Tag: holidays

Blame It On Your Heart

It’s Pay the Bills Wednesday again! Huzzah? HUZZAH! Christmas Eve is a week from today (gulp). I guess that means I am not going to do Christmas cards this year. At least I got them out of the cabinet, right? Maybe next year. It was bitterly cold yesterday morning, and again wore a sweater and layers, so it wasn’t horrible. I was very productive at the office yesterday, was granted the day after Christmas off so I have a five day weekend next week, which will be lovely and relaxing. I also managed to get a lot of chores done around the house while catching up on the news and relaxing a bit. But the sink is empty and the laundry is folded; and tonight on the way home I’ll go all the way uptown and get the mail. There should also be a new episode of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City waiting for me to watch when I get home from that expedition, and there’s really no need to make groceries tonight; there’s plenty of things at home for me to make for dinner, should I need to.

I spent a good portion of free time yesterday laughing uproariously at the new issue of Vanity Fair and its glorious feature on the White House staff. I had let my subscription lapse because I no longer wanted the clutter of a print copy I would never get around to even paging through, or pay for an on-line subscription when I would never read more than one article every few months? Celebrity culture bores me for the most part, and the notion they considered putting Mrs. Canks on their cover didn’t exactly endear the magazine to me (yes, I know the staff rebelled against the new owner’s suggestion to do so, but I also figured it was just a matter of time until everyone was fired and the value of the magazine devalued and devolved) or make me want to subscribe again; but this? The photographs alone are works of art; framed and shot and angled and lit to show precisely how small and insignificant these monsters are; banal and ugly and boring and utterly devoid of class or taste. Madam “Press Secretary” may never recover from that brutal extreme close-up exposing the lines and enormous pores and the lip filler injection marks. The photographer deserves a Pulitzer Prize, and future generations will study these images–un-retouched, unfiltered–to try to make sense of this period of history. That is a futility destined for failure, for one cannot make sense of the insensible.

And you know they were all puffed up and excited to be in Vanity Fair‘s cover story, thinking about how cool and bad-ass they are…only to expose how ill-qualified they are to be in the positions they are in.

So yes, I might be subscribing again–but only for web access. I just don’t need more clutter. Texas Monthly remains my only magazine subscription, and I love that magazine so much (I do get 64 Parishes, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities magazine, but for some reason I don’t consider that a magazine subscription. Can’t explain it, that’s just how it is–and you should consider getting both) I can’t see myself giving up the physical copy any time soon. But yes, the more I pare down the less I want to bring in–which, given my need to always be surrounded by stacks and shelves of books, is kind of a win on that score. I don’t buy many books, at least certainly not on the scale that I used to. I think there is a sense of finality in realizing the reality that I may never read every book I have in the house before exiting this world, and that has made a significant difference…not that I think about dying all the time or even frequently; I think I am just more aware of the time limitations and the sands running out slowly in the hourglass of my life

It was so lovely to come down to an organized kitchen, with an empty sink, clear counters, and the rugs in their right place. I slept very well last night, too. It stayed cold through my drive home from work, but this morning its in the mid-fifties so no need for any layering today; I can brave the outside dressed normally. It’s supposed to rain a bit today, but we are getting a lot over the weekend, and it’s bringing warm weather behind it. The forecast is eighty for Christmas. Eighty.

Madness, indeed!

And on that note, Constant Reader, I am heading into the spice mines. May your Wednesday be marvelous and filled with joy, Constant Reader, and I will be back toorrow morning.

Heads Carolina, Tails California

And Saturday has rolled around yet again here in the Lost Apartment. I slept well; didn’t really want to get out from under the pile of blankets, yet here I am, swilling coffee and eating coffee cake. I have some errands to run this morning–library sale, mail, make some groceries–and of course, it’s a college football day. LSU plays tonight, their final home game of the season, against Western Kentucky, but there aren’t a lot of games of interest to me, so I hope I can get a lot done around here while games play on the television. I feel pretty rested this morning, which is a good sign, methinks. I want to read and take notes on works-in-progress, preparatory to doing some actual writing tomorrow. I also got a very good start on cleaning the apartment yesterday, which should be easily finished this morning/afternoon; I don’t clean in the evenings.

I also need to update and revise my to-do list, and update my check register. I also want to work some on my next newsletter entry, too; which probably won’t be sent out until I get back home next weekend. I know from past experience I am not going to get much, if any, writing done while I am in Kentucky; I won’t even really be able to deal with emails much while I am up there. But it’s also a holiday week, so there shouldn’t be much of anything other than Black Friday and Cyber Monday spam. I also remembered that a later released Mary Russell novel by Laurie R. King actually should be read third in the series; O Jerusalem (Laurie herself told me this), so I went ahead and got the audiobook this morning, and will pack the hard copy so I can finish it while I am there (the audiobook is thirteen hours long, which means there should be an hour left when I arrive Tuesday night).

Yesterday was an interesting news day, wasn’t it? I don’t care to speculate about Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resignation from Congress; maybe she’ll try politics again, or being a commentator on cable news, but I don’t really see it. MS NOW (nice rebrand, eye roll) won’t have her, certainly Faux or Newsmax won’t now, so…CNN? It wouldn’t surprise me, to be honest. I prefer to take it at face value because she isn’t very complicated. She was roped in as a true believer; her echo chamber kept reminding her how hard she had to fight against the “deep state;” and when she had to face the brutal reality that the people she so fiercely defended simply used her and didn’t give a shit about anything she thought they did? Her behavior, and her demeanor, is something we’re probably going to have to get used to from former MAGA cultists; its shock and betrayal, and who could blame her?

People never listen, do they?

And the Mamdani visit to the White House? Holy shit. I was so focused on the Greene resignation and the Mamdani visit I have no idea what else went on in the news yesterday, but this morning on social media I’m seeing that vengeance criminal prosecutions also blew up in MAGA faces? I know the Comey prosecution is most likely going to end with Lindsay Halligan and Pam Bondi being rightfully disbarred (remember, Nixon didn’t go to jail but his Attorney General did); but I am going to have to look at some news websites to see what I may have missed. I also know New Orleans is preparing to handle the ICE invasion, which isn’t going to go well for them. Pity. Thoughts and prayers, fascists.

And I do mean that sincerely, bless their little hearts.

I ordered Christmas presents for my supervisor, Dad, and Paul; and just got the notice that they are being shipped, and will most likely arrive while I am gone. Look at me, being all prepared before the season even gets underway! Maybe I’ll send Christmas cards this year…one never knows, does one?

And on that note, I am going to take my coffee over to my easy chair and read some more of my Donna Andrews mystery. I’ll be back in the morning, though, so have a lovely day and I shall see you then.

Carlos Alcaraz, tennis star from Spain, is just adorable.

Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough

Tuesday and here we are moving on into the dead zone of the week. Sigh. It’s okay, I just have to reacclimate to normal four-day-in-the-office weeks again, and I’d forgotten (that short term memory loss cropping up again) how long a week can seem on a Tuesday morning–stretching out endlessly into the future. It’s also very cold in my kitchen this morning; yikes indeed. The heater does an excellent job in every part of the house, except for the kitchen/laundry room and the upstairs bathroom are a bit (much) colder than the other rooms. Currently 33 outside, which is going to be extremely fun to run out to the car in. Layers again today; the high is only in the forties. At least we’re not dealing with the extremes and all the snow that everyone else has to; no shoveling snow or scraping ice off the windshield for one Gregalicious; which is why I won’t live north of I-10 anymore.

Yesterday was a pretty good day, despite the frigid cold (warmer than this morning, though!). I got up, went to the office, worked, ran some errands on the way home, and once I was here, settled in. We started watching the new Harlan Coben show on Netflix, Missing You, and we’re enjoying it so far. I didn’t write anything yesterday, but did do some more work on the book (not much) before mental fatigue set in. We’re going to be busy at the office today, too–but tonight I get to come straight home, which is awesome. Hopefully I’ll be able to do more work tonight when I get home. But cold weather makes me want to do nothing more than curl up under a blanket with a book. But today I have to push through the lazy need for warmth and comfort and get some work done. (Apparently tonight is a “freeze watch,” so we’ll have to leave the taps slightly on tonight when we go to bed; and since the high will only be in the low forties, it will be unpleasant getting home, too. One of my top priorities today is to make a to-do list–a thorough one–so I can make sure I get everything done that I need to be getting done. I’ve really fallen off on my organizing, and I need to get back on top of everything. I have to do some things to send back to my publisher so they can start designing the new cover, which is always very fun and exciting to do. I need to clean out my email inbox, and I need to stop avoiding things I don’t want to deal with. This was always a problem when I was younger, and I’ve kind of slid back into those habits again over the last two years. Meh, I’ll deal with this tomorrow is rarely, if ever, the right answer.

Bad Greg, bad Greg!

Get it over and done with is the proper reaction to unpleasant things I have to do.

More time never makes anything awful more palatable.

But I feel more rested today than I did yesterday. My shoulder is tight and sore this morning, but I just need to do some stretching when I get home tonight and that’ll feel better. My next trip to the gym will either be tomorrow night or Thursday (tomorrow more likely; then I can go on Friday and again on Sunday), and I am getting a bit excited about getting into better physical condition, while also bearing in mind that I will never get back into the shape I was in my forties (when I peaked)–and not really sure that’s something I would want, anyway. I just want to lose some weight and get more toned and firm. Everything currently is sagging, and there’s really no need for that, is there? My ego and vanity no longer care about how I look to other people; I’ve always been a much tougher judge and critic of myself than anyone else–and I am definitely trying to be a lot kinder to myself. Despair is pointless and defeating, albeit very easy to collapse into. The removal of stress and anxiety has been marvelous, but the depression/despair genes aren’t as easily impacted by the new meds as the stress and anxiety–but that is something I can live with. I still have a lot of things to get worked out personally, but I am much healthier mentally than I have ever been in my life, I think, and some of that comes from the long, hard look I’ve taken at my life and career and other people, and my decision to not put up with anything from anyone ever again.

One thing that is really funny hit me yesterday, which was when I also realized how my “don’t want to deal with this now” bit me in the ass, kind of. I had gotten a letter from my bank between Christmas and New Year’s, and figuring it was probably a notice about new fees or higher interest rates on my credit card, I just tossed it into my inbox with a I’ll look at it later. Yesterday I was trying to order something from a website that had my debit card saved there as the form of payment, and was shocked to see my debit card had expired on 12/31/24. Goddamn it, I thought, irritated, I’m going to have to call them to get them to send me a new one. But as I sat in my easy chair last night, Sparky purring in my lap, it hit me–didn’t you get a letter from the bank you didn’t want to deal with? So, I put Sparky up on my shoulders (he loves it up there) and went into the kitchen, found the letter, and sure enough, I could feel there was a card inside–and sure enough, it was my new debit card.

This is why you should always deal with things right away.

Point taken, universe.

And on that note, I am going to bundle up and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and by all means, STAY WARM!

Screenshot

Dance the Night Away

I actually had to turn the air conditioning on yesterday. Once the storm passed, the sun came out and the temperature climbed up into the seventies, so everything evaporated and thus the air was heavy with water and thick. When I turned the air conditioning on, it was almost seventy-seven degrees inside and yes, that’s a bit warm when it’s humid. It looks less sunny this morning, but it’s likely to be a nice day again. I have some errands to run today, in addition to a bunch of other things I’d like to get done–including writing–but we’ll see how that goes. I spent most of last night after work picking up and doing dishes and so forth; I have more of that to do today as well.

I spent a lot more time than I needed to yesterday laughing at the MAGA Civil War, provoked by the Techbros’ insistence that more H1B work visas were needed to bring in engineers and so forth to help the Techbros get even richer. The racist anti-immigrant branch of the MAGA coalition, which doesn’t want any immigration of any kind, flipped out in the person of troll Laura Loomer, whose presence at their foul lord and master’s side this past summer was deemed “problematic” and so she was banished…and she’s been spoiling for revenge ever since. (Loomer, if you’re unaware, is the MAGA version of the Manson girls.) She went apeshit apparently on Twitter over the holiday and now there’s a full-scale battle over this “betrayal” of the movement by Elmo and Vivek Ramaswamy1, who’s been getting another dose of “we want your vote but you’re still brown” from the movement he belongs to but whose rank-and-file only see him as a useful tool. I went deep into this wormhole last night, laughing and cackling and having the best time–even going so far as to watch MAGA videos about it (and destroying my Youtube algorithm for the foreseeable future) and laughing and laughing and laughing. Yes, who knows how this is going to play out (for me, this is the FAFO his supporters need and deserve; guess what, he doesn’t need your vote anymore so you no longer have any value to him, period) and of course, it hit me last night shortly before I went to bed that this MAGA civil war is actually a class war; the rich Techbros who want to get even richer and can’t understand why MAGA doesn’t understand that–this is their reward for their support, and they have money. Who do you think Shitler is going to listen to? He’s never cared about the working class, ever. You all were duped, and the entire country is going to pay the price for your bigotry and stupidity.

And I, for one, will never ever let you forget, ever. And I will be beating the cost of eggs into the ground at every opportunity in the next four years, so buckle up, buttercup.

I also love that Ramaswamy criticized American culture, too. His complaint about Americans celebrating “mediocrity” by idolizing the jock instead of the Math Olympiad champion made me actually laugh out loud, as it sounded like the plaintive whining of a nerd from high school who can’t get a date. And good luck with that. I hate to break it to you, Vivek, but a lot of athletes/jocks are actually smart, and how are they mediocre when they excel at something we as a society have always celebrated? It also made me wonder if Ramaswamy’s interest in politics is some kind of Revenge of the Nerds fantasy. He did have a point; we should celebrate intelligence and creativity and logical thinking–but MAGA is, if nothing else, an anti-intellectual movement, denying science for the most part–how does that work in his idea of our brave new world?

How does the cognitive dissonance of pushing for intelligence while at the same time participating in a movement that is, above all else, anti-intellectual?

Ah, it’s raining. More of a drizzle than a New Orleans gully-washer, but rain nevertheless. I think I may head over to make groceries early this morning–after I finish this and make a list–and run the other errands later. I am glad to get errands out of the way so all I need to do is write and read and relax around here. I slept super well last night again, and slept a little later this morning despite waking up the first time just before six. I feel rested and relaxed this morning, which is nice. Once I get cleaned up, I am sure I’ll feel even better. Yay! So, I am going to make groceries in a moment, and then run the other errands after putting the groceries away, and curl up with my edits and my book that I’m reading and that I hope to finish this weekend as well. This week is broken up by a holiday on Wednesday, which is kind of wild; I probably could have taken either Tuesday or Thursday off, but I am being a bit more jealous of my paid-time off this coming year. I am also thinking about my goals for this upcoming year. Sigh. At least this year I am in my right mind, sort of; last year I was still doing physical therapy and recovering from the surgery. That does seem like a million years ago, doesn’t it? (The rain just turned into a gully-washer, by the way.) So 2025 is going to start with one Gregalicious in better condition, at any rate.

And on that note, I am going to get another cup of coffee and get cleaned up and hope that it stops raining before I leave to make groceries. Probably no such luck, right? I may be back later on today, one never can be entirely sure of these things, but if not, never fear: I will be back tomorrow morning with a report on today.

’til then, adieu.

  1. The irony that the South African is on the less racist side this time has not escaped me, either. ↩︎

Silver Bells

So this is Christmas.

It’s very still and quiet this morning. Paul is asleep, Sparky has been fed and has curled up to sleep again somewhere, and I am finishing my first cup of coffee. It’s hitting the spot, too, I might add. My coffee addiction really is something, isn’t it? I had thought about getting out the Espresso machine and making myself cappuccinos this morning, but went to bed last night without thinking about anything and thus didn’t. The kitchen is also kind of a mess this morning. Maybe I’ll do something about it, maybe I won’t. It’s Christmas, after all. We had a lovely day yesterday; I spent the morning rereading some old Scotty books with the intent of rereading/editing that I have done on Hurricane Season Hustle, but after I ordered the pizza and drove out to Metairie to get it–it was fucking fantastic, too, I might add, with leftovers for today–I just kind of zoned out for the day. We watched La Palma, a truly terrible disaster mini-series, on Netflix (cheesily enjoyable in that over-the-top and rather dumb disaster move way), and then watched Kings of Tupelo, which was insane…but again, Jake, it’s Tupelo. I went to bed late and slept late, and feel good today, if weird that I have to go back to work again tomorrow. We’re driving out to Elmwood to see the afternoon show of Babygirl today, and that’s really about all I care about for today. Maybe we’ll stream some movies tonight, or start a new show to watch or something. It was also sunny and warm yesterday–today looks gray, maybe rain–and once I finish this, I will probably do some straightening up in here before repairing to my easy chair to read for a bit.

What do I want for Christmas? World peace would be nice–hell, single-payer health insurance would be terrific, too–but neither of those are possible as long as this country remains enthralled to billionaires and corporations. That’s been the case for most of my adult life, and as far back as the 1990’s I was noticing how the direction we were heading into as a country economically, both at home and abroad, was firmly setting us on the same paths that led to the French and Russian revolutions and the Great Depression. I wrote about this a lot in my journals from back then; I’d even thought about writing a novel based on those observations, but after the fall/collapse. Do I have any answers? No, not really. People will always vote against their own self-interests because they have been convinced by the mythology of the American Dream that they, too, will someday be rich if they work hard (or smart) enough. I was told repeatedly as a child that if I worked hard, I too could become wealthy. Stories of people who went from rags-to-riches proliferated in the fiction stacks (and movies, too, for that matter); almost every “epic saga” was the story of some impoverished immigrant who seized opportunities–sometimes lied, cheated and stealing–that would make them rich. We’re essentially groomed by our art and culture to aspire to wealth and that the richer you are the better of a person you clearly must be, because you accumulated wealth. The great irony of that, of course, is that Christmas (and Christianity, too, for that matter) teaches us to take care of the sick and the elderly and the poor, and to always be empathetic to those less fortunate. Christianity and Capitalism are antithetical to each other, and the influence of capitalism on Christianity has not been a good thing. The prosperity gospel is a heresy, and the worst kind of heresy because it goes against everything Jesus taught in the pages of the New Testament. Everyone celebrating Christmas today–and the “birth” of Jesus–by spending a lot of money and a lot of excess?

Hardly “the reason for the season.” Put Christ back into Christianity, for your own sakes.

I’ve always loved the messaging of Christmas above what it actually is in reality, to be honest. I can remember watching A Charlie Brown Christmas as a kid and seeing that I was looking past what Christmas was supposedly about and approaching it from a greed perspective. (It’s still my favorite Christmas story.) That was filmed in the 1960s, and was about how the season was being exploited by an orgy of spending and excess, which was never the point of the holiday. I am as sentimental about Christmas and what it stands for as a child; Christmas decorations and trees make me smile and feel warm inside. I even like most Christmas music, even if I am heartily sick of some of them (looking at you, Wham!). I love driving down St. Charles Avenue or Prytania Street at night to see all the houses decorated and lit up. I love seeing how much kids enjoy it all. I even watched a couple of Christmas-themed rom-coms this season. I tend to not write about Christmas, because it is so easy to fall into the cheesy Christmas-miracle and all’s right with the world clichéd trope so many stories of that type inevitably fall into. I did have fun with Royal Street Reveillon, which was simply set during Christmas season but that was all–and even then I found myself trying to take the story in that direction a few times.

Sigh.

And on that note, I’m going to get some more coffee and go sit in my easy chair and see what’s going on in the world while doing some reading. Have a merry Christmas today, everyone, even if you do not celebrate; at least enjoy your day off at any rate.

Father Christmas

Well, it’s early and I’m a bit groggy; a groggy Greggy, as it were. It’s very dark outside and the heat is running, so I would also guess that it’s also cold out there too. I have PT this morning before I got to the office, and have errands to run after work as well. I still haven’t done holiday cards yet, and time is running out. Heavy heaving sigh. But I am also oddly not stressed about it. I’ve screwed up so many years and wound up not sending the cards, and I have just proved to myself that even when I get great cards and stamps in advance still doesn’t mean I’ll get them done early or on time. I’m holding on to the belief that I can still get them done and in the mail before the end of the week.

I’ve got high hopes!

It was a nice, restful, and relaxing weekend. I somehow managed to get a lot done, which was lovely, and if I didn’t make as far through my weekend to-do list as much as I would have preferred–still, I did manage to get a lot done. The oil change was vitally important, and I am very glad I managed to get that taken care of–the long life of the car is an absolute necessity, and whatever I can do to keep it running and as lasting as I can, the better. I do NOT ever want the return of having another car payment ever again, as long as I live; I am hoping the car outlives me, actually.

I got some other things done that needed doing, like hanging my nomination certificates from the Agathas and the Anthonys for the vanity area of the apartment, and I did get some good work on the book done. I think I have the entire plot figured out completely now, which will make finishing it that much easier. I need to make an extensive to-do list that will carry me through the end of the year, and I don’t think it will be a problem going forward ticking things off the to-do list; this weekend I felt more like myself than I have since at least before the surgery, which was a lovely nice change. The new medications are keeping me level and calm and anxiety-free (some slips in every now and again, which I am able to squash before things get stressful…and in some cases it’s really just habit to react with stress and anxiety at first before quelling the feelings). We watched several movies yesterday and enjoyed them all: Barbie, The Family Plan, and No Hard Feelings, and yes, quite aware what an interesting mix of film types that was, too. Paul has recovered from that little bout of flu that we both had, and he seems more balanced and centered, too. I’m kind of looking forward to this long holiday weekend that’s on deck, too.

I also spent some more time reading Buried in a Good Book by Tamara Berry, which won the first-ever Lillian Jackson Braun Award from Mystery Writers of America earlier this year. I’m really enjoying the book. I like the authorial voice and I find the main character, Tess, a bestselling thriller writer, to be quite droll and funny, and I appreciate her relationship with her rebellious daughter, Gertrude. I do tend to find common cause with characters that are writers, even as I try to avoid writing about writers myself. I also got a lot of chores caught up, and have cleaned up/made functional the workspace, which was way overdue. I’m going to try to stay on top of it as much as possible, but I always say that and always fail at keeping up with the kitchen and the workspace, alas.

Well, I was right, it’s 48 outside, which is cold for New Orleans. I have an easy day at the office today–and by that I mean I don’t have to see clients; it’s my paperwork catch-up day and I’m not quite as behind on that as one might think, given I was out for three weeks. (My supervisor kept on top of some of the paperwork that was pressing and couldn’t wait, which is much easier on me for today.) I am going to have to stay vigilant with the paperwork because the next two Mondays are holidays, but we’re never super busy just before and between those holidays, historically speaking. It’s odd, but I don’t think this first Christmas without Mom is going to be nearly as hard as the first Thanksgiving without her; Thanksgiving was more Mom’s holiday once we got older, and my sister took over Christmas. It’ll still be a bit sad, I think, but I have both Monday and Tuesday off for the holiday, so at least if I am sad on Christmas I have a whole other day to get over it.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader. and I’ll probably be back later.

Sleigh Bell Rock

Friday morning and I have PT again this morning, before I run a few errands and come home to do my work at home duties for the week. I slept well again last night, and yesterday was another stress and anxiety-free day, which was marvelous. I wish I’d known years ago what medications I really needed, rather than the stuff that just dealt with some of the symptoms but not the actual problem; so those medications didn’t work as well as the ones I am now on. It was also my first week back to work after medical leave, and so it was a bit much, I think; I was exhausted every night when I got home from work and you can tell by how the housework, especially in the kitchen, has slipped out of control–I haven’t had the energy since before the surgery to really do much clean up around here. The dishes have been hardest to keep up with, so I have a load in the dishwasher and another load in the sink. Today is also bed linens laundry day, and there’s other laundry I need to take care of before I can start that project. But I am also getting deep and restful sleep, and whatever that bug was that I had last weekend seems to have finally been taken care of by my immune system–sing hallelujah! I am behind on almost everything, so I have to stay motivated this weekend to get caught up. I have to take the car in for an oil change tomorrow morning, which means shopping on the West Bank and either Five Guys or Sonic for lunch. Yay! Although I have to admit, since the surgery and getting the new teeth, my tastes seem to be changing?

While there is something soothing about a routine and being able to do things without much thought because I do them the same way all the time…but it’s also nice to step out of that comfort zone and do different things. One of the things I’ve noticed is the structure of going back to work has got my eating back on schedule, and I wake up hungry every morning, which is a new development. I’d planned on going to bed early last night so I could take advantage of an extra hour of sleep this morning, but I lost track of time somehow and it was almost eleven before I went to bed. Sunday morning I’ll be a lag-a-bed, since I have to get up for the oil change tomorrow morning. Monday is my next PT, and then next Friday I have an appointment with my surgeon to get the stitches taken care of (and hopefully lose the brace completely) right before a four day weekend. The week between Christmas and New Year’s is generally very slow around the office….and I have to remember to make a red velvet cheesecake for the potluck on Thursday. Sigh.

Paul was late getting home, so I watched the first three episodes of Ultimate Girls’ Trip: RHONY Legacy, and I know these women are awful (Ramona Singer), but they are so entertaining in their obliviousness and delusions that it is fun to watch, all the while knowing that watching them is rewarding them, and encouraging Peacock and Bravo to show us more of them. But I think Ramona is off the board now for the future, and she’s the worst of them (on and off the show). But anyway, it was an enjoyable way to turn off my brain for a few hours while Sparky was using his mutant purring power to relax me while sleeping in my lap. (Sparky’s “everything is a toy” mentality hasn’t helped much with the apartment; things are all over the floor everywhere, and all of my good, favorite pens are now missing. Note to self: buy more good pens and keep them put away.) 

And tonight….the new season of Reacher. I cannot wait.

So, I do feel better. The world is burning down, but I can’t let the state of the world affect me because I have no control over any of that; but I’ve felt so beaten down and defeated and overly stressed now for so long that I’ve allowed the negativity of the world seep into how I look at things in my personal life–looking at them in a negative way rather than a positive way, which is a terrible way to waste away life. There are a shit ton of positives in my life, and how I view my life and everything I have going for me is under my control. Why let the world’s and society’s negativity ruin my life? I have great friends, two jobs that I really love and enjoy, and I am doing the best writing of my life so far. Is it really that difficult to see bad things that might pop up here and there as a challenge to overcome rather than a depressing derailment of everything? Adaptability to change and the strength (mental, emotional, and physical) to overcome obstacles is the best way to handle life, really. I don’t want to waste another minute of life getting depressed or down over things I can’t control, and ducking them (avoidance) isn’t healthy, either–get it over and done with and out of the way instead of pushing it off to deal with later…which just means postponement, and there’s never been a single time in my life when I put off dealing with something and it worked out for the better.

Yes, I am feeling very zen this morning, and that’s not a bad thing, ever.

And on that note, I need to get ready for PT this morning, so I am going to bring this to a close. Have a great Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back later most likely.

Beauty and the Beast

Holiday Monday, which is celebrating Juneteenth (if you want to know more about the holiday, this is a great place to start). It’s hard to believe, and more than a little sad, that it took until recently for this to become a federally recognized holiday. Honestly.

Better late than never, I suppose–which is hardly any consolation, really.

But it’s nice to have another three-day weekend (I can’t remember which holiday we gave up for this one at my dayjob, but we only are allowed no more than eight holidays for some reason), and I slept late again this morning. The cappuccino yesterday morning had no effect on my sleep, so I am having another one this morning, which is lovely. I really do love the way they taste; I just wish making them wasn’t so complicated and dirtied up so much stuff. I made Swedish meatballs yesterday afternoon and that mess still needs to be cleaned up as well. Heavy sigh. What can I say? I got caught up in watching television once the meal was ready and stayed in my easy chair until it was time for bed. We watched the new episode of Becoming Elizabeth, which isn’t bad but it’s not overly compelling either–which is weird, because the period between Henry VIII’s death in 1547 and Elizabeth’s accession to the throne in 1558 was very fraught and very dangerous (Anya Seton brilliantly captured this period in her seminal novel Green Darkness, which I highly recommend along with the warning “it’s quite long”); but it’s not really translating to the screen very well in this production. I also spent some more time with John Copenhaver’s marvelous The Savage Kind, which I hope to do again today.

We also started watching an amazing show on Netflix that originally dropped in 2020 and whose second season was endlessly delayed by the pandemic (I checked it out on-line as we watched) called The Defeated starring Taylor Kitsch as a Brooklyn homicide detective who is “loaned” to a small precinct in the American sector of Berlin in 1946 to help rebuild their station along American police standards; which is a challenge. None of the people working as cops there have any experience in being police officers; some are young boys while the majority are women. The Germans aren’t allowed to have guns, so they have an “arsenal” where they keep their bedposts and other wooden sticks; the Russians are horrible; and Kitsch himself is looking for his brother, a soldier with mental problems who’s gone AWOL and whom Kitsch suspects is targeting and murdering Nazis. It’s extremely well done–think Babylon Berlin but only in another twenty years–and it also asks a lot of ethical and moral questions that really don’t have answers. The woman who runs the station, is the “superintendent” or captain of the squad–wasn’t a Nazi but her protestations about “we weren’t all Nazis” have the same credibility of a prisoner at Angola claiming innocence: no one admits to being a Nazi once the war was lost, after all. At one point she says, very poignantly, “The war is over and the entire world hates us because of what we did, or allowed, and who can blame them?” This seems particularly poignant given the current political climate in our country; I know it seems extreme, but I’ve seen other people comment on Twitter and other social media about how they feel sometimes like “they are living in Weimar Germany and it’s just a matter of time.”

I know I’ve certainly felt that way at times.

We also watched a classic old Bette Davis film, The Letter, which I’d realized I’d never seen yesterday so I pulled it up and started watching. I had read the original short story by Somerset Maugham a few years ago for the Short Story Project, and enjoyed it tremendously. The story is told from the lawyer’s point of view, while the movie certainly shifts the focus over to Leslie Crosbie, wife of a Malaysian rubber plantation owner, who shoots and kills a man she accuses of trying to rape her. Everyone believes Leslie…but you see, there is this letter that exists that contradicts her story, and the more lies she tells, the less her lawyer believes her–although he ultimately pays a blackmailer to get the letter back so she escapes conviction. In the story it’s all from the lawyer’s point of view; she’s merely the wife of a friend he is taking on as a favor, and he doesn’t know her well…but as he (the lawyer) discovers the existence of the letter and recovers it, he slowly begins to see through her lies and to see her as she really is. He doesn’t expose her–he allows her to escape her punishment–but he confronts her with the letter after the verdict and she confesses everything…only to return to her loveless marriage at the rubber plantation. The story and the movie both are steeped with the Imperialistic and racist overtones of the time the story was written and the film made; the ending of the movie is different than that of the story because of course, for the Hays Code of the time she couldn’t be seen as not being “punished” for her crime; she is murdered at the end by the Eurasian widow of the man she killed (his marriage to this mixed-race woman is what sets the tragedy in motion) during a party celebrating her verdict. There was one scene in particular that really made me shake my head: after she has told her story of being almost raped and committing murder to protect herself, she makes dinner for her husband, a friend of the family, and the local police magistrate and they sit around eating and talking about things like nothing’s happened. As we watched this season, Paul–who had no idea of what the movie was about–said, “Oh, he didn’t try to rape her, did he? She’s a cold-blooded killer.” GREG: “It’s Bette Davis, what do you think?”

Although it did make me think about false accusations of rape again, which is one of the myriad of reasons women generally tend to not be believed about being assaulted. There’s probably a really good essay to be written about that.

I also wrote yesterday, which was really lovely. I managed to get the first chapter of that manuscript written; I plan to look at it again today and tweak it a bit. I have a lengthy errand to run–must go over to the North Shore–and when I get home, I plan to write for a while before retiring to my easy chair with my Copenhaver book (I am really enjoying it, y’all) before we finish watching The Defeated (y’all, it’s really good). I’m not sure if what I wrote yesterday is actually any good or not; it remains to be seen, I suppose, and let’s face it, I am not (nor have I ever been) the best judge of my own work. But we shall see today, I suppose. It felt good to be creating again and it felt good to be finishing something, even if it’s just a shitty draft. I’d like to be able to get a lot more written today, if I can…

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Talk soon, Constant Reader!

Lover

And now it’s the day after the holiday, where Americans ignore all sanity and safety precautions and slam into stores long before sun-up for bargains and to get their Christmas shopping finished. I don’t know if this is actually happening this year or not–I flatly refuse to participate in the nonsense of greedy consumerism (the antithesis of the holiday they intend to celebrate) known as Black Friday; for years, this was the day I drove home to New Orleans from Kentucky. In these pandemic times, I have not bothered to find out what the retailers are planning or planned in terms of safety and so forth; there was no need for me to know, frankly, and at some point today I’ll go to some news sites and see the horrors that transpired for myself.

No thank you.

I finished reading The Hot Rock yesterday, which I enjoyed very much, and then moved on to Night of Camp David, by Fletcher Knebel, which is also interesting. Knebel–I don’t know if anyone else remembers him, but he used to write political thrillers back in the 60’s and 70’s (probably the best known work of his would be Seven Days in May, primarily because it was also made into a film, and the subject–the US and the USSR on the brink of nuclear war–was timely and always in the back of everyone’s mind, right up until the day the USSR collapsed). I’ve never been a big fan of political thrillers, to be honest–political fiction has never really interested me too much, primarily because the reality is too much like fiction as it is, and for another, so much world building to do, even if you simply take the US government and political system as it is and simply graft your story and characters onto it–even if you use the actual history as the history of your new world. Paul and I avoided The West Wing for years for this very reason–why get vested in a fictional world of American politics when the real world is right there in front of you all the time–but we discovered it one day when Bravo used to do the marathons all the time, and went back and watched it from the beginning, and it remains one of our favorite shows of all time.

So, it’s entirely possible I would thoroughly enjoy political thrillers after all–I’ve certainly enjoyed, or at least never minded, when thrillers (like those of Robert Ludlum) brushed up against reality or created their own fictional American political world.

Like I don’t have enough to read already, right?

I was reminded of Knebel and his work back sometime during the past four years, as some website (maybe Crime Reads?) did a piece on this particular book, which had returned to print, and focused on a president who was losing his sanity, and the only person who really was aware is the first term, junior senator from Iowa, whom the president has taken a liking to, and keeps inviting to Camp David for late night conversations where the president tells him his insane, Fascistic intentions for his second term. (Yeah, can’t imagine what triggered the publisher to bring this back into print, can you?) I had never read Knebel back in the day, but reading this piece made me curious, not only about this book but about Knebel in general. The Cynical 70’s Film Festival has also reminded me of the deeply cynical political fictions of the time (I really want to read The Manchurian Candidate)–so many thrillers set in or around politics back in the day–and, of course, conspiracy theories flourished. (The true heyday of the JFK conspiracy theories was clearly the 1970’s.)

All in all, yesterday was a highly enjoyable, relaxing day; today will be more of the same. Sure, I did some cleaning–I cleaned out two of my kitchen cabinets, reorganizing them to make them more functional–and of course i made a turkey roast in the slow cooker, which was quite marvelous. We finished watching season one of Mystery Road, which was quite good, and then moved on to the first three episodes of the HBO MAX series, The Flight Attendant, which was based on a Chris Bohjalian novel, and stars Kaley Cuoco of The Big Bang Theory in the lead. Cuoco is tremendously appealing and quite talented. Working the first class cabin on a flight to Bangkok, she becomes involved with one of her passengers, played by Michiel Huisman, and agrees to go to dinner with him in Bangkok. She blacks out during the evening–she’s an alcoholic and in severe denial about it–and wakes up next to his bloody, dead body (his throat was cut) and has absolutely zero memory of the evening before. It’s an interesting mystery, and as I said, Cuoco is terrific in the lead, and is surrounded by a terrific cast.

There really aren’t enough books–particularly crime thrillers–built around flight crews, frankly. I kept thinking about that last night as I watched; I have a short story in progress about a gay flight attendant called “The White Knuckler”, which I’ve never finished, and it also reminded me of how much I love the Vicki Barr Stewardess mystery series for kids.

So, what’s on the agenda for today? At some point I need to get to the gym, and of course the kitchen is in ruins. I am probably going to clean up the mess in the kitchen this morning, then move onto my easy chair to read some more, and then I am going to write all afternoon before going to the gym. Since we watched all the episodes of The Flight Attendant that are currently available–there won’t be a new one again until Thursday–we’re going to need to find something else to watch tonight to entertain us. Which can sometimes prove challenging, but there are worse things.

Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.

Blank Space

Well, hello, Wednesday, good morning and how are you? October 21st, can you believe it? Only ten days left before Halloween, and then it’s November and Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year’s and oh my oh my oh my.

I’m frankly terrified about what fresh horrors 2021 might have in wait for us. I keep remembering how happy everyone was to say goodbye to 2019…and how that turned out. *shudders in terror*

For someone who actually prides himself on being highly organized and efficient, I have to say I am constantly disappointed in myself as I explore my iCloud drive. You see, the MacBook Air doesn’t have any USB ports (fuck off, Apple) and until I get my adapter, I cannot use my backup hard drive, which is where I usually keep everything–and it’s slightly better organized than the iCloud, which is where I used to just throw things as a scattered back-up in case something went wrong with the back-up hard drive. I also wasn’t able to back up the back-up hard drive to the Cloud for a while because of course, my desktop computer wasn’t functioning properly and it would have taken forever (not to mention all the Finder crashes that would have ensued). The good news is I finally ordered the damned adapter, so hopefully will be able to access it again soon. ANYWAY, I have been having to use iCloud and am literally almost always finding every folder to be a disorganized mess, and sometimes with any number of duplicates of the same digital file, which can be a little annoying…so I am trying to get it all straightened out so it’s usable (if the back-up hard drive, for some reason, is unable to be read by the Macbook Air, which will quite literally make me homicidal, but that’s been my luck lately with electronics), and I just opened another folder last night in order to store some files and sighed….because it was yet again another folder with no fucking organization or rhyme or reason to it.

Heavy heaving sigh.

But I’m also getting more and more resigned to the idea that every time I open a folder in the drive, it’s going to be a mess that will–either then, or at some point–need attention. And if I go ahead and take care of it at the time I notice it…well, the closer I get to having it all done.

Last night I continued to play around with the opening of French Quarter Flambeaux. It’s more of an intellectual exercise at this point, and it’s some kind of writing, though my absolute reluctance to work on any of the things I need to be working on has been duly noted. These prologues to the Scotty books–which really began as an homage to Sue Grafton’s “letters from Kinsey” which she used to both introduce and wrap up her novels–and then developed into something a little more fun (parodying the opening of a famous book) are my way of telling the backstory so the story can begin on page one of Chapter One. I do get a bit tired of explaining the entire family backstory, and how he came to be named Milton Bradley–how many clever and original ways can you tell you that story, after all–and as I was thinking about it last night, as well as writing it–I thought, you know, you should check and see how you did it on your last one and rather than getting up to go get a copy of the book, I simply looked it up on the Evil Empire and then “looked inside this book”. Bearing in mind the fact that I never look myself up on amazon nor do I click on the reviews nor do I even glance at the “star” ratings…I was surprised and delighted to notice that the star average was 4.8, which rounds up to 5, and that there were fifteen reviews. This was enormously lovely, and a very pleasant surprise–I think my books generally average at somewhere between 3 and 4 stars–but on the other hand, I was really pleased with how that book turned out, and I worked very hard on it.

It didn’t, however, inspire me to want to go look at the ratings of any of the others, though. I’m not completely insane, after all, and I learned long ago that Amazon and Goodreads were not places for authors to go check on their books. That is, without doubt, one of the fastest trips to the mental hospital one can imagine.

I do need to get back into the writing groove, and I also need to figure out a schedule of sorts. We’re going to be joining a gym this weekend–I think it’s called Franco’s, over on Magazine Street and a slightly longer walk than St Charles Athletic Club, which was just around the corner–so I am going to need to figure out when and how I am going to go do my workouts. It is absolutely going to feel marvelous working out again, without a doubt–I want to stretch regularly, work my muscles with weights, maybe even do some cardio classes–and one of my goals for 2021 is going to be to try to slim down some before I turned sixty. Not like I’m terribly overweight right now or anything; but ten pounds or so, or getting down to about 200, is a great goal to begin with at any rate. I need to rethink my diet anyway–bad cholesterol is too high, and I don’t have the best genetic inheritance from my parents (thanks guys!)–but it will feel really good to get back to lifting weights and working out again. My doctor also recommended that I go on the Mediterranean diet…which I am going to start trying. I bought a cookbook for it, and since I love cooking, well, it’s time to give it a try.

We think we are going to rewatch The Mandalorian as well before the new season drops on Halloween.

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines for my third clinic day of the week. Y’all have a lovely day, okay?