Monday has rolled around again, and it’s super dark outside. Fall is here, of course, and the weather has changed here to more of a cooler clime outside that it’s been in quite a while. The Saints lost yesterday, but it was a great game and came down to the wire; I don’t mind losing if it’s a good game, and it was. It was a nice weekend around the Lost Apartment, and nice and relaxing. We started watching American Sports Story, watched a gay horror film (Swallowed, starring Cooper Koch and his body from Monsters; he spends a great deal of time either naked or in his underwear), and then called it an evening and went to bed for a very restful night’s sleep. I decided to go make groceries after work today, and so when I leave the office I’ll be heading uptown.
I didn’t do much writing this weekend, which is a pity, but I’m not hanging my head in shame about that anymore. I did get a Substack post done (it had been three weeks!), and got some others started, too. I also started reading House of Rain and Bone, which really takes flight almost immediately. It’s an excellent choice for starting Halloween Horror Month–even if that doesn’t really begin until tomorrow. I started writing another post about The Stepford Wives, which I also spent some time with yesterday. I also got all the filing and organizing done around my work space, and I feel like I’m getting someplace with the book; yesterday also included, while filing, the combination of other files together was an upgrade in organizing research. I just created a situation in the book to deal with, and I am thinking about options for the rest of the story, which is starting to come together in my head. That, by the way, is a very good thing. Yay me!
I have an eye appointment next Saturday and there’s no LSU game, which makes the weekend a little freer for me; no LSU game to take up all my mind-space on game day. The Saints even play on Monday next weekend, so…yes, that’s an entirely free weekend around here for football season, which is very unusual. But it means I have no excuse for not getting things done around the house. I’ll watch games on Saturday, of course–love me some college football, even if it’s not my team playing–but most likely will just have it on in the background while I read or write or clean. So, Saturday morning I can go have my eye appointment, drive back into the city from Metairie, and then be on my own for the rest of the day. There are worse things. I’ll also have to come into the office on Friday for a department meeting, so I’ll probably stick around after, too. There’s another system to watch in the Gulf, in the same place Helene formed–and who knew a hurricane system could cause so much damage and destruction so far inland, in the Appalachian Mountains1? Now imagine had Helene gone up the Mississippi River. My sympathies, of course, are with everyone up there in North Carolina and Tennessee. They aren’t used to this sort of thing the way we are on the Gulf Coast, and I do have a lot of friends who live in the mountains of North Carolina, so it’s been a bit worrying on that concern. I’ve not heard from family in Kentucky, either–so I should probably find out how they all are. The last I heard, Dad only lost power for about an hour and a half, and my sister hadn’t. It seems as though Lexington was worse off for power loss than where they live, which is a very good thing. Whew, something else to not have to worry about is always a lovely thing.
Sigh.
And on that note, I am going to get ready and head into the spice mines. May your Monday be as marvelous as you can, try to donate items or money to flood/hurricane relief, and I may shout out at you again later, okay?
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Needless to say, people who live in the mountains aren’t experienced in this sort of hurricane disaster, nor should they be–but I fear they are going to have to get used to it. Climate change, for the record, doesn’t mean “more beachfront property” (which would come at the expense of the current beachfront property, you fucking morons); it means disasters like this more frequently. Woo-hoo! ↩︎
Monday morning and back to the office with me. I feel rested this morning–it took me a minute to wake up–and good, like this is going to be a very good week for one Gregalicious. It’s also my birthday month, which is kind of fun; I’ll be sixty-three in a few weeks (note to self: take birthday and day before off for a four day weekend), and that’s not nearly as traumatizing as it could be, you know? I don’t mind getting older; I never really have and I also don’t care about being old. I joke about it, but it’s never serious. A gay man who was in his twenties during the 1980s and made it to sixty-three? There aren’t as many of us as there should be, and that’s not something I will ever get over, I don’t think. A quick glance at the weather lets me know that it will “feel like” 112 today; Debby is battering the Florida coast; and we won’t be getting any rain today. We didn’t have any this weekend, I don’t think. I went out into the heat yesterday to make groceries, and retreated home as quickly as I could. (The cost of groceries is insane–I cannot believe how much I spent for so little…thanks, corporate greed!)
I’ve been listening to a podcast in the car the last few days, and I am really enjoying it. I’ve never gotten into podcasts–I have never been known as an early adapter; sometimes I don’t adapt at all. I’ve never really understood podcasts, how to find them, or even how to listen to them. I did figure it out last summer (I did find some great ones about hauntings and legends of the South; i listened to one about Julia Brown and the destruction of Frenier, Louisiana, for my unfinished story “When I Die”), but again–when I am in town I am rarely in the car long enough to listen to something all the way through, which totally sucks for audiobooks; you can’t listen to a ten hour book in twenty minute segments. At least I can’t; I don’t remember things anymore so it’s hard for me to pick back up if I go a few days without getting back into the book. Memory is necessary for reading, alas, which is why I am having so much trouble reading these days. Maybe if I commit to a chapter per night? I’ve either got to start reading regularly again or I have to stop compulsively buying books. Anyway, I asked my supervisor last week what audiobook she was going to listen to on her long drive this past weekend and she replied, “I don’t listen to books because I worry I’ll go to sleep. I listen to podcasts.” I of course then expressed my geriatric usual response to the word “podcast” and she recommended one to me, which I started listening to on the way home from work Thursday. It’s hilarious. It’s called “My Dad Wrote a Porno”, features three Brits (two men, one women) and that is what it’s about. One man’s dad wrote a porn novel, and each episode is his son reading one aloud and the three reacting to it. It is amazingly hilarious because…well, because the writing of the book, Belinda Blinked, is hilariously campy and bad. (It’s also a real book, for sale on Amazon.) I’ve been listening in the car non-stop, and we’re only up to chapter three. Apparently, there are eight seasons, so this should entertain me in the car for quite some time!
I really didn’t do much of anything yesterday other than the grocery run, finishing the final season of Elite (the first three seasons remain the best), which was a bit satisfying but…they did leave some of the characters with dangling stories, so it’s entire possible they could do spin-offs, but the only spin-off I want to see is one with Carla (Ester Exposito), but that ship has sailed, alas. Tonight we’ll watch more Olympics (we did last night, too); it is unbelievable how much of a good mood the Olympics puts me into. These games also seem a bit more special this time around; the 2020 ones were kind of messed up, taking place in 2021 with no crowds, so we’ve really not had an Olympics like usual since 2016. The athletes seem to really be grateful to be there; losing gold and settling for either silver or bronze isn’t coming across as “disappointing” or “losing.” Gold medals are rare, and fluky things happen at the Olympics; which is part of the excitement. You never know who’s going to become a star during the games (if someone had told me that a nerdy pommel horse specialist from Worcester, MA would capture the hearts of the American public, I would have laughed). So many amazing stories in so many different sporting disciplines…so inspiring, and the athletes are just wonderful. Just being there is a win, let alone getting a medal. I would just be so thrilled to be there I don’t think any disappointment would stick for long. I will be sorry when it ends, but am very excited the next games will be in Los Angeles! Woo-hoo! Our time zones so we can watch live!
I really do feel bad for the people who’d rather be angry than enjoy the spirit of sport and athletic excellence from young people who’ve trained their whole lives for this moment and celebrate healthy competition, but those people tend to find no joy in life and just want to make everyone else as miserable as they are. Misery loves company indeed.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, and I may be back later; one can never be certain.
One of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is how we don’t really have a Louisiana crime writer who explores and illuminates the damage we are doing to the ecosystem and environmentalism of the state the way John D. Macdonald infused many of his Florida novels with so frequently. Condominium, published in the 1980’s, is a stinging indictment of crooked developers and corrupt politicians putting up massive condominium buildings along the coastline of Florida, despite the damage they do to the environment, all in the name of a quick buck. I have been thinking about this because I spent a lot of time in the panhandle in the 1970s, back before Panama City Beach developed into what it is now. I’ve not been back there since 1980, at the latest; but just looking at Google Earth images it’s horrifying how different and over-developed that whole area has become. (I was looking at the images because I was thinking about setting a book along the Redneck Riviera/Baja Alabama/Emerald Coast/Miracle Strip, whichever name you use for the region.) Louisiana, nicknamed “Sportsmen’s Paradise” because of the abundant fish and game and the stunning natural beauty of the state, has pretty much spent the last hundred or so years (at least) destroying and despoiling the natural resources of the state of Louisiana, killing off wildlife species while introducing new invasive ones–and don’t even get me started on Cancer Alley, that stretch of the river between New Orleans and Baton Rouge lined with petrochemical plants parked next to poor, mostly Black communities that have, surprisingly enough, large instances of cancers in the residents. Now the level of the river is so low that it can’t keep the Gulf water pushed down, and the salty water is making its way up the river and intruding into our drinking water supply here in southeastern Louisiana. I’m sure the loss of so much of the wetlands to ensure oil company profits hasn’t affected this in any way, shape or form. There’s a really good environmental thriller to be written about Louisiana (if not more), and I think maybe part of the problem in writing about the destruction of Louisiana in the name of unfettered greed is that I don’t feel knowledgeable enough on the subject to tackle it, nor do I have the time to spend on the research necessary.
It’s really disappointing to me that James Michener never wrote one of his two thousand page plus books about Louisiana. Louisiana history, no offense, is a lot more interesting than Texas’.
And Sportsmen’s Paradise is a great title for a book about Louisiana’s environmental disasters.
I suppose I should just go ahead and do it, regardless of how difficult and long and tedious the process may be. I also think part of the reason I’ve resisted this aspect of writing about Louisiana is because no matter how dark my books may get, I always want justice to be done in some way and to end the book with some sort of hope; there literally is no hope for the future of Louisiana because our politicians are all too greedy and corrupt and only focused on the now rather than the future, no matter how much they beat the “but the children!” drum publicly to fool those incapable of deeper thought. There have been so many environmental disasters in Louisiana over the nearly three decades I’ve lived here I can’t remember them all; and yes, I definitely count boil water advisories in that, too. There was the sinkhole at Bayou Corne (anyone remember that?) and of course Deepwater Horizon, whose true impact and the damage it wrought on the Gulf and the coastline will not be fully known for generations.
The one consistent thing throughout Louisiana’s history has been the entrenched systemic political corruption. I have written about that.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about Jackson Square Jazz, as I get into this revision, and remembering why I wrote it and what I was trying to say within the book; there was a thread in it that ties directly into the new one, and there are also some thematic commonalities with S. A. Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed, which I am really enjoying reading. Shawn is such an extraordinary writer, with a gift not only for language but character, dialogue, setting and story; the complete deal, as it were, and definitely is going to be considered one of the definitive crime writers of this new generation of exceptional talent that has risen over the last few years. I am going to spend some more time with Shawn’s book this morning, too; I am really enjoying it and wanting to see where it goes and how it all ends. I also have the new Lou Berney on deck, and Lou’s books are always high-quality, clever, and engaging.
College football was interesting yesterday. My Tigers prevailed in a three-point nail-biter against Arkansas in Tiger Stadium 34-31, running the clock out and kicking the winning field goal on the last play of the game. Paul and I were stunned, as was the crowd in the stadium..,and then I laughed. “LSU fans aren’t used to smart clock management in tight games,” I observed, and Paul started laughing with me because the crowd in the stadium didn’t know how to react to the end of the game either. It almost seemed ant-climactic rather than exciting…how many games have we lost this century because of poor clock management skills displayed by the coaching staff? So it was lovely, for once, to see the Tigers play smart at the end of a game for a change. Alabama finally looked like Alabama for the first time this season–but only in the second half as they iced Mississippi. LSU now has to play Mississippi in Oxford next weekend; it’ll be interesting to see how LSU stacks up against our old Magnolia Bowl foe. Colorado finally lost, which brought out all the racist college football fans on social media. The Texas A&M-Auburn game was just sloppy, ugly and unimpressive, while Mississippi State fell to South Carolina. But the big game of the day lived up to its billing–Ohio State v. Notre Dame in South Bend, with the Buckeyes scoring the winning touchdown on the literal last play of the game, 17-14. I literally only saw the closing minutes of the game, switching over once the LSU game concluded. The Saints play at noon today at Green Bay, so the grocery run I need to make will happen around that time–no fool me; everyone knows the best time to make groceries is during a Saints game here.
Yesterday was pretty relaxing, over all; a lovely day for the weekend and a restful and nice one, despite the stress of the LSU game. I’ll probably have the Saints game on in the background because it’s too anxiety-making to watch the games. (I have yet to learn how to control the anxiety during a game; it was certainly there last night and while I tried very hard not to get negative during the game, I could feel the adrenaline spiking and my heart rate going up, but I managed to keep my mind from spiraling and going super-dark as well not getting overly emotional It is, after all, just a football game and LSU football success isn’t necessary for my mental well-being.)
My goals for today are to read Shawn’s book for a few hours, get cleaned up and make a grocery run; while finishing the first chapters of the new Valerie and Jem books (tentatively titled, thus far, The House of the Seven Grables and You Gone, Girl) and also wanting to do some short story work as well, which is always fun. This Friday I am getting fitted for my new teeth (hurray!) and I have also reached the point where I can eat and enjoy noodles, so yesterday I made box mac’n’cheese (not Kraft, but one that came from the refrigerated section and simply needed microwaving and stirring; it wasn’t bad, either). Tonight I am going to make ravioli for dinner; we’ll see how that goes, although I am sure I won’t be able to eat any garlic bread. (I am able to eat Cheese Puffs, though.) I really want a burger, more than anything else. We are also making a trip to the SPCA to adopt a cat this coming Friday, which is perhaps the most exciting thing of all! I’ve really missed having a cat; they are such darling animals, and of course we want to get another ginger boy.
And on that note, I think I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back–if not later, than tomorrow.
I spent a lot of time in beach resort towns when I was younger. My grandmother and her second husband retired to the panhandle of Florida when I was ten and about to start the seventh grade, and when they moved down there I actually rode along with them because it was summer. My aunt and uncle had a beach house that they would rent out for weeks and weekends to make money in a small beach town along the Emerald Coast (they called it the Miracle Strip back then; Panama City Beach) and until we moved away to California, we used to go down to visit my grandparents and time it around a visit to the beach house as well. In the years since, I’ve often thought about writing about the panhandle and those sleepy little beach towns (believe me, Panama City Beach has changed dramatically since the 1970s); my short story “Cold Beer No Flies” is one of those stories, and I have another one–book-length–that I am considering writing at some point in the near future.
But beach resorts and the townies have always been interesting to me; the difference between those who live there year round and those who simply vacation there; the drifters who come in for jobs during those summer months and then disappear–what do they leave in their wake?–and it just seemed rife with possibilities.
So, after greatly enjoyed her sophomore novel The Mother Next Door, I was really looking forward to her reading her debut novel, One Night Gone.
Constant Reader, it did not disappoint.
The girl tried not to look up into the hazy summer night, the seagulls circling overheard like giant paper airplanes. They made her dizzy. She focused on the horizon, the dark ocean churning, its vastness broken up by milky froths.
Thomas, the guy from the party, was pressed up against her, his thighs tight against hers. She could feel the heat in her cheeks, but at least it was cooler here at the end of the pier, away from the lights and sounds, from the constant pop pop pop bling bling of the arcade games and the deafening roar of the Zipper, a ride she’d thrown up on last year and then swore her friends to secrecy.
Thomas dipped her back over the railing–not too far, but enough that she felt the danger, felt that if he just shifted his large hand an inch or so off her back she’d fall, tumble like a tragic mistake. He laughed, pulling her back, his dewy breath catching in her hair.
“Stop it,” she said, batting at him, though she wasn’t sure she meant it.
She liked him. She liked the way he made her feel–important. Funny. Sexy. At the party, he’d said he was from the cornfields of Indiana, a state–she would never tell him–that she wouldn’t be able to point out on a map. He was tall like a cornstalk, she thought, and let that bubble up into a giggle on her lips as he swayed into her again and kissed it away.
One thing I absolutely love in crime novels is different timelines–one in the past and one in the present. I myself have never done this; and perhaps it’s about time I try (one of the ideas I have, ironically set in a Florida panhandle beach town, is a dual timeline novel); I’ve always admired writers who can do this and pull it off with aplomb because it looks really hard to me. Laura Lippman did this beautifully in After I’m Gone; Alison Gaylin in What Remains of Me; and Carol Goodman is a master of this. Add Tara Laskowski to this list–she also managed to pull it off with The Mother Next Door, her marvelous follow-up.
The story focuses on two women thirty years apart who come to Opal Beach for their own reasons. Allison, our modern heroine, is a former meteorologist who was fired for unprofessional conduct when going off on her cheating (now) ex-husband on air; she went viral and left her cheating husband, and her sister finds her this great housesitting gig in a mansion on the beach in the off-season and so Allison comes to a beautiful house on the Jersey shore in a resort full of secrets–going back to the disappearance of our 1980’s heroine, Maureen. Maureen comes from a bad background and she works for the carnival that comes to Opal Beach every summer; she finds herself becoming friends with locals and even getting romantically involved with one. Maureen is also desperate the way Allison is; desperate to escape a terrible past and start a new life with the cons and crimes of her past behind her. Maureen disappears that summer, never to be found again–and somehow Allison’s arrival at Opal Beach starts dredging up secrets and lies from that past so long ago…and Allison’s own life is put in jeopardy because there are any number of people who have their own reasons for wanting Maureen to stay buried in the past…
Laskowski is a terrific writer, with a knack for being highly efficient and proficient in her sentence and paragraph construction; she creates characters that are rounded and complete and multi-dimensional; and her ability to explore how little slights and personality clashes can grow into festering wounds is exceptional. Opal Beach felt very real to me–the bonfire parties on the beach, the gift shops and restaurants catering to the summer people, the climate and weather and the house itself. I really enjoyed this, and got caught up in the story quite easily.
It has been quite a while since I managed the kind of word count that I did yesterday. I got up at seven yesterday morning, wrote my morning blog entry and then finished writing about how my novel Sorceress came to be (I am gradually working my way through all of my books), started another entry on Lake Thirteen (still to come), and then went to work on my Scotty book. I banged out Chapter Three, and then moved on to another project I am working on for a friend; I was writing a chapter of that book per week to send on to him but it went off-track and I knew it. So, I had to go back and reread those first four chapters that are already completed to see–and the fix was so much easier than I had been fearing, with the result that rather than actually fixing the problem, I simply made notes on how to fix it for the binder where I keep the printed pages (I do this with every book the last few years or so; it’s just easier to print it out, three-hole punch it and put it in a binder where I can access it easily and make notes whenever necessary). So I wrote Chapter Five of that project, bringing today’s word count to six thousand, not counting the blog entries. Whew, did my shoulder hurt once I was done for the day, but I actually felt like I earned the rest of the day off.
So, overall it was a pretty good weekend. I am working at home today with lots of data to get entered before I can take off my spice-mining helmet and head to the easy chair to relax. Labor Day is this weekend, which means it’s also Southern Decadence in New Orleans, and I haven’t really checked the schedule to see what I am going to have to do–if anything–for the day job this weekend. Next week we’re off to Bouchercon, which I am looking forward to; it’ll be lovely, even if smaller than it usually is. It’s the first in-person one since Dallas in 2019 (I still swear sometimes that LSU had the best football season of all time in 2019 and that broke the world) and there will be people I’ll get to see that I haven’t seen since St. Petersburg in 2018. My schedule is already filling up; I had to create a day by day schedule of where I have to be and what I have to do and dates I’ve made with people already (to avoid double booking as well as to keep track); it’s going to be hectic, and I also bet I am not going to get to sleep a lot because of my hotel room insomnia issues, which makes the trip even more tiring and draining. And then I get to come back and go to work at the office all week. Yay.
I’ve done a lot of thinking this summer in those rare moments when I have some time to sit and think about things–I really don’t get to do this as often as I should; I am thinking that maybe once every three months I just need to take a three day weekend and go stay in a hotel by myself somewhere–maybe do some exploring of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, I don’t know–to take stock of my life, evaluate where I am at and where I want to go, and what do I need to do to make the things I want to happen for me actually, you know, happen. The nine-day bout of COVID, with its exhaustion, fatigue and continual brain fog, forced me to not work, to not do much of anything other than trying to just stay on top of my emails. The forced rest actually gave me time to deconstruct my life and everything I do and all of my commitments, and recognize some things about my life and what I want out of it. One of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result; I’ve been doing just that for quite some time now. I’ve missed a lot of opportunities over the years with my writing career–and while I am certainly of the mindset that everything happens for a reason and grabbing on to one of those opportunities might have changed my life in ways I cannot conceive, making it entirely possible that my life could be worse than it is now–one of the primary reasons I adopted the old “no regrets about the past” mantra–but I am getting old and many of those opportunities may never present themselves again. Now, I am at the point where my energies and abilities are growing more limited, yet the demands on my time, energy and ability don’t ever seem to ease up or abate in any meaningful way. I’ve made some decisions about my life and my future going forward; I also feel like they are the right ones to make and my mind is made up. (There are few things I find more annoying than making a decision and having that decision questioned, or having people try to talk you out of it. I rarely, if ever, change my mind once it’s definitively made up.)
I need to make writing a major priority again in my life. Yesterday it felt marvelous to get up in the morning, drink some coffee, and then sit down at the computer and start writing. I don’t know if my Scotty book is coming along well or not–it could be shit; and first drafts are usually pretty awful anyway–or if the other project is working or not, but it literally was so satisfying to sit at the computer and just create for hours. When I was finished for the day, too, I felt like I’d actually accomplished something and I liked the feeling. If I write a chapter of the other project every week while still managing to get two or three chapters of Scotty done every week, the Scotty will be finished on deadline and the other will have a completed first draft in another fifteen weeks. Juggling two completely different books and two entirely different styles is going to be a challenge, but I’ve always been about challenging myself when I write. (Even if it doesn’t seem like it.) I’ve also really been enjoying revisiting my books and remembering where the ideas came from, what I was trying to do with the book and story and characters; I hope those blog entries are entertaining. But…if they aren’t, you can always skip them, Constant Reader. I won’t mind. I’m also trying to write the book entries slowly, take my time with them, not write them all in one burst in one sitting the way I do the daily “this is what I am doing” entries.
I suppose I’ve always used this blog incorrectly. I probably should use it to do giveaways of copies of my books or engage with readers more, or turn it into a writing advice blog or something like that; develop a plan for it and stick to it rather than just pantsing it every morning. But that’s how I’ve always done it, and maybe when I’ve retired and don’t have to get ready for work every morning (the blog is part of my waking up to go to work process) I can take it another direction. Ah well, that’s about four years into the future, so I can worry about it then–if I even live that long.
We also binged Bad Vegan last night, which was insane but interesting, and of course episode 2 of House of the Dragon, which was markedly better than the first episode. (I did laugh at the opening credits of Episode 2, which weren’t included in episode one…reusing the Game of Thrones theme and using the same kind of “model” assembling itself was an interesting choice.)
And on THAT cheery note, I am heading into the spice mines.
So, I guess Tropical Storm Fred is out there, taking aim at the Gulf Coast again…the Cone of Uncertainty looks good for us at the moment, but there’s also no telling if it will shift or what a hurricane/tropical system will do or where it will go; which is quite naturally a bit anxiety-inducing. Nothing to do but keep a wary eye peeled for the action in the Gulf, along with the guilt-inducing hopes it will go somewhere else–which always makes me feel like a shitty person, frankly–but is anyone so selfless they’d think hope it comes here and spares everyone else?
I rather doubt it. In fact, I’d be highly suspicious of said person’s mental stability, in all honesty. Who wishes disaster on themselves?
Although I would imagine, as with anything, there are some.
However, checking just now for this morning’s updates, it’s looking quite unpleasant for Florida now–the threat to us is diminished a bit from yesterday, but still is there.
I also will have some news eventually; sorry to be vague, but I tend to not like to think about or talk about things until they are for certain–been burnt too many times–but I am kind of excited and thrilled and it’s always lovely when a new challenge comes along and presents itself to me. (The thrill of a new challenge, incidentally, inevitably wears off when I am in the weeds working on the challenge) I also got invited to do an author’s event, which is kind of fun and exciting (I was thinking about going anyway, because friends are guests of honor) but until said invitation is confirmed, I probably shouldn’t come right out and say anything about it, either. VAGUE VAGUE VAGUE.
Paul has been watching videos–while he can’t sleep (it’s different for him than me; I just don’t fall completely asleep. He has trouble falling asleep but eventually does–it just takes him a very long time to do so)–about how to improve your ability to sleep well AND to fall asleep. Before I went to bed last night he was telling me about these videos and the various techniques they recommend. “Apparently, the optimal temperature for sleep–both falling asleep and staying asleep–is sixty eight degrees,” he said as I got under the covers.
“So,” I replied, trying and failing not to sound smug, “all these years I’ve been saying we need to turn the thermostat down to sixty-eight at night for sleep, there’s actually science saying I was right about that?” (I had noticed that I slept better when it’s sixty-eight degrees in the bedroom–years and years ago, to obvious resistance.)
This is, of course, the long way of saying that he turned the thermostat down to sixty-eight and it was one of the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a long time–to the point where I didn’t want to get out of the bed this morning (I never do, but it was a literal struggle this morning). So, clearly there’s something to it. I can’t wait till Friday when I can sleep as late as I want to–it’s going to be my day to do nothing without guilt this week–and feel amazing when I get up.
I worked on “The Sound of Snow Falling” last evening; the opening really needed some work (mainly because I didn’t know what direction the story was going to go when I started writing it, other than the main character was going to kill the other character–but I needed what Daphne du Maurier called “the breaking point” to be better set up, and the flood of resentments and grudges and anger that follows in the wake of that breaking point. The opening was fine, it just no longer fit the rest of the story–although, with my complete and utter lack of confidence in my writing, especially of short stories–I can’t help but wonder if I am wreaking havoc with the story with these revisions. You’d think after all this time in this business–writing everything you can imagine, really–I’d eventually gather some confidence in what I am doing; you’d be wrong to think that, of course. Don’t get me wrong–I do have some confidence in my ability to write stories; I couldn’t do this if I didn’t. But the primary issue is that every new story, every new book, every thing I start writing–begins with excitement and confidence, only to die off eventually as I am plagued with doubt and my confidence wanes and yes, I begin to wonder if I’ve lost my ability to write anything half-way decent, let alone readable.
Sigh. It never ends. I’ll go to my grave thinking I could have written this better….
But I am looking forward to this weekend, frankly. I’m really looking forward to a day where I literally have nothing to do but lounge around the house, reading and being a slacker and doing things for myself and myself only. It should be lovely–although yes, I am quite aware that I will inevitably clean or wind up doing some things around the house; I am not the type to just spend an entire day doing nothing.
And on that note, tis time to head into the spice mines–have a most lovely and edifying Wednesday, Constant Reader!
All is calm outside my windows this morning. Claudette’s eye has passed–to the east of my neighborhood, leaving us on the dry side–and while there are reports of heavy rainfall and flooding on the north shore and along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, we remained here pretty unscathed. The flash flood warning for New Orleans has been cancelled, but we remain under a tropical storm warning, with the possibilities of high winds and heavy rainfall still there. Inevitably, it’s always a relief when we are merely struck a glancing blow, but there’s something untoward, for me at least, about being grateful somewhere else got hit instead. But that’s the nature of hurricane season–wishing to be spared means wishing disaster on someone, somewhere, else.
I didn’t get much writing done yesterday after all; perhaps about two or three hundred words on “Festival of the Redeemer”–after I finished my work yesterday I was feeling tired again, both mentally and physically, and was actually rather pleased with that minuscule output, honestly. I slept extremely deeply and well last night–the occasional odd dream was there, but this morning I don’t really remember much of them other than some weird communal living situation Paul and I found ourself in, trying to insist on our privacy as others came in and out of our living space while at the same time allowing their cats access to it, thereby traumatizing poor Scooter. This led me to wake up around six in the morning–I always seem to wake up around that time, thanks to my three-days-per week early mornings–but had no problems whatsoever falling back asleep again for another two hours, which was lovely. Today I intend to make more headway on the Lost Apartment and perhaps make a final push to get this novella’s first draft completed and out of the way; I’d also like to make another strong push to get my story “The Sound of Snow Falling” completed, but I’m not entirely certain what the possibilities of managing both, while getting that web copy written, are.
I also need to get my inbox cleared at some point this weekend as well.
Work, work, work. And perhaps make some time to read; we’ll see how that goes.
Last night I also made a second attempt at making a dirty vodka martini, and was much more successful this time around. I took a co-worker’s advice (she also bartends) and simply swished the dry vermouth around in the glass before dumping it; adding the vodka, shaken with ice and then the olives and juice. I can certainly see why excellent vodka is called for; since the drink is almost entirely vodka (it’s really just a big chilled vodka shot, with garnishes), and I had found an old bottle of Rain, leftover from the days of the Iris parties, and I was quite pleased with how it turned out. I had one in honor of Season 4 of Elité dropping on Netflix, and we binged six episodes last night. There are only two left, and I have to give the show props–they lost nearly half the cast, so had to introduce new characters as well as terminate relationships between characters who remained and those who left; and it would be incredibly easy to simply make the new characters carbons of the old. They didn’t do this, and while these new characters are mostly unlikable, the old characters had three seasons, for the most part, to make us care about them. There is a crime–the show is following the former pattern of the previous seasons–flashing back between the present and the past to show the build up to the crime; but as Paul said, “some of these relationships feel a bit forced.” He’s not wrong–but as I said, this is the most new characters they’ve ever had to add into a season before, and weaving them into what is basically a reboot season isn’t as easy as adding in new characters, scattered amongst the established cast, was in previous seasons. I am enjoying it, and it’s still everything I loved about the previous seasons–sexy, lots of queer representation, high production values, interesting twists and turns; but sadly, characters like Lucrezia and Carla (played brilliantly by Danna Paola and Ester Exposito) are incredibly hard to replace. But, all things considered, they are doing a great job with season four.
I feel, of all things, oddly settled this morning, and calm–like it is outside. I’ve been feeling off-balance for quite some time now; something I hadn’t really noticed until this morning, since I seem to have stopped rocking back-and-forth for now and feel rested. (I think rested is truly the key word in that sentence; I am not feeling tired this morning–physically or emotionally or intellectually–which is quite a marvelous feeling, frankly. I have things to do, as is always the case, but I also feel no stress about any of them; today I feel like I can conquer the world, which is a pleasant feeling and one I’ve not had in quite some time. But really, it’s lovely to be in a good place. I am writing an being very productive at it; I’ve sorted out some issues in my head that have not been easy to get through; and while this year has been a bit tough–writing two books at the beginning; dealing with burnout and some other issues I won’t bore you with–I feel pretty good right now. That may vary– I could wake up tomorrow feeling like something the cat dragged in–but for now, I am doing great and that’s all that really matters right now.
And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me.
I moved to Houston in the spring of 1989, basically to put the past into the rearview mirror and get my shit together. A fresh start was called for, my parents lived there, and so I shipped some stuff and whatever I couldn’t check as luggage or carry on was thrown away. It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but rather what I needed to do; I was on a horrible downward spiral of depression and self-loathing and I didn’t see any way to break that cycle while remaining in California. So I boarded an early morning flight and moved to Houston.
I knew relatively nothing about the city. I knew it was in Texas and was a major port, but it didn’t appear to actually be on the Gulf Coast (I would later learn that the Houston Ship Channel was how the city had become a major port), it was big, they had a baseball team (the Astros) and a pro football team (at the time, the Oilers) and a basketball team (the Rockets) and the Astrodome was there. Anything else I knew about the city came primarily from reading Thomas Thompson’s Blood and Money–still one of my favorite true crime books–but admittedly, that wasn’t much. That book had been published fourteen years earlier, and one thing that is very true about Houston, and remains true, is that it changes all the time, sometimes very quickly.
I liked Houston, but as always, whenever I’ve moved there was some severe culture shock. Texas is most definitely not California…and I had never really driven on major highways in a city before. I was soon to learn that it was impossible to exist in Houston, for the most part, without spending time on highways. I was also kind of taken aback by the amount of gun racks in the back windows of pick-up trucks, and was also amazed at the size of some of those trucks. It was a weird, interesting, sprawling city, and I had no idea where anything was or how to get around or how to adapt…but I learned. I liked it there, and it was there, at my first job (selling natural gas, of all things) that I first heard about Dean Corll. I don’t remember how it came up in conversation–maybe a serial killer had been caught, I don’t remember, it’s lost in the mists of time–and she told me about Dean Corll–and even brought me a copy of a book about the killings–Mass Murder in Houston, by John K. Gurwell. It was very short–it was one of those quick books about true crimes that was cobbled together undoubtedly in a hurry to capitalize on the notoriety, but the one thing that always stuck with me was that one of the ways he and his accomplices would torture the boys was to insert glass rods into their penis and break it off.
After I returned the book, I never really thought much about Corll again, until we watched the Mindhunter series on Netflix. In one of the episodes the FBI guys interviewed Wayne Henley–and that reminded me. Paul had never heard of Corll, and the show reignited my interest in him, so I ordered a copy of Jack Olsen’s The Man with the Candy: The Story of the Houston Mass Murders. But I was in the midst of something–probably writing another book or who knows what–and so I simply shelved the book and forgot about it….until we watched The Clown and the Candyman…and I hunted up the book and started reading it.
In his canary-yellow house on shady Twenty-seventh Street in The Heights, a worn-out section of Houston, Fred Hilligiest got up long before the sun. A gaunt, wind-dried man of forty-nine, he striped streets for the city of Houston no weekdays and ran a small painting business in his spare time. This morning he had to be on the job at five; the Gulf sun would catch him soon enough and sear another layer of brown into his deep-lined face, as dark and dry as old parchment.
Dorothy Hilligiest, a radiant, pudgy woman with china-doll hands and a small voice to match, saw her husband off and began to work through a list of chores. In a few days, the family would being its annual vacation to the riverside town of Kerrville and there were still errands to run–to the bank, the car wash, the grocery, the hardware store, to Sears for the last few pints of paint to finish trimming the windows. The Hilligiests worked on their house endlessly, landscaping and painting and decorating till the little bungalow gleamed like a model home on its corner lot. The fact that The Heights was generally considered run-down did not discourage the Hilligiests. A family could live in only one house at a time, and theirs was more than adequate. Others had weakened and lost heart, but Fred and Dorothy, deeply religious Catholics, intended to complete their ordained task of raising a family within these familiar walls.
Two children were already married and gone; three sons and a daughter remained, and by the time Mrs. Hilligiest returned from her first batch of errands in town, they were up and babbling about the vacation to come. It was May 29, 1971, Memorial Day weekend blazing hot in Houston. There was talk among the three boysabout going to the pool at the Bohemian lodge to perfect a few strokes they would use later at the river. On the previous year’s visit to Kerrville, they had met a couple of young water nymphs who had impressed and outswum them; this year would be different.
David, the family’s blond-haired court jester and jazz drummer, called a friend to suggest a swim, but the friend was busy. By lunchtime, David still had not been able to round up a swimming companion for himself–being thirteen, he did not relish accompanying his younger brothers–and he ate his customary skimpy meal, a hot dog and a glass of root beer. As usual, Dorothy Hilligiest worried about him. He was a small boy with delicate features, five feet three inches tall and not yet a hundred pounds in weight, and he ate like a gerbil. “Don’t worry,” Fred Hilligiest had told his wife. “He’s as strong as a li’l ol’ bull.” Sometimes the boy earned a dollar an hour working for his father’s striping company and pulled a man’s load without complaint.
Like Blood and Money, one of the strengths of this book is its focus on the city of Houston as a character. He also picks a couple of families who lost their sons to Dean Corll and his accomplices, tracing their suffering from the day their child goes missing out of the blue to the discovery of the bodies. It’s hard not to feel sorry for them, and Olsen does a great job of exploring what they went through without being exploitative, as well as their shock and surprise that the Houston police aren’t in the least bit interested in looking for their sons, telling them their child clearly just ran away. (This is a common thread through a lot of the serial killer documentaries and stories from the late 1960’s through the mid-1970’s; the assumption that missing kids just ran away because a lot of that was going on within the youth culture of the time–San Francisco, of course, being a primary destination for the lost kids running away. It’s also why the serial killers got away undetected for so long; the cops dismissed the concerns of parents–you can almost see the knowing smirk on their faces as they listened to parents insisting their child wouldn’t have run away.) That actually is haunting; the incredible suffering the parents must have gone through, knowing their child didn’t run away and being turned away by cops.
Olsen also explores Corll’s background–his many-times married mother, his own aversion to actual gay men despite his own sexuality–he wasn’t into going to gay bars or meeting other men of his own age, always being interested in young boys and children (his victims were of all ages, but I don’t think any were younger than twelve; I’d have to check to be certain though). There aren’t any answers here, though; why did he become what he did? How did he somehow convince two young men (Wayne Henley and David Brooks) to not only be accomplices but to lure in victims? Did Henley and Brooks tell the whole truth, or did they push most of the blame off on Corll?
I’ve been wrapping my mind around this horrible story since watching The Clown and the Candyman, and reading this book is currently an inspiration for an idea that is developing in my own head for a fictional approach to telling this story. I can see telling it from two directions, actually; which could also make for an interesting book, or two completely separate ones entirely.
It’s also weird that Corll is so completely unknown to most people these days; Gacy stole most of his thunder, and there haven’t been any books about Corll published, new scholarship or investigative reporting, in decades.
Here we are on Wednesday, halfway through the week and a storm is barreling down on us yet again. 2020 is just gonna keep on 2020’ing, y’all. The intensity of the storm–and how strong it will be when it comes ashore–keeps being increased, but everyone keeps insisting that it will slow down and de-intensify before it comes ashore, which is most likely going to be somewhere in Louisiana. Heavy heaving sigh.
But such is life on the Gulf Coast–even though we technically aren’t on the Gulf Coast.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately–always a dangerous thing–and a lot of it has to do with my seeing myself, and defining myself, as a crime writer. I am best known for two series featuring gay private eyes set in New Orleans: Chanse MacLeod and Scotty Bradley. (And while characters and places crossover from one series to the other–Venus Casanova and Blaine Tujague are the police detectives in both series; Paige from the Chanse series has shown up in the last two Scotty books; the disreputable gay strip club the Brass Rail in the upper Quarter; etc. etc etc etc. I have to this date resisted the urge to have the two characters cross over; and I do think that was a wise choice.) It isn’t all I’ve written of course; the two series total about fifteen or so novels out of thirty-three or so I’ve done overall. I’ve dipped my toes into young adult and new adult; romantic suspense and domestic suspense. I’ve done erotica, of course. But the two books I just signed contracts for are stand-alone novels; one will undoubtedly be called new adult and the other young adult, and while crime is in both books and affects the characters and helps shape the stories, they aren’t traditional type crime novels in which a mystery or a crime is solved. (The young adult is more of one of those than the young adult.)
I’m more curious now about criminals, or people who do bad things, and why they actually do them. I have always been drawn to noir–desperate people doing desperate things to get what they want (or feel they deserve)–and I’ve been exploring those interests primarily in short stories. I love what I’ve been doing in my short fiction lately (note to self: must revise short story this week), and I’m starting to think I want to explore those interests on a bigger canvas than a short story can or might provide for me.
A friend recently wrote me about my story “The Carriage House,” recently published in Mystery Tribune, and said, “You know there’s a novel in there, don’t you?” I kind of laughed to myself, because of course I originally envisioned the story as a novel first; before realizing yet again that I only have so much time left in my life to write all the books I want to write (I will go to my grave wishing I had written more books), and a while back I finally came to the conclusion that if some book ideas can be adapted and edited down to a smaller story, something shorter, that was probably the smart thing to do–even though short stories are much harder for me to write than a novel, weird as that sounds. And it’s not always possible–I also suspect some of the in-progress unfinished stories are unfinished because they really don’t work as a short story. But then again, I could be wrong and just haven’t figured out how to write the story yet.
We watched a few more episodes of Utopia last night, and it’s really quite something. Lots of violence and lots of action as the onion gets peeled back and the story of what is really going on in the show becomes more clear, it’s really creepy and terrifying, because it really isn’t that difficult to see it happening in the real world–it also doesn’t help that the show is centered around a lethal pandemic.
The weather outside my windows is solemnly gray this morning, lots of clouds. Yesterday the light was also strange; we’re in that weird pre-storm time. The storm seems to be shifting slowly west, which puts New Orleans on the wet side of the storm, and we’ll be feeling it beginning sometime tomorrow late in the day, and then most of the day Friday with some residual on Saturday. They’ve moved the LSU-Missouri game to Missouri’s home stadium officially this morning–I won’t say anything about the Florida-LSU game that was postponed years ago because of a hurricane because Florida refused to move the game day to Baton Rouge instead–and it’s also now a day game rather than a night game. I hope we still have power so we can watch; at least if we do lose power it won’t be completely unbearable in the Lost Apartment since the weather has shifted into fall.
The loss of morning coffee, on the other hand, will be horrific.
I also found some time to read a short story last night, and I chose “You Go Where It Takes You” by Nathan Ballingrud from North American Lake Monsters: Stories. This was the story that was adapted for the first episode of Monsterworld–which we will undoubtedly go back to once we’ve finished Utopia–and while there are significant differences between the show and the story, both are done really really well.
He did not look like a man who would change her life. He was big, roped with muscles from working on off-shore oil rigs, and tending to fat. His face was broad and inoffensively ugly, as though he had spent a lifetime taking blows and delivering them. He wore a brown raincoat against the light morning drizzle and against the threat of something more powerful held in abeyance. He breathe heavily, moved slowly, found a booth by the window overlooking the water, and collapsed into it. He picked up a syrup-smeared menu and studied it with his whole attention, like a student deciphering Middle English. He was like every man who ever walked into that diner. He did not look like a beginning or an end.
That day, the Gulf of Mexico and all the earth was blue and still. The little town of Port Fourchon clung like a barnacle to Louisiana’s southern coast, and behind it the water stretched into the distance for as many miles as the eye could hold. Hidden by distance were the oil rigs and the workers who supplied the town with its economy. At night she could see their lights, ringing the horizon like candles in a vestibule. Toni’s morning shift was nearing its end; the dining area was nearly empty. She liked to spend those slow hours out on the diner’s balcony, overlooking the water.
As you can see, Ballingrud has a beautiful writing style; easy and uncomplicated, but complex in its simplicity. The story, about a working single mother in a small Louisiana coastal town whose life changes when she meets a mysterious stranger at the diner one morning, paints an exceptional portrait of desperation. Toni, short for Antoinette, is only twenty three and has a young daughter still of daycare age; the child’s father walked out on her years earlier and left for New Orleans–no child support, little to no contact, nothing. Toni is desperate, trapped in a rut, and there’s something wrong with her daughter mentally–she needs specialized help that Toni is unable to afford to provide for her, so she is basically simply coasting along through her life, one day at a time, some days better than others, occasionally dreaming about a better life. The stranger is someone who has the ability to wear other people’s skins and transform into them; metaphorically changing lives with every transformation, and this experience convinces Toni to do something terrible herself, in order to free herself–shedding an old skin and acquiring a new one, starting over with a new life somewhere else, free of the child she cannot take care of properly, in the way the child needs. Ballingrud conveys that sense of desperation and the numbing acceptance of defeat–that undoubtedly any number of people feel–and by using a paranormal/supernatural experience to snap her out of it, shows convincingly how the medium of horror can be used, in the hands of a masterful writer, to say something deeply poignant and meaningful about the human condition.
I’m really looking forward to diving into more of his stories.
And on that note, that spice ain’t gonna mine itself.
Good evening, Constant Reader! Look at this–two blogs in one day! More bang for your buck, as it were. A twofer, as Laura roils the Gulf and dances ever closer to our shores here on the Gulf Coast–although all we’re going to get here is a tropical storm effect; the state line is going to get a direct hit and I worry about Calcasieu Parish and the other Gulf parishes that are going to get hammered. I hope everyone is able to get out safely; I know they were bussing people without the means to evacuate to shelters in New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
The storm surge–predicted to be at least twenty feet–may come as far inland as thirty miles. Lake Charles could be completely destroyed by morning.
Please, Constant Reader, keep that area in your thoughts tonight.
Hurricane season is always so traumatizing on the Gulf Coast, seriously.
It’s actually weird that New Orleans is a part of the Gulf Coast, since we really aren’t on the coast, technically; we are actually about 100 miles up the river from the Gulf of Mexico. Wow, right? But you also have to remember that’s in river miles; the river doesn’t run in a straight line to the Gulf from the port of New Orleans.
On the other hand, technically we are on the Gulf coast, because Lake Pontchartrain isn’t really a lake, and neither is Lake Borgne. Lake Borgne is actually a very wide-mouthed bay–its opening to the Gulf is actually wider than the mouths of both Pensacola and Choctawhatchee Bays in the panhandle of Florida, and Lake Borgne opens into Lake Pontchartain through the Rigolets–a very narrow passage connecting the two “lakes” and therefore making Pontchartrain actually an extension of Borgne “bay” (Chef Menteur pass also connects the two ‘lakes’; I always forget about that one because I’ve never actually seen it, but I’ve crossed the bridge at the Rigolets, and of course, the twin spans are close to it where Pontchartrain begins to narrow towards the mouth). So, technically (Pontchartrain is shallow), a low draught boat could sail from the Gulf to the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. The British attack on New Orleans during the War of 1812 actually sailed into Lake Borgne, because it was faster and easier to get to the city that way than sailing up the river against the strong current. (In fairness, Lake Borgne also used to be more enclosed; those wetlands are sadly long gone.)
New Orleans geography is interesting, isn’t it?
The notorious MR-GO channel (Mississippi River Gulf Outlet), was cut from the river into Lake Borgne as a shipping channel to make it faster for ships to get from the gulf to port in New Orleans. Naturally, no one really used it, and it gained notoriety when it was a channel for Katrina storm surge to devastate St. Bernard Parish and the lower 9th ward–being nicknamed the Hurricane Highway for the devastation it was responsible for, and the fact that it was barely used didn’t help matters. Environmentalists estimate Mr. Go was responsible for the loss of over 27000 acres of wetlands; it’s now closed for good and attempts to repair the damage it caused are still underway. The wetlands always served as a barrier to hurricane storm surges–those wetlands were not only critical for the environment and for fish, birds, etc.; but they slowed storm surge as it came rushing for the dry lands.
But you know, OIL.
I generally don’t waste time on regrets; what I always call the woulda-shoulda-coulda’s. But one thing I do regret is not focusing more in my work on the environmental costs Louisiana has paid over the years; and I also regret not getting to know the rest of the state better. New Orleans is first and foremost in my heart, of course, and always will be, but falling in love with Louisiana took a longer time for me, and I do regret that. I regret the free time I used to have not being used to explore the state more, getting to know it more, understanding the incredible culture and history of this bizarre state built by river silt drained from 2/3rds of the country. I never really had a dependable car before–one that I didn’t take on a long drive without some degree of depridation and fear and crossing of fingers. Now, of course, I have a highly dependable car–but my weekends are always taken up by getting things done and the recharging of my batteries. Maybe the next time I have a three day weekend I’ll take a day and explore; there’s lots of interesting places that aren’t that far away–the old River Road, Jackson Barracks, the Battle of New Orleans battleground, and Houma…there’s so much of interest, and that’s not even crossing the lake!
Heavy thoughts as I await the storm’s outer bands to come to New Orleans–definitely a tourist who isn’t welcome here.
And on that note, I think I’m going to finish reading Lovecraft Country.
Queer and Loathing in America 