Tag: Georgia-Mississippi

I Keep Forgetting (Every Time You’re Near)

One of the things I had listed on goals for 2023 was to be better at marketing myself and my work. This also requires a complete reboot of my brain and how it functions; I have always been embarrassed to praise myself or talk about myself in non-negative ways, and this year I realized, with shock and horror and not a little bit of awe, that whenever I demeaned or belittled myself and my work publicly, I was undermining myself. What I saw as “charming humble self-deprecation” or “eccentric author doesn’t take himself seriously in a charming manner” might not be coming across the way it was intended. But shaking the habit of a lifetime of religious and family training to always be humble, never brag or boast, and to always remember to simply be satisfied with having done the best I could and let the praise come from outside, isn’t easy. I had always intended, for example, to join Canva and start producing my own graphics (because I am horrible with technology and learning new things, and I have so little time to learn things); I finally did that yesterday morning AND created my own first graphic for my Facebook home page image–the covers of both new books, my author photo, and the message Out This Month! –and it wasn’t terribly hard to do, and it was a kind of fun creative exercise that is easily manageable and another fun thing for me to do on Saturday mornings: make a new graphic for social media!

It’s a start. I also need to work on my website.

I am also doing Blatant Self-Promotional posts every day for each book–or at least I am trying. Three blog posts a day is a lot, frankly, and my brain is already so fried and overburdened with the upcoming surgery that there’s not a lot of space up there for much more than I am already doing, and it’s been a struggle trying to come up with promotional topics about each book every day. I also worry in promoting Death Drop and talking about drag that I am exposing my own ignorance on the topic on a daily basis, chasing potential readers away. Sigh. You see the trap anxiety sets for me on a regular basis? The fucking anxiety makes me second-guess myself all the time, which isn’t great, especially for someone it also gives self-esteem issues to.

Yesterday was an interesting day for college football. It was lovely watching Missouri destroy, dismantle, and all around just humiliate Tennessee. Missouri is one of those teams I don’t dislike; I sometimes forget they’re in the SEC but there’s some residual distaste for them from when we lived in Kansas–one thing KU and K-State fans can agree on is pure hatred for Missouri–but in the SEC, they’ve never bothered me much; probably because LSU plays them so infrequently. Georgia embarrassed Mississippi last night, which means the Tide is peaking at the right time and remember back when everyone was wondering if the Alabama dynasty was over? Yeah, it’s Georgia and Alabama playing for the SEC title again in Atlanta this year, same is it ever was. And of course, last night LSU took Florida apart in Tiger Stadium. Can we talk about Jayden Daniels for a moment? Even with a slightly more average defense, LSU would be in the national title conversation and without Daniels, we’d probably not have a single SEC win, other than maybe Mississippi State. He was phenomenal last night, setting all kinds of records and basically looking the best player in college football all year. His consistency has been insanely off the charts, and so have the numbers he’s been putting up, and if it weren’t for the 2019 team, this would be the greatest offense in LSU history–which makes the shitty defense all the more painful, really.

And now LSU has beaten Florida five times in a row. That’s the longest LSU winning streak in the series, and this was the last time the rivalry game will be played every year. If that doesn’t have Billy Napier’s job in trouble, remember–they still have a rivalry game left with a Florida State team that beat LSU in the opener and has only gotten better ever since. Paul and I were at the 2019 Florida game, which was a 42-28 thriller with Burrow torching the Gators the whole time. LSU wasn’t even supposed to be able to stay on the field with Florida during the next two seasons–and won both games, including the Shoe Game in 2020, which ended Florida’s play-off hopes. (They also honored the national championship baseball team during the game last night–the team that defeated Florida 2 out of 3 for the championship, which was some epic shade.) This year’s loss to Alabama was disappointing, especially since if Daniels hadn’t been hurt we might have been able to hang with them a bit more, but LSU is still further ahead in the rebuilding process than we should be, and that’s a credit to Coach Kelly and his staff–excluding the entire defensive coaching staff. The Tigers can get to 9-3, and ten wins if they win out–with Georgia State and Texas A&M the only games left, and both are winnable. The Saints play today at noon, but I am not sure I have the emotional stability to watch! (And USC lost, too–always a joy when Lincoln “too good for LSU” Riley gets his ass handed to him.)

I didn’t get as much done yesterday as I wanted to, because I did get distracted and sucked into football games, and Tug just wanted to cuddle all day, pretty much, so I spent the day in my easy chair with the games on while playing with my phone and iPad. I can have a day off every once in a while, can’t I? I think I am also going to slow down on the BSP, at least for a bit–and then I think yeah but you might disappear off-line after the surgery so you should do as much as you can before hand. This is also a valid point. I made shrimp creole last night, which turned out amazing, and it also felt nice to be cooking again, you know: It’s been a hot minute since the last time I cooked anything for real, and it was kind of a warm-up for me because I want to make mac-n-cheese tomorrow as well as a red velvet cheesecake for work. Ambitious, wouldn’t you say? I also bought cake pans yesterday while making groceries, because I don’t have a cake pan anymore, apparently; I’ve also lost my cake carrier–which I suspect was a casualty of a declutter during the pandemic, so I’ll have to buy another. Sigh.

And I just KNOW that after a buy a new one, the old one will turn up someplace where I put it where I wouldn’t forget that I put it. I outsmart myself on a fairly regular basis. But tomorrow morning are all my pre-surgery appointments, which is when I am going to find out exactly what the hell my recovery process is going to look like. And maybe this week my dentures will finally be ready; we can only hope.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again probably later–because the call of the Blatant Self-Promotion will undoubtedly prove too strong to resist.

Sexual Healing

Friday, but I am not working at home this morning. We have a department meeting, and then I am going to stay at the office until around two this afternoon to get things done. I am taking Monday off because all my pre-surgery appointments are that morning, and I don’t know how long that is going to take. As Monday is a paperwork and not-in-the-clinic day, it’s not a big deal as long as I get all of the work I would ordinarily do on Monday to get the clinic ready for the rest of the week done today. I am going to run a couple of errands on the way home, and then I am in for the rest of the day. I will have to run some errands tomorrow–post office, mostly–but hope to spend most of the weekend inside the apartment. I slept well last night, mainly because I had the “Thursday exhaustion” that hits me every Thursday since I started working this schedule, but that’s okay. I came straight home from work yesterday, and didn’t do much of anything once I was there. Oh, sure, I watched another episode of Moonlighting–and their lesser episodes are still charming–and later Paul and I watched the season finale of The Morning Show, which was a lot of fun. I did watch some Youtube documentaries about the Knights Templar and the Fall of Constantinople in 1204–which I never get tired of learning about, and will turn up in one of my books one day, just you wait and see.

I’m also looking forward to this weekend. I am going to get some books pruned to take to the library sale on Saturday, and I think I am also going to get the car washed. I do kind of want to see the Georgia-Mississippi game, and of course I’ll watch LSU play Florida, but that game worries me a bit; there’s always a let-down after losing to Alabama and having the pipe dreams of the season dashed finally, and LSU has beaten Florida four straight years, which is tied for the longest LSU winning streak in the rivalry. I also just remembered that this is the last season of the SEC as it has been since the initial expansion into two divisions thirty years ago; sure other teams have joined since, but the East-West divisions remained intact all this time. I don’t know how I feel about the expansion into a super-conference and the addition of Texas and Oklahoma, and the rotating schedule seems like a pain in the ass, but we’ll see how it works out. I suspect in about another decade realignment will be revisited and some teams may break off from their super-conferences and form a new smaller more manageable one…who knows?

I also want to read Lou Berney’s Dark Ride this weekend, and maybe start reading my next book, which I think is going to be Zig Zag by J. D. O’Brien, who was on my Humor panel at Bouchercon (that was probably one of the best panels I’ve ever moderated, and I want to read all of their books), because both have to do with stoners–Lou’s main character is a stoner, and J. D.’s book is about a dispensary heist, so they’re both what I call stoner noir–so they kind of go together. I also want to get to the new Angie Kim sooner than later, I am volumes behind on Laurie King’s marvelous Mary Russell series, have two Donna Andrews novels on deck as well, and then I want to really start making progress through the stacks and get things read.

I also need to do some writing this weekend. I’ve been really terrible this week about being organized, so there’s more of that to be done this weekend. I think I’ve started working on what submissions will go where, and I’d love to get a stronger handle on all of that by the end of the weekend. I know I want to get one of my stories submitted out again somewhere, not entirely sure where, but the worst thing they can do is reject it, right? And that just means my story isn’t right for them, that’s all, and that is fine. I need to get more zen about rejection, you know? And I also need to be easier on myself emotionally about the whole writing thing. Sure, it would have been great to get a lot more writing done before my surgery. No, I don’t know what the aftermath and recovery is going to look like–I am finding that out Monday at my pre-surgery meeting–so I won’t know for sure until Monday what I am going to be capable of doing in December. I think I’ll probably be back to work right before Christmas, but I also don’t know what I am going to be able to do once I go back. Will I be able to test people? How mobile will the next cast be? (I think I am going from rigid to flexible after the first three weeks.)

Uncertainty is not the friend of anxiety, but I think I am doing a pretty good job of not letting my anxiety take control of my conscious brain, at any rate. And this morning I’ve managed to unload the dishwasher already and start another load–and when I get home from my partial day at the office I’ll get started on the bed linens. I am running an errand on the way home, and then I intend to spend the afternoon mostly reading the new Lou Berney while doing some light picking up and pruning of the books, and maybe even get some writing done. Stranger things have happened.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later with some blatant self-promotion. Tuesday is the official release date for the new Scotty, which is very cool, and then the next week we go into surgery. WHEE.