Tag: Julia Sugarbaker

Walking in L.A.

But nobody walks in LA, as the song says. I did a few times, and always heard this song in my head as I strolled down Santa Monica Boulevard. I do miss my annual visits to Los Angeles to sign at A Different Light. I don’t miss the stress and anxiety of signings (will anyone show up? Will I make an utter fool of myself?), but yes, I used to walk down Santa Monica from my hotel and shop on my way to visit the store.

Ah, the good old days…

But it’s Pay-the-Bills Wednesday, always a fun exercise in depression that always ends up with the plaintive cry where did all my money go? At least I can pay them–for now, at any rate. I just really hate paying them and trying to remember all my user names and passwords; nothing makes me feel older than not remembering things.

I was tired when I got off work last night–and actually, was kind of dragging all damned day yesterday. I’m not sure why, either; I was kind of mentally lethargic–and when I am that way, I inevitably come up with new ideas…which is my brain trying to get me to not stress too heavily about not doing any writing: but at least I had some ideas! Insanity, but that’s the way my mind has always worked. I’ve really been wanting to write some more essays for the newsletter; I already have several done that I don’t want to send because I don’t want to become that annoying person dropping into the subscribers’ (I can’t believe I have subscribers!) inboxes all the damned time. I don’t think all my book/movie/television reviews need to necessarily go there? I don’t know. I originally decided to use the newsletter to write longer form essays–ones that were too big to go here–but somehow that evolved into my writing longer reviews of books and movies and television shows there as well. Heavy heaving sigh. I guess I am having a newsletter identity crisis….but now that I am up this morning, I’m thinking I don’t need to write reviews there; I can do shorter ones here and do the longer ones, the ones where I really have something to say about the art, on the newsletter.1

We watched some more of Olympo last night, and there was finally some more gay storyline; Roque, the gay rugby star, is now getting involved with a teammate (Sebas) who is only now beginning to experience same-sex desire, which should be interesting to see play out. Both are gorgeous, too–so was the closeted guy Roque was hooking up with until the closet case turned on him–and as Paul said, “the most interesting characters are the men–the women are unlikable.” He was right, of course, and I don’t think that is gay misogyny at play; they really are unlikable. It’s not as good or as involving as Elité, which took off like a speeding freight train from the opening of the very first episode; this one is more of a slow burn–the primary story of the season is doping, as it would be in most shows about up-and-coming Olympic hopefuls. There are some curiosities about the show–little mysteries that might become bigger story-lines as the show goes on, but for now, the doping is the primary story–as well as the homophobia Roque is experiencing on the rugby team and in the school.

Plus, I love that name: Roque.

I only have one more day of work this week after today thanks to the 4th of July holiday, which seems kind of muted this year. Not surprising, since the entire country is being reshaped in the image Christian Nationalists have been pushing for since Brown v. Topeka Board of Education was decided by a decent Supreme Court, as opposed to the conservative activists currently sitting on our present-day court. I mean, it’s not like the country has ever lived up to its ideals; our country’s sad history of racism, homophobia, and misogyny goes back all the way to Columbus arriving in the West Indies (Spain and Portugal really never get enough credit for kicking off colonization and inventing racism).

I started thinking our empire was beginning to crumble in the 1980’s–I just hoped it would wait to collapse into authoritarianism after I died.

Ah, well. Somber thoughts on this July 4th Eve Eve. I try not to talk about politics or what’s going on in the world; if you come here to read this blog periodically where I fall on the political spectrum shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. I try to leave talking about politics and world events out–I am hardly an expert, and adding to the angry on-line chatter isn’t really appealing to me: there’s no point in preaching to the choir, and anything I say isn’t going to convince someone who disagrees with me that they are incorrect (and vice versa; I don’t engage with conservatives because I will never agree with them on anything, really), and all it does is get me riled up. Sure, I’ll sometimes give in to the urge and go all Julia Sugarbaker here–ignorance and deliberate stupidity get under my skin like nothing else, but I try to resist the urge because I prefer to save my energy and time for productivity. I’m back to not engaging with anyone monstrous on social media–I find blocking trash more satisfying than scoring points off a troll anyway, which is performative in the first place, since all you are doing is showing your followers how witty and smart you are.

Sigh.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like this is a more New Orleans-style summer than we’ve had in years. It’s already miserable outside when I leave the house for work, and even more miserable later in the day when I’m running errands. I know it’s worse because my sinuses and allergies are really kicking in this year–wet and humid with the thick heavy air, the heat, and the sun beating down mercilessly from above; we’ve also had a lot more rain (another sign of insane humidity) this year than we’ve had in the last few. I think the weather, coupled with trip recovery (I was in a car for almost twenty hours over four days), is why I’ve been so out of it this week.

I kind of hope we have some delightful thunderstorms this weekend, too; so I can snuggle under a blanket in my chair while reading. Sparky has been very attached to me since I got back–demanding my lap to sleep in when I get home from work every day, wanting to ride on my shoulders while I do things, and being incredibly playful, too. He really is a dear thing.

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably check in with you again tomorrow morning. Till then!

Seriously, where were all these muscular pro wrestlers during my adolescence?
  1. Which means I’ll be moving some of those reviews from the drafts on my newsletter page to the drafts here; and deleting some of the ones in the draft files here. ↩︎

Without You

And now its Muses Thursday. How we got here so quickly is a mystery, but here we are. I am slowly waking up, the coffee is helping, and yesterday was actually a very good day, perhaps one of the best I’ve had in a long time. It was the first time in a very long time (several weeks, at least) where I was alert and awake and felt good. I was also in a good mood all day…all of which added up to a very productive day. I ran my errands after work (I left early because parades) and managed to get everything done AND find a place to park close to the house when I got home. I put the laundry away and started working on chores, getting things cleaned up and taken care of. It was nice to wake up on a Thursday and come down the stairs to a tidy kitchen. I watched my reality television shows (Vanderpump Rules, which is actually boring this season, and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) and then Paul got home. We got to hang and chat for about half an hour before it was time for me to go to bed, and I went out almost immediately. I like this new sleep pattern, and having the right kind of medication that helps me not only sleep deeply but feel very rested when my body and brain finish waking up–it’s much easier than before, that’s for damned sure.

In honor of Muses, I switched to a new pair of every day shoes this morning, and it’s always quite an adjustment. I should probably change every-day shoes more regularly; I have flat feet and my feet (the technical/medical term for it is overpronation; eventually my shoes will reflect that and need to be changed out) roll inward. Shoe inserts have helped dramatically with my ankles, knees, and hips; before using inserts I needed to get new shoes every six weeks. They last longer now, but I still need to change out my shoes more regularly than most…which is why I always buy at least two pairs of shoes every time, so I have the next pair ready to go when I change them out, always buying two pair when I start wearing the second pair and thus no longer have a pair of shoes “on deck”. I also don’t have to walk to the office and home, or stand out on the corner hawking condom packs to partying people all weekend–which of course will help my shoes last longer. (I still miss my old office, though.)

I’m just fascinating this morning, aren’t I?

The Krewe of White Supremacy and the Lost Cause rolled again last night, but once again New Orleans said nix to Nyx and their dying, pathetic parade needs to have its fucking permit pulled once and for all. Let them parade in Metairie or the North Shore where their deeply offensive and archaic values would be more appealing. New Orleans doesn’t forget and holds a grudge forever. You racist skanks and your Confederate flag throws aren’t welcome in New Orleans, and you know it, so why do you bitches keep parading to empty streets and the utter contempt of New Orleans? To prove a point? Think of all the money they waste to prove a point. I can’t wait to write my book about the murder of an all-female all-racist krewe captain. I had no difficulty finding a place to park on my block last night after four, which doesn’t happen on days when the popular parades that everyone goes to–no matter how minor it may be–roll. I could have probably left the office at the usual time yesterday and still been able to find a place to park on my street (note for next year if this year wasn’t their death rattle). Tonight I will drive straight home and probably won’t be able to find a place to park, Sigh.

I am going to Alabama the weekend after Fat Tuesday to meet Dad. I’m really glad to spend the time with him, but I hate the reason for it.

There’s controversy brewing again in the mystery community, and while I generally don’t opine on these kinds of things, I kind of am feeling my oats and I may just have to voice an opinion. I always forget that I had anxiety with my commentary and observations about controversies in publishing because of my volunteer work on the MWA board; I never wanted anyone to ever think I was speaking for the organization when I was not and didn’t want to have to deal with any controversies for the org things I said may have caused. But my anxiety is gone now, I have very few (if any) fucks left to give about anything or anyone, and I have a voice and a platform (no matter how small it may be in the overall scheme of things) so I should make better use of it than introspective navel-gazing about my life and career and so forth. So what if I piss off a few people? No one cares if they piss me off, do they? And I’ve been the target of other people’s bullshit far too many times and for far too long to worry about offending people who find my very existence offensive, so they can fuck right off. I’m not saying I’m going back to channeling my inner Julia Sugarbaker regularly or anything, but I will probably be speaking out more in the future…and I have some definite thoughts about the current one. LOTS of them, in fact.

So, buckle up, buttercup. 2024 is a whole new mentality for me.

Holiday Spirit

Imagine my shock and horror last evening when I realized that Christmas is next weekend. What the hell happened to December? Where did it go? Suddenly, I am almost out of time to do and mail my Christmas cards, and I really don’t want to save the awesome ones I bought for next year. Sheesh. But…I also didn’t/am not get(ting) down on myself about that fact, either; which is a really positive place for me to be in at the moment. Is the reset of my brain that I was determined to get taken care of during my recovery from surgery actually working? Perhaps…and the surgery recovery kind of was a blur where I was lucky to remember what day of the week it was, let alone the date. The new meds seem to be taking care of my anxiety, which is precisely what I needed–it’s so nice to not freak out or spiral about things over which I have no control, and calm Greg is always the best Greg. (I do know people rather enjoy when I go on a Julia Sugarbaker rant, though.) I slept well again last night, which was marvelous, and of course Sparky’s body clock alerted him that my alarm was going to be buzzing away annoyingly soon, so he emerged from his under-the-bed cave around five thirty-ish to climb up into the bed and cuddle until it was time for me to rise from the depths of Morpheus and fill his food bowl.

There’s really nothing quite so comforting as a soft kitten resting on you, purring, is there? I also think it’s kind of amazing that he’s left my injured arm alone ever since the brace went on it. My right arm is a battlefield of scabs and scars from his claws–as is my right leg (that’s the one he likes to use to climb me), but my left arm? Other than the surgery incisions and the purplish netting over them, it’s pristine. He also will stretch out in my lap to sleep–just like Scooter, he wants my lap as soon as I get home from work, and also like Scooter, my desk chair belongs to him and he refuses to sleep in my lap if I am sitting there–and always rests his cute little arm in the crook of my left elbow and purrs contentedly as his little purr engine soothes my soul.

How did I manage to live so long without having a cat? So many years wasted when I could have been saving cats from shelters. Ah, well.

We were super-busy at work yesterday–we’re heavily scheduled today too–but I applied myself and got caught up on most of, if not all, of my desk duties around my clients. I also felt better yesterday–certainly more alive and awake and present than I was on Tuesday, for sure, for sure–and I feel like today is going to be a good day overall as well. I am feeling better about most things, really (though I do wonder if the anxiety and eager-to-please mentality that comes out of it is what has motivated me to write so much over the last twenty or so years), and it’s much easier to stay positive even as the world burns to the ground around us.

It’s weird to be in the midst of the Christmas season, venerating the birth of the prophet/savior of the Christian religion (and why is a religious holiday a legal one?) while at the same time the people who claim to be his followers have put our democracy under attack and are going after everyone else’s rights–because make no mistake, if one group’s rights are under attack, everyone’s rights are under attack. (And don’t #notallChristians me; if you aren’t speaking against your Christo-fascist brethren, you’re a collaborator at worst or complicit at best. Remove the mote from your own eyes before coming for the one in mine, thank you very much….and I bet I know the Christian religion and your holy book better than you do.)

The part I don’t get about bodily autonomy opponents is this: if you believe the government has the right to interfere with women’s health care choices over the recommendations of the medical field, you really can’t at the same time object to government intervention in health insurance and health care, either… yet it’s always the same thing. (And you can’t break the law by claiming you do so because of your faith gives you a fucking free pass. “Render unto Caesar”, remember that Jesus quote? He’s saying the government is an authority to be respected, not that “if you follow me you can use me to do whatever you want!)”) Surrendering bodily autonomy means giving the government a say in your health care–so if you oppose abortion and choice, you better shut the fuck up and get vaccinated and wear masks when the government tells you to; and you need to shut the fuck up about the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, and Medicare (I’m looking at you, demon-spawn from hell Nikki Haley). You love to talk about slippery slopes when it comes to the Second Amendment, but you’re all about the government telling women what they can and can’t do with their wombs and bodies? The fact they don’t give a fuck about child care and child health and public education and ensuring all children have the basic necessities of life is all the evidence anyone needs to know the “save the precious babies!” argument is shallower than a salad bowl. They don’t care about babies, they don’t care about women, and they don’t care about freedom, period.

They only freedom they care about is the freedom to control–and how is that freedom?

And the real slippery slope is that if the government can tell you that you have to have a child…means that the government also has the right to order you to have one…and the right to not let you have one when you choose.

Funny how the only slippery slope they care about is the one about guns.

And all the hate speech around transpeople and calling all queer people groomers while not going after organized religion–where it seems most of the child-rape happens–is another indicator of cognitive dissonance so powerful that you seriously have to wonder about the functionality of their brains, and people who don’t have a logic-based brain aren’t people I want to listen to about anything.

Rant over…for now, at any rate.

I was, however, thoroughly exhausted yesterday when I got home from work. Adjusting to being back at work is taking a little more time than I would have liked, but it is what it is. Tonight I have to do some errands on the way home from work, so I am hoping I am not as dog-tired when I get off tonight as I was yesterday. I did get some things done once I got home, but not nearly enough, and of course Sparky was very needy after his first long afternoon home alone in almost a month. He’s such a mischievous little brat sometimes. Did I mention he turned the washing machine on the other day? He’s lucky he’s also incredibly cute and sweet–but he is still an evil genius. I’ve always thought the entire point of Lucifer/Satan having been the most beautiful of the angels before the fall was a warning to humans to not be fooled into thinking beauty means good…and the degeneration of what he looked like during the late Dark and early Middle Ages into a horned, red monster with claws and a tail was just another step in the demonization of non-Christian religions; as there are any number of different pagan gods who looked like that who were also not evil.

But here it is, a mere eleven days before Christmas. It’s such a tired and boring cliché to even attempt to add anything to the conversation about the commercialization of the holiday season; that ship has long since set sail. I mean, as I always point out, it was already such a problem in the early 1960’s that Charles Schultz wrote and animated A Charlie Brown Christmas to illustrate the point. What could I possibly add to that? Paul and I have decided not to get each other gifts this year; we both buy anything we want or need whenever we think about it. All I ever want is books, anyway, and I am trying to cut back on adding books to the house unless books are going out of the house–and trying to ensure more are going out than coming in is the optimal at this moment. I’ve also decided to dispose of marked up manuscripts and early drafts of things; everything is digitized anyway, and it will clear up a lot of room in the storage attic and the apartment. Any boxes of books in the attic can also be donated, so that’s the new plan for when I have the full use of my arm again–getting rid of all that shit. I also need to cut back on streaming services I pay for, as they are all jacking up their prices for the holidays; and some of them I rarely, if ever use. It would be cheaper in the long run to simply buy the full seasons from Apple than pay for the service every month…and that would also make me more selective about what we actually watch.

It’s nice to feel good about myself and my life again, despite the state of the world, you know?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you again later.

Suckling the Mender

Work-at-home Friday! Woo-hoo! It’s almost the weekend! I felt funky yesterday; more than just my usual end-of-the-getting-up-at-six-every-day tireds. My stomach started bothering me on Wednesday night, and I chose to eat breakfast and lunch yesterday with soft foods–yogurt, cereal, mozzarella salad–as I had the day before and that didn’t seem to be much help, as my stomach ached all afternoon. This continued throughout the evening, and I also was terribly tired when I left the office. I felt so bad–the combination of the exhaustion and the stomach issue–that I did something I never do; I laid down on the couch. I floated for about three hours in the in-between sleep and awake state of consciousness, which was where I was when Paul came home. I ate a little bit and felt better, but it’s still odd. I think it’s not eating enough, maybe? This was how I felt on Sunday after getting home from the trip–so I must eat solids and more regularly. My bad eating habits catching up to me at long last, and I really need to focus on eating regularly and more healthy. (I lost twelve pounds in Kentucky.) It’s also achy and sore this morning, too, but not nearly as bad as it was yesterday. I’ll try to eat more today than I have the last few days.

I have some errands to run after work-at-home duties are completed today, which will probably suck the life right out of me. Running errands in New Orleans in the summertime is always a draining chore, but if I can get all of that done today I won’t have to leave the house at all until Monday morning when I go back to work. It doesn’t look too bad out there this morning, but a quick check of my phone tells me it’s 82, which is practically a cold spell for July down here.

We finished watching Red Rose last night, and what a ride that was. Intense suspense, wild out of nowhere plot twists, and all the young British actors were very appealing and good in their roles. I do recommend it; it’s a new trope for horror (maybe it’s already tired, I don’t know, but it’s my first experience of it) by using apps and your phone to terrorize you. It was also a terrifying commentary on how careless we all can be about our online security. Now, of course we have to start watching something new–often a challenge to decide–

I kept waking up a lot last night–pretty much every hour on the hour–and of course, was wide awake at six. I fed and watered Scooter, since he expects it at that time every day now, and went back to bed for a little while longer. I don’t know whether iI actually slept any more, but I don’t feel spacy-tired or loopy-tired this morning, so that’s something, I suppose. Hopefully it will turn out to be a most productive day for me. I do have laundry and lots of dishes and cleaning and straightening up around here to get done, too.

I joined Threads, the new Instagram version of Twitter, last night and I have to say, I like it so far. It was nice that your followers and who you follow from Instagram transferred over, and if any of those folks aren’t there, it will automatically follow them when they join and if they follow me, it will follow them automatically, too. That was kind of cool, and it was also kind of cool to go onto social media and not have bigotry and hatred shoved into my face every time I turn around. It also made me think about something else–Pride is more than just June, and why should I only write about my experiences as a gay male and as a gay male writer during that month? Firing off snarky tweets in response to bigotry is a nice little dopamine rush, but I also feel like I’m not doing enough to counter the rise of the Fascists; what better way for a writer to do that than write about it? There is an element of “preaching to the choir” to blogging about homophobia and bigotry, but if it changes one mind…then it was all worth it, was it not? I know there are people who think of me as one of the “good ones”–if you don’t know what that means, congratulations on your privilege–because I am, in person, usually very conciliatory and understanding (conflict-averse, and a trained counselor, remember) and because I generally don’t go on my old Julia Sugarbaker rants much anymore, if at all. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have them in my head anymore; barely a day passes without me seeing something, either on social media or in the news or both, that raises my blood pressure and makes me want to strangle someone. So, I am going to try to channel that anger and rage into something productive; blog posts. I don’t worry about offending potential readers of my books because all anyone ever has to do is look at my social media or even this blog to get a sense of my politics. I probably should have developed a public persona who is just charming and funny and apolitical, but that really just opens you up to more homophobia when you’re a gay man.

I can never decide if its worse for someone to be homophobic to me because it is so ingrained in them that they don’t ever realize it, or if it’s deliberate. I guess it depends on how you call out the homophobia and how they react to it. I do, however, generally always default to “doesn’t know any better” and correct them; I also don’t ever say someone is a homophobe unless I am 100% certain it was deliberate. I just say, “that’s a homophobic thing to say” or “that’s a homophobic comment” rather than saying “you’re a homophobe”–but if you continue to not do better, well, then you’re a homophobe. The thing that I never understand is how people react to things they don’t understand automatically with dislike bordering on hatred; it’s actually okay to not understand. I don’t completely understand every experience in the world, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be sympathetic, empathetic, and respectful. One of the wonderful side effects of my day job is that training and experience as a counselor, and recognizing that experiences should be met with respect and sympathy and empathy instead of judgment. Who am I to judge anyone? The only people I don’t respect and I will judge are racists, sexists, homophobes or transphobes; anyone who uses lies, deceptions, and stereotypes to categorize any one group as lesser and less worthy. I will judge you for judging others–and I will judge very harshly.

This weekend will be about tying up loose odds and ends, working on my page proofs, and trying to straighten up around here. I want to prune the books some more, and maybe even take another box down from the attic to go through. I also want to look through that box of clippings and other Greg memorabilia from my past career to see what can be kept, what can be scanned, and what can be tossed. I really want to get that attic cleaned out this year.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you later.

Live to Tell

Work at home Friday, and all kinds of stuff to do and I simply have to stay focused today and all weekend in order to get everything finished that I need to get finished this weekend. It’s been a strange week, overall; the way the week after I turn in the final version of a book always is. I’ve also not had much down time for quite some time without something weighing on me; I’ve written two books since around 12/15 and of course, losing Mom. (I always worry about mentioning that every time I do; but I’m not really sure how and what I am supposed to feel or behave in this situation, so am working my way through it, okay?) I also worked on a short story during that time–two, actually; one I abandoned and another I revised and overhauled–and of course, I write this every morning. Some days I even do two entries. There are any number of saved drafts, too; ones about things I find outrageous, disgusting and deplorable, but want to be able to write more concisely and insightfully on those topics, primarily because I’m usually a bit foggy every morning when I start writing these; and while the drafts get written when I think about the subject (it can be any time of day), I generally don’t have the time to finish those drafts the way I want. Sometimes I go back to them and think, you are a whiny little bitch, aren’t you? And being whiny doesn’t move hearts and minds, does it? If anything, it hardens them more.

But it’s been a hot minute since I went what some of my friends call “full-on Julia Sugarbaker.” Don’t think that there haven’t been times I’ve wanted to, but I simply didn’t have the time to make certain that everyone I was saying was correct and sourced properly and so figured it was better to do nothing than do something wrong. Almost every day something happens or I see something that makes me apoplectic with rage–whether its the unabashed and unashamed racism, misogyny, transphobia or homophobia I see with far greater regularity than I should, quite frankly; there’s no excuse in 2023 for not knowing better than that; you choose to be a bigoted piece of shit asshole–but I try to calm myself and walk away from the computer or sign out of the infected social medium I am using and go do something else. There were other reasons, too; my day job is dependent on federal funding, after all, and I was also heavily involved in a national non-profit for a very long time. And while I feel no shame nor disgrace nor embarrassment about my beliefs and values, there was always the possibility that there could be fallout for the day job or my volunteer work. So I dialed myself back a bit–not completely, that could never happen in a million years; who I am is so deeply engrained in me that I can’t ever totally stop myself from making pointed observations about bigotry, hypocrisy, stupidity, ignorance, and false prophets. I also try to combat my innate natural selfishness every day, without as much success as I would like.

What happened in Tennessee yesterday was a disgrace and reeked of the end of Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow. Oh, look, another Southern legislature violated their oaths of office and their vow to defend and uphold the Constitution by expelling two Black men who disagreed with them. (The white woman, of course, got to stay,) It’s disgusting, and highly indicative of a political party with no ideas, no ethics, and no morals. All they have is an addictive thirst for power and a Fascistic mentality, a disgust for the Constitution and every principle this country was founded upon, and a need to tear down anyone who isn’t a cisgender white male in order to maintain white supremacy. The great irony is they consider themselves to be a “christian” party, when everything they do is not in the least Christ-like. I guess I missed the part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus beseeched everyone to give their money to the rich and powerful? To not help the poor and sick because their situation is their own fault?

Yeah, I missed that part, just like I missed the part where we should all give money to Joel Osteen the apostate, because he shouldn’t have to fly commercial. Let people starve and live under highway underpasses! Joel needs a plane! And if you send him money and pray hard enough, God will shower you with riches!

Um, isn’t the whole point of Christianity is that your reward comes in the afterlife?

But empathy and compassion have no apparent place in organized right-wing Christianity; they made a religion in their own image and it’s so hateful, disgusting, and abhorrent no one outside of Margaret Atwood could imagined its end game back in the 1980’s (and sadly, she was right). People today still don’t see the hypocrisy, the greed, and the amorality that many sects of Christianity have come to follow. How is Joel Osteen or any of his co-horts any different than the Renaissance popes? At least they patronized artists. (Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly is perhaps one of the best books about how the stupidity, venality, and short-sightedness of incredibly fail men leads to disaster, the section called “The Renaissance Popes Trigger The Protestant Reformation” is particularly apt.) Just as the billionaires of our time (Bezos, Musk, the Koch family, Zuckerberg, Gates) are nothing more than the modern versions of the Robber Barons of the so-called Gilded Age. It’s always the same thing, cycling over and over again with us as a society and culture refusing to learn the lessons the past is crying out for us to learn.

The truth, which my community has been screaming at the Democratic party, progressives, and liberals for decades, is that the far-Right is just as Fascist as Hitler and Mussolini and their end game much the same: do we really think they’ll stop at banning books and “don’t say gay” bills and erasing transpeople? Of course not. It never ends. They want to purge this country of anyone who doesn’t see the United States as a paradise for straight white men. Are there parallels between our modern times and oh, say the 1920’s and early 1930’s in Germany? There absolutely are; I started noticing this in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s; can we not forget that as recently as thirty years ago the Republican party was more than happy to let everyone infected with HIV just die? (Their reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t much different, really.) They thought it was a good thing–and laughed about it–that gay men were dying.

They haven’t changed in thirty years. If anything, they’ve gotten worse.

They impeached Bill Clinton for lying about a blow job; but will defend the high crimes of the Trump family to the death. They claimed Bill Clinton didn’t have the “moral character” to be president, but voted for a lying con-artist who is not only a narcissist but a sociopath, who went through wives and mistresses and rape victims like Tom Brady carving up a defense in the Super Bowl. It always amazes me that the so-called party of family values is also the party of child rape, divorce, and adultery. The same people screaming about “groomers” to scapegoat drag queens and transwomen are actually the party filled with child rapists and kiddie porn enthusiasts. (Dennis Hastert, anyone?)

So, yeah, I’m probably going to start talking about these things a bit more. I am now sixty-one and I am sick and tired of right-wing garbage and trash and the Christian dystopia they seem to want us all to live in; where they decide what is sin and what isn’t (they of course can do as they please), who we can love and how to live our lives, all the while screaming about their fucking freedoms. It’s always funny to me that the progressive idea of freedom is live and let live, while the right’s is you have to do what we say and we’ll decide what’s right and wrong for you.

Kind of like a Renaissance pope.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Good Friday (I didn’t forget) and a nice Easter if that’s your jam; otherwise have a great day, okay?

Amos Moses

Sunday morning and I slept in again, which was marvelous. I fell asleep in my chair last night while watching television, which makes me think that no matter what time I arise, ten is now my bedtime, and I am not really sure how I feel about that, to be completely honest. I welcome the good sleep, though, and the rested and refreshed feeling I’ve been experiencing in the mornings. Yesterday was a good day; I didn’t get nearly as much done as I wanted, but c’est la vie; such is life, and I did get things done. I worked on the kitchen, did some cleaning, working on my CV a bit more (more on that later), and laundered the bed linens (clean bed sheets and blankets always make sleep feel better for some reason I choose not to question). I did a load of dishes, cleaned some things out of the refrigerator that needed cleaning out, and organized some.

We rented Spider-Man: No Way Home yesterday and yes, I do think it was the best live action Spider-Man film (barring Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse, which was animated). The young cast (Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalan) are absolutely pitch-perfect; the concept of the story was actually good; and it was a sweeping epic that caught us up in the narrative. I hate to think this might be Tom Holland’s last go round as Spidey, frankly; I adore the kid, and have ever since his Lip-Sync Battle performance doing Rihanna’s “Umbrella” (that was what got me into the theater to see Spider-Man Homecoming, which I didn’t care much about seeing before that clip won me over, and these three Tom Holland outings as my friendly neighborhood Spider-Man are my favorite Spidey live-action movies), and I hope this isn’t the end of this cast in these roles. I don’t know how the franchise can go on now, given the events of the movie, but in some ways it’s very true to the original comic books–Peter being alone and friendless. Tom Holland is also one of our best young actors; I’ve loved him in everything I’ve seen him in, even if the film itself was flawed. I’m sure he’s destined for a long and successful career, and he certainly has the money and success to focus only on projects that interest him as an actor; kind of like Daniel Radcliffe and the other kids from Harry Potter.

It would be a lovely place to be in as an actor, I would think.

After that, we switched over to Netflix to watch Heartstopper, a young adult gay romance series from Britain (with Olivia Colman in a very small party) and coming on the heels of season 5 of Elité, it was marvelous to see a love story between gay teens actually played by teens who weren’t perfect looking and beautiful. We deeply enjoyed this show, which was just incredibly sweet and adorable; how can you not fall in love with main character Charlie? How can you not empathize with him being mocked and bullied, yet despite this remaining first and foremost an incredibly kind and caring young man who loves his friends and wants to protect the people he loves from suffering the way he has suffered? It was apparently a graphic novel first, which was a bit of a surprise (I may have to go looking for it now; I definitely would read the novel if there was one) but a very pleasant one. It didn’t have any of the falseness or inauthenticity of other queer young adult fictions I’ve read and/or seen before; there was also lesbian representation as well as a very well rounded and developed trans character. It was so remarkably well done…I cried a couple of times. Rugby star Nick’s struggle to understand what he was feeling, and how to express himself in ways he’d never learned or thought about was also remarkably touching to see. I defy anyone to watch Heartstopper and these wonderful teens and not want to do everything in their power to protect them from hate and bullies–of which there is far too fucking much in the world, and has roared back lately thanks to the right wing hate machine. (It’s also been horrific watching people who consider themselves “allies” betraying us at every opportunity and turn…I’d forgotten how that felt, and frankly, I’ve cut people out of my life for far less than this…more on that later; I have been trying to compose a Julia Sugarbaker entry for several weeks now about the vicious political attacks on my community lately, but it’s not easy to do so without swearing vociferously and shredding people–mind you, they deserve it with both fucking barrels, but reason and logic is the best way to battle bigotry and hatred and garbage human beings.

I reserve the right to experience righteous anger and express it, though, because sometimes it is absolutely fucking necessary.

It’s weird that we’ve spent the weekend with superhero films, watching The Batman on Friday night and Spider-Man last night; we also started watching Severance last night, which I was also enjoying–my falling asleep during the second episode was more a result of my being tired more than anything else; I am going to rewatch it this morning while Paul sleeps–and there are several other shows I want us to get watching. We leave for New York on Tuesday, though–tonight and tomorrow night will be more about me packing and getting ready to head for the airport on Tuesday more than anything else; our flight is around noonish, I think–I need to double check, especially since I have to check us both in tomorrow–so we have time to drop Scooter off at the kitty spa before we have to head for the airport. (One of the things I need to do today is make sure I have everything I need, paperwork wise, for the trip–the car service from LaGuardia, the discount parking coupon for USPark, the confirmation number for the flights and the hotel)

Today I need to work on my story some more, do some more things, and get everything together that I need to get together before we leave town.

I’ve been updating my CV lately (something I’ve not done since 2009, and it wasn’t even really complete then) because I am doing a favor for a colleague (whom I also consider to be, at the very least, a friendly acquaintance) which requires me having an updated CV. As I was adding short stories, essays, articles, books and anthologies to the list, I began to realize why precisely people refer to me as prolific (which I always just smile and shrug off). The damned thing is already seven pages long, and I’ve not included everything–old books reviews, author interviews, columns, etc.–and there are some things I wrote for websites that I am no longer able to locate or remember (if it’s not in print, the chances I won’t remember it expand exponentially) and really, it doesn’t need to be that exact for this purpose; but it does make me think I really do need to, at some point, make sure every single thing I’ve ever written is included in my CV. I mean, it already looks impressive; I can only imagine how long it will be once it is as complete as I can make it. I mean, I wrote a fitness column every two weeks for IMPACT News and later for Window Media, for at least four years. That’s well over a hundred columns right there…not to mention all the book reviews I used to do. I think I have produced millions of words over the course of when I first started writing professionally all the way back in 1996 in Minneapolis, which was really when my writing career began; so I’ve been at this now for over twenty-six years, which is kind of amazing, really.

And perhaps it’s best for me to head into the spice mines now, so I can get a jump on the day. Have a happy Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will chat with you again tomorrow.

Talk to Me

I slept well last night, yet am still tired this morning; it’s the summer malaise, no doubt. It’s weird for me to drive around the city and still see hordes of tourists gamboling around; at this time of year New Orleans used to become a ghost town, locals fleeing the heat and humidity to beach houses (if they had them) and those who could not leave staying inside in the air conditioning as much as possible. It still concerns me, more than a little bit, that just going out into the heat on two separate occasions this weekend and then going to a dinner party on Monday had done such a thorough job of draining and depleting my energy, not to mention made it so difficult for the batteries to recharge. But I only have two days in the office next week before my 4th  of July based vacation; here’s hoping that somehow I’ll be able to get rested and manage to get things done in the meantime.

I spent nine hours yesterday testing in the CareVan; it was National HIV Testing Day and as usual, the day job partnered with Walgreens stores all over New Orleans for us to reach out and test people who might not otherwise get tested. I wasn’t, frankly, too thrilled about doing anything Walgreens-related, after the scandalous behavior of the Walgreens pharmacist in Arizona this past week, but as always in this life, one has to compromise one’s principles, and choose the battles one wants to fight. Identifying new HIV positives is my job and my calling; to help them get treatment and medical care so they don’t infect other people as well as so they remain healthy. I’ve seen too much death from HIV in my lifetime to choose moral principles over assisting those who may be in need.

It’s been, frankly, an incredibly tiresome week. First the Walgreens pharmacy nonsense, where a pharmacist was somehow allowed, by the company and the law, to put a person’s life at risk because of his “sincerely held religious beliefs”, to the Kennedy announcement and the other horrific Supreme Court decisions of this past week. I think the combination of spending so much time out in the heat did the physical damage while the other things did the emotional and intellectual draining. I slept well but still feel drained and tired, tired of having to fight, tired of having to stand up and be counted. It sometimes feels like I’ve been fighting–for my right to exist, to be who I am, to be heard–for most of my life.

It’s exhausting.

This blog began during the Bush administration after a truly terrible year that I didn’t know was simply the beginning of a run of a terrible few years; it was a way to get me to start writing again over on Livejournal and was never meant to be anything other than me being able to have a place to record my feelings, my thoughts, my observations. It was therapeutic, and it also helped to vent out a lot of anger about the injustice in the world that I saw every day; whether those injustices directly affected me or whether they did not. As I’ve gotten older I’ve stayed away from politics and policy; either from mellowing with time or just not wanting to waste the energy on arguing about things with, frankly, human garbage. I stay off Twitter most of the time because I already have to take medicine for high blood pressure; the horrible things I see on there often make my blood boil.

But while I continue to refuse to engage with the sewage, that neither makes it go away nor does it put a stop to it, and what I see going on in this country, as filtered through my marginalized gay eyes, is terrifying.

So, going forward, I will still talk about writing and books I love; about New Orleans and writers I admire. I will continue, I will go on. But I am also going to have what used to be called “Julia Sugarbaker moments”–and if that is going to offend your delicate little sensibilities, stop reading my blog and feel free to abandon me on social media.

My next story in Promises in Every Star and Other Stories was called “Son of a Preacher Man”:

The air was sticky, damp and hot as I carefully slid the screen out of my window. The only sounds in the night was the electrical humming from the street light out in front of my house and the every-present chirping of crickets. Before I climbed through the window, I stuck my head out to see if the light in my parents’ window was still out. They’d gone to bed about an hour before, but better safe than sorry. I’d been sneaking out all summer and they hadn’t caught me once. 

I jumped down into the damp grass and ran as quietly as I could down to the line of trees at the back of our property. I ducked into the trees and walked along the dry creek bed to the little dilapidated wood bridge behind the Burleson house, and sat down with my legs dangling over the side. It wasn’t midnight yet, and Andy was always late. My parents were strict, but his made mine look like—well, I didn’t know what, but something. His daddy was the preacher, and he thought his kids had to set an example for the rest of the Youth for Christ. Andy always had to help serve the Lord’s Supper at least once a week, and instead of playing summer baseball like the rest of us, he spent his summer days working on his grandpa’s farm out in the county. Preacher Burleson was a hard man whose eyes blazed with the power of the Lord who didn’t let his wife or daughters wear make-up or curl their hair.

Andy hated his daddy.

Nobody knew, except me. In front of everyone else, Andy was a good son, never contradicting his daddy, doing what he was told, minding. He studied and got good grades, knew his Bible inside and out, and had never been any trouble. But I was the only one who knew he cribbed cigarettes whenever he had the chance,  could swear like a sailor,  and hated every last adult in Corinth—probably in the whole state of Alabama, for that matter. All he ever talked about was running away, getting the hell out of Corinth, Alabama, the south. He never said where he wanted to go, but I was pretty sure anywhere else would do.

I sat there on the bridge, swatting at mosquitoes and listening to the sounds of the night. August in Alabama was like living in hell, I heard my mama say once, and she was right. The air was like a big hot wet towel pressing down on my moist skin. My armpits were already damp. I dangled my legs over the edge, swinging them like a little kid. My whole summer had revolved around sneaking out at night and meeting Andy. School was going to start in another month, football practice in two more weeks, and then these nights were going to end. I didn’t like to think about that. I wanted to believe that the summer would go on forever, and every night I’d be sneaking out to meet Andy again—

As you can tell, this was also written during that period of time when I was at war with the evangelical right. And what better way to tell them to fuck off than to write a gay erotica story about having sex with the preacher’s son? IN THE FUCKING CHURCH (literally)?

It’s another one of my Corinth stories, like “Smalltown Boy” and so many others I’ve written; even my main character in Dark Tide was from Corinth. But I love the voice of this character; the same voice I’ve used whenever I’ve written a first person short story about teens in that town, and I really think I should write an entire book using that voice.

And now back to the spice mines.

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