely to know that it is still possible. The question, however, does remain–was that a fluke, or is it a return to my enormous productivity capabilities?
Also, writing about Venice and a deteriorating relationship that is going to turn very dark is a lot of fun, I have to say. Venice is considered, after all, one of the world’s most romantic cities–and setting this kind of story there is so much fun. It’s also very fun to not care how likable the main character is.
And I am enjoying writing, which is really the best part. I am not worrying about how long it is, or whether it needs to be edited down or if I have left parts out or if I am just blurting out too much or if I am just vomiting garbage up on the page. The most important thing here is that I am having a great time writing this, and I am having a great time writing, just in general. Maybe my batteries have been recharged or something, but I feel like I bursting with ideas and simply–as always–don’t have the time to write everything that I want to write. I need to take some time to sit down and sketch out what I am going to do for the next Scotty, and once I get this novella finished I am going back to Chlorine.
Plus…it’s really fun to revisit Venice. I have always been sorry we weren’t able to spend more than twenty-four hours there; I loved it there. I loved Italy and hope to return someday; Florence and Tuscany….sigh, Italy. I also reread what I have already written–all 10,167 words of it last night, and for a first draft, it’s not bad. Sure, there’s some clean-up and tightening necessary, but it’s really going the way I want it to go and the tone is right and the character’s voice is perfect…I am actually pleased with something I am writing!
*waits for earthquake or lightning strike*
Last night I stayed up past my bedtime (yay for being old and having to get up early!) to do a mystery panel for the San Francisco Public Library, moderated by Michael Nava (one of my heroes) and including Cheryl Head, Dharma Kelleher, and PJ Vernon–writers whom you should all be reading–and it was really fun and interesting. I love talking about writing and books with fellow queer writers, and I always learn something from listening to other writers. It’s always nerve-wracking for me–that social anxiety thing–but after my contribution to a technical glitch (I really cannot be trusted with computers or technology), I was able to relax somewhat. It was also fun because yesterday was the launch day for PJ’s second book, which was also his first book to center queer characters. (My copy of Bath Haus arrived yesterday; great cover and great opening–I peaked–and I think I am going to bump it up on my TBR list to follow Robyn Gigl’s By Way of Sorrow. But I also somehow managed to have a terrific night’s sleep–deep and wonderfully restful, AND NO DREAMS (that I can remember, at any rate), so this morning I am rested and awake an ready to go. It’s also my last day of the week to go into the office, so I don’t have to get up quite so early tomorrow–and all of our shows’ next seasons are dropping, it seems, this month and next (Elite season 4 drops on Netflix on Friday night, HUZZAH!).
I am also looking forward to the gym tonight after work; the book I requested from the library (Sarah Schulman’s ACT UP in New York history, Let the Record Show) is in; and while there is the chance of a tropical depression coming through New Orleans this weekend, I am looking forward to just being able to chill out, relax, clean, and get some writing/reading/working out accomplished.
And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader.
Our new stray (we’re currently calling him Guzman, after a character on Elite) is very friendly, and is clearly someone’s cat, or was; he wants to come inside (alas, already have one indoor kitty) and not only is happy to be fed, but he also wants to be petted and loved on. He’s also very talkative and purrs while being fed/petted. He’s also enormous; he’s a bit on the skinny side, but if he were fed regularly he’d probably eventually expand to Bubba size, and Bubba was essentially the size of a small wildcat–he had to weigh thirty pounds, and his fangs, like Guzman’s, were very long and scary-looking. Guzman could do some serious damage were he so inclined…and I’ve not seen hide nor hair of Tiger since Guzman showed up. Guzman has also yet to figure out he could and would be fed by every door in our little complex–something Tiger learned very quickly–and instead just hangs out on our steps.
While he’s nice to have around, he clearly was–or is–someone’s cat, and I worry that maybe we should have someone come and take him in–he’s been chipped (clipped ear), but if he was abandoned that just makes me furious. I’m hoping he belongs to someone in the neighborhood (the way Simba did) and just has decided to hang out around our steps for a while.
I did make it to the gym last night after work, which was marvelous–despite the heavy soupy humidity; I was drenched in sweat by the time I got there–and I did one set of everything at the weights I was using before the break–three to four weeks, however long it was–and only lat pulldowns was a real strain; I’ve never really had much back strength, at least not in my lat muscles, which then becomes compounded by not wanting to do those exercises or push myself, which becomes the vicious cycle of the lats never getting stronger so the exercise never becomes easier so I don’t like to do them or push myself with them so they never get stronger so the exercise never becomes easier so I….you get the point. I had hoped to be on a split workout by June–different body parts on different days–but that’s going to have to be pushed back to July now, and only if I manage to keep consistent with my three times per week visits. I think I can do this, but I’ve also thought that before. But sixty is also staring me in the face–scratching at my back, as it were–and if I don’t want to continue becoming more and more feeble, regular visits to the gym needs to become part of my routine. Now that summer is here in its full force, that also means the walk to and from will result in heavy loss of body fluids…as it did last night…so I need to make sure I remain fully hydrated.
Insomnia also reared its ugly head again last night; but I am okay with it. I’ve not suffered from this at all since my return from Kentucky, and as long as it doesn’t become a nightly occurrence again I am good with dealing with being tired today–right now I don’t feel tired; my eyes a bit and my legs, of course, but that’s not from lack of sleep so much as it is from the workout last night–but we shall see how the day goes. At the very least I don’t have to go to the gym tonight, so being tired won’t impact my workouts…but tomorrow is another story.
I also didn’t write last night, which wasn’t ideal, but between going to the gym and then coming home for my protein shake and shower there wasn’t much time before Paul came home–and I started falling asleep a bit while we were watching our current Acorn series, Blood–which is interesting, and boy oh boy is the family it focuses on seriously fucked up–but that was also, I think, partly due to Scooter sleeping in my lap; Paul and I have both noted that our cat’s superpower is the ability to lull us both to sleep simply by cuddling with either of us. It’s probably his regular breathing, heartbeat, and warmth, but it is interesting; Skittle didn’t have that power over me. But I have been thinking more about “Festival of the Redeemer,” and am hopeful I’ll get a few thousand words done on it today at some point. I also want to work on “The Sound of Snow Falling” this week; my goal is to get rough first drafts of both finished by the end of the weekend as well as an edit of “A Dirge in the Dark” finished, and I also want to revise the first chapter of Chlorine I’ve already written. An ambitious plan, to be sure, but one that is possible to accomplish. I really need to start achieving at a high level again, and stop whining about lack of sleep and getting older, and using both as an excuse to not achieve–if that makes any sense?
I’ve also, of all things, started exploring Instagram some more. I was discussing it with That Bitch Ford over the weekend, and he was pointing out that he often gets more engagement there than he does on other social media; which I thought was kind of interesting. So, on my way to and from the gym on Sunday in the rain (that aborted trip because I had the operating hours wrong), I was taking pictures of my neighborhood and posting them on Instagram–and yes, there was a LOT of engagement and I gained a lot of new followers; which was, as I mentioned before, rather interesting. Maybe it’s because it’s more of a visual medium than Facebook and Twitter? I have no idea, but will keep you apprised as I continue what I call The Instagram Experiment. I mean, I love taking pictures–I have literally THOUSANDS of picture files stored in the Cloud–so why not combine my love of photography with a social medium dedicated to sharing images? I doubt I will start making videos–I recorded one yesterday at the request of the San Francisco Public Library, to promote the queer mystery panel I am doing for them later this month–since I hate the way I look and I really hate the sound of my voice–but one never knows.
Stranger things indeed have happened.
And on that note, it’s time to get ready to head into the spice mines and get my day rolling. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader!
So, I was interviewed recently by Sumiko Saulson for the Horror Writers’ Association’s Pride Month celebration. You can click here to read it, should you so choose:
Pretty cool, huh? Sumiko is awesome–we met on a diversity panel a million years ago at the Stokercon that was in Las Vegas–and I’ve been following her career ever since. She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s talented, and she’s also pretty cool.
The sun is out this morning, for a change, and today I am going to head back to the gym at some point. I’m going to do as much on my to-do list (yes, I actually went ahead and made one yesterday, finally) as I can this morning and in the early afternoon before heading over there, and I am going to light the charcoal and make dinner later on as well. I want to spend some time reading this morning–by morning, I mean the extended period before I go to the gym–and I do still have some filing to do–there’s a big stack of paper sitting on my desk this morning to my right that has to go–and I actually did some writing yesterday as well. I am starting to feel like I am fitting back into my life again, and that the world is also starting to get a bit more normalized, too.
Well, that’s what I’m hoping, at any rate.
The writing I actually did yesterday wasn’t really very much of anything, and wasn’t what I actually put on my to-do list to work on (rationalizing and justifying to myself that the to-do list was for next week, which didn’t start until this morning or until tomorrow, whichever I decide upon), but something I’ve been toying with for a while. I’ve been wanting to set something in Venice for quite some time–ever since my all-too-short twenty-four hours there seven (!) years ago–and I fixated on an event they have there every summer, the “Festival of the Redeemer,” which is nearly, if not as, popular as their Carnival celebrations. The idea was to send a gay couple, whose relationship is rotting and falling apart, there together as it was a rather expensive birthday trip scheduled by the wealthier, prettier partner for the less attractive, less financially stable one; the wealthier one now sees it as a farewell gift as the relationship is, in his opinion, now completely over–and he plans on never seeing or communicating with his soon-to-be-ex once they return to the states. The visit is scheduled during the Festival; and they are staying at the glamorous Gritti Palace, right on the Grand Canal and near the Piazza San Marco; with their own balcony so they will have a spectacular view of the fireworks and the celebrations. The story is, of course, told through the point-of-view of the soon-to-be-ex; who is beginning to suspect that his beloved partner is planning to dump him–and when they are shown to their rooms and they each have their own bedroom, his suspicions are confirmed–and then he meets a beautiful young Italian, and the intrigue and suspense begin. I do have about 3558 words of this finished, but the novella isn’t anywhere near to being finished; I opened the document yesterday and started making my way through it, editing and revising to get back into the head of the main character, flight attendant Grant…and I really do like the story, to be honest. I’m not entirely sure where it’s going to go–I do know how I want it to end–and so I also found myself looking through my pictures from the trip there and looking at others on-line for further inspiration. And while I wasn’t actually creating anything new–I hadn’t reached the part quite yet where I would have to start putting new words on the page–it felt really good to be writing again.
This is also why, I realized, I haven’t read Christopher Bollen’s A Beautiful Crime yet; I didn’t want to read another gay crime story set in Venice until I had at least finished a first draft of my own–which is further incentive to get this first draft finished.
So, once I finish this and get it posted, get some other things done–like getting all this crap off my desk–I am going to dive back into this novella and try to get through the rest of this first 3558 words, maybe add another thousand or so to it, and then start scratching things off my to-do list. I want to try to get my inbox cleared out as much as humanly possible; put the dishes in the dishwasher put away, and I really like starting off the week with the Lost Apartment as cleaned up as humanly possible so…well, so as I get more tired and lazier during the work week, it’s not as much of a disaster to deal with next weekend.
I’m also, while working on Chlorine (I want to get a first draft finished by the first of July) going to go ahead and try to make some progress on my next short story collection, This Town and Other Stories. I’ve also been thinking about the next Scotty book, believe it or not, and while I do want to eventually write about the cursed Carnival of 2019 and the pandemic, I have been thinking that perhaps the most recent Scotty, Royal Street Reveillon, might have taken place over Christmas of 2018 and I now have all of 2019 to play with before I have to deal with those other stories; and I could easily write another Scotty adventure set in the spring of 2019 before having to deal with any of those other real world times. I know a lot of writers are saying they don’t want to write about the pandemic, which is perfectly understandable, but I also can’t wrap my mind around NOT dealing with it–it’s like Hurricane Katrina for me; it happened and how do we not talk about it? I suppose I could deal with it by writing about it after it happened; but that kind of feels like cheating to me. I don’t know, maybe the further we get away from the shutdown, the less likely I will feel that I need to write about it. Maybe I could simply write about the Spanish Flu epidemic in a Sherlock story, back in the day? I’ve been reading about the Spanish Flu pandemic (I love that I keep making typos and writing Spanish Fly epidemic instead)–which reminds me, I need to check John Barry’s The Great Influenza out of the library–and maybe writing about that pandemic as a symbol of this most recent one will help me with that?
There’s really nothing like rain for a good night’s sleep, is there? There’s just so comforting about being under the covers, warm and snug and dry, while everything outside is getting drenched. I’m not sure why that is, but rain always helps me sleep–and I never want to get out of bed if it is still raining. I also love curling up under a blanket in my easy chair with a good book when it’s raining outside. There’s something about that constant pattering of drops against the house and the sound of the wind, the occasional brightening of the gloom with lightning, followed by the rolling thunder…one of the things I love the most about living in New Orleans is our wonderful rain, the marvelous raging thunderstorms–but I will admit, I am not thrilled about the streets filling with water and the potential risks of water damage from flooding to my car. (I got caught once in a downpour/flash flood with my old red Chevrolet Cavalier back in the say–it cost about $600 to get it running again, as well as to get the smell out of it. I can’t imagine how much it would cost now, or if the car would be totaled if the computer systems got wet…)
It’s rained off and on ever since Wednesday night, and it’s kind of gloomy outside my windows again this morning. I’ve been sleeping fairly well for over a week now–last night was the first night I woke up a few times and had some incredibly odd and vivid dreams. The house is still a mess–after my appointments and errands and so forth, I was very tired when I got home and just spent the rest of the day relaxing–at least, what was left of it. We got caught up on Hacks, which is so marvelous, finished the first season of The Sinner (it’s so weird that we watched it backwards, but it really doesn’t matter what order you watch in; as I said, the personal story of detective Harry Ambrose isn’t the point of the show, and its kind of interesting to see it unfold backwards), and then watched another episode of a Hulu show (like The Sinner, executive produced by Jessica Biel, and good for her) called The Sister, starring Russell Tovey. It’s an original crime series (not based on a book or anything) and what drew me to it was star Russell Tovey, whom I’ve enjoyed since his days as the werewolf on the original British Being Human, and he’s also an out gay actor. He’s great and the show is interesting with a clever premise, but the pace is a bit slow and the bad guy/villain is so over the top and creepy that he’s hard to watch (I keep thinking for fuck’s sake just kill him and make it look like an accident already); but we’ll probably keep watching it around other shows we are more interested in.
The rest of this morning is going to be spent organizing and cleaning and straightening up this kitchen/office, which is a disaster area, and then making my long overdue to-do list. I need to record a video somehow to promote a panel I’ m doing this month for the San Francisco Public Library on queer mysteries (moderated and arranged by Michael Nava, and including Dharma Kelleher, Cheryl Head, and PJ Vernon, whose Bath Haus I really need to get my hands on); I also have to make arrangements to record my panel for More Than Malice this month (another stellar line-up), and I am also doing something this coming Thursday for Tubby and Coo’s Bookshop here in New Orleans.
I also kind of need to get back to my writing, and to the gym–but the gym is now open at its pre-pandemic schedule, so I can go much later in the day than I had to before.
I also want to finish reading The Zimmermann Telegram by Barbara Tuchman, and Robyn Gigl’s impressive debut novel, By Way of Sorrow, and next up is either Mia Manansala’s debut Arsenic and Adobo or S. A. Crosby’s Razorblade Tears–his Blacktop Wasteland was one of my best reads last year, and has been winning all of the awards for last year’s books. I’ve also realized one of the reasons my TBR pile always seems so mountainous and ever-growing is because there are so many excellent choices to read that I become paralyzed with the inability to choose and as such, never progress and wind up choosing a movie instead, or history videos on Youtube.
And of course, I really need to start writing again, and deciding what I want to work on over the course of this weekend. I think I want to rewrite the first chapter of Chlorine–which is all that is done–and maybe chapter two; an I also want to get back into the short stories and novellas I’ve been working on; you can imagine my horror when I opened the file for “Never Kiss a Stranger” and realized most of what I thought I had written was actually just written in my head…oy–and the same goes for “A Holler Full of Kudzu.” I hate when my imagination is so vivid that I actually think I wrote things when I merely wrote them in my head…
And on that note–hello spice mines! I am heading in there now.
Man, was I tired yesterday. The insomnia had continued, but I was finally able to get my prescription filled yesterday, so last night I slept slept slept. In fact, I’m still a little groggy this morning–but it’s so much nicer to feel rested, have my emotions feeling level, and a bit groggy from getting up before I wanted to, rather than groggy from lack of sleep, with my eyes burning from being tired and my muscles tired and my brain exhausted. I had to speak to the director of patient care at the practice I go to to get this resolved (I may have been testy and rude with him) but it finally got taken care of, and the problem–as frustrating as it was–finally was explained to me so I understood the problem…which had someone simply explained it to me in the first place, would have been fine and I would have figured out what to do much sooner and how to resolve it all.
But it’s also nice to know there IS someone at that practice who can resolve issues patients are having–something I didn’t know before.
The martini glasses I ordered arrived yesterday, so I also stopped at the grocery store on my way home and got dry vermouth and Spanish olives (I looked them up on line; they are the best kind of olives, apparently, for martinis on the home front) and so tonight I am going to try to make my first martini–this is going to take practice, obviously, and I am kind of looking forward to a nightly martini, to be honest. I do need to get a cocktail shaker, but can make do with some of the things I have on hand to begin with. I put the vodka into the freezer last night, too. Yay!
I am starting to dig out from under after the trip–sleeping well last night will certainly go a long way on that score to getting more of a handle on my life and what all I need to get done and so forth. I folded the laundry in the dryer; put away the load of dishes in the dishwasher, and did another load. I also took out the recycling last night, and now tonight, before Paul gets home, I will probably work on this filing/organizing mess here in my workspace to get it under control again. I need to get back to work on my writing again, which I should be able to do tonight, and of course I want to get back to Alison Gaylin’s The Collective, which is fucking fantastic.
We got caught up on last week’s episode of Cruel Summer–we still aren’t completely sure what the truth is there, but I suspect that both girls are lying and the truth is somewhere in between their own contradictory stories; it may not make for a satisfying ending, but it certainly would be a more realistic one. I am also looking forward to the series finale of Mare of Easttown that will be airing this weekend–it’s Memorial Day, a lovely three day weekend which will help me catch up on my rest and help recenter me and get me back into the groove of everything. I really do want to get moving on Chlorine again, and there’s the stories and the novellas as well that need to get working again.
And the gym! I really need to get back to the gym! I am going to head back over there tomorrow after I finish my work-at-home duties; I suspect that I won’t be in the mood after work tonight, but Thursday/Saturday/Monday will put me back on schedule for three days weekly next week, and I can hang with that. I’d like to continue to drop some weight–the twenty pounds I’ve lost so far has been nice, but I am probably going to have to start adding cardio on some level to my workout schedule to kick me past this plateau, which hasn’t seen me lose another pound since the twenty trimmed off earlier this year.
And on that note, I should head back into the spice mines this morning. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader. I certainly intend to!
Up early to head to the airport and fly up to visit my parents. I never did get the damned prescription refill situation resolved (who knew that something as simple as a prescription refill–which simply needs to be called in or sent to a pharmacy–is beyond the capabilities of a nurse practitioner? I think it’s time for me to find a new doctor, frankly), so that will have to wait till I get back from the trip–and trust me, I am going to go all Julia Sugarbaker on that bitch’s ass when I get back; I may not even do it over the phone and might just go to the doctor’s office in person…I have not slept now since Saturday. A co-worked suggested a cannabis tincture, so last night on the way home from work I stopped at a CBD store and bought some. It really really relaxed me, but it didn’t turn my brain off, so while I was incredibly relaxed and comfortable in bed all night, I never really slept.
I am actually beginning to think this is some kind of insane endurance contest at this point.
Anyway since I’ll be gone, I may not be posting here as much. I did get all packed last night, checked in for my flight, and all of that day-before-you-leave stuff was handled, and then I went to bed early (for all the good it did) and now am up swilling coffee; I’ve got From Here to Eternity and a short story collection by James Purdy in my carry-on bag, as well as my iPad and the MacBook Air…but again, don’t know how much I’ll be on-line, if at all, while I am there. I’ve not seen my family in well over a year and a half–I didn’t go home to visit during the 2019 football season, so it was definitely before that–but my memory is so shot I can’t remember when exactly I did go up there. I’m hoping to do some writing and reading and relaxing, but even WITH my helpful prescription I have trouble sleeping while I am there, so…I don’t imagine it’s going to get any easier. (I may have to up the CBD dosage; I’ll try that tonight.)
I did order martini glasses yesterday; they should be here by the time I get back on Monday…so next up is learning how to make dirty vodka martinis. Maybe a martini and some CBD before bed will do the trick. Who knows? It’s certainly worth a try, and I was certainly relaxed the other night after I had two, even if I didn’t sleep that night.
I got the final edits on a short story I wrote for an anthology being done by the Chessies chapter of Sisters in Crime (that’s the chapter I elected to join; I have an insane amount of friends in that chapter–writers and editors I admire deeply and am so thrilled to call friends). I don’t remember the name of the anthology at the moment, nor do I remember the theme, but I finally found a home for the story “The Snow Globe”, and I have to say, after the input from the editors, it really is a story I am proud of, and am proud to have in a Sisters chapter anthology. Naturally, I will be posting more about the story when the anthology is closer to being released, which is next spring.
I hope the thrill of selling a short story is something I never lose.
I have been feeling disconnected from writing again lately–and need to get my shit together and start writing again. I have lots of short stories to finish, I need to get back to Chlorine, and I am going to get edits on other manuscripts at some point soon–so I need to get back into my good writing habits. It’s hard, though, to be creative when your brain isn’t centered or rested and you haven’t been sleeping…although I always can find an excuse not to write, can’t I?
The weather looks pretty nasty out there this morning–I hope my flight isn’t delayed. I don’t have much time at my change of planes destination (Dallas Love)…but I also don’t have any texts from Southwest, so I am assuming all systems are still go. I do worry that if I misconnect in Dallas it could turn into an all-day ordeal trying to get up there.
But I will cross that bridge when I come to it.
So, have a great day, and I’ll check in again when I have the chance or time.
Tuesday and I have survived yet another Monday, which I am putting in the “win” column.
It was a grim, gray, rainy Monday yesterday in New Orleans, and all I wanted to do was curl up under a blanket and nap. But I managed to get quite a bit done yesterday, which is always a joy–I actually had my email inbox down to almost completely empty at one point–and didn’t start getting sleepy until after lunch, when the caffeine from my morning cappuccinos wore off.
Meh, it happens.
It’s raining again–it started last night while I was sort of sleeping (yes, another one of those nights again)–and parts of the city are in a flood warning; eastern New Orleans, which I assume means the East (but then again, compass directions are so completely useless here) and frankly I’m really not looking forward to going out to the car this morning, or the drive to work; rain makes the horrible New Orleans drivers even worse than they normally are…which is pretty fucking bad. I’m also having dinner with a friend in from out of town tonight after work–hoping it doesn’t get canceled because of this weather–but on the bright side, my car will look pretty clean thanks to this non-stop downpour.
We got caught up on Mare of Easttown last night, and my, what an intense and twisty episode this was! Certain shifts and twists we certainly didn’t see coming; and then it was over, all too soon. Kate Winslet and Jean Smart are killing it in this (Smart is also killing it in Hacks, I don’t think it’s going too far out on a limb to predict two Emmy nominations for Smart, one for each show; she could quite easily win both as well–although the actress who played Liza in Halston is going to be hard to beat), and the writing is quite extraordinary. It’s the best crime show I’ve seen in quite some time that isn’t based on a novel.
Speaking of writing, I’ve not been doing any lately of note. I think I’ve started a couple of short stories, as well as a personal essay about being a sixty-year-old Swiftie; but there’s simply no motivation there. It’s entirely possible I’ve fried my writing machine by writing two books back to back; I also know there are more revisions to come on Bury Me in Shadows as well as the initial ones for the Kansas book, so perhaps my subconscious knows better than for me to get going or involved in writing something else before those are completely out of the way. But it’s frustrating as well as worrisome; although I did at least get the outline of the first act of Chlorine written last week. I know I won’t get any writing done while on my trip this week–hopefully From Here to Eternity will engage my mind and keep me entertained; I think I am going to take the iPad with me as well so I have access to all the ebooks I own in case I either hate the book so much I stop reading, or it engages me so much that I tear through it till the end. I’d rather not take another hard copy with me on the trip, but I’ll probably end up doing so because I always need options for reading when I travel. The question is what to take? I certainly don’t want to be at the mercy of the airport bookshops.
Oh yes–Stephen King’s Fever, his latest work for Hard Case Crime. That should do nicely; and I’ve not read any King since I finished the Hodges Trilogy, which is kind of strange for someone who is such a big fan of King’s. I’ve somehow managed to fall way behind on his books–still buying copies, of course–but they are so big and long and daunting I’ve not been able to face one of his big books with my addled, short attention span brain lately–and most of his books are extremely long these days. Perhaps I should make getting caught up on King a project for the summer; after all,. reading King is always inspiring to me; I love how he creates characters and relationships; I don’t think I have ever been bored reading a King book–because he just draws me into the world he creates so easily and effortlessly.
Last night as I was lying in bed with my eyes closed in the dark listening to the rain, my brain dredged up yet another memory of a horrible writing experience I had in college–it really is astonishing how little I was encouraged, and how hard my writing professors tried to extinguish the desire to write in me. I took the basic English course all incoming students take my first semester; it was an hour and a half every Tuesday and Thursday. On the first day, we had to do one of those incredibly tedious writing assignments: if you had to spend the rest of your life on a desert island, what three things would you take with you? or something along those lines. I don’t remember what three things I took; but I can assume they included music and books–because quite frankly I could easily go the rest of my life without human contact if I had both of those and a computer (there were no computers in 1978, obviously, so that wasn’t one of my three things). When I went back to class on Thursday, the professor pulled me aside and told me the assignment was really for him to assess our writing abilities, our grasp of grammar and paragraph construction, etc. etc. etc., and that my skills were too advanced (at sixteen!) for his class and he feared it wouldn’t challenge me enough; he had talked to an Honors English professor, showed her my essay, and she agreed to allow me to enroll in her class late. So after class, he and I walked to the Admin building and effected the shifting of classes, and you can imagine how thrilled I was at this turn of events–a college professor thought I was a good writer!
Unfortunately for me, I was not to experience that feeling again for many years–at least, that was the way I remembered it….
The Honors English class wasn’t hard, but the professor was horrible, absolutely horrible. There were only ten of us in the class, and we all bonded over how awful we thought she was. She had no sense of humor, and we had to construct our essays only in the way she believed essays must be written; she was constantly assigning us to read boring, uninteresting essays “so (we) could learn how to properly write one.” She never gave me higher than a C on anything I wrote for her, and she seemed to take particular relish in ripping my essays apart in class as an example of what not to do for the others. Lord, I despised that woman. The other students would often grab me after class for a soda or coffee or something and try to make me feel better; that is how awful she was. I was just grateful to get out of that class alive with a passing grade, but alas…the second semester of Freshman Honors English wasn’t much better. The professor was much nicer than the first, but she had absolutely no qualms with letting me know how bad of a writer I was–and clearly felt there was nothing to be done about it. Towards the end of the semester, as we had one final paper to do for the class, she called me into her office and told me she was regretfully going to have to fail me. “The only way you can pass this course is if you get an A on your final paper, and frankly, I don’t believe you can do that. But if you retake the class in the fall, it will erase your F for this semester–or I will sign off on you dropping the class.” I had already selected Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes as the subject for my paper, so I told her I was willing to take my chances and write the paper anyway. She was clearly not happy–I will give her credit, she clearly hated failing people and didn’t want to fail me–but I was determined.
I wish I still had a copy of that paper. It was brilliant, if I do say so myself. I had reada biography of Bette Davis (Mother Goddam), and the author actually used her films as a way to write her biography and even gave her the opportunity to comment on her performances. It was a great biography–I’ve always thought that was the best way to do one of a film star, if the star was still alive and able and willing to participate–and Davis had played Regina in the film version of the play (and was nominated for an Oscar). I had never seen the film, but I had read the play and the biography, and Davis’ insights into who Regina was served as the launching pad for my essay.
I got an A on the paper, and the professor actually wrote on it, “Well, I’ll be damned if you didn’t pull this off. Congratulations.”
But given this past history, and my psyche’s uncanny ability to keep the negative and not remember the positive, is it any wonder I have little to no confidence about writing essays? But now I do remember that I finished Honors English with an impressive triumph–the highest grade in the class on the final paper–and with that knowledge, perhaps I will be a little less hard on myself when it comes to writing essays in the future.
And on that note, I need to take a shower and head for the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader!
Sunday morning, and I slept well for the first time in a few days, so I am not tired and bitchy this morning (yet). I retrieved my computer from the Apple Store yesterday morning at the ungodly hour of six a.m., brought it home, and started to setting up process, which is still not completed; as I was setting it up it asked me if I wanted to transfer my information from another computer, and I only had three options: from a PC, from a back-up, or from a laptop or a former Mac computer. I was hesitant to do this, because I suspected that the iCloud would make it take forever–I have a lot stored in the Cloud–and sure enough, this morning it is still “transferring my information.” Had I only had a lightning cable to connect them together it would have gone much faster, per information I looked up at Apple Support–but I am not going to drive back out to the Apple Store in Metairie yet again to buy one to speed up the process. I know when I fixed the issues with my MacBook Air it took DAYS for the Cloud to sync with it; at the rate this is going I will have my desktop functional by the time I return from Kentucky on Monday.
Heavy sigh. But I am really looking to eventually having a functional desktop computer again, which hopefully will be the end result of this entire process. I have been tempted several times to stop the file transfer, but I distinctly remember not having that choice to manually set it up (I have always done it manually before, so would have chosen that option were it given me) so cancelling will just result in starting the process all over again, and since it’s already been nearly twenty-four hours–and they did tell me there was nothing wrong with my computer–I guess I am simply going to have to grin and bear it…even though my laptop and my desktop have now been tied up with this process for nearly an entire day. Fortunately, I have my work laptop and my phone and my iPad…which I prefer not to use for things like answering emails and so forth, but I really don’t have much of a choice at the moment and am really glad that I have those options, even if they aren’t my preference.
I was also exhausted yesterday; I don’t know why I was so much more tired yesterday than usual, other than two consecutive days of no sleep. I am out of the medication I generally take to sleep (I took the last one last night) and although I called my doctor the other day to get it refilled again, he either chose not to or hasn’t yet; I’ll have to call again tomorrow which is really annoying to get a definitive answer. I suspect–since he’s a new doctor I haven’t seen yet (I’ve been through so many doctors at the practice I go to for primary care over the last few years it is completely insane)–that he isn’t willing to call in another refill until such time as he has actually seen me–and that appointment is in JULY. So, I guess I can look forward to almost a month and a half of no sleep? But I suppose going cold turkey on alprazolam for six weeks might not be a bad idea–although what that means for my mood swings and my temper is a frightening thought.
But I did manage to get some things done; I dropped off two boxes of books and a box of DVD’s at the library sale; dumped three bags of throws off for ARC of New Orleans; picked up the mail and made groceries. I didn’t get as much done at home as I would have liked (see: exhaustion) but I did manage to hang the other laundry room door by myself, do a load of dishes and laundry (not together, but certainly at the same time). I tried to read but was too tired to focus, so I spent most of my time scribbling in my journal and reorganizing my desk and the kitchen since putting the desktop back required a complete reshuffling of everything in the workspace.
We finished watching Halston last night. I greatly enjoyed it, even if the ending was a little flat–but as I also realized, the thing about biographical based entertainment is that life never winds up being tied up in a nice little bow nor does it follow a compelling narrative arc. It was, I thought, very well done, and Ewan MacGregor was terrific in the lead role. I also welcomed that the show didn’t shy away from Halston’s sexuality, drug abuse, and the seamier side of his life; ten years ago they either wouldn’t have made the show or all the gay stuff would have been neatly excised from the story. Despite my many and frequent problems with Ryan Murphy as a storyteller/show runner, he has been at the forefront of putting queer stories, characters, and narratives into the mainstream–going back to Glee, and he has consistently provided work for out actors in his productions, and this content never feels forced or exploitative. I am going to have to sit down and binge Pose at some point; I’ve avoided it simply because, well, reminders of those days in the HIV epidemic was too painful for me to watch. But since I’ve now watched It’s a Sin, and if I could survive that–emotionally bruising and triggering as it was–I can survive Pose, and I’ve always been fascinated by the ballroom culture of New York in that period.
So this morning I am going to fold some laundry, put the dishes away, and work on straightening things up around here a bit more. I am going to head to the gym this afternoon, and maybe–just maybe–I’ll be able to get some writing done this afternoon. I did manage to get the first five chapters of Chlorine outlined this past week, so maybe I can revise the first chapter I’ve already written (last year, or the year before; time flies and has no meaning for me anymore) and do some more brainstorming in my journal. I am feeling a bit more excited about writing than I have in a while; Friday was one of those horrible I should just throw in the towel and be done with it days, but I am going to blame that on the lack of alprazolam and mood swings and being tired. I am going to start packing for my trip today–I leave early on Thursday morning, and since I have to go to work early the next three mornings packing will be a bit of an ordeal in the evenings; I am having dinner with a friend on Tuesday night, so I will have to go to the gym on Wednesday night and that won’t exactly put me in the mood to pack that night, plus I have to get some food for Paul while I’m gone at some point–although the air fryer has made me less worried on THAT score; he can use that and the microwave, and there’s plenty of things already in the freezer he can air fry for himself (which he is already doing, so I don’t have to cook for him anymore and THANK YOU air fryer, thank you).
And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. May you have a wonderful Sunday, Constant Reader.
And no, today’s title does not mean today’s blog will be about the dom/sub dynamic, although it might make for an interesting post at some point.
I slept well again, and apparently Tuesday night in the wee hours of the morning a tornado touched down and rampaged through New Orleans; it touched down in the Carrollton area of Riverbend, kind of followed Carrollton and Canal Street to the river and then hopped across to Algiers. I was a bit confused about this, as people kept tagging me on Facebook to make sure I was okay–which puzzled me; I wasn’t aware it even happened (I knew we’d had some awful storms overnight, but didn’t know there was a tornado) until late yesterday afternoon when I saw there was a news conference about the tornado from the mayor’s office.
Sometimes, it’s best not to know, you know?
I went to the gym after work last night and had a marvelous workout–I’ve noticed that I am pushing myself a bit more rather than just sort of going through the motions, and it feels good, like my body has finally gotten used to the concept of weight lifting and the strain again at last. It also isn’t as exhausting as it used to be, even though I am working harder than I was–but then that could also be a by-product of actually getting sleep at night. Paul’s lorazepam, which is what I’ve use the last two evenings, is marvelous; it actually makes me sleep like I used to when I was younger, shutting down mind function completely and dragging me down in the clutches of Morpheus. I came home from the gym, got cleaned up, and then worked on the outline for Chlorine for a bit, getting the first five chapters mapped out–it was a bit of a struggle; I know the premise, I know the story, and I know the beginning and end, but as always, the middle is going to be a slog because I don’t really know how to write the middle (which is where everything I write always gets bogged down.), so I imagine I will be struggling to figure out the second act for quite some time…but I may go ahead and start writing the first drafts for the rest of the first act; that sometimes helps. So I can hopefully get that started this weekend. Tomorrow morning I am finally taking the old desktop into the Apple Store, and since I am already going to be out that way made some other appointments–eyes, etc.–and had to take a personal sick day from work. Maybe I can start it tomorrow….we shall see how everything plays out, shan’t we?
We also watched the latest episode of Cruel Summer, which remains interesting, but a bit confusing–but the real story of what happened to Kate while she was being held captive in the cellar for a year is slowly starting to come out–but I don’t get the motivation for her to blame Jeannette, or for the whole town turning on Jeannette and her family. But it is still holding my interest, and we will probably see it through to the bitter end. Mare of Easttown is also doing a great job of holding out interest, but this is primarily because of the brilliant performance Kate Winslet is giving at the heart of the show. Mare isn’t particularly likable, and it’s not hard to see her character as the female version of the male detective who usually drives these kinds of narratives–they are also doing a most excellent job of portraying the claustrophobia of small towns like this. I’ve also made a decision on what my next read will be–Robyn Gigl’s debut, By Way of Sorrow, which looks terrific. I’d like to get it finished, since the next book I will read will be James Jones’ massive doorstop of a novel, From Here to Eternity, all over 900 pages or so of it, which I will be taking with me to Kentucky next week while I travel.
I can’t believe the trip is next week already. Wow. So much to do before I fly out on Thursday morning a week from today. YIKES.
The house is, as always, a total mess. I still haven’t reattached the doors to the laundry room–it’s a two person job, and I might see if Paul can help me with it at some point, even though he is terrible at this sort of thing; but if I hold them in place surely he can use the electric screwdriver to put the screws back in? They are taking up an awful lot of space in the living room, and I have also found a drop box to clear out a lot of our excess beads and throws that have accumulated over the last dozen years inside the Lost Apartment. My filing organization also still leaves an awful lot to be desired–so many fucking files piling up everywhere in this place–and I honestly wish I had room for a four drawer filing cabinet, but alas, I do not. (That would take care of a lot of this problem, even if it would take me an entire weekend to organize it and put everything away into it–it would be so worth it to not have files stashed everywhere.) I am thinking after I finish everything I have to do tomorrow morning, with appointments and so forth, that I might start taking boxes of books down from the attic in order to take them to the library sale on Saturday; after all, if the attic is cleared out somewhat, I can start putting boxes of dead files up there. I should really do at least a box a week every week, slow and steady, which will eventually get the attic emptied out.
An old queen can dream, at any rate.
And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. I have some time to do the dishes and so forth before I have to start making today’s quota of condom packs, and I still have to decide what movies to watch while I do so. Maybe some classic Hitchcock that I’ve never seen will be today’s jolt of classic cinema; I’ll have to take a look around on my streaming services and see what’s available.
And so, until tomorrow, have a lovely day, Constant Reader!
Day three of severe thunderstorm watches yet again–there was a tornado watch on the lake shore yesterday afternoon–and outside my window this morning is that eerie grayness, everything is wet, and while it isn’t raining at the moment, it only recently stopped. Oh my God, how well did I sleep last night? I took one of Paul’s sleeping pllls, and oh my God, what a difference that chemical compound made. I, alas, cannot get both my Xanax (alprazolam) prescribed by my doctor along with any kind of sleeping pill (I think Paul’s are lorazepam); and it’s probably best for the world that I continue to take Xanax to even my moods out and lessen my anxiety. But wow, after last night’s sleep–the best I’ve had in I don’t know how long–the temptation is there, seriously, to switch. I also feel level and calm this morning…so maybe, maybe, I should switch. I don’t know, but I’ll definitely talk to my doctor about it the next time I see him.
We finished watching Jupiter’s Legacy last night, which started getting much better as it headed towards the season finale. I still question the storytelling though; while I appreciate the back story of how they are got their original powers back in the 1920’s, it didn’t really tell us anything applicable about the present day characters; it was just here, you need the back story and we need the filler to get ten episodes out of this. But it was enjoyable enough, just not nearly as well done as Watchmen or The Boys–but seriously, there are so many tropes when it comes to superheroes and there are only so many names and so many powers, that in writing these you are always, inevitably, being derivative in some ways.
We then watched the first episode of the Kate Winslet HBO series Mare of Easttown, which has a great cast–you can never go wrong with Winslet or Jean Smart, who plays her mother–but the show is incredibly bleak. But really, whenever I watch something like this and it makes me squirm a bit uncomfortably, it also makes me reevaluate my own work and my own prejudices. I didn’t grow up poor the way my parents did; but we were very definitely working class when I was young–watching every penny, my mother always keeping an eagle eye out for sales to stretch her budget even further while trying to not do without anything, buying less expensive off-brands rather than the ones we’d see commercials for on television–and as an adult, I don’t think I’ve ever been financially stable–or if I ever was, it was a condition that didn’t last for long. Maybe that’s why I’ve avoided writing about characters in dire financial straits; my two private eyes both are incredibly financially stable (Chanse has a gig as a security consultant for a major oil company; Scotty has a massive trust fund), which is also not very realistic (not that private eye novels are ever realistic; private eyes rarely, if ever, are involved in murder investigations where it’s their job to find the killer–if they are ever involved in such a case, they are usually working for an attorney representing someone accused, and they are employed to help find reasonable doubt for the jury–and now that I think about it, that very perspective would be a great approach for a Chanse short story or novella–I am still resisting writing another novel for him). I know I despise and hate monetary stress; which is one of the reasons I am loath to write about characters in dire financial straits.
Then again, it’s not like I am writing anything at the moment, despite my best intentions. I do want to get the outline for Chlorine started this week, and I’d like to get a short story worked on–whether it’s finishing writing one that was already started, or revising one that is already in a completed draft–and I also need to get my computer files whipped back into some sort of shape. (I have a tendency to just toss things into the files and not sort anything…which makes finding things a bit challenging.)
And on that note, tis time for the spice mines. May your Wednesday be lovely and bright, Constant Reader–and we are very close to the weekend!
Queer and Loathing in America 