Tag: heat wave

The Rains Came

The weather has cooled down (Those Not From Here would scoff at the idea that temperatures ranging from 82-90 during the day signals a “cooling down,” but they can be forgiven because they clearly didn’t live through what was the hottest summer in New Orleans history. We broke records for everything. It was so hot and it hadn’t rained for so long we were in a wildfire alert, being cautioned not to cook outside–although why anyone would want to if they had another choice is beyond me. But yesterday morning when I left the house I thought, ah, this is lovely as I walked out to the car. As I indicated, the appointment went well, and now I know the backside of Tulane’s campus as well as where the football stadium is. I probably should explore that part of town more. I had an idea for (yet) another mystery series that would be set in the University area, or at least anchored there, but I am not as familiar with that part of town as I should be. I am very neighborhood limited here in New Orleans, but my own neighborhood and the one right next to it are so interesting and fun to explore that it’s hard to get out of my own neighborhood. Now that the weather’s nicer I think I might start taking walks after work when I get home. It’s Halloween season, after all, and New Orleans does like to decorate.

I was tired yesterday when I finished my work-at-home duties, and curled up in my chair while watching a gay critique of Barbie and the camp aesthetic by James Somerton before falling into a mindless wormhole of football highlights, reaction videos, and the occasional news clip. I am very tired of these times in which I find myself living this last third of my life. I did not have the potential collapse of American democracy and society on my life BIngo card; I’m not sure anyone really did. I think part of the reason I was so tired yesterday was the release of the inner tension and stress I was experiencing leading up the appointment. I was doing a pretty good job of handling the anxiety, I thought, refusing to let my conscious mind spiral (the curse of having a very fertile mind and a tendency toward pessimism is just how convincing the absolute worst I can imagine happening can truly be), but I also forget that the subconscious is also affected, and I’m not sure I can learn how to control that part of my mind, or if that’s even possible. Anyway, the reassurance that I am in very good hands and he has done the procedure many times successfully released all that stress and tension, and I think it left me drained and exhausted.

I was able to read more of Shawn’s book at the appointment while I was waiting to be seen (a book is such a better diversion than doom-scrolling social media on your phone) and my initial fear about the direction the book was taking–a mass school shooting–were unfounded. Shawn’s writing style is so rich and vibrant, too. I can almost hearing him reading the text aloud in my head as I read along, and I am very interested to see where the book is going to go. Shawn is one of those authors whose books I like to go into knowing nothing; all I know is who the author is and the title of the book. I don’t read reviews, I don’t read the jacket copy, I don’t read anything. (There are a handful of these writers; I also only have to know they are the author to buy it as well.) I hope to spend some more time with it this weekend. The LSU game is on at the ridiculous hour of eleven in the morning, which is the absolute worst time for an LSU game for me. I hate when they play early; if they play poorly it casts a pall over the rest of the day, and even if they do win, the rest of the day always feels anti-climactic. Anyway. So, maybe I will get to spend the rest of the day reading; stranger things have happened.

Tomorrow I have to spend doing some work; I’m not even going to try to pretend that I am going to get anything written or revised or edited today after the LSU game. I did manage to launder all the bed linen yesterday, and I also unloaded the dishwasher and cleaned the kitchen last night, too. So that’s something, right? If the game is at a decent hour next Saturday I’ll take these surplus beads to the donation bin, drop off all these boxes of books at the library sale, and maybe I’ll be able to eat something a bit more solid by then? I’m worried about losing weight because I’m afraid I’ll lose weight after the surgery too. Never thought I’d be worried about losing weight, but I also never thought I’d make it to my sixties, either. I have to eat something besides protein shakes and ice cream, so tomorrow I am going to try baby food again, and maybe mashed potatoes. It’s so exciting to be me these days, isn’t it?

But the kitchen and workspace area looks better organized this morning, which is pleasing to me, and I have another load of dishes ready to go in the dishwasher. I also figured out how to end two in-progress short stories that have stalled, so I call that a win, too. And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines.

Saying Hello, Saying I Love You, Saying Goodbye

Tuesday and tomorrow I depart for San Diego. I am trying very hard not to get anxious about everything, but I am starting to feel it a bit. I have to decide what to pack, and I need to see what the weather is going to be like. I discovered a conflict in my schedule that I have to resolve in a way I don’t want, and there’s groceries to make and mail and prescriptions to pick up and laundry and dishes to finish and yes, I am going to be hopping all day today getting ready and/or thinking about the trip and making plans. I also have a lot of work to do in the office before I leave, because the month changes while I am gone so the things I always do over the month change have to be done–or at least I can get it as ready as I can. I think I answered all the emails I needed to get answered, and I think I can breathe a bit of a sigh of relief.

I ran errands last night on the way home circling a thunderstorm, and then once I was finished I drove directly into its beating heart as it gave us a little respite from the horrific, seemingly endless heat. The big cold drops of rain started splatting down from above like liquid shrapnel. I managed to get inside the house before it really started coming down, and there was thunder and lightning, too. A marvelous New Orleans summer tropical storm, like we haven’t had hardly any of this entire blighted summer of hellish heat. The kind where so much water comes down the streets fill, swirling around catch basins and rising closer to the bottoms of cars, while the potholes and low=lying cracks and buckles in roads and sidewalks immediately fill with clear water. The temperature drops precipitously, given tired air conditioning systems the opportunity to catch up and finally take a well-deserved break after weeks of going at full blast–and sometimes not being able to keep up. The kind where condensation finally appears on your windows for the first time this summer, or so it seems. And even though you know all that water means it’ll be muggy as a rain forest again tomorrow as it evaporates into the heated air once more, you can at least breathe for a moment and enjoy the blessed break from what has become an unfortunate norm this summer.

But in checking my email, I see that today’s severe weather alert is merely coastal flooding, and there’s no extreme heat warning for the day, which is actually kind of nice. Today will be a break, and tomorrow I leave for the coast. My car will be roasting, of course, in the long-term off-airport parking lot, but there are worse things. I’m really looking forward to the trip, pushing down all of my anxiety triggers around traveling, and I will get home Sunday night, have Monday off, and then return to the office on Tuesday. I’m hoping there won’t be an adjustment to time zones involved on this trip, but I am sure it will be. If I wake up at my usual time, it will be four in the morning on the coast. But the day of traveling home will wear me out, plus I’ll be exhausted from being “on” panels and socializing. I just have to get over my intense FOMO and repair to my room to rest and relax periodically; I don’t need to be non-stop on the go, etc. and need to remember I’m an introvert who primarily is used to dealing with people quietly, one on one, and not in group environments. There will be lots of overstimulation.

But I can’t wait to see my queer crime writer friends again! Woo-hoo! They are always a good time.

I was tired when I got home last night from errands and so forth, and the thunderstorm and the damp chill in the air didn’t help matters very much. Paul stayed upstairs watching the US Open–so I have no need to fear Paul’s boredom while I am gone, as he’ll have the tennis to watch. We’re also hoping to get a cat at last once I get back, although my oral surgery is scheduled for that Friday; depending on how I feel, we could possibly get one on Saturday if I don’t still need painkillers and thus have a clear enough mind to drive, which would be super-great. All of my fall plans are currently on hold until I find out when my arm surgery is going to be. I hate that, because I feel like I am wasting time, which brings the anxiety out again. It’s so much fun being me, Constant Reader, you have literally no idea. But therein lies the rub; life really always is a endless string of “hurry up and wait” or “can’t make any plans until I find this out.” The joys of being older.

I think for now at least there’s nothing potentially going to develop that will threaten Louisiana tropically while I am gone–traveling during hurricane season means one more thing to check off the list. I am sorry and worried about those in the path of this Idalia monster that has Florida strictly in its sights. (If I were an evangelical piece of shit, I’d say something like “God is clearly not pleased with deSantis”–but I happily leave that kind of blame-shame to the “christian” cos-players. Funny how it’s usually red states at risk but they don’t see that as God’s punishment, but let something happen to a blue state–or New Orleans–and they start thumping their Bibles again instead of reading them. I’m so glad I’m not an evangelical piece of shit cosplay christian.)

I was hoping to get some writing done last night, but I wound up not doing a whole hell of a lot of anything. I watched some history videos on Youtube, started to watch the latest episode of Foundation–which, truth be told, is extremely well done but difficult to follow because it doesn’t always hold my interest, but I am definitely here for hot Lee Pace–but gave up as the opening credits rolled and went back to Youtube. I did end up watching something but couldn’t tell you what it was to save my life this morning, so clearly it made no impact on me. I did greatly enjoy the recent episode of My Adventures with Superman, which is quickly becoming one of my all-time favorite depictions of Superman and his cast of characters, but I think tonight–after cleaning the downstairs, packing, and cleaning out the refrigerator–I am going to read some more of Kelly Ford’s marvelous The Hunt, which I am enjoying; I do not want anyone to get the idea that I am not enjoying the book–it’s just that the heat and my mind being sort of fried has made it really hard for me to focus on reading something longform. I also finished reading the proofs for Mississippi River Mischief, which I’ll be bring with me to try to get some progress made on the proofing; if I manage to do that and nothing else while in San Diego I will be very pleased.

And on that note I think I will head into the spice mines for the day. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and tomorrow I will be writing to you before I leave for the coast. Huzzah!

Some Broken Hearts Never Mend

Ah, Monday morning and back into the office with me. I slept a little late yesterday, got up feeling very refreshed and rested, then spent the morning doing research, some touch-up chores, and some reading. I also did some writing before my 5 pm EST panel, moderated by the marvelous John Copenhaver and including four of my favorite queer writers: Robyn Gigl, Renee James, Kelly J. Ford, and Margot Douaihy. They were all brilliant, and I was my usual incoherent rambling mess who then proceeds to forget what the actual question was. I should probably prepare for these things, but why start now? After all, no matter how much I prepare, my co-panelists will always be incisive and insightful and intelligent and I will be….Gregalicious.

I did finish reading the remaining short stories in Alfred Hitchcock Presents My Favorites in Suspense, and enjoyed all three–and again, like the others, reminded me the only thing limiting my short stories in what I write about and try to accomplish is my own insecurities as a writer and laziness about doing research. The final three stories (“Treasure Trove” by F. Tennyson Jesse, “The Body of the Crime” by Wilbur Daniel Steele, and “A Nice Touch” by Mann Rubin) were all marvelous, all containing that delightfully nasty twist at the end that is so reminiscent of so much of Hitchcock’s television shows and anthologies. Reading these stories–these old anthologies–has really been quite an education in short story writing–and I’ve also learned a lot about my own limitations when it comes to my creativity and what is possible. I need to, as I said the other day, write precisely the things I don’t think I can, or have the knowledge or skillset to tackle. If it’s a research issue, write the fucking story first if the research is fucking intimidating and make the research part of the editing/revision process. It’s really not as hard as I make it out to be for myself all the fucking time, seriously.

If there’s a way to make it harder I can assure you I will find it.

I also read the first story in Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories to Be Read With the Door Locked, “Hijack” by Robert L. Fish. Mr. Fish was a prolific short story writer, and his estate endowed Mystery Writers of America to present an award in his honor every year to an outstanding short story by a first time published author every year (Rob Osler won this last year, the first of a lot of award recognition for him; his debut novel Devil’s Chew Toy has turned up on almost every awards short-list for the year). “Hijack” is a story that doesn’t hold up well; airline and airport security measures have amped up in the decades since the World Trade Center was bombed for the first time back in 1993 or 1994; ur could have been 1995. All I know is 1) I was in Manhattan when it happened and 2) I was working at the airport when the new security protocols were put into place. There probably aren’t many of us around who remember the hijacking plague of the late 1960s and early 1970s; it seemed like almost every day a flight to Miami was being hijacked to Cuba. It was so commonplace it became part of popular culture; comedians and movies and television shows constantly making hijacking jokes. But it’s a very good story with, as always, the requisite twist that comes at the end (hilariously, the ransom demand is for $250,000–a lot of money when the story was written but practically nothing in terms of today’s money and wealth) which I wasn’t quite expecting; it’s not a spoiler because the story is at least forty years old so–turns out the crew hijacked the plane themselves and killed a passenger to frame for it. It actually could have worked back then, too–and it made me want to read more of Mr. Fish.

I intended to try to write or edit before the panel yesterday, but as always with something like this, I was too antsy and nervous to focus, so I spent most of the day doing some more research–old New Orleans, Mayan gods, homosexuality in old Hollywood–and cleaning and picking things up. I also ordered some more of these Arctic Air hydration coolers; they really work well, and if you freeze the filter, well, they blow extremely cold air. I have three from several years ago before we got the new a/c system (summer of 2020, it must have been, as we got the new system after Mardi Gras in 2021), but lost the power cord for one of them. I’ve had them going since Paul left and they’ve really helped in the kitchen. I also bought a really powerful if small fan for the living room while making groceries Saturday afternoon, and it is super powerful, too–I also ordered another of those, too. I know I sound like a wimp, but you try cooling down your house when the heat index is 120+ every day for weeks on end–and of course, the kitchen add-on is always so much hotter than the rest of the apartment.

I slept okay last night, feel a bit groggy this morning, but hopefully the coffee with work its magic on me and I’ll be wide awake by the time I get to the office this morning. I think we have a busy schedule, my supervisor is back from having COVID (haven’t see her in over a week), and of course, after work today I ordered some things from Sam’s Club to be delivered. Next week I have my meeting with the orthopedic surgeon to see when we can schedule my biceps surgery–assuming I need it, which I am pretty certain I do–and then after the recovery for that I can start exercising again. I have to remember I am older and more frail than I used to be, so getting back into shape in my sixties is going to take far longer and be more painful and slow than it was in my thirties when I did it the first time. I didn’t write anything all weekend (or for most of the week last week, really) so I need to get back on that horse this week as well. Bouchercon is looming on the horizon as well.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines and getting another cup of coffee. Have a great Monday and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Let My Love Be Your Pillow

Saturday morning and Paul comes home today! Huzzah! Huzzah! I of course literally have no idea what time he will be arriving–he never tells me these things and I never think to ask–but it’s fine. Yesterday was a good work-at-home day. Sam the handyman came by in the morning to finish touching things up and clean everything up, which was marvelous, and now the apartment sort of looks like our apartment again. It’s great, and it makes me want to clean, which is something I’d forgotten that I enjoyed so much. I’ve really let the housework slide since the pandemic started (sure, let’s blame it on that, shall we?) but a lot of it had to do with the walls in the living room. tl;dr= we had some leaks, and water damage to the walls in the living room. The leaks were repaired, but the plaster and paint somehow never got finished and we’d been living with that for a while….and when you have places where the bare wall is showing…the apartment, even clean and sparkling from ceiling to floor, would look deranged and damaged and sloppy. I think I felt a little defeated, to be honest.

I’ve felt defeated a lot over the last few years, if I’m going to be honest. But I’ve been feeling oddly better lately about things lately, even optimistic at times. I know, right? It’s kind of scary. It’s like I don’t even know who I am anymore, but I have full faith in the universe to deliver yet another blow the way it always does when I start feeling like this again–a sense of contentment and peace. I’m sleeping better, getting better rest, and I am getting things done rather than sitting in my easy chair every night scrolling through social media while Youtube videos stream endlessly on continual play. Ironically, I remember feeling this way on another hot August Friday in New Orleans, two weeks before Hurricane Katrina. I had just finished Mardi Gras Mambo at long last and turned it in, and that Friday I had met with the Admissions office at UNO to see about finishing my degree in English and pursuing a master’s, and even potentially eventually a PhD. Yes, I had ambitions. The meeting had gone incredibly well. We scheduled a meeting with the chair of the English department, and it looked fortuitous and very good; I’d have to pay for the semester required to get the English degree, but it looked like I’d get the master’s not only without having to pay, but I’d also get an on-campus part-time job. I don’t reflect back very often, but sometimes I remember that last optimistic August before Katrina and wonder how different my life would look now had Katrina never happened…or at least had the levees held. I’ve always felt the lack of educational degree and study keenly; I was far too young when I started school and majored in English to really appreciate the in-depth examination of classic literature and other forms. None of what little I learned stuck, either. I have also always been made to feel that the books I actually did read and appreciate were lowbrow; on par for someone as uneducated and unserious like me. I’ve not read much of the classic writers, for example; I’ve never read Edith Wharton or Jane Austen or much of Henry James; I may give Hemingway another try at some point but I was unimpressed with both A Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea. Fitzgerald wrote beautifully about horrible people I’m not interested in; I love Faulkner but he’s a lot of work to read (but I will go to my grave loving “A Rose for Emily” and wishing I had written one thing that perfect), so I’m not going to read Faulkner for pleasure–even though I take great pleasure in the voice and the rhythm of the words and so forth, I’m still looking for characterization and story.

Hell, there are any number of classic mystery writers I’ve never read, for that matter. I had never read Ross Macdonald until I was on a panel with Christopher Rice who sang his praises highly enough for me to get a couple of his books…and have always been delighted that I did. I think I’ve read one Rex Stout novel, but I can’t remember anything about it and I think I am thinking of a television adaptation with William Conrad and Timothy Hutton? Or did I imagine that, too? One of the things I am loving about reading the short stories in these marvelous old Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies is getting to read authors I’ve heard of that I’ve not read. Yesterday night I read “Curious Adventure of Mr. Bond” by Nugent Barker, from Stories That Scared Even Me; “Four O’Clock” by Rice Day, “Of Missing Persons” by Jack Finney, and Paul Eiden’s “Too Many Coincidences”, from My Favorites in Suspense. I enjoyed them all, but the Barker was my least favorite of the four. It’s written in Ye Olde Timey Style, and it goes on for far too long, and it’s big twist I saw coming. I also didn’t much care for Mr. Bond. The Day story was one of those macabre little tales of irony with the kind of ending that Daphne du Maurier mastered and I’ve always loved–and aspire to write. (The trick is the ending has to be earned.) The Finney story was also one of those, but a bit more melancholic than macabre.

I also spent some more time with Superman last night. First I watched a documentary called Look Up In The Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman, which I followed with this week’s episode of My Adventures with Superman. I was very pleased to see Jimmy Olsen talked about in the documentary, and the actor from the television series, Jack Larson, was openly gay and was in a very long term relationship that lasted until he died in 2015, as someone very kindly reminded me on Twitter the other day in response to my talking about Jimmy on here. I am really intrigued at the idea of writing a Jimmy Olsen story…although I’m not exactly sure what I would do with such a thing, and I’m equally sure publishing it would be a trademark/copyright violation of some sort. I’ll make a note and keep chewing on it, though.

I also worked on the book some last night (at last) which felt marvelous and overdue. It was so hot yesterday–even with the air conditioner on full blast and desperately trying to keep up, you could tell inside that everything outside was roasting. I am quite pleased to have gotten past the revision of Chapter Five at long last and I have to say, I am most happy with what I did. Of course, Chapter Six is from scratch, which is going to be an enormous pain in my ass, naturally; writing anything where nothing other than a thought exists at the moment is always harder than revising. Revising can be either tedious or a lot of fun; it’s when your making the book better written and deepening characters and cleaning up shit and building on the ideas you’ve already gotten down but didn’t express particularly well as you were just madly trying to get words on the page and the story advanced and all of that.

Whew. Breathe.

I also woke up to a marvelous email–I just checked–from my editor on Mississippi River Mischief letting me know when the edits would come and included…”This book is fabulous, btw.”

Whew,

And on that marvelous note, off to the spice mines with me!

My Way

Work at home Friday! Huzzah! Huzzah!

I received an invitation code the other day from a friend for Blue Sky, one of the new upstarts looking to replace the dumpster fire hellhole that is Twitter, and so yesterday I set up the account. I am also on Threads. On Blue Sky I am @scottynola, just like I am on Twitter, but on Threads I am @gregh121. I probably should have been consistent across the three platforms, but why would I start making things easier for people to find me now, twenty years into my career? But I posted on both Facebook and Twitter that I was there–and Twitter locked my account. Yes, the Muskrat is all about free speech, isn’t he?

Honestly. But Twitter becomes more and more of a shit-show with every passing day, and it’s not like it was ever a great place to be for long, anyway. I’d go on there, scroll through, have some fun and/or funny interactions with friends and acquaintances…and then inevitably it would turn horrific and I could feel the bile rising within myself as I read more and started to reply angrily…before deleting and closing the app. I wonder what future historians (if there are any future historians) will write and think about this era? What will they debate about, what will they think the truth was and how will it all wind up being reported? How harshly will we all be judged?

That’s a rather chilling thought on Morning 4, 432, 172 of an excessive heat advisory day here in New Orleans. I had thought and planned to go to the OMV today and get my real ID at long last, but I cannot find one item that I need…which Paul keeps so I won’t lose it and yet I was able to put my hands rather easily on all of the other things I need. The irony of this is not lost on me. I also am kind of glad of an excuse to not go outside today, in all honesty. It’s going to “feel like” up to 120 every day over the weekend, and I’d really rather not. It was miserable coming home from work yesterday, and I had to run a couple of errands as well. Dreadful. Just leaving my backpack in the car during those brief intervals at the stops I made was enough for my laptop to be hot to the touch when I got it inside. I think I have to make at least one grocery run this weekend, but I don’t know when I want to attempt it and go out into that. Paul’s coming home sometime on Saturday, and it would probably make the most sense to wait until he’s home, maybe? I don’t know, really. My brain is sort of on the fritz these days from the heat (yes, Greg, it’s recent and it’s the heat, whatever helps you get through it) but I had a great breakthrough last night on the WIP, and realized what absolutely is missing from the manuscript. So, hopefully after completing today’s homework duties (seriously, why haven’t I been calling it that all along instead of work-at-home? Embarrassment because it sounds like being a kid again? It’s work I do at home that’s more easily and efficiently done here than at the office, so homework), I’ll be able to dig into the book and get this important piece of the voice into the book. I also know where it’s heading in this first act, and I kind of have an idea for the middle for a change. That’s always satisfying; those a-ha moments are always so satisfying that it’s almost like having an orgasm; I want a cigarette immediately after, LOL.

But the finishing touches on the apartment are being done today, and I have to say having the walls back together on the first floor is amazing. I always forget how lovely this apartment is when, well, things are the way they are supposed to be. It’s an old house, and things go wrong and leaks occur and so on, and we generally tend to not complain about things…so they tend to not get the attention they need when we would prefer that to occur. But with the walls taken care of, with new plaster where it had damaged and then being painted over to match at last, it looks lovely in the living room and kitchen (I’d forgotten about that patch of white paint up in the corner by the ceiling; but it now matches) and now I no longer have any excuse for not cleaning and keeping the apartment up, which primarily was the defeat of “oh because of the damaged walls it will always look slovenly in here no matter what else I do” which turned into a multi-year slide. Had the walls been redone just before the shut down, I could have really used that time at home to clean the fuck out of this place. But the shutdown came with a malaise–depression, undoubtedly–and so nothing ever really got done.

I slept really well last night–woke up at five, again at six, and stayed in bed until seven–and now am enjoying my coffee and finishing this up. Sam the handyman has already come by to check in; I told him I’d be moving upstairs with my laptop and he has free rein on the downstairs. I need to start the cleaning upstairs anyway, and so if I am up there working when I take a break I can go clean something. There’s a television with Apple TV as well, so there’s literally no reason why I can’t get things done with music playing through the television. I’ve already started redoing the upstairs in bits and pieces. Tonight when I am finished with everything I think I will start watching this new reboot of The Real Housewives of New York. I’m kind of burning out on reality television, which has fascinated me for almost two solid decades now, so it would be nice to see a new, interesting take on these shows. (Hell, I even wrote a book around them.) I still have to get caught up on this season of Superman and Lois, but I am experiencing quite a bit of super-hero burnout lately, which is why I am enjoying the animated My Adventures with Superman so much–it’s optimistic and the doom and gloom and darkness so endlessly in supply for the DC Universe movies (thanks to The Dark Knight series) isn’t fun to watch.

And on that note, I am going to get a cup of coffee and head upstairs. Happy Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow. Or later–one never can be sure.