Tag: family

Promise to Try

It’s my birthday, and I made the enormous mistake of giving Sparky a new catnip toy this morning and now he’s high as a kite and zooming around the apartment, with the occasional launch of a crazed kitty at me in full play-attack mode. Needless to say, I’m regretting giving him that toy!

And just like that, I qualify for senior discounts. Funny, I don’t feel any older this morning. I’ve never been a big birthday person, for any number of reasons (primarily because outside of my parents, no one else ever cared much about it, which I will unpack at some point in the newsletter), and the older I get the less fuss I want made of it. I really prefer to just spend the day hanging out at home with Sparky and Paul, very low-key. I’ll watch some shit on television, and do some reading; maybe even take some notes on something, anything, that I am working on currently. But no pressure at all, and that’s the lovely thing. A day of ignoring the world and everything else going on and just having some peaceful, relaxing down time. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? It does, indeed. The house is messy, so I may slowly and gradually do things, too, but the primary goal for the day is to stay off-line as much as possible and just have a lovely quiet day at home.

Sparky also let me sleep late this morning, for which I am grateful, and even slept in the bed with me after checking on me at the usual time I get up. The no-alarm confused him, I think–hey you’re supposed to get up to the loud noise–which is why he curled up in the crook of my legs and went to sleep.Yesterday was fine. It was a relatively easy and mellow day at the office, and I ran some errands when I got off work. Paul got home while I was catching up on the news, and we watched another episode of Furious, which took another turn last night I wasn’t expecting. We’re caught up now, and have to wait for the next episodes to air, so we can catch up on The Shards and Reacher in the meantime. There’s also a couple of movies streaming that I want to see–Obsession and The Devil Wears Prada 2. And the final season of Outer Banks dropping today on Netflix like another birthday present for me. I also want to read more today, and finish the birthday newsletter I started…but there’s no rush. It’s about getting older and not being ashamed or afraid of the word old. I wouldn’t, for example, want to be younger now than I am, and frankly, now that my health is pretty far along on its way to 100%, I actually feel pretty good most of the time other than the occasional ache or pain; and you know, I was often sore when I was younger because I worked out.

And yes, we are definitely seeing the new Spider-Man tomorrow.

I also got caught up on the new season of Real Housewives Ultimate Girls’ Trip, and I have to say I really am enjoying seeing the other women bonding over not liking Vicki. Them’s my girls!

So, I am going to get another cup of coffee and have some breakfast. There’s a load of laundry I want to do, and the dishes need to be done, and some minor straightening up I also need to get done and handled, and get cleaned up as well. Sparky has calmed down now enough for me to safely navigate the apartment without getting attacked, so it’s also safe out there.

Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will see you tomorrow morning!

A very young Michael Biehn posing as St. Sebastian

Dear Jessie

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

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

Heavy sigh.

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

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

Ah, well.

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

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

Cherish

Monday and back to the office with me today. Yesterday was kind of nice, to be honest. I started clearing out old drafts of posts here; moving them over to the newsletter because they are all longer than I am willing to do here on the blog. It was kind of fun going back to see the ideas I had for longer posts–including ones talking about writing Timothy and A Streetcar Named Murder, which I should really finish and get posted–assuming, of course, that people who get the newsletter are interested in that sort of thing.

Yesterday was kind of nice. I had a short something to write, so I took a few moments and gathered some thoughts and dashed out a rough draft to send to them to see if I was on the right track…apparently I was because they loved it and I don’t have to worry about it anymore. I guess I can go ahead and cross that off my list.

I also spent some time cleaning up and organizing computer files–long overdue, and very time-consuming, but it’s a very good start for now. I now have a nice file for New Orleans Nemesis and even thicker files on works currently in progress. It’s kind of fun, if a little bit daunting, to see how much stuff I need to get done, but I am also getting into the swing of my life again. I feel much better, am not tired all the time anymore, and while there are definitely times when my mind needs to just rest, those moments are becoming fewer and further between. The house didn’t need a lot of chores done, either, so I was able to sit in my chair, watch documentaries on history (some excellent ones about World War II, and some Spanish history through the kings and queens) while I cleaned up my back-up hard drive and organized computer files. The next chapter of the book in progress is forming in my head, and so this week while I wait for those thoughts to coalesce, this week is going to be about clearing up continuity in the four current chapters. I also have to make sure my tenses are correct; I am not used to writing in the present tense, and when my character thinks about the past…that can be in past tense but do I switch back every time I need to? The real nuts and bolts of being a writer here, folks.

I feel pretty good this morning; I slept really well and thus feel rested this morning. I only have to go in three days this week because the birthday is Thursday and why work on Friday if I am taking Thursday off? Doesn’t make sense to me, so I took them both off. We’re also in a heat advisory still, but nothing really new there. I am going to make some groceries on the way home tonight and have some things that need to be done at the office today in addition to seeing my clients. But I am not doing anything on Thursday, the big day itself; that will be my day to just stay home and do not a goddamned thing besides read and watch television. That will be lovely, and I think I will probably stay off-line all day, too.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back again in the morning. See you then!

The Sipsey River. Alabama is really beautiful.

Like a Prayer

Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment, and I am up early. I actually was awake and out of bed before Sparky came looking for breakfast. I feel great this morning, which is awesome. I don’t know how the day is going to play out, but let’s see how it all develops, shall we? Yesterday was lovely. I had some groceries delivered and spent most of the day cleaning and organizing and yes, thinking. Sparky wanted to sleep in my lap while Paul was off doing things, so I did that for about an hour or so, or at least until he decided taking up the entire couch was more suited to his nap needs. I did finally send out that newsletter I’d been working on forever; if you’d like to read my measured response to that horror of an op-ed in the New York Times, you can click right here, if you’d like. No pressure!

The Saints lost their preseason game (we didn’t watch; the games don’t matter so I don’t really get into games that are basically practice skirmishes), but these games don’t matter. I had the LSU-Florida game from 2007 on Youtube while I was doing things–prepping for the season–and then Paul came home. I grilled burgers for dinner, and we watched another episode of Furious, which is incredibly well written and acted; Emmy Rossum is fantastic (and always underrated) and it’s walking an interesting line about abuse that I won’t spoil by talking about. Is anyone else watching?

In other sad news, beloved longtime LSU baseball coach Skip Bertman died; Coach Bertman won five College World Series at LSU and built the baseball juggernaut that is the LSU program. I wouldn’t be such a fan of the baseball team were it not for Coach Bertman, and I remember so many great games and finishes while he was guiding the ship. My heart goes out to his friends and family, and I imagine he’s getting a statue on campus at some point. He also kept going to the games after retiring, too–they’d always show him in the stands during the games. It’s going to be weird not having him there anymore.

My birthday looms this week, too; I have taken Thursday and Friday off for a nice long weekend for it. I don’t remember turning sixty, probably because we were still in the throes of the pandemic, and I was buried in work and responsibilities and didn’t notice or make much of it. It’s astonishing to me that I made it this far, frankly; it’s not like the cards weren’t stacked against me. I’m also not one of those “how did the time go by so fast” people, either. It did not go by fast. High school seems like it was in another era completely–and it was very definitely in a different century, wasn’t it? I also like saying things like “well, you know I was born sixteen years after the war ended” or “Kennedy was president when I was born, and I remember Johnson being president, and when Eisenhower died” and seeing the looks on people’s faces. (You also have to remember that I’m at minimum twenty years older at least than everyone at work, besides one person.) Yikes, indeed. I am going to write a newsletter for my birthday–I’m already working on it–that will reflect on me making it to sixty-five somehow (stubbornness, most likely) and so on. We’re going to get a pizza from That’s Amore in Metairie, and we’re going to see the Spider-Man movie, and potentially a Costco run. That sounds good, doesn’t it?

Today I am going to read, and there’s a very short essay I have to get written today as well. I am making Swedish meatballs for dinner tonight (with egg noodles), and hope to get to the floors today, too.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning before work.

Underground wrestler Cason of Thunders Arena. He looks like a lot of fun, doesn’t he?

Everybody

And somehow Saturday has rolled around yet again here in the Lost Apartment. Yesterday was nice; I had my meeting in the morning after sleeping a little late. I did my work at home duty and the laundry and other chores, ordered some groceries, and relaxed some. It was very nice, actually. I relaxed and cleaned and thought about my writing and what to do next with it. Paul went to the gym after he got home from work, and when he got back, we watched The Shards and Reacher–not realizing two episodes of each had dropped, so we have those to get back to along with more Furious. Paul will be out this afternoon, so I have some down time that I am not certain how to use just yet. I also slept later, finally giving in to Sparky’s entreaties and coming down to give him his breakfast, have my own small starter snack with my coffee, and figure out the rest of my day. I feel very relaxed, rested, and good this morning, which is wonderful. I have some chores to do this morning, so once I post this and also send out my newsletter (I finished revising and rewriting it yesterday evening), I’m going to get cleaned up and read for a bit.

I also have to have some things delivered, so I can make dinner today and tomorrow. We’re once again in a heat advisory (shocking, right?), so I am going to want to spend as little time as possible outdoors. And yes, it’s more evidence of the annual selective amnesia New Orleanians have about the heat and humidity in the summer; somehow we’re surprised every year with how hot it gets here. It always amuses me, and I catch myself doing it all the time.

The Saints’ pre-season games start tonight; Jacksonville comes to town. I’ve never understood the point to the pre-season, and no one’s ever been able to explain why it’s necessary to have one to me. Paul and I went to one at the Superdome before the pandemic, but it wasn’t very exciting, there weren’t many people there, and it’s hard to get vested in a game that doesn’t mean anything. But the season will be beginning for college and the pros soon, and I’m looking forward to both the Saints and LSU this year. LSU has a brutal schedule this year, and has a new coach and a new system. So, we’ll have a better idea of who they are going to be this year after the opener with Clemson in Tiger Stadium. I’ll probably rewatch some classic old LSU games–well, have them on in the background while I either read or write or clean–to start getting amped up for the season. I love college football!

I started watching The Burbs, which I am also enjoying; I love Keke Palmer and am enjoying the show so far. (Paul watched it while I was in Alabama last time, so I watch when I have some down time to relax and don’t feel like doomscrolling through Youtube news clips.) I watched the first episode the other night when Paul was late coming home, and I started the second yesterday.

Sorry to be so brief this morning, but don’t really have a lot to say or talk about this morning. This was my first Friday at home without having to deal with something–employee development day, the car, meeting, etc.–and so this is actually my first regular weekend in a while. I am going to put the dishes away and then reload the dishwasher, and then I am going to take my book and read for a little while. I feel terrific this morning, which is a lovely, lovely departure and I intend to enjoy the day no matter how it turns out.

So, on this note I will depart for the spice mines, and hope that you have the loveliest of Saturdays, Constant Reader, and I will be back with a full report in tomorrow morning.

I love New Orleans in the rain.

Where’s the Party

Tuesday morning and how is everyone and everything? I’m okay, thanks for asking. I picked up the car yesterday—it was less than they quoted me—and yes, the a/c now is back to Frigidaire settings. I got in the car yesterday, started it (they had left the a/c on turned up all the way) and by the time I was backing out o my parking place, I had to turn it down. I turned it down twice more before I got home. It’s going to need more work, but not immediately and this repair work can be planned for, rather than dropping into my lap like a meteorite from space. I feel a bit run down this morning–I think subconscious anxiety worked on me all day, because I was very tired before I went to bed last night and I feel some of that still this morning.

We started watching Furious, a new show about an FBI agent (Emmy Rossum) who gets pulled into a case by her former police detective partner, and she is the one who puts two cases together and realizes the same person committed both crimes; we also see the killer’s perspective. I’ve always been a fan of Ms. Rossum, who has a startling range–I said to Paul, watching last night, “SO weird that she’s the girl from Phantom of the Opera.” It’s quite good, at least so far, so we’ll be continuing with it, while we wait for our next episodes to drop. We also finished House of the Dragon last night, and (spoiler) it was lovely to see Ormund Hightower get his deserved end (as much as I love James Norton). I was pretty much too tired to so much of anything last night, but I think another good night’s sleep will make me right as rain.

Tonight I hope to get back to work on writing; as I have repeatedly said, my brain wasn’t in a place for me to do much of anything other than organize computer files while I watched television. Paul and Sparky were also sleepy and tired (when isn’t Sparky, though?), so we all just kind of hung out in the living room while we watched last night. I am also realizing that it wasn’t a normal weekend for me in the first place, since I had no car, which was kind of disorienting. It’s interesting how a disruption to my routine can be; with all the hullabaloo around the car lately and yesterday, I forgot that it was injection day, which also could have had something to do with that weird off-feeling yesterday. This morning I took care of it, and I am already feeling better. Is it a placebo effect? Possibly, but I always feel better after an injection. We’ll see how I sleep tonight and how I feel tomorrow morning. (I did only hit snooze once this morning, but that was also because I remembered that I needed to do my injection before I left for the office this morning.) Or is the coffee hitting? One can never really be sure, can one?

But we’re slow in the clinic today and tomorrow, so I will have lots of time to get caught up on my work today. I am going to go ahead and accept the fact that yesterday was not in my control and that’s why I was off-balance, tired, and so completely unproductive. Hopefully I’ll have the energy tonight to get some cleaning and writing done, before watching television and going to bed. (Sparky will need some lap time, undoubtedly, though.)

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Ruby Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow on what is once again Pay the Bills Wednesday. Till then!

New Orleans is one of the most beautiful cities in North America, even in the mist and rain.

Love Makes the World Go Round

Sunday already? #madness. I am up early this morning after a good night’s sleep, and I feel pretty good. Yesterday wound up being one of those days where I didn’t do much of anything, and I am not one bit sorry about it, so there, LOL. I am not going to allow myself that luxury today, of course, and at least I should be able to get some reading and cleaning done. Or not. I had the television on, but don’t really remember a whole lot of yesterday and that’s also really fine. My time is my own, although I have some things starting to percolate. Another shared anthology is in the works (with Art Taylor and Donna Andrews for Jeffrey Marks’ Crippen & Landru Press), I have a short essay due by the end of the month, and of course, there’s always the book, the newsletter, and some short stories I want to write for upcoming submissions calls. I am trying to get back into the riding saddle again, but I have to be better about my time management, too. That’s the problem with a lot of free time; you can also wind up wasting time because you think you have plenty of it.

And you never do.

It was a bit gloomy when I got up this morning, but the sky has seemingly cleared. We may get some rain this afternoon, which would be nice and cooling. The temperatures have dropped to the low nineties/high eighties, which is more normal for summer in New Orleans, but I have no doubt we’ll get more blast-furnace heat by the end of the month; Labor Day weekend is always insanely hot and humid (which always made Southern Decadence more fun). But the summer is nearing its end (we won’t have cooler weather until October, but the humidity lessens some after Labor Day. A quick perusal of the weather channel and there is a disturbance out in the Atlantic, but no concerns for the moment. With my luck, it’ll probably come here and I’ll have to evacuate for my birthday. (It was my birthday the weekend before Katrina.) No sense borrowing trouble, as my mother used to say–which was funny, given she had generalized anxiety disorder and thus worried about everything,

Everything she could control, at any rate.

It’s kind of nice having my own dialed back to something manageable, seriously.

I am feeling both lazy and productive at the same time this morning. I need to eat something and get some more coffee, for one thing. I’ve got my journal right here with me, and I keep pausing to take notes. I also have The Last House on Needless Street here with me that I can dip into every once in a while, along with my reread of Celebrity. I have two newsletters I can get finished and out soon, and there are also a couple of others I am still working on. There’s always something for me to write, isn’t there? But one thing I definitely want to do this morning is organize the submission calls that I want to try to write something for as well–organizing is something I always enjoy, and it helps when you can look at everything in one single solitary place. I have finally accepted that my once sharp memory is now a thing of the past, and frequently am amazed at what I have forgotten.

I was thinking about this while reading another chapter of Needless Street, and about how wrong so many of my memories of Alabama have so often proven to be…this bothered me quite a bit, since I’ve visited the home county more times in the last four years than I have in the last forty. It bugged me mostly because I have written fiction set there in a fictionalized version based on memory, and if the memories are incorrect…(the reason is it–the book– reminds me of something similar I have been working on for the last decade or so; my own creepy house down the street in a small town and horrors from the past. This morning, the anvil dropped on my head. Fictional version are the keywords here; it’s based on, not an actual representation of the county. I swear to God, I wish I weren’t so literal and stubborn and oblivious, you know? Sometimes I wonder if I’d have been better off were I not that way; look at the difference dialing back the anxiety has made. Things to think about and consider, at any rate.

So Miss North Carolina was dethroned this week, so naturally the bitch tried to make it about religious persecution, so she could go the Riley Gaines route in conservative media…and then the pageant released the racist posts where she freely threw around the n word. Sit your racist ass down, skank, and have a folding chair. The “asshole whiner to conservative darling” grift is an entire thing, and always so sadly predictable. Your faith made you a racist piece of shit, did it? Have fun explaining that to your God before he sends you to hell, bitch. And how awesome is it that the title now passes on to a Black woman? Chef’s kiss, no notes–although to be honest, I wasn’t aware that beauty pageants, er scholarship contests, were still a thing.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Sunday, y’all. I’ll be back in the morning.

I cannot believe I’ve never written a Scotty with a chase scene across balconies in the Quarter.

Borderline

Friday morning and here we go.

You will be pleased to know that I am yet again certified for CPR, for the thirty-first time or so. This is more of an intense version–the clinic thing–and some things have changed, so I am glad I had to do it again this year. I’ve never had to use it–we have an emergency response team that responds to a code call–and some of the people in my department are on that team (I’ve seen them save multiple lives over the years) but it’s nice to know I can help if necessary.

I am about to get a second cup of coffee and start getting ready to take the car to the body shop. I’ll just grab a Lyft home. I have an on-line meeting at nine, and plenty of work to keep my busy this work at home Friday. It’s also supposed to rain this afternoon, and it’s under eighty degrees this morning–under eighty in New Orleans in August? Madness. I wasn’t tired after work yesterday, but didn’t do a whole lot when I got home other than pick up some things and catch up on the news. (Always a pleasure to do…) We did watch the season finale of The Vampire Lestat, which was different from the ending of the book but definitely ended on a cliff-hanger, which was an interesting choice. I also slept really well again, which was lovely. I am hoping for a good weekend again, but don’t really have any plans for the weekend other than reading, writing, some errands, and cleaning. I did finish reading Love in the Afternoon and Evening (more on that later), and hope to make some progress on The Last House on Needless Street as well.

Okay, the car has been dropped off at the body shop I use on the Earhart1, and I was sweating in buckets by the time the Lyft came–which was deliciously cold when I climbed into the back seat. Ah, this is what it’s supposed to feel like inside a car in the summer. The way New Orleanians forget every year how hot it gets in the summer needs to be studied–along with the comment “I don’t remember it getting this hot before” which is part of that protective amnesia I suppose. I said that on social media to a friend–who’d had dinner with someone earlier in the week who’d said the same thing. We do tend to talk about the weather here a lot, even if it’s just “whew, shore is hot this mornin’/afternoon/evenin’.” (Which is why Elmore Leonard’s writing advice to never start with the weather doesn’t work here. It affects everything.)

But “how to write” manuals are merely authors (or professors) telling others who are interested in writing and getting better. Nothing is tried or true in writing; one of the reason I turn off the spell/grammar check in word is because sometimes I want to use a sentence that may not be grammatically correct–and don’t even get me started on what that shit does to a stream-of-consciousness run-on sentence inside a character’s head. We don’t think in grammatically correct sentences and paragraphs; we also don’t speak that way. I certainly don’t, but that’s also me extrapolating my experience to everyone’s experience, which is a fallacy–yet something everyone does. A few years ago I read something and knit my brows together, thinking no gay would ever–and had to stop and remind myself that actually, some probably would. Our community, after all, is no freer from quislings than any other marginalized group. Sad, but a fact. That’s the mote in our collective eyes; the default that our own experience is the default and everyone thinks like we do….like how racists assume every other white person is also a bigot. (I’ve shocked a few, which is fun.)

And on that note, I am going to make some breakfast and get ready for my meeting. Have a lovely and great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow.

The Rhode Island mansion that was a stand-in for Collinwood on Dark Shadows.
  1. I also asked for estimates for the damage acquired from other New Orleans drivers while parked. Thanks again, trash! ↩︎

Burning Up

Thursday morning and the last day in the office for me this week. But I slept amazingly well last night, and feel rested and refreshed this morning. Today is going to be hectic–I have back to back clients all morning, and then this afternoon I have to renew my CPR license, which will take the rest of the day. Heavy heaving sigh. I do think, though, that I can come straight home tonight and chill. That would be lovely, and I can get caught up on chores that I won’t have to do over the weekend. We can also finish The Vampire Lestat, which we are both loving, and some other new shows/seasons have dropped as well that I need to explore. I also want to finish reading my books this weekend. I read some more of Love in the Afternoon and Evening, which I am really enjoying (thanks again, Kristopher, for the recommendation), and also want to get more into the new fiction read as well as the reread.

Yesterday was a bit rough. I didn’t sleep well Tuesday night (I may have forgotten to take my night time pills), and so was either over-caffeinated or tired most of the day at work. It was just busy enough to keep me on my toes, but not so busy I was miserable. Oddly enough, I did catch a second wind later in the afternoon–which was a relief, as I had a dinner date–and came home and changed before heading uptown to Le Petit Grocery for dinner, which was superb. (I even allowed myself a dirty martini, but just one.) The company was even more superb, as it always is–I really do have the most amazing friends. I actually didn’t feel tired at dinner, and yes, of course I got tired when I got home, but…I slept amazing last night and feel fantastic this morning.\

Yesterday was a bit on the insane side, at least in the world of social media and author organizations. I only currently belong to ITW (no membership fee) and Sisters in Crime. (Sisters always has and always will have a special place in my heart because they’ve all been so great and supportive of me, personally and professionally.) I’ve not belonged to HWA in a long time, but not out of any sense of oh they are so awful or anything like that; I chaired World Horror Con for them here in New Orleans in whatever year that was (I want to say 2014, but it may have been 2015; who can keep track anymore?), which I actually enjoyed doing, working mostly with Rocky Wood and Lisa Morton–and I became very fond of them both. When I saw the first rumbles about a controversy involving their newsletter yesterday on-line, my first thought was literally Thank God I am not on any boards anymore and the second was oh no poor Lisa (before remembering she isn’t president anymore) and finally to I am SO glad I am not on any writer’s organization boards anymore. As for the op-ed, I know the person who wrote it, and of course, someone sent me a link so I could read it. It was…badly written and poorly argued. I saw her claim that the piece was theoretically about bullying, to which my response was clearly, straight white lady, you’ve never been bullied. No, dear, your piece was about bullying authors for using generative-AI–you know, the thing that stole my work for training purposes? No, bitch, I am never using any generative-AI in any way with my work because it is my work and they STOLE from me and almost every published author in this country. As for those writers who do use generative A.I.? I won’t bully you but I also will not read you. I lost interest in the controversy when it became apparent a lot of people were jumping on the bandwagon to slam HWA, which I wasn’t interested in. I don’t publicly bash writers’ orgs because I have sat on their boards before and I know all the concomitant difficulties–as well as battles–that happen behind the scenes. Whether I agree with the decisions they make is a different story, but I try not to critique because I also know I don’t have the whole story. HWA reacted to the backlash very quickly, removed the person from their board, and issued an apology. The bashing still went on, and yes, it can be frustrating when you’re on the outside, but I at least don’t need to know anything more, and I am not a member of HWA. I prefer to believe that everyone behind the scenes is doing the best they can at crisis management, and to give the benefit of the doubt.

But, for future reference, straight white people? Don’t use the word “gatekeepers” so blithely and freely. It’s a term for the exclusion of non-straight not-white people, and the predictable process those of us they chose to publish wind up going through–and it’s incredibly offensive to be accused of that simply because I don’t want to use, or read anything by, generative-AI. Fuck you for that cultural appropriation now and forever, even if it was unintentional, it was still incredibly offensive. Use your generative-AI if you want. But you don’t get to tell me how I can or should feel about it, unless you’re paying the rent. If not, shut the fuck up and take a folding chair.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Hope you have a lovely day, Constant Reader; I’ll be back tomorrow after I drop the car off.

L. A. Knight from WWE

Holiday

Here it is Tuesday morning, and yesterday wasn’t terrible, frankly; it definitely could have been worse. I felt a little spacy in the morning, and got a little bit tired in the afternoon, but nothing terrible. The day at work was productive and quiet. I slept well Sunday night, and was reluctant to get up yesterday morning. But neither Sparky nor my alarm would be denied, so I tumbled out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen to pour myself a cup of ambition. LOL, as if. More like fumbled down the stairs and turned on the Keurig to make a cup of coffee while Sparky spoke vehemently to me because I wasn’t moving fast enough for his liking–nothing new, when he wants something he wants it NOW. I slept well last night, and yet again didn’t want to get up again this morning, but I survived and got up. I ran a lot of errands on the way home last night–mail, pharmacy, made groceries–and was worn out, hot, and crabby by the time I got home. I did do the dishes and ran the dishwasher overnight, too. I’m trying to keep up better this week, so this weekend I’m not facing another mess–since I have car stuff to deal with this weekend, which means getting up early both Friday and Saturday. Yay! But at least next weekend is my birthday (already) and a lovely four day weekend, with Labor Day weekend not that far behind, either.

We watched House of the Dragon last night, with only one more episode left to go in this season as the show rushes to its final denouement. I”m enjoying the show a lot more, especially since I am realizing almost everyone in the cast will be dead by the series finale–and since so many of them are so completely unlikable, that will be fun. At this point, no one deserves to sit on the Iron Throne, frankly. This, to me, is more like the Wars of the Roses, which was theoretically the basis for Game of Thrones; when that conflict ended there were hardly any Plantagenets left alive as the family pruned the branches of its family tree. (I read in a history once that “the primary English crisis of the fifteenth century was Plantagenet fertility, while the sixteenth’s was , ironically, Tudor sterility.”) The entire thing is Viserys’ fault for not making Daemon his heir when he had no sons; no one would have argued with him then picking his own son over Daemon, as inheritance was to be expected to pass that way, in male primogeniture. Ah, folly in reality makes for great drama in fantasy.

I’m surprised dystopian fiction isn’t rising in popularity, actually.

I did work on the book a bit last night, which was absolutely lovely. Chapter Four is drawing closer and closer to its (first draft) finish, and I couldn’t be more pleased. Given all the life irritations and aggravations I’ve been dealing with lately, I am pleased to be back in the writing saddle again. I do enjoy creating, and even when it’s a struggle (which it is sometimes), there’s always a sense of, I don’t know, rightness whenever I’ve finished writing for the day. I was, to be honest, more than a little concerned that getting my anxiety disorder under control might take the drive to write away from me, and I have fallen off the old production schedule that I used to have, but it’s nice to rediscover my joy and to know the medication taking the edge off isn’t affecting my writing, now that I am in a place where I am writing again. I also have noticed the insecurity/Imposter Syndrome has also dried up almost completely (it still rears its ugly head every now and then), which is absolutely a godsend.

Alas, I’ve not cracked any of the three books I am currently reading since the weekend. Paul is coming by the office at the end of the workday so I can take him to get his new glasses at Costco. We’ll be heading against traffic–it’s a very easy drive to Costco from my office, thanks to I-10–so it won’t be too terrible. I am also choosing to see this weekend’s car stuff as a positive. I’ll have a/c again when it’s all over and done with, and I can read while I am waiting for the car when I’m at the dealership (not waiting at the body shop for it), and I will already be on the West Bank, so maybe I can run by Sam’s while I’m there and stop at Sonic for lunch. I can also get a lot done while I’m home waiting for the body shop to finish working on the car. So, over all, a positive, and I can sleep in on Sunday morning if need be.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and may you have plenty of tacos! See you tomorrow morning!

Are we really supposed to believe he has a beard and NO body hair? LOL.