Tag: emails

I’m Moving On

And I am back home.

I got here last night sometime between seven-thirty and eight; I don’t remember exactly what time I left Kentucky. I was also adventurous and broke tradition by coming home a different way than I have every time I’ve driven back since my parents moved up there. This actually is a big deal; I used to have a lot of anxiety when I drove–I don’t know why the thought of missing a turn or getting lost has always wound me tighter than a drum, but I guess it was the anxiety. But I was relaxed all the way up there, and I was relaxed all the way back, which was nice. I wasn’t even tired when I got there Tuesday night, either; I think the anxiety used to wear me out. I was tired when I got home last night, though; so I guess I did have a bit of it because I didn’t know where I was going. This time, I took the Cumberland Parkway across Kentucky to I-65 and came down through Nashville rather than Chattanooga. It was a very nice drive, and I don’t think I’ll have anxiety the next time I come that way.

It was also nice to unplug from the world. I only checked email to delete junk, and I think I answered one email–from my editor–on Tuesday while I was on the road. I have no idea what it going on in the country and the world, and I’m not really sure I want to get caught up, either. I do have some things I need to do today–our grocery situation is kind of dire–and some laundry and chores, and I don’t think I am going to attempt to do any kind of writing today–maybe in my journal. I listened to Laurie R. King’s superb O Jerusalem on the way up, and to Carl Hiaasen’s Fever Beach on the way back; which I have about an hour left to finish–it’s excellent and hilarious and thought-provoking, and there will definitely be more about both audiobooks in the newsletter, and relatively soon (I hope) at that. I didn’t listen to my Donna Andrews Christmas audiobook because I didn’t finish the Meg Langslow book I’d started last weekend. I will finish reading A Flock and a Hard Place this week, but am not sure when I’ll be able to get to the audiobook. I think I had decided to make December “Noirmas Season,” so I am going to try to get some noir read or revisited this next month, probably starting with The Postman Always Rings Twice, because it’s been a hot minute and what better way to kick off Noirmas Season than with the master? I also have some television to catch up on, too.

But the apartment is in pretty good shape, so I shouldn’t have too much trouble getting back on track this morning, huzzah! I have email inboxes to clean out (my email tab shows over 110 this morning; it’s not freaking me out the way it would have before, but still). I did watch the end of Alabama-Auburn last night when I got home, which was a much better game than I was expecting. I was driving and missed LSU-Oklahoma, which turned out to be a better game than I was expecting in the first place. Most of the teams I was rooting for over the “rivalry weekend” lost, which was disappointing, but they were mostly good games. I am really not interested in the post-season, but will watch LSU’s bowl game if they go to one, thus freeing up my Saturdays going forward. I am a bit better about not being glued to my easy chair every Saturday, too. The anxiety medication has apparently also removed my fear of missing out, which is really nice.

I’m really glad I went, to be honest. It was nice seeing all of my extended immediate family again–I have some really good-looking and smart grand-nieces and nephews (sigh)–and I enjoy spending time with Dad. I am learning a lot about the family history from him, and it’s nice hearing about what things were like for him and Mom when they first started dating and their early married life. And not being fatigued and worn out by driving twelve hours twice within a five day period the way I would have been before is also good to know. I’ve been feeling a lot better these last few weeks, in all honesty, and I think not being tired after work until Thursday night is a VAST improvement. I was getting kind of worried that the fatigue and lack of energy was my new normal, which was concerning but there was no point in even worrying about it because it was beyond my control. I do think I am going to start working on my physical condition a bit more going ahead, like going back to the gym and getting into better shape. What’s with the crazy talk, amirite?

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines. Hope you had a marvelous holiday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back either later today (stranger things have happened, you know) with another entry or a newsletter or maybe…nothing at all until tomorrow morning.

The Roman Emperor Hadrian’s lover, Antinoüs, depicted as the Egyptian god Osiris

Lookin’ for Love

…in all the wrong places1…

Thursday and my last day in the office for this week. How exciting! I have no idea what the weekend holds for me; I know I will watch the LSU game for a while, but if it goes the way I’m expecting it to I won’t need to watch after half-time. I’m not sure what other games are this weekend, but I’ll have the television on for sure playing games all day while I do other things, like pick up and clean and read and write and all the other fun things I get to do every weekend. I was a bit tired yesterday when I got off from work yesterday (I started to say night, but is it night at five? The sun was still up…sort of), but came straight home. I did some chores (laundry, the dishes) and picked up some around the kitchen. I also caught up on the news (I am really enjoying the MAGA meltdown2, because I am far pettier than they could ever hope to be), and then did a little writing–not much, just a smidgen. But it still counts!

Paul won’t be home tonight until I’ve probably fallen asleep; he’s going to some gala event fundraiser. I probably should go and be Mrs. Festival, but I’ll be so tired I’d fall asleep in a chair somewhere. I feel like I slept well–my mind is alert and other than some ache in my hips, everything else feels fine, which is definitely odd for a Thursday. I’m alone and without a nurse in the clinic again today, but I also don’t think we’re going to be very busy, either. I feel much better overall since my injection on Monday, which is very cool. Maybe I’ll actually be able to get some writing done tonight, since I have the house to myself. Stranger things have happened. Or I’ll just watch some more videos about Appalachian legend and lore. I am really enjoying these, as well as the “Dixie After Dark” podcast, which is really interesting and fun to listen to…and inspirational.

I finally got my email inbox cleared out yesterday, and I definitely like having an empty inbox. I usually fall behind on it, slowly but surely, and a trip will always make me fall behind. Now that my anxiety is (mostly) under control these days, having a full inbox no longer makes me tense and nervous. Weird, I know, but a leftover from serving on boards and getting buried in blizzards of emails. I had to stay current on my email then in order to not get so far behind I could never catch up…but that is certainly no longer the case, so it’s never that much work to empty it, to be honest, and I love that for me.

This week’s episode of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City wasn’t as good as last week’s–a very high bar to clear–but I was highly entertained for the entire episode and never got bored–you never get bored with this cast. I also have to applaud production, because it’s very clear they know what people are watching for and they camp the show up considerably, making it even more fun than just the usual women-screaming-at-each-other-over-petty -shit. I did laugh multiple times, and it took me out of the our present doom-scape (like the election results did; I think my favorite outcome of all was the ouster of the Moms for Liberty3 skanks from school boards everywhere, including red states, cities, and counties. Fuck off, Libs of Tiktok, now and forever. Odd that your concern for children doesn’t extend to voting for and supporting pedophiles. It’s like you don’t really care about children as anything other than political pawns, which is both reprehensible and evil.

Turns out most Americans think you’re scum, too.

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

  1. Yes, I remember when Urban Cowboy came out and country went more mainstream. I remember a bar in Emporia even put in a mechanical bull–and no, I never did it myself. ↩︎
  2. Also was able to use the Islamophobic posts to block and delete people from my feed. I stand for no bigotry and never want to see it on my feed. The Debra Messing meltdown was something else entirely, but I was never a fan of hers. Maybe someday I’ll critique Will and Grace. ↩︎
  3. Any group that puts “liberty” in their name actually is fascist and should be side-eyed and blocked from any electoral office. ↩︎

Gloria

Friday with a tooth extraction looming. Not really a yay, but at the same time I’ll be delighted to get that pesky tooth problem finally taken care of–and yes, I am at that age, and of that heritage, where I am counting the teeth I have left (the real “heritage, not hate” of rural Southern people).

I spent most of yesterday making condom packs–the boxes are starting to take over the living room, so I am going to have to take them all into the office relatively soon–and getting caught up on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (#lockherup) and Superman and Lois (which I love; more on that to come), and then doing laundry and straightening things up around the house. There’s still a lot to do, as always, and I was reflecting this morning (as I lazed in bed until nearly eight) that I haven’t matched last week’s writing production at all this week. Part of it is depleted creative batteries–I really drained them writing nearly twenty thousand words in a week–and said depletion inevitably brings self-doubt and imposter syndrome in its wake. I’m getting better about the imposter syndrome (about time, really) and feel a lot more confident about writing in general lately; I am feeling more like my normal, balanced self again. I’d love to get “The Sound of Snow Falling” finished this weekend, as well as the revision of chapter one of Chlorine–as well as deciding which novella to try to get finished by the July 4th weekend (I am torn between “Never Kiss a Stranger” and “A Holler Full of Kudzu”); but that’s also going to be dependent on how the tooth thing goes and what kind of pain killers I am on for the weekend. I am hoping that I’ll be able to focus and get shit done regardless of what pain killers I am taking–but I also suspect that they aren’t going to be as free and easy with them as they were the last time I had teeth pulled, which was eleven years ago (thanks greedy trash Sackler family for creating the opioid crisis! May you all burn in hell for eternity!). My email inbox also needs attention, and I really need to sit down and write out who all I owe emails to as well as answer the significant amount of them that have piled up in the meantime.

And in a worst case scenario in which I am completely leveled by the painkillers, hopefully I can at least read, or watch movies or something. I really do want to finally watch The Godfather films–yes, I know–along with any number of classic American and foreign films I’ve never seen. One of the lovely things about working at home and doing the condom packs has been getting to watch films I’ve never seen and have always wanted to, as well as the occasional rewatch of something classic, like Cabaret or The Last Picture Show. I’ve been enjoying my education in film history, great performances, and terrific film making, even if some are flawed and don’t live up to the hype (I understand the importance of The French Connection in film history, but the plot is terribly flawed, and while it doesn’t really make Popeye Doyle into a hero…it depicts him realistically as a very flawed cop…its stark realistic approach to police brutality, civil rights abuse, and systemic racism embodied in Doyle is almost painful to watch; but Hackman earned his Oscar).

I also have some other blog entries I want to get finished and posted over the weekend–an in-depth discussion of Superman and Lois, as well as something deeply personal I may never post (that old ‘bleeding in public’ thing which I still struggle with from time to time) but I am trying to embrace my past more rather than simply moving on from it; which I also recognize is kind of strange. “You’re going to talk about things in your blog that you’ve never talked about with friends over the decades?” Yes, I get that it’s strange, but I also know in writing about things from my past–the way my mind remembers them, even if they aren’t precisely accurate–will help me come to terms with some things. My methodology of never looking back and just living in the present while planning for the future may have helped me get to where I am today, but it may not have been the most emotionally healthy way for me to grow and develop, and most of all, heal. Things I thought were scarred over have not actually healed beyond a scab, which comes off rather easily once I remember it’s there–and that isn’t healthy. Freeing myself from some of these burdens from the past could certainly not hurt in any way, shape or form.

It’s getting cloudy, which might mean a thunderstorm is arriving at any moment; not sure how I feel about that. We’ve been having a lot of rain lately–and while I do love a thunderstorm (there’s something comforting about being safely warm and dry inside while it pours down outside), we’ve certainly been having an excess of them lately. The ground is already saturated, so it’s harder for the rain to be absorbed into the ground so the streets flood more easily–and as the payoff on my car draws nearer and nearer, I worry about it being ruined more than I have…

And on that bright note, I am heading into the data-entry spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, everyone!

Slow Jam

Monday morning and we’re in a flash flood warning–which means it’s flooding somewhere. The phone advisory said (you know, the loud beeping warning at four a.m.) to not even try to go anywhere before eight….of course, I need to be at the office by seven thirty, so there’s that. Sigh. The storm seems to have passed–there was some amazing thunder and lightning I was aware of while I was sleeping comfortably in my warm bed and under my soft, comfortable covers–so I’m not sure if the gray outside is the predawn gray I see every morning, and from the storm. It’s supposed to rain heavily every day until Thursday; this is definitely the wettest spring I can remember us having since we moved here all those years ago.

Yesterday was a good day. I may not have gotten all the things done that I wanted to get done, but I spent a goodly portion of my afternoon answering emails (saving as drafts to be sent today) and my inbox is almost completely emptied out for the first time in I don’t know how long, and it feels pretty fucking marvelous, in all honesty. Emails often defeat me, frankly; there are days when I look at all of them sitting there in my inbox and just close it again. This morning, with an almost empty inbox and some serious energy–two nights in a row of good, deep sleep, in case you were wondering–and I am chastising myself thoroughly for ever letting it get to the point where I need to scroll down through several pages to get to the bottom of them all. OH, no worries–I am sure I will get to that point once again, and probably relatively soon–but being caught up on such a thing makes me feel accomplished this morning, and I am going to roll with that feeling.

I walked to the gym yesterday afternoon in the insane heat (it was in the nineties, but not really humid yesterday) and got in a really good workout. I wasn’t trying to hurry through it the way I usually do–although I did do it quickly–but the gym was deserted and I was able to do the workout the way I like to do it; supersetting exercises and pushing myself (obviously, the key to going to the gym on Sunday is not to go around noon but to wait until about one thirty) and adding weight to the final set. I pushed myself and it felt good, then I came home and filed and organized and cleaned the kitchen. We had started watching a show on Netflix Saturday night, Sky Rojo, which was crazy and fun and action-packed; it’s about three prostitutes in the Canary Island who finally rebel against the abusive pimp in the bordello they work in and make a run for it, being pursued by his evil henchmen, and it was highly entertaining. The episodes were also a lot shorter than I thought–maybe half an hour at most–and we finished it early evening. Then we started watching Jupiter’s Legacy, a superhero series on Netflix based on some graphic novels–we loved Watchmen and The Boys–and despite a rather dull, predictable, and tedious first episode, the show began picking up with the second and we started enjoying it. I’ve always wanted to do a superhero novel myself–it’s one of my bucket list items, along with writing a comic book–and as always, I started thinking about the idea I had for one back in the 1980’s, and have toyed with every so often ever since. (I always end up talking myself out of it, because it’s hard to do any kind of superhero story anymore that isn’t derivative, and isn’t the theme always with great power comes great responsibility? But seeing this, and The Boys..the key is to take something derivative and turn it into something original, which is a terrific challenge, and I like challenges.)

I still haven’t decided what to read next, but I am leaning towards Walter Mosley’s A Red Death; I’d like to get back to my attempt to get through his entire canon. The problem, as always, is there is so little time for me to read, to write, and to get everything finished around the house (chores etc.) around my full-time job and my MWA responsibilities. But it can be done–when I am tired, for example, like reading Summer of ’42 in a single afternoon this past weekend–and so I need to remember that sometimes one can read even when one is tired.

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

Academic

And just like that, it’s Saturday again, and huzzah to everyone for making it through another week. It’s another beautiful morning here in New Orleans; the sun already high and shining bright, the sky bright blue. I have errands to run and the gym to get to, and then I am planning on spending the rest of the day reading the manuscript and editing it. It will be a full day here in the Lost Apartment, and I relish getting back to work on my book. I hate being behind–this was the month I was supposed to spend getting caught up on everything else and finishing short stories so next month I could focus on Chlorine–but delays and things happen, as always, and sure, I am in that time of life where one is acutely aware of how quickly the sand is slipping through the hourglass–but I have also learned to not beat myself up over things I have little control over. I have no control over whether I sleep well, for example, and I have no control over my energy levels. I can do the best that I can, but I exert only so much control over any of those things.

Not allowing myself to get upset or stressed over things I cannot control is a lesson I am still learning, alas.

I often feel pulled in many directions (and am fully aware that this is probably the case for everyone; it seems as though everyone is having a rough time since the pandemic shut down the world last year–almost a full year ago; we closed down services at my day job on March 16th) with an inevitable amount of endless tasks for everything I am involved in, and usually every day I have an idea of what I want and/or need to get done with every day; and yet I never achieve those goals because inevitably something new pops in and/or pops up that requires attention of some sort from me, and this inevitably results in me not getting to everything that needs getting to, which then makes the to-do list seem even more endless, and on and on. Part of the problem I’ve been having since the pandemic altered everything is my inability to sit down and make an actual to-do list–because the to-do list would inevitably require me to get through all of my emails, and I sometimes have neither the strength nor the patience to work my way through them all. Right now in my primary in-box I have 56 unread emails–I’ve already deleted the trek–and there’s about another 100 or so in there I’ve already read that probably need a response, or an addition to my to-do list.

I also remembered last night, as Paul and I watched the LSU gymnastics team defeat Missouri, that I’ve never finished watching two shows I really liked and was enjoying that he didn’t–Perry Mason on HBO Max and Penny Dreadful: City of Angels on Showtime. So those, along with a rewatch binge of Megan Abbott’s Dare Me, should go on my list of things to watch while I am making condom packs–or when I am done with work for the day and Paul’s not home. I was quite delighted that he came home from the office so we could watch the gymnastics; I am not really seeing a lot of him these days and so those moments when he is home are more to be cherished and enjoyed because of their rarity. I am a Festival widow every March, really; but this year more so than any other I am really looking forward to the Festival being over.

I also would like to get back into reading some more…I’m not sure what in my brain is broken, but for some reason I can’t read anything other than the chapter of so of Gore Vidal’s Lincoln that I get through every morning. I think it’s a combination of all the things I have hanging over my head, quite frankly, that keeps me from reading–and as I’ve also said, watching television or a movie or even just Youtube videos is much more passive than active and requires little to no brain power. I did come up with a couple of great titles yesterday for short stories as I made my condom packs and continued watching videos about queer representation in films and television from the 1960’s through the 1990’s; there was a lovely little video yesterday of how the Queer Cruise videos guy was helped to come out by viewing The Rocky Horror Picture Show when he was in high school; and that got me thinking about my own history with Rocky Horror, and what it meant to me; perhaps yet another essay someday. Is that still shown as a midnight movie? I would imagine not, given the pandemic and the fact that’s been on television and available to purchase on tape or download now for decades; I remember thinking the first time it aired on television well, that’s the end of that and it honestly did feel like the end of an era. I imagine many freaks and weirdos and queer kids no longer need something like The Rocky Horror Picture Show as a gateway to their own worlds and the possibilities that life holds for them…there’s more and more queer rep all the time, in books, movies, plays, and television; although I would imagine in more repressive parts of the country Rocky Horror would still be a revelation.

And now I am thinking about writing a short story or a book about a murder built around a midnight showing of the movie. Oy, it really never ends…

I also like this other idea for a story I came up with yesterday: “The Rites of False Spring.” I scribbled down a lot of notes about that one.

And on that note, the spice won’t mine itself, so I should probably head on into the mines.

Delusions of Grandeur

So, we survived yet another manic quarantine Monday, did we not? And here we are, ready to get on with our week with another Tuesday. Huzzah! Or so I think. The jury may still be out on this week.

I am working an early shift today, which is why I am awake while there is still dark pressing against my windows. But I’m on my first cappuccino (of the two I allow myself,  only on days when I have to get up this early) and so soon my mind will be dusted free of cobwebs and I can face looking at my email inbox…ha ha ha, just kidding! The only thing that would prepare me for my inbox is a good belt of bourbon, methinks–and one might not even be enough.

Focus.

I need to focus, for I have too much to do for me not to.  What else is new, though, right?

We started watching a dreadful new Netflix show, Outer Banks, last night. We’d finished the concluding chapter of Tales of the City on Sunday night, and thus needed something new to watch. It’s not good, but it was entertaining enough for us to watch the first three episodes (it’s really hard to decide based on a first episode alone–we made that mistake with Schitt’s Creek initially, and yes, it was a complete mistake)–it’s essentially set up as a locals vs. rich people struggle, Pogues against Kooks, and of course, as always, the poor scrappy law-breaking Pogues are who we’re supposed to root for; and there’s also a treasure hunt and murders involved–a ship carrying four hundred million dollars in gold sank off the Outer Banks back in the 1800’s, our hero’s missing father was looking for the ship, and so on. I doubt we’ll continue–when it was time for bed and turning off the television, we both decided, meh, it’s good as a back-up when we’ve exhausted every other possibility. 

And given how much I love me a treasure hunt story…yeah.

I also started reading Katherine Anne Porter’s story of the Spanish influenza, “Pale Horse Pale Rider,” and am reminded again how much I really dislike Katherine Anne Porter’s writing style. Several pages into the story, I don’t really give a shit about her characters, Miranda and Adam, because I don’t really know anything about them. Porter writes in a strange style, that follows Miranda’s thought processes, yet at the same time gives us nothing to make us care about Miranda. She comes across as relatively cold; living in her boarding house, worrying about money, dating Adam, with the war as a background in the distance that kind of always is in the back of everyone’s mind. The Spanish influenze pandemic is occurring at the same time yet it doesn’t seem real to Miranda; one thing I will give Porter is she does manage to capture precisely how self-absorbed we all are, and how that self-absorption blinds us to what is really going on all around us, but we ignore it until it directly affects us (writing this note in my journal last night I realized this is something du Maurier also does in her stories–distracting her characters with their own little personal dramas so that they don’t pay attention to what is going on right under their noses, especially in “Don’t Look Now”–and that also was a theme in Thomas Mann’s “Death in Venice”). I don’t know that I’ll go back and finish reading the Porter story; as I said, I am not a fan, and yes, am aware that she won awards and was highly acclaimed as a writer. But…just not feeling it, frankly, not on this read nor on previous ones.

It’s funny that I am reading famous fiction about plagues and epidemics during a global pandemic, and it only just now occurred to me that I’ve not read any writing about HIV or AIDS in years. My novella “Never Kiss a Stranger” is, actually, my first attempt at writing this kind of fiction myself–and I am no longer so familiar with current gay literature that I don’t know if that’s something that has passed out of fashion with gay writers. I don’t think the m/m writers ever address it much; I’ve certainly never written about it before–for a number of reasons. When I first came to discover queer lit, there was a lot of it; almost every book or story about gay men being published, or that had been published since the mid-1980’s, involved it on some level or another. When I first started writing, it was still a question being debated in queer lit circles: was it irresponsible not to mention it, even in passing, in queer lit? Was it irresponsible to write erotica without the use of condoms? And while at the time I started publishing the drug cocktail had been discovered and the breakthroughs to extend life and lessen the impact of the diagnosis, when it came. I’ve very deliberately set “Never Kiss a Stranger” in the New Orleans of 1994, when HIV/AIDS was essentially wiping out the gay community in New Orleans, and I’m trying to capture that feeling of impending doom that hung over all of us back then, the sense of inevitability when it came to getting infected and dying, and how that felt to live through and experience.

The panel we did the other night for the Bold Strokes Book-a-thon was about writing during a pandemic; the interesting thing about that panel was two of us–J. M. Redmann and I–had both written during the previous HIV/AIDS epidemic; COVID-19 is our second time around. I think back to those days before I was a writer, when I was reading gay lit left and right, trying to familiarize myself with topics and themes; I think about the questions that we debated about our own work as we did panels and readings and so forth when my first book came out, and the other new writers doing the same. I remember that the big question then was whether or not we considered ourselves gay writers, or whether our books are gay (I distinctly remember Poppy Z. Brite replying to that question on a panel with “I don’t know, I’ve never asked my books if they were gay”); that all seems kind of silly now. (Frankly, it seemed silly then; it didn’t matter whether we considered ourselves gay authors or our books to be gay; that’s how they were going to be classified whether we liked it or not, and it was cute we thought we had come control over that–we had absolutely none.)

One of the things I am trying to do this week is determine how many things I have in some sort of progress–and I am not including the short stories that have lain unfinished in my files for years; I just want to get a handle on everything that’s in progress for now so I can get a better sense of where I stand on my next short story collection(s), and to see how many novellas there are that need completing–off the top of my under-caffeinated brain this morning, I can only think of three, but I think there are four in total–at least “Never Kiss a Stranger,” “Fireflies,” and “Festival of the Redeemer” are the ones I can remember–perhaps later on I can remember more of them; there should be at least one more, because I remember thinking I could publish them all together in one book so there has to be one more–maybe it was “A Holler Full of Kudzu”? I don’t remember.

And on that note–my lack of memory–I’m going to dive back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader.

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