Tag: Juliette Lewis

Promises in the Dark

Monday and back to the office with me today. Friday is a holiday, which is lovely, and the next two weeks are short ones for me, too.

I think we’re going to be busy in the clinic this week and short-handed, but it’s a four day week with a lovely holiday on Friday. Yesterday was nice and relaxing. I wrote a bit, read a bit, and cleaned up a bit. I made my mash-up Swedish meatballs stroganoff, and this batch turned out well–even though I forgot to put shallots in the sauce or garnish with diced green onions. I also used the Maldon salt and beef bone broth, too, which also kicked in the flavor even more. They will make wonderful leftovers for work today, too. They always taste better the second day. Lucky me! I also slept well, and feel rested an ready for a new work week. Huzzah? My coffee is good, and on the way home from work tonight I have to get a few things at the grocery store. The car has a full tank so I don’t need to worry about gas until I leave next week. We are pretty well-stocked over all, and of course, I get paid again on Wednesday.

I published another newsletter, about The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which you can read by clicking right here. I have a few more entries to do this month, and I am thinking about writing one to close out the month that will help lead into more essays about masculinity and being a sexual suspect in these United States. According to the weather report, we are supposed to be inundated with rain this morning, and the rest of the day is going to be cloudy and overcast. I took out the trash last night, and gasped when I went outside, the air was so damned thick and damp and hot and heavy. We also binged the second season of Running Point, which is kind of Ted Lasso-like if the show primarily focused on Rebecca, and we really enjoyed it. We also watched this week’s episode of Cape Fear, which is very well-cast and very well done. I’m not really sure where this all is going–it’s not the plot I remember from the book or the movies, but my memory isn’t the best, but so far it seems like the only similarities is the wife is a lawyer who convicted Max Cady (instead of the husband) and they have a son as well as the daughter. Juliette Lewis popped in for this most recent episode, which was, honestly, a nice touch.

I’m not loving the show, though. It’s shot very well, the actors are stellar, but…it’s not gripping me the way a thriller should, but maybe it’s because it’s a slow-burn? I’ll keep watching, of course, for the cast and the production values but they need to get this train moving soon.

I also wrote some this weekend. I started two more projects–just to get them out of my mind–and made some progress on some short stories I am working on. It’s nice, so very nice, to be into creating and writing again. This is what I love–not the conventions or book signings or promotion or any of the marketing side of being a writer; but maybe that will change with the anxiety finally under control. I also think I’m doing good work; I’m trying to write in the present tense more than the past, which is my comfort zone and my default; I always have to go back and correct the tenses.

I feel good this morning, too. It’s going to be a good week, at least it already feels like a good one.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the day. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader!

Where Did Our Love Go?

It is cold again this morning–37 degrees to be exact–and while I was prepared for it yesterday, I was not this morning. I was under the impression that yesterday morning’s frigid clime was an aberration; a cold spell that was going to be experienced overnight and then it would be over, with the lows for the rest of this week hovering in the low fifties. That was incorrect, and it clearly changed at some point since I checked it yesterday morning. It is bitterly cold this morning; and not only am I cold, I am bitter.

I got another chapter of the book finished yesterday–huzzah!–and now have three to go plus the revisions, which are going to be difficult but not impossible; definitely wearying. I ran some errands on the way home last night, and then we watched the first two episodes of Yellowjackets on Showtime, and are completely all-in on the show. It’s incredibly well done, and you can never go wrong with Juliette Lewis and Christina Ricci–ever.

Today of course I have a lot to do as always; I need to get another chapter written tonight, some more emails cleaned out of the inbox, and work on that article–which I should have finished yesterday. It’s hard because I am trying to make sure I get the intro to the list of books (Kansas crime) absolutely correct; I am trying to talk about the strange dichotomy of how we always are taught this myth that rural, small town life is the American ideal, the ‘true America’–yet that myth completely ignores the level and degree of true crime and nastiness that is there once you pull back the patriotic “real America” sheen we paint that lifestyle with…yet I also have to be careful not to offend anyone, which isn’t easy to do. Yet that dichotomy remains, and is as true today as it ever has been: urban areas don’t have a monopoly on crime, sin, or scandal. (Ever notice how the majority of soap operas back in the day were actually set in small towns?) I hope I can be as motivated today as I was yesterday, when I managed to get a lot finished during the course of the evening while I waited for Paul to get home from the gym so we could start watching Yellowjackets. The kitchen is still a mess, alas, and there are dishes still in the dishwasher to put away, but I have to admit that the cold doesn’t exactly motivate me to do much besides sit under a blanket and read/edit/write, you know? But I at least managed to get the throw rugs put back in place and ran the vacuum cleaner over them–no small feat, especially when it’s cold.

This morning, obviously, I didn’t want to leave the warm comfort of the bed and the covers to venture out into the cold of the Lost Apartment, but I did. The coffee hit the spot this morning, and I remembered there was a load of laundry in the washer (a small one) that I put into the dryer this morning. I am still a bit cold, but the coffee is warming me from the inside and that’s always a good thing, really. On my lunch break today I get to drive out to UNO to record Susan Larson’s “The Reading Life” radio show, which is kind of exciting, and I’ve also been asked for another phone interview for this Friday, which I can do while I make condom packs since it’s on the phone, obviously. I’d like to make a Costco run at some point this weekend, but we’ll have to see. I’m supposed to go to New York next week, but the jury’s still out on whether travel should be something I consider. If it weren’t for my day job, I’d say I’ll take the risk but…the day job. It’s really not a good idea to take those kinds of risks when it’s entirely possible I could become an asymptomatic carrier, and that’s really not a good look for a public health worker in a public health clinic. Decisions, decisions…

But I am hoping that this weekend will be a nice one, with lovely warm sunshine and a slight chill in the air. I have yet to return to the gym–my shoulder is starting to feel normal again, so I think maybe this weekend a walk over to the gym might be in order both days, really–and it’s time to get used to no football on the weekends again, which will be nice and will allow me to get more things done on Saturdays than I have been used to getting done lately, or since the hurricane. I always try to remember what Saturdays are like when it isn’t football season and it’s always hard for me to remember what those Saturdays are like the rest of the year. Do I spend them cleaning, or do I waste them, do I write or edit or do any number of things? I honestly can never recall from one year to the next. I suppose I will watch part of the LSU game tonight until it’s time for me to go to bed (the game has a ridiculously late start time, and there’s no way it will be over before it’s time for me to go to bed, and I am not going to stay up to watch so I can be exhausted and sleepy all day tomorrow, no thanks). Plus the team is depleted with opt-outs, transfers, and who knows what all. I don’t even think they have a scholarship quarterback on the roster, so there won’t be much of a passing game, that’s for sure. (May not even be able to watch an entire quarter, now that I think about it.)

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader!