Tag: guillotines

Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You?

Tonight, Oshun and Cleopatra roll down St. Charles Avenue to kick off the Uptown parade season, and I will be trapped in my neighborhood tonight through Sunday night. Next week is the true insanity, beginning on Wednesday and going for almost a week. Yay for Carnival! I have a shit ton of things to do today, personally and professionally, so it’s going to be an interesting all-over-the-place kind of day. I’m meeting a friend for dinner at five fifteen, and will have to walk about six blocks to get there, but that’s not a big deal so long as my Achilles tendons don’t get out of control. I just need to keep my wits about me today, not get distracted, and keep nose affixed firmly to grindstone or else the day will go completely off the rails–which nobody wants or needs. I also have a meeting this morning and lots of work-at-home duties to get done today. AUGH. A busy busy day for me, and not off to a good start, as I didn’t get up early but lolled in bed late.

It didn’t rain on Wednesday night, so I didn’t feel as deeply rested yesterday morning as I had Wednesday morning. Maybe I should get one of those rain sound machines to sleep with? I don’t know if the noise will be as effective with the chilly wet air, though. I used to have easy listening CD’s a hundred years ago–morning rain, forest, waterfall, etc.–but don’t think I ever used them. It also didn’t rain last night, either–and the sun is very bright this morning. It’s about forty-eight degrees outside, which isn’t terrible. I am not certain if I’ll go out to the corner tonight or not–will depend, actually, on how tired I am when I get home from dinner. But for now, I just had some toast and finished my first cup of coffee and am feeling pretty good–so we’ll see how it all goes, won’t we?

Maybe the saddest thing that happened this week was the death knell of a once-great urban newspaper, the Washington Post. Nowhere in anything I read about this latest butchering of the paper did anyone note that there was a lot of backlash to the Post after Jeff Bezos cancelled the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris because his fellow pedophile and favored candidate wouldn’t like it. I recently subscribed to the Post–despite my disapproval of them, it was a good deal and they had book coverage, sports coverage, and recipes–and got a great deal at ninety-nine cents per month for digital access, so I figured a dollar wasn’t much to give them, and would cancel when that rate lapsed and went back to normal. It sure didn’t take long for them to make my dollar a waste of money, did they? I also didn’t see anyone else drawing a line from Watergate to right-wing hatred of the Post and this final vengeance for taking down Nixon. (Likewise, they’ve also managed to neuter the New York Times and CBS; the Times reported on the Pentagon Papers, and CBS opposed Vietnam. Conservatives are nothing if not vengeful and vindictive, and can carry a grudge for a very long time.) I had misgivings when Bezos bought the Post, but it took him ten years to take an Elon Musk-like chainsaw to the Post. He’s a monster. I wonder how many kids he raped on Epstein Island? You know he was there.

I think the funniest thing to be about all of this is that the Chatelaine of Castle TERF is in the files. That’s right, that bigoted old bitch who “wants to protect girls and women” is in the Epstein files and was buddy-buddy with him. I knew her fascination with the genitals of children had a much darker origin. Maybe she hates trans kids because she wants to know what genitals they have without checking before molesting them? Yeah, she wraps her bigotry in piety but when you’re friends with the biggest pedophile and sex-trafficker on the planet? Miss me with your concerns about women and children, bitch. The irony that she happily climbed in bed with the Christofascists who’d tried to get her “satanic” books banned and removed from libraries is equally delicious. She jumped into bed with the actual pedophiles and hung around with Epstein. So much for any moral authority she tries to claim. She hates queer people and loves pedophiles. Quite frankly, she deserves worse.

It’s easy to see why religions like Christianity have taken hold–because its basic message is one of elitism and exclusion: we’re going to heaven. Plus, there is nothing fair in this world and there is rarely any justice, so how do the rich and powerful keep the poor and the working class from revolting and guillotining them all? Give them a religion that promises every gets what they deserve in the next world with no proof! It’s easy to see why faith became so popular in the old days–don’t worry about no justice on earth–they’ll get it after they die is some impressive gaslighting, maybe the greatest example of it in history. There was a reason the French Revolution didn’t target ust the upper class–they also targeted the Catholic Church and abolished religion (which often gets left out of the lesson). The promise of the afterlife enables the rich and the powerful to do whatever they please, no matter how heinous, because well, God will send them to hell.

The Olympics have already started, and some of the team figure skating competition has begun, with a good showing by the US team so far, which is very cool. I don’t know how much of the Olympics I’ll be able to actually watch–there are two parades tonight, six tomorrow, and three or four on Sunday. I have to run errands this afternoon so I can get them out of the way because I won’t be able to do much driving after four tonight until Sunday night/Monday morning.

I actually worked on my dystopian story yesterday and it started flowing easily–probably because it isn’t hard to imagine an American dystopia in the near future. But it also felt good to be writing again, and that’s always a good thing. Hopefully I’ll be able to get it finished this weekend.

And speaking of the Epstein files, someone gathered the Epstein emails as an easily searchable Gmail inbox. Just click and you can see if your favorite oligarch or celebrity is there!

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

Seriously, no one does parade floats quite like New Orleans krewes.

Long Violent History

Work at home Friday, with all kinds of stuff to get done today before I head out this afternoon for some medical appointments; maintenance checks, more than anything else and nothing serious. I was very tired at the end of my work day yesterday, but had to run an errand on my way home. By the time I got home my brain was fried and my hip joints were aching–they are again this morning as I swill my coffee and wait for my meeting this morning while doing data entry. I did not do a single chore last night when I got home, more’s the pity, so I am going to need to do those today and get this place straightened up and cleaned up. Heavy sigh. I didn’t do a whole hell of a lot last night other than watch the news and watch some research videos on Youtube. The coffee is kicking in now, and Sparky let me sleep a little while longer this morning, which was also kind of nice. I don’t think I’m going to leave the house today; I need to drop books off at the library sale tomorrow, so I might as well go get the mail and make groceries for the weekend then, right?

As the world continues to burn thanks to our grifting, greedy and soulless leadership in Washington, I must say the administration and the rest of the Epstein class (someone defined the super-rich this way on-line; I wish I could remember who it was to give proper credit, my apologies) are certainly doing their best to bring on the angry, violent mobs who’ll drag them to a guillotine on the mall after sacking the Capital and the White House. Remember, it’s not the left side of the equation in this country who resorts to violence; it’s his own base, whom he keeps pissing on every day, almost daring them to turn on him. I don’t know how so many people were conned, especially when he told them, throughout the campaign, that he didn’t care about them, he just needed their votes–and their arrogant smugness has certainly come back around and kicked them in the balls, hasn’t it? Thoughts and prayers, trash. I have as much sympathy for you, as you had for immigrants in 2024. I wouldn’t let any of you suck my dick if you were suffocating and there was oxygen in my balls.

I am also highly amused to see their precious Second Amendment and stand-your-ground and open carry laws blowing up in ICE’s fucking faces in North Carolina. The Right, always so arrogant in their firm belief that they are the real patriots and vox populi and that God is on their side, have convinced themselves over decades that the left, wanting common-sense gun laws, hate guns and don’t own any and don’t shoot. Let me introduce you stupid fucks to the deep South, where everyone is armed, pretty much has a room full of guns in their homes, and there are open-carry and stand your ground laws. Those also apply to the government, and if you think you’re going on private property to arrest immigrants you’re going to be run off with guns. After all, hasn’t their entire argument for unfettered and unlimited gun access always been that we need guns in order to defend ourselves against the encroachment of the federal government? And they are surprised that people are using their Second Amendment rights to prevent the feds from overreaching and attacking their neighbors?

And remember, there was a massive influx of Latino/Hispanic immigrants to New Orleans in the wake of Katrina to rebuild the city. Without them, who knows how long it would have taken for New Orleans to be a viable city again? New Orleans doesn’t consider itself to be part of Louisiana, you think we consider the Feds our overlords? Again, let me remind you that 83% of the New Orleans vote went to Harris/Walz, and the same went for Biden, and Hillary before them. Trump’s only friends in New Orleans are the super rich and the Archdiocese (which has also been covering up child rape for decades), and they aren’t going out there to stop protests and anti-ICE activity. Of course, our mayor is a lame duck and has been a grifting useless piece of shit for quite some time now (what is it about being elected mayor here?), and our governor is a such a sad and pathetic “pick me fascist” that he’ll be on his knees before his disgusting god-emperor with his mouth open with a snap of the fingers…I do worry about the safety of our people here, especially our immigrant population (and historically New Orleans has always been multi-cultural and we have large and interesting ethnic populations here; Isleños, Greeks, Irish, Jews, Filipinos, Italians, and of course, the trafficked Africans), but New Orleanians do not put up with shit from outsiders, so it’s going to be interesting.

New Orleans has a very long, and very violent, history–no matter what the metro area white flight racists claim, there was never a time in the city’s history when there wasn’t violence and crime here. They left when the schools were integrated because they are racist garbage–but they sure will tell people they are from New Orleans though, because no one anywhere knows or gives a shit about Metairie, Kenner, Mandeville, and so forth. How many destination weddings take place in Kenner or Metairie? Just asking.

Oh! I watched the first episode of The American Revolution last night, and it gave me a lot of thoughts. I may watch more of it tonight.

And on that note, best to get back to my data entry. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back in the morning.

Cemetery Drive

Sunday!

This morning, I got up earlier than I have all weekend, and I don’t mind. It rained overnight, so I slept deeply and well. I also had a rather productive day yesterday–one that was going to be a mostly easy day of maybe picking things up around the apartment and maybe doing some reading. After LSU lost (I knew they were overrated) to Vanderbilt1, I lost interest in watching games for the rest of the day; I had the television on, but mostly for background noise. Everyone I was pulling for yesterday lost (with the exception of the Alabama-Tennessee game), so it kind of turned into a theme for the day. So, I would sit in my chair and read (or scribble notes in my journal) while doing things around the apartment, which looks a lot better this morning than it usually does on Sunday mornings. I also shaved my head again–it’s been a hot minute–and did a lot of filing. I am also trying to get my writing projects better organized, and managed to throw out a bunch of shit yesterday, too.

I started reading Elizabeth Hand’s Hokolua Road yesterday, and am enjoying it so far. I didn’t get deep into the book, but it’s set during the pandemic and quarantines, on one of the Hawaiian Islands (I think Hand made the island up wholesale, which is okay with me; I love Hawaii and have always wanted to write a book set on the islands). I love how she writes, honestly; I had one of her books already when A Haunting on the Hill, which was an authorized sequel to The Haunting of Hill House (one of my favorite books of all time), came out, so I thought I’d check out more of her work. I also spent some time rereading sections of Stephen King’s Danse Macabre–the sections about Shirley Jackon’s class novel, to help me prepare to write a long form essay on the book, and dove into the New Orleans/Louisiana sections of Colin Dickey’s marvelous Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, which also gave me some ideas for future projects. Yes, my mind is flourishing in creative ways again, which is absolutely lovely. I also need to organize/outline my thoughts for an essay series for the newsletter about masculinity, and my prickly relationship with it. (I knew it was going to be long, so it makes sense to plan it, outline it, and publish it in parts.) I also have tons of notes from my rewatch of Scream, too. I also made some decisions about the prep work I need to do to bring Chlorine to its conclusion, which I am hoping to do in November.

It feels good to be thinking about writing again and getting ideas all the time again. The last three years haven’t been easy for me, physically or emotionally, and so I got derailed to the point of not enjoying the writing or creating; it had turned into an odious chore, which I didn’t like, and had me considering walking away/retiring from the whole business for good. Whew, glad to know that’s passed, or that it’s not time for me to stop just yet. I”m also very tired of living in interesting times, you know? I’m still not physically able to go to protests, so I wasn’t able to attend the No Kings event here in New Orleans–but what a turnout all over the world, not just here in the USA, and that gives me some hope that this nightmare will eventually end. Maybe not the way I’d like–guillotines and a basement in Ekaterinberg–but you can’t always get what you want.

But I feel rested and good this morning, which is nice and the point of the weekend, really. I am going to be in clinic four days again this week, and by myself the last two, so I am feeling pretty certain that I’ll be exhausted when the weekends roll around again. But the summer is over, we’re moving into the cooler season here, and the weather is going to be sunny and low 80’s/high 70’s during the days, but dipping into the frigid 60’s at night.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I am going to do some filing before reading for a while, and getting cleaned up while maybe finishing the floors. Have a great Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back on the morrow.

  1. Congratulations to Vanderbilt, by the way, and good luck with the rest of your season. Your coach is pretty phenomenal! ↩︎