Tag: Citadel

I Want Out

I slept in a bit this morning because I don’t have to leave until this afternoon for Alabama. It’s a short trip; I’ll drive home on Saturday morning, hopefully feeling refreshed and reinvigorated and inspired. Spending time in the home place always inspires me somehow, makes me itch to get back to my keyboard or scribble in my journal. I’m going to listen to Margot Douaihy’s Blessed Water in the car as a reread so I’ll be primed for the third Sister Holiday novel. I am also taking Lev Rosen’s Rough Pages to read before bed both nights.

This has been an interesting week. I wasn’t terribly tired much after work, and I really didn’t have any trouble getting up all week, either–other than not wanting to get out of the bed’s warmth and comfort–but I even got up before the alarm all three days I had to get up. I stayed in bed longer this morning, but not to sleep–Sparky was being a sweet little purring cuddlebug, and who wants to leave that? Not I, said the deliriously happy cat dad. Sparky purrs a lot more than we think he does, because his purr motor is quiet; you can only hear it if he is sitting on you, or you can feel him purring when you pet/snuggle him. He really is a sweetheart, and very loving. He’s not fully a lap cat, like Scooter was. Sparky is more like Skittle, our first cat. Loving and sweet, but only on his terms.

I ran errands after work yesterday on my way home, picking up the mail and making groceries, but not much (it was still insanely expensive), came home and chilled out for a bit with Sparky while I caught up on the news. Paul came home and we watched more Citadel, which is very interesting and complicated and moves very fast, before retiring to bed for the evening. I feel pretty good this morning, too, rested and relaxed and centered, and it feels terrific, you know? I think I am finally recovered from everything, and I’d forgotten that it was possible to feel this good ever again.

It doesn’t help when medical professionals smile awkwardly and say, you’re just getting older and every time I heard that, all I could think was if this is how I’m going to feel for the rest of my life, I don’t want this.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. Although it hit me yesterday, as I spoke with a co-worker about my retirement plans, that I am casually talking about turning SEVENTY in a little over five years. It was kind of unsettling (freaks me out that Dad’s in his eighties, really) for a moment, but then I was like and so fucking what? Sure, it’s daunting; I don’t know what sixty-four is supposed to feel like, but now that I am back to (or almost at) 100% again, it actually doesn’t feel that bad. I don’t feel like I’ve wasted time–although I have, months if not years’ worth of wasted time–because I’ve also learned to know the rhythms of my body and my mind over the years, and when I do waste time it’s because of being tired in some way, either mental, emotional, or physical, and the down time is necessary for recharging.

Making peace with myself, and finally finding my own peace of mind, was actually kind of worth this entire miserable decade so far, actually. As awful as it was to lose Mom, I may not have known I had generalized anxiety disorder and sought help for it had she not passed. (I’d take the anxiety back though, for her to still be with Dad.)

So, some Kpop artist (Mark Lee) whom I’d never heard of decided to wear a Confederate flag shirt–definitely trying to break into the white American racist market, and when all hell broke loose, his record company tried to run some cover claiming it was a “vintage” shirt and no one involved with the photo shoot “knew”? Oh, fuck right off. That’ll play with the racists who would see it as a symbolic dog whistle–“hey, look, Cletus, I know he’s ASIAN but he hates the n-words too!” I don’t know if they actually knew how many flies were buzzing around this horseshit they dropped, but their “apology” was actually he’s just a cute young dumb boy, he didn’t know any better! He’s not from the US! He’s Canadian, he sure as fuck has seen that flag and knew exactly what it meant. It was a deliberate choice, and no one is going to convince me to infantilize a twenty-six year old man. Fuck him, fuck his record company, fuck his fans, and fuck anyone who supports the racist piece of shit. And if any of those excuses are true? Then he’s too fucking stupid to live a public life and deserves everything coming to him still.

Don’t even get me started on so-called “girl dad” Jimmy Fallon for platforming a rapist. He is also trash, and always has been, and he is worse than Jay Leno, which I didn’t think possible.

As for the San Francisco Bitchboys, they continue to pour gasoline on the flames. Hope you don’t need a new taxpayer funded stadium anytime soon! I always have tried to root for the San Francisco major league teams because it’s our community’s capital, but no more. I will buy a black candle, carve GIANTS into it, and light it every baseball season–just doing my small part to curse their future. May their streak of no World Series wins last as long as the Cubs’ streak. I hate to break it to you bitches, but the queers never forgive or forget. So fucking disgusting, and even more disgusting is their fucking cowardice and backtracking and whining about being called bigots. Well the truth fucking hurts, and you know, adultery made the top ten. Were they all virgins when they married? Have they been faithful to wives? If you want to talk sin, bitches, let’s fucking talk sin. How about taking the Lord’s name in vain? (Also a top ten sin.) What did Jesus say about performative faith? You’re not only shitty people but you are shitty Christians. Do you go to church every Sunday, despite games? Do you find churches when you’re on the road? Don’t fucking stand up there and judge sin unless you want your own counted. Judgment is God’s and God’s alone, you heretical blasphemers. Your faith is weak and performative, and I don’t have to accept or respect your hypocrisy. Have fun doing the backstroke when you get to hell, pigs, and I hope your careers all circle the toilet, and may the team always be more mediocre than it is now.

You’re losing because you have issues in your lockerroom, and these fucks are doing the dividing. Enjoy your new status as the MAGA Giants…which were abominations in your precious Bible, the children of angels mating with human women, the accursed nephilim. But then, I doubt any of these slack-jawed inbreds have read the Bible because it’s not written for children.

And on that note, I am really looking forward for this brief interlude this weekend. And on that note, I should probably start getting my shit together to head out today. I doubt I’ll be back here until Sunday, sorry! Til then!

I will never understand why some people don’t find gingers attractive. Look at this wrestler!

Tell It To Her

Monday morning and it’s back to the office with me today. It was a lovely weekend, and I had a nice day yesterday. I wrote–working on a short story, a newsletter, and most importantly THE BOOK–and did some things around the house but mostly took it easy. I also dipped into the book I am reading and was charmed instantly, as I knew I would be. We also started watching the new season of Citadel, but I barely remember the first one. It’s very action-packed and moves very quickly, and also has a very top-notch cast. I slept well last night and am feeling good this morning, honestly. The kitchen and apartment are a bit messy, but that’s okay. I am pleased with how this holiday weekend went, and looking forward to seeing Dad this weekend. I’ve still not picked out what I want to listen to in the car, and I didn’t get a newsletter sent out over the weekend, either.

Looks like we’re done with rain, at least for now. No rain for the entire week in the forecast, and I imagine Alabama is going to be miserably hot this weekend–and I must remember to wear a hat when I am outside. (And yes, they are having dangerous heat levels in Alabama, too; we’re currently in a heat advisory and I suspect this is going to be a long and miserable summer, and not just in New Orleans.) I have to try to get things in order since I am going away for a couple of days–nothing major or long, just driving up Thursday and back Saturday–but I hate coming home to a messy, disorganized house. I’ll try to touch up on things Thursday morning before I leave (planning on getting on the road around noon), and I doubt I’ll do much, if any, writing while I am gone. I probably won’t post here until Sunday morning, so prepare for a brief holiday from yours truly’s mad typing on here. I think I am going to listen to Margot Douaihy’s Blessed Water in the car going and coming. I blurbed it and read it in galley form several years ago, but all I remember (that illness memory issue again) is that I loved it–Margot is an exceptionally skilled artist–and I want to read the next Sister Holiday, so I am going to revisit it in the car so I can write about it as a Pride selection–and books like the ones Margot writes make me very proud to be a queer crime writer. (It’s been a while since I read the first one–which blew me completely away.)

And I am writing a noir, so it might be helpful to read one of the most literary noir writers of all time. It certainly can’t hurt.

I’m not sure about what I wrote on the book yesterday, if I am going to try to be completely honest. I feel like maybe I started down a possibly wrong path yesterday; but I could be wrong. It might be something that needs to go when it’s time for brutal edits, but I also think it’s important that my character actually have a kind of “safe space”–wouldn’t it make sense for a closeted gay actor in 1950s Hollywood to create a place where he can get away from all the lies and bullshit and Hollywood nonsense? I just worry it may soften him? Or…maybe this part can make how he is in the other parts of the book even more powerful? Living a constant lie is horrible and warps people (look at Lindsey Graham, for one prominent example), not to mention the constant worry about blackmail or another queer selling you out to save themselves–the closet makes people do horrible, horrible things, and that might be the underlying theme I am playing with here: the closet warps and twists people; fear can make you do some crazy-ass things.

And I kind of like that these kinds of thoughts are coming into my head. The loss of anxiety has helped enormously with that; I think I also used to write fast partly so my imposter syndrome wouldn’t have time to kick into gear and make me doubt myself. I like that now, when I question myself about my writing, it’s about choices and character and theme, rather than you’ve got a nerve thinking you can write something like this, which is what it used to be and was quite horrible. I’ve also recognized that I can’t really force it as much as I used to; I’m not sure what that means for my mental state and my tendency to self-deprecate, which was always so goddamned self-defeating (the thought process was if I am humble and play down what I do I can’t be offended by criticism because I am harder on myself than anyone else); that was always one of the biggest problems I had with coming up with coping mechanisms to protect myself from anxiety; it’s hard to explain how freeing it is to not have that making me tense and tightly wound all of the time.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will be back on the morrow.

An “allée,” aka a road bounded by trees or bushes. Spooky looking with the ground fog.

You Make Me Feel Brand New

Sunday morning and Sparky let me sleep super late–I didn’t get up until after nine thirty–which kind of wasted more of the morning than I would prefer. I am going to make groceries today, so one of the things I really need to do is clean out the cabinets and the refrigerator. Yesterday I worked on the book for a while, worked on the filing for a while, and threw out a shit ton more files. I have one more filing cabinet drawer to do today, and should probably work on the book some more today. Yesterday was also very relaxing, and I spent most of the day from when Paul got up until bedtime hanging with him. We watched a series called Citadel from Amazon Prime, which was so twisty–I lost track of all the surprises as I was trying to keep track as the story became more and more complicated and twisted. We binged it all, then moved onto to Dark Heart, a BBC crime show which we are also enjoying. We’ll probably finish that today and perhaps watch a movie as well. For now, though, the plan is to work on files and my desk area before running to the grocery store before coming home to write and clean and so forth.

The excitement never stops.

But again, some of the files I stumbled over yesterday will help with some of my Pride posts, too–essays I’ve clearly been thinking about for a very long time, as there were files to be discovered about some of the subjects I am covering in them. I’ve obviously been pondering these longer entries/essays for quite some time now. So, I’ll need to actually combine those files before writing the essays, and there’s one in particular that I really want to get to before the turn of the month. (I cannot believe it’s nearly July already.) But time goes by like sands in the hourglass…LOL.

I am enjoying my coffee this morning, which is as always delightful. I love when it tastes good–some days it’s just coffee and other days it tastes amazing; I think it has to do with my mood, honestly–but I am also out of coffee cake and Jimmy Dean sandwiches so the only option for breakfast this morning is cold cereal, which is fine. I really do need to make that grocery run today, don’t I? This weekend has been lovely so far, I have to say, and I don’t have to go in tomorrow, which makes it feel more charmed, I have to say.

I was also reminded of projects that fit and start. I also found the secondary file for Hurricane Party Hustle, which reminded me that I’d started writing that Scotty book twice already. I wrote it as a proposal to turn in with Mardi Gras Mambo in August 2005, and then tried to start it again at some time during the aftermath of Katrina. I have yet to find that original, pre-Katrina idea, but part of what I am doing with this current version that I am planning is to use the pre-Katrina idea–it can work now, especially by using Katrina and her aftermath to make the story deeper and more complex, plus it will give me an opportunity to explore how it affected my characters, almost twenty years after the fact. I guess the idea, the smart idea, would be to write it and release in in August 2025, twenty years after Katrina in reality but only fourteen years in the chronology of Scotty’s life. I am also a little worried about revisiting the title and the original story because it’s so tied to Katrina in my mind, which is hubris and more than a little narcissistic. Nothing I do in the grand scheme of things is so important that my sins would bring a hurricane down on the city–and that’s not how anything works, any way.

The living room is starting to look better, and so is the kitchen. I am very pleased with myself this weekend, I have to say. It’s nice to have focus and energy and drive and to be feeling good and relieved about everything again. It’s nice, but it’s also one of those things that throughout my life I was worried about expressing or experiencing, since something bad happening is always inevitable. But now that I am older and properly medicated, I can see that I shouldn’t let the inevitable bad thing weigh on me. I should enjoy the times between bad things, and should appreciate those times all the more, so that’s the positive mindset I am slipping myself back into.

It’s not the bad things in your life that define you, but the key is how you react to them.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the day. No worries, I will definitely be back later with a Pride post, but have a lovely Sunday and I’ll be back to entertain you at some point later.

Midnight at the Oasis

Oh, Wednesday. You’ve dawned cold and gray again, just like your sister Tuesday did yesterday, and this morning I sit, huddled and cold, in my windows at my desk, shivering and wondering if I will ever feel warm again.

Yes, I do tend to overreact in the cold, thank you for asking/noticing.

I have not written a word on the book since before I left for Kentucky; nor, apparently, have I since. This is distressing; the idea was to follow Nanowrimo and have a strong first draft finished by December 1, so I could spend December working on other things and cleaning this manuscript up before starting a new project I must begin on January 1.

Well, didn’t finish writing this this morning, did I? Sigh. I woke up really tired and didn’t want to get out of bed; the cold gray morning didn’t help much, and before I knew it–it was time to get ready for work and now I’m home and here we are.

I did read another short story, though: “Citadel” by Stephen Hunter, from Bibliomysteries Volume Two, edited by Otto Penzler:

The Lysander took off in the pitch-dark of 0400 British Standard War Time, Pilot Officer Murphy using the prevailing south-southwest wind to gain atmospheric traction, even though the craft had a reputation for short takeoffs. He nudged it airborne, felt it surpass its amazingly low stall speed, held the stick gently back until he reached 150 meters, then commenced a wide left-hand bank to aim himself and his passenger toward Occupied France.

Murphy was a pro and had done many missions for his outfit, No. 138 (Special Duties Squadron), inserting and removing agents in coordination with the Resistance. But that didn’t mean he was blasé, or without fear. No matter how many times you flew into Nazi territory, it was a first time. There was no predicting what might happen, and he could just as easily wind up in a POW camp or against the executioner’s wall as back in his quarters at RAF Newmarket.

I’ve not read Stephen Hunter before, but this story! It was more of a novella than a short story–close to a hundred pages–but it didn’t seem long to read; because it moves along at an incredibly rapid pace. The premise is that Bletchley–notably genius Alan Turing–needs a book to break a book code and the only extent copy, besides the one in the hands of the British traitor, is in an archive in one of the Paris museums. So, an agent has to drop into France, make his way to Paris undetected by the Nazis, get into the archive, and photograph the necessary pages of the old book, and then somehow get back out of occupied France and back to England. Danger is everywhere–and I do mean everywhere–and the tension continues to ramp up with each page, each new obstacle, each new twist to the story.

And Hunter saves the biggest twist for the end.

God, I love World War II espionage stories!

And now, I should get back into the spice mines and write some more.

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