Tuesday morning and it looks like the rain has finally passed us; we actually got more rain all day yesterday than we did from Cristobal on Sunday. I know other places got slammed much harder than we did, but at least it was relatively minor and damage from the storm wasn’t nearly as bad as it was from previous storms.
The Anthony Award nominations were released yesterday, and sure, I was a little disappointed for a brief moment that I wasn’t among their number; but the nominations are chock full of diversity; lots of women, lots of people of color, and a wide variety of nominations. This is one year that is going to be incredibly difficult for me to pick winners because there are so many good books and stories nominated that I’ve actually read and loved. I’m still surprised that I’ve actually won an Anthony and been nominated another time, to be completely honest.
Awards are lovely, and everyone wants to win one–even if they don’t want to admit it; I do admit it. I like being nominated and I like winning even more. I tend to lose more than I win, which is actually kind of nice–I always figure I’m going to lose again, so it’s always a pleasant surprise on those rare occasions when I actually do win.
We’re still watching 13 Reasons Why, but I’m not really sure why. As we get deeper into the season it’s getting more and more off the rails–what the fuck with that camping trip episode, seriously–and while the story kind of makes sense, so much of it doesn’t. If they had simply chosen to explore the mental trauma the kids experience from everything they’ve been through–including violent sexual assaults and murder, which would definitely create mental issues, breakdowns, and behavioral problems–I think I would be enjoying this more; the concept of another kid who knows the truth trying to get them all to confess by playing torturous games with them is basically ripping off Pretty Little Liars and really speaks to a lack of creativity and originality; I could be wrong, and we’re vested enough in the show to keep watching, since we know it’s the final season.
I’m kind of looking forward to the new Perry Mason, too.
Oh, I’m so tired, too, this morning. I’ve not really had a good restful night’s sleep in a while now, and exhaustion is wearing me down. My kitchen is a mess yet again, and I still haven’t done the floors; but I just don’t have the energy to get any of this stuff taken care of–let alone the writing I need to get done.
I didn’t get as much writing done yesterday as I would have liked; but I get some of it done. Yesterday was one of those days where I questioned everything I wrote–which is annoying, because it’s part and parcel with imposter syndrome. I hate doubting myself, but at the same time I think I want this to be good so badly that I am being much harsher with myself than I usually am; I guess being in the midst of a tropical storm didn’t help matters much, either.
I finally gave up–I did make some progress, which I’ll settle for–and retired to my easy chair to read around three. I made some good progress on Night Has a Thousand Eyes–Woolrich was a master at setting mood–and then last night we started watching the final season of 13 Reasons Why–which is kind of silly, as the actors playing the teenagers have all aged over the course of the series but haven’t on the show, and, as I said to Paul last night, “they should have called this season 13 Reasons Why: Grad School.” Not to mention the fact that over the course of the show’s run these kids have been involved in first, covering up a sexual assault; proceeding with charges for the sexual assault; another sexual assault; stopping a mass shooting and covering that up; a murder; and on and on and on….it seems to me like all of their parents would be a lot more deeply concerned about their mental health and their response to the trauma they faced; college is going to be an interesting experience for them all. But it’s entertaining–they certainly have dealt with a lot of issues for teens, including coming out; bullying; sexual assault; bodily autonomy; and suicide–which is what kicked the show off to begin with.
Tropical Storm Cristobal passed over us last night as well; it wasn’t so bad here around the Lost Apartment as we had feared it could be; it rained pretty steadily all day, and we certainly had off-and-on rain all day, but the walk and yard never filled up with water (we’ve had more rain from just a regular thunderstorm) and I don’t think any streets in our neighborhood flooded at all; I’ve not checked the news to see how bad it was in the city. I know the coastal parishes got some storm surge flooding, and I do hope those folks are all okay. That’s the thing about tropical storms, depressions and hurricanes–the mix of relief and guilt; relief that where you live didn’t get hit that hard; guilt because somewhere else did and you kind of wished it on by wishing it away from you.
Incidentally, it just started raining again, which will make the trip to and from work a lot of fun, he typed sarcastically.
I was tired pretty much the entire weekend; I’m not really sure what that is all about, but I didn’t sleep well any of the three nights of this past weekend, nor did I sleep well last night or most of last week, which is making me very tired and punchy, and also is contributing to my general sense of exhaustion, I think. I slept well last night–I only woke up a few times–and am a bit lethargic this morning (the endless cycle of ‘didn’t sleep-need caffeine to wake up–can’t sleep–more caffeine is draining, frankly); but am hopeful to be able to kick it into a relatively high gear soon.
And on that note, best to get to it, I suppose. Have a lovely Monday wherever you are–and stay safe.
And now we enter that eerie period of waiting and anticipation; as a storm hovers over the overly warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and decides which way north to follow. It appears that the eye of Cristobal is going to pass over Houma on it’s way ashore; Houma is about an hour drive from here, but southeastern Louisiana geography and direction is confusing. You do, for example, have to drive west out of New Orleans, out past the airport, to get there; and you cross the river on the way (I have a horrible story about coming back from doing an HIV testing event out there, but I’ll save that for another time). It’s more due west and south of New Orleans, and it’s levee backs up to what used to be wetlands, but because of coastal erosion the Gulf is on the other side. There’s a native reservation out there as well–Houma is named after the Houma tribe–and it’s one of those places we will undoubtedly lose to the encroaching Gulf at some point. Nicholls State University is also there. Some day when I have time I would love to go out there and explore the town more; when we used to test at Nicholls State I used to think about writing a story set there a lot. There’s a lot of sugar cane fields in the surrounding area as well.
It’s gray outside my windows this morning, which is to be expected; it’s going to be periodically raining and of course, there is the potential for flash flooding as always. I stopped to make groceries on my way home from work last night so I wouldn’t have to go out in it this weekend at all; I am going to go to the gym (I’ve not gone once this week, which is terribly disgraceful, but I was exhausted on every level all week) in a little bit, after which I am going to come home and write and clean the kitchen. My kitchen is absolutely a disaster area–I cleaned up in here on Thursday night, and it’s shocking how quickly it can again look like a bomb went off in here.
We’re still watching London Kills, which I do recommend, and we’ll probably finish it off this evening. We tend to watch movies a lot on the weekends as well–last weekend we watched Dolemite Is My Name, and I have to say, Eddie Murphy should have at least been nominated for an Oscar for that; the fact he’s only gotten one nomination over his lengthy film career is a disgrace–and there’s some good stuff on HBO MAX, which, along with Disney Plus, is a treasure trove. I also keep forgetting we have CBS All Access, which means I have all those new Star Trek series to watch as well as Jordan Peele’s reboot of The Twilight Zone, and we also have Apple Plus. THERE ARE SO MANY STREAMING SERVICES NOW.
And it’s been so long since I’ve had the energy to pick up a book I had to stop for a minute to remember what I am actually reading, which is Cornell Woolrich’s Night Has a Thousand Eyes. I do think it’s appropriate reading for Pride Month, and then when I finish that I am going to go back and reread Larry Kramer’s Book Whose Title Got Me a Facebook Ban. I am also thinking I might revisit one of my favorite Three Investigators stories this weekend as well.
I got an idea for two stories yesterday–because when don’t I get ideas for new stories, right? One is “Dance of the Burning Fools”, which is something that actually happened in history, as described by Barbara Tuchman in her seminal work A Distant Mirror; a party at the court of Charles VI of France, which descended into madness when some of the costumed revelers, dressed as animals in fur and pitch, caught fire and some of them burned to death; the King was one of the men in costume but was rescued. I’m not sure how the story will take shape, but I just thought that perhaps an investigation into the tragedy after the fact? I don’t know, it’s very amorphous right now.
The other is called “Happy Hour at the Hangover Bar,” which was inspired by my noticing on my way to work yesterday that there is a bar on Claiborne Avenue with that very name: the Hangover Bar, and yesterday they had a Happy Hour sign out on the sidewalk in front, and the title popped into my head, with a vague idea about a story told from the point of view of the bartender, watching something unfold in his bar during Happy Hour.
Many years ago, maybe in the late 1990’s, I had an idea for a series of short stories about gay men that were all interconnected through a central character of a nameless bartender at Cafe Lafitte in Exile; one of my best (in my opinion) short stories was one I wrote with that idea in mind; it eventually evolved and the bartender himself became the main character. The story was called “Unsent”, and in one of my proudest moments as a writer, a friend who’d arranged for a collection of my erotic stories to be published in Spanish (thanks again, Lawrence Schimel!) forwarded an email to me from the copy editor, who’d emailed him to tell him that the story had made her cry. I think about that collection–that I’d intended to call The Bartender–every now and again; but so many ideas, so little time, and so much laziness will leave it on the backburner probably forever.
And now, I have to depart for the gym. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and keep the people of Houma, Louisiana in your thoughts this weekend.
In case you’ve been wondering, Constant Reader, my blog titles are usually song titles; back when I first started doing that, I just used whatever song was playing on the stereo or my iPod (remember those?) when I started writing the entry. I’ve tried not to use the same title twice, but after fifteen years or so it’s kind of hard not to. I started using the Top 100 lists from certain years, but those got exhausted after a few years, and now I’ve moved on to singles by the Pet Shop Boys….many of their titles are awesome and wry and witty; today’s, I am not so sure about, hence my decision to explain.
It’s been a very exhausting week, and I am bone tired. I’ve not been to the gym this week at all; I will assess how I feel tomorrow about going; I can certainly, in a worst case, go on Saturday. There’s a tropical storm out in the Gulf heading our way, the country has seemingly gone mad, and sometimes I just feel so completely overwhelmed I don’t even want to get out of bed, let alone check social media or my emails.
But I persist.
Today wasn’t quite so bad as I feared when I started writing this post this morning; it was actually rather pleasant. The sad thing is I am starting to adjust physically to the heat and humidity; they did get us an enormous fan and a couple of smaller ones–but when I had to go into the building to do my timesheet and send my activity log to my supervisor I thought it was freezing inside the building–and had the same experience when I stopped at the grocery store. Naturally, the first floor of the Lost Apartment and my kitchen/office is miserable, even with the ceiling fans on, but I ordered two of those small, portable Arctic air conditioners–a co-worker highly recommended them–and when they arrive, we’ll see how they work.
I do think I am going to be able to sleep tonight. I am feeling sleepy–my mind is still going strong though–but I guess we will see. We started watching a show called London Kills on Acorn, and are enjoying it–we gave up on Dead Still after two episodes because it was, while very well acted and produced, kind of slow and not as interesting or engaging as I would have hoped.
Well, it’s now Friday morning and I’ve actually skipped a blog day. Shortly after I wrote the above I got so sleepy I barely managed to make it upstairs and into bed before sleepwalking, seriously, and I slept very well last night. I could have stayed in bed easily for another hour or so, but I have things to do and work to get to and so forth. But it feels absolutely lovely to have rested–perhaps tonight I will rest again–and maybe I can make some progress on work i have to do.
I got some glorious short story feedback on a submission I’d sent out, and am really looking forward to revising it. This is “The Affair of the Purloined Rentboy,” for those of you keeping track; the Sherlock story which was very far outside my comfort zone. I do think the notes I got will make it a much better, and stronger, story; and I am going to trust my instincts–as I read the notes, ideas began to form in my head on how to make this story stronger and better, and I couldn’t be more pleased.
And on that note, with the Gulf Coast now under a hurricane warning, I shall head back into the spice mines.
So here we are on middle-of-the-week Wednesday, and this has thus far not been a good week, for those who are keeping score. This entire year has already been pretty fucking bad, and we are still not even halfway through it yet.
Yesterday I got banned again on Facebook; this time because I mentioned “Larry Kramer’s Faggots“–exactly like that–in a post sharing a blog entry in which I talked about Larry’s death and wanting to reread the book; I, an actual gay man, was BANNED for using “hate speech” by quoting the title of a book, all the while indicating that it WAS a book in the post. And yes, while I applaud whatever algorithm they have now that locates certain words as ‘hate speech’; I have reported any number of people for using that word as a slur, among others, including racial slurs…only to be told those posts “didn’t violate Facebook’s community standards.”
So, hey Zuckerberg? Go fuck yourself. And enjoy hell when you get there.
It’s a gloomy morning in New Orleans; there’s a thunderstorm rolling in and we are also now–all of south Louisiana–in a flash flood watch. Tropical Storm Cristobal is somewhere out there in the Bay of Compeche, will probably hit landfall in Mexico before heading north. The cone of uncertainty runs from Houston to Pensacola, approximately, with the dead center showing a run for south-central Louisiana and up through Lafayette. If this track holds true, New Orleans will be on the east, and wet, side of the storm, and it will get here in late night Sunday/early Monday morning; the landfall projected currently is 1 a.m. Monday morning. It looks like it’s going to be a busy season–we’re already up to the C named storm and it’s only June 3rd.
I’ve really been tired all week; exhausted, emotionally, mentally and physically. I haven’t written a word since the weekend–I started writing a new story called “Waking the Saints”, mainly because I saw the opening scene so vividly I had to write it down: a dealer at Harrah’s, walking home from work at one in the morning, and makes a habit of walking home along the river on top of the levee. I don’t know what the rest of the story is; but I really enjoyed writing about walking along the top of the levee beside the river late at night. I wish I lived close enough to do it more often.
And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader.
Queer and Loathing in America 