Tag: Father's Day

Down by the Lazy River

Happy Father’s Day to all who celebrate. As for me, I’m meeting Dad in Florida on Friday for a nice weekend in Panama City Beach, although I seriously doubt that I’ll be going outside very much. The older I get, the less I can stand to be in the heat–which is something younger Greg would have laughed at very hard. I no longer care about being tan, either, as yet another fragment of vanity disappears from my head. Today I have to go out into the heat to make groceries, but other than that I am staying happily indoors and trying to get some more work done. We also have Wednesday off, of course, for Juneteenth, which is going to make for an odd work week, methinks, which is also payday.

I am feeling a bit groggy this morning but I haven’t had my first cup of coffee, either. Ah, there’s that first sip, sending warmth and energy through my system. I plan to do some writing today; I had a really good time yesterday unpacking and deconstructing the 20k+ words I already have done for this project, and I do think expanding it out into a novel is a good idea; I think it will make for a very good book if it accomplishes what I am setting out to do with it–and of course, as soon as I have those ambitious thoughts good old Imposter Syndrome rears its ugly head. AH, well, but feeling like I’m back inside my writer’s skin inevitably was going to trigger that, wasn’t it? Sadly, it’s all part and parcel of being a writer, and I just need to shrug it off entirely and focus on the work. So, while I generally despise Imposter Syndrome, I welcome it now because it’s a signpost on the way to getting back to being a full time writer after several years of being swamped and stressed and everything else that went on since 2016, really. It’s been almost a decade since Mom’s first stroke and she started living, essentially, on borrowed time. I think that was the start of the cloud in my brain, and that odd sense that time is running out. It feels lovely to be out of that; I’ve not experienced it for quite some time now, and I think the rest of this year might actually turn out to be incredibly productive for me. Here’s hoping, anyway.

Yesterday was lovely. Sparky got me up before eight, which was fine (he let me sleep until eight this morning), and I got up and started working. I did some cleaning, and I also did some writing, and some planning. Last night I scribbled away merrily in my journal, listing characters and figuring out backstories for them, so that they can be fully realized when I write about them. I do think this one, and the one after, are going to be some of my best work, which feels great, you know? I was also looking over the prologue to The Summer of Lost Boys, and rewrote some of it in my head, which I will need to transcribe at some point today as well. I didn’t really leave the house yesterday, which was great. I spent some time reading the new Paul Tremblay, Horror Movie, which I am really enjoying. (I always enjoy reading Tremblay; he’s one of the best of the new crop of names in the horror community, and not a single book or story of his that I’ve read wasn’t an incredibly enjoyable experience.) We finished getting caught up on The Boys (it cracks me up that the right-wingers are suddenly realizing that the show actually makes fun of them, and the ‘heroes’ they were rooting for were actually the villains. Sucks to be MAGA), and then we dove back into After the Flood, which is absolutely terrific and interesting.

Oh! And House of the Dragon returns tonight. Huzzah!

I slept well again last night, so getting up to Sparky’s determination to get fed was fine with me this morning. The first cup of coffee is currently working its magic in my bloodstream and I am waking up, which is marvelous. I do have some things I need to do this morning–the kitchen is a bit of a wreck this morning, and the floors need to be done–but I am hoping to spend the day, outside of the grocery store, inside working on the book and getting my shit together for the week. Make a to-do list, try to remember all the things I want to submit to, and get organized. I never feel organized, and haven’t in a while, which is part of the off-balance thing that’s been going on since 2016 or so.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday/Father’s Day, and I may be back later with some other posts about being gay and Pride and other great moments from my gay life.

Riders on the Storm

Sunday morning the Gregalicious slept late.

Yes, that’s right–I didn’t get out of bed until the sinfully late hour of eight thirty. (It’s kind of sad that I now consider that to be late, isn’t it?) But I have eaten two pieces of chocolate-marble swirl coffee cake (my GOD, it’s good) and am about to have the first of my morning coffee. Yum, marvelous. There really isn’t anything quite like the first cup of coffee in the morning, is there?

Yesterday morning’s workshop went okay–there was a light turnout, which I had kind of worried about–so rather than going with the whole presentation I’d prepared (I remembered the correct notes to take this time) I tailored it down to fit a smaller audience and made it more intimate conversation. I don’t know if it was any good or the attendees got anything out of it, but I guess it went well. They did have questions, and there were answers I didn’t have for them–but I also didn’t pretend to know them, either, which I think is worse than not having an answer. I did stop at That’s Amore on the way back home and got us a deep-dish Chicago style pizza, which was absolutely lovely, but other than that I really didn’t do a whole lot yesterday. We finished watching Queer as Folk, which I have thoughts about–am curious to see what other people think about it–but regardless of anything else, the show certainly made New Orleans look beautiful, or rather, really did a great job of capturing how beautiful New Orleans actually is. (One of the only reasons I kept watched Real World New Orleans: Homecoming beyond the first episode was specifically to see my city and how beautiful it looks on television…I am not entirely sure I am going to continue watching it because I don’t really care about any of these people.) We also watched the new episode of The Boys, which we enjoyed, and then I toddled off to bed for the evening. I am going to spend this morning swilling coffee and reading Tara Laskowski’s The Mother Next Door, and then maybe this afternoon I’ll do some cleaning and writing on “Never Kiss a Stranger.” I realized that last week at this time I was scrambling to finish the edits, so this is really my first free weekend in quite a while…and so I think, after taking yesterday off after getting home, I may just take all of today off as well.

How fun is that?

And yes, the kitchen is a mess, but I’ll get around to it at some point today–there’s also a load of laundry that needs folding–but for right now, the entire concept of being lazy and slothful for the rest of the day, to completely recharge my batteries (or finish recharging them) sounds entirely too good to pass up, and so I don’t think I will. AND NO GUILT ABOUT IT EITHER IF THAT IS THE PATH I CHOOSE.

I did spend some time yesterday reading some history in the form of Ernie Bradford’s The Great Betrayal: The Great Siege of Constantinople, which has to do with the Fourth Crusade–and if Constant Reader has been around long enough, they would know that I am fascinated by this historical event, which was of a far greater import than Western historians ever give it–there are reasons for that, too–and has always seemed to me to be the starting point for a great treasure hunt/adventure story, and one that I have always wanted to spin Colin off into. (I’ve always wanted to spin Colin off into his own Indiana Jones/Clive Cussler/Steve Berry type series, where he goes around the world in his role as an operative for the Blackwood Agency…but I’m not really great at writing action/adventure, and of course whenever you write something like what I see as the first Colin adventure, you kind of have to be good at it–I also don’t see how you can tell a story like that making it up as you go along, either.) So, in some ways it’s research that may prove useful someday–which is how I always read non-fiction; with an eye to it being useful to me in some way in the future–and I am learning about the crusade and the fall of the city, which is always a good thing, at least in my mind–I always think learning new things at any age is crucial and vitally important.

it’s also Father’s Day and I forgot to mail my dad his card–which I will put in tomorrow’s mail–as usual. I really am a terrible child.

The one thing I am going to do today is figure out what all I have to get done and make appropriate lists.

And on that note, I am heading to the easy chair with my morning coffee and The Mother Next Door. Talk to you tomorrow, Constant Reader, and have a great Father’s Day.