Up ungodly early for PT, and yikes, it is waaaay too early for Gregalicious to already be awake and starting my day–if six am is an unspeakably early time to get up, try five; I don’t think I’ll be complaining about six too much next week when I have to get up at five again on Tuesday. It’s only forty-five degrees this morning, which is horrifying; the high for the day is a mere fifty-three. Yikes. It was so cold at the office yesterday, I can’t even begin to tell you how miserable I was all day. The cold makes me sleepier, so I never really felt yesterday like I was present, you know? All day long I felt like I literally could just curl up and fall asleep again. But I made it through the day, which was great, and ran an errand on the way home–I love this week, because school is out and traffic is practically non-existent–and I also have errands to run after work tonight, too. Tomorrow is work-at-home Friday, which means I can sleep in a bit before rising and working, and I am really looking forward to not getting up until after the sun rises. And it’s also a lovely three-day weekend, with bowl games to watch and enjoy as I do things around the house. LSU plays on New Year’s, which will be a preview of next year’s starting quarterback, so we’ll get sort of a taste of what LSU will be like next fall, when they have that brutal schedule–USC, UCLA, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and Oklahoma–as a new era of college football begins.
I also need to start promoting the two books that were released right before my surgery–terrible timing, you know? But it’s never too late, which is the true (and perhaps only) beauty of the modern era of publishing. Once the season your new release has passed, you used to be finished. But with ebooks and e-everything these days, you can keep on doing promotion until people stop following you and start unfriending you everywhere, LOL.
We finished off the first season of War of the Worlds last night, and have two more seasons to get through. It’s that odd week between holidays where most shows go on hiatus, so no new episodes of a lot of things I watch (looking at you, Bravo), so we have to find things to watch. I think War of the Worlds will safely get us to next week, and everything returns next week anyway.
I was tired when I got home last night, and knowing I had to get up early this morning didn’t motivate me a whole lot to get things done. The kitchen is a mess still, and there will always be more laundry to do and dishes to wash and/or put away. Sigh. The life of a housewife, seriously…make that a working housewife, and seriously, I understand why all those suburban wives and mothers were taking pills in the 50s and 60s. The endless drudgery…I used to always get a bit of a thrill when I cleaned and the house was all neat and organized. It was satisfying. It still is, but it’s not a compulsion the way it used to be, where I didn’t feel comfortable or could relax in the house as long as it was messy. I also realized where this obsessive cleaning mentality came from, and yes, I was still trying to please my mother. I could hear her voice, with the shudder, saying “how can anyone live like that?”
Today I am swinging by to get the mail on my way home, and picking up a prescription and some Claritin-D, too. I doubt I’ll be in the mood to do any cleaning tonight, or have the energy to do so, but that’s fine. I can clean up around work-at-home duties tomorrow. I’ll also have to run some other errands–I really need to wash the car, seriously–and dig into Danielle Arsenault’s debut novel.
And maybe do some writing. It certainly can’t hurt.
And now I am heading to the spice mines. Have a good Thursday, Constant Reader.
I slept very strangely last night–for the first time in a very long time I had what I call “stress dreams”; they’re really not quite nightmares, in that they aren’t scary, but rather me dreaming about something that causes me stress. It’s been years since I’ve had one of these–I guess you could say that the ‘test I didn’t study for’ or ‘went to class naked’ fall into that category; I’ve never had either of those–but this was one in which I was going to have to go on stage and perform for something to do with work; but for some reason I needed to have a cricket and as the time for me to go on stage drew nearer, the cricket I was given got away and I couldn’t find it; finally had to go outside and try to catch a new, untrained (it was a dream; of course none of it made the slightest bit of sense) and of course, for some reason my parents were in the audience and I couldn’t find a cricket. I woke up around six and thought, do I want to go back to sleep and into that dream again? But I closed my eyes again, figuring the dream was interrupted, but no–back into this weird dream where I had to have a cricket and go on stage and perform in something vaguely Dickensian.
At seven thirty I woke up again and thought, fuck it, I’d rather be tired than go back into that dream. So I got up and came downstairs to make coffee. And here I am.
I bit the bullet and bought a more expensive (and dependable) vacuum cleaner yesterday–the same model we bought like nine years ago that I didn’t really maintain properly but still managed to work well for nearly seven years; I am going to maintain this one properly–I read the manual, believe it or not–and so part of my day today will include working on the floors. I’m also going to make watermelon gazpacho–I may have to run to the grocery because I need both lemon and lime juice, and I also want to get a bag of ice so I can make a proper dirty martini this evening–still working on getting the taste right–and I also want to work on my writing some as well as get to the gym. I also recognize this is a rather ambitious program for the day; there’s reading I need to get done as well–I really want to finish Robyn Gigl’s By Way of Sorrow, which I was enjoying before I got distracted from it; a great debut by a trans author (which we need more of, by the way), and I’m not really sure what distracted me from it, to be honest…but I’ve not really been doing much reading for a while–but I am enjoying Robert Caro’s The Power Broker.
I guess I should say I am not reading anything new to me, because that is more accurate. I think I mentioned yesterday that I got a lovely tweet from a reader about Mardi Gras Mambo the other night, and then I tried reading it again–I have the ebook on my iPad–but for some reason there was an issue I couldn’t resolve to get it open, and it kept freezing my Kindle app (don’t come for me, I also have iBooks and Kobo and generally try to buy ebooks through platforms that allow percentages to go to either non-profits or independent bookstores; and I also take advantage of deeply discounted sales and I especially love when the books are offered free); yesterday I deleted the app and redownloaded it and voila! Problem solved. I haven’t reread the book in a really long time–I’ve not reread any of the Scottys in a really long time–and as I was reading (skimming mostly) I was remembering things from the time I was writing the book: that the original idea was vastly different from the final iteration; I actually stopped writing it and then trashed everything I had written and started over; the second iteration was also significantly different from the final, and something else happened that kept me finishing; and when I finally went back to finish it I trashed the entire thing for yet a second time and started over completely. It took me–because of the stops and starts–much longer to write than anything else I’ve ever written (that was published); I remember often referring to the book as my own personal Vietnam (although now Afghanistan would be more indicative of endless quagmire) and–now that I think back on it–the inability to finish this book was why I started blogging in the first place. I needed to get back into the habit of writing every day, so I could kickstart my creativity and finish the damned book.
I digress.
But as I was rereading/reskimming, I was amazed at how fucking complicated the plot was, and how much juggling was required to not leave loose ends, to not contradict things that had happened, and I remember that last summer before Katrina (the book was turned in three weeks before that bitch came ashore) how much work I had to do on that manuscript; how I had to keep checking and double-checking to make sure it made sense and I had the right people in the right place and that it was possible for characters to move around the way they did; and how I wanted the pacing to be completely frenetic and crazy because it was taking place over that final weekend of Carnival, and how badly I didn’t want to the book to end the way it did. It was also during the writing that I discovered that the original way I’d planned the trilogy (once I knew it was going to be more than a standalone) couldn’t be completed in this volume and that the personal story–always intended to be resolved by book three–was going to have to roll over into a fourth book….which I eventually (thanks to Katrina) began to think would never happen. I hated leaving it as a trilogy…but how do you write a funny book set in New Orleans after Katrina? I couldn’t think of any way to do it, and when I finally did start Vieux CarréVoodoo, I just jumped ahead a few years. (Although now I am thinking I can go back and do that very thing; maybe I could do a couple of post-Katrina Scottys, to give me some breathing space away from the pandemic and go back to him being younger?) It also made me realize, again, that a lot of the post-Katrina Scotty books I’ve done didn’t have very complex or complicated plots; they were always very straightforward and simple until Royal Street Reveillon. I have several ideas of what to do next with Scotty, and rereading/reskimming Mardi Gras Mambo made me realize–instead of deciding which plot to do next, why not do them all in one? Why NOT write another complicated, complex, all over the map plot with subplots galore? It’ll be hard work, of course, but why am I shying away from hard work?
I’ve also been researching more about folk tales and legends of Louisiana; I saw that someone is doing a graphic novel built around one of them–the Grunch–and as I started digging around into that particular myth/legend, a Grunch story started forming in my mind, and I soon realized Monsters of Louisiana could happen very easily; again, it’s a matter of time to write and time to research.
I did manage, around groceries and getting the mail and trying to get organized and relaxed and everything, to put about another 1200 words into “Festival of the Redeemer.” I also remembered that I had made, years ago, a Pinterest board for Venice, and so I visited it yesterday to look at the pictures to help me with a dream sequence I am writing into the story–I needed to see Venetian Carnival costumes, and oh, did my Pinterest board ever have some fantastic images pinned to it! I had completely forgotten that I’d made a Pinterest board when I was writing Timothy to help out, with images of the house I was basing Spindrift on, and images of rooms to use for descriptions, and so forth…and as I scrolled through these amazing images on my Venice board, I kept thinking to myself, why the fuck don’t you use this website for images for works in progress? This would have come so in handy for the two you’ve just turned in, you fucking moron.
And seriously, it really is a wonder I have a career anymore. I have all these wonderful tools at my disposal to make it easier to write things and then never use them.
And on that note, this floor isn’t going to vacuum itself. Catch you tomorrow, Constant Reader.
Today I am going to venture out to run some errands and then probably (possibly) brave the horrible heat to head over to the gym. I also want to get a lot of writing and cleaning and so forth done today–yes, yes, what else is new, I know–but I was able to get the car back yesterday and then we ventured to Costco before coming home to collapse like heavy woolen blankets that didn’t completely dry in the dryer.
Christ it is hot this June.
Paul did point out that last June probably was just as hot–which reminded me of working the screening desk in the garage at work and getting dehydration sickness (HYDRATE PEOPLE)–and then he also pointed out May was unusually mild and much rainier than usual, so the bitch slap of the return of your usual New Orleans summer weather felt even nastier than it generally does when it happens.
I am tired this morning, despite sleeping like a stone. I was tired yesterday–any amount of time spent out of doors in this type of New Orleans weather is exhausting and draining (and I am not, alas, in as good of physical condition as I should be; but despite the draining nature of this weather I draw the line at driving the short distance to the gym, which is simply insane and goes against the entire idea of going to the gym in the first place)–and while I need to, am trying to, exercise and be more conscious of self-care, I cannot allow the weather to keep me from doing things. (Yesterday when we picked up the car–shout out to Dawn, our amazing Lyft driver–it was 97 degrees and morbidly humid; after the Costco trip and unloading the car, all I really wanted to do was curl up in a corner in the air conditioning and hide for the rest of the evening. But there were other things that needed doing, so I wrote for a while (adding about another thousand words to “Festival of the Redeemer”), finished some laundry (I just heard the dryer click off from a fluff cycle, since I left the clothes in there over night), and then we finished watching an absolutely delightful HBO MAX show called Starstruck, which is incredibly charming, funny, and sweet–the premise is a young woman who has two horrible dead-end jobs, approaches life with a kind of grin and sense of humor but is really adrift, hooks up with someone one New Year’s who turns out to be a major film star–and follows their back-and-forth fumbling towards a relationship. The chemistry between them is absolutely fantastic, and we absolutely loved it. Rose Matafeo plays Jessie (she’s also the writer of the show) and she is just perfect; while Tom Kapoor, the movie star, is also perfectly played by Nikesh Patel–the cast is perfect down to the smallest role. The irony of the show is Jessie is positively NOT starstruck; she finds his celebrity appalling and a barrier to any possibility of a relationship between the two. Constant Reader, I think you would love it. It’s probably one of the most charming shows I’ve seen, up there with Schitt’s Creek, Ted Lasso, and Kim’s Convenience–which is high praise indeed.
Someone tweeted at me yesterday about having finished Mardi Gras Mambo and having tears in their eyes by the end; which was absolutely a lovely thing and an incredibly pleasant reminder that I kind of needed…we so often as writers live in a vacuum, and the negativity out there about our work is so intrusive and debilitating sometimes that it’s always lovely when someone who enjoyed your work reaches out to let you know. Thank you, person on Twitter that I don’t know; you made my evening…and it really takes so little.
I read a wonderful article in LA Review of Books written by Michael Nava yesterday (he really is a treasure; I am so delighted he has taken up the Henry Rios character again), which was the second part (I somehow missed the first and will be looking for it today) about the history of queer publishing. This was about the Golden Age, from the late 1970’s to the mid-1990’s; and reading it reminded me of so many names that I hadn’t forgotten but simply hadn’t thought about in a very long time. I came into queer publishing around this time, as a book reviewer for the New Orleans queer newspaper Impact; eventually branching out into national queer glossies and Lambda Book Report, where I actually wound up working; first as an assistant editor for about five months before taking over as editor for a year. I made many friends during that year and a half at LBR; it was while I was working there that Michael ended the Henry Rios series (I got Katherine Forrest to interview him and put him on the cover, using my very poor and picked-up-on-the-job Adobe Photoshop skills to pull together my most ambitious cover design to date; I have all the issues I worked on in a box up in the storage attic…and reading Michael’s piece made me think about bringing that box down and going through them, for the sake of the memories they would bring back for me–and then I thought, wow you sure have been experiencing a lot of nostalgia this year and decided to skip it for now), which was heartbreaking for me, a long-time fan. I left LBR–which in many ways was my dream job–just before the release of my first book, Murder in the Rue Dauphine, because I felt I couldn’t really run a review magazine focusing on queer lit while I was also publishing my own fiction; I felt it created too much of a conflict of interest. I still stand my that decision–a lot of people were disappointed that I stepped down from the job; I remember one legendary queer writer telling me I was “destroying my career” by doing so (I think things worked out rather well, though; always trust your own instincts). I continued reviewing books for a few more years, but really felt uncomfortable doing so; for me, as a writer of queer fiction, it seemed–and still does–like a conflict of interest and so eventually I stopped being a paid reviewer. Now, of course, I review the occasional book I loved here on the blog; but I am not being paid for my opinion and I won’t talk about a book I didn’t like on here…I also don’t write about every book I read on this blog, either; and sometimes I worry that people think I didn’t like their book if I don’t review it…but then I remind myself that reviewing books isn’t the point of this blog, and it never has been….the blog is something I primarily write for myself, and I’m not interested in having a book review blog. I love reading for pleasure, and really, when I do write about a book I loved on here it’s to emphasize how much I love to read more than anything else.
And I really do need to get back to reading more.
And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. There’s a lot on the agenda today, and randomly riffing on my musings here isn’t going to get any of it done. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and see you on the morrow.
I actually managed to spend several hours writing yesterday, for the first time in I don’t know how fucking long; it was quite marvelous, and when I finally stopped writing to go to the gym–also for the first time in I can’t remember how fucking long–I was very pleased to see that I had done well over two thousand new words; as I had started by editing and revising the 3552 words or so I’d already written on this piece I may have actually written more than that; it’s really hard to say, but I do know that at my stopping point “Festival of the Redeemer” was clocking in at 5573, and I’ll take it. It felt good, and the story was coming to life for me; I could see Venice clearly in my head and I knew who my character was–it was remarkably easy to slip into his head again and tell his story. At one point, I remember looking at the word count (at that point, it was 4700 or so) and thinking okay, when you get to 5000 you can stop and when I stopped to look again I was at 5573 and was like, damn–it’s been a hot minute since I went into the writing zone like that and not been checking the word count every few sentences to see how long before I could call it quits for the day.
It really did feel amazing.
Ironically, when I got to the gym they were closed; despite the schedule on its Facebook page, they still close at three and I got there just as the poor guy was getting ready to start shutting anything down. Instead of going Chadwick on him, I apologized–he clearly felt bad–and decided that I would make every attempt to go tonight after work. It’ll be more crowded than I would prefer, of course, but as I need to get back into the swing of a regular workout again after however long I’ve not been going–three weeks, methinks–I’ll merely keep the weights the same as they were the last time but only do one set tonight; two on Wednesday, and three on Friday; do three sets of these same weight next week and then add more weight the following week. I actually enjoyed the walk, to be honest; despite the light rain and heaviness of the air. I had some music playing through my headphones and too some pictures, both going and coming back, for Instagram. I’ve made another new goal, and that’s to function on Instagram some more; I live in and write about one of the most beautiful cities in North America, and why not exploit that a little more on a social medium devoted to pictures?
Yeah, well, we’ll see how it lasts, won’t we?
It was certainly fun, and the failed walk to the gym today certainly qualified as something I’d planned to do more of this year: exploring New Orleans, and my neighborhood in particular. I’m starting to get a bit itchy about writing another Scotty book, but that also means going down to the Quarter and having a look around. I feel fairly confident that entire part of town has completely changed in the years since I’ve actually set foot down there; it’s weird to remember that I just can’t walk out my office door and go take a look at the building where Scotty lives, see what business are open around there, and get incredibly annoyed by tourists. I really miss our old office on Frenchmen Street; I miss going to the bank in the Quarter, or going to the Walgreens on Decatur Street to buy Claritin-D, or to get food from one of the corner stores–I miss the Nelly Deli, for one, and Verti Mart for another, or getting something at the Rouse’s on the corner of Royal and St. Peter. I’ll be staying at the host hotel for Bouchercon this August, but it’s also August–and do I really want to go exploring outside during those horrendous dog days of summer?
Meh, like I’m not used to August in New Orleans?
Actually, that was a trick question. Nobody ever gets used to August in New Orleans.
I’ve not looked at the weather forecast for today yet–not sure why I bother; it’s going to be ‘hot humid chance of rain’ every day from now until late September–but it’s also hurricane season, so I always have to start paying attention to what’s going on out in the Atlantic basin as well as in the lower Gulf. But my windows are covered in condensation this morning, and the sidewalk–as much of it as I can see through the wet windows–looks to also be pretty wet, so it probably rained overnight. After the misfire of the gym expedition yesterday afternoon, I am going to try to make it tonight; but I am not sure how I will feel. I slept weirdly last night–I kept having bizarre dreams about drinking too much and getting wasted (not sure what that was about–memories, maybe? But it’s been years since I got wasted, and not terribly sure I ever want to do more than get a slight buzz ever again) and kept waking myself up every now and again, which was also weird–it’s been awhile since I’ve not gotten a deep night’s sleep. Maybe it was unconscious worry about not waking up this morning–no, not dying in my sleep, but rather not hearing the alarm and then having to rush trying to get ready and remember everything I need to take to the office today on my way out the door. I don’t even know why I would even worry about sleeping through the alarm; it’s been so long since I’ve slept so deeply that it was even a possibility (maybe when I was in my thirties?) I’m not certain it’s something I need to have a phobia or neuroses about anymore.
Since when has that ever stopped me from being neurotic?
Never, that’s when.
But it’s a new week, and I am hopeful things will go well, and I will be productive and follow through on everything I need/want to get done this week, and when the weekend rolls around the house won’t be a mess and I can relax and write and clean and get errands done and have another productive weekend like this last was.
And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader.
Today is one of those days in which I’ll be running around all day and feeling scattered before I finally can come home and relax at last. I have an eye appointment out in Metairie–I really need new glasses; my eyes have gotten so bad that the ones I have now just do not work as well as they should, which makes me terribly uncomfortable about driving and so forth–and then errands all over the place. I also have boxes and boxes of condom packs to take by the office, so I can get them out of the house; I was really productive yesterday and may have broken my condom-packing record while watching In the Heat of the Night (the Oscar winning film, not the television series based on it) and then catching up on The Real Housewives franchises that I still watch. (I have some ambivalent feelings about these shows, but will discuss that at greater length when I have more time to spend on writing an entry then I do this morning.) The movie was interesting to watch, and I have some very deep thoughts about that as well; but I will say for now that they did a really excellent job of capturing small town/rural Southern areas of the time and what they were like…and they could have just as easily filmed that movie in the area of Alabama where I am from.
If you are a film fan, I do highly recommend Pictures at a Revolution by Mark Harris, in which he examines the five films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar in 1967–the year In the Heat of the Night won–and how those five vastly different films were representative of the enormous cultural and societal shifts going on in the country at the time. It’s fascinating. (The other nominees were Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Bonnie and Clyde,Dr. Dolittle, and The Graduate.)
I still haven’t made my to-do list yet; that’s one of the things I want to get done today; at least one for the weekend that I can revise for next week, and then I want to get back into the habit of doing one every week, knowing that there will be some weeks where I get it all done, weeks where I only get some of it done, and weeks when I won’t get any of it done. I am trying to stay focused and I am also trying to be easier on myself going forward; no more feeling like a failure when I don’t get as much done as I need or want to, no more Imposter Syndrome, no more allowing myself to be easily tripped into dark places that I really need to not go to anymore. It’s strange to be almost sixty and still trying to grow and rewire myself; I would have thought years ago that by now I would have everything figured out. But I don’t–and I don’t think anyone ever really does, to be honest. I also need to remember that I am not perfect, I am human, and humans will always make mistakes…and the thing is to not let the mistakes take you somewhere dark and self-abusive, but to correct them the best way you can and learn from them and not repeat them–which is part of the issue I am having with the Real Housewives shows, I think (but more on that at a later date, like tomorrow).
It’s gray outside this morning–it rained off and on yesterday, mostly from the late afternoon on–and I will probably get soaked at some point while I run my errands; it’s inevitable, really–but hopefully traffic won’t be too bad.
And on that note–as you can tell, I still haven’t quite figured out what I want this blog to be going forward–I am going to call it quits this morning and head back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader.
Saturday morning and I am about to head back out to Metairie; I just got an email that my computer is repaired and ready for pick-up! This is very exciting, obviously–I am terribly relieved to not have to buy a new one–and I am excited to have a desktop computer again. Hurray for a big screen to make up for my failing eyes! I am also going to be dropping off books later today at the library sale, and donating beads to ARC of New Orleans; the living room is slowly being dragged back from hoarder’s hell and starting to look functional and bearable and usable again, which is incredibly lovely. I managed to hang one of the laundry room doors by myself yesterday; this morning I’ll also be rehanging the other door, clearing up more space and opening up the living room even further.
We finished watching The Crime of the Century last night–quelle surprise, disgusting piece of shit Marsha Blackburn helped pass a bill gutting the DEA’s ability to investigate and punish drug companies for lying to the public, reminding viewers again she’s always been trash and a cosplay Christian without a soul–and the documentary is further evidence that our country and our system has been corrupted and is broken. It’s more than a little infuriating to know that so many people have died and/or become addicted thanks to the complicity of our elected officials, and there is never any accountability for corporations or the rich. Back in the 1990’s I used to simply shake my head and thin we are becoming very similar, as a nation, to 1780′ France and the last days of Czarist Russia and when it comes the second American revolution will be far worse than either of those revolutions, which were widespread and incredibly bloody…I hope I don’t live long enough to see it or experience it, quite frankly. I had an idea–when don’t I have one?–back then for a book about a dystopian future after the collapse of our government and society; dystopias aren’t so much in vogue anymore, but it’s still a valid idea and concept, but it’s been foremost in my brain lately.
We also started watching Halston on Netflix last night, and it’s quite fun; definitely worth watching for the acting, and Ewan MacGregor is fantastic in the title role. I’ve actually been thinking about the 1970’s a lot lately; not sure why I’ve been going down this nostalgic trip down memory lane, but I have been and so Halston kind of plays into that for me. It has everything to do, no doubt, with my idea to write a book about a suburban serial killer, a la the Candyman/Gacy, called Where the Boys Die; I’ve been looking up things (classmates.com has copies of my high school yearbooks even; mine were lost years ago) all over the place when I get bored and when I don’t feel like reading or writing. What will eventually happen with that, I don’t know–if anything–but I realize this morning that I haven’t been writing much this month–I’ve definitely been off, if not my rocker, but my game. I kind of have been ever since my desktop computer ceased functioning properly; I don’t think getting my computer back is going to be some kind of magic cure-all, but it should be a start.
After I dropped off the computer at the Apple Store and while I was waiting for my next appointment, I stopped at the Barnes and Noble on Veterans’ to kill time. I can’t remember the last time I set foot in a B&N; obviously it was pre-pandemic, but it was much longer ago than that, obviously. It was a bit strange to be in such a public space (the Apple Store opens two hours before the rest of the mall, so walking through the almost-deserted halls and past all the closed stores had a sort of Night of the Living Dead feel to it–I know that’s probably not the right zombie/Romero film, but I’ve actually never seen any of those so sue me) but B&N was more confined and had more people–it was still pretty empty, but it was a strange experience. But it was lovely being in a bookstore–I resisted the urge to spend hundreds of dollars and limited myself to a lovely, inexpensive B&N edition of The Iliad and The Odyssey–and it was also interesting to walk around looking at books and seeing so many friends on the shelves, tables, and end-caps. The MWA handbook, How to Write a Mystery, was prominently displayed on the NEW RELEASES shelves, and I found myself examining books and just enjoying being around books.
Speaking of which, I started reading Robyn Gigl’s By Way of Sorrow, and am enjoying it. I need to get it finished, though, so I can read From Here to Eternity on my trip next week (yikes, I leave on Thursday).
So, my plan for today is to get my computer set up again, rehang the other door, run those errands and swing by the grocery store as well. With all of these other things taken care of, I also intend to clean today so tomorrow I will have the day free to answer emails, do some writing, and go to the gym….then it’s three days of work and the trip to Kentucky, and then before I know it, May will be ending and it will be June. #madness.
And on that note, I need to get cleaned up so I can head out to the Lakeside mall. Happy Saturday, Constant Reader!
And I finally fell asleep last night, and it was glorious.
I feel pretty amazing this morning. I never realize how completely tired I am when I’ve had insomnia for a few days, but I can certainly tell the difference when my body finally feels rested. I feel alert mentally, my muscles feel great, and so do my joints (I’ve been noticing my joints a lot more the older I get). I’m working at home this morning and afternoon–the call of the condom packs must be heeded, always–and the house is also a disaster, as it always seems to be on Thursday mornings. So I’ll probably have to put the dishes in the dishwasher away and do another load once I finish this and before I dive into the condom packing–and there’s also a load of laundry in the dryer in need of folding. Seriously, it never seems to end around here, but that seems to be the case for everyone.
We finished watching The Innocent last night, which was enormously satisfying (if a bit predictable; I saw the resolution coming, but it was still very well done) and I do highly recommend this series. Then we started season one of Who Killed Sara?, a Mexican series that reminds me a lot of Revenge, which also was a retelling, of course, of The Count of Monte Cristo. It’s quite well done; the villain of the piece is quite the monster, and the damaged dynamic of the Lazcano family and their incredible entitlement, which is the primary driving force behind the show’s plot, is complicated and enjoyable. (I would also like to add here that one thing Paul and I have noticed about Mexican and Spanish crime drama series, like this one, are incredibly open and inclusive to queer characters and stories; coming from two deeply conservative Catholic countries, they really shame American productions–which still have a ways to go on this score. Racial diversity, on the other hand, not so much.)
I also think relaxing all night last night with some immersive television programs was an enormous help to me falling asleep last night. I mean, I could have taken care of the kitchen and the laundry last night, but it was also nice to sit in my easy chair and relax.
I also watched the virtual book launch of the new MWA anthology, When a Stranger Comes to Town, edited by Michael Koryta, which was pretty amazing–such an impressive array of talent! One of the great things about the pandemic related switch to virtual events is not only bigger turnout, but also the fact that the events can be recorded, and others can watch them later. I was only able to see about the first half hour, but since it’s archived on-line, can go back and watch the rest while doing the dishes or folding laundry, etc. If you want to watch, here is the link. Speakers included Alafair Burke, Michael Connelly, Tina deBellegarde, Jacqueline Freimor, Steve Hamilton Joe Hill, Tilia Klebenov Jacobs, Smita Harish Jain, Joe Lansdale, Emilya Naymark, Jonathan Stone, Elaine Togneri, and Amanda Witt–as I said, an amazing array of talent.
All right, I think it’s time for me to head back into the spice mines. I’ve got to get this kitchen under control before I start making condom packs, and after work tonight I am going to head to the gym. It doesn’t look like the weather is going to be as shitty today as it has been for the past two days–torrential rain, thunderstorms, and flash flood watches–so that should be okay.
Queer and Loathing in America 