Tag: Christian Nationalists

Walking in L.A.

But nobody walks in LA, as the song says. I did a few times, and always heard this song in my head as I strolled down Santa Monica Boulevard. I do miss my annual visits to Los Angeles to sign at A Different Light. I don’t miss the stress and anxiety of signings (will anyone show up? Will I make an utter fool of myself?), but yes, I used to walk down Santa Monica from my hotel and shop on my way to visit the store.

Ah, the good old days…

But it’s Pay-the-Bills Wednesday, always a fun exercise in depression that always ends up with the plaintive cry where did all my money go? At least I can pay them–for now, at any rate. I just really hate paying them and trying to remember all my user names and passwords; nothing makes me feel older than not remembering things.

I was tired when I got off work last night–and actually, was kind of dragging all damned day yesterday. I’m not sure why, either; I was kind of mentally lethargic–and when I am that way, I inevitably come up with new ideas…which is my brain trying to get me to not stress too heavily about not doing any writing: but at least I had some ideas! Insanity, but that’s the way my mind has always worked. I’ve really been wanting to write some more essays for the newsletter; I already have several done that I don’t want to send because I don’t want to become that annoying person dropping into the subscribers’ (I can’t believe I have subscribers!) inboxes all the damned time. I don’t think all my book/movie/television reviews need to necessarily go there? I don’t know. I originally decided to use the newsletter to write longer form essays–ones that were too big to go here–but somehow that evolved into my writing longer reviews of books and movies and television shows there as well. Heavy heaving sigh. I guess I am having a newsletter identity crisis….but now that I am up this morning, I’m thinking I don’t need to write reviews there; I can do shorter ones here and do the longer ones, the ones where I really have something to say about the art, on the newsletter.1

We watched some more of Olympo last night, and there was finally some more gay storyline; Roque, the gay rugby star, is now getting involved with a teammate (Sebas) who is only now beginning to experience same-sex desire, which should be interesting to see play out. Both are gorgeous, too–so was the closeted guy Roque was hooking up with until the closet case turned on him–and as Paul said, “the most interesting characters are the men–the women are unlikable.” He was right, of course, and I don’t think that is gay misogyny at play; they really are unlikable. It’s not as good or as involving as Elité, which took off like a speeding freight train from the opening of the very first episode; this one is more of a slow burn–the primary story of the season is doping, as it would be in most shows about up-and-coming Olympic hopefuls. There are some curiosities about the show–little mysteries that might become bigger story-lines as the show goes on, but for now, the doping is the primary story–as well as the homophobia Roque is experiencing on the rugby team and in the school.

Plus, I love that name: Roque.

I only have one more day of work this week after today thanks to the 4th of July holiday, which seems kind of muted this year. Not surprising, since the entire country is being reshaped in the image Christian Nationalists have been pushing for since Brown v. Topeka Board of Education was decided by a decent Supreme Court, as opposed to the conservative activists currently sitting on our present-day court. I mean, it’s not like the country has ever lived up to its ideals; our country’s sad history of racism, homophobia, and misogyny goes back all the way to Columbus arriving in the West Indies (Spain and Portugal really never get enough credit for kicking off colonization and inventing racism).

I started thinking our empire was beginning to crumble in the 1980’s–I just hoped it would wait to collapse into authoritarianism after I died.

Ah, well. Somber thoughts on this July 4th Eve Eve. I try not to talk about politics or what’s going on in the world; if you come here to read this blog periodically where I fall on the political spectrum shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. I try to leave talking about politics and world events out–I am hardly an expert, and adding to the angry on-line chatter isn’t really appealing to me: there’s no point in preaching to the choir, and anything I say isn’t going to convince someone who disagrees with me that they are incorrect (and vice versa; I don’t engage with conservatives because I will never agree with them on anything, really), and all it does is get me riled up. Sure, I’ll sometimes give in to the urge and go all Julia Sugarbaker here–ignorance and deliberate stupidity get under my skin like nothing else, but I try to resist the urge because I prefer to save my energy and time for productivity. I’m back to not engaging with anyone monstrous on social media–I find blocking trash more satisfying than scoring points off a troll anyway, which is performative in the first place, since all you are doing is showing your followers how witty and smart you are.

Sigh.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like this is a more New Orleans-style summer than we’ve had in years. It’s already miserable outside when I leave the house for work, and even more miserable later in the day when I’m running errands. I know it’s worse because my sinuses and allergies are really kicking in this year–wet and humid with the thick heavy air, the heat, and the sun beating down mercilessly from above; we’ve also had a lot more rain (another sign of insane humidity) this year than we’ve had in the last few. I think the weather, coupled with trip recovery (I was in a car for almost twenty hours over four days), is why I’ve been so out of it this week.

I kind of hope we have some delightful thunderstorms this weekend, too; so I can snuggle under a blanket in my chair while reading. Sparky has been very attached to me since I got back–demanding my lap to sleep in when I get home from work every day, wanting to ride on my shoulders while I do things, and being incredibly playful, too. He really is a dear thing.

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably check in with you again tomorrow morning. Till then!

Seriously, where were all these muscular pro wrestlers during my adolescence?
  1. Which means I’ll be moving some of those reviews from the drafts on my newsletter page to the drafts here; and deleting some of the ones in the draft files here. ↩︎

This Diamond Ring

Work at home Friday, and the eve of the three day Labor Day weekend. It’s Bouchercon in Nashville and Southern Decadence in New Orleans, and I am not leaving my house today. It’s going to rain all day, for one, and I am a little worn down from the week. That’s normal, thank God, and maybe I am getting the point where my routine is becoming, well, routine. I’ve commented endlessly here how weird it is that I’d start the week tired, and get more rested and energetic the deeper into the week I’d get; so it bears commenting that this week was kind of normal, getting more tired rather than energetic as the week wore on. I managed to get home from work yesterday between storms, and alas, it looks as those it’s going to rain all weekend, which sucks if you came to New Orleans to hang out in the streets of the Fruit Loop to have a good time. But we gays are nothing if not a problem-solving make-the-best-of-everything people, and I know folks will have a great time while they are here. I was too tired to write anything last night, which I figured would happen, and it was fine. Paul and I mostly watched the US Open, then I watched the CNN interview with the Democratic nominees before going to bed relatively early; I did some things around the kitchen last night before going to bed. I definitely need to clean it/straighten it up today before doing my work-at-home duties.

I was tired.

I am glad that I am about to have a three day weekend; I’m even more delighted that it’s going to rain all day–with thunderstorms, which are my absolute favorite. I do love the rain here, and I probably write about about rain far too much in my books, but rain is definitely one of the things that you can’t ignore if you’re writing about New Orleans. This entire book I am writing now is around a tropical storm that I’ve invented (Clothilde) and I am torn between making it a tropical storm or a Category 1. I also want to try something different with this book, making it more of a challenge to write, but we’ll see how that goes. It’s so nice to feel excited about writing again, Constant Reader! Huzzah indeed! Now if I can get my brain rejiggered to start reading again, all will be well in my world. Paul also is going to be out of the house all day–meetings and so forth–so it’ll just be me and the Demon Cat Sparky. I can live with that, I think. Paul’s also going to bring pizza from Midway on Freret, which is amazing. Huzzah! No worries about making dinner tonight!

As you can tell, I woke up in a pretty good mood this morning, which is always a lovely thing. I feel rested and awake this morning, my coffee tastes amazing, and Sparky is galloping around playing with a bottle cap (no need to buy His Majesty any toys when he’s fine with either an empty box or a bottle cap). I have a meeting at ten to start my work day, and I am just going to take it easy, answer some emails, and pick up around here before that rolls around. I am hoping to finish Chapter Three of the book today–I’m at a transition, and I did start moving on from where I’d left off on Wednesday, but only a paragraph before I petered out. I want to finish Three and possibly start 4 today, and then tomorrow before I write I’ll go ahead and review what is already done and add some things and probably take some out. I also need to start rereading the backlist, and this weekend might be a good time to tackle that Scotty Bible I’ve been wanting to, and maybe make some progress on the copy edit of Jackson Square Jazz so I can get that back into availability. Next year Scotty turns 22, Jackson Square Jazz turns 21, and maybe I can celebrate the longevity of the series around its original publication date. I have the time now to promote myself more, and that’s kind of what I need to be doing. I’m also having to get used to having free time that’s not just blowing things off for a day or two, and that means getting used to not feeling guilty for taking a day off from my writing career to let my brain rest.

It’s weird not having all that outside pressure on me anymore. I mean, I’m still grieving, of course, but it’s nothing I can’t handle anymore, and of course I’m still not entirely recovered physically from the surgery yet (my own fault, for not pushing myself to do my rehab exercises the way I should have–see? There’s always something I can beat myself up over). But it’s also incredibly freeing, and of course last year was one of those awful years that happen in my life from time to time. Yet I’m always reminded that I’m still overall pretty lucky. How can anyone complain when their dreams have all come true?

I also concluded yesterday (Katrina anniversary–which may have accounted for being tired yesterday; there’s still residual PTSD around that date) that I am going to start paying more attention to Louisiana’s horrific policies and our monstrous governor and his rubber-stamp legislature, and perhaps addressing them? I’ve never written much on here about how horrible living in the Project 2025 testing ground can be–but at least I live in the big blue dot of New Orleans, so I am spared the worst of it. There has yet to be a stare-down between the city and the state but I do know our city council is very defiant and anti-Landry’s fascistic tendencies, which makes me love this city all the more.

And no one has yet explained to me how having the Ten Commandments displayed in public school classrooms will fix the roads and the levees while reducing poverty and illiteracy in Louisiana. I suspect I’ll be waiting a really long time…interestingly enough, of all things, LSU is defying the governor, who issued a ridiculous executive order demanding college and university sports teams cancel scholarships for athletes who are not present during the playing of the national anthem before the game. LSU’s football team would all lose their scholarships because of this; the tradition in Tiger Stadium is the band goes out and plays the Pregame, then the National Anthem, and then the band makes a tunnel for the team to run out on the field while the band plays another one of LSU’s fight songs (there are quite a few, and several were written by Huey Long). Decades of tradition and pregame hype vs. expelling the entire team?

Yeah, Landry’s not going to mess with the football team–or any of the LSU teams, really.

And on that note, here comes today’s first storm, and I am going to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later!

Downtown

Sunday morning has rolled around again, and I am feeling pretty good. I slept well again before Sparky decided it was time for me to get up, and he let me sleep later (after he started) without much of a quibble. (I like to pretend he cuddles with me in the mornings before I get up because it’s nice; I know it’s because he wants to know the minute I get up so he can start meowing at me to come downstairs with him.) The closing ceremonies for the Olympics are today, which is a shame, as I always love the Olympics. There really is nothing more patriotic-feeling like rooting for young athletic Americans on the wolrd stage, is there? The fact that this was going on while the tides of our election have seemingly all turned to the positive has really been something. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what patriotism is and what it means to be patriotic–and not in the least little bit because the Right has made patriotism so distasteful and embarrassing. I am seeing the crowds at the Vice-President’s rallies moving to take patriotism back from the Christian Nationalists (the flag, the USA chant, etc.) because what they call patriotism is actually anything but. But the Democratic National Convention is going to be pretty thrilling this year, methinks, reminiscent of another dark period coming to an end–the 2008 election ending the nightmare of the eight years of right-wing control and endless wars and lies. I know I am actually excited about the election now, and while the fear and dread are still there, there’s a lot of joy and optimism.

And what an amazing Olympiad this has been, the haters and agents of darkness aside1! so many great stories, so many redemptions, and so much fun to watch and enjoy as always. It also felt different; maybe the fucked up 2020 Tokyo Olympics caused a reset; it didn’t feel like an Olympics and now, all I did was (besides root for our athletes) be happy for the all the competitors and medalists–I finally developed the proper Olympic spirit that doesn’t villainize great athletes from other countries. I never liked that whole xenophobic need for the US to win the most medals to prove our superiority as a nation; I do not want to be anything like the Nat C’s. Probably twenty years ago I might have hated, for example, Rebeca Andrade as Simone’s biggest competition–but this time around I simply enjoyed her skills and abilities and applauded for her just as I did for our gymnasts. I think I have finally unpacked and emptied the last of my conditioning as an American.2

I had a lovely relaxing day yesterday. Paul and I watched Challengers, which was interesting, and then caught up on House of the Dragon, The Serpent Queen, and started watching the second season of the show with Rob Lowe and his son on Netflix, which is cute and funny. I can’t think of the name of the show, but the first season was pretty pleasant and fun, so I hope the second season isn’t a disappointment. Watching these shows about royals struggling over the throne and power put me to thinking, again, about actual history, and of course the Catherine de Medici story, which I’ve always enjoyed. The banker’s daughter who became queen of France and mother herself of three kings and two queens. The show jumped from actual history to nonsense toward the end of the first season, and this second season is diverging dramatically from what actually happened; Queen Elizabeth never visited the French court, nor did Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (who actually abdicated and died before Catherine’s husband, Henri II) and likewise, his son Philip II did actually marry Elisabeth de Valois, but it was at her wedding celebration that Henri was killed. And they are starting to set up her daughter Margot’s story, which is also endlessly interesting to me. I’m still reading Rival Queens, the story of the mother-daughter relationship during one of the most treacherous periods of French history. I was also thinking about how people always say George R. R. Martin based A Song of Fire and Ice on the Wars of the Roses; but there’s another series of French histories called The Accursed Kings by Maurice Druon, focusing on the years 1310-1337, about the end of the main branch of the Capetian dynasty and the rise of the Valois branch–and the Hundred Years’ War. This aspect of French history–the lead up to that epic war–isn’t as well known, and I tore through that series when I discovered it at the Emporia Library as a teenager. It’s a great series, a fascinating time in French history (there are many fascinating periods in French history), and you can probably see why I love French history (and France) so much.

I’ve also been thinking, not only about the book I’m writing now but the next Scotty, too. I’ve renamed it Hurricane Season Hustle (saying party instead of season seems like asking for it, frankly), and started coming up with ideas for the plot. I have also been thinking about my short stories in progress, and I think I’ve come up with any number of ways to fix the ones I want to get fixed. My goal is to finish the short story collection this month and get it out of the way while working on the new book. Football season will be here before you know it, which will start taking up my weekends, so I need to be starting to get back to the grind of everything. I did do some cleaning yesterday around the house, too, and plan to do some more this morning before I go make groceries at Rouse’s. I can’t decide if I want to make steak fajitas for dinner, or pepper steak.

I did read a short story yesterday, “The Amateur of Crime,” by Stephen Vincent Benet. It’s an old story, Benet is a famous writer not known for his crime stories, and it was interesting, if a bit…I don’t know, unrealistic? I have found that non-crime writers who write crime short stories for whatever reason always seem to go for the “huh?” solution to crimes. In this case, the amateur detective on the spot is helped by any number of coincidences that also happen to give him the knowledge to solve the crime (there was a Faulkner crime short story that’s solution had to do with cigarette smoke trapped beneath a radiator…again, not realistic), which seemed contrived to me. But it was an interesting story, and again, reading it gave me some ideas how to fix some of my own in-progress drafts, or the ones that are finished but need revision.

There’s always so much writing to do.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines for the day. I do need to make a grocery list before running over to Rouse’s today; nothing major, a little run to get stuff for lunch and to make dinner a few nights this week. But for now, I am going to get cleaned up and do some filing and so forth, so I bid you adieu for now, Constant Reader, and I hope you have a marvelous Sunday.

  1. Hilariously, a while back when I did one of my Pride posts about how white women have always been the worst homophobes, a friend asked me why I didn’t mention the Chatelaine of Castle TERF, and I replied “she gets her own.’ But she is so evil and awful and horrible so regularly that before I can finish writing about her, she’ll do something even worse. Her behavior during these Olympics, along with the haters she’s embraced, was especially egregious and awful. ↩︎
  2. I sometime want to write about this, and the American mythology I was raised to believe that wasn’t the truth but something taught to justify white supremacy. ↩︎