Tag: December

Shotgun

Monday!

Yesterday was kind of nice. I worked on the apartment and worked on some stories–mostly thinking, some writing, some notes–and started working on the desk area too. We started watching Bad Monkey (more on that later), and then spent a lot of time streaming Solar Opposites, which continues to delight. I also started working on the rugs and the floors, which is way overdue, and also did some other work on the apartment, too. I feel very good this morning, as far as being rested and everything is concerned. I slept deeply and well, Sparky woke me up around eight this morning–when I first woke up he was curled up into a kitty coil sound asleep, so I closed my eyes and turned over…which got him up and brought him up to my face to see if I was, indeed, actually awake. I let him do that for a while, before succumbing and getting up. Today is my Birthday Eve, and while I do need to make a grocery run and get the mail, I can stay inside most of the day and do whatever i please. I plan on working on the house more (cleaning out cabinets, working on the floors, pruning books) before running those errands later this morning, and it’s only going to “feel like 112.” Sigh, my power bill for this month is going to be so brutal.

Oddly enough, I just walked over to the Walgreens and back (I needed sweet and low and forgot to get some this weekend) and it was actually pleasant outside with a cool breeze? I didn’t even break a sweat, which was super nice and definitely weird for this late in the summer. I don’t know if it’s supposed to rain today or not, but it would be super-awesome if it rained all day tomorrow for my birthday, so I can stay inside and read. I’ve not decided how I want to spend my birthday tomorrow, but I know I am probably not going to do any cleaning or some-such unless I so desire. How exciting I sound this morning! What can I say, my brain isn’t waking up as fast as I would prefer! But I am on my second cup of coffee and am about to eat some breakfast, so that should help.

One would think, anyway.

I’m not feeling particularly profound or insightful this morning, but nevertheless here I am, typing away on the day before my birthday. It really is astonishing how long I’ve been keeping my blog; it’ll be twenty years this December (the 26th, I believe, to be exact). That’s a lot of entries and a lot of writing. I know I’ve missed days over the years–I’m the only person committed to this on a daily basis, well aware–but I’ve been pretty consistent with it for all these years. Apparently I was a bit more commitment-phobic in the past. I’ve now lived in New Orleans longer than I’ve lived anywhere else; Paul and I have been together for close to thirty years now; I’ve been blogging for almost twenty years, and I will also hit my twenty years at work in January. I’ve even lived in the same apartment for almost twenty years. Not bad for someone who rarely lasted in any job longer than two years at most; and I’ve also been writing professionally since I cashed my first check for writing back in 1996. That’s almost thirty years. My first short story was published in 2000, and my first novel came out in 2002. I’ll probably be more reflective tomorrow, most like.

I also wrote an essay this weekend that I published over at Substack; do check it out if you’re interested. I probably should have revised and rewritten it one more time before sending it out into the world, but the whole point of my Substack is to get more practice writing personal essays, and as with anything, there’s a learning curve. A personal essay is more than a blog entry (although they are kind of mini-essays in and of themselves, detailing whatever is going on and through my mind at the time I write the entries), and so I am slowly learning how to pull an essay together. They don’t necessarily have to be longer than the essays I’ve already posted there; they work as essay abstracts, for sure. This latest one, “Death by a Thousand Cuts,” has been idling in the back of my mind for a long time now–the original inspiration for it came from getting tired of being straight-splained, as well as being aware that straight men and women don’t really see me as an equal. It could be longer, and there are/were other points I could have made in it to further illustrate the point, but essays are really out of my comfort zone (like short stories) and so I need to toil over them a bit more and build up my confidence.

I’m also thinking I can publish short stories there, too, if I am so inclined.

Hmm, this got a little more interesting as my brain woke up, didn’t it? It’s looking gloomy outside this morning now, so I think we are definitely getting rain today. Yay!

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow. Maybe later–one never can be entirely sure. I am tricky that way.

Come

I woke up this morning to a marvelous thunderstorm, complete with pyrotechnics and thunder so close and loud that the house shakes a little bit. These are the kinds of mornings where you want to turn off the alarm, curl back up and go back to sleep again, but alas and alack, I had to get up for work this morning. I think I slept pretty decently last night; I don’t feel tired this morning and I did wake up at five as has been my wont lately. I was a bit tired when I got home from work yesterday; Paul didn’t get home until later and so I worked on the book for a little while until my mind gave out. I tried to read but was tired, so I just watched some history documentaries about the French royal family until I decided to go to bed and be done with it all. It was a pretty decent day yesterday overall; I managed to get through the day and get all caught up on my day job duties without any issues. Which was nice, of course.

It’s hard to wrap my mind around the concept that today is the last day of November already and December is practically here. Christmas already? I’m not ready for it in the least. We don’t decorate anymore since Scooter came to live with us–he sees the tree and decorations as Disneyworld and Epcot–so it never really feels like Christmas completely to me. Maybe this year I should watch A Charlie Brown Christmas? That always used to put me in the Christmas feels. I need to do my Christmas cards this weekend, and I need to ship a box out, as well as try to figure out what to get my parents for the holiday. Paul and I have already discussed and decided our Christmas present will be a major appliance purchase, if our landlady signs off on it; we’ve needed a new refrigerator for quite some time now and I really want to get one with the freezer on the bottom; it makes more sense to have to bend down for the freezer–something you don’t do very often–rather than to get things from the bottom shelves of the refrigerator. Getting old is kind of a bitch. you know? My parents have two refrigerators with the freezer on the bottom, and it really is so much easier on my back and knees….

I did ask for and receive a month’s extension on the book, which is a huge relief and took away a lot of my stress. I still have a lot to do, but at least the pressure valve was turned on and the internal pressure in my brain sort of released a bit. Huzzah? Huzzah. I still want to finish reading Wanda Morris’ book–it’s so good and so well done that whenever I am sort of tired I put the book back down because I want to give it my full and not-tired attention so I can appreciate the writing the way it deserves (check her books out, if you haven’t already. Wanda is fantastic.); maybe this weekend, after errands and editing work on the book, I can curl up in my easy chair and while away a few hours with Wanda.

I was a bit amused to see some reactions to my questioning yesterday about whether I should continue to use pictures of men with amazing bodies or just pictures in general–no one said to stop using the hot men pictures, so I am going to continue to use them. I may start mixing in some other type pictures, of New Orleans or Louisiana; there are some fantastic local photographers who do amazing work that I would like to promote here, with buy links to websites and so forth, to help support local artists, but at the same time I am not certain if that would be a copyright violation or not? I think it’s okay as long as credit is given and I am not using the images to sell something? Of course, I have a gazillion pictures I’ve taken that I own the rights to, so maybe I could just use those. I don’t know. I’m not entirely certain why I am even worrying about the hot guy pictures now when it never bothered me or even occurred to me that I should change my ways before. I also don’t want to keep doing the same thing simply because it’s what I have always done, either; that kind of thinking has always annoyed me. Change isn’t always a bad thing and sometimes its necessary for growth. As someone who would like to keep growing in every way (except for weight) rather than atrophying in my sixties, I like to keep my options open at any rate. But at least for now, I will commit to using the hot-guy images through the end of the year; I do need to find my archive of Christmas themed hot men, though. Tis the season and all that. I also need to gather a list of Christmas song titles to use for the holiday posts. Heavy sigh, my work here in never done.

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