Tag: Entergy

Every Day is Halloween

Happy Halloween!

A hungry kitty has me up before dawn on this eve of All Hallows, and he is definitely needing more attention as I sit here swilling coffee; he keeps attacking me wanting to play, and doesn’t understand how sharp his Freddie Krueger claws are. I have work to do today, and lots of errands as well. Sparky needs to go to the vet for his annual shots and check-up (and his nails trimmed; we really need to learn how to do this ourselves, as it would stop a lot of bloodshed around here), and Paul needs to get his new phone set up. There’s also mail and some groceries and some other odds and ends to do either today or tomorrow. I feel very rested this morning, which is nice–and a good head start on the weekend, frankly; usually it takes me till Sunday to feel rested and not tired anymore.

I’m enjoying this fall weather (probably won’t take long for me to be over it, though) so far; but it’s nice not to be drenched in sweat as soon as I go outside the front door, or to have my car be as hot as the Sahara after sitting in the sun all day. The heat can be so draining and exhausting; just thinking about next summer makes me shudder a little bit inside. But the weather is another cost of living in New Orleans, that we all willingly pay (along with those nightmarish summer Entergy bills) while wondering how people survived here before electricity and climate control. Back when everyone wore a ridiculous amount of clothing and no electricity, how did they smell? (I often think about how rank the city must have been back in the day, when the gutters were deep for waste and water run off, in all that heat and humidity…yikes, indeed. I can’t get past that whenever I start thinking about writing about the past here…)

I also have thoughts about our janky governor turning himself into a mini-Mussolini, like the MAGA piece of shit he is, but I’ll save that for football Saturday since it’s LSU-related. Suffice it to say, he’s started down a path that could prove consequential for the state’s biggest priority–LSU sports–which would be received here in the state about as well as the worst of Jindal’s crimes as governor. On the other hand, if this winds up making him politically radioactive, it may be worth it. The funniest thing about it is he didn’t even go to LSU. Janky Jeff went to ULL and Loyola here in New Orleans–the same Loyola that rejected Turning Point’s request to be a recognized club. Jesuits aren’t having your MAGA bullshit, Janky Jeff! He also wants to put up a Charlie Kirk statue on LSU’s campus. Make sure you walk all the potential football recruits past that statue, and how is Charlie Kirk1 getting a statue on campus before Joe Burrow or Jayden Daniels? Janky Jeff’s priorities aren’t in the best interests of the flagship university…

I didn’t do a whole lot when I got home from work other than cuddle with Sparky and catch up on the news. I did work on the chores some; I need to do more of that this morning before taking Sparky to the vet; the apartment has looked worse before on Friday mornings, and there’s lots of filing to get done. I also want to finish my final Halloween Horror Month newsletter, since today is the last day for that, but I may just get that done over the weekend. I’ve already made this weekend inclusive for the Halloween weekend, so I don’t even need to rationalize anything! Win-win.

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up and get to work. Have a lovely Halloween, everyone!

Bad Bunny!
  1. And why not put up statues of Rush Limbaugh and David Duke while you are at it, Janky? ↩︎

Love Bites

Work at home Friday! My windows are covered in condensation, as we are expecting rain throughout the day–the thunderstorms are this afternoon. I have some things I need to get done today, including running to the postal service, and I would love to get the apartment finally under control (probably won’t happen) once I am finished with my work. It was a good week in the office, I must say. I slept in until about seven thirty this morning, before Sparky’s need to be fed became overpowering for him and he started hitting me in the face with one of his paws. Poor thing, he has no control over being fed so I always feel a bit guilty sleeping in.

Paul was late getting home again last night, and we watched the season premiere of South Park, and oh, how we laughed. It was one of the most brutal take-downs I’ve ever seen, and not only did 47 get burned like he was Dresden in early 1945, they also went after Paramount, CBS and 60 Minutes—and every last bit of the burns was well deserved. The fact that Paramount just paid $1.5 billion for five new seasons of the show and the streaming rights for every season is just *chef’s kiss*. (Which makes the Administration’s claim “the show has been irrelevant for over twenty years” even more butt-hurt hysterical.) I’ve not watched South Park in a very long time–not sure why or when I stopped watching, but I did–and this isn’t likely to make me want to go back and catch up on all the seasons I’ve missed, but it seems their anarchical mentality for satire has never been lost over the years?

I also kind of love that apparently the show has irritated liberals over the past decade for “punching down”, which made the Right think South Park was for them…and they just found out that it’s most definitely not. Thoughts and prayers, trash, thoughts and prayers.

No one is safe from South Park.

We’re in another heat advisory today, and things may not cool off should we actually get the rain forecast later. I am most likely going to spend as much of the weekend indoors to escape the brutality of the dog days. The new Entergy bill wasn’t as horrific as I thought it might be; it’s still ridiculously high, but not so high that paying it will be a struggle. The bill that will be due in September will be horrible, as well, but then it will start coming down for fall and winter. However did people live down here without air conditioning is a question I ask myself almost every day in the summer–but if you’ve never had it, you don’t miss it, and you adapt to the climate.

There have been a lot of celebrity deaths lately. Ozzy Osbourne, Malcolm Jamal-Warner, and Chuck Mangione all died this past week. Hulk Hogan also died, but that one didn’t hit me with a slight pang of oh that’s a shame; hearing of his death was another one of those good riddance to racist homophobic MAGA trash. I used to be a fan of Hulk Hogan, back in the days when it was the WWF and they did all those crossovers with MTV, which was a lot of fun to follow…but Hogan began wearing thin on me in the 1990s, and by the time we found out he was a bigot (and MAGA), I’d long since been done with him; that information only served to let me know I was right to think he was a garbage person. He did a lot for professional wrestling back in the day, but that didn’t mean he was good at actual wrestling. He had a large personality and knew how to work a crowd, but in the ring he didn’t really have much of a repertoire; he had very limited skills and clearly no desire to learn more…he was just a big man. (Ultimate Warrior was also a shitty wrestler with a huge body.)

Have fun in hell, Hulk.

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

Such pretty eyes!

I Like It Like That

I like it, I like it, I like it like that!

That was another song turned into a great gay dance remix back in my slutty single days. It made me laugh when it became a Burger King commercial; it’s weird to hear something you were dancing to and singing along with at three in the morning drenched in sweat and missing your shirt being used to sell Whoppers, but could there be anything more indicative of what our country is all about than art being used to sell products? There’s nothing in this country we won’t commodify, is there?

It’s cold again this morning–33 degrees outside, and I can certainly tell this morning from the cold seeping in through the windows. Our power went out overnight; Paul was up working on his laptop, and kept working on his laptop until the power came back on, two hours later. Paul isn’t very tech savvy, but he does know how to turn his phone into a hotspot and connect so he’s on-line. (I had all the Entergy alert emails in my inbox when I got up this morning.) Not sure what caused that–we rarely lose power outside of hurricanes–but wouldn’t be surprised if it was cold related, somehow. Tonight I have to run errands on the way home–I was tired when I got off work yesterday, but did manage to write for a bit; will try again tonight–and also have to deal with a jury duty summons, which is aggravating. It’s a pain to deal with; I can’t get coverage for my clinic shifts if I don’t know I am going to serve or not, you know. Ah, well, something else to deal with, I suppose. I don’t mind jury duty–I actually enjoyed serving the one time I was picked to sit on one, and even got a book out of it, so more power to jury duty, seriously–but the hassle of dealing with re: work isn’t that awful, either. Of course, it’s criminal court, so as a crime writer I doubt I’d get picked (I made sure to mention “award-winning crime writer” on the on-line registration this morning, as well as “sexual health counselor”; I can’t imagine either would be on any attorney’s “oh we need HIM for sure” criteria); but as I said, I don’t mind being picked, once I get the work situation sorted. I’ve also been called to serve in February, during Carnival, which is simply delightful–but then again, maybe Scotty could be called to serve on a jury during Carnival? That could be interesting.

So, all the social media sites connected through Fuckerberg’s Meta bullshit have done away with fact-checking, and quietly did away with protections for marginalized people (including queers) one can only assume that Zuck the Fuck has his head firmly implanted between some massive sagging orange butt cheeks. Have fun up there, oligarch. There was a reason you didn’t get laid until you were rich enough to attract women, and it wasn’t how weird and pasty you look, you sociopathic cretin. But will all the billionaires, oligarchs and tech-bros united behind this government, in order to better loot the country and burn the world to the ground, backpedal if and when this regime gets the Reign of Terror they plan to implement gets turned back on them? The last time we had robber barons it eventually led to the collapse of our economy, which then spread world wide and led to World War II. So glad nobody in the stupid country can be bothered to read history, or read it correctly. If your knowledge of US history is predicated on reading books by Bill O’Reilly, congratulations on joining the Manifest Destiny cult–but you know nothing, Jon Snow. I don’t know if I am ready to leave Facebook, but it’s not been fun to even be there much anymore, and I care a lot less about Threads. Maybe it’s time we all admit social media was a destructive force to our society and we can go back to direct messaging or text or whatever…although if social media continues to be throttled to death by greedy billionaires, what will publishers tell us to do to market books anymore? (Social media does not sell many books, no matter what anyone says; it was just another methodology for publishers to place the onus for marketing and promotion on authors while cutting marketing budgets.)

And every day that passes brings the country closer to the abyss of the looters being in charge again. We’re very close to a breaking point–and while I am all about class solidarity for sure, I am not so willing to overlook so many racists and homophobes and white supremacists, either. Sure, solidarity to bring back regulations and anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws, Medicaid (not Medicare) for all, and to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and educational systems are the most important battles right now, and I will fight with anyone shoulder-to-shoulder to save this country from the doom that came for every empire in history so far, but those social issues aren’t going to go away, either–and once we get the rid of the major enemy, than we can focus on societal ills like prejudice and bigotry and government-sourced religion.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, stay warm, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning.

I Can Help

Friday after the storm and I am heading into the office in a bit to see what is the situation with our testing supplies, which have to be in controlled temperatures. The exciting day job responsibilities of a Gregalicious. These interrupted weeks are always a bit difficult to re-acclimate back from, especially these sudden and unexpected ones; the ones you plan for are disruptive enough. But I have to go in on a Friday after being home for two days, to then be home again for another two days, and then go back to normal, whatever that may be now. My mind and body clock are sufficiently scrambled now, and it may not be easy getting back into the old routine again–which may not be a bad thing, if I can perhaps establish a new one out of this chaos?

Always a plus!

We finished watching The Perfect Couple, which really didn’t stick the landing, but otherwise was a lot of fun to watch. I imagine the book was probably better. Yesterday was an odd day; it’s weird to have a hurricane day (let alone two in a row) and not have to worry about working at home and so forth; it was like having a weekend in the middle of the week and now I have a day to go into the office when I usually don’t before the weekend, which is very odd. I also started reading Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows, which is phenomenal, and I also collected all the marked information from Who Dat Whodunnit for the Scotty Bible. The next book up is Bourbon Street Blues, and what’s interesting is catching the continuity errors I’ve made over the years, which points out the need for the Scotty Bible, which I should have done after the first three when I went back to write the fourth.

The Internet is out this morning–it survived the storm, but a day later goes down? Excellent service, Cox. Fortunately I have an iPhone hotspot so I can check my emails and everything before I head into the office. The email communiqué yesterday afternoon about the office being open this morning mentioned that we’d be using generator power if Entergy was still down; which means limited access to the Internet and so forth. It could make for an interesting day, but I kind of think Entergy might have the power back on across the city by now? There are, per the outage map, still some parts of the city that are without power, but most people have it. It does look like the office is still down, but there was so little red on the outage map I doubt it will be out for much longer.

The aftermath of a hurricane–no matter the size, whether’s it’s a tropical depression or a Category –always feels like awakening from a disorienting dream. The release of tension–because no matter how calm you feel, you’re super tense waiting for the unknown–and once the storm is past, you just kind of let all the internal pressure out and feel exhausted. I didn’t work on cleaning up the house much; I have a sink full of dishes to do and bed linens to launder today, and I should probably stop on the way home to get something to make for dinner, as there is very little of anything in the house. I got a pizza for us last night (I was starving), and have to do some writing tonight when I get home. I think I am going to take some of the Bible information and put it into the first four chapters, and I may even go ahead and do second drafts while I am in there. There’s a lot of “riding the storm out” bits and pieces I can add in–the tension, the worry, the hurry-up-and-wait of it all; how the day before is simply stunningly beautiful, the howling of the wind and the steady downpour of rain. Figuring this book out isn’t going to be easy, but the time frame I was originally looking at does work–so the entire book will take place over about thirty-six hours, from start to finish, with some flashbacks to the past. I am still excited about this book, and compiling the Bible, to be honest. I don’t know why it took so long; the post-it notes have been in volumes of the backlist since before Royal Street Reveillon was published–the last two books don’t have post-its in them.

The weekend is going to be fun, methinks. A plethora of college football games to watch; LSU plays at eleven, so that will free up the day later. I am going to try to do some writing tonight when I get home from work, and I definitely am going to read more of Everybody Knows. I have errands to run and some things to get done this weekend, and I definitely need to clean the damned house. Sigh. Stop being lazy, Greg!

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; one can never be entirely certain!

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Forget That Girl

And another Wednesday Pay the Bills Day has dawned anew. It rained over night, and I suspect we’re going to be getting a lot more rain over the next few days; the weather forecast certainly believes it to be so. I do love rain, and outside of the constant fear of flooding out the car, I don’t even mind driving in it. There’s something about being warm and cozy and comfortable while everything outside is getting wet that just makes my entire body relax. I remember thinking about this when I was a kid once–I was in the car, we were heading for Alabama from up north, it was raining outside and I had a blanket wrapped around me while I was reading The Mystery of Cobbett’s Island, which opens with Trixie and her Bob-White friends in a station wagon in the rain heading for the ferry to the island. Ever since then, whenever it rains all I want to do is curl up with a book under a blanket. I it rains a lot this weekend, I should get a lot of reading handled.

I was a bit tired and drained when I got home from work last night. I did a load of laundry and hung out with Sparky for most of the evening while I scribbled in my journal while doing 1970’s research on Youtube for my next book. I also worked on the book some last night, and feel a lot better about what I am doing. The Imposter Syndrome has been finally chased away by the need to tell this story and develop these characters, and that’s always a good sign. I also thought about that Sherlock story a lot more, too, and may even start writing it this weekend, one never knows. I also figured out how to solve the problem of another short story that’s been bedeviling me for over ten years, and I want to include it in my collection. I still haven’t made a to-do list, so I seem to be floundering around looking for something to do every day but can’t remember what I need to do, and that’s always a problem. I also need to make sure I update the bills list before Monday, too–but that will have to wait until I pay the bills and wait for everything to update. I know Entergy is due today, which absolutely must be paid; the summer is the only time I really don’t care about my carbon footprint.

And football season is drawing closer with every passing day.

Sigh.

Politics and the news continue to be dumpster fires and I really need to avoid social media. I don’t know why I let people infuriate me on social media, but I do, and it’s dumb. What do I care about a total stranger’s beliefs and values? Sure, I hate racism and the phobias and misogyny and fascism as much as any sentient human being, but you’re never going to change someone’s mind on social media when most people are there to provoke anger and arguments and I keep falling for the bait. Social media hasn’t been fun in nearly a decade, and it continues to get worse with every passing day; but we’ve all become addicted to it and I need to step away from it. Publishing and publishers have been insisting for quite some time that we authors need to be there and build a following and so forth to market our books and sell copies, but is that really effective? I think maybe the next time I have a book coming out, I may invest in some ads on social media and see if that makes the needle move at all…it may also bring trolls and assholes in its wake, as well.

And I checked the weather and we are not only in a heat advisory but also rain through next week with thunderstorms every day through the weekend. Woo-hoo! Definitely a good stay inside and read forecast. I really need to get going on my reading…but it’s hard to read when you’re writing something new, at least for me, at least now. I don’t know if I stopped reading when I was writing before, but I don’t think that is the case. I think my abilities to do everything that I was able to do before has slowed down and I don’t have the brain function anymore to juggle many different projects the way that I used to, and it’s also nice to finally be in a place where I can primarily focus my brainpower entirely on the writing without it being diluted by other responsibilities. I like that idea an awful lot, quite frankly.

And on that note I am going to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines. I may be back later as there are some drafts I need to finish–they’re building up again, and I don’t like that one bit–but you never know. But have a lovely middle of the week, Constant Reader, and I always do appreciate it when you check in on me, so thank you again.

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Hard to Say I’m Sorry

Saturday morning and I slept late blog, which is perfectly okay and not a cause for panic anymore over the “lost hours” I “wasted” this morning sleeping longer. I feel good this morning, actually, rested and alert and clear-headed, too. I had planned to not leave the house this weekend, but I may have to make a slight grocery run today to pick up a few things. I did spend some time in bed this morning awake and cuddling with Sparky while wondering if I do indeed need to go out into the rain or if it can wait until tomorrow or even Monday. There are a few things I do need, and if I go out of the house I can maybe get a burger somewhere, like Five Guys or Sonic. Decisions, decisions, you know? I’ve not had a burger in weeks, either, or red meat of any kind. This hasn’t been a conscious choice, of course, just how things have worked out. I weighed myself at work the other day and was still at around 203-204 (with my shoes, belt, wallet and keys on my person) so I am much closer to the 2024 goal weight I wanted to achieve.

And yes while it would be nice to go back under 200 again, I don’t really think that’s going to happen. And I don’t care if I do! At some point, I made progress on that score, too, which is really nice. Maybe it’s being over sixty and being seriously out of fucks to give? Whatever, it does feel lovely not to be worried about people thinking I look out of shape or gross or something. (I also haven’t set foot in a gay bar in practically a decade, if not longer. Coincidence? Probably not.)

Yesterday was a nice, quiet day around here. I spent the day doing chores around work duties. Sparky was his usual Big Energy Kitten self, galloping around and leaping at me and climbing me to ride my shoulders (his favorite place, I swear), but I managed to get dishes done and laundry finished and some picking up around here done before the LSU Gymnastics meet last night at Missouri; they didn’t win the meet and they had a below-par performance, especially after logging one of the highest scores of the year the week before against Kentucky. But it’s a long season and you can never count them out, as we discovered last year when they made the Final Four at the end of the year. After that we watched the figure skating, which wasn’t great, frankly. But I am happy for Amber Glenn to finally win the national title, even if she kind of backed into it, and it’ll be fun to watch the ice dance and the men this weekend. It was also a nice day because Paul worked at home, so he was here all day too, which I liked. I hate being a Festival widow, seriously. But it’ll be past soon, and then we’ll be heading into the summer with all that entails–stinging caterpillars, swarming termites, and high Entergy bills.

I’m hoping to get some good writing work done this weekend and not to be lazy, which is always a struggle for me. I want to get this first draft of “When I Die” finished, and I really want to finish the first draft of “Parlor Tricks” this weekend, as well as some other writing as well. I also have a stack of mail to get through, and some filing and other mess to straighten up here in the office space, which is all too often a victim of Big Kitten Energy, and it is again this morning as well. I also want to do the floors on the first floor again, and we also need to change the vent filter for the HVAC system, which is undoubtedly seriously overdue. (I need to order more filters, too, since the one I have is the last one, and there are some other things I could use from Lowe’s I could have delivered as well. Yay, delivery! I also need some things from Office Depot, but I don’t mind walking over there in the rain to get it, either. Maybe I can order a pizza for lunch from U Pizza as well as some things from Office Depot, which I can pick up in one fell swoop? I’m really getting back into pizza again, if you hadn’t noticed, but it had been years since I had a real pizza before Paul brought that one home from Midway on Freret–which is what I really want, actually–but I suppose the smart thing to do is finish this, do some email and cleaning around here while eating breakfast, then figuring out what I need to get from places and making an errand plan for either today or tomorrow. Of course, I could save the groceries until tomorrow as well….hmmm. Decisions, decisions.

Choices, said in Tatianna’s voice.

Looks like someone’s Big Kitten Energy has awakened as well, as I hear things crashing to the floor from the counters behind me. Sparky sure is lucky he is so darned cute and sweet, you know? LOL. He actually is, and he is definitely the boss around here too, with both of us wrapped around his monstrously sized paw.

All right, I think it’s time to bring this to a close and get on with the day. I need to empty the dishwasher and do some filing and cleaning, and I also need to make something to eat because I woke up very hungry this morning. So have a lovely Saturday wherever you are, Constant Reader, and who knows? I may be back later; I may not be back until tomorrow; it’s a mystery!

I’m Here, You’re Here

I really have no concept of days and dates anymore. And since my office at the day job is closed and without power–at least thus far; I’ve not checked the Entergy map yet this morning–there’s no telling when I will start remembering the dates and what day of the week it is for the foreseeable future, honestly. I’m sleeping better than I was (anything is better than the powerless sleep of last week)yet my energy reserves still seem to be a little on the low side. Yesterday I hit a wall around five, but pushed through the final hour of work-at-home duties; we’ll see how long my energy lasts today before it starts flagging.

I stopped by Rouse’s yesterday; very picked over and the whole building was condensed to half it’s size; fruits and vegetables moved from their usual section over to where the dairy and bacon is usually stored on the river side of the store–but the bakery was operating and they had bread and milk, which was important, but were low on Cokes and Gatorade, which was a bit disappointing, but to be expected. There’s no telling when the trucks to restock will have the gas to get in or out of the city, so am rather glad we bought some things in Greenville to bring back home. Today I have more things to do at home–we still can’t get into the office, per yesterday (I’ve not checked yet this morning as to whether we can get inside or not, as I already mentioned)–but am worried about running out of things to do at home before we can get back inside the office.

Last night Paul and I caught up on the shows we missed during the evacuation–Ted Lasso, American Horror Story, and Archer–before retiring for the evening; as always with a power outage our a/c is now messed up, with it hovering in the high 60’s/low 80’s upstairs and mid-to-low 60’s downstairs, but seriously, am just so happy cold air is coming out of the vents I don’t even care in the slightest that the thermostats are fucked up again. I was laughing yesterday as I did the last load of power outage/evacuation laundry; my tights were in that load, and I remembered that the thermostats had gone all fucked up before the power outage, so I was wearing layers downstairs because it was so cold. I laughed because of the extremes–one day I am wearing layers downstairs because it’s so cold, the next I am sweating to death and can barely breathe. New Orleans is definitely not for the timid of heart.

Driving around yesterday was weird. There’s still a lot of debris out there being cleaned up, but there’s still a lot that hasn’t been as of yet. The streetcars aren’t operating yet–no idea when they will be rolling again–and it’s rained off and on a lot, which leads to water pooling because most of the catch traps or gutters are blocked with debris. The enormous live oak branches are the ones that make me sad; I hate seeing damage to live oaks, but I’ve only seen one or two of our beautiful trees uprooted and down, so that’s something. It seems like we lost more of them during Katrina than we did during Ida, but that may not be true; it’s just how I see it, and of course, my post-Katrina memories are in the foggy recesses of my brain any way.

And of course, now that I am home, I cannot focus on reading anymore. The Internet came back yesterday, so obviously we have television streaming capabilities again (thank you, Cox), so I was able to get my phone hotspot turned off and can also use my work laptop now to actually do the day job stuff–I try to keep my computers free from other uses; I try not to do dayjob stuff on personal computers and personal stuff on the dayjob computer, although it’s not always possible, frankly.

My plan for this week is to slowly get the apartment and the outside yard/walk under control this week–still debris out there that needs to be picked up–and re-acclimate myself to everything; find the last to-do list and make a new one; keep cleaning and purging things from the apartment; keep making a list of things we need to get to be prepared the next time there’s a storm and/or loss of power (candles being at the top of the list; preferably tapered ones), and just get back on top of things–a near impossible task, really, since I wasn’t on top of everything before Ida came ashore–so I can feel better about everything.

And on that note, tis time to head back into the spice mines. Have a lovely whatever day of the week it is, Constant Reader–I’m going to guess Wednesday.

You Are Always On My Mind

Saturday morning and LSU football is back–playing UCLA in the Rose Bowl. GEAUX TIGERS! Will the Tigers go back to their usual winning ways after the disappointments of last season? I guess we will find out tonight, won’t we?

Last night I actually fell asleep. I had slept better Thursday night than I had since the power went out, but it wasn’t the same thing–it was mostly half-sleep, but I felt rested, if on edge most of yesterday. Before I even tried to sleep last night, I realized how much stress and tension I was carrying in my back, shoulders, and neck–and so I did some serious, serious stretching to get it loosened up–and it was lovely feeling that tight tension leaving my body. And after I did that last night, I zonked out for real and went into an amazing, blissful, dead-to-the-world sleep and it was marvelous. Entergy is supposedly getting our power back today, so we can return tomorrow–we shall see. I am resisting going to the Entergy website and refreshing the outage page repeatedly; our landlady (who bravely stayed, but her office had power return so she’s been hanging out at her office every day and going home to sleep at night because of the curfew) has promised to call or text as soon as it does…but that will NOT stop me, you know. I am resisting the urge to go do it right this very minute, in fact–which is ridiculous, of course because I already checked before I started writing this.

Yesterday was a lost day, really. Despite being rested, my body was still messed up from the five days; not eating much and not sleeping will take a toll on you, and yesterday was one of those low energy/don’t feel like doing much days–something I’ve not really experienced in a long time, but not surprising, really. We spent most of the day in the room–there’s not much to do here–watching the US Open, scrolling through social media and so forth, and trying to get caught up on my emails. I think I have it mostly under control for now; I am probably not going to mess with email anymore until we get home and I can sit at my desk with my big screen desktop and go to town on it. Still not sure what’s going on with the day job; that’s all up in the air, but in emailing back and forth with my department head yesterday I began thinking of all the things that will need to be done around the office, despite everything, and so I should be able to get work done this week once the Lost Apartment has power again.

Scooter has finally adapted to this motel room and is acting like himself–demanding attention and hugs and back rubs, which is a relief. I was getting a bit worried about him, to be honest; but it just takes him a minute to adjust, I guess. It took me a day to get used to sleeping in this bed, after all, so why wouldn’t it take him a hot minute to get used to being someplace he had never been before, knew nothing about, and was filled with different and new smells and sounds? But he’s a sweet boy, curled up with Paul while they both sleep at the moment. I am making a list of things to pick up to take back home with us from the grocery store here–there’s no telling what the situation will be with the grocery stores in New Orleans, or when they will be restocked; I mean, if getting gas is an issue in Louisiana trucks are going to have problems getting in, aren’t they? I am definitely getting a cooler and some perishables to pack into it with ice, just to be on the safe side. It would completely suck to not have food–but then again, with power, I can cook the stuff in the cabinets, which could get us by for a while; although I am sure we’ll get sick of pasta pretty quickly.

And while I wait for the games to start today, maybe I’ll do some writing. Buried deep in my emails were all sorts of things I should have been able to answer leisurely and put some thought into earlier in the week; yesterday I had to scramble and my brain was already fried from everything, so the recipients of those emails will probably think what the hell? But I did explain the situation and hopefully they’ll understand and not think I am both unresponsive and insane.

And of course it’s Labor Day weekend, which I keep forgetting about. Ordinarily this would be Southern Decadence, which was theoretically canceled, I think, even before Hurricane Ida? (I still cannot believe we stayed and rode out a Category 4 storm; what the hell were we thinking? Well, yes, we didn’t really have much of a choice, but my God. That was definitely not something on my bucket list–and I doubt anything we will ever do again, given a choice. Then again, given a choice, we wouldn’t have stayed this last time, either.)

I think I am probably going to try transcribing that short story I started writing in my journal last weekend, “Parlor Tricks,” which I think could actually wind up being a pretty decent story–even if I don’t know where it’s going or how it’s going to end (which often happens with story ideas I have, but sometimes I can write my way through it)–while waiting for the games to start today; it’s definitely a way to pass the time. I may even (ha, as if) try writing some on Chlorine today–yeah, right, who am I fooling? But I will certainly read some more of Velvet Was the Night, which is very interesting; Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a very interesting writer–and prolific–and I am delighted to see her career taking off the way it is.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and hopefully tomorrow’s entry will begin with me announcing we are heading home!

Pandemonium

And yesterday morning I awoke to the delightful news that I sold another one of the three stories I sent out on submission on Monday; how splendid! So, “Night Follows Night” will be out in an anthology next year; I will of course keep you all posted on further developments.

So, that was a great twenty-four hours for my always desperately needy authorial ego, was it not? That, along with the excellent reception my reading for Timothy got last Friday night, was a lovely balm for me and my ever-tortured soul. This is what I mean when I talk about the bipolarity of writing; so much of the time it’s just you and the computer screen, the accusatory blank Word document open before you (or one with some words, not good, grouped together on it already) as you grimly search your mind for something intelligent, or at least semi-coherent, to start typing. And even when you manage to get something typed up and saved and rewrite and revise and polish…there’s still no guarantee you’ll eventually sell the story, and even when you do–no guarantee anyone reading it will like it, it will be included in reviews in a positive way, or there will ever be any feedback (and sometimes, awful as it is, I appreciate the negative because it means someone noticed, which is really, when you examine it more deeply, kind of sad.

“Night Follows Night” was actually inspired by my watching some documentary–I’m not sure what it was called–about a young man who had escaped from a religious cult his parents still belonged to; I think he and his brother had gotten away from it. It was horrifically sad, more than anything else–I want to say the cult was called the Children of God, but that wasn’t it, I don’t think–and all I could think about was how difficult it must have been to find the courage to run away from that and out into a cold, cruel world with just the clothes on your back and whatever money you were able to scrounge up. Around this same time I was reading one of Margaret Millar’s brilliant novels, How Like an Angel, which was also built around a religious cult, and I started thinking about it some more….the cult in the documentary also sexually abused its members, regardless of age or gender, and that also struck a chord in my head. When I started writing it I called it “This Thing of Darkness”–because, really, this backstory is incredibly dark, and carrying that around in your head would also be remarkably dark. But after the first draft or so, I chose to use that title for another story and changed this one’s title to “And The Walls Came Down.” While that kind of fit better, I still didn’t much care for it, and eventually came up with “Night Follows Night”–which I think truly fits; because for my poor main character, he never really gets to enjoy the daylight; it’s always night in his head.

Wouldn’t that be a horrible way to live?

And maybe–just maybe–I’m better at this writing thing than I ever give myself credit for?

Yes, I know–I need to stop that crazy talk right now!

This week for some reason seems to have lasted forever already; Paul and I both commented on this very strange occurrence after watching some episodes of season two of Titans, which is much better than Season One–and I really liked Season One. The boy candy is certainly there, and the women characters are enjoyable; and the fight scenes have yet to start seeming “I’ve seen this before”, which eventually killed Arrow for us; much as we loved the earlier seasons. I’m so delighted to see one of my favorite comic book super-hero teams done so well; there are too many members to do the Legion of Super-Heroes justice, so I’ll settle for Titans. I was also sorry to read that Krypton was cancelled after its second season; I have yet to watch it (I may get Paul to rewatch Season One with me), and am hoping it’s going to show up on DCUniverse or HBO MAX one of these days.

And there’s a delightful three day weekend looming. I am itching to get back to some of the short stories I have in progress, and I want to get the Secret Project completed. I actually have an extra day (HUZZAH!) so I can laze around for an entire day, gradually cleaning and so forth as I read Cottonmouths and perhaps do the floors (which are frankly disgusting) and I probably should clean the vacuum cleaner, and as always, so much to be done. But if I take that kind of a day on Friday, that means I have Saturday and Sunday to write (oh, and Hamilton is airing Friday night on something streaming–Disney Plus, perhaps?) and there’s absolutely no reason why I can’t get some great writing done.

Unless, of course, I undermine and defeat myself again as I am so prone to do.

Sometime during my first cup of coffee Entergy shut off our power–they were doing some work out there on the street for about thirty minutes–and this is, of course, one of the major flaws of the Keurig: what happens when the power goes off during your first cup? But it wasn’t as big a catastrophe as one might have thought; remember, I was cutting back on caffeine during the Great Dehydration Debacle of 2020, and I realized that I could survive a low caffeine morning–hell, there were mornings last week where I had zero caffeine, and there was no body count.

I also tried a new recipe Monday night–creamy pasta with shrimp and mushrooms (basically, it’s an Alfredo sauce, and who knew it was that fucking easy to make homemade Alfredo sauce?)–and it was actually quite delicious, despite the fact I forgot one of the ingredients. I added more cheese to the sauce then the recipe called for (because OF COURSE), and I will certainly make this again; and will eventually begin fiddling with the recipe to see if I can make it even better.

And on that note, tis time to return to the mines of spice. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader.

Green Green Grass of Home

Monday morning, and the  warm-up weekend for Carnival is over. King Arthur/Merlin was a blast yesterday, as always–check out my Facebook page for the ridiculous amounts of beads we caught–and we also got two grails; mine is BURREES NUMBER 9, a combination Saints/LSU grail tribute to Drew Brees and Joe Burreaux! Easily the coolest thing I caught this first weekend.

And now for this week, which is utter and complete madness. I have to get up ridiculously early every day this week so I can get enough hours in to make a forty hour week and get off work early enough to get home to find a place to park before they close the streets. I suspect both Wednesday and Thursday aren’t going to be the easiest days to find parking–Wednesday night is Nyx; Thursday is Muses–and so I am resigned to not only having to walk a few blocks to get home from the car but having to trudge back to wherever I was able to leave it the next morning. Friday I have condom duty all night in the Quarter, and then I don’t have to go back into the office again until Ash Wednesday–but Fat Tuesday is, of course, a complete loss; trapped inside the parade route and nothing is really open anywhere, anyway.

I did manage to get some things done over the course of the weekend–I came up with a few more short story ideas because of course, exactly what I needed is more short story ideas–and actually worked on the Secret Project for a little while. I also spent some time reading Ali Brandon’s marvelous Double Booked for Death (I got the title wrong the other day), and also started working on my entry about Mary Higgins Clark’s Where Are The Children? I collapsed, exhausted and completely drained, into my easy chair last night and watched three more episodes of Rise of Empires: Ottoman. The siege and eventual fall of Constantinople is one of those dramatic events that changed the course of history, and forever altered the face of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, also giving rise to centuries of Russian interest in the Black Sea and the Dardanelles, and desire for Constantinople and return it to the Orthodox Church. (The show is also giving me a final, deeper and better understanding of the geography of the city, which I’ve never been able to truly grasp before; I never really grasped where the Golden Horn was in relation to the city, nor that it was pretty much surrounded by water on a peninsula.) It’s very entertaining, and quite educational.

Whether I get anything done this week remains to be seen; I am still trying to figure out how and when to go to the gym on Wednesday, or how I am going to get the mail or make groceries, and when as well. #madness.

I also need to make a to-do list, but I think I’ll wait to do that for when I get to the office–I need to reschedule a doctor’s appointment, for one thing, and I also need to try to schedule Entergy to come replace our meter; I am going to try for Lundi Gras, which of course is ridiculous, but worth a try–I am going to have to spend that day getting the mail and making groceries, for one thing, and I making it to the gym because it’s closed on Samdi Gras (I just made that up; Fat Sunday) because there are parades literally all fucking day that day.

And on that note, I have to get ready to head into the spice mines. I slept deeply and well yesterday–combo of the gym and parades–and actually woke up on my own around four this morning, but naturally, went back to sleep for another two. One thing I’ve definitely noticed is an improvement in my sleep since I started back at the gym; and I need to keep going, if for no other reason than the improved sleep, you know? But I seem to be into it now, and I think I am going to be able to keep this momentum going.

One can hope, at any rate.

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