Tag: COVID-19

Sooner Than You Think

Friday, Friday, gotta get down it’s Friday!

Well, I got my second inoculation yesterday, and yes, I don’t feel so hot this morning. Yesterday was weird; after getting home and working for the rest of the afternoon, I could sense something was, for want of a better word, off. Not bad, not sick, not anything like that–just off. After work as I sat in the easy chair waiting for Paul to come home, my hands were cold…which is also unusual; my hands are always warm and tend to get sweaty, which makes wearing gloves a challenge in cold weather. I also felt incredibly tired, despite sleeping really well the night before. I kept dozing off and on, and was too tired to focus on reading. I went to bed early, slept deeply and well–didn’t wake up for the first time until around seven, and went right back to sleep. Now I am up and feeling a little dragged out, yet rested at the same time. My hands are cold again this morning, but the rest of me isn’t. My shoulder also wasn’t sore yesterday, but it sure the fuck is this morning. So no gym today for sure–I’ll see how it feels tomorrow–and at least I don’t feel sick. These other weird side effects–the exhaustion and fatigue, the cold hands–are something I can live with and handle, and I’d rather be vaccinated than not. I just find it curious, but I’ve always had weird reactions to flu shots, too–until the last few years, where it hasn’t affected me at all. I am glad I am taking today off from work, though. Yesterday’s lethargy and the lethargy from earlier in the week from being tired shall not stand! The Lost Apartment is a mess, things need to be cleaned and put away, and I have a lot of volunteer work and writing to get done over the course of this weekend.

We’ll see how the energy thing works out, shall we?

At the very least, I hope I have the energy to get back to reading Alyssa Cole’s When No One Is Watching, or some short stories.

And I’ve got to start working on the manuscript. The good news is I don’t have any other writing distractions going on in my head right now–there’s an anthology I want to submit to later this spring, and there’s an open call for a magazine I’d like to get into that will be open for about a week in March–but other than that there’s literally nothing else pending other than getting this damned manuscript revised for the last time. I’ve been reading through it casually–I sent the entire document to my Kindle, so I can read it on my iPad while reclining in my easy chair–and there are some incredibly good bits in there that I am quite pleased with. The plot is the weakest part, as always, so I am going to have to tear the entire thing down into its parts and rearrange it while seeing what else is missing from it that I need to fill in.

My air fryer arrived yesterday, but I was too lethargic yesterday to try to use it; guess what I am going try to do today? Yes, I am going to try to make nuggets for lunch in it. It’s a little on the small side, but that’s okay; if I like it and find it convenient I can always get a larger one later. Hurray for consumerism, I suppose?

But it looks beautiful outside this morning, if a bit on the cold side (my hands are still cold; even holding my coffee cup isn’t helping), and I’d rather it be sunny than raining and gloomy. The Lost Apartment has become quite messy, and since that doesn’t require any real brain power to execute, I am probably going to work on cleaning and organizing once I post this, before taking a shower and seeing how I feel then–if I still feel like I do now, I’ll probably retire to my chair and read the rest of the day while Taylor Swift videos play on the television. (I’ve really become a fan of hers lately; those last two albums were stellar, and of course I never tire of the song “Red”–I don’t think I’ve heard anything of hers I haven’t liked; I should write a story called “Red” at some point; alert Constant Readers may have noticed I spent a good portion of 2020 on this blog with entries using her song titles. For those keeping track, I have always used song titles; for years I simply used whatever song I was listening to while I was writing the entry. Then I started going through the Top 100 hits of a given year from my childhood, before moving on to the Pet Shop Boys catalogue. I followed that with the Taylor Swift catalogue, and now am using New Order’s recordings. Not really sure what will follow New Order, to be honest; maybe country song charts from the 60’s and 70’s–some of those song titles are bound to be doozies)

You know, it just occurred to me how I feel this morning; I feel like an orange that has been squeezed for every last drop of juice–completely wrung out, hollowed out, empty. Heavy heaving sigh. Perhaps I should eat some breakfast, and start the cleaning process.

Have a lovely Friday morning, Constant Reader!

Morning Night and Day

Inoculation Day, Part II.

I am glad to be getting it, don’t get me wrong, but reports of reactions to the second shot–feeling flu-like symptoms, light fever, and chills–has me a bit concerned. However I am planning on taking a personal day tomorrow anyway, so I can get caught up on personal things. I also am picking up my new air fryer at the post office today; I am very excited. I’ve never had an air fryer before, and am really interested to see how it works (after the last attempt at deep frying things resulted in a grease fire, I am loathe to try that again); I’ll make nuggets in it tonight and will let you know how that went, okay?

The first morning of the week when I don’t have to get up at six is always a lovely morning. I feel more rested than I have all week, which feels great, and am hopeful that the end result of the inoculation won’t be me feeling sick for a day or two. I started to say I dislike being sick, but then realized it’s kind of a stupid thing to say because who likes being sick? No one, that’s who. Alas, last evening Paul was was still working, so as I relaxed alone in the living room, I rewatched some episodes of Schitt’s Creek and Ted Lasso that I enjoyed. It was lovely, really; both shows really hit the same chords in some ways despite being so vastly different; in the first, it’s the charm and kindness of the town that fixes the broken Rose family and helps them develop into the best version of themselves; whereas in the latter it’s Ted himself who fixes the broken culture at the Richmond soccer team by helping everyone there become the best version of themselves. Seriously–if you’ve not watched either show, you need to.

I am hoping to spend some time this evening after work with Alyssa Cole’s When No One is Watching; if I do get sick from today’s shot, I can curl up in my easy chair under some blankets and read, if nothing else, right? I think the next book on deck will be a reread of Jacqueline Susann’s The Love Machine, which I read once (back when I was making my way through the Susann ouevre) and never again; it never really connected with me the way Valley of the Dolls did, but I kind of want to give it another read. A friend posted an excerpt from it on Twitter a few weeks ago (recently, at any rate) and seeing that made me giggle a bit; the excerpt was funny, and evidence that the so-called “love machine” of the title, a television executive named Robin Stone, was actually lousy in bed. I didn’t care much for the book at the time I read it–there was something very strange about its structure that didn’t sit right with me when I was a teenager; I do remember what that was but I don’t want to think about it too much before I get into the reread–just as I didn’t care much for Once Is Not Enough, reading each book only once and never revisiting (unlike Valley of the Dolls, which I revisit periodically) and am curious if my original perceptions of those two books will still hold accurate the second time around.

It’s cold in New Orleans this morning–forty-four degrees, which was a precipitous drop from yesterday’s low seventies/high sixties and rainy (on the way home from work yesterday I had to turn the air on in the car). But it’s a lovely bright day–the sun has blessedly finally moved so that it is blocked by the house next door so it’s no longer shining directly into my face (I am going to need to get curtains for my windows, which I really hate; fucking neighbor cutting down the damned trees!)–and I do feel rested this morning, which is absolutely lovely. I have a long day of data entry to stare down; as well as the trip into the office for the shot. I have some things–odds and ends–to also do in the office once I get there; filing and so forth, so I’ll be there for an hour or so as well.

Pretty exciting life I am leading here, huh?

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader.

Behind Closed Doors

Wednesday, Hump Day, all downhill into the weekend now. Woo-hoo, methinks?

I slept very well last night–about five hours consecutively, then in and out for the final three hours–and feel much better this morning than I did yesterday morning. I still have a ridiculous mountain of work to get done–the mind literally reels, but I’m trying not to feel defeated before even trying to get through it all. And of course, tomorrow I don’t have to get up before the sunrise. Tomorrow is also my second inoculation for COVID-19, which means a sore shoulder for a few days. Supposedly the second dose is worse than the first, and might make me a bit sicker than the first did–again, this is fine; I’d rather have a mild sickness than get the coronavirus, certainly! And I certainly should not complain about getting it, considering how early I am and how many people would love to get it done. It’s going to be strange being inoculated. I’m going to keep wearing masks of course–total strangers won’t know I am vaccinated nor do I plan on flashing my vaccine card at everyone I see–because quite frankly, not getting sick at all so far this winter has been lovely. Maybe, I don’t know, we should always wears masks and focus on cleaning our hands with regularity? It’s a thought, isn’t it?

We didn’t start watching season two of Servant last night after all; Paul didn’t get home until very late from the office last night, so I basically just sat in my easy chair, exhausted, trying to drum up the energy to read (Alyssa Cole’s book is so good) while scrolling endlessly through social media while Youtube videos played on the television screen. I also went to bed a bit earlier than I usually do–I was seriously exhausted yesterday–and so the sleep was, indeed, quite marvelous. I really miss the days when I used to fall immediately into a deep sleep that, as Paul once remarked, “a nuclear bomb couldn’t wake (me) from.” That’s probably the primary thing I miss from my pre-fifties life…no one ever told me that one of the things about getting older would be that your sleep patterns change.

Ugh.

But I feel like I can face today this morning–yesterday was one of those “I just want to hide in a corner” days; and while I despise having everything put on hold or pushed back to be dealt with another day, that is one of those things you just have to deal with. I have come to understand when I am that tired after an insomniac night I am really not at my best, and taking care of business when i am not firing on all cylinders is perhaps not the best thing for me or anyone I am having to deal with, work with, take care of, etc. I am still way behind on my book, but I am hoping that this weekend–with the proper amount of rest–I’ll be able to dive headfirst into the book and start heading towards the finish line. I think the current manuscript sits at around 75000 words; it probably needs another 20k to be complete and have everything tied up into a little bow. The trick is going to be figuring out where the new stuff needs to go. One thing I will say about myself as a writer that is complimentary is that I am very good at the transition between chapters–it’s usually very seamless, so inserting new chapters and scenes is a bit more of a challenge. What I need to do this weekend is break the book down to its moving parts, and see what I can do to make it more cohesive–as well as find the parts that are missing that need to be added to it. I think it’s going to be a good book–right now I am clearly not going through imposter syndrome–but a lot will hang on what I am able to pull together and get done.

I also have to revise and rewrite a short story; I need to check when that deadline is, and get it put on my calendar.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader.

Superheated

And now it is Sunday in the Lost Apartment. I trust everyone had a most lovely and delightful Saturday? I did; I spent most of it cleaning and reading and watching figure skating and making groceries and running errands and doing all sorts of things that didn’t involve writing. I’m not entirely sure again why I am avoiding writing–yesterday methinks it was primarily due to the hangover of the final push to finish the short story, as well as trying to purge it out of my brain. Part of the joy of being a writer apparently is the absolute guarantee of self-doubt and second guessing everything once you’ve turned the story/manuscript in. I spent way too much time yesterday wondering “maybe I should have done this” and “maybe I should have done that” and on and on it goes–with the occasional second thoughts about the novel I turned in two weeks ago as well. Enormously lovely, you see.

But the figure skating was fun to watch, as always, and congratulations to our national champions (the men’s title will be decided today, with Nathan Chen most likely becoming the first US man to win five consecutive national titles in a row since Dick Button’s post-war dominance, winning seven in a row and two Olympic gold medals (a feat unparalleled until Japan’s Yuzuru Honyu won the last two Olympics). It’s also interesting to me how strong the United States has become in the ice dancing discipline this century, after decades of not being up to international snuff. The Saints also are playing today in the play-offs; playing Tampa Bay and Tom Brady for the third time and hoping to pull off the hat trick.

Today is going to be mostly spent reading and cleaning, methinks; I need to focus on my reread of the Kansas book manuscript and make some decisions about where it’s going to go, how to clean it up, what can be kept and what can be discarded. The manuscript currently sits somewhere around 75000 words, give or take; I need to add some more to it while taking other stuff out; strengthening some bits while underplaying others. I am also still greatly enjoying Laurie R. King’s The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, and am looking forward to spending some more time with Mary Russell…although I must confess that I am going to have to be very careful with reading more Sherlockian fiction, whether it’s actually Conan Doyle’s or pastiches, because revisiting the Sherlockian universe makes me want to write some more about my own Sherlockian universe. The period of time in New Orleans history where I have put my Holmes has already been written about by David Fulmer, in his series beginning with Jass, and I may have to revisit those novels–it’s been a long time since I read them, and I also remember enjoying them. Anyway, I am digressing, as always, from the original point: writing that Sherlock story has given me the bug to write about him some more, and as usual, I am thinking not only in terms of a short story but of a novel as well…with the full knowledge that actually Sherlockians will undoubtedly see my own feeble attempts as an abomination and heresy.

I’ve also been reading Gore Vidal’s Lincoln in dribs and drabs. I am enjoying it, but the lovely thing about Vidal’s writing is it isn’t like reading a thriller or a good mystery; you can put it down at any point and walk away from it, not missing it until you pick it up again. I am a fan of Vidal’s, even though he seems as though he would have been a horrible person to know–a snob both intellectually as well as in terms of class–but he also was fiercely intelligent and witty, and he looked at the United States with a jaundiced, unsentimental eye. I don’t think I’ve really read much about Lincoln as an adult–I of course read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals back in the day, but don’t really remember much about it. Yesterday I also started reading through my copy of The Black Death by Phillip Ziegler–I have a vague idea for a murder mystery, most likely a short story, set during the plague years in Florence; I don’t think there is much modern fiction set during that time, so of course I am interested in it. I’ve spent a lot of time over the past year reading plague histories and fictions (yet somehow not rereading Stephen King’s The Stand) and I still would like to get back to my story “The Flagellants,” which I was having a lot of fun with last spring.

I’m also seeing conversations on-line about whether authors should include the pandemic in their fictions or not, which seems kind of counter-intuitive; did New York writers pretend 9/11 didn’t happen? Did New Orleans writers pretend Katrina was a near-miss? In both cases the answer is no. You may not want to write fiction set during the pandemic, but we cannot pretend the pandemic didn’t happen–particularly since it’s on-going. It’s hard to write about something–even harder to read about it–when you are still in the midst of it because you don’t know how it’s going to end. By the time I started writing Murder in the Rue Chartres it was already apparent New Orleans was going to come back from the flood, even if what the new city would look like was still being debated, was still uncertain, and up in the air. I’ve never written about Scotty’s experiences with Katrina, rather choosing to pick up his story several years later with the flood, the evacuation and everything else entailed in the destruction of 90% of the city in the rearview mirror. I get that readers might not want to read about and relive this past year plus; but I don’t see how you can write honestly about an America where it never happened. The last four years of this administration–including the sack of the Capitol–also cannot be entirely ignored either. So what to do? I suspect history isn’t going to be terribly kind to the insurrectionists nor the anti-maskers (deservedly so), particularly since they are the ones who politicized public health and safety because they believed the Mammon they’ve worshipped like a cult for so long; their own golden calf, as it were–despite all the warnings in their Bible. Ah, the dilemmas we modern writers face!

I do sometimes wonder if writers during the Civil War wondered if they should write about the war or not in their work.

And on that note, tis time for me to start mining spice here on Kessel, so it’s off into the mines with me. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader!

New Year’s Day

2021 dawns, and theoretically, at any rate, it’s a new year and a fresh start–at least that’s the mentality everyone else seems to embrace. I don’t get it, myself, never really have. But far be it from me to rain on anybody’s parade–or their New Year’s hangovers.

It’s a lovely morning again in New Orleans; blue skies and sunshine. I’m going to swill down some coffee this morning and then head to the gym–they are only open until 2 this afternoon–before coming home to put one last coat of polish on Bury Me in Shadows before I turn it in, on time, later today. I finished it last evening–there are still some holes in the plot that need filling, as well as some contradictory elements I need to catch–but it’s essentially finished. I have not, in fact, finished a book since early 2019, when I turned in Royal Street Reveillon; so it’s very nice to have another one done. I go back and forth between thinking it’s really good or the worst thing I’ve ever written, so there’s that part–par for the course, really.

I also got my first inoculation for the COVID-19 vaccination yesterday. It wasn’t so bad, really–my shoulder is kind of sore still this morning, glad I had them do my left arm–but I felt off for most of the rest of the day; which could have been the inoculation, could have just been the fact that I was tired. I’ve not really slept that great this week, and the fluctuations in the weather have not helped in the least–sinuses, you know–and I’ve not really had much of an appetite lately, either, so I’m probably experiencing low blood sugar and all of that. But the next inoculation will be in 28 days, and then my life sort of can go back to normal? Not really–I’ll still be wearing masks everywhere I go, and washing my hands religiously as often as I can, but at least I no longer have to worry (too much) that I am going to get infected and sick.

2020 was one of those years, like 2005, that we will look back on and wonder about. A lot of my memories of the year just past are foggy and gray; I don’t remember much of the year rather like I don’t really remember much of the year and a half after Katrina. It’s always weird when there’s a major world paradigm shift; Katrina really only affected those of us in Louisiana and Mississippi and coastal Alabama–while the rest of the country and world looked on in horror, they also were able to move on within a few weeks whereas we were not. The COVID-19 paradigm shift affected everyone in the world, and as we (hopefully) are beginning to move past it–which will not finally happen until we achieve herd immunity, and who knows how long that’s going to take–things aren’t going to go back the way they were before the world came to a screeching halt. Things have changed, whether for the better or not remains to be seen; but one lesson that everyone has learned is that almost everyone actually can work from home and be productive, something employers resisted like the plague before, you know, an actual plague forced them to adapt. Now businesses and companies have to ask themselves–do we really need all that overhead of having an actual office, when our staff can do their jobs efficiently and effectively from home? Same with book signings–publishers probably aren’t going to be paying to send their authors on tours anymore since virtual ones actually get a higher attendance. What about conferences? They also became virtual–but in all honesty, I will want to continue to go to in-person conferences once they are feasible; drinking at home on Zoom isn’t the same thing as hanging out in the bar with friends and laughing our asses off.

I do miss seeing my friends.

I usually set goals on New Year’s Day for the new year; I’ve not really put much thought into goals for 2021, to be honest. I did achieve one of my 2020 goals, despite the pandemic: getting back into a regular gym routine and going regularly. I’ve noticed a change in my body, even though I’m not really pushing myself as hard as I could–I don’t want to overdo it, nor do I want to injure myself again, which started the whole spiral ten years ago in the first place–but it’s nice to see my muscles hardening and getting more defined. My weight hasn’t changed at all, but I can see a difference in my face and my pants/shorts/sweatpants, which were already a bit too big, have gotten even bigger (I really need to wear a belt). I do want to continue focusing on taking care of myself a bit more in 2021; dental work and vision exams and new glasses and possibly the occasional massage. I have a number of secret projects lining up as well, which is kind of exciting, and of course, I need to finish the Kansas book now and I want to get to work on Chlorine. I think there’s probably another Scotty or two in my head, and I also want to experiment with novellas–I have at least three or four or five in progress, and I really need to finish them. I also want to get some more short stories finished and out for submission.

I watched a movie for the Cynical 70’s Film Festival yesterday afternoon as I made condom packs: Something for Everyone, starring Michael York and Angela Lansbury, based (or rather, according to the credits, “suggested by”) on the novel The Cook by Henry Kessing (recently brought back into print by Valancourt Books), which I recently read about as “the queerest movie of the 70’s”–and yes, it is indeed very queer. (It’s not streaming anywhere, but there’s a bootleg of it on Youtube, which is what I watched) It reminded me somewhat of The Talented Mr. Ripley in several ways, and it also made me think about how amazing Michael York would have been playing Tom Ripley. York plays Conrad, a drifter from no one knows where and, like Tom Ripley, we really never learn about his past or who he is. He shows up on screen in Bavaria, riding a bicycle and wearing cut off khaki trousers that are cut very high; Daisy Duke-ish in fact, and he looks splendidly beautiful and alluring in the German sun. He decides he wants to get a job working for the local impoverished Countess and her children, who no longer have the money to maintain their castle or live in it, but it’s entailed so they can’t sell it. (Neuschwanstein, the fairy castle of Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria–who was also queer) stands in for their castle.) Angela Lansbury plays the Countess, and she is truly splendid. Conrad begins killing people who get in his way, but is also doing it to help the family he now work for, while slowly seducing and sleeping with everyone in sight in order to get what he wants–he seduces the Countess’ son and eventually the Countess, and York is simply breathtakingly gorgeous to look at in all his youthful, lean beauty. (I had an enormous crush on him in the 1970’s.) But Angela Lansbury is truly fantastic. She’s beautiful and slender and elegant, and those expressive eyes are perfect for expressing the Countess’ malaise and ennui with her situation and with the world. Watching her slink around in gorgeous clothing, I could but marvel an wonder why she was never a bigger film star, and in all honesty, I’ve never really seen her as Mame Dennis before. Yes, I know she played the part on Broadway and it was a huge smash hit, but for me Rosalind Russell was definitive….but having watched this movie now, I am now convinced the casting of Lucille Ball as Mame in the film instead of Lansbury was an even bigger crime than I considered it before–I watched the Lucy version and it was awful; but the crime that was casting Ball is now even more egregious. I could literally imagine Lansbury as Mame as I watched this movie. It’s cynical and a bit cold, but it definitely fits into the Cynical 70’s Film Festival in that Conrad never is punished for any of his own crimes–he’s outwitted in the end, but not really punished…and knowing Conrad, I am also confident that at some point after the film ended he got the upper hand back.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. One more cup of coffee and I am off to the gym; and then its back to home and the grindstone. Happy New Year, everyone!

Wildest Dreams

It’s Thursday, a work-at-home day before the holiday weekend. I know, it’s weird to take a vacation and then work a day before another holiday weekend, but there you have it. It’s also the last day of 2020, I am getting my COVID-19 vaccine (part one) today, and my book is due tomorrow. Heavy heaving sigh. I only have two chapters left to do and a final polish, so after I am done with day job duties, I should be able to power through those last two chapters this evening, and then I have all day tomorrow to reread, revise, and polish before turning it in.

It’s also New Year’s Eve, a holiday I’ve never quite understood but am more than happy to enjoy–I am always happy to get an extra day off with pay, any time anyone wants to provide me with one–but I’ve never really understood the point of celebrating the end of a calendar year and the beginning of another. I mean, it’s an excuse for a holiday and for people to get wasted, I suppose, but other than being a party for symbolism, I don’t understand it. I suppose it’s seen as a demarcation point, but it’s really not a new beginning; I’ve also never been one for resolutions, either. I prefer to set goals for the year, and then see how well I did after twelve months have passed. One of the major things of this past year for me has been memory loss–I can’t remember anything anymore–so I don’t remember the goals I set for myself at the beginning of 2020. I do remember that 2019 was a shitshow of a year, and I was very happy to see it end, as was most everyone, only to discover that 2020 would be so awful that I cannot remember precisely why 2019 was so dreadful, just that it was.

I am getting the COVID-19 vaccine because of my day job, which a lot of people don’t know much about because it’s not something I talk about publicly very much. I am always very careful to compartmentalize my life, keeping my writing career and public life very separated from my day job and my private life. I work at a public health clinic here in New Orleans that used to be the NO/AIDS Task Force, which evolved into Crescent Care Health sometime (my memory is completely shot) over the course of the last decade. I work at the Elysian Fields campus, and basically, what I do is test clients, by appointment, for HIV, syphilis and Hepatitis C; do all the necessary paperwork required by our funders; and basically interview and assess my clients for risk reduction messaging and what other services we provide that they might require. Once that is finished, I take them to a nurse who will draw blood for their PrEP labs (if they are taking PrEP) as well as testing them for gonorrhea and chlamydia. Over the course of the pandemic our services were initially shut down, and then we became a testing site for COVID-19. For several months I worked in the garage of our building, screening people for COVID symptoms before we let them into the building (we were on very limited services; some blood draws were still being done, the food pantry was still open, and so was the pharmacy on the second floor) or sending people who needed to be tested over to the COVID testing area. So, yes, I am in a public contact job that is health care related, and see clients three days a week, putting myself at risk of exposure. I follow our safety protocols stringently–which includes mask wearing, regular hand-washing or sanitizing, and cleaning the room where I see clients with virucidal wipes–their chair, the side of the table they sit at, the pen they handle, and their side of the plexiglass screen they stick their hand through in order for me to stick their finger and draw enough blood to run the tests I run. The clients also have to wear a mask the entire time they are in our building. So, that’s why I am getting the vaccination so early; I’d posted about it on social media and got some weird comments, like so lucky and so forth…which I understand; sure, I’m lucky to get it early, but at the same time I’ve been at a high daily risk of infection since late spring–and while I don’t think the age thing matters as much as they thought it did at the beginning of the pandemic, I am not that young–my next birthday will be my sixtieth.

So, that’s why I am getting the vaccine earlier than many. I am a front-line employee of a public health clinic–and while I may not be a doctor or a nurse, I provide essential health services–or serve as a gateway to accessing those services….and the Office of Public Health provided enough vaccines to our clinic so that all of our employees can be get one, so that our clinic can get back up and be fully operational (rather than on a limited basis) sooner rather than later.

And that’s probably the last time I will ever talk about my day job and what I do there publicly.

Yesterday was a very good work day–I am still behind, of course; I’d hoped to be finished with the entire thing on Tuesday so it could sit for a day or two before the final polish. Bury Me in Shadows has had an interesting journey to completion. It began as a short story I wrote sometime in the 1980’s called “Ruins”–and when I finished writing the story, I knew it wasn’t a short story but a novel. I filed the story away, dragging out the folder and rereading it occasionally over the last thirty or so years (it’s really difficult for me to grasp that 1980–and soon 1981–was forty years ago), and I’m not sure when exactly I decided to turn it into a novel or when I started working on it. The original title, once I started pulling the book together as a novel, was Bury Me in Satin, which is a line from the song “If I Die Young” by the Band Perry; I love the song, and when I heard that lyric the first time, I immediately thought, ah, that’s the title for the book built on “Ruins”, but at some point during the writing I changed it to the more Gothic Bury Me in Shadows. I had always, since the 1980’s, wanted to write about my fictional Corinth County, Alabama–which is where this book is set–and over the decades since have done some serious world-building. I have any number of short stories written, in some form or another, that are set there…and tried to weave some of those story strands into this book. I’ve already published one book with a character from Corinth County, even if the book wasn’t set there: Dark Tide. The book has also evolved in other ways from the original story; the main character was thirteen in the original story, and then evolved into a sixteen year old when I started writing the book. At some point in the process, I recognized that the character’s age didn’t work, and so I aged him into a college student, which actually works much better. This required completely overhauling and reworking the opening two chapters; but I do think the new versions are better than the originals, and I think the book works better this way.

I suppose I will always think of this book as my pandemic book, since that’s when it was written. Ironically, once this one is turned in I have to start working immediately on the next, which is due on March 1. The next has already been through a ridiculous amount of drafts–I started writing it in 2015, and have worked on it off and on since then (I wrote the entire first draft in July 2015; a chapter a day, basically), and so I guess this is all about finishing projects that have been lingering around for a while. (Even this Kansas book began being formulated when I was in high school, and has followed an interesting–to me–evolutionary pattern since then.)

Perhaps 2021 will be the year where I clear out all the projects that have been hanging around my office for years–decades, in some cases–so I can move on.

It would be so lovely if I could write a first draft of Chlorine in a month…

And on that note, I’m heading for the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader!

You Are In Love

Wednesday, and technically the last day of my vacation; even though tomorrow I am working from home before a three day weekend–so at least tomorrow I won’t have to leave the house, other than getting my first COVID-19 vaccination, with another to come 28 days later. That’s a good reason to leave the house, frankly–I can’t think of a better one, to be honest. I’m incredibly lucky to have not gotten it already, frankly–still not entirely convinced I didn’t have it back when I was sick last spring, but the test was negative. I will continue to wear a mask whenever I am out in public–don’t want to set a bad example–and besides, as I have noted before, I haven’t even caught a cold this winter thus far; and that’s a rarity and clearly a benefit of the mask. I may wear one during cold-and-flu season from now on.

Yesterday was an utter waste of time, thanks again to Apple Support. I wanted to print out the latest chapters I’d finished and reread them before I moved on to yesterday’s writing–but when I tried to open one of the files from the Cloud my piece of shit MacBook Air told me that Word was “damaged” and thus couldn’t be opened. I had to delete it from my computer and then re-download it…and guess what? NOT ENOUGH FUCKING STORAGE AGAIN. Um, it was JUST on my computer, but now there’s no room for it? So yes, I spent the entire afternoon fucking with Apple support; eventually having to take my computer back to factory settings and start it over like it was brand new. Hurray! I could download Word again! But the Cloud? Ha ha ha ha! Oh, how cute you are to think that this would help my computer to function. Just like when I bought it, I could not access the Cloud through my Finder window–I mean, I could, but the Finder window kept telling me THERE WAS NOTHING STORED THERE. I even manually went to the iCloud website to sign in–yep, there it all was. So back to working with Apple support. After forty-five minutes of waiting for “Iselda” or whatever the fuck her name was to figure out how to fix it….to no avail, and often telling me to try things I already had done, etc–she had the nerve to say, “Well, maybe it’s still syncing and everything will show up later.” Yeah, thanks for nothing, you incompetent bitch. So, looks like I’ll be taking the piece of shit to the Apple Store in Metairie.

I really do NOT understand why this has to be so hard, you know?

Yeah, I’m bitter. You would be, too. Now I have to try to play catch up.

But I did stop by the library yesterday to pick up Unveiling the Muse: The Lost History of Gay Carnival in New Orleans by Howard Philips Smith, and wow! It must weigh five to ten pounds; it’s enormous. I may have to eventually get my own copy, simply because as a resource it is simply too good to not always have on hand. It has all the histories of the gay krewes and balls, pictures going back decades–and details about gay clubs and not-gay-clubs that gays hung out in; and so many pictures! It was also fun seeing people I know (or knew) pictured within its pages. I really wish I had kept a better diary/journal back in the days when we first moved here; so many friends and acquaintances have come and gone since then. Looking through the book was quite a lovely trip down Memory Lane for me–remembering people I’ve not seen or thought about in years, some of whom I simply knew from the bars and who knew? Some of them were major players in the queer rights movement here in New Orleans. This book is definitely going to come in handy for me with writing fiction about the gay New Orleans past.

It looks like it’s going to be another beautiful day here in New Orleans. I am going to be going to the gym later this morning, and then I am taking Paul to work–we’re stopping at Office Depot to get supplies for his office, and I need paper and an ink cartridge for my printer–and he has a book for me at his office, and then it’s back home to desperately try to get caught up on the book. Gah, yesterday was so damned frustrating.

I was also thinking back over the year (not as effective as one might think, as my memory has really declined over the last few years), trying to remember things that gave me pleasure in 2020. There was an awful lot of good television programs we watched, and of course I have enjoyed the Cynical 70’s Film Festival, which will be rolling over into the new year. I know I read some wonderful books over the course of the year–and I also reread some that I greatly enjoyed and seemed new to me. I also recall reading a lot of pandemic literature in the early days of the shutdown; histories of the Black Death and the Spanish flu, short stories and novels about epidemics…I finally got around to reading Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death”, along with a reread of Katherine Anne Porter’s “Pale Horse Pale Rider,” but I don’t think I got around to Richard Matheson’s classic I Am Legend…but really should have. I also didn’t reread Stephen King’s The Stand, but once I get my own writing needs under control around here, maybe I’ll give the abridged, originally published version a go.

I know I also started writing a pandemic story that I never managed to finish: “The Flagellants,” and finishing it is at the top of my list of things to get done once this book is finished. I kind of also have to go directly into the next book, without much of a break between, but once it is finished on March 1 and turned in, I’ll have some breathing space for a moment or two before I need to get going on Chlorine. I’d really like to have a good working first draft of Chlorine finished by May 1. My main characters is starting to come to me in bits and pieces–he served in the Navy, he escaped Kansas into the Navy when he was eighteen; he comes to Hollywood after he musters out to become a movie star, which is when he meets his “starmaker” agent, and while he is very good-looking and charismatic…he’s not especially talented as an actor, and so gets some supporting roles in A-list movies and leads in B-list movies, but his”star” never really takes off. His agent is of course inspired by Henry Willson; and the plot of the book revolves around blackmail, murder, and survival.

And on that note, I should get back into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.

Back to December

And suddenly, one morning you wake up and it’s December, and you think, for just a moment, wow, how did that happen? And you try to remember last December….which now seems as long ago and remote as the Middle Ages. I mean, doesn’t it? As I was saying to someone the other day, “remember when RWA burned to the ground? It hasn’t even been a year yet, but that seems as remote in the past now as the Knights of the Round Table and Camelot.

Yesterday was a nice day to ease back into working. I didn’t have any issue getting up, nor was I tired when I got home; good thing, as I needed to go to the gym. I’d skipped Sunday because when I walked there and back on Friday, somehow I managed to rub a blister onto the back of my left heel, and it was painful wearing shoes. It was also cold and rainy, and between the blister and cold rain…yeah, wasn’t feeling it too much, so I decided to wait till I got home from work on Monday and hope that I’d have the energy and the willpower to go. It was incredibly cold (for New Orleans, coming in after weeks of high 70’s/low 80’s weather), but I bundled up into my sweats and off I went.

But despite the cold, a lovely workout was had, and then I scurried home. It was the cold wind, really, that made it so bad.

It was also supposed to get down to 38 last night. It certainly feels like it this morning as I sip my cappuccino, my hands desperately trying to leech all the heat out of the cup. I did manage to work on the book last night as well (another chapter down; roughly eleven left to go, but if I get one per day done it’ll be finished in ten days and then can sit for a moment or two while I get ready for the final polish before turning it in), which was lovely. It’s taking shape and getting better; I really can’t wait to get it turned in. I need to finish a story, too, and I need to really get cracking on the Kansas book when this is all done and behind me.

The sun is rising, which means the gradual warming will begin, which is lovely. It’ll be cold though when I dash out to my car, and from my car into the office, but at least that means I can wear a sweater. I love sweaters, and don’t get many opportunities to wear them, so there’s that part, which I do like. I also like when the apartment is cold, which means wearing sweats and watching television or reading underneath blankets. (I’m under one right now, in fact, and it’s nice and toasty; one of those thin ones that somehow manages to keep me warm, like the ones they used to give you on airplanes.)

The other thing about it being cold is it makes it harder for me to wake completely up. My insomnia came back last night with a vengeance–it’s been awhile, and I figured the cold, plus the exhaustion from the gym, would have put me under in no time at all. Instead, despite how lovely and warm the bed and blankets were, I never really feel into a deep, restful sleep. I am going to be extremely tired tonight, and may even go to bed earlier than I usually do; we shall see once I get home from the office today.

I do worry the world is going to close down again sometime soon–although I am fairly certain that even if we do, I’ll be considered an ‘essential worker’–I kind of think I am, even if I am not a medical professional; I help keep people safe and healthy (at least that’s the goal) and the service I do provide, which is necessary for our PrEP clients to get their prescriptions renewed, is kind of essential–but we did close the program down during the original lockdown, so….I just hope not. As little as I like getting up at six three mornings a week, I love interacting with my clients and getting out of the house and feeling useful. But I do think another one is coming; it’s just a matter of time, and as the infections rise thanks to Thanksgiving…imagine how people are going to be about Christmas.

And on that note, it’s time to get in the shower and pack my lunch and get my day rolling. Have a happy first of December, Constant Reader.

…Ready for It

And here we are, the last day of my vacation. As much as I hate to see the time off come to a bitter end, I am also kind of ready to get back to the office and get back to work.

It’s rained off and on all weekend, which has wreaked havoc with my sinuses, and it’s rather dreary outside my windows this morning. I slept fairly decently last night–waking up every now and then–but overall, it was a good sleep. I feel a bit sore and tired this morning–I got a blister on my left heel walking to the gym Friday, which is really and truly annoying, particularly since I’ve had the shoes I was wearing for several months and have worn them every day without incident; so why all of a sudden did the damned shoe rub a blister onto my foot? I really don’t need more irritation, and now I am worried about whether walking to the gym today will exacerbate the problem. My back is also sore and my legs feel tired, but skipping today would mean having to go after work tomorrow and Wednesday, and really, neither of those is a really likely option. I prefer my Sunday-Wednesday-Friday schedule, thank you very much. Maybe if I bandage it up well….

The LSU game was terrible, just terrible, on both sides of the ball. Texas A&M didn’t look much better than LSU, frankly, and the announcers kept talking about how A&M could get into the play-offs…and I was all, really? The game just seemed like a lot of offensive ineptitude from both sides. And while both freshman quarterbacks got into the game, neither really accomplished much–and that’s on the offensive line. Nobody was blocking anyone, and when you don’t block anyone, your quarterback ends up getting sacked. The play calling was also a little suspect to me; this has been such a weird football season thus far–the Denver Broncos are coming to play the Saints today without any quarterbacks–the more I think it should have just been cancelled and all players given an extra year of eligibility. I really don’t see how they can legitimately have a play-off and crown a champion when some schools haven’t even played all the limited schedule games they had scheduled. Ah, well. The Saints game should be interesting today, at any rate.

I worked on the book some yesterday and feel a lot better about the whole thing overall. If I can get through this draft relatively quickly–one or two chapters per day–I can then let it sit for a week or so and then go back in with my red pencil and build up the subplot threads running through it as well as come up with the perfect ending to the book; it came to me last night, and I think it is the right ending. We shall see, I suppose.

I also finished reading Dolls! Dolls! Dolls! by Stephen Rebello last night, which is the behind-the-scenes, gossipy look at how the movie version of Valley of the Dolls came to be. I love both book and movie, so I’ll have a separate entry about that book. I read some more of Night of Camp David as well, which is an interesting animal as far as political thrillers are concerned. (Granted, I’ve not read many political thrillers.) I’m over halfway finished with it, which will then lead to the dilemma of what to read next. Heavy heaving sigh.

I fell into an Internet wormhole last night on my iPad during the Iron Bowl (which was just as disappointing than the LSU game; I watch the Iron Bowl because it usually is a good–if bizarre–game full of crazy plays, freakish scores, and the feeling that anything can happen at any time; a trouncing by Alabama isn’t particularly interesting to watch, frankly), and it started with someone posting a picture of a really hot guy on one of the Facebook “hot guy” groups I belong to–I did a little bit of research into the guy, and it turned out he was an actor, did some porn in the 1970’s, and then became a private investigator in Hollywood–someone else had already claimed the title “private eye to the stars” but this is basically what this guy also does. Yes, you can hear the wheels turning in my head, can’t you? As I daydreamed and explored this concept in my head–the games, as I have previously mentioned, weren’t really holding much of my attention–I couldn’t make up my mind as to whether this would be a better series to write about in the 1970’s or in the present. But I really love the concept of the porn-star-turned-private-eye, and even came up with a title for the first story: Slow Burn.

It’s kind of fun feeling creative again, I have to say, and to have finally picked back up the reins of the book at last. I think it’s a good book, too; the story is involving and evolving as I revise this most recent draft. (I’m also amazed and more than a little saddened, at how bad some of the writing is; but that’s what drafts are for, aren’t they?)

As my vacation slowly winds down, I am surprisingly not disappointed by how little I have gotten done over this week. I got some things done; started two new short stories, got the book back in progress, did some absolutely necessary tidying of kitchen cabinets and so forth, and I did get some reading done. I think I can face the office tomorrow without an issue, either–other than getting up early, which is going to take some serious readjusting again–and over all, feel pretty good about everything.

And now back the spice mines.

Half of My Heart

And now it’s Friday. It’s hard to imagine that it’s almost Thanksgiving already, but the initial pandemic shutdown also seems like it was more than a million years ago–when dinosaurs roamed the earth–rather than a mere eight months or so ago. Eight months we’ve been dealing with this; even though it seems more like eight fucking decades. But I’ve noticed that time has sped up lately–for the longest time it felt like time was dragging and was taking forever to pass, but now…now time is flying.

I suspect it’s the looming deadlines and being behind on everything, quite frankly.

The sun is bright this morning in my eyes and I cannot find my baseball cap–it’s probably stashed somewhere I thought I’d remember where it was–so I’ve had to move my chair and I am writing this while sitting at a weird angle to my desk. I’m working at home again today, and will be walking to the gym for today’s workout when I am finished with this afternoon’s work. Yesterday for the Cynical 70’s Film Festival I watched The Boys from Brazil and The Towering Inferno–more on those later–and I think that for today I might just dip back into some more Halloween horror. We also started streaming Mr. Mercedes, which is now available on Peacock for free–I am actually impressed with everything they are offering; it’s very similar to HBO MAX, but am still not willing to pay for another premium service yet–and I have to say, I am enjoying this adaptation. It’s fairly true to the books–at least as I remember, although I don’t remember the neighbor Ida, played by the amazing Holland Taylor–and I have to say, the three Bill Hodges novels (Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, End of Watch) have been my favorite Kings of this century thus far; Mr. Mercedes very deservedly won the Edgar for Best Novel some years back, and as much as I loved the books, I was very sad when I reached the end. King himself was an executive producer, and the television series adaptation was written by David E. Kelley, who has also been responsible for a lot of good television over the years, including Big Little Lies and The Undoing, which we are greatly enjoying as well. There are three seasons of this adaptation, and I assume each season covers one of the books.

The Boys from Brazil is an interesting film, and very much of its time. Based on the novel by Ira Levin, both book and film were very much of the 1970’s, and also encapsulated that cynicism and paranoia of the decade perfectly. It was also one of those stories that permeated the zeitgeist; everyone knew what”the boys from Brazil” were without reading the book or seeing the movie. The movie is a very close adaptation of the book–Ira Levin was known for his brevity as a writer, so rarely did things need to be cut out of the books for the screenplay. The Boys from Brazil was actually Levin’s longest novel–I could be wrong, but I don’t think so–and the film has some impressive star power, with Laurence Olivier, Gregory Peck, and James Mason in leading roles, and an incredibly impressive supporting cast, including Rosemary Harris, Anne Meara, and Uta Hagen. The film also opens with a focus on a young character played by an extremely beautiful young Steve Guttenberg (whatever happened to him? He was a big deal in the 1980’s and then just kind of faded away) as a young Jewish-American man who goes Nazi hunting in Paraguay, and is actually the one whose investigation tips off the big Nazi hunter played by Laurence Olivier about what’s going on and kicks the film into gear before he is, of course, caught and murdered by the Nazis.

It’s hard to imagine now that the 1970’s were forty years or so ago now; the world has changed so much…but the 1970’s were also only a few decades removed from the second world war and Nazi war criminals were still being hunted down worldwide by the Israeli secret police. (The Germans were also hunting them down for trials; the Israelis were killing them.) The Lieberman character played by Olivier (he got an Oscar nomination; ironically, he also got one for playing an escaped Nazi war criminal in Marathon. Man a few years earlier) was based on Simon Weisenthal; does anyone even remember Weisenthal today? (Weisenthal was one of the people who helped track down Eichmann.) It’s no secret that many Nazis escaped to South America after Berlin fell, and Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay in particular; so much so that it was so much a part of the zeitgeist that everyone knew and a casual reference was easily picked up on. Levin took that, decided to make Josef Mengele, the escaped Nazi “angel of death”, and put him at the center of the story. And the scene where Leibermann finally realizes what Mengele’s plans are–that is the scene that earned Olivier the Oscar nomination. The film doesn’t pack the same emotional wallop that the book does–probably because by the time the film was released, most people knew what the title referenced and what it was about (Levin was a master of the huge surprise twist), which killed some of the suspense. Gregory Peck isn’t very good as Mengele, either; paired with his listless performance in The Omen, Peck was clearly phoning it in for the most part in the 70’s and cashing the checks.

And as I always say, you can never go wrong with Nazis as your villains. The two best Indiana Jones movies have him fighting Nazis; you just can’t come up with better villains–having the opposition be Nazis alone immediately makes your hero pure of heart and decent and makes you root for him. (The Vatican, however, is an excellent fallback choice.)

There’s also an excellent essay to be written about The Boys from Brazil, comparing and contrasting it to Robert Ludlum’s The Holcroft Covenant, which is also about an attempt to resurrect the Third Reich, with the the seeds planted in the waning days of the war.

The Towering Inferno was part of the big wave of disaster movies that was a thing in the 1970’s, spawned by the huge success of Airport and The Poseidon Adventure. Like all disaster films, it boasted an all-star cast chock full of award winners and household names–Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Jennifer Jones, Fred Astaire, Robert Wagner, Susan Blakely, and Richard Chamberlain, to name a few–and a terrible script that was focused more on the adventure than the actual characters. (It’s also jarring to see O J. Simpson in a supporting role; and to remember he had a fledgling acting career before he murdered two people) Disaster movies inevitably fit into the Cynical 70’s Film Festival because they are always about preventable disasters that wind up happening because of greed and people in positions of power that invariably shouldn’t be; there’s always one scene where the person in charge of cleaning up the mess and solving the problem sanctimoniously lectures the person they feel is responsible for it: in this case, fire chief Steve McQueen lectures architect Paul Newman about the irresponsibility of building skyscrapers from a firefighter’s point of view (and having witnessed 9/11….yeah, watching the scene made me squirm more than a little bit)–but Newman, you see, is the hero; the fire and the building’s failure to be properly prepared isn’t his fault; construction manager Richard Chamberlain cut corners on the electrical wiring and so forth to stay on schedule and under budget to please building owner (also his father-in-law) William Holden. I watched the movie for the first time several years ago–and couldn’t make it all the way through on a rewatch. The acting is too bad, the writing too awful, and the story not compelling enough. It was nominated for like seven Oscars, including Best Picture–which should give you an idea of what a bad year that was for film. It was based on two novels, published around the same time, that covered the same ground–a fire in a new skyscrape–so the rights to both had to be secured to prevent lawsuits: The Tower by Richard Martin Stern, and The Glass Inferno, by by Thomas Scotia and Frank Robinson, with their titles blended into The Towering Inferno.

Around the time I originally watched The Towering Inferno I rewatched three other big disaster movies of the time–Airport, The Poseidon Adventure and Earthquake–and none of them really hold up. There were scores of other disaster movies of the time too–several Airport sequels, a movie about killer bees, etc.–but if the BEST of the time don’t hold up, the ones that weren’t considered good at the time must be really horrific.

And on that note, it is back into the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll catch you tomorrow.