Tag: Hurricane Beryl

The Show Must Go On

Ah, Monday the first of July, and a very short work week it is, too. Huzzah for my four-day weekend! It was very nice this morning to come downstairs to a clean workspace. It does make a difference. I feel like I slept very well last night and feel very awake and alive this morning, at least so far. I was tired all weekend, which was odd but probably had something to do with the daily pills issue I was talking about yesterday. My biggest wish is that the situation with that would work itself out within my body while I slept last night and I’d be back to (what passes for) normal this morning. So far, so good, and my coffee truly tastes amazing this morning, too–always a good sign.

I forgot to mention this weekend that the awesome Barb Goffman selected my story, “Housecleaning”, to spotlight this week at Black Cat Weekly. You can order it here! How cool is that? This is my second story to be picked and featured by Barb, and it’s such a thrill–particularly given how little confidence I have in short story writing.

I also submitted my story yesterday to that anthology; we’ll see how that turns out. It probably needed to wait another day and reread another time, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. I didn’t do any actual writing of fiction this weekend, but I did make a lot of notes and think about what I am working on; hopefully tonight after work I’ll settle in and get back to work on the book. I have to write my entry on Horror Movie at some point, too; it was a really terrific read that I do recommend, and I started Hall of Mirrors yesterday, which I am also really enjoying, at least so far. While I was working on the files this weekend, I also started paging through my old journals–which will always survive purges–and it was very interesting. I don’t really go back and look through them as often as I should (I do when I’m looking for notes on something I am currently working on) and what was interesting was seeing, in some places, where books and short stories I’ve published actually began–a scribbled title, a theme, what I want to explore in it–and of course, other ideas that never progressed further than that page in the journal. I am still missing some of the ancient ones–going back to the 90s, when I started using bound blank bound journals–but I’d love to see those sometime, especially since I am now writing about that period. I imagine they somehow got put in a storage box….and since the goal of the summer is to get rid of as many of those as humanly possible from the Lost Apartment and the attic, I am sure to find them again this summer, which will be great. I also worked out yesterday how to rearrange the books in the living room. I decided I no longer need a “vanity bookcase”, overstuffed with copies of my own work, for one–properly labeled for ease of discovery, they can go in the storage boxes while I fill the bookcase with the books stacked on the floor and on top of the bookcases, making the whole place look a little less cluttered and opening up more space.

This morning’s hurricane check shows that Beryl is a massive monster already but it looks like her course hasn’t changed, and Chris went ahead and developed into a tropical storm and came ashore in southern Mexico. There’s a D storm in the Atlantic heading towards the Gulf, too. Hurray! When we watched the weather report last night, Paul said, “A category 4 in June already?” and I seriously asked in reply, “Gosh, where do you want to live after New Orleans is wiped off the map this year?” And y’all ain’t seen a recession like the one we’ll have this time if New Orleans ceases operating as a port and oil hub. It’s also supposed to rain today, and we’re in a heat advisory where it will “feel like” 114. Yay. It’s going to be a brutal summer by all accounts here. Guess I better start saving to pay the power bills. But Beryl doesn’t appear to be a threat to us here, although she will impact our weather, so the second named storm of the year–and a big one–is a bullet dodged for New Orleans.

Unfortunately, that means the bullet hits someone else, which always makes me uncomfortable. I never want it to seem like I’m hoping other people’s lives get disrupted and/or destroyed, because I would never wish that on anyone else, under any circumstance.

And on that rather dreary note, I am heading into the spice mines. Should you have a moment today that is upsetting or depressing or knocks you down–remember, Steve Bannon is now behind bars and it’s just one step in the right direction.

(I’ve Been) Searching So Long

Sunday morning and I slept late. I’ve been off both days this weekend, not really sure what that’s about…but this morning when I saw the clock and the time, I remembered that either yesterday or Friday, I was confused about taking my daily pills and I may have taken them twice…and a double dose for one day of my daytime anti-anxiety medication definitely would have led to exhaustion. Lesson learned. I am usually a lot more careful about these things, and so I need to better about paying attention.

I was sleepy for most of the day yesterday. I ran errands and came home, and then started working on things again, which was terrific. I had low energy, obviously, but I cleaned out the two remaining file boxes in the living room, thus clearing out the corner where the boxes stood, and which will now be taken up by the vacuum cleaner and the crate of Sparky toys, which opens up the living room still further. I started clearing books out of the laundry room and am on pace to get that shelf emptied and used for pantry items. This overhaul of the downstairs will obviously continue Thursday as I begin my four day weekend. I also managed to finish reading Horror Movie yesterday, which was sublime and wonderful, and started John Copenhaver’s Hall of Mirrors, between breaks so I could rest. I took a lot of those breaks, I might add–and during several of them I started to fall asleep. I did nap for about half an hour in the late afternoon, which is weird–and today I still feel a bit sleepy. All I need to do outside today is go to the gym and make a very quick grocery run, and then I get to come home and hopefully shower and get some writing done. Stranger things have happened, you know.

But the house is a mess and I am working very hard not to chastise myself for the way I left the apartment looking when i went to bed last night, barely able to stagger up the stairs. It won’t take long, really–the majority of the mess in the living room is the donation pile, which simply needs to be stacked properly and loaded into boxes. Likewise the kitchen won’t take long to look orderly again, either. There’s a lot of stuff to be put away for sure in the kitchen, and I’m not done with the laundry room, either–but it’s not a priority and can wait until the holiday weekend if necessary.

Sigh. I’m also very behind on my Pride Posts, which will defiantly continue to run through the Independence Day holiday weekend as I celebrate queer independence, and pray for our gains not to be lost to the current joke of a Supreme Court. I will never forgive anyone involved in “but her emails” or “benghazi” or anything else that smeared and slandered the most qualified candidate for president in decades so we could get fascism instead. Thanks, privileged white liberals for thinking she was corrupt or too shrill or not charismatic enough. And don’t think I won’t keep bringing that up until we’ve survived (if we survive) this election. We lost Roe v. Wade in no small part because that arrogant, narcissistic Hollywood she-bitch sneered on national television that she “don’t vote with (my) vagina.”

I hope to either spit in her skank face or piss on her grave before I die, and thank you again for making any number of films I enjoy unwatchable again because all I think about when I see her face or hear her voice is “we lost our rights because you’re an arrogant bitch who thinks she is a political expert when the truth is you don’t know jackshit and learned NOTHING from the 2000 election when you helped elected Bush.”

There’s a direct line from her performative progressivism to every justice who overturned Roe. I wish someone would bring up Nader to her in an interview. 2016 was a repeat performance of 2000. And for the record, she is not an ally. AOC is, and understands how to get things done and has evolved and learned how to work for progressive causes in Congress. She is an actual hero.

And my inability to write my Pride Post about The Rocky Horror Picture Show is because I don’t want to mention her or use any of her images, which is difficult.

Hurricane Beryl apparently is now a Category 3, with the potential for becoming a 4 once it enters the Caribbean, which is rather early maybe for a storm this size, which doesn’t bode well when we’re kicking off the season and the B storm will come ashore as a 4. It looks like the most likely path means a Yucatan landfall before crossing the Gulf again to come ashore close to the Mexico/Texas border. There are also two other potential storms out there, one in the Gulf (what if Beryl consumes this one? YIKES) and one out in the Atlantic. I guess I need to start looking into hurricane supplies and get the house stocked up again.

Okay, that’s NOT helping, so I think I should head into the spice mines for now. I am going to eat something and start working on this mess while writing another entry. I may also be back later, since one never knows what I will be doing at any given time.