Tag: Jennifer Coolidge

Highway to Hell

Isn’t that paved with good intentions? At least you can do seventy (if not more) on a highway–unless you’re one of those morons on I-10 every morning who either thinks the speed limit is forty (the minimum speed permitted by Louisiana law) or that their car will fall apart if they drive one mile about the minimum speeds.

Y’all can just fuck right off.

I probably won’t finish this before I leave for the dealership on the West Bank, which means taking the Crescent City Connection over the river. We are really lucky in where we have lived in the city all these years; we are very close to the highway and the river and are right off the parade route and Jennifer Coolidge lives just around the corner and there are restaurants within five minutes of a walk in every direction and the streetcar stop is just right around the corner and I can be in a park in just a few minutes. I love this neighborhood, and am looking forward to taking walks around again.

Leaving for the dealership before finishing this also means I’ll finish it when I get back home. I do have some work-at-home duties to perform (I got a lot done yesterday at the office, since we were slow), and am almost completely caught up on everything.

Okay, I am home, twelve hundred dollars later (heavy heaving sigh) but…now I don’t have to worry that the car will start or that I’m going to get a flat in either of those tires that needed replacing; both had nails (big ones, at that) in them. I think one of my errands tomorrow morning (besides the Fresh Market) will include going to a car wash. It could really use a vacuuming, too. I also love driving back from the West Bank (when there isn’t traffic, like this morning) and not to shade the West Bank the way most of us on the East Bank always do; I like driving back into the city over the river, because the views are so marvelous from the bridge. We’re going to run errands later, after my work from home duties are completed, including the biweekly Costco run, but we don’t need as much as we usually do. I did manage to get a load of dishes done last night as well as some picking up around here, and some laundry. The blankets are currently cycling through the washer and the dryer, so the bed stuff might even be done before we leave for the errands, which would be so awesome.

I read more into Holukoa Road while the car was being worked on, and I feel pretty confident I’ll finish reading it today or tomorrow. It’s a simply beautiful day outside, too, meaning I can sit outside and enjoy the weather while reading, if I so choose. I definitely want to take a walk later on this evening as well, with my earbuds in while viewing Halloween decorations–New Orleans always goes all in for it, and I need to take some pictures of the skeleton house on St. Charles at some point before next Friday. Next weekend LSU has a bye week and we get an extra hour of sleep on Saturday night, so it should be a fairly productive weekend then, too. I also have to get the epilogue for new Scotty done and some other things my editor asked for; needless to point out that I will inevitably wait for the last minute to do it all.

Of course.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow morning!

This is actually a road to heaven, in my opinion. My dream–which will never materialize–would be to retire to Tuscany.

Queen of New Orleans

I am always delighted when people think I capture New Orleans perfectly in my work.

I love New Orleans, and while I, along with everyone else who lives here, reserve the right to be irritated, exasperated, and annoyed with the city–God help you if you talk shit about the city if you don’t live here (“bitch, you live in Metairie”) in front of people who do.

Trust me, it won’t end well.

I fell in love with New Orleans officially when I came here to visit for my thirty-third birthday, which was a lot of fun and probably one of the best birthday weekends of my life, if not the best one pre-Paul (we had yet to meet at that time). I do sometimes wonder when I think back to visiting, and then living, in New Orleans in the 1990’s, if there’s nostalgia involved in my memories. That New Orleans no longer exists; the flood waters from the levee failure after Hurricane Katrina ended that time with a very firm line of demarcation so that everything was thus defined ever after as before and after. There were also the post-flood years in which the city was being rebuilt and rescaled and rethought and repopulated, but it’s never been the same as it was before the flood and it never will go back to that. There was a definite sense before that New Orleans was stuck in time and nothing was going to change anything–something drastic was needed to solve all the problems. It was thought at the time that the one positive was that maybe New Orleans would rise from the ashes like the mythological phoenix; a hard reboot that could fix everything.

It didn’t. Some of the old problems remained, some of them were eliminated, and new ones arose. The streets still collapse into potholes and constantly need repair; the sidewalks still tilt and get broken up by ground subsidence and live oak tree roots. There’s always something for the locals to complain about when it comes to life and living here in New Orleans. When Paul and I first moved here all those years ago, we had no idea what we were in for–but the nice thing was it was the first place I’d ever lived where I felt like I chose it; Mom and Dad chose where I lived for most of my life. I chose Tampa over Houston, but it wasn’t from an overwhelming decision that I desperately wanted to live in Florida (I didn’t; I moved for my job). But New Orleans–New Orleans was the first place I ever visited that I wanted to live. It’s really the only place I’ve ever wanted to live, or had an opinion about, or actually felt anything for; I am a New Orleanian, and a Louisianan by extension.

It’s really beautiful here, and I thought so when we moved into this crumbling neighborhood in a decaying city whose best days looked to be past already. In the daylight the city’s scars and wounds and damage is clear; but in the night, with shadows dancing and the light limited, it was still so gorgeous it can steal your breath away–and great apartments were enormous, high-ceilinged, hardwood floored, and cheap.

1996 was a whole different world; Bill Clinton was about to be reelected, gay sex was still a crime, and “don’t ask don’t tell” didn’t solve anything; it just made the realities of being a queer in military service even more difficult. There was still the remains of the Camp Street on-ramp to the Crescent City Connection on the neutral ground on the other side of Martin Luther King Drive; the Coliseum Theater was still there–closed and shuttered, but still existing, and there was this incredibly beautiful old house that was a ruined, crumbling wreck that looked haunted and absolutely fascinated me; I wish I’d taken pictures of it. (It has obviously been renovated.) Paul and I moved into the Lower Garden District right before it’s renaissance and gentrification. We lived on the Square; the park was just outside our front door and down the walk and across the street. Coliseum Square was dark at night then; all the streetlights in the park were either shot out or burned out, and the fountains were dry and rusted. The beautiful, graceful live oaks were there, of course, resting some of their heavy branches on the grass. All the big gorgeous houses around the park were derelict and run down, gorgeous ruins waiting for a buyer with money and a love for old houses. A gay couple bought one of them and spent the next year renovating it; it’s still a stunningly beautiful house. One by one those old houses were bought up and remade–and now Jennifer Coolidge lives in a house fronting the park (she sometimes comes to our corner at St. Charles for parades during Carnival).

I always think of Scotty as kind of a gay personification of New Orleans; the two are always entwined in my brain. Uninhibited, unashamed, unabashed, and always up for a good time–you could say that easily about them both. It’s really funny that back when I created him I didn’t think there was enough story in him to be a series–and here we are, on the eve of the ninth being released. Obviously, people responded to him in the way that I wanted them to; they’ve embraced his weirdness and eccentricity, and that of New Orleans as well. I couldn’t create a character like Scotty who lived anywhere else; anywhere else he wouldn’t work, would be judged harshly and looked down on by people for his hedonistic attempts to suck all the juice out of life as he can.

And I’ll probably still be writing him when I die–which, hopefully, won’t be for a long time yet.

Both of Us

Well, it’s Saturday morning, how are you all doing out there? I am doing well–I cannot believe how much better I’ve been sleeping lately; I almost feel completely rested for the first time in I don’t know how long–and there’s no LSU game today. You know what that means, don’t you? That means a day to clean and write and get things done as much as humanly possible. I may even clean the windows this morning–crazier things have happened, of course, but there you go.

I made it to the gym for my third workout of the week last evening, and it was the first time I’ve gone where it was dark when I set out for the place and even darker when I walked home. There was an unusual occurrence as I walked there–I actually got cat-called by a woman in a car as she drove by while I waited on the corner for her to pass. It completely caught me off guard–and trust me, it’s been a very long time since anything like that has happened to me. As I said, it was a very pleasant surprise but I also don’t think it served as an indicator of dramatic changes and improvements to my body in the two weeks since I returned to the gym, but I will say I’ve noticed that my muscles are being kick-started up again to look better than they have been–taut rather than slack, if anything. When I was a trainer I always used to tell my clients that once you’ve built a good, strong muscular base that it’s much easier to get back to that after some time away from the weights–I did notice the other night while doing my bicep curls that my arms looked better, and the definition was coming back, which was lovely. The trick is going to be my storage of excess body fat around my middle, which, coupled with my enormous ribcage, tends to make me upper body barrel-shaped–and my narrow hips and pelvic girdle always ends up looking–because of the barrel shape–like I have no ass, which I absolutely hate and despise. And yes, while the entire point of going back to the gym is to be healthier, lower my cholesterol and blood pressure, and reduce my body fat percentage, the side effect of looking better physically certainly is working as a motivator–perhaps not as strong of one as back in the day, when I wanted to run around gay bars shirtless and attracting flirtatious attention, but it is a motivating factor.

I’m also enjoying wandering around the neighborhood on my walks to and from the gym; getting to know the neighborhood better that I’ve lived in for the better part of the last twenty-four years or so. There’s an absolutely fascinating house on Camp Street, hidden behind a church, that has its entire first floor porch (or gallery, or balcony; whatever you want to call it) hidden from the street and the sidewalk by a massive, thick hedge that reaches all the way up to the second floor balcony; it’s so thick you literally cannot even see that the lower floor porch/gallery is even there. Anyone sitting there is completely hidden from the sidewalk. Likewise, the gorgeous house on Coliseum Square owned by the actress Jennifer Coolidge is similar; the back yard and its fence is completely hidden by a towering, thick hedge and trees and enormous elephant ferns–so sitting in the back yard you would feel like you were sitting in a forest clearing rather than in the heart of a city, which is a very cool effect.

We are very much enjoying the second season of The Mandalorian, to the point where I honestly think the smartest thing Disney–and Lucasfilm–could have done was do these “meanwhile, somewhere else in the galaxy” movies and series to flesh out the skeletal structure of the universe as laid out in the Skywalker stories rather than continue the sad, twisted melodrama of the Skywalkers. I rather enjoyed the final trilogy when I saw them in the theater, and of the three films The Force Awakens is probably the strongest–it’s also the only one I’ve been able to watch more than twice. The more I watch The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker the more flawed the films seem; although I will argue The Last Jedi is not as bad a film as the fanboys screamed to the ends of the known universe it was. I think they listened too much to the fan complaints and thus rejiggered the script of the final film to the point where groundwork laid in the second was completely ignored or totally betrayed by the third. But The Mandalorian is quite marvelous, and it’s the highlight of our Fridays every week,

We are also watching The Murders at White House Farm on HBO MAX, which is quite good. Based on a true story about the mass murder of a family–in which it was originally thought the mentally ill daughter murdered her parents, her twin sons, and then herself–it’s remarkably well written and well-acted; the story also hinges on a chief inspector who simply accepts the evidence at face value and asks no questions, preferring to close the case as it seems without looking any deeper. This is a problem with police investigations, which we have seen, time and again, in true crime documentaries and books and weekly series: the police tend to come up with a theory of the crime and look only for evidence that supports that theory, even if it means ignoring other evidence that contradicts their theory. This should scare everyone, as it is a terrible flaw in police investigating; they are not necessarily looking for the truth and the actual criminal as they are looking for someone they can convict in court, regardless of whether they committed the crime or not.

If you don’t think that’s a serious problem for our justice system–although this series takes place in the UK, the statement still holds—then I don’t know what to tell you other than I hope it never happens to you.

I also hope to find some time–around the cleaning, writing, and organizing–to finish reading Westlake’s The Hot Rock. I also landed a copy of Lawrence Block’s first Burglar book–Burglars Can’t Be Choosers–and I am looking forward to being immersed in that. I’ve read one of his burglar novels before–I think it was The Burglar in the Library–and really liked it, so it only makes sense that if I intend to read the entire series I would go back to the very beginning. I should also get back to reading Elmore Leonard; it’s been years since I read anything of his and I know I greatly enjoyed the ones I did read (although I disagree with his writing advice that you should never start a novel or story by talking about the weather; I do it all the time. But then again, in New Orleans the weather is a very important part of the fabric of the city).

I also want to get some work done on short stories this weekend. I really do need to prioritize the novel, though. Decisions, decisions–there is so little time in which to get everything done (as well as have the necessary down time) that it will undoubtedly make me quite mad by the end of the year, when the book is finally due.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the day. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and perhaps today will see the end of the election.

Strawberry Wine

Tuesday, Tuesday–can we really trust this day?

I’ve always found Tuesdays to be more questionable than Mondays, if we’re going to be completely honest. At least on Monday–despite the inevitable ring of the alarm, the grudging getting out of bed earlier than you want to, the unpleasantness of the desire and need for caffeine–you’re rested from the weekend. When the Tuesday morning alarm goes off, you have already worn off that weekend glow and are tired from a full day’s work already, with several more still left to go…I daresay that Monday’s blue and Tuesday’s, too.

I got some writing done last night–I’ve found three different versions of the first chapter of the Secret Project, so  I spent some time merging them together; today I am most likely going to edit that chapter and get it revised, polished and pulled together. I also worked on the new short story idea I had, “Festival of the Redeemer”, which is a  noirish Daphne du Maurier-type story with a bit of inspiration from Highsmith, Ripley, and the film; which I will watch another half hour of tomorrow morning at the gym. My writing muscles are much more slack and harder to whip back into shape that the regular muscles of my body. Sunday’s gym trip broke me through the tired-muscle syndrome I was experiencing that first week back; now my muscles no longer feel a bit achy and tired all the time, and I am sleeping ever so much better.

I know I have to push through and the writing muscles will eventually catch up and the words will start coming out of me again, but JFC, what a pain in the ass. I guess the message here is to never let my writing muscles get out of shape ever again–not that I ever remember letting them get out of shape in the first place.

I do think “Festival of the Redeemer” has the potential to be a terrific story, but again–gay main character, gay noir, who’s going to publish that? I currently have a “gay” story out on submission to a mainstream market, but feel relatively confident that story is going to be rejected eventually; they’ve had it longer than they had the one they already published, and delayed response usually means eventual rejection. Every story, of course, is a different animal than the one that came before it; so a quick turnaround on one story doesn’t mean the next one will get that same quick turnaround, of course, and it’s a different story so–

I wonder what it’s like to not have to wonder if your story is going to be rejected because you wrote about gay characters?

But it’s been awhile since i wrote a short story, and I’m writing this one around the Secret Project; once the Secret Project is finished I’ll have to put this story aside to focus on the Sherlock story–which I still can’t believe I’m actually writing a Sherlock story. But this year I know I will have at least two stories for sure in print: my story for The Faking of the President will be out around the same time as my story in The Beat of Black Wings. Which is incredibly cool; both stories have the same kind of noirish dark tone, but I still think “This Town” is the best short story I’ve written over the last few years. I don’t know if it will get an Anthony nomination for this year’s Bouchercon, but you never know; stranger things have happened, and I never thought “Cold Beer No Flies” would have been an Anthony finalist, either.

“Festival of the Redeemer”–well, I’ve wanted to write a story about Venice ever since I visited there, and of course, the film of The Talented Mr. Ripley is reminding me of how much I loved Italy when I was there; I haven’t gotten to the “Tom in Venice” segments yet, but just thinking about it–and the weird friendship between Tom and Dickie–made me finally understand how I could write this story; what the crux of it is, and why it should be told–and where the story should come from within me; and I think I finally can root the story out.

At any rate, I am probably going to have to stop at the grocery store tonight on my way home to start storing provisions for the coming weekend of being trapped inside the parade route for most of the weekend. It’ll be fun, of course, wandering down to the corner to watch the parades and catch some things, watching the crowds and seeing who else from the neighborhood is out there; it always is, if somewhat exhausting. Barkus of course is Sunday afternoon in the Quarter–the dog walking parade–and there’s no parades on Sunday night, I suppose so we can start getting rested for the marathon to come beginning on Wednesday. I decided to do my usual Outreach shift on Friday afternoon, which will mean walking down to the Quarter after doing my workout Friday morning–no need, obviously, to do my cardio since I’ll be walking several miles that day–and then trying to get to the gym Sunday morning before the first parades start arriving in the neighborhood. I don’t remember who is Bacchus this year–nor do I remember who is riding in Orpheus–but I know Jennifer Coolidge is the celebrity guest Muse, riding in the big shoe this year.

I’m probably going to have to write another book about Mardi Gras someday; I think seeing Scotty and the boys through another Mardi Gras is probably a good idea–hell, it might even be worthwhile to take them through Southern Decadence again. I don’t think Scotty’s quite done with his partying ways, frankly, even with sort-of-nephew Taylor around to be badly influenced–although I would imagine it would be relatively awkward for him and Frank to be wasted on Ecstasy on the dance floor at Oz and run into Taylor and some of his friends from Tulane. Hmmm.

But I need to get back to reading Where are the Children? so I can get back to my reading of Tracy Clark; I also need to read Lori Rader-Day’s The Lucky One for a panel I am moderating this year at the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival. And I also have some MWA business I need to work on this week–the life of an executive vice-president is always intended to be, well, interesting–and as such, I should probably head back into the spice mines.

Have a lovely Wednesday Eve, all!

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