Tag: House of Valois

If We Make It Through December

Sunday, as we slowly transition from Yule season into Carnival, and I have to go back to the office tomorrow. Paul is coming home sometime today–I can’t find his flight schedule, but he usually comes back late in the evening; I may even go to bed before he gets home. Some greeting, right? But I have to get up at six tomorrow morning, he knows that, so I won’t worry about that now. I’ll see him after work when I get home from the office. I didn’t do a whole lot yesterday; I did some chores and ran a couple of errands (it was gorgeous yesterday) and when I got home, wasn’t terribly motivated to do much of anything. I did keep doing some cleaning and organizing and filing at various intervals throughout the day, but there’s still a lot to get done this morning/today. I feel more awake and alive this morning than I did yesterday; perhaps the drinks on Friday night and the walking did wear me out a little bit, even though I wasn’t expressly fatigued. My batteries were a little low, is all. I also have to be careful not to overdo anything because I feel better, you know? I also partly blame it on Sparky, who wanted to sleep in my lap all day, the sweet boy.

I also need to make a new to-do list.

It was surreal yesterday to check in and do my morning blog post and then check the news to see that “Donald the dove” (right, Maureen Dowd? How do you show your face in public, you tragically evil and clearly shameless hateful piece of shit?) had started a war all by himself! And people want to forgive his voters for being conned? No thank you–I’ll carry those grudges to the fucking grave. I am completely incapable of feeling empathy (and I am very empathetic) for the people who joyfully and gladly voted for every last bit of this agenda. Oh no, miss me with your “I didn’t vote for this.” Yes, you fucking did, and you mocked everyone who tried warning you before hand. Where are all those people who told me I was overreacting in 2016? In 2024? You deserve to be reminded of your gleeful ignorance and hateful disrespect every fucking day for the rest of your fucking lives. I sure as fuck didn’t vote for any of this bullshit, yet have to deal with it because YOU wanted to “own the libs.”

NO ONE IS LAUGHING NOW. HAPPY? No? Ever heard the phrase “you reap what you sow”? Well, now you’re reaping what you sowed and you don’t seem very happy with it. Live with the shame and utter humiliation of your public ignorance and stupidity, and you get no sympathy or pity from me–and there will certainly be no forgiveness ever coming from me.

Hope you kept your diapers, ear tampons, and golden shoes! Hillary was only wrong in underestimating how many of you were deplorable pieces of shit. Although, there is something almost comically ironic about the fall of the United States’ experiment in democracy coming from the small hands of an uneducated bigoted pedophile rapist. Well done, white people, well done.

And yet I still have high hopes that this will, all evidence to the contrary, be a good year. I feel weird about that, to be honest; how can I feel positive about the future in the face of all evidence to the contrary? It feels weird to be feeling good about myself and my life, making plans (tentative, as so much is out of my control) and just in general being happy and pleased with myself? I think I have one more year to stay away from conferences and so forth, to continue working on myself and my work and shaping up everything in the directions I want to take, before I return again to the wild world of mystery conferences. I think Bouchercon is in DC for 2027, and so I will probably go to that.

I did watch a lot of videos on Youtube yesterday–some historical stuff (the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt; Cleopatra’s sister1; the Valois dynasty of France), some interviews and reviews of Heated Rivalry, and sports “commentators” on the collapse of Alabama in the play-offs, or the SEC “not being what it was.” I also don’t–and have never–understood the mentality of “my conference is better than yours” arguments; they are pointless beyond any metric beyond winning the championships. The Big Ten has won two in a row, and could be winning a third in a row this year, with three different schools. That’s impressive, indeed. Of course, the SEC did that from 2007-2010 with four different schools…but that’s also the past. One of the biggest problems I have always seen with college football is the polls–because being a brand name is the most important thing with the polls. Ohio State was number one for how long, and how long was Indiana ranked behind them, only for Indiana to beat them? Indiana isn’t a brand like Ohio State or Alabama–although that may be changing now. Preseason polls are meaningless now, just like any polls before the playoff rankings and any bowl game that isn’t a part of the playoffs–which is why you cannot look at bowl results as a metric of conference strength. Many players opt out of the bowl games now because they are meaningless, so bowl teams are often not the same team from the season. Toxic fandom is just another phase of toxic masculinity–and women can be as bad, if not worse, than men.

And on that note, I am going to get another cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich and see what all is going on in the world today, before I get back to work on cleaning.

  1. Arsinoë IV has always been of interest to me, as was Cleopatra’s older sister Berenice. ↩︎

I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am

Yeah, I’ve been big on the Tudors for most of my life–first the Virgin Queen, and then her father, Henry VIII and his many wives1, and eventually the entire family (Henry VIII’s sister Margaret was a pistol–and it is her descendants who sit on the throne today, not Henry’s). As I got older, I became more interested in the century as a whole, and eventually I moved on from the Tudors to the Stuarts, who I find much more interesting. I still love the Tudors, and will watch documentaries and films, but won’t read any more books about them, especially because I’ve not really scratched more than the surface with the Stuarts, and I want to read more about the Tudors’ French contemporaries, the House of Valois. (Yes, I loved The Tudors, because it was more of a Renaissance version of Dynasty; I don’t watch historical films and expect accuracy2, and if you are, wake the fuck up. Book adaptations are never the same as the book, either. It’s entertainment, not a fucking documentary.)

Speaking of entertainment, I finally gave up on Jon Stewart with his defense of the indefensible. His joining in on the media’s decision to badger and hound Joe Biden–one of the most successful presidents of all fucking time–out of the race? None of that, not one bit of that, was actual concern; they all were giving (and continued, until recently) Shady Marmalade a pass on his obvious mental decline…and Jon’s decision to defend the indefensible “because comedian”? Fuck off and die, you arrogant rich white cisgender piece of shit. I’ll never watch him again, so congrats on that year contract extension, Comedy Central. You thought calling Puerto Rico a floating pile of garbage was funny? You thought comparing Travis Kelce to OJ, implying he’ll murder Taylor Swift, was funny? And on and on and on. Straight white male comedians will always circle the wagons for another comedian with a penis, but when a woman comedian (see: Kathy Griffin) is being attacked, not a fucking word? So he’s a misogynist, too. I’m not telling you what to do, Constant Reader, but Jon Stewart is dead to me, now and forever. And don’t even get me started on the 49ers and Nick the Traitor Bosa. Talk about pussy. Someone got slapped down by management when he hit the locker room and before he talked to the press, and like a good little beta soyboy, he caved and sulked like the pathetic emotionally-and-intellectually stunted bitch he is. He’s not being punished because when asked he shut his fucking mouth, which is the other primary difference between him and a true hero, Colin Kaepernick (besides the obvious “white man gets away with shit a Black man never could” racism).

And really, 49ers managers and coaching staff? Your team represents San Francisco, the most tolerant city in the country. Trade him to Dallas, where he belongs.

Thank God I am on anxiety medications. If not, I probably wouldn’t have slept at all since June. But the medications and my personal ban on legacy media companies who are garbage and untrustworthy has helped a lot with my election anxiety, and refusing to engage with the trash on-line (block, block, block) I’ve managed to take good care of my own mental health this time around. I refuse to worry about what will happen if he wins, or if he loses and they try another violent coup; I do, every once in a while, think you always wondered what it was like to be a Berliner in 1933…and I didn’t really need to get an answer to that question, you know?

I feel good this morning yet again; I’ve been sleeping well every night this week and it’s been really nice. I did my errands last night, got home and got started on the dishes and did some other clean-up around here. Paul didn’t get home until late, so I mostly went down Youtube idle curiosity research holes. I also managed to get the Scotty Bible’s first draft finished; it’s just raw information for now that I have to reorganize and pull together. I am also realizing, as I mentioned yesterday, that I should do a concordance of everything I’ve written by place; Kansas, California, New Orleans, Louisiana, Florida, and Alabama. That’s the problem of having characters cross over from stand-alones to the series and back again, you know? I was realizing that the lawyer the boys hire in Royal Street Reveillon doesn’t have as much information in the Scotty series about him as I would have thought…only to remember that Loren McKeithen has a much larger role in the Chanse series than the Scotty. Oops!

I also realized last night, as I watched news clips and documentaries about the Civil War, that with my anxiety gone I no longer feel the need to belittle and dismiss things I’ve accomplished in this wild and crazy career of mine. I’ve written a shit ton of books, short stories, and blog posts–and when I think about all the queer papers and magazines that I’ve written for over the years, yes, my output has been a bit prodigious. It wasn’t false humility (though I am often horrified at how easy it is to slip into egomania, and always over-correct once I catch myself); I honestly still thought I wasn’t very good at what I do. I always compare myself to other writers and come up wanting; but it’s really not a competition of any kind; I appreciate great writers who produce great work, and my work is different from theirs. I always strive to be better, to get better, and not stagnate–the problem that creates is it extrapolates to I could have done that better and dismissing it. Those are the kind of brain landmines I need to watch for, and avoid whenever possible. I’m proud of all my work, for the record. Sure, going through the old Scotty books was always difficult (I always edit it another time as I’m reading it) but doing it for the Bible, where I’m just looking for information, was different. Sure, there were some clunky things I could have said better, but overall, I was actually a little surprised to see how good–and clever–the books actually are. It also reminded me of how I used to write the first ones, what I have always tried to do in my work–whether anyone notices or not. (Someone once emailed me after reading one of my books and said, “Did you deliberately do this?” and delighted, I wrote back “Absolutely!” That was a big thrill for me.)

And I am proud of my work. I overcame so many obstacles to build this career, and I am pleased with myself, too. My books are pretty good–yes, there will always be a few where I think, God I wish I could give that one more pass, but even those are pretty good. There are some I am more pleased with than others; yes, I have favorite children. But that doesn’t mean that I am not pleased with all of them. How many people told me along the way that this would never happen for me, that I didn’t have what it takes, or that I have no ability at all? Maybe, maybe not–but if that’s what you think, how many books have you published? How many awards have you been nominated for, or won?

I really wish I’d known it was anxiety much sooner.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again, perhaps later!

  1. I love that historians count all of the women he married as his wives; although technically the first two were actually annulled, so the marriages were never, at least legally, valid. ↩︎
  2. I totally understand why films and television shows based on history have to make changes; the actual stories don’t play out perfectly for different media and thus must be adapted. I do ↩︎

Lay It On The Line

I woke up this morning and knew immediately it was Thursday, which is progress of a sort, isn’t it? I may not know the actual DATE, but I know the day of the week, which is a step in the right direction.

I made it to the gym yesterday after work for a very brief, one 15 rep set of everything upper body related–it had been well over a week since my last workout, so I was worried about overdoing it and straining the muscles too much, but it felt so amazing, and I felt so good afterwards–I woke up this morning feeling good, too–that I think a lot of the stress, tension and tightness I was feeling in my neck, shoulders and back could have been from not working out in addition to being stressed on top of everything else. I also slept incredibly well last night without taking anything chemical–I was sleepy when I went to bed, and decided to see if I was tired enough to sleep without medical assistance, and apparently I was. I may try to sleep without assistance tonight again myself, just to see–I do worry about becoming chemically dependent; the last thing I need at my age is rehab–so we will see how it all goes this evening.

I feel normal this morning for the first time since the power went out. I can’t really say why–I honestly don’t know–unless going to the gym yesterday kicked my brain back into some sort of normality or present reality or something. It’s nice to feel normal again, though–the trouble with these paradigm shifting disruptions is you’re never sure what normal feels like in the new reality, but this morning I kind of feel normal, which is really lovely. I have more work at home duties to get through today–more on the horizon tomorrow–and am curious to see what is in store for work for next week. Will we be seeing clients again? Will the building be open? There’s an all-staff call on Tuesday again–which makes me tend to think the office may or may not be open by then, but then again, I used to always miss these calls because they were during the time I was seeing clients, so I don’t really remember if this was a weekly thing or not. I am hopeful–always–that somehow, getting through this as another off-week and through the weekend will continue with this feeling of normality. We shall see–I guess the next test is to see whether I can write or not.

I spent some time yesterday evening watching documentaries on Youtube–there was a particularly good one on Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of my all time favorite historical women. I’ve also discovered a channel on Youtube that focuses primarily on biographies, short for the most part, no longer than fifteen minutes at the longest, that focuses on the French House of Bourbon. I love seventeenth century France (always have, hence my obsession with The Three Musketeers), have always wanted to write about it, and maybe someday I will. (To be fair, I am also obsessed with the sixteenth century history of all Europe, not just France…and perhaps someday I will write my history about the powerful women of the sixteenth century. Catherine de Medici and her life remain absolutely fascinating to me; I’ve always wanted to write about that turbulent period of French history–the Religious Wars of the latter part of the century–and de Medici’s Flying Squadron–women trained in the art of seduction in order to spy on potential enemies of the throne. Maybe someday, when I’ve retired.)

And since we returned, I find myself unable to read. I am probably going to get caught up on my Real Housewives watching while stripping condom packs today–yes, it’s a big and exciting day of work-at-home duties for Gregalicious today, but I don’t know if I can face the tedium of the data entry; maybe I can get my shows watched and perhaps a movie, and then move back into the data entry, I don’t know; I will play it all by ear today methinks. And I need to make a new to-do list….

And on that note, tis time to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.