Tag: Condos For Sale or Rent

Randy Scouse Git

Tuesday morning. Huzzah! Yesterday actually turned out to be pretty good. After that initial sick feeling yesterday morning, I perked up once I ate and had some coffee and the rest of the day went beautifully. I had a great day at the day job, got everything caught up that I needed to get caught up, and so, overall, it was a great day at the office. Huzzah! I feel pretty good this morning, which is great. I slept really well, and feel rested this morning, which is all one can ask for after waking up to an alarm (I’ve never been a spring out of bed with the alarm person, as I would always rather not wake up). My COVID test yesterday morning was also negative, which was all kinds of awesome (I was worried when I didn’t feel great yesterday morning on rising). I picked up the mail on the way home, so tonight I can just come straight home after work and chill. I see blue skies out there through the branches of the crepe myrtles this morning, so probably no rain. We’re also in a heat advisory until at least seven p.m. last night.

I managed to work on the book some, so it’s not like the high-energy day I experienced at the office swirled its way down the toilet once I got home. The work went slowly, and I only managed somewhere between 300 and 500 words at best, but they were words and it was progress, so I will happily and gladly take it. My main character is slowly taking shape, as is the story, and I am adding characters to the story to flesh it out more. My New Orleans of 1994 is also taking shape in my head; the question is how accurate are my memories of the city in that year? I see some visits to the Historic New Orleans Collection are probably in order. I can’t remember, for example, what kind of store was in the building that is now Coquette at Magazine and Washington; was it hardware or paint? What was in the Starbucks building across the street from there? Where were the empty lots on Camp Street in those days? And above all else, cannot forget the Camp Street on-ramp to nowhere, which kind of looked like a modern art installation until it was torn down, and when was it torn down? When did the Coliseum Theater burn down? When did it close from showing films? (It’s the theater Brad Pitt walks out of after seeing Tequila Sunrise in the movie version of Interview with the Vampire, and when he walks out you can see the on-ramp in use, so that means it was disconnected from the highway system after the movie was filmed…) And what brand was the grocery store that was the Rouse’s on Tchoupitoulas back then? Was it a Schwegmann’s Super Center or was it a Sav-a-Center? It was both at some point, and there was also an A&P on Carrollton right after the intersection with St. Charles.

Today will be slightly easier than yesterday at the office, as I managed to get caught up on almost everything yesterday so today I have some administrative things to get done and see clients. The schedule didn’t look terribly busy when I left the office yesterday, so I should be able to get my other work done around clients. I am also trying to get my shit together still from the long years of survival-mode, and have got to make that damned to-do list. I also need to start outlining the book–what’s written, so I can easily look when I need to rather than having to reread every chapter to find something, or find out if I already said something or ensuring I am not being repetitious (which is always a problem with my manuscripts). I also figured out how to solve a problem with a story I’ve written and can’t seem to sell anywhere; the tone is wrong. I was trying to show the shift from acceptance to murderous anger in someone who is down on their luck, but it struck me last night that the shift doesn’t work, especially given what the story is about. That also means changing the opening line, which I thought was a winner, but it’s not…otherwise I would have sold the story by now. There’s a flaw I didn’t see until this past weekend, and so I have made notes in my journal and will get back to working on that story. I’ll pick a day to work on it and will shut off the novel for that one day at least. I know I am almost finished with the collection, and the revision of this story for the last time will bring the collection to almost completion. I’d like for it to be over ninety thousand words long, and I am right around eighty right now, so it needs two more stories, and I think I know what the other one will be already. Woo-hoo! Progress of a sort, any sort, is still progress.

I also got an idea for a short story to write for an anthology I’ve agreed to write a story for last night, too. It’s a Sherlock of 1916 New Orleans story, and the title I came up with, “The Adventure of the Voodoo Queen’s Necklace,” is a winner, I think. You know I’ve been trying to write a lengthy story around the destruction of Freniere in the 1915 Hurricane and Julia Brown; it occurred to me that I could set it in 1916 and write about her shortly after her death. “When I Die” is still a workable story, about desire curdling into hatred–and how that thin line between love and hate in our minds is so easily exploited by supernatural forces. Oooh, that sounds even better. Also, when I was getting home from work last night I noticed the construction on the last vacant lot on our block and it occurred to me how precisely I could write my “I hate the construction on our street” story, “Condos for Sale or Rent,” and made note of that last night as well. So…the spring of inspiration is certainly not running dry around here, I just need to force myself to actually do the writing, which…a Greg at rest tends to stay at rest, doesn’t he?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a delightful Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will most likely be back later.

I‘m not sure why I find beaten wrestlers lying prone in the ring so sexy, but it’s probably best left packed.

A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You

Well, yesterday was one of those days at the office–the kind when you’re really grateful that you get to go home at the end of and shut your mind off completely. It wasn’t a terrible day, by any means; my job is never like that, but it was one of a lot of frustrations and small problems that usually are nothing but…the day went off the rails early in the morning and everything seemed to pile up on top of that, so the solutions, usually so easy and effortless, required thought and a moment to think it through…so yeah, not really a lot of fun there for anyone. But I got some writing done last night, and that third chapter I was really struggling with has managed to work itself out. I also am going to try, really hard, not to make every chapter the same length; there’s something to be said about the erraticism of varying chapter lengths…and the real truth is the reason I’ve always gone by chapter word counts and kept them around the same is to easily figure out the word count and where it all stands without having to pull it all into one document. I can’t work from a master document until I am in the final editing stage, and always operate by chapters. It’s methodical, and I also wonder if that methodology might be stifling creativity?

You see, I can always turn anything into a version of Imposter Syndrome, no matter what it is.

I am awake and feeling okay, too, which is a pleasant surprise. I slept well last night. I stopped and made some groceries on the way home, and spent the evening reading Rival Queens, which is about Catherine de Medici and her daughter, Margot. We’re almost up to the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre–a religious genocide–during which Margot saved her Huguenot husband from the bloodthirsty Catholic mob. It was, sadly, yet another failed attempt by the Queen Mother to end the religious strife in France by killing everyone who wasn’t Catholic. It sometimes feels like I’ve been reading this book forever, and that’s probably because I have been reading for well over a year now. I’m still having some trouble focussing on reading, and thus it’s taking me far longer than it should to get deeper into my TBR pile. I am hoping to finish Hall of Mirrors this week; I just need to manage my free/spare time better. I’m not used to having free time, or at least, not this much, and I am trying to adapt to that so I can still have relaxation time in addition to reading/writing.

A nice problem to have in my sixties, methinks.

It also was raining when I went to bed last night, which certainly helped me to fall into a good, deep sleep. It’s been a very wet summer thus far–the humidity has been brutal on my sinuses, frankly–which isn’t a good thing for New Orleans; the more rain the more soaked the ground becomes and the less able to soak up water when it comes, which makes it easier to flood. They’re putting up a house on the one remaining vacant lot on the block; it started going up a couple of weeks ago (which reminded me of my unfinished short story “Condos for Sale or Rent”), so yet another place where water can go during a flooding rainstorm is now gone. We’ve still been fortunate that our block has only flooded once in all the years we’ve lived here (and it wasn’t after Katrina), and can only hope that our luck continues to hold. I think it’s going to rain again this evening as I run errands on my way home from work (mail, prescriptions), which will be annoying but livable, really. I don’t think we’re going to be busy in clinic this morning or this afternoon, which is very cool…I did manage to get caught up on things yesterday, and just have a few more things before I can wrap up the month of June completely.

I also have some chores to do tonight when I get home.

So here’s hoping for a good day, rather than a slightly irritating one. Every day is a new day, after all; and it is what you make of it, methinks. I am going to take my leave of you now and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later, most likely.

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

Sunday morning and only daytime parades today. We skipped them all yesterday–all five of them–mainly because I felt mostly tired still; it was also a little on the chilly side outside. We will (or at least I will) be heading out there today for at least King Arthur; too many friends ride in it for me to blow it off completely. Since we didn’t have Carnival last year–and the year before was both so cold and so weird it didn’t really feel like Carnival–it’s hard to get motivated about it this year. There’s also the risk that being in the parade crowds will be super-spreader events; I can, of course, always test myself before going to work on Tuesday to make sure I’m still uninfected before heading to the office and spreading viral germs everywhere. And maybe going out there for King Arthur will make Carnival seem real again, I don’t know; listening to the marching bands crossing by at the corner didn’t seem to do it.

But I am going to go out for King Arthur even if it’s exhausting.

We watched three more episodes of Reacher last night, and it is very well done. The cast is very good, the writing is sharp, and there are high production values. I continue to grow more and more enamored of Alan Ritchson as Reacher–Willa Fitzgerald is also killing it as Roscoe–and the show is definitely making me want to revisit The Killing Floor. You owe it to yourself to check the show out if you like crime shows.

I didn’t read anything other than a couple of Laura Lippman short stories from her collection Seasonal Work, and I’m not going to go into great length talking about the stories primarily because I had actually read the two stories before–“Seasonal Work” and “The Book Thing”; I also had read the next one, “The Everyday Housewife”, before–but it’s nice to revisit them (I probably talked about them before on here or over on Livejournal). All three are sort of Tess Monaghan stories–they aren’t from her point of view but she appears in them; the latter is about her mom–which is also the approach I was thinking of taking in writing crime short stories with Chanse MacLeod in them (the ones I’ve already done are from Chanse’s point of view, and maybe the Chanse novella I am writing would be better told from someone else’s point of view; it’s an interesting idea and one I should really attempt–making a note as I type this out). Lippman is one of my favorite writers and I love her short stories, and reading (rereading) these has gotten me to reading again, which was the idea behind picking up the short story collection in the first place. I may go curl up with the book and read (reread) another couple of stories this morning.

I really would like to get back to doing more reading.

I also need to get back to writing. I’ve been having ideas lately–making notes, of course–but every time I look at “Condos for Sale or Rent” I am stuck and wind up having to go do a chore or something to try to prime the pump. Yesterday it was without avail. I wasn’t motivated much yesterday to do a whole lot–I overslept (as I did this morning) and then didn’t really have a lot of energy or creativity going on in my head for the rest of the day–it felt like my batteries were charged, but using them would have to be on accessory and drain them rather than recharging through use–and I wasn’t motivated to read, either, other than those couple of short stories. I did spend a lot of time thinking about another Scotty book–the title is Mississippi River Mischief–but at the same time I did a lot of thinking about not writing it. I always worry that my series–the Scotty primarily, since it’s the only one I am still continuing–isn’t challenging enough to me as a writer; it’s very easy for me to slip back into Scotty’s mindset and voice and start writing. I tried to make Royal Street Reveillon more complicated and complex than previous Scottys, like the second two books in the series were (the first and the fourth through seventh were very simple plots, A to B to C) and it’s one of my favorites of the series. I know what the heart of this book is going to be–political corruption in a bayou/river parish around the licensing of a casino boat on the river–and it occurred to me yesterday how to do a side story (something I had wanted to do in a Scotty book years ago but never did) and there needs to be more to it than the main story I’ve already dreamed up. But I made voluminous notes–and there’s also a personal story for Scotty and Frank I started in the last book that needs to be dealt with in this volume–and so maybe, just maybe, it’s not taking the easy way out by writing this after Chlorine?

We shall see.

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

I’ll Try Something New

Yesterday was not only Work-at-Home Friday, but also one of the rare days where I never finished my blog entry for the day. I got up earlier than usual–part of my plan for days when I don’t have to go into the office early is to get up early anyway, with the weekend (like this morning) designated as sleep-in days where it doesn’t matter. I had to do a visit with a college fiction class–I’m not sure whether it was a writing class or a short fiction class, to be honest–over ZOOM about my story in Josh Pachter’s anthology The Beat of Black Wings, which was themed as crime stories based on Joni Mitchell songs. (My story was “The Silky Veils of Ardor”, for the record) That was nice, and then I did some condom packing before I had to go into the office for a meeting with the new head of my department at the office (another transition I have to get used to, not easy for someone who easily falls into routines and ruts) before returning home for some data entry work before Paul got home. I was drained last night from unusual Friday activities, so I just settled in to wait for him to come home while starting to watch this season of Real Housewives of Orange County (I’ve become ambivalent about these shows which I used to love; but that’s a topic for another time). Paul got home in time for the LSU-Alabama gymnastics meet (LSU won, GEAUX TIGERS!), after which we watched the season finale for Peacemaker (which was terrific) and then watched the first episode of Reacher, which we both loved (Alan Ritchson is perfect, an excellent cast, great production values, and good writing; what more can one ask for? We’re all in on Reacher). There were parades last night, but I was tired and worn out and I am also kind of iffy about parade attendance….but I do have at home COVID tests, so I can at least self-test if I do go to the parades before I go into the office as Typhoid Mary. There are parades all day today, starting at one.

So, this means St. Charles Avenue will be closed by noon, and I will be trapped inside my neighborhood essentially until King Arthur passes tomorrow.

Today I intend to work on stuff and clean the house. It feels cold and chilly in the Lost Apartment this morning, and it’s not as sunny as I would like for a day of parades (clouds everywhere) but by Wednesday it will be 81 degrees in New Orleans. Yikes! Talk about unseasonal weather…sure, sometimes we do have gorgeous and warm weather during Carnival–I remember any number of gorgeous weather Fat Tuesdays over the years–but it’s been a hot minute since we’ve had that kind of weather on the last weekend of Carnival, which means the corner will be INSANE for all the big parades. I didn’t go out there myself last night, but Paul walked up the parade route to come home from work and eventually detoured off St. Charles because it was so crowded and insane. He did go look at our corner to see how big the crowds were here–not too bad, certainly not as bad as further down river, but still more people than usual for the first weekend of parades with not terribly pleasant weather–but if it’s sunny and warm next weekend it will literally be insane out there.

I had also intended to go to the gym yesterday but that never happened; as I said, when I got home from my meeting I was exhausted and it just didn’t seem like the smartest decision. I will probably go later this morning/early afternoon most likely; after getting some things done around here. I hate that I was so tired yesterday, but in retrospect, I shouldn’t be surprised. Doing events where I have to be “on” are always debilitating to me and wear me out; even if it is on ZOOM and not in person. I don’t know why I always forget that…but it was a wonderful experience–those sorts of things always are, really, I just wish I weren’t so damned introverted and shy that putting forth the effort to not be introverted and shy is inevitably so exhausting. I really felt drained the rest of the day–I still have a bit of residual hangover this morning from it, despite not getting up until after eight. But I am having coffee and king cake–if caffeine and a plate full of sugar doesn’t revive me completely, it’s really a hopeless case–and hope to really kick it up a notch. I need to finish the first draft of “Condos for Sale or Rent”, and I would also like to start editing my manuscript. Reading would also be nice–I’ve not read a novel in a while, and I really do need to get back into the reading habit. I’m hoping we can watch more Reacher tonight…but I have to get a lot done today in order to watch and enjoy without guilt.

I’ve not commented on the Olympics in a few days, but seriously–I am so utterly appalled by the disgusting exhibit put on by the Russians, particularly when it comes to those young girls. The entire world got to see child abuse put on full display in all of its ugly callousness this week, and my heart breaks for all three of those girls, but especially poor Kamila. Shame on the Court of Arbitration for Sport– which really needs to be investigated itself and perhaps recalibrated–because what they did in allowing that poor girl to skate has psychologically damaged her for the rest of her life. I doubt seriously we will ever see or hear anything from or about her again after she returns to the hell her life will now be in Russia, and those disgusting abusers will not be punished and this torture and abuse of young girls will continue for the greater glory of Mother Russia. I refused to watch the ladies’ final, and I am now incredibly glad that I didn’t–I won’t even watch highlights (or lowlights, as it were) because I have no desire to see abused children suffer more. The CAS destroyed these Olympics, and perhaps it’s time for there to be serious consideration of ending the entire Olympic movement. If ever there was a time when the world needed to come together to celebrate athletic accomplishment, it was this year–and boy, were we ever let down. If this is what we are going to have to witness in future Olympics, count me out–and I am a lifelong fan.

And on that note, these dishes aren’t going to wash themselves, the floors aren’t going to vacuum themselves, and my stories aren’t going to write themselves, either. Have a lovely first Saturday of Carnival, Constant Reader, and I will shout at you again tomorrow.

I’m So Glad (I Got Somebody Like You Around)

And now it is Wednesday, aka Pay-the-Bill day, and I actually had already started paying the bills yesterday. Yay? But at least I can pay them without any stress about buying the groceries or missing a payment or anything. There are few things worse, really, than financial stress–I can’t think of a single situation that financial stress has ever made better, for example.

I did sleep pretty well again last night, and I think maybe my body is beginning to get used to the getting up at six a.m. thing at long last. I certainly am not sleepy or tired this morning (I’d still rather be in bed under my blankets, though) and my mind feels pretty awake thus far. I got tired yesterday afternoon, but I get tired every afternoon at the office, frankly; I didn’t think too much of it. I also managed to do another load of dishes and laundry last night when I got home before collapsing into my easy chair with the Chlorine folder. I thought I’d been reading the wrong versions the other day, and I was correct; there were more recent versions of those first three chapters, and I reread them last evening. They were much better than the sloppy mess I originally read the other night, which was an enormous relief (after reading them Sunday or Monday I was actually thinking well, I need to revise these or this project is completely not worth even trying). The voice and tone need to be cleaned up a bit, and there are contradictions and continuity errors to be sure, but over all I think it’s going in a better direction than I had thought based on the last reading. I am actually kind of excited to be getting back to it as well.

I did some more work on the anthology yesterday as well, and am hopeful that I’ll continue making progress on it until it is actually finished and out of my hair once and for all. It’s always a lovely feeling to be making progress–yesterday I really felt like I wasn’t just spinning my wheels but was actually getting somewhere, the tires were actually getting traction on the road, and that’s a lovely feeling. I also went through my to-do list yesterday, crossed off a bunch of things, and realized that hey, it’s time for a new to-do list and felt very accomplished, to be honest. It felt really good. I stopped and got the mail on the way home, too–my copies of Cupid Shot Me were there, as was the new Robyn Gigl, Survivor’s Guilt (a great title, he typed with an eyebrow raised and an amused smile)–and I decided that I really need to get back to reading. Tonight is my night to get back to the gym after work for my second workout of the week (muscles still feel good this morning from Monday night), knowing it will probably be half-assed and so forth because it will probably be very crowded by the time I get there; but a half-assed workout is better than no workout, and then I can come home and relax, maybe read for a while. I want to get some more work done on “Condos for Sale or Rent” this week, and I am also playing around with the ideas for the sequel for A Streetcar Named Murder, should they want one…I think the title I am going to use is The House of the Seven Grables, and I think I know how to make that title work as well (publisher will probably hate it, so the back-up title will have to be something like Death on a Hot Tin Roof or The Hound and the Fury or something along those lines). So I am feeling creative again–those batteries have clearly recharged completely and finally, thank you baby Jesus–and am sleeping well and am feeling content these days, which is lovely. It’s still parade season–they start on Friday and run all weekend–which is going to take some adapting to and is inevitably going to make me feel even more tired (but hey, Fat Tuesday is a paid holiday, so that week will be a disrupted and shorter work week, which is always pleasant and a nice surprise), but that’s the price of living inside the parade route.

I have to say it’s really nice feeling creative again, even if it’s all over the place. The return of the creative ADHD is always a pleasant surprise; I just need to remember to stop riffing and brainstorming and actually laser-focus my attention on something to write, which for now is going to be that short story that is due by March 1 and the other due on April 1; both have been started but are nowhere near finished in even a first draft form. I think both have potential, really; and I also am thinking about trying my luck with Ellery Queen again, if I can get a story I have almost nearly ready polished and revised. I had been writing a story for the Bouchercon anthology, but am not really sure now if I should send it to the blind readers or not. (My last two stories for Bouchercon anthologies made it through the blind read process; but I also only wrote stories for the ones I was editing. Even though it was fairly done–the readers didn’t know either story was mine–it looked untoward. I do think the fact both stories went on to be nominated for awards undermined any controversy or smack talk done behind my back…but I think this time around I am going to take the story and sell it elsewhere. It’s a good story, and I am betting I can sell it somewhere else. And I think we got a lot of really good stories submitted for this anthology; it’s not like it needs a story by me; not that any anthology ever does, of course.) There are some other stories, too, that I’d like to get finished at some point…

And on that note, I think I should head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Love Child

Monday morning, you gave me no warning, of what was to be.

I had thought the Super Bowl was an evening game–what can I say? I never watch as a general rule, and when the Saints won it, it was a night game–so was very pleasantly surprised to find it on early last night, so I started watching. I was sorry to see the Bengals lose, but as I said yesterday–if I learned anything by watching Joe Burrow play at LSU, they won’t lose next time, and it will probably be next year. The Bengals are also only going to get better with every passing year. So, heads up, Cincinnati fans–you have decades of greatness before you. Congratulations to the Rams are in order as well; the Bengal defense didn’t get the job done when they needed to in the end.

It was a good weekend around here, in which I did manage to not only get rested but got a lot done. “The Rosary of Broken Promises” is out of my hair now for good; I worked on the anthology; and I started getting the draft of “Condos for Sale or Rent” underway. I do still have a ridiculous amount of things to get done this week, but am feeling much better about the entire thing now. Parades start on Friday, which makes working and getting home from work and running errands entirely problematic for the next two weeks; but when it is all over it will be March and time will start running out across the board. Heavy heaving sigh–where did February go? I have emails to answer this morning and more organizing to get done today–it’s really non-stop, to be honest–but I am no longer tired the way I was last week and feel more motivated than I have in a while, which is a good thing. That fatigue last week was the fucking pits, frankly, and now I worry that I’ll require time from every trip to recover going forward, which wasn’t something I had in the cards for this year.

But…you have to play what you’re dealt, right?

I also reread Chlorine yesterday, and was…well, in all honesty, I was a little underwhelmed by what I have written already in this manuscript. Sure, the voice and tone are right–but the word rhythm is off, and I could also tell that I worked on chapters without revisiting what had already been written; lots of contradictions and changes from chapter to chapter which, obviously, will need to be corrected and changed when I start working on it full force again around April, most likely. But I managed to get some needed and necessary research taken care of over the weekend that will help pull it all together in some ways, plus it anchors the book in a time of the year which I hadn’t been doing up to now. It kind of messes with some other history, but that means I can play around a bit more with fact and fiction, which is also incredibly fun.

And on that note I am going to head into the spice mines. Don’t have much to say today, really–sorry about the brevity of the entry–but I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.

The Way You Do The Things You Do

Sunday morning, and not only is the Super Bowl today, but it’s also our Costco run day. Hurray! And in a moment of perfect timing, this morning I also got the emailed rebate coupon from my Costco Visa, so we have almost a hundred dollars off whatever we spend there today. One really has to love serendipity when it happens, doesn’t one? It’s been a hot minute since we’ve been to Costco, and I am really missing my dark chocolate sea salt caramels…we’ve been out for a while. And with the next two weekends lost to parades, this is the last opportunity we have to go until after March.

Is it insane that I am excited about going to Costco? It also says a lot about the quality of my life, doesn’t it? LOL. Yesterday was a good day–I also had another good night’s sleep, which was lovely–and I got a lot accomplished around the Lost Apartment as far as cleaning and organizing are concerned. Everything looks, if still a bit cluttered, neat and tidy–at least the clutter is stacked nicely–and it really does make a difference in how I feel about the place. I also worked on “Condos for Sale or Rent” for a bit yesterday, made groceries (got Doris Day parking and everything), and settled in to watch the Olympics. I wasn’t thrilled with the ice dancing results–as always, the Americans were under-scored–but we’ll get a medal of some kind; the French were always a lock on the gold anyway. And both of our top teams won a silver medal in the team competition, so…really, can’t complain about too much at all here.

I got the edits for “The Rosary of Broken Promises” yesterday, and it took me about ten minutes to get through them and make corrections where necessary. The story turned out a lot better than I had obviously thought, but the good news is the story is finished and turned in and the edits are done; so I can put the file away, add the title to the Table of Contents for my next short story collection, and move the electronic file into the This Town and other Stories folder. I have ten published stories, which is about half of the new collection, and of the other ten, well, four have complete drafts–and of course, I have two more stories to finish in the next few months as well. So, that will give me sixteen at some point, which is lovely, and even closer to a finished collection–would be, should I decide to throw a novella in there at some point. I also retrieved my folder on Chlorine so I could again read over what I’ve already written–with an eye to getting back to it in March or April; I’ve not really decided yet what I should do next other than these short stories. I also started writing a blog post about Joey Burrow that I will try to get finished today–I don’t think I’ve been such a fan of any pro quarterback since the glory days of Drew Brees–otherwise there isn’t much point. I won’t be watching the Super Bowl–or certainly not all the entire thing–since I have to get up early tomorrow (all week, in fact; I have to go into the office four mornings and I have to get up early again on Friday to take the car in for its oil change), but obviously the first thing I will do upon rising tomorrow is see how it all turned out.

I also want to go to the gym today after we go to Costco–I know, crazy, right?–but it looks lovely outside today (yesterday was so beautiful I got out the charcoal and barbecued burgers) so the walk to the gym will undoubtedly be lovely, and I want to get a lot of work done today once that’s over and done with. Paul is still working on Festival programming, so I need to make certain I am utilizing my free time wisely. After organizing the books and making them look more orderly yesterday, I am debating not buying any more books until I can get some more of these read and donated and out of the house. It does seem weird to be continually buying books when you have so many that you’ve never read–many of them classics and award-winners–and so maybe, just maybe, the time I usually was spending in the evenings writing could be utilized for reading for an hour or so every night, which will gradually bring me through the books. (I doubt I will get much reading done during parade season, frankly.) The only parades I really care about this year are Muses and Iris, frankly; but there are reasons Paul and I might end up going out there every night of parades, or many of them, at any rate. (Not my story to tell, but being supportive of a friend.) Note to self: get more take home COVID tests from the office.

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and start doing some more clean-up around here before we go to Costco. Paul’s alarm just went off, which means he’ll be getting up soon (later rather than sooner, of course) and I need more coffee to fortify myself for the journey.

Have a lovely Super Bowl Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later.

Will This Be The Day

I kind of feel like normal at long last this morning. It shouldn’t take one a week to recover from a weekend trip, but…in order to be fair to myself (something I’ve always had trouble with accomplishing, frankly, and is a goal of this new year for me) I also did some binge-writing before and after, so it was no surprise that I’d pushed myself on every level hard to the level of practically cratering everything. But I will undoubtedly forget the toll binge-writing takes on my body–binge work is always hard on my body, frankly–and will find myself in the same situation yet again when my next manuscript looms due. Heavy heaving sigh.

I did start cleaning and organizing last night after my work-at-home duties were finally complete. The living room looks much better than it did, even though it’s not completely done (more work for today, alas) and the same holds true for the kitchen. I also managed to launder the bed linens yesterday around my work, and today–today I have to make groceries and get the mail and put air in my low tire, hoping to keep it going until Friday, when I will have to get up early to take it to the dealership on the West Bank (I am still not happy about oversleeping yesterday, but I am also choosing to look at it in terms of clearly I must have needed the rest more than any other way; yes, it means I have to get up early five days next week but then I can sleep in that Saturday and on and on it goes and goes.) and get that over with at long last. Parades also begin on Friday, which should be a fun experience (he typed sarcastically)…heavy heaving sigh. But that will take us through the end of the month–Fat Tuesday is March 1 this year, and then the madness of spring truly takes over, and then…it’s summer time again.

I also intend to drop books off at the library today and since I flatly refuse to drop off a box of books that isn’t completely full (to the point of bursting seams) I am afraid I am going to have to do another run through the books this morning to find some more that will find good homes through the Friends of the Library. I was doing such a good job of pruning it down last summer (or whenever that was) and have allowed them to continue to gather and be hoarded and become dust collectors here in the Lost Apartment, and that’s wrong. I need to get them out of my house so they can be shared and read and enjoyed the way they were meant to be; and I need to keep that mentality alive so I can slowly but surely get rid of all the clutter here in the apartment.

Imagine a clutter free existence. It’s possible and it’s a reality and there’s no reason why that goal for 2022 cannot be accomplished.

I also, around the cleaning and organizing and so forth yesterday, figured out how to end “Condos for Sale or Rent”, which I am hoping to spend some time with today to get it closer to a finished first draft. I’m also going to spend some time doing Bouchercon anthology grunt work, and tomorrow we are going to Costco, since the parades mean we won’t be able to go again until after Fat Tuesday. So I also have to make a list for that, and I am wanting to get back to the gym tomorrow. Fingers crossed–the stretching alone will make the walk over there worth it, frankly. And it will be nice to get back into that routine again, too. The working out also should help me sleep better–although if this past week is any indication, I don’t really need to be so concerned about sleeping anymore, really–but I want to feel better, I want to get into better physical condition, and if it helps me burn off some extra fat, so much the better. I am not worried about ever getting back into “Greg dressing as a pro wrestler on Fat Tuesday” shape ever again–that’s too much work and too much worrying about diet; I am old enough now that I don’t care to go on a specialized weight loss diet again (even though it would make the weight loss easier in the long run) because no one is grateful, as they lay dying, that they didn’t have that bacon cheeseburger or that piece of cheesecake. NO ONE.

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and get back to doing some cleaning and organizing and going through the books in order to fill up that box before I head out for today’s round of errands. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later.

Last Night

I can’t stop thinking about that Chippendales documentary I watched this past weekend.

I felt better yesterday than I have in a long time, even as I was making a list of all the things I need to get done in the meantime. (The list, by the way, is quite extensive.) Paul was working last night and I was tired when I got home. I tried to read for a little while but my mind was too tired to focus, so I put the book aside and watched some history documentary videos on Youtube, which really is quite addicting. (Youtube has become quite fascinating overall to me; and it’s very easy to fall into a video wormhole almost impossible to climb out from…I’m undoubtedly very late to this party, but it’s interesting what you can come across while digging around on there.) I also slept pretty well last night; I feel rested this morning and good, the way I did yesterday morning, and I think a lot of this has to do with being back on schedule; with going into the office Monday thru Wednesday and getting my schedule back in order the way it’s supposed to be. Normality, I suppose, is what it’s called, and getting back into a normal-seeming routine is what truly matters in trying to feel normal again.

My dishwasher was repaired yesterday, so last night I was able to get the most recent stack of dirty dishes cleaned and run through it without incident, which was also quite lovely. (It really takes so very little to make me happy, seriously.)

September is almost finished, as hard as that is to believe. The weather was simply stunningly gorgeous yesterday, too. And we have tickets for the LSU-Auburn game this Saturday! (Way to bury the lede.) It’s a night game, which means we won’t get home until midnight or so from Baton Rouge, but it’s also been two years since we’ve been to a game (the last time was the Florida game in 2019), and I am very excited. LSU isn’t playing great this year, but neither is Auburn (despite their almost-win at Penn State); so fingers crossed the Tigers will get their act together this week and be able to pull off the upset win at home. It’ll also be a beautiful night for a football game. And I can wear my new cap Paul got me for my birthday! Very exciting!

So, things are slowly starting to get back to what passes for normalcy around here, and I am slowly starting to feel like I am getting a handle on everything I should and need to be doing. I spent a very little time yesterday writing the first few paragraphs of “Condos for Sale or Rent”; I had already started the story sometime last year but didn’t like where it was going or what I was doing so I decided to start over, and there I was, writing fiction again. Maybe not anything I should have been working on (naturally) but it felt good to flex those writerly brain muscles again and start writing something again.

I also realized last night (while watching a video about the sad life of Elisabeth of France, sister of Louis XVI) that I’ve felt scattered and disorganized ever since the Great Data Disaster of 2018; which has been three fucking years since my desktop computer went on the fritz and I started having to develop work-arounds, and also right around the same time that our work computers stopped reading flash drives plugged into them, which started the horrible period on which my work was always spread over three different computers and I had to teach myself how to use the Cloud–which wasn’t easy, given the issues I was having with my desktop computer on top of everything else. I did somehow manage to write a couple of books and some short stories during those three years, but I’ve never really felt on top of things since that mess all began. I was actually starting to feel caught up and back on top of things again When The Power Went Out, and so for the last month it was back to flailing and the sad, defeatist attitude that everyone whose always told me I was a loser was correct and I was never going to be able to get everything done that I needed to get done–and that I was barely keeping my head above water this entire time. Being organized is the only way you can ever be truly efficient and highly-functioning, and I’ve not felt organized since December 2018. I am starting to feel better about being organized, and while the process is ongoing, I also feel like I’ve already made some great strides in getting better, holistically, with everything.

Tonight, I am hoping to have the energy to go to the gym for Leg Day (sobs softly to self) as well as stop and make some groceries on the way home–just to pick up a few little things–and then would love to spend some time reading Velvet Was the Night after the shower and so forth. I think Paul still has a grant to work on, so my evening is free; perhaps I can also get some writing done after the gym and shower. We shall see.

At any rate, tis time for me to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader.

I Would Have Loved You Anyway

And suddenly, it’s Friday again: WEEKEND EVE!!!!

Late September is a gift Mother Nature gives to New Orleans; one that’s kind of owed to us after the brutality of a normal New Orleans summer. I greatly enjoyed my walk Wednesday afternoon, and walking to the gym after work yesterday was equally marvelous. The gym workout felt incredible; my muscles had clearly been aching to be worked and stretched, and they feel absolutely wonderful this morning. My creativity is slowly coming back–the walk on Wednesday kind of kick-started it all; and I’ve been having a lot of thoughts about this upcoming new series book I have to write, that I am looking forward to writing. First and foremost, as with all my books set in New Orleans, it needs to be more about New Orleans than what I’ve already written on it; I think I am going to spend some time over the next few days revising and rewriting those first four or five chapters to get more of a “New Orleans” feel to them; I think that’s what is missing and why I feel so dissatisfied with them.

I definitely need to reread them, at any rate.

I also need to reread and edit the first three chapters of Chlorine; I’d like to get chapter four written this weekend as well as–if not an actual outline for the rest of the book, than at least– a working synopsis of how it all is going to come together in the end. I am very behind and i need to start getting caught up, even if that means no more lazing around in my easy chair watching documentaries from the BBC/Odyssey about ancient Egypt with a bizarre British Egyptologist/historian with raspberry colored hair as the star–but the woman clearly loves not only history but all things Egypt, so it is very difficult to not get caught up in her enthusiasm about her subject. Each documentary is about an hour, and I’ve not been watching them in order; I’ve watched the one about Amenhotep III and the Armana revolution, as well as the one about the foreign conquerers, leading eventually to the final recognized dynasty of pharaohs, the Ptolemies–who fascinate me; there’s so much more there than the story of the final and most famous Cleopatra (yes, she’s fascinating, but I’ve long been more interested in her sisters/rivals, Berenice and Arsinoë).

I also watched, for the very first time, the original film of The Postman Always Rings Twice, which, surprisingly enough, I’d never seen. I’ve never really been much of a Lana Turner fan (I’ve never had a lot of respect for her as an actress–certainly in Peyton Place and Imitation of Life she never seemed to inhabit her characters and simply followed her director’s orders) and I’ve never really thought she was all that pretty; there was always something artificial about her to me–though the body was definitely stunning. The costume designer was incredibly smart in putting her always into white ensembles, that went with the stiff white hair, and John Garfield was pretty good as the homicidal, lovesick drifter; he had the right “beaten around by life” lived-in look that was perfect for the character. Cecil Kellaway as Cora’s husband was the best performance in the film, really; he stole every scene he was in, but was the movie progressed Turner seemed less stiff and mannered, and Garfield’s performance of a man so driven mad by lust and love that he would cold-bloodedly murder Cora’s husband to be with her (Body Heat was often compared to Double Indemnity, but I think it’s more like Postman, in all honesty). I also felt the changes to the script and to the ending actually worked better than in the book (same with Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce, even though I love Cain as a writer). I also couldn’t help thinking, as I watched, what Marlon Brando or Montgomery Clift could have done with the role of the drifter, and Marilyn Monroe could have done with Cora. (Dream casting: filmed in 1954 with Brando and Monroe; with Karl Malden as the husband–what a film that would have made!) But it’s a very good movie, very well done, and I greatly enjoyed it; it’s definitely a classic. I’ve never seen the remake with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange, but what a terrific version could be made today, starring someone like Robert Pattinson along with Margot Robbie or Rosamund Pike.

It also got me thinking about noir again, and what fun it is to write, plot, and think about; as well as got me thinking about Laura Lippman’s marvelous Sunburn and everything by Megan Abbott.

I’ve also been, since my walk the other day, thinking about my noir story about the condos built recently on my street, “Condos for Sale or Rent” and so maybe I can squeeze in the time to work on it a bit this weekend…

Big dreams, as always, but at least I am thinking in terms of getting things written again, which is a big step in the right direction.

We also finished watching season two of The Other Two, which is fantastic and has one of the best, most honest and realistic gay characters–struggling actor Cary Dubek–that I’ve ever seen on television. The premise of the season finale–Cary takes a photo of his butthole to send to a potential Grindr hook-up, only he has his camera on LIVE rather than PHOTO, and the little LIVE feature means you can not only see his face at the beginning but you can also hear the flight announcements (he does it in the First Class bathroom on a flight from New York to LA)…and it kind of goes viral. It’s hilarious, and the fact that this is the primary STORY for the gay character in a TV show (granted, it’s HBO MAX) had me impressed for the writers’ willingness to go there, but how fucking funny it all turned out to be.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines, and a happy Friday to all.