Tag: Florida

All the Gold in California

…is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills, in somebody else’s name….

I always loved that song, and when I was planning on submitting a story to the Sacramento Bouchercon anthology, I was using that as the title. I don’t think I got any further than the title, the main character, and that was a “friend of” the Real Housewives. Maybe someday I’ll get around to working on it again. This, by the way, is what I am like all of the time. Yesterday was rough on me; we were busy in the clinic and I had a lot of work to catch up on. Today will be more of the same, I’m afraid, but am hoping it won’t be too bad. I did make groceries on the way home (only two insane drivers I managed to evade successfully; I swear sometimes it’s like people don’t care if they’re in an accident or not), and the traffic wasn’t too terrible. It really hasn’t been bad in quite a while, actually, even going in on the highway. Or maybe my timing has just been good lately, I don’t know for sure. But I was tired when I got home. Paul and I almost finished Stick, which I am really enjoying a lot and highly recommend, and then I had to do the dishes before going to bed. I did sleep well, and I feel more awake than I did yesterday.

I was so tired last night, y’all, it wasn’t even funny.

I have some things I need to get done today and I think we’re busy in the clinic again too. It’s a busy scheduled week, methinks, which is okay and fine. My supervisor is about to go to London for two weeks, which will make the next weeks interesting around the office. Sigh. But it’s always something, isn’t it? I have to go to Alabama for Decoration Day, and then down to Panama City Beach to visit with my aunt and Dad, at the end of the month. It’s also Paul’s birthday later this month, and I should get him something nice.

The country’s madness continues to rage, and will until it entirely burns itself out. Humanity never learns anything, does it? I don’t know what will be left when that finally does occur, and what will rise from the ashes as a phoenix. I can’t speak for anyone else, but it really does seem sometimes like civilization will never advance or progress because there’s always some completely horrible people in power somewhere. (I do think some people are beginning to understand why Iran has hated the USA for decades, which is something, one supposes.) As I was watching some of those Iranian LEGO videos the other day–they’re actually kind of entertaining, and very well done–because someone claimed we were “losing the propaganda war.” (I’d heard about them but hadn’t paid a lot of attention), which made me think about my childhood again, and how I–all of us–were essentially brainwashed by pro-American propaganda, especially when it came to history, while at the same time we studied propaganda as an evil on society. They showed us both Soviet and Nazi German propaganda, taught us that all propaganda was bad…while teaching us an idealized iteration of this country and its history, centering colonizers as heroes. (Which, I think, is yet another reason I never much cared for Westerns growing up; I could tell it was “natives bad!” propaganda, and not reflective of the west as it truly was. (Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller1, which was derided by Western purists, pretty much showed the actual reality that the west was “won” by whores, grifters and drifters.)

Likewise, Columbus was a genocidal monster who didn’t really discover the Americas; it can only be said that he opened the era of American colonization and indigenous genocide.

Not a hero, really.2

I am starting to feel awake, and I don’t feel very achy or groggy this morning. Maybe I’m adapting to getting up at six again; I really shouldn’t let myself sleep in so late on weekends because adjusting back is such a fucking bitch. But this past weekend was messed up; I’ve not had a normal weekend in several weeks, and I would really like for that to go back to normal…which it will, in time for me to take another trip out of state. Woo-hoo. I don’t mind, though, it’s always nice to spend time with Dad and my newly widowed aunt. I really need to stop drifting through my life and starting to get it back under control again; I don’t necessarily have the anxiety of not knowing what I need to be doing or what is coming up and forgetting things anymore; but it still bothers me on some levels. I know I have doctors’ appointments and an injection and labs and things that need to be done, and I need to mark up my day-to-day calendar. I do feel better this morning than I did yesterday, when I just felt a bit overwhelmed about everything. I know I can get everything done that I need to get done; I just need to consult my on-going to-do list to center myself, and come out of that coasting through life feeling.

And on that cheery note, I am going to have a bit of breakfast before I head into the spice mines for the day. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning.

  1. Note to self: watch again. ↩︎
  2. He really was a horrible person. Most Americans never learn much about him other than the standard “discovered America, funded by Ferdinand and Isabella, his three ships were the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. But he was absolutely a monster; if you don’t believe me, look it up. ↩︎

We’re Ready

Friday and I have to go to a meeting at work this morning, and will probably spend the rest of the work-day there to get my usual Friday hours. We’ll see how I feel after the meeting–if I want to stay or go back home to do some quality assurance. I am meeting two friends for drinks late this afternoon and am having dinner with still another friend directly after. All this social activity will probably end up with me lying on the easy chair all day tomorrow recovering. I guess we’ll see how it all turns out. ut there are worse things, you know? I slept well again last night and don’t feel exhausted this morning, so that’s a good thing; I just don’t know how long I am going to last today. But it’s nice to not feel tired despite getting up early on a day I usually get to sleep a little later. I also wonder if my new special shoes have anything to do with my legs not being tired this morning?

Yes, I had to buy a pair of expensive specialty corrective shoes–specifically for flat-footed people whose feet also pronate–and they cost $150 (I know, I just think spending more than a hundred dollars for athletic walking shoes is insane). I used my income tax refund to pay for a pair (my doctor told me I should try them) and I started wearing them this week. At first, they felt a little weird and not much difference, but I realized last night that my legs hadn’t been tired all week and even the Achilles tendons aren’t complaining nearly as much as they did before. I was hoping that my doctor was incorrect and I wouldn’t have to pay this much for shoes again, but it looks like I am definitely going to have to keep buying these shoes. I’ll eventually stop resenting spending the money, and it’s worth it to not have my legs aching all the time.

LSU Gymnastics won their regional qualifier last night, and scored their highest score of the season, despite leaving points on the mats. The regional final is tomorrow, so here’s hoping LSU makes it to the national semi-finals. They have a good shot at winning the national title yet again this year, which is incredibly exciting. GEAUX TIGERS! And Kailin Chio got two 10’s! It was fun to watch, and I am looking forward to this weekend’s regional final.

The good news/bad news of yesterday was of course, the firing of Nazi bitch Pam Bondi. For the record, Ms. Christian is on her fourth husband while fighting against marriage equality in Florida, and this regime didn’t corrupt her; she was a disgrace to the bar as Attorney General of Florida. Here’s hoping she’s disbarred and eventually charged for crimes committed under her oversight. Everything he touches dies–and isn’t it hilarious how many people can convince themselves to throw morality under the bus and work for him, thinking they’ll be the exception to come out smelling like a rose? But don’t blame the regime for Bondi’s evil–her evil and corruption was why she got the job in the first place. Look who’s the loser lawyer now, bitch! Start praying, and may you never have a moment’s peace any time you go out in public.

It’s also Easter weekend with today being Good Friday; the Crescent City Classic is also this weekend (tomorrow) but it won’t affect me; the route is from Poydras and Rampart to City Park–so CBD and Midcity neighborhoods, not my frequent haunts, which is a very good thing. That means I can run errands tomorrow after all, so I can just stay home on Easter and take it easy. Huzzah!

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Good Friday, however you choose to spend it, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning with a smile on my face and my eyes all bright!

Few things were sexier than a pretty boy in cut-off jeans in the early 1980s—and Christopher Atkins definitely fit that bill

Destiny

Thursday and my last day in the office this week, praise Jesus. It’s not been my best week, what with the insomnia and tiredness. It’s kind of ironic that after finally getting past the endless fatigue of the past few years, and finally getting excellent sleep for months…that the insomnia has come back. I think it’s over-caffeination, frankly–lots of coffee these last few days, which wasn’t smart; yesterday morning I really felt the effects. Not to mention the endless irritation that social media has become, with bots flooding feeds with racism, misogyny, homophobia, and the most disgusting ableism and infantilization of people with people with medical conditions that I despair of this world and start rooting for the meteor strike–failing that, any extinction event on this planet would probably be a boon to the rest of the universe. I think maybe my weariness at this insane dumpster fire we’re living through might be seeping into my soul.1 I won’t let the bastards win, though–and if they send me to a camp, well, I’ll be defiant until they kill me.

I’m not, and never will be, a good little German.

And I did sleep better last night. I feel better this morning, if my legs are a bit tired. I definitely hit a wall yesterday afternoon after lunch, and was so tired that I thought it was Thursday by the end of the day. I ran an errand on the way home and had groceries delivered, and I also did some chores and picked up a bit before collapsing into my easy chair with Sparky for the evening. We finished off Season 3 of The Traitors–so much traitor on traitor violence!–and did not see that ending coming at all. Maybe when the show has been around longer, and people are more familiar with it and how it works, the players will watch past seasons and catch the patterns and shifts in how people inevitably end up going along with other people when they can’t make up their own minds–or how easily people can be manipulated and steered, which is part of its appeal, I think, and when the players talk about learning lessons about themselves from playing, I can totally see that. We at home viewers can roll our eyes at players being deceived, or making insane leaps of logic, often outsmarting themselves in the process–but we also aren’t there, and we are only being shown bits and pieces of their days and their interactions–and it is possible to bond very quickly with people when you’re completely immersed in a group with no outside contact–like fraternity hell weeks, or boot camp–and it’s also a very good lesson in how perceptive and intuitive you are–as well as making you doubt yourself. The finale of season 4 airs tonight, and we shall see if Alabama Rob can pull it off with his sweet demeanor, blue eyes, and prettiness.

Never trust a pretty Southern boy from rural Alabama. Just sayin’.

The hockey mess continues, and the Olympic players keep digging themselves in deeper, and the NHL and the teams aren’t helping matters at all, either. Every social media post gets ratioed, and apparently they are hoping to ignore it till the season ends and hope it all goes away before next season. That’s how ignorant they are in their misogyny; they don’t understand women in the least. Women are, as a general rule, incredible in their ability to maintain a grudge (I admire that because I am similar). I sure as hell carry grudges to the grave with me. I’ve been to Colorado exactly twice in my life since they passed anti-gay legislation decades ago; it has since been repealed an Colorado is mostly blue now…but I still won’t spend my money there, and my visits were work-related. I just mentally crossed Colorado off my list of places to visit, and never thought about it again. Likewise, I am not too keen on ever doing anything to help Florida economically, either. When I visit my family over in Panama City Beach-which is rare–I buy gas before I cross the state line into Florida, and make sure I wait till I cross it again on the way home. Any little bit I can do to not help their economy, I am so there.

But it looks like the women’s team–and all the women medalists–are going to have a massive celebratory party in Las Vegas thrown by Flavor Flav, and companies are stepping up to participate or sponsor it. Hope those cold double cheeseburgers and Aquafina water bottles (warm, I’ll bet) and ketchup packets in that back-ass tacky conference room was so much better than anything the women will experience in Las Vegas–and the women are also getting a lot of endorsement deals. The men’s accomplishment is forever stained and tainted by allowing themselves to be used as political props for a pedophile who hates women. Job well done, assholes. The “honor” of a White House visit? There’s no honor in being used like that, and then lapping it up as you lick the very boots of the monster who is stealing your glory and using it to prop his unpopular ass up. This will haunt you until the days you die…because the Internet is forever and if you think the women players are going to forget how you pissed all over the “friends” you pretend to “support”?

But no worries guys–there’s always prostitutes and gold-diggers to fuck. And as for the NHL’s so-called “Girl Dad” campaign? It’s kind of abhorrent now that we know those dads are okay with the sex trafficking of children. That’s a very specific version of utter ick.

Ugh.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great day, and I will be here again tomorrow!

  1. Those of you thinking the next election will change things, may I direct you to the elections of 2008 and 2020? ↩︎

I Sing for Things

Wednesday Pay the Bills Day again, and yet another cold morning here in the Lost Apartment. Yesterday was bitterly cold again, and our “break” from the cold is today, getting up into the fifties before we slide back down into the freezing water level and even….SINGLE DIGITS this weekend. It’s in the low thirties outside, and my workspace is really chilly. I forgot to set my alarm last night, but woke up when I was supposed to, which was nice–and I did it without Sparky’s help. Usually he’s trying to get me up before the alarm goes off, but not this morning. He was curled up somewhere warm downstairs, obviously, because he was waiting for me at the foot of the stairs this morning when I came down. Sigh. I have to run errands tonight after work–prescription, some groceries, gas–so am hoping it won’t be too terrible outside when my work shift is over. If not, oh, well. The one thing I don’t like about the cold weather is how my legs get so tired and achy so much faster–and leg exhaustion pretty much sets the tone for your entire body, doesn’t it?

But I did some chores last night–started some laundry, ran the dishwasher before putting the dishes away, cleaned the counters–and it was very nice coming down to a clean kitchen this morning. Note to self: the reason for doing chores during the week is to stay on top of it so I don’t have to spend time on the weekends getting it all caught up. I plan on doing another book purge this week, too, and to do some organizing of the bookcases again. It looks so much nicer and neater in the living room with all those books gone…and absolutely must remember to continue purging when I get to the point where I feel like it’s okay to buy books again.

I spent a lot of time last night watching news clips, interviews, and influencer podcasts about the fallout from the fascism we’ve all witnessed in Minneapolis. (It doesn’t escape my cynical notice that everyone went completely nuts about this–right and left–once they’d murdered a straight white man on camera…so, not to worry, racialized people, queers and women: we still care more about straight white men than any other demographic in this country.) The blame game, the quick shift by Kristi Noem to “just following orders,” and the possible fall of the vile Stephen Miller and his pick-me skank of a wife (IMAGINE seeing that naked and letting him inside of you…I may never stop internally screaming) was just too delicious of a train wreck to look away from. It almost feels like they are in the “find out” part of FAFO, but they are literally like the walking dead. Firing Bovino, Noem, Lewandowski (her adulterous LOVER), and Miller is just a start, for the record. Nothing less than prosecution will suffice.

That, and never being able to show their disgusting faces in public again without heckling.

When I’ve talked recently about wishing everyone could just let us enjoy Heated Rivalry and its success without being jackasses, I was referring to the Cyd Ziegler/Empty Netters podcast that’s been going on since late last week and early into this one. At first, the piece in Outsports was terribly disappointed, as it seemed to indicate that the guys on the podcast were actually homophobic trash who pretended to like the show for views and clicks, by exposing text messages the one supposedly sent to a friend. Obviously, he knew who he sent the texts to–as they are still in his phone–and he did a video defending himself, claiming, as always, they were taken out of context and the timeline of how things happened and played out were muddled to make him look worse. Some of his defensive language was problematic, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about the whole thing…but then I got some more context on Cyd Ziegler, the Outsports journalist who exposed the story.

Cyd is a registered Republican gay man in Florida who supports Ron DeSantis, so anything he says is bound to be suspect, and his claim of years of gay advocacy and activism is rather suspect, given his politics. If you are a gay man, claiming advocacy and activism–how the fuck can you be a Republican and support Don’t Say Gay DeSantis? The backlash was so strong he backtracked, but…you can never believe or trust anything a Republican says, because they lie like it’s mother’s milk to them.

And yes, I will stand in solidarity with straight allies who might not have the best education on queer rights or issues over a self-loathing gay Republican every fucking day of the week. We may both be gay, but we have significantly different values and morals. Queer MAGA, to me, is even more despicable than straight MAGA…”fuck those fags, I’m not like those pansies” is an attitude and mentality I will never align with or support or stand with in solidarity. There’s an essay in this, methinks, for the newsletter.

I also started the new version of Chlorine, and it’s slow going so far; maybe eight hundred words or so? But the voice feels right, and I am looking forward to getting back into it again today.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow morning for my weekly “last day in the office” blog. STAY WARM!!!

When gorgeous, muscular men are involved, wrestling can create living sculpture as art. Meta will, naturally, hide this as “adult content”

Baby Girl

Pay-the-Bills Wednesday has rolled around again somehow, and somehow it’s already December. How did that happen? Going away for nearly a week has messed with my head a little bit, hasn’t it? But this morning I feel good and rested–odd for the midweek, don’t you agree?–but I also slept well. I had to turn the heat on last night when I got home from work with the groceries, and it’s snug and cozy in here this morning. (I am starting to like the cold weather, which is wild, isn’t it? I always exaggerated how much I didn’t like cold weather, but it seriously doesn’t bother me anymore.) We were busy in the clinic yesterday, and I think I will be again this morning, too. I was a bit tired when I got off work and headed to the store to make groceries. I didn’t get as much done when I got home as I’d hoped–the apartment was very cold, and I huddled under a blanket in my chair with Sparky while catching up on the news–my, what a shit-show we as a nation have turned into–before actually taking a short nap in my easy chair before getting up to do some things before going to bed. It’s forty-one outside this morning (!!!) but I am not minding that at all. Go figure. My theory is that the snow earlier this year snapped me out of a lifelong hatred of cold weather. Stranger things have happened, after all.

The professional bull-shitters, aka ESPN’s line-up of talking heads and morons who blather on endlessly without providing any real information but like you to believe their opinions are based in something, have continued to drag Lane Kiffin for going to LSU. I hate to break it to y’all, but all you’re doing is endearing him even more to Louisiana and Tiger Nation. I watched his initial press conference on Youtube last night (I couldn’t watch it live as I was at work Monday) and I have to say, he kind of won me over. Will he bail on LSU the same way he did to Tennessee and Mississippi? Possibly, sure. But welcome to college football in the twenty-first century, and it’s not like the players can’t leave the way they used to not be able to when their coach went somewhere else. And really, the timelines on how things are set up aren’t conducive to not screwing schools and teams over in this manner. I get the bitterness and disappointment for Mississippi and their fans; I’d be pissed if that happened at LSU, and they–and the Tennessee fans still mad about him leaving in the dead of night for USC all those years ago–have every right to be bitter and angry. But getting the dragging he is getting nationally only makes LSU fans feel more dug in; they do not mind being considered the villain in the least, and neither does the new coach. Hell, they live for having a chip on their shoulder.

It’s kind of reminiscent of the Steve Spurrier days at Florida, frankly–which should be very scary for everyone else.

I did look at LSU’s schedule for next year, and they have to play Alabama, Auburn, Texas, Texas A&M, and they get to play at Mississippi and Tennessee–Coach Kiffin’s greatest hits. It shows we play at Mississippi again next year, which seems wrong; we played in Oxford this past season so should have to go there two years in a row, but okay. We also play Mississippi State, Arkansas, and Kentucky. It’s going to be weird not playing Florida every year.

I also started gathering all my notes on Chlorine last night, to organize and get started on it (again), which will entail revising the first three chapters all over again. It’s fine; it originally started with the cops coming to his front door, before I switched it over to a studio fixer. I may leave the studio fixer intact, but it will need to be somewhat changed because the plot demands it. I also have my page proofs for Hurricane Season Hustle, another editing job, and I went over the edits for a short story that an anthology is taking, which is very cool.

As for the Pete Hegseth murder/war crimes story, is anyone surprised at the lengths this administration will attempt to distract from the Epstein files? I’m not, and frankly, Hegseth belongs in front of a firing squad.

I’m also having some thoughts about the next Scotty, too, which is kind of fun.

And on that, off to the spice mines with me! Have a lovely day, Constant Reader!

Hurtin’ (on the Bottle)

Monday morning and back to the spice mines with me this morning.

Well, the office, at any rate.

It’s very chilly in the Lost Apartment on this first day of December, which also means it’s the start of my Noirmas Season project. Huzzah!1 I also slept deeply and well yesterday, after a day of rest and not really doing a lot. I was very low-energy yesterday, which didn’t surprise me. I’ve always been tired the day after driving home from Kentucky, which is why I always have given myself a free day before I have to go back to the office. So being low-energy wasn’t a “still not well completely” reaction, but rather a normal one, which was an enormous relief. Sparky was also very needy all day yesterday, sleeping in my lap or insisting I go sit in my chair to provide a lap for him–he’s so sweet. He was kind of distant at first when I got home, too, but eventually forgave me and starting showering me with attention. But yes, I spent most of yesterday in my easy chair too tired to read, and watching news videos and getting caught up on everything I’d missed while on that Internet sabbatical I took. I had to clean out an unbelievable amount of emails, and I also have a lot to read and respond to at some point this week.

The coaching carousel finally stopped spinning yesterday, with Tulane’s coach going to Florida and a directional Florida university’s coach going to Auburn, with the big story of the day being Lane Kiffin deciding to leave Mississippi in the lurch and come to LSU. (Mississippi elevated their defensive coordinator to head coach–not interim, but head coach.) There was a lot of negativity about this, as there should have been. He is leaving his team with a 11-1 record and a play-off birth, so their fans are pretty bitter and angry2. Mississippi hasn’t had a shot at contending for a national title since at least 2003, and they made the 12 team play-offs before LSU, which no one would have thought possible as recently as five years ago. I’m ambivalent about the whole situation, to be honest. Mississippi fans have a right to be angry and they also have a right to hate him; he left them in the lurch before the play-offs to go to an archenemy. LSU-Mississippi is a trophy game every year, and they hate us and have for decades. The difference between this hire and the Brian Kelly hire back in 2021 is that Louisiana seems to have instantly embraced Kiffin, whereas Kelly was never completely accepted, and even after winning the division in his first season–a good start–LSU never saw that level of success again. I’m willing to give Kiffin a chance, just as I was willing to give Kelly (someone I didn’t like or respect) a chance. He did a great job at Mississippi–not an easy task–and three consecutive ten win seasons there is nothing to sneeze at. LSU is a brand (more on that later) much more so than Mississippi, with no disrespect intended; it’s just a fact. An undefeated LSU team, for example, will always be ranked higher than an undefeated Mississippi team–which is completely unfair–but that’s how this all seems to work these days. (Miami and Notre Dame, for example, have the same record but Notre Dame is ranked higher–and Miami beat Notre Dame. Your guess is as good as mine.)

Yesterday morning I finished listening to Fever Beach, and have lots of thoughts about it. It reminded just how important it actually is for funny writers to use their talents to skewer and satirize politicians and the state of the country. I have wondered myself about how much of the current world situation I should put into my Scotty books, and if so, how to handle it. My readers, of course, probably are more left than right; I cannot imagine how anyone could read that series and believe Scotty and his family are conservatives. I don’t remember if Fever Beach was considered controversial when it was published, and once it got started I wasn’t sure how I felt about it and the approach he was taking, but once I started laughing out loud (which happened quite a few times while listening) and got into the spirit of the thing. Mocking them is really the best way to handle them–and really, we should have never stopped calling them weird last summer.

We also finished watching the John Wayne Gacy series, Devil in Disguise, which was incredibly well done. I appreciated the focus on the families and loved ones on the victims, along with the trial stuff and backstory. This, Ryan Murphy, is how you do a serial killer mini-series. You don’t glamourize the killer. We then watched a documentary called The Carman Family Murders, which was interesting, sad, and horrifying all at the same time. (I think we’re going to make Sundays our “true crime documentary” nights.)

Tonight after work I need to make some groceries and order some to be delivered (or maybe I can order them all for delivery? Hmmm). I need to put the dishes away and finish the load of laundry I started last night (fluff and fold is all that’s left to do). I need to clean out my inbox and start thinking more about working on Chlorine. I also got the edits for new Scotty I have to get done, and I have another chore to do as well.

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

  1. Note to self: find my copy of The Postman Always Rings Twice tonight. ↩︎
  2. Again, who can blame them? There are people in Louisiana who’ve never forgiven Nick Saban for returning to college football at Alabama. ↩︎

18 Wheels and a Dozen Roses

Monday morning and back to the office with me today. I slept well last night and feel alive and awake this morning, so huzzah for that at any rate. I don’t know how busy we are today in the clinic, but it’s just me for now and going forward for I don’t know how long and so I don’t know how tired I will be getting this week at work, either. Meh, we’ll see how it all goes, won’t we? It was a nice weekend of not getting a lot done, which is okay. I felt drained yesterday, and very low energy, so mostly spent the day in my chair with Sparky watching research videos1; I also made a lot of notes in my journal, which is always a good thing. I wasn’t particularly motivated, either. I also read for a while into my Donna Andrews book, but wasn’t really able to focus a lot and thus didn’t read much, but it was a nice start. Maybe this week and this weekend I can get the book finished; I can also take it with me on the trip to finish, if need be. It’s hard to believe that next week is actually Thanksgiving already, and time for my lengthy drive up north. Heavy sigh. But it’ll be very nice to be up there, methinks, and despite the inevitable exhaustion and fatigue that will come from said drive, I’ll enjoy spending time with Dad.

And I am not going to worry about writing or doing anything while I am up there, other than reading and resting and relaxing….since that is all that ever happens when I am up there. Which is not a bad thing, I am learning that taking down time to recalibrate and rest and recharge my batteries WITHOUT GUILT is actually necessary, and I am tired of beating myself up all the time because I am not more driven than I already am, you know? One of my goals for this year was to be kinder to myself, and that’s kind of going fairly well. I still slip back into the old, self-defeating mentality every once in a while, though, but it’s not a daily thing and not being anxious all the time is also kind of nice.

I’ve also been paging through The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey, and remembering now how stupid the whole thing was when I first read the book when I was in my teens and soaking up conspiracy theories and strange history2; for Lindsey’s writings and interpretations to be correct, they are predicated on two things: one, you have to believe the Bible is literal truth, and that not a single word in it was ever changed over millennia. Considering the original Christian schism (Rome v. Constantinople) was about the West adding words to the Bible…(the filioque controversy) so yeah, that shows Lindsey’s theories, conclusions, interpretations and writings begin with a logical fallacy, and thus, can they really be believed at this point? Please remember that some of his writings in the 1960s have since, all claims to the contrary, been proven false. There’s going to be an absolutely marvelous essay coming out of this revisiting, as part of my essay series on religion.

We also watched more episodes of Lazarus last night, leaving the finale for tonight. I am really enjoying the show, and it is all making so much more sense to me than it was initially; I don’t know how the supernatural aspects of the story are going to be explained, but it’s a fun show to watch, with plenty of marvelous twists and surprises. Not sure what is up for our next binge, but I want to watch Frankenstein before leaving for my trip. LSU plays Western Kentucky this weekend, which may not even be televised, and I am not really sure about other big games coming on this weekend. I am still kind of in shock that Alabama lost to Oklahoma again for the second year in a row, and if they don’t make the playoffs again, their coach is going to be in a very warm chair. There’s a lot of talk swirling about Lane Kiffen leaving Mississippi for either LSU or Florida, but I don’t see it, honestly. Both states have shitty governors and legislators who have no problem with sticking their fingers into the flagship university’s affairs, and he pretty much has free rein up in Oxford. (I stand corrected; LSU is playing Saturday night at the same time as Florida-Tennessee.) It’ll be interesting, I guess.

We also watched the ice dance and women’s finals for Skate America yesterday, which was pretty cool. I think we’re going to field a pretty good Olympic team in figure skating this cycle.

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

  1. Saw a really excellent one about the 1054 Christian schism, when Roman Catholicism divorced Eastern Orthodoxy. I also saw some interesting videos about the birth of Zionism and how the current Middle Eastern problems initially developed, and it always goes back to Rome, doesn’t it? ↩︎
  2. This isn’t the only “conspiracy theory” style book I read and saw the flaws in said theory immediately; I also thought Erich von Daniken’s work and Holy Grail Holy Blood (the basis for The Da Vinci Code, for the record) were full of holes, as were Graham Hancock’s….and I was just a teenager. ↩︎

You’re the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly

You can always count on country music for great titles, you know? “Drop Kick Me Jesus (Through the Goalposts of Life)” remains an all-time favorite title for anything, really. But it’s Sunday morning of the time change, I got to sleep a bit more than usual, and I am feeling pretty good this morning. Paul was worn out from working on a grant into the wee hours of the morning yesterday, so we didn’t run any errands yesterday. I cleaned and organized for the most part–it was so lovely coming downstairs to a very clean and neat and orderly kitchen–and worked on filing and so forth. I decided to just give my brain the day off and not worry about either reading or writing anything or pressuring myself into something out of guilt, and it was kind of nice and relaxing.

I did watch some football games yesterday–well, had them on while I was doing other things, at any rate. The games I had on yesterday were Vanderbilt-Texas, Oklahoma-Tennessee, and Georgia-Florida. No one I was rooting for in any of these games won, and it was particularly galling to root for Tennessee and Florida1 (both of whom I despise), only to have them lose. They were all good games that kind of came down to the wire, and I was really hoping that Vandy would finish their comeback; they came soooo close. I’m rooting for them to go to the playoffs, to be honest; I almost always will root for an underdog program like theirs to shine when it gets a chance, you know? It’s also not being vested in the season anymore, too; now I can just kind of watch from a remote distant and make observations.

What I did do for the most part yesterday, as far as intellectual stimulation is concerned, was revisit The Haunting of Hill House a bit as I worked on my newsletter about the book and why I love it so much. It is such an extraordinary piece of writing, with so much left vague and uncertain that it’s very easy for the reader to fill in the blanks and interpret the story and the characters in their own way–and it’s also possible to read it very differently every time you read it, gleaning new thoughts and interpretations with each reread (like Rebecca, which also should be taught). I’m hoping to get it finished and posted either today or tomorrow, as part of Halloween Horror Month’s last gasp, which also includes reading another horror novel, too. (Finishing the one I started–the Scott Carson–before returning to The Hunting Wives and moving forward from there.) And props to me, he typed modestly, for really sticking with HHM and focusing on it. I had also wanted to rewatch Scream 2 and A Nightmare on Elm Street to talk about; I even thought about rewatching the original Halloween again, so I could write about all of them…but I managed to do most of the things I wanted to do for it, so it’s a win that I am feeling pleased on this chilly Sunday November morning.

And isn’t that mentally healthy? Before anxiety medication I would be bashing myself and feeling like a lazy loser, which has always been a self-perpetuating thing for me anyway. I consider that excellent progress, and by accepting it as a victory rather than as a loss, maybe I can start being a little kinder with myself. I would always set the bar for myself so damned high that it would be impossible for 99% of people to clear, let alone me, so I could berate myself and go through the entire “you’re such a lazy loser” cycle of mental self-abuse, including such treasured gems of self-defeat like this is why you never get anywhere or way to prove all those awful people right and on it goes, spiraling down into the Pit of Despair.

I really hate the Pit of Despair, and never, ever want to go back there.

We also watched this week’s The Morning Show, which was interesting and good (during the second half of the Tennessee game), and probably this evening will watch some more of our shows and possibly the Jurassic World movie we never got around the seeing in the theater this summer as well as our other shows, including The Diplomat, which is most excellent.

I’ve not commented on the weirdness between the couch-fucker and the the non-grieving, grifting widow in pleather pants so tight she must have gotten a yeast infection, mainly because the unholy alliance everyone is predicting developing on social media doesn’t interest me in the least. Yes, people grieve differently, but if there was an actual investigation into the gum-challenged one’s murder, she would be suspect number one; how many times have we seen someone convicted incorrectly because they didn’t grieve their spouse/children the way everyone thinks they should? I know one thing; if Paul was murdered, there would be no pyrotechnics and high production values for his funeral, and I wouldn’t be getting groped on national television mere months afterward. But sure, it’s same-sex marriage that is unnatural, right? My dad is still not over my mother, and it’s been almost three years.

Then again, Dad loved Mom. Not judging the Widow, mind you, but I do find it strange, but MAGA evangelicals are strange. Imagine if the Widow were Hillary Clinton, and what MAGA would say about her in this situation.

And on that note, I have some filing and reading to do. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll see you tomorrow morning before I head into the office.

  1. I did see that Auburn somehow lost to Kentucky; which should be the obituary for Hugh Freeze’s career there. Glad I didn’t watch that. ↩︎

Ruin the Friendship

Monday morning and I am back at home, getting ready to face another day at the office. I am very tired this morning. I drove home yesterday and was exhausted once I did get home. I managed to unpack and get some things done, but not a lot. One thing that was rather blissful while I was gone was being almost completely out of the loop as far as the country and world are concerned–and it was kind of nice, actually. I started writing an entry while I was up there that I never finished and posted, either; I will try to get that finished at some point today. I have to leave early to see my GI specialist, and then I need to run some errands before I get to come home. Gah, I am tired. It’s going to not be an easy week, methinks. I also committed to going to Kentucky for Thanksgiving, which seriously won’t kill me, will mean a lot to my sister and father, and probably will get me over the Mom’s holiday thing. It’ll be three years on Valentine’s Day next year. Sigh.

I listened to Adam Cesare’s Clown in a Cornfield 2: Frendo Lives! on the ride to and from this past weekend, which I really enjoyed; a perfect choice for Halloween Horror Month. I don’t know that I’ll do a review of it or not; I haven’t decided and I have a lot that I need to get done over the next few days–we’re having a site visit this week, so I definitely am behind on getting things ready for that and I have all kinds of catching up to do. Daunting, yes, but nothing I cannot handle once I’ve made a to-do list, which I’ll have to do later on this morning–one for the office, one for me personally–so I can make sure I am not forgetting anything that I need to get done. My coffee tastes good this morning (must put ‘clean coffee machine’ on said to-do list) and I am taking that as a good sign that, despite feeling a bit run down and tired this morning, I will have a terrific day.

I am SURE of it!

Last night, after getting sort of caught up on the news a bit (I still feel very out of touch this morning), we started getting caught up on shows, and we also started watching Boots, the new Netflix show about a gay kid who somehow joins the Marines before “don’t ask don’t tell”; when being gay was an automatic dishonorable discharge and perhaps even some time in a military prison. (IT WASN’T THAT LONG AGO KIDS!) We’re really enjoying it thus far, and the actors are all pretty to look at. I didn’t think I’d enjoy a show about marine boot camp (at least not after seeing Full Metal Jacket), but I actually did. I also got caught up on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, which was fun, and really the only one I pay attention to anymore. I also read Chris Grabenstein’s The Hanging Hill, which I enjoyed as some light reading. It’s a middle-grade book, I’d say, and the kind of thing I would have loved when I was the right age for it. I can see why he’s so popular with kids–and he’s a lovely person to boot; I’d bought two of his books when we met and were on a panel together at Sleuthfest about ten years ago. (I do recommend Sleuthfest, writer friends and aspiring writers; it’s a marvelous crime conference put on by the Florida chapter of MWA.)

And now I get to settle back into the real world and my real life again. After my doctor’s appointment I am going to run pick up the mail and stop to get some fresh berries for my breakfasts at the Fresh Mart before coming home and doing some chores before cat-bonding and getting caught up on the news (sigh) and what’s going on in the world. I very deliberately disconnected from my phone and didn’t use it for anything other than deleting spam email for five days. I highly recommend this process for everyone from time to time; we do need to remain informed about what’s going on in this horrifyingly enflamed world. It helped my mental state dramatically.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I’ll try to get that trip blog post finished this week, and I even started a newsletter essay I would like to get done. Have a great Monday, and I will be back at some point soon.

We Are Family

Work at home Friday, and my alarm kitty let me sleep in a few extra hours, so praise be at the very least, right? I do feel a bit fatigued this morning–my hip joints and legs ache a bit–but hopefully that won’t impact the day too terribly. I have some data entry to do and quality assurance to check off my to-do list. I have some errands to run, too–making groceries and the mail–which I will do after I get my work done. It looks to be sunny outside this morning; we’ve not had rain in a while, and there’s none in the forecast, either. As much as it rained in July and early August, we’re still almost in a drought in southeastern Louisiana. Wild that we’ve not had enough precipitation down here to stave off a drought…but it’s also why the humidity dialed back these past few weeks.

I finished reading the manuscript last night and made lots of notes, so I am also hoping to make a lot of progress this weekend on getting it finished, or at least much closer to the finish line. I was pretty tired when I got home from work–being client-facing in the clinic for thirty-two hours is a lot–and so ensconced myself with the manuscript and my lap kitty into my easy chair while catching up on the news, before watching the first episode of this season’s Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, which somehow manages to keep the original spirit of these shows–delusional, petty women who create drama out of nothing–without somehow ruining it in some way. I’m pretty sick of most of the others, and it is true that Bravo will try to milk every single penny out of a franchise rather than letting it die a natural death when it’s time. It’s the way of American television, after all. I also slept deeply and well–the exhaustion, most likely–and so am hoping to get a lot done today.

First things first, though–I need a new to-do list.

This week saw the most horrifying example of government overreach and censorship perhaps in our nation’s history, directly violating the First Amendment. I was also extremely disappointed to see ABC/Disney caving in to a government demand, particularly when you think about how firm and steadfast progressive support for Disney has been when they’ve faced boycott threads from the Hard Right. Is this the same fucking company that filmed Johnny Tremain? As far as I am concerned, I would have sued the complaining Hard Right affiliates for breach of contract or cut off their national ABC feed. You can’t make money without any content, can you? The fact that major network affiliate companies have just publicly admitted that they don’t support free speech and filter content with an agenda for their audiences means they shouldn’t be allowed to be in broadcasting, period. You either take all of our content, or you get none of it, would be my position. Obviously, my view and opinion on how all of this works is uninformed and possibly naïve, since I don’t know how this stuff works, but when a media company goes on the record making demands of talent and makes threats? I really don’t think you should be in business when you’re on the record as pro-censorship of ideas and speech you don’t like. Disney used to always play hardball and always won. This cowardice in the face of authoritarianism and the fall of the Constitution is something I personally will never forget. And going to their theme park in the middle of Disease Central? No fucking thanks.

Never ever forget that corporations are soulless entities only interested in profit and power, for all that the Supreme Court had determined they count as a person…although a person who cannot face criminal charges or jail time. How precisely does that kind of personhood work? Sad that corporations have more legal protections than people, isn’t it? And isn’t that really the bottom-line problem in this country, after its systemic racism and dedication to preserving white supremacy and the American heresy?

I’ve also gone back to my old standard rule of social media: if you come across my feed talking stupid-ass shit, I am going to not engage but just block you. Yesterday I saw an author stupidly claiming that this recent outrage wasn’t a First Amendment violation but a business decision. This woman, who clearly is too stupid to understand anything, has had some shitty takes before–but I have no time or patience for anyone who is that stupid…so out the airlock she went, and not sorry to see her stupid flat unwashed ass go, in all honesty. Here’s hoping this helps my sanity going forward and stops me from wasting my time.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back on the morrow most likely.

Oh, look, yet ANOTHER sexy image of St. Sebastian. At least he hasn‘t been “penetrated” yet by the arrows…