Tag: Gothics

I Need A Lover

Ugh. Paul’s currently under the knife, and I’ve been up since four (!!!). We had to be here at 5:45, but the good news is we will probably be home before noon. Obviously, I am tired—no one should ever have to get up at four in the morning, seriously—and I have no idea what the rest of my day is going to look like. I know I’ll have to go get his prescriptions once I get him home—which is fine, I can run some errands at the same time—and then hopefully be settled in for the weekend. I do have lots of laundry and picking up to get done, too.

It was supposed to rain all day yesterday, but after the morning it was all over. I don’t know why I bother checking the weather; New Orleans’ weather forecasts literally change completely if you wait a few hours, and I need to remember that the forecast between May and October is always hot, humid, chance of rain. Every day, all day, week in, week out. I look forward to the rain, though—which is probably not the way most people feel.

I brought All of Us Murderers with me to read this morning, and I realized—despite being sleepy and tired—that there’s nothing wrong with the book at all; it’s just not what I was expecting, which I will delve into more when I finish reading it and write about it, which is a relief; that’s an entirely different kettle of fish, and by reframing how I’m reading it and reacting to it through a more accurate lens will change my reaction to it. I think this happens a lot with readers—they go into something expecting something else and then don’t like the book because they’re disappointed, rather than reframing their expectations; that’s why I simply say “it wasn’t for me” when I don’t enjoy something. One should always respect the amount of work and dedication that went into the book, which is something people should be reminded of more regularly.

Yesterday was a good day, even if my evening was a little truncated by having to go to bed earlier than usual—or at least I tried. I know I wanted to go to bed around nine, but I think it was closer to ten when I climbed the steps and slid beneath the pile of blankets. I was a bit tired by the end of the day, but nothing remotely close to how I used to feel on Thursdays. Even now, I don’t feel physically tired, and one of the best benefits of the three day weekend last week was my Achilles tendons finally got enough rest to stop hurting, so I can actually walk normally again—and it also means I can walk more quickly, and the stairs are no longer a trial. Huzzah! I also have lost about seven pounds or so in the last two weeks—I limit myself to weighing every two weeks because i refuse to obsess about my weight ever again—which was also kind of nice. I’m not eating as much as I used to because I get full a lot faster than I ever did before. I think that’s another age thing? Hopefully, I can start taking walks and getting in to better condition. AT LAST!

Okay, the surgeon came in to let me know everything went well and he’s in the recovery room for about half an hour before being returned here to this patient room. Probably be here for another couple of hours or so—he has to wait for his leg to wake up and do some physical therapy before we can head home. Yay! I’m sure he’ll go to sleep once we do get home, Sparky will curl up on him, and all will be well. Huzzah!

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines—well, go back to reading—and will be back bright and early in the morning! Until then!

My Clone Sleeps Alone

Thursday and the last day in the office for me. I’m off tomorrow because of Paul’s surgery (obviously), and we still don’t know what time we have to be at the surgery center. Thanks for all the well wishes, everyone. They are appreciated. It’s supposed to rain most of the day today–95% chance–although it was also supposed to rain all day yesterday and it really didn’t. Mississippi is being inundated, though, with flash flooding and all that good stuff. I think we’re slow in the clinic today, so I should be able to get my admin work done today.

Once we find out what time we have to be at the surgery center on Friday, I’ll be able to formulate any plans for the day and for the weekend. Which is fine; I just don’t do well with ambiguity and have never been a “play it by ear” kind of person–the medications have not changed that at all, so that clearly wasn’t a stressor–but I do have my to-do list/notebook to consult. I do have to pay some bills that are due next week before pay day that I’ve been kind of slagging off on–it’s not like they’re overdue or anything, they are simply due next week and on the last Pay-the-Bills Day I just didn’t feel like keeping up with it. (Every time I pay a bill, I think, now watch the world incinerate tomorrow. It used to be a joke…in the before times.)

Remember that planned Entergy outage from last weekend that didn’t happen because of the rain? They sent me an email and a text yesterday to let me know it was rescheduled for that day–after I was already at work and couldn’t do anything about it. All I could think was everything in the fridge is going to be wasted and replaced. I groaned at the thought of the money wasted and the money to spend to replace everything, but before I could spiral about it I thought about the people in the same situation who can’t afford to replace everything, and I was infuriated on their behalf. It went off around four, I got home after five to no power, but it was back on around six. Everything is fine, nothing spoiled…but I can’t get stop thinking about the people who can’t afford to replace groceries spoiled. Had this happened back in our poorer days, that would have been us. I know Entergy has to do stuff like this–they were replacing a circuit breaker that needed it–but more than same day notice would be appreciated–so people could stock in ice or something to keep things from spoiling. I mean, what about people on SNAP? The poor tax in this country is too high.

Since there was no power when I got home there was aught for me to do but sit in my easy chair with Sparky and start reading my next reads, All of Us Murderers and A Queer Kind of Death, and I must say, they are absolutely different queer stories and voices. A Queer Kind of Death is arch and campy and witty and loads of fun; it reminds me of P. G. Wodehouse and All About Eve, that wild and wonderful sophisticated kind of wit that is reminiscent of The Thin Man films, too. I think I may be being too. hard on Murderers because it is early in the book and I think I was reading critically rather than for pleasure. I’m not saying it’s bad; I’m saying it isn’t what I expected it to be (which is on me, not the author), and I am having to rethink it as I go because of that. Again, on me, not the author or the book. I’m going to take it to work to read on my lunch break, and with my mind reset we’ll see. It does remind me of Vincent Virga’s Gaywyck, and that is actually very high praise.

I also kind of smirked when I typed today’s title, because that title–and song–inspired a book idea in me–waaaay back when the song was fresh and shiny and new. It’s a story I still toy with from time to time; I’ve always wanted to write something dystopian, and this, among others, is one of the few dystopian ideas that actually stuck. I’ll probably never write it, of course–I’ve recognized that I will probably never get the chance to turn all of my ideas into published work–but it nags at me every once in a while.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I am not sure when I’ll be able to post tomorrow–it depends on what time we have to be there tomorrow–but if I am not able to post before we go, I’ll take the iPad with me and try to write it in the waiting room. At any rate, I will be here at some point again tomorrow. Till then!

We Live for Love

Tuesday and it’s back to the office with me today. It was a marvelously relaxing holiday weekend, and I was pleased to read some more, and have ideas and work on writing, even if it was mostly scribbling in my journal. I don’t have a problem with any of it, and yes, I know I should be a little bit more concerned that I didn’t apply fingers to keyboard more than I did this weekend, but fuck it. I get to have free time and get to have down time, don’t I? And if i don’t, that’s not a life I want to live, thank you very much. It rained all day again yesterday, along with a lovely early afternoon thunderstorm. I put on season three of The Traitors for background noise and started reading and thinking and writing again, like I had done on Sunday afternoon. At some point I’ll need to funnel that energy and thought into writing on the keyboard. I also spent some time in the morning diving into the morass that is the news, which was cheery on the Ukraine front but not so much anywhere else. Ah, well.

And so it goes, I guess. The reality is the country has been on the decline for decades, but MAGA certainly accelerated the rush to the inevitable collapse. Who knows what will rise from the ashes? Will it be better or worse? I probably won’t be here to see it, and yes, I am very concerned about the midterms. I won’t alarm anyone with my usual pessimistic forecasts, because sadly I am proven right more often than not. It’s also no fun being Cassandra and not being listened to, either. I always thought she was the most tragic character in the entire story of the Trojan War, and have always wanted to write from her perspective. It would be an interesting exercise—a woman who can see the future but isn’t believed which drives her deeper and deeper into madness which makes each prophecy harder to believe? That is a particular kind of hell, isn’t it?

I wish Madeline Miller would make that her next novel.

It also dawned on me over the course of the weekend that May is almost finished, which means it will be JUNE soon…which is PRIDE MONTH. Should I be that old queen and be gauche, cliché and stereotypical and turn my newsletter into queer stuff all month? Of course, you already know the answer to that, don’t you? And yes, the answer is always yes. I think it’s important, and if queer content bothers the subscribers they wouldn’t be there in the first place. No one is making anyone read it, either. So, bearing Pride rolling up so quickly, I took that into consideration for my next reads, tabling what I had already had on deck, and switching it up a bit. My new-to-me read will be All of Us Murderers, which ticks off several boxes for me in addition to its being a queer read: it’s also a historical Gothic romance; it’s written by a cisgender-identified woman; and it’s also a crime novel. These are all things I want to talk about more in my newsletter, so I can touch on them during the newsletter about this book. I’ve also set aside The Ivy Tree as my next reread for A Queer Kind of Death by George Baxt, which I read decades ago and have an eye to see how it holds up. It’s also historic and was originally published in the 1960s, with a Black gay main character written by a gay white man…which should also prove interesting to revisit and talk about.

I feel good this morning, rested and relaxed and in a decent mood. I did do some writing–by hand–yesterday–in my journal, in which I reworked and rewrote the opening to an in-progress short story. Of course it isn’t one that fits any submissions call I have found recently, which is par for the course, but now that I am in such a period of low productivity I’ve pretty much decided that whatever pops into my head is what I should work on, rather than trying to force something that doesn’t want to be forced, which makes the most sense to me at the moment. My Achilles tendons don’t feel tight anymore, either, which is the biggest win to me of the weekend.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great day, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Till then!

The famous bust of Queen Nefertiti, whose name meant “the beautiful one has come.” And yes, it’s in a Berlin museum, and yes, the Germans need to return it because it’s loot.

My Maria

Thursday morning and my last day in the office before a glorious three day weekend, which is lovely. It rained overnight–it started raining just as I got home from the office yesterday, and then off and on all night. It even rained a bit this morning while I was washing my face and doing the usual morning ablutions. I’m not even sure what the day’s weather forecast is! Although it would be lovely to have rain all weekend, wouldn’t it? I ran some errands after work on the way home yesterday and had some things delivered last night in the sprinkling, and I even did some chores when I got home before I plopped down into my easy chair with Sparky in my lap for the evening. I felt pretty good all day yesterday (I feel good this morning too–I’m getting used to getting up at six again), and probably could have done some more last night, but I am done berating myself for not getting everything done that I want to anymore. I am going to try to not be overly ambitious this weekend; if I am productive, great; if I just get rested, that’s also fine. I want to finish Jordan Harper’s A Violent Masterpiece, and dip into my reread of The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart. I also need to get a newsletter ready to go for Saturday; my latest one went out yesterday; click here to read!1

I also have to run make groceries and get the mail uptown before I make it home for the weekend. Tomorrow morning I have to have labs drawn for my GI specialist, and have an online meeting before my quality assurance work. The apartment is a mess, but not nearly as bad as it was going into last weekend–I’ve managed to pretty much keep up with the chores this week, thank God; so tonight when I get home I have laundry to fold and a dishwasher to unload. I also have a recipe for tomato cucumber salad I want to try (it seems silly to have a recipe for salad, doesn’t it), which sounds amazing, and I also want to pick up a watermelon tonight.

After I settled into my easy chair, we finished The Boys and caught this week’s episode of Widow’s Bay, which is really wild; I am enjoying the slow burn, Gothic sensibilities of the show very much. (I’ve been feeling kind of Gothic lately, haven’t I?) I think I’m going to let my imagination and creativity run free and drive what I write for a while; I’ve been trying to force it–to no avail–these past few weeks , and so think it’s time to try something different for a while and see how that goes. As I said the other day, Paul’s going to be recovering for a while this summer which is going to hinder my productivity, but it’s also going to be the hottest, most miserable summer this year. (It’s always awful, I don’t know why I am quibbling about the degree of awful it will be.)

Our moronic governor’s trip to Greenland–where he fled after Louisiana harshly rejected and rebuked his MAGA agenda–went exactly as I thought it would. Why send someone who is resoundingly hated by the electorate that knows him best to try a charm offensive? It went as well as could be expected.

As I was scrolling through Youtube the other day I came across an old song from the 1970s I’d forgotten about–“She’s Tight” by Cheap Trick–and it was just as horribly sexist as it sounds from the title. (I only just now realized “cheap trick” is also a prostitution reference.) What would a man be singing about in a song called “She’s Tight”? Yup, you guessed correctly. There were so many of these horrible sexist songs back in the day–and the odes to jailbait are horrible; the list is far too long to even attempt making one. But the majority are about fucking some underage girl who’s sexy and irresistible to the adult male. Gross, but it was also taken as a matter of course and “how things are.” And don’t get me started on the male teen virgin and the experienced older woman–which was a subgenre of film and novels and songs for most of my life. (This will be explored at some point in the future in a newsletter.)

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for this rainy gray day in New Orleans. Have good one and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning.

Lovely Jacob Elordi for Chanel Bleu
  1. I’m really enjoying the newsletter, to be honest with you. ↩︎

She’s Single Again

Tuesday morning and my slice of coffee cake is now crumbs. My coffee is hot and tasty as I sit here, bleary-eyed and not quite awake and alert yet. I do feel rested this morning and physically good, so that’s always a nice start to the day. I did get some chores done after I got home last night, and the kitchen looks kind of nice this morning. Overall, the apartment looks tidier, which is all one can hope for, isn’t it? Sparky curled around my shoulders last night while I was doing the dishes, and then convinced me I needed to provide a lap for him (claiming it was for a moment) and then going into a sound, deep puddle sleep, dead to the world, while I binged some more of The Traitors Canada. Such the life, don’t you think? I am debating whether or not to stop on the way home to make some groceries, but at the same time…well, it can’t hurt, can it? I am ordering lunch today as a treat for myself–I have to bring some extra stuff in this morning to the office, so don’t have a free hand to carry my lunch–and I want to do some chores tonight when I get home as well. If I can just get the dishes out of the way…

I also finished my newsletter on Phyllis A. Whitney’s Listen for the Whisperer, which I really enjoyed rereading. It did remind me of one of my biggest quibbles with her work, and that of her contemporary, Victoria Holt; the heroines don’t really solve the mystery or capture the murderer. They usually find out it’s someone they trusted and only when that person kind of loses it and either captures, or tries to kill her, or both, do they realize the answer to the mysteries swirling around the spectral and spooky manse where the heroine has come to stay and/or live. (Remember, Dark Shadows began with a beautiful young woman taking a train through the foggy Maine night to arrive at a spooky mansion full of secrets.) I think I may revisit my first Victoria Holt (The Secret Woman) or Mary Stewart (The Ivy Tree) next; it’s fun revisiting these classic, if dated, Gothic romantic suspense novels. That newsletter is scheduled to go out tomorrow morning!

In other surprising news, I got money from a class action suit involving Blue Cross/Blue Shield, which was completely unexpected. I get these notices every once in a while about these kinds of legal actions, and usually it results, if I register, in a check of less than two dollars. I usually don’t, because registering takes time and even if it’s just a minute or two, it hardly seems worth it for that small of an amount. So, seeing a payment to my Paypal account for almost two hundred dollars this morning makes me think that maybe, just maybe, I should register for more of these things. I mean, that’ll pay my Entergy bill this month. Not too shabby for found money, was it?

Last night, as I watched Season 3 of The Traitors Canada (season three is the best so far), I was fondly remembering how much I enjoyed dinner and the conversation last Friday night with my friend, and that maybe, just maybe, I should start thinking about extricating myself from this healing cocoon I’ve spun around myself since Mom died–it’s really been kind of non-stop since then–and then just kind of shook my head. Maybe not yet? I’m kind of enjoying focusing on myself and Paul, and just kicking back and enjoying the lack of drama in my life that isn’t coming from the television. Physically, I felt well yesterday, but a little still fried mentally. I started revising a short story yesterday–it didn’t go well–which was enormously frustrating, but it was a rather insincere try and I did kind of give up easily when the words weren’t flowing. It’s a muscle in my brain that I’ve allowed to get slack and flabby from lack of use (kind of like the ones in my body–MUST TAKE WALK THIS WEEKEND); and so it’s naturally not going to rebound immediately, just as the ones in my body don’t anymore. It doesn’t mean I am done with writing for good, it just means I need to get the muscle strong, flexible, and healthy again. The creativity is going very well; I am just having trouble stringing the words and sentences together on the page.

I am also having trouble focusing. Par for the course, really.

And not really very surprising, given that the world is burning to the ground as I type.

I feel pretty decent today–alert and awake–so we’ll see how this day turns out.

And on that note, yep, off to the spice mines with me. See you tomorrow!

Such a pretty young man–and a very nicely shaped ass, too, per the mirror behind him.

Ring of Fire

Monday and I am staying home from the office this morning. I didn’t sleep as deeply as I would have liked, and woke up several times before the alarm (and Sparky) got me up. It was after getting up and pottering around the way I always do that I started feeling hot and started sweating and my stomach git a little bit on the roiling side, so that along with a bit of being tired…and yeah, it was a no-brainer. I think my sinuses kicked in overnight somehow, and yes, blech. I really dislike being sick, but it’s one of those things you can’t control. Paul is departing tomorrow, and I don’t leave until Friday, so I am going to be home alone with Sparky–who will need lots of affection and reassurance and cuddling. I don’t mind that, of course; I just am hopeful I’ll be able to do things in the evening as well. I should be able to just read, too, if Sparky’s need for my lap is overwhelming.

Sigh.

I did send out a new newsletter yesterday, about my set of World Book Encyclopedias that my parents bought the summer I turned nine; they may have been birthday gifts? But they were treasured possessions I still miss sometimes; I miss being able to pull down a volume and just open it randomly and start reading. But as I said in the newsletter, I don’t have space for them in my house and they are, despite holding so many wonderful memories for me, they are in the end just things. I was proud of myself for getting it done and sent out on the weekend; I still missed the midweek one, though. We can but do better.

We started watching The Beast In Me last night, and I am really disappointed that none of you convinced me to watch sooner. It’s exceptionally well done, and the performances of Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys are exceptional. It appears to have been based on the story of Bobby Durst and Susan Berman–after the disappearance of his first wife; that jumped out at me right away. WE watched three episodes last night, and while I don’t know what Paul’s schedule is like today, maybe we’ll be able to finish it tonight.

This weekend was lovely, in all honesty. I did get some chores done, and I did some reading: a short story I want to write about, and another chapter of Listen to the Whisperer by Phyllis A. Whitney, which I am enjoying a lot. I had never really read her works before in an analytic kind of critical mind way, and so things are striking me this time around. Her plots usually involved a young woman with some sort of traumatic past, trying to find resolution in the present day, and very often involved her getting to know a family she’d never known before. In Listen, the heroine is heading to Norway to meet, for the first time, her birth mother, an Oscar winning actress whose career was ended by a scandalous murder on the set of her last film. She uses a more formal style, like the older Gothic writers, but she updates and modernizes it. I’m looking forward to writing about her and the book in a rather in-depth newsletter.

Obviously, given the newsletter post of the weekend while revisiting a novel I originally read when I was ten or eleven, I’ve been thinking about, and trying to remember, more about my childhood and the influences on me and my work. If I had never credited the encyclopedia as a major influence and having a great impact on me, I certainly never credited the made for TV movies of the 1970s! I used to love watching the “Movie of the Week,’ which if you didn’t watch when it originally aired, you might miss completely unless it was rerun during the summer. (Hard to believe we used to plan our lives around television so completely when now everything is available on demand.) I have a book about those movies, particularly ABC’s–and over the weekend I found videos on Youtube from horror fans remembering how amazing some of those films were, despite low budgets and bad sets. SOme of them were terrifying–Crowhaven Farm, The House That Wouldn’t Die, Scream Pretty Peggy, The Night Stalker and Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate. They often starred either fading movie stars or television stars, or a combination of the two. The 1970s were also an interesting time for horror movies and novels. This is when Stephen King got started, after all, and I was a fan from the moment I started reading the paperback of Carrie when I was a freshman in high school.1

But probably my favorite Stephen King book was Danse Macabre, which doesn’t get nearly the love it should. Reading it broadened my mind to think critically about genre, and it also introduced me to any number of writers I grew to like and admire, like Harlan Ellison. I should revisit that…it was the first easily accessible academic tome I’d read at that point, and I loved how he got into literary theory through applying it to horror. It’s still not that much different these days, but literary writers always give genre writers grief —oh you’re in it for the money–and it was much worse back then when very few genre writers were considered literary writers, too. Stephen King wasn’t taken seriously until he was well into his career–despite his genius, his originality, memorable characters, an uncanny eye for human behavior, and his ability to make unbelievable situations feel absolutely real. I had already read some horror before Carrie–I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, The Other by Thomas Tryon, The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, and Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin jump to mind–but King got me truly interested in horror as a genre and to consider writing it (I spent most of the 1980s trying to write horror to no avail).

And on that note, I think I am going to go lay down for a bit. I feel a bit queasy still, and you never know how my stomach is going to be these days. Have a happy Monday, Constant Reader, however you choose to spend your day, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Till then!

  1. King was also another revelatory author for me, but that’s for another time. ↩︎

Cheeseburger in Paradise

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment, and I slept late. I fell asleep in my easy chair around ten thirty last night, woke up and went up to bed and didn’t get up this morning until nine thirty. Sparky was a sweetheart this morning, getting into the bed and snuggling until his hunger got the best of him and it was time for me to get up. How does he know which day is which? He doesn’t bother me at six in the mornings on the days when I don’t have to go to work, which is wild, or he’s a genius….which is hard for me to believe because he is such a complete dork sometimes. Always adorable, of course. I picked up his water fountain this week and so today, around everything I need to do and all the errands I need to run, I am going to assemble it to see if he’ll drink out of it. I have errands up the ass and the apartment is a wreck; laundry to do and dishes to wash, things to pick up and throw away and floors to vacuum. I was groggy when I first got up, but I am waking up and feeling better with every moment. I also swapped Friday-at-home for Monday-at-home and yes, I’ve not had a normal weekend in weeks. No wonder I feel so off-balance all the time…

I also wrote another newsletter yesterday–two this week!–about Christa Faust’s Derringer Award nominated short story, “Hollywood Prometheus” from Crime Ink: Iconic, which is fantastic. (You can read it here.) I had meant to write about every story in the book–I always want to do this with anthologies I am lucky enough to be in, and somehow never got around to it. Maybe since I am having so much trouble reading novels, I should switch to reading short stories again? A renewal of the Short Story Project and maybe even the Reread Project could do the trick; it’s always fun to revisit Mary Stewart or Phyllis A. Whitney, and since I do want to talk about the Gothic influence on me and my work in a newsletter at some point, why not go back and reread one for a “these books made me who I am .” I’d really like to tackle Green Darkness by Anya Seton again, but it’s soooo long. I used to love thick books–the longer the better (hence my deep dive into James Michener and Herman Wouk in high school)–but now I just think I ain’t got time for that. Who does? Seriously.

Last night we watched another episode of The Boys, which is very dystopian and a very harsh critique on our government, country, and politics, and I fucking love how pointed it is. We also watched the season premiere of Hacks–Jean Smart is so sharp and brilliant, and it’s just an excellent show–before I started getting sleepy. I also caught up on the news after I got home from the office yesterday, and Christ, there’s so much insanity and craziness in Washington and the country right now. All I do know for sure is that there’s no 3-D chess being played, anywhere–except maybe Tehran.

It’s also a stunningly beautiful morning outside; I think the high is the eighties. The sky is blue, no clouds anywhere, and I can see by the moving of the crepe myrtles there’s probably a really nice breeze. Maybe I can take the iPad outside and sit reading for a bit, which might be lovely. I’d also like to wash and clean out the car this weekend. It really needs to be waxed after using rubbing compound on it. Maybe I can do that when I visit Kentucky next. I was thinking about going up there in late June, after the wedding anniversary visit to Mom’s grave, and that would be the right kind of weather for sure.

I also made the right decision yesterday about my attitude about having to go into work. Now that I am medicated, I can make those kinds of decisions about my mental health rather than spiraling into bitter anger about the disruption to my routine. It was actually nice; I hadn’t done walk-in testing for the general population in years, and in all honesty, was worried about it some–part of my irritation. But I pulled off the scab, remembered how to be present, friendly and kind to the clients, and connected with all of them, which made me feel like I was helping these strangers, and that’s a good feeling. Maybe I should help out with that more often?

And on that pleasing note, I am heading into the spice mines for today. Have a lovely Saturday (that feels like Friday to me) and I will certainly be back again in the morning. Huzzah! Onward and upward!

Windows

It’s the eve of July 4th, and all through the house–not a creature is stirring (besides me and Sparky), not even a mouse! (Thank God. The lack of mice means Sparky is earning his keep. I’ve not even seen a flying roach in the house this year.)

Sigh.

I woke up feeling sinus-y this morning, with a bit of a sore throat and a runny nose. I took a Claritin a little while ago, which hopefully will clear this all up. One can hope, at any rate. I was tired last night when I got home, so was kind of useless for the evening. We finished watching Olympo, which picked up the pace significantly in its final episodes, and I’m not sure there’s going to be another season, although they did leave most everything hanging in the meantime, and there was a cliffhanger. I am also feeling a bit worn down this morning as I sip my coffee and Sparky climbs all over me and my desk. It’s going to rain this afternoon (and most of the day tomorrow, it looks like), and I have some errands to run after I get off work–so I don’t have to run any this weekend. We’re thinking about going to see Jurassic World Rebirth tomorrow (Jonathan Bailey and his slutty glasses are a big draw); and I must confess I’ve never seen anything Jurassic on the big screen. (We are also going to see Superman next weekend.)

I am hoping to get some rest this holiday weekend. I think my lethargy this week was a kind of hangover from the trip last weekend, despite having Sunday as a recovery day. I keep forgetting that I am older than I was and my body has already been through a massive trauma this year already that I am still recovering from as well. It was probably too close to the illness for me to do all that driving and exertion; but I’ve also never been that ill before so am not sure how long the recovery will take–or if this is the new normal. That’s the lovely thing about getting old without a user manual; you always wonder if something is a result of getting older and this is how it’s going to be for the rest of your life. I am hoping, at any rate, to do some writing tonight and over the weekend, finish reading the three books I am currently in process of enjoying, and pick out three new ones. I got the new Megan Abbott, El Dorado Drive, this week and it may hop to the top of the pile. My reading goal for the year is to reread a bunch of Gothics, read/reread some young adult novels, and get through the books in the stack on the end table in the living room before moving on to the top shelf of the left bookcase (who am I kidding, once I clear off the end table I’ll make a new stack on the end table). I also have a lot of other books from the past year or so that I’d like to get caught up on, but I don’t seem to read as fast as I used to, and I am not going on another road trip until October when I can listen to another book.

I hate not having the energy that I used to have.

And I have another infusion a week from Monday. Hopefully I am getting used to them, and the second won’t make me as tired and lethargic as the first one did. We shall see. I still need to go get lab work done before my next appointment with my primary care physician in August, and I need to figure out which of these bills I need to pay and which ones I don’t–I hit my deductible but am getting bills still, which is kind of confusing? One of the things on my to-do list is to get this all figured out. I just don’t want to pay anything I don’t have to, you know? It’s so fucking exhausting, you know? Heavy heaving sigh. But at least work today is going to be fairly easy; we have a light schedule so I can get a lot of my Admin work done and get things caught up for the end of the fiscal year. I do have to run some errands on the way home tonight–mail and a relatively minor grocery run–but after that, I am hoping to get the chores done and the house in some better semblance of order.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely July 4th Eve, and I will most likely be back in the morning.

Nuno Gallego, formerly of Elite and now starring in OLYMPO

Getaway Car

Wednesday Pay-the-Bills Day has rolled around yet again, and the week is half-over, huzzah! It’s all a downhill slide into the weekend now–wishing my life away again, as Mom always used to say–but can I help it if I enjoy my days off and look forward to them? Surely I am not alone in this, and I say this as someone who actually enjoys his job and what he does for a living (and health insurance).

Speaking of insurance, my nurse from Louisiana Blue (Blue Cross/Blue Shield) called me yesterday morning to see how I was doing and to check in about my treatment and care, which is really nice and again emphasized to me how serious this condition I have actually is. I was pleased to report that I feel better, am hungry all the time, and have gained back some weight, which is great. I am also glad she didn’t call Monday, when I was so tired and low energy…I suspect my answers and my enthusiasm wouldn’t have come across over the phone Monday.

I also finally got a first draft of a guest blog written that I should have finished back right after Saints and Sinners–but got sick. I’ve been writing my Pride posts for the newsletter, and one of them triggered an idea for how to write the guest blog, so I free-formed it and sent it to the blog host for input and feedback. (It also gave me an idea for another book, because of course it did–No Way Out, only the sex worker is gay which will be a big Washington scandal, would it not, with his Capital Hill clientele–because I need more ideas, don’t I?) I also spent some time with fiction last night after I got home from work, but my mind was a bit foggy so am not entirely sure if the work I did was any good or not, but…I wrote some fiction at long last!!!!

Huzzah!!!

After that, though, I was very mentally drained and felt tired. I made dinner for us, and then just settled in to relax for the few hours of the evening allotted to being awake before retiring early in preparation for today. I do feel better, every day–even tired and listless the other day wasn’t as bad as it used to be, so even that is getting better than it was. I’m trying not to overdo it, but at the same time I am rather chomping at the bit trying to get back into doing things and acting like I’ve completely recovered. I am not, and I need to remember that going forward when I am itching to do something which is pushing it–like pushing myself to write and do chores when I am already tired from everything I’ve always done; and I think Monday was actually a result of me doing too much over the weekend, honestly. So, I need to take that lesson and remember it the next time I am feeling ambitious. Just read something. I did spend some time with The Dark on the Other Side last evening, which has me in a Gothic mood, and I think Summerhouse might also be Gothic in tone; I do know The Mystery of the Haunted Mine is actually a Western treasure hunt set in Arizona. (And it was one of my favorite books as a kid.)

I also realized I don’t have to do a Pride newsletter every day for the month. That’s a lot of pressure on me to produce while at the same time writing this every day, and I kind of need to save some of my writing mojo for my fiction–even if it’s just thinking and taking notes. The newsletter was supposed to be different from the blog in that it wasn’t daily; I was even limiting it to once a week for a while there–as I said, even I get tired of my voice sometimes, let alone dropping into people’s inboxes who have other things to do. This meant another difference between it and the blog; the blog is stream of consciousness whatever I’m thinking about while I wake up over coffee and breakfast every morning (I am having Honey-nut Cheerios, a piece of toast with peanut butter and a second with strawberry belly–I prefer preserves and will remember that the next time I get some–and a slice of marble coffee cake); the newsletter had no pub dates, so to speak, so I could spend more time with those essays and go far more in depth than I can here, so why am I killing myself trying to send one every day? Am I no different from corporations, marginalizing queer culture and life and only examining it during Pride Month and then ignoring it? No, I don’t think so. I read queer books all year, absorb queer art, and think about my queer future in a country double-downing on its vicious homophobia. Everything I write, no matter what it is, is framed through my gay gaze; I am intrinsically queer and that impacts my art, no matter what I am creating.

And I also think, since oppression is so intersectional, I can talk about anything that falls under that umbrella, because I had to unlearn so much over the course of my adult life, and I am incredibly lucky to have so many kind friends who didn’t mind teaching me how to think in a more macro kind of way–every lesson unlearned was a revelation and gave me a new perspective on how to see the world, and how wrong the way I used to see it was. I’m not perfect, by any means, and I learn every day while acknowledging the possibility I still have bad things I was taught yet have not unpacked.

But I went to bed early–I was falling asleep in my chair after watching one episode of Department Q, which we are loving–and slept super well. I feel good this morning, awake and rested, which is very odd for a Wednesday, but it is very pleasing in our eyes.

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

I love these old dirt country roads, and the Spanish moss just makes it look even cooler. The image is very evocative, and I am already thinking of a story inspired by the picture.

…Ready for It?

Sunday of the holiday weekend and I am feeling pretty good. I am up earlier than I would prefe, but it seems sleeping in later than six is something rare for me now and it’s okay; it gives me more awake time to get things done. I’m getting some reading done every morning when I get up, and yesterday I did do some chores, but tried to mostly relax while processing Victoria’s death. I also read a little bit, and mostly just tried to relax and gather my strength back. I have to run an errand today–a library book is ready for me, and I can swing by Fresh Market on the way home; oh, never mind, the library is closed for the holiday so that will have to wait until Tuesday after work, but I do need to go to Fresh Market anyway, maybe even wash the car while I’m on Louisiana Avenue. But I did get the bathroom and part of the kitchen under control and finished; so the downstairs looks a lot nice than it has since I fell ill, which is a lovely thing. I can finish it today and then work on the living room next, and maybe, just maybe, my house will finally be under control again and presentable and won’t make me groan with despair every time I walk in.

I also watched one of the few Hitchcock films I’ve never seen–mainly because it’s never been available before when I thought about watching: Suspicion, which stars Joan Fontaine (the only performer to win an Oscar for a Hitchcock movie, although she should have won for Rebecca and Anthony Perkins’ failure to be even be nominated for Psycho remains a hate crime) and Cary Grant. It’s based on the Francis Iles novel Before the Fact (of which I have a copy and have been assured it’s better than the film). It did make me think about a theory I have about domestic suspense and Gothics–that they are about women’s fears and therefore women’s noir of a type–and Suspicion is definitely one of those–does her husband–whom she catches in lies all the time and is kind of a bounder–love her or did her marry her for her money? (This is a very common theme in Victoria Holt novels, by the way, which I loved.) Something to write about for another time, methinks. The film itself was okay, and I am now more convinced than ever that Fontaine’s Oscar was a make-up for Rebecca, a far superior film in every way. (It may be time for my annual reread of Rebecca, in fact.)

I also read a bit more into Moonraker, which is fascinating in its casual misogyny, and it’s really hard-boiled attitude; as I said, Fleming’s Bond is so far removed from the Roger Moore/Timothy Dalton/Pierce Brosnan Bond that they may as well be different characters; Connery and Daniel Craig more captured the Fleming feel of the sociopathic killer/spy. The parallels between the villain in the book, Hugo Drax, and Elon Musk are so prescient as to make me wonder whether Fleming could see the future. More on that later, of course.

We finished watching Overcompensating last night, and it’s such a good show. It does an excellent job of depicting how terrifying it is to come out–to anyone and everyone–and how you wind up being a liar for self-preservation; I think all those lies is why I am so triggered by people calling me a liar these days, and I’ve never really seen this depicted in anything queer before–about how you can’t really be a good friend with people you can’t be honest with and have to lie to all the time. It really can’t be explained, but I still have a lot of shame from that time in my life, from when I was overcompensating and making an absolute fool of myself because no one was actually fooled and my true friends were delighted when I came out. The depression and faulty wiring in my brain certainly didn’t help.

And yes, I will always be grateful to those friends who were delighted.

I’m looking forward to relaxing some more today, to be honest. Paul has his trainer this afternoon, and when he gets home I am going to barbecue burgers and cheese dogs. Yes, I know you’re supposed to actually cook out on Memorial Day itself, but I’d rather do it today. I’ve been experiencing hunger a lot more lately than I can recall, and I am snacking on top of it all. I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at Door Dash to have something delivered, and I’ll probably pop that cherry next weekend. I’ve also been missing my mom’s cooking–her chicken and dumplings were sublime, and she made everything from scratch and from memory; her biscuits and gravy were to die for, and somehow she made the best pancakes I’ve ever had anywhere. I am going to make an easy chicken-and-dumplings recipe tomorrow; will definitely report back.

I am getting stronger every day, but I also still tire far too easily and am not even close to being back to 100% yet, which is fine. I just need to be patient–never my strongest suit–and let my body heal itself from the trauma.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; I hope to get my newsletter done today as well.

Bette Davis in the opening scene of her Oscar nominated performance in The Letter.