Tag: Dune

Dear Jessie

Tuesday, and we definitely survived another Monday, did we not? It’s technically my Hump Day, as tomorrow is the last day in the office for me for the week. I slept fitfully again last night, but I feel okay this morning. I hit a wall yesterday afternoon, as I feared I might, but managed to make groceries on the way home from work. Once home, Sparky needed my lap for a while–is there anything nicer than being tired and having a purring, sleeping cat curled up in your lap–and I was content to just sit there, let my mind wander while catching up on the news (oy). We also watched an episode of Furious, which just took a diabolical turn I did not see coming, and am itching to get back to it tonight. I have a nice sort of busy day here at the office, which will help the time go by. I slept fitfully last night, but not a big deal. I feel okay this morning, as I did yesterday morning, but I did hit a wall yesterday afternoon. I stopped and made groceries on the way home, and settled in for the evening once I got here. Sparky needed some attention, as always, and I was happy to oblige–there really is nothing like having a purring cat sleeping curled up in your lap after working all day. We did watch another episode of Furious, which took an interesting and unforeseen turn in this most recent episode. I didn’t seem to get much of anything else done yesterday other than going to work, really. Oh, well, no big deal.

I’m not putting any pressure on myself to do much this week, using the big birthday as an excuse for doing very little this week, but maybe tonight I can get back into the first four chapters of the current work. There are also some short stories I need to finish, and of course I need to do a birthday newsletter musing about becoming a senior citizen–and how weird it is to know that I started first grade sixty (!!!) years ago. The world is still burning, and of course there’s a stubborn percentage of voters who think this is the country operating at full blast, and somehow we’re going to emerge from this great again. It’s too much to hope for that this despicable administration has exposed all the cracks and flaws in the system and everyone can agree that an overhaul is necessary; the hard core faithful will go down with the ship and form the kernel from which the next treasonous rebranding of fascism will grow. (We thought after 2008 we were done with that, but then came the astro-turfed Tea Party, which the racist media gobbled up–after all, the media learned nothing from Iraq and Afghanistan–and went back to their job of being opposition to the president…which they will never do with Baron Harkonnen. I did find a meme on social media the other day that showed the Baron from the David Lynch version of Dune, comparing him to his modern real-life iteration, and it was eerie how spot on I was with that. Also glad I wasn’t the only one to see it.)

Heavy sigh.

I am going to stay positive despite feeling a bit tired and hope for a lovely day. I do love my morning coffee, but God damn, I hate waking up to alarms. Always have, and when I was in school I never was really awake until third period or so. It’s not so brutal now as it was when I had to start getting up this early (which I knew was just a matter of time once we moved into the new building; my glorious days of not going into the office until ten or eleven didn’t survive the pandemic, but I knew we were heading that way when we moved), but I still don’t like it. Five more years of this before I retire, I suppose–providing that’s even possible in our post-democracy era. I am still holding out hope, like the ridiculous optimist I am, even in the face of stark reality. The nation will be looted and bankrupt by 2028, if it’s even possible for us to have elections still at that time. This isn’t going to end without bloodshed, I fear (like Cassandra) because these kinds of things always do–and our proud American tradition of pretending it never happened will kick in if it doesn’t. The failure of Congress and the Justice Department for not investigating thoroughly the chain of lies and outright fraud that got us into two forever wars–and followed up with prosecutions. Has our Congress ever not be completely corrupted? I also saw that Grassley is running for reelection–which means he’ll be 102 at the end of his term if he wins. Is it really that hard to surrender power? Hasn’t he robbed and stolen enough from his constituents already? We need term and age limits, frankly. The Founding Fathers didn’t write term limits into the Constitution because it never occurred to them anyone would want to make politics their career. It was seen as you do your public service and then you go home, much like the military.

But no, we have been plagued throughout our history by these power-hungry greedy pigs almost from the very beginning instead.

Ah, well.

I am going to see if I can get the reread of the draft-so-far done today, with notes and making things more organized, and maybe even go ahead and outline the next four chapters? Why not?

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

Desert Moon

The spice must flow…

I read Dune for the first time when I was in high school. At the time, it was merely a trilogy, and the original was just starting to move from cult classic to widely read accepted classic. In the 1970s, the book was noted primarily for its commentary on ecology and the environment. I had never read anything like that. I’d not been into reading science fiction up until that time, and I didn’t really much care for science fiction movies, either; with their incredibly low budgets and amateurish special effects that always took you out of the story no matter how much you were enjoying it. I used to watch Flash Gordon serials, when some of those afternoon kids’ shows that Chicago’s television stations would run them–and while badly produced on a shoestring, the stories themselves were compelling enough to hold my interest, and Buster Crabbe was certainly good-looking enough to keep me interested.

I digress.

But reading Dune turned me into more of a science fiction fan than I had been already. Like I said, I’d never read anything like it, and while my teenaged self primarily was interested in the space opera elements of the story–prince loses everything to mortal enemies, but gets revenge on everyone, defeats the enemies of his family, and rises to become not only the new emperor but messiah of a new religion that takes over the vast reaches of the empire, and the holy war (jihad) of conversion that followed. One of the things I loved about the way Frank Herbert wrote the book was how it bounced around the galaxy, uncovering the mindsets and other conspiracies going on throughout the empire (politics) in what seemed like disconnected stories that all converged in the end and were resolved…while showing the connections that were there all along. I read the other two books in the original trilogy that year–Dune Messiah and Children of Dune–and I always thought the second was perhaps the weakest of the series. I’ve never reread any of the books–I think the series grew to six or seven before Herbert died and his heirs took over; I’ve not read any not-Frank generated Dune novels–other than the first, and I know the last time I reread Dune, I was really taken aback by the writing, which seemed poor. I would like to revisit Dune Messiah at some point because it’s more political than anything else; and also set up the rest of the series while the original remains as the only book of the series that can be read as a stand-alone.

Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, the reluctant messiah

Star Wars was released the summer before my senior year in high school, and it changed special effects, and science fiction films, forever. So when the David Lynch film was released in the early 1980;s, I went into it expecting it to be more than it turned out to be. I had wondered how all the internal monologues would be handled, as well as the entire backstory that was necessary for the film to make sense to people who’ve not read the book. It was a big film, to be sure, but the effects weren’t great–and the choice to hear the internal thoughts as whispers, which meant almost fifty percent of the picture was whispered–weakened it. And really, most of the real action of the story takes place in the second half–and basically the Lynch film condensed the second half of the book to a quick transitional jump, and it wrapped up very quickly. (Having Paul bring rain to Arrakis in the final scene was also a bad choice, which negated everything about Dune’s ecology and the secret of the worms.) But I did like it, if parts (mostly Harkonnens) were over the top. But I was kind of excited to hear Denis Villeneuve was shooting it in two parts. I enjoyed the first part, but the second? Exceptional, and proved that Villeneuve’s vision for the property was the right one.

Dune Part 2 follows the book far more closely than any other adaptation has, which usually seems to run out of steam and time by the time Paul and his mother flee into the desert to seek safety with the Fremen. I also really liked how reluctant Paul was to assume leadership, or to launch his “religion”–because he IS the fulfillment of the Bene Gesserit “prophecy,” which was really just propaganda spread by Sisterhood missionaries centuries, if not millennia, before. He can see the possible futures as well as the entire past, and he knows his holy war will kill millions, if not billions, and he doesn’t want to be responsible for that. Dune Part 2 plays like a galactic Game of Thrones, and I appreciated all the politics on top of the action. I feel like this Villeneuve version of the story is the closest to what Herbert wrote and created. It’s an epic film, shot on an epic scale, with stunning visuals and strong performances–Austin Butler’s Feyd-Rautha makes you forget all about Sting’s bizarre performance in the Lynch version–and I do look forward to the next chapter in this sprawling saga.

Highly recommended.

Take a Message to Mary

Sunday!

I slept well again last night, which was lovely. I did get some things done yesterday, which was great–but making groceries yesterday wore me out. But I did get the dry cleaning dropped off, and made some terrific progress on the apartment. And of course, the LSU-South Carolina semi-final of the SEC baseball tournament…in which LSU fell behind 8-0 in the early innings, only to come back and win 12-11 in the tenth inning and earn a spot in the championship to play Tennessee. The game is on at one, and I’ll be there in my easy chair promptly at two to watch the game. Yesterday’s game was wild–one of the wilder LSU games I’ve seen–but served as yet another reminder of how exciting (and hard on the heart) being an LSU fan can be. I have to run an errand this morning, but I also want to do some writing before the game as well as some more cleaning.

Hilariously, yesterday as I left to run my errands I thought oh it’s pleasant outside today before getting into the car and seeing that “pleasant” in this instance meant 88 degrees! Utter madness, and another example of how we adjust to the heat here. I had some more thoughts about the writing yesterday, so even as I didn’t get any writing done yesterday, a lot was incubating in my head and goddamn it that counts! We also watched this week’s servings of Hacks, and the season finale of Abbott Elementary, and two episodes of Euphoria, and man those kids are seriously fucked up. I want to watch Dune today–Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet, woo hoo!–which is three hours long (and a challenge to not seem that long, for sure) after the baseball game, but we’ll see. I think Paul is planning on not doing much of anything today, so he’ll be napping occasionally on the couch all day once the game starts, and we’ll see how that all goes. I also have some cooking to do today–well, food prep anyway; I want to make watermelon soup and chicken salad for Paul to snack on–and later on today I think I’ll probably cook out, maybe even during the baseball game as “tailgate adjacent”–or I could order pizza and cook out tomorrow, as is traditional for Memorial Day. That’s a definite thought, and I do need to order some things from Office Depot; maybe I could do that and order the pizza, take the car and get both at the same time? That could be a bit fun, and a definite possibility. But pizza for a baseball game rather than burgers and hot dogs on the grill? Not entirely sure there…but tomorrow IS Memorial Day, and maybe U Pizza won’t be open tomorrow? Or–I could order it from Midway on Freret and go pick it up in the car? I just don’t know; decisions, decisions.

But I also think today is going to be my first day on the way back to physical strength and stamina and so forth. I am going to use my back massage roller thing today, and the massage gun I got for Christmas with the money Dad gave me; I may even stretch out and shave my head and everything before I get cleaned up this morning. It doesn’t, in fact, hurt anything to stretch every day, or do some crunches to get the blood pumping in the morning. I am going to the gym tomorrow with Paul–another reason for getting the pizza today–for the first time in weeks, and this will be the start of a new workout regimen for me, that I hope I can stick to despite the misery of a New Orleans summer–and this is really the perfect time to start writing another Scotty book that takes place over the summer, too; I can absolutely relate to the misery the boys will be experiencing in the book from the heat. I am also a bit excited, to tell you the truth, about writing another Scotty; I do love the characters a lot. I also think today is the day to sit down and make a writing plan for the rest of the year, so I can stay on track.

Excellent plan, Gregalicious. May this ambition I am feeling carry me through the rest of the day and the rest of the weekend. I also have some emails to answer, and some correspondence to take care of, which is peculiar to be sure; who writes letters anymore? But I am disputing charges and things with my insurance and some other nightmarish nonsense, and I have to write those things out. (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana is garbage, and with Janky Jeff Landry running Louisiana, they’ll probably get a lot worse now that all branches of state government are controlled by Christofascists, trying to take the state back to 1860.) On the other hand, being a writer comes in handy for these letters, as does have a mostly logical brain that isn’t swayed by emotion–when I can control it, and usually, in writing things like this I can be very coldly analytical and brutal at the same time. (I have yet to ever write a complaint letter that did not bear fruit; they usually surrender than trying to use corporate-speak to tell me I am wrong, because they can’t answer all of my questions.)

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

My Favorite Things

And so we have reached the last day of 2021 at last (it’s still hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that it has been 2021 for a year; 2022 is going to seem even stranger, methinks). I’m on a holiday, so there’s no work for the day-job to be done today, but there’s plenty of other things that need to be done. I need to work on the book some more, I need to clean, I need to run some errands, and I’d also like to do some reading. It’s a lot, I know, and who knows how much I can or will actually get done around here? Yesterday I did data entry, made condom packs and rewatched the original Clash of the Titans (starring a very young Harry Hamlin and his nipples; seeing this in the theater made me a Harry Hamlin fan for life) while I did so. I also was able to pick up two boxes of home COVID-19 tests (the day-job procured you them for the staff as a preventive measure, which are apparently like gold these days.

It was a very challenging year in many ways. I suspect that if I looked back at a list of my goals for the year, two of the most key things–getting an agent and finishing Chlorine–would not be able to be checked off the list. My faulty memory–I keep, for one thing, conflating the last two years as one and the same mentally–has something to do with it. I know I wanted to write more short stories in 2021, and I don’t know that I succeeded at that. I know I had a couple of stories of which I am very proud come out this past year (my first ever attempt at writing a Sherlock Holmes story for one), and of course I finished writing two books while trying to finish yet a third under contract, and trying to get Chlorine done.

I always feel sort of weird at the end of the year when I compile my favorite things (books, movies, television) because I never limit myself to things that were new to the year, but rather new to me during the year; I am always so woefully behind on everything I read and watch that it doesn’t seem fair to leave off things that didn’t debut in 2021. Besides, it’s always kind of fun, I think, to remind people of things they themselves might have missed and forgotten about. But when I started thinking about all the books I read this past year, I would have sworn that I hadn’t read this much, or that I couldn’t have possibly read this many books–and I know I am also forgetting some, and these are the ones that stand out enough to be remembered. My favorite reads of the year were, in no particular order, The Turnout by Megan Abbott; The Collective by Alison Gaylin; Dream Girl by Laura Lippman; The Gift of the Magpie by Donna Andrews (I read three or four Andrews novels this past year, and loved them all, frankly); Velvet was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia; Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier; Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby; A Beautiful Crime by Christopher YBollen; Yes Daddy by Jonathan Page-Ramage; The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris; These Toxic Things by Rachel Howzell Hall; Invisible City by Julia Dahl; and By Way of Sorrow by Robyn Gigl. I also read a lot more cozies than I generally do, which were quite fun–I highly recommend checking out Leslie Budewitz, Vivien Chien, Sherry Harris, Ali Brandon, Miranda Harris, and Carolyn Haines, among many others–my TBR pile is nothing if not a treasure trove of terrific reading–and I am hoping to get even more reading done in the new year as well.

As for movies, I also watched a lot of movies. I saw a lot of classic cinema of the past I’d never seen before–my Cynical 70’s Film Festival had some marvelous entries this past year–as well as revisited some favorites. I greatly enjoyed Dune, which I thought was incredibly well done, and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was a great super-hero film, with just the right amount of spectacle, humor, and humanity to ground it in enough reality that an audience could relate to it. I don’t remember any other new films that we saw in this past year, but I am sure there were some–the direct-to-streaming/limited theatrical release model for the pandemic ensured that I saw some things much sooner than I probably would have otherwise–but give me a break, I am still on my first cup of coffee after a lovely and deep night’s sleep.

Television again is something a bit blurry for me; the lines between 2020 and 2021 also blurring a bit here. I know we loved Mare of Easttown, Ted Lasso (a true gem of a show), The Mandalorian, Elité, Superman and Lois (probably the best version of Superman since the first two Christopher Reeve films), the original Gossip Girl (which is winding down now with a last season that is rather disappointing, alas), Hacks, One of Us is Lying, Cruel Summer, and Only Murders in the Building, which was also a jewel. But maybe my favorite show of the year was HBO’s It’s a Sin, which was not only well done, but powerful and thought-provoking. I had debated whether I wanted to see it or not; entertainment about HIV/AIDS, particularly about the height of the plague, has never sat well with me–either pandering nonsense or heavy-handed. The gold standard for me has always been Longtime Companion, but after watching I had to say It’s a Sin belongs up there. It was hard to watch at times–and I realized that the reason was the characters were all the same age that I was when it all started, which was a big part of it–but it also made me acknowledge and understand any number of things about myself and my past; namely that I had never grieved, just going numb at one point and deciding to keep moving forward and not think about anything. Watching the show brought back a lot of memories which, while painful at times, was necessary and needed.

I also spent time writing and working on two novellas, “Festival of the Redeemer” and “Never Kiss a Stranger”; one thing I really want to be able to do in the new year is get the novella collection together as well as another collection of short stories. Lots of plans for the new year, including a new Scotty novel I’ve been itching to get to, and another stand alone, in addition to Chlorine. I was able to visit my parents twice this past year, and I was also about to make it to New York and then Boston for Crime Bake, which was simply marvelous. I have lots of travel plans for the new year that I am hoping new pandemic variants aren’t going to jettison–I really do want to be around writers again, seriously–and over all, the year wasn’t as terrible as it easily could have been (2022, do not take this as a challenge). I got a new computer, paid off a lot of debt, and over all, I have to say, all things considered, 2021 wasn’t altogether terrible. I wish I had been more productive, but I also wish that every year.

And on that note, this next chapter isn’t going to write itself, is it? Have a lovely New Year’s Eve, Constant Reader, and I’ll talk to you next year!

You’ve Been on My Mind

So, today I am heading north for Thanksgiving. It’s an eleven hour drive both ways, give or take, depending on variables (bathroom breaks, lunch, gas stops, traffic, etc.) but I have Azimov’s Foundation queued up on Audible to listen to on the drive up (watching the show gave me an itch to revisit the books. It’s been years since I read the original trilogy, which I owned in one of those all-in-one compendiums. At the time, there were only the three; much as there was only a Dune trilogy when I read the books in high school). It’s going to be far colder up there than I would prefer, which means I won’t be going outside very much, or at least as little as possible.

Also, the thing I hate most–heat. Okay, I can hear the puzzled thoughts in your mind–but you live in New Orleans! How can you hate heat? Hang on, I will explain.

I don’t like indoor heat when it’s cold outside. It always feels somewhat suffocating and stale to me, and it inevitably affects my sinuses (sinii?) and everything else and it just kind of makes me feel dried out; like a turkey in the oven without being basted properly. Air conditioning doesn’t have that same effect, which is why I prefer to live in a more tropical climate where we don’t need to run the heat that often or that much (last winter being a horrible exception; I will never forget that freezing fat Tuesday when we didn’t have heat).

I obviously finished reading Leslie Budewitz’ Guilty as Cinnamon, and I will probably get started on Donna Andrews’ Owl Be Home For Christmas tonight in Kentucky before going to bed. I am planning on leaving here around eight this morning, which will have me arriving at my parents’ house around eight this evening EST. It’s a lovely drive, and as I mentioned, I will be listening to Azimov’s Foundation on the way up there and the next Donna Andrews Friday on my drive home (I am almost caught up on the series!). I did some writing yesterday, but not nearly enough–we turned on the Saints game for a little while before switching back to Gossip Girl, bingeing through the rest of what was available on HBO MAX (the second half of the first season will drop while I am in Kentucky) and then we decided to give the original a whirl, and while we only had time for two episodes before I had to go to bed…we are hooked and will watch all six seasons. So, at least we know what we’ll be watching next weekend when I come home. It’s fun; the reboot reminds me of Elité–with a three-way romance hinted at, just like there was there was on the first season of that show (at one point Paul said, “I think the producers or writers must have watched Elité”), and I have to say, this is one reboot I am definitely on board with.

It definitely fills in the void of glossy melodramatic soap with lovely young people I’d been feeling.

I’m not sure how regularly I am going to be able to post here until I get back home–my primary focus for the week is going to be spending time with my family, reading, and trying to get some writing done every day, which means this isn’t going to be a priority, alas, and rather than writing here while drinking coffee every morning and waking up I’ll be hanging with my family, but I am also hoping the time away from the Internet–emails, social media, blog–will help reboot my brain somewhat (I am also hoping to have the opportunity to get sorted a bit more while I am away; trips like the last one tend to make me more scattered because rest and relaxation aren’t in the cards the way they are when I visit family) and motivate me to get more things done as I move forward with my life. The rest of this year is going to be frantic–trying to get the book finished, preparing for the release of the next, the holidays–but it’s definitely do-able.

So, if you email me this week, I may not get to it as quickly as I would like (although I have to admit I am not as timely with responding to emails as I have been in the past), but I will get to it–I am going to be buried enough when I get back without having to answer a gazillion emails on top of everything else.

Have a lovely day, Constant Reader!

You Surround Me

And here we are, on Saturday morning of the LSU-Mississippi game (GEAUX TIGERS!) and lots and lots to do, as always.

I slept in this morning, much later then I have done in a while. I feel rested, though, and not foggy in the least. It’s taking me longer to get over this procedure then I would have thought, actually–I assumed it would be over and the next day I ‘d be my normal self again, but that really wasn’t the case. I guess it has to do with being older, but also going a night without any sleep at all takes a much harsher toll on my body than it would have done ten or twenty years ago. I actually don’t mind getting older–it’s always a surprise that I have gotten this far, really–and I generally don’t think about it all that much until I notice something like this. I used to always bounce back very quickly, but that appears to no longer be the case.

Which shouldn’t come as a surprise, either. I’ve not lived the healthiest lifestyle for vast portions of my life, and I still don’t eat as healthily as I probably should. But I also tend to think that one should, in the limited time they have on this planet, enjoy themselves as much as possible, and denying myself things that I like and enjoy–well, life provides enough unhappiness and stress and misery on its own without me needing to make myself miserable, right?

As a reward for the procedure, I downloaded a book that I’ve really been enjoying–Dave Quinn’s oral history of the Real Housewives shows, Not All Diamonds and Rosé. I have talked in earlier blogs about my falling out of like for these shows recently; but I started reading this on Wednesday and got totally sucked into it and stayed up later reading every night since then I should have. It’s fascinating, but again, who knows if what they are saying is true, if the women are actually being themselves or if they are maintaining the characters they created on television. But it’s very addicting to have production staff actually commenting on the controversies and things that happened, the dynamics between the women and with production, and behavior on and off camera and the differences. There’s a lot of shade thrown–Carole Radziwell is particularly shady in the chapter on New York, as is Heather Thomsen; Teresa Giudice certainly goes to town on everyone in the chapter on New Jersey; and the production staff really have nothing nice to say about Lisa Vanderpump of Beverly Hills either. What’s interesting to me is how so many hang on to the feuds and fights, so many years later, with resentment and bitterness still; sometimes the behind-the-scenes stuff talked about is more interesting then what actually went on in front of the camera. How much of it is true, how much of is calculated, how much is actually just more promotion and advertising for the shows? Who knows? But it’s a lot of fun to read, and after all the difficulties I’ve been having reading fiction…it’s kind of nice to get sucked into something, even if it is just kind of fluff.

We watched Dune last night, which I also greatly enjoyed. I’m a fan of the books–although on a reread several years ago, I was a lot more critical of the writing then I’ve ever been before–and I even enjoyed the flawed David Lynch film from the 1980’s, which I saw in the theater. This was epic film-making, on the scale of David Lean masterpieces like Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago; I kept thinking as I watched, awed, this would be stunning on a big screen. The scale of the film matched the scale of the book, which the Lynch version didn’t really; this was the film’s ultimate flaw, as was the Syfy mini-series that was produced earlier on this century (although I thought the sequel series, Children of Dune, was much better). It’s also very well cast. I wasn’t sure at first about Timotheé Chalamet, in all honesty. He’s a very attractive young twink of a man, and his career has certainly taken off to major stardom–too boyish for me, but I do concede he is pretty, and he really did a great job; much better at inhabiting the character then earlier actors in the part. They also managed to pick a terrific place to end the movie, cutting the story into two parts: I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that it ends with Paul and his mother, the Lady Jessica, escaping the betrayal by their enemies and the closing of the trap that sending the House Atreides to Arrakis set in motion and meeting up with, and being accepted by, the indigenous people of the planet, the Fremen.

I did spend some time yesterday organizing and cleaning and filing and trying to get my shit together; that will continue again today as I finish getting organized so I can focus on getting my book finished. I have to go over the first part of the final edit of #shedeservedit this morning to get it back to my editor; I made the corrections I noticed were needed yesterday afternoon, but I want to read it one more time to be certain I caught everything and/or didn’t miss anything else. I think it’s a good book, and it’s very different from the one before, Bury Me in Shadows, and probably very different from the next thing I am going to write–which I really need to work on this weekend. Time is slipping through my fingers, as it always does, and that deadline is looming just over the horizon and the world keeps turning towards it, bringing it closer and closer.

AIEEEE!!!!!

But my coffee is quite marvelous this morning, I am slowly coming to life, and I think I am going to go read for a moment before I get up and start working on finishing the cleaning/organizing project I started yesterday. So have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in on you tomorrow.

Star

Well, I survived my first ever colonoscopy, with an endoscopy thrown in for good measure (my gastroenterologist was concerned about the heartburn medication I take daily, so he wanted to take a look around in there). It was a thing, really. The colonoscopy was originally supposed to be in 2018, but there was a problem with my insurance (insurance companies are really of Satan) so it was rescheduled for last April…and then pandemic. Men really should get their first at fifty; so of course I got mine at sixty.

But ugh, what an unpleasant experience prepping for the procedure was. I didn’t sleep at all Wednesday night because I was getting up all the time to run to the bathroom; the final dose of the purge medication was supposed to be taken at 1 a.m. (!!!!), along with another 42 ounces of water–following the first dose and 42 ounces of water five hours earlier. Oh, and you’re supposed to drink all the water over an hour. So I went to bed finally at two in the morning, and then UP DOWN UP DOWN UP DOWN all night, plus the stress of worrying about sleeping through the alarm because I was up so late…yeah, it was pretty ugly around the Lost Apartment yesterday morning before we summoned the Lyft to whisk us off to Touro Infirmary. They had also originally told me I needed to stop in and get a COVID test the day before “around four”; you can imagine my horror to get the confirmation call Wednesday afternoon at two-forty-five, which was when I was informed that they cut off testing if you aren’t there by two-thirty.

Womp womp.

So then I had the added stress of oh my God what if I am doing all this prep and my test comes back positive? (It didn’t.) But they couldn’t do anything with me as far as anything actually medical is concerned, until the results came back (negative, around nine thirty). I got wheeled in and anesthetized around eleven thirty, and we were home before one. Exhausted, hungry, and still wonky from the anesthetic, I decided to take their advice and just relax and chill at home and not worry about anything pending; my body, after all, had two invasive procedures (and any procedure is traumatic to the body), so I figured–and still think–that I was allowed to have the day free from any worries or constraints about anything else. I was very tired–no coffee, no sleep, anesthetic–to the point that my joints ached from exhaustion, which also was rather unpleasant. I was too tired to do much of anything, really, and actually dozed off in my chair for a while (I did, however, stream the first half hour of Dune; and it looks incredible.) I did go to bed early and I think I slept deeply all night; at some point will have to download the Fitbit data to get an idea of just how much sleep I did or didn’t get over the last few days.

I wound up working from home needlessly on Wednesday (I read the prep instructions wrong; I thought I was supposed to start at eight a.m.–but it was actually eight pm); but I was very low energy all day anyway so it was probably best that I not see clients when I am in a low-energy place; undoubtedly it was stress about the procedure sapping my energy. I made condom packs and did some data entry and other work-at-home things while bingeing the non-Jamie Lee Curtis Halloween movies. As I have said before, I came to the Halloween (and most other non-Freddy Krueger slasher fare) late in life; in fact, it was Paul who got me to start watching. Anyway, I had realized that I’d never seen any of the other ones from the original series that don’t have Jamie Lee Curtis in them….so for my Halloween Horror Film Festival what could be more apt than finally watching the rest of those movies?

Maybe apt, but seriously–if Jamie Lee Curtis isn’t in it, why bother making it? I mean, seriously. Halloween III: Season of the Witch was just terrible. I’d heard at the time it was released that it wasn’t good, but I thought I had seen that people had revisited it and it was becoming a cult classic, under-appreciated at the time and now coming into its own? It had lesser production quality than any old made-for-television movie from the late 1960’s/early 1970’s. The plot made no sense whatsoever; the acting, editing and production quality was horrific–I kept watching all the way to the bitter end, waiting for something, anything, that would make me think I was correct in seeing that it had been rediscovered as better than originally thought? Stonehenge, some weird plan to turn children and people into androids…fucking weird. I did research it, though, and apparently John Carpenter wanted to do the films as an anthology series built around Halloween; kind of like American Horror Story, only with films. The film tanked, so they brought back Michael Myers with Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, which had Sasha Jenson, my crush fromDazed and Confused, as a supporting character. I went on to watch Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers–but again, no Jamie Lee Curtis. Instead, these two movies focused on Laurie Strode’s DAUGHTER (!!!!) who was a child; Laurie and her husband died in a car accident or something, and so the little girl was staying with a foster family, and Michael came for her.

As far as slasher movies go, these last two weren’t bad; they just didn’t feel like Halloween movies. It was also unsettling because he was psycho-stalking a child, and that just didn’t feel right or fun to watch. I mean, it’s one thing when the victims are relatively attracted and slightly talented twenty-somethings pretending (badly) to be teenagers…but a little girl? Too may squick factors there for me to enjoy the movies as much. But…now I can say I’ve seen practically all of them, so that’s something, I guess?

And now it’s Friday morning, and I need to, once again, reconnect to my life and everything that’s going on and everything I need to get done. The Lost Apartment is again a disaster area, I haven’t been to the gym all week, and…ugh. All I really want to do is go back to bed and sleep for the rest of the weekend, frankly. But I am way behind (my constant refrain) and need to get caught up. The Saints are on Monday night football (note to self: alternate route home from work Monday night) so I have all day Sunday to get stuff done, and of course the LSU-Mississippi game isn’t until two-thirty on CBS Saturday, so I have most of Saturday morning as well to get things done. I think we’re going to watch Dune tonight; I just wanted to get a feel for the movie last night, which is why I started watching and it looks amazing in scope and style and visuals.

I first read Dune when I was in high school, and loved it. At that point there were only three books–the original trilogy; the other two being Dune Messiah (which I didn’t like near as much) and Children of Dune (which I did enjoy very much) and was very excited when Mr. Herbert continued the series; I think I only read the next three (God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, Chapterhouse: Dune) and loved them all. (I stopped reading the books when Mr. Herbert died and his son took over; no offense to his son, but…it just didn’t feel right to me. And while I appreciate series being continued by new authors after the original passes, I’m not interested in reading them because the original mind behind them isn’t controlling the direction anymore, if that makes sense? This is entirely different to me than authors who become brands and new authors come in as “co-writers”; I don’t expect those books to be the same as those by the original, brand name author–like James Patterson and Robert Ludlum) Dune was my first forage into science fiction, actually; I’d never read any before, and that’s another reason why I am so partial to the book/series: it was my gateway drug. The next summer Star Wars came out, and by the end of the decade I was reading Azimov* and other science fiction writers, like Heinlein and Bradbury and an entire new world had opened for me in fiction. (I feel like this might be the proper place to mention how much I admire science fiction/fantasy authors; the world building alone requires so much work and so much attention to detail that I cannot wrap my mind around it, let alone attempt doing it.)

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and deepest apologies for not checking in with you yesterday.

*I have also started watching Foundation on Apple Plus; but more on that in a later post.

I’m On My Way Back Home

Saturday morning and I feel remarkably well rested this morning, and better than I have for weeks when I wake up. I’m not sure what this is about–I am not going to talk about the absence of insomnia lately, which has been marvelous–but I am merely going to take it as a lovely occurrence and run with it.

I guess the most exciting news around here is that we have a mouse in the house, living inside the walls and emerging from behind the dishwasher/refrigerator to occasionally raid Scooter’s food dish. The exterminator came yesterday–and we also discovered the reason the dishwasher is leaking is because the fucking mouse ate through a hose, the little shit–so hopefully this problem will be rectified soon. Scooter has done a good job of keeping the mouse trapped in his area–but he’s not always downstairs. I saw the mouse the other day, eating out of Scooter’s food bowl, and chased it back to his hiding place/residence. It’s not a terribly huge deal–with this old house and all the wildlife thriving in this jungle, tropical climate, it’s really amazing we’ve not had one in over ten years; my theory is the mouse came exploring under the house, and was chased into the house by one of the outdoor cats, and once he was inside, well, wouldn’t you live in the walls of the nice safe house where you can hide out of reach of the predatory cat inside, rather than in the dangerous wilds below the house where any number of cats roam?

I guess we should be glad it isn’t an opossum–the family that was living in the crepe myrtles have disappeared since some of the trees were cut down and the ones left behind trimmed down. Those are almost impossible to get out of the house.

Last night we watched Ted Lasso, which was marvelous (I teared up several times, as I do with every episode, and yet the show always leaves you feeling joy), as well as some other episodes of shows we’re watching but right now I cannot think of what any of them were. How peculiar. Oh, of course, The Morning Show. Foundation is also up on Apple TV now, and i really want to watch it, but am not sure if Paul will be interested. I read the entire Azimov series (ironically, when I read it, it was simply called The Foundation Trilogy, because there were only three at the time; same with Dune. The fourth books in both series were released after I’d read the original trilogies, and now both have been adapted at around the same time!) when I was relatively young–it was definitely before the release of the fourth book, Foundation’s Edge–and I greatly enjoyed them; they were my window into the world of Azimov’s science fiction, which I eventually read a lot of (he eventually connected his other trilogies–the Robot books and the spacer books–to this same trilogy into a sweeping history of the galaxy, really) and greatly enjoyed. I don’t really remember many characters or much of the story of Foundation, other than mathematician Hari Seldon could, using mathematical formulas, accurately predict the future, and when the series opens, his calculations show that the mighty Galactic Empire is falling–and the period of darkness for humanity that will follow in the wake of the collapse of the Empire will last for ten thousand years. However, if he and a team of Encyclopedists are given funding and a place to work without interruption or interference for a thousand years, collecting all the knowledge and history of the galaxy in that time, the darkness will only last a few hundred years or so because of the Encyclopedia. This is the basic premise of the series, which eventually proves to be so much more involved and so much else going on…it was fascinating. But I am not sure how it will work as a series–the trailers look epic–so it might not interest Paul, which means something else I’d have to watch on my own.

The LSU game today is on at eleven, which is insane and unusual and really kind of puts a fly in the ointment of the day, doesn’t it? There aren’t many good games today–the only other one of even slight interest is Arkansas-Texas A&M–so I should be able to get through the emotional rollercoaster of the LSU game early enough to get things done; at least finish reading Velvet Was the Night, which is what I really want to do, and maybe do some writing/editing; it’s way overdue, but I’ve also been doing a lot of thinking about the writing lately, so it’s time to put those thoughts onto the page before other thoughts and ideas push them out and they languish, forgotten and abandoned, in the deepest and darkest recesses of my brain. Christ, the Saints game is also at noon tomorrow. Whatever happened to night fucking games?

I did manage to get some cleaning done up in the kitchen yesterday after work; I got caught up on the dishes (which have been piling up since the dishwasher started leaking; the days of rinsing something out and/or using a sponge to clean it with soap before placing it in the dishwasher to keep the sinks free are gone until that hose is replaced; the handyman is theoretically going to do it on Monday) and the laundry, started picking up things around the living room, and also pruned some more books off the shelves. Now if I can get the desk area/office space better organized…maybe I can even make myself sit at the computer and write for a while? Stranger things have happened.

I am also doing a promo thing for my publisher tonight at six o’clock central time; it involves a reading and a chat about my book along with other Bold Strokes authors who have books coming out in October; you can register here if you would like to.

And at some point today, I’ll need to pick a small section of the book to read from; and practice a bit.

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

Come Back…Be Here

And now it’s Thursday, and we’re sliding into the weekend slowly but surely. I’m just keeping my head down and doing what I need to get through what’s left of my life, frankly. I’m actually, as I near sixty, really grateful for being a gay American, particularly this week–because it means I am used to being disappointed in, and by, my fellow Americans.

I’ve always believed that more Americans than not would be perfectly happy if all queers were put in camps–and would be okay with people of color joining us there. I started writing a book about that very thing back in the early 1990’s–There Comes a Tide was what I called it, which is a great title I should repurpose, as I doubt I will ever write the book–which led me to study the rise of Nazism in Germany, which I knew about but not in any kind of depth. It was really a strange experience–but one I would recommend…because it put me into a mindset of looking around at my friends and family and co-workers and wondering, if they came for the queers, who would avert their eyes? Who would pretend it wasn’t happening? And who would do and/or say something? Who could I count on to hide me?

It was, quite frankly, a horrible exercise in cynicism, human nature and brutal honesty…and I also began, at the same time, to understand why the movie Cabaret was actually so fucking brilliant, and that Bob Fosse was, after all, a genius–something I recognize more and more every time I watch the film again. (Maybe it’s time for yet another rewatch, and it definitely would fit into the Cynical 70’s Film Festival…hmmm. Definitely worth a second thought for sure.) I also want to watch more of Fosse’s films–I don’t think I’ve ever seen All That Jazz all the way through, and there’s also Lenny and Star 80….hmmm some more.

I did make it to the gym last evening after work and it was quite marvelous. I was definitely too cranky, wound up and tired to go Tuesday–and while I did worry that not going was the first step onto that slippery slope of “blow it off once, you’re much more likely to blow it off twice”, I did manage to not only go after work last night, I actually enjoyed it, felt tremendous after I went, and I kind of liked the walk through the neighborhood in the dark. It was a lovely cool evening, and when I walked past Coliseum Square a “piano truck” had parked there along Race Street, and while I did leave my headphones in, I thought it was kind of charming that a freelance pianist was set up in the park. I am still amazed at how much better I feel now that I am working out again–it eases my stress, releases tension in my back and other muscles, and the stretching is simply marvelous. I’m still getting used to my new gym–seeing new people, using new machines that are slightly different from any I’ve used before, and everyone there seems really nice–but it still doesn’t feel like my gym yet; but then we belonged to St. Charles Athletic Club for seventeen years, which is an incredibly long time to belong to a gym. But then again, when you’re pushing sixty, there are any number of things you’ve been doing routinely for a very long time.

I did work on “Condos, for Sale or Rent” for a hot minute last night as well before repairing to the easy chair–I’ve become addicted to a series of Youtube videos called Lost in Adaptation, where the narrator (Dom, a British guy) compares novels to the film adaptations, including “what they kept” and “what they changed.” (My personal favorite with the David Lynch Dune vs. the novel; suffice it to say Dom found the film as ludicrous and silly an adaptation as I did. He also did good ones for Rebecca, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, The Bad Seed, and The Shining.)

I slept deeply and well last night and feel very rested this morning, which is great. While the election still isn’t quite yet over, I’ve reached a kind of zen-like state about the entire thing, and I find that, once again, I was carrying a lot of electoral stress in my subconscious and in my back. I feel a lot more like myself now–indeed, yesterday and today both–like I’ve finally found myself again. There are still some things that I need to handle, but I am feeling better about them–and like I can get everything done that I need to get done, which is an absolutely lovely feeling, quite frankly. This has seriously been quite the year–and that is the definition of understatement, I think. Yeesh, Carnival certainly seems like it was a million years or so ago, doesn’t it? Granted, it was also the “Carnival of Death,” with two major parades ending early after floats killed people (!), which kind of should have let us all know that it was going to be a shit-show of a year; when Carnival sucks and isn’t fun….that should be the indicator that we all need to keep our heads down and try not to attract much attention and just try to endure it all. Granted, there’s still two nearly full months of 2020 to go, of course, and there’s still plenty of time left for sucker punches and cheap shots and low blows from this annus horribilis.

A most unpleasant but highly likely possibility.

Today is a work at home day for me, and I am debating what to watch during the condom packing part of my day. I’m going to check to see if Coppola’s 1974 film The Conversation (over-shadowed completely by being released in the same year as The Godfather Part II) is available to stream anywhere–I think it may be on Amazon Prime–and I also have to get my checking account straightened out at some point today; but I also don’t have to leave the house today if I don’t choose–and I am thinking I do not choose. I have stuff to make for dinner, and I can hold off groceries until Saturday, methinks. I really feel this morning that not going outside the house–other than to take out the trash and/or get the mail and/or go to the gym–until Saturday is optimal. I’m just really not in the mood for people, to be honest, and I like this rested feeling I am experiencing this morning.

And now to tackle the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, everyone.

Safe and Sound

Coffee is quite marvelous. Hello, dark roast my old friend…I’ve missed you so these last few days.

Saturday, and all is well again in the Lost Apartment. The power came back on yesterday afternoon, almost exactly forty-eight hours after it went out; and I immediately did the dishes and started a load of laundry. The Lost Apartment was already a mess before the storm came, and without light…well, it’s not only hard to clean but it’s fucking hard to find anything. I also was sleeping a lot–what else are you going to do when there’s no light, no power, no television, no Internet–and ironically, all the extra sleep simply made me more tired.

Then again, it could have been THE LACK OF COFFEE.

So today begins the actual process of digging out. The sidewalk along the house is covered in branches and various other storm debris, which will need to be cleaned up, bagged, and put on the curb. I need to go make groceries today, stop by the bank, get the mail, all sorts of things that have to be done. I need to start going through my emails, remembering where I was with everything and pick that back up again. One of the sad results of the storm is the neighbors spent a lot of yesterday chopping down some of the crepe myrtles in their back yard–those crepe myrtles blocked the sun from my windows, so now with them gone the sun shines directly into them–which is going to be a problem when the summer rolls around again. This means I will probably, finally, have to hang curtains over my workspace windows–else the hot summer sun will turn my kitchen–which already gets too hot–into a green house, and make it completely unbearable in here. I do have the little Arctic Air conditioners, and may have to be a few more to handle this new development. I may even have to figure out a new set-up for my workspace, because even as I type this the sun is in my eyes and quite unpleasant. Damned crepe myrtles, anyway.

LSU plays Auburn today; the sportscasters call it the Tiger Bowl, as both team names are Tigers. It’s a rivalry of sorts–neither school likes each other very much, but it’s not as bitter as the rivalry with Florida, or as long as the one with Mississippi. There’s no trophy, like there is for the Arkansas game, and there’s not as much bad blood as there is with Texas A&M. But LSU-Auburn–which used to cause a lot of conflict with me (not any more)–is inevitably always a very good, exciting game; there are few blow-outs, and it often has come down to the last minute, if not the final seconds. LSU has won three in a row–the out-of-nowhere come from behind upset win in 2017; the walk-off field goal in 2018; and in 2019 Auburn held LSU’s championship team to it’s lowest point total of the season (23; it was the only game LSU didn’t score over thirty points, and one of the very few games in which they didn’t score over forty). The game this year is kind of a make-or-break game for the season for both teams, so I am not sure that LSU will make it four in a row. LSU has only lost to Auburn three times in the past decade (2010, 2014, 2016)–and had they snapped the ball one second faster in 2016 they would have won that game. The game is at Auburn this year; Auburn hasn’t won in Baton Rouge since 1999–an impressive streak, actually. I need to get a lot done this morning so I can enjoy the game in peace, without worry or fear–and I also need to check the game time for the Saints’ game tomorrow.

We watched the season premiere of The Mandalorian last night, and as with every episode, I was incredibly impressed. The episode itself was kind of a throwback to the first Star Wars movie; it brings Mando and the Child back to Tatooine, to look for another mandalorian to help him find the Child’s people so he can deliver him back to his own kind safely, and involved the Tusken Raiders (sand people) from that first movie. They wind up working with guest star Timothy Olyphant (who really should be a much bigger star than he is), his town, and the Tusken Raiders to track down and kill a krayt dragon–which essentially was a sandworm from Dune, and a bit of a change for Star Wars and Tatooine; odd that these creatures never showed up or were mentioned before–but all in all it was a terrific episode and lots of fun, and as always, visually stunning. The Child–the break out star of the show–didn’t really have very much to do in the episode, but really, all he needs to do is be there. There’s also a teaser at the very end that Boba Fett–the Boba Fett–is still alive and on Tatooine; clues are dropped throughout the episode that allude to him, and wouldn’t that be an AMAZING development for the show? Yes, yes, it would. Needless to say, we love this show and are very excited for Friday nights for a new episode.

The weather has also turned; a cold front has rolled in behind the storm and it’s been a lovely change. It feels like fall now, just in time for Halloween. It doesn’t really seem like Halloween, quite frankly, despite the dressing up of houses and the candy on sale everywhere; I can’t imagine children are going to be trick-or-treating tonight, and of course Gay Halloween didn’t happen this year, or any of the big usual New Orleans Halloween things–masquerade balls, haunted houses, etc.–so like with so many other things this year that generally mark the passing of time, Halloween will come and go as just another date on the calendar.

I’m trying to decide what to read next; I have so many amazing books on hand that I want to get to that it makes deciding very difficult for me. I’m still reading Gore Vidal’s Lincoln, and am much further along in it than I thought I was. I’m feeling like I need to read some crime fiction, though some fantasy and horror novels I have on hand are looking pretty appealing at the moment. I didn’t do very well with my Halloween/October horror reading/watching month, which is of course is disappointing, but 2020 has been a rather disappointing kind of year, quite frankly. I think I have another unread Paul Tremblay I could start today–I also think there are some unread Christopher Goldens in my TBR pile as well.

I am kind of seeing the hurricane/power outage as a reboot of the year; like a force restart on my computer. I realize now that yesterday’s rant about the inconvenience of a power outage was evidence of privilege when others in the area are still without power, and lots of people are much worse off. But I also believe that you can’t even berate yourself for being frustrated with events beyond your control and shouldn’t stop yourself from venting simply because you are better off than others; that just bottles it all up and the explosion coming later is all the worse because you’ve bottled up anger and frustration–and Im sure this equanimity about it all this morning will change the moment I start going through my fridge and start dumping spoiled/ruined food that needs to be replaced.

Wednesday night wasn’t a good night, as I may have mentioned before; after the hurricane had passed the release of stress and so forth left me drained and exhausted and sleeping on and off before I went to bed very early (between nine and nine thirty!). Thursday night was kind of more fun; Paul and I lit all the candles and camped out in the living room and pretended we were back in college and one of us had forgotten to pay the power bill so we had to drink wine by candle light and hang out–and worry about paying the bill the next day. I’m rarely nostalgic for the past, and when nostalgia does come over me, it’s usually not my college years I look back to fondly…but there was something nice about sitting around with Paul drinking wine in candlelight and talking about things. I’ve decided to ignore politics and the election as much as I can; I’ve already decided who I am voting for and nothing is going to change my mind, so why torture myself with all the worry and stress and negativity? Everyone I know has decided, if not already voted; so I am pushing it all out of my mind until I get up Tuesday morning and walk over to the International School to cast my ballot for a return to sanity–and it’s all beyond my control anyway. I need to remember the lesson of not worrying about things I cannot control.

I went to the gym again yesterday morning before heading to the office for the afternoon; I am most pleased that I am sticking to the workout routine (although I’d intended to go on Thursday) and will be returning again tomorrow morning. My body feels so much better now that I am working out again, and as I get deeper into it, I am really looking forward to adding cardio and moving on to getting into better eating habits. I need to start checking my Mediterranean Diet cookbook–which I am also assuming will include more olives, feta cheese, and yogurt into my diet–but I need to dig back out from under again before starting something else new.

And on that note, I am going to make another cup of coffee and start the process of clean up. Have a lovely Halloween, Constant Reader, and may all your Halloween hopes and wishes come true.