Tag: Kansas

Fight It Out

Friday morning and the office is closed for the holiday today, so no work-at-home chores for me today. Sparky let me sleep a little later this morning and I definitely didn’t want to get up this morning, either. I feel a bit worn down today, and a bit foggy, but I’ll be fine once I shower. I was able to leave work early yesterday and run a few errands on the way home (my medication arrived in the mail; had to get another prescription; and pick up my dry cleaning) but I did feel a bit wrung out when I got home. I did some chores (laundry, dishes) and we started watching Margo’s Got Money Problems but didn’t really care much for it, and thus gave up on it. I want to read a bit this morning and do some cleaning around here, and hopefully get some writing done as well. I want to work on newsletters today, too–I have my entry about A Violent Masterpiece to share, and I also want to write about the weirdness of this holiday weekend. They haven’t issued a heat advisory for us yet, but it’s still possible. It currently “feels like” 104 and it’s not even nine yet. There’s a possibility of thunderstorms this afternoon, too. I may have some things delivered today, to get it out of the way so I don’t have to go outside other than to take out trash. That sounds like a lovely plan to me.

It’s hard for me to believe and wrap my mind around the idea that the Bicentennial was fifty years ago; the summer I turned fifteen and was about to start my junior year of high school, starting over again in Kansas, where I stuck out like a sore thumb the moment I crossed the threshold. This is the summer I turn sixty-five, and the country is in a very different mood this time around. Apparently, Ba’al is planning to give an epically long speech tomorrow at the Great American State Embarrassment, and is threatening to go as long as he possibly can to prove that he did. No incumbent president has ever died on July 4th, but at the very least his make-up is going to run–and no telling what will happen to his rat’s nest. However, President Zachary Taylor went to a lengthy celebration of the 4th on a very hot humid day, ate some cold milk and cucumbers to cool down, and got sick and died a few days later.

Dare I dream?

Essence is also this weekend here in New Orleans, and I hope that it’s back to its best form; there were a lot of complaints and some scandals in recent years. Louisiana racists hate Essence Festival (just as they hate Bayou Classic weekend, another Black event), and were pretty gleeful about its possible demise the last couple of years (there are also Quarter businesses that close both weekends, but they’re not racist, wink wink),so here’s hoping its back to form this year and rebuilds back bigger and better than ever before.

The battle between New Orleans and Louisiana rages on, with a grand jury here indicting our criminalistic conservative skank Attorney General for, among other things, abuse of power. Our lovely governor has promised to “pardon her instantly” for any convictions she may get in New Orleans…(that MAGA love and respect for the law and the Constitution on full display here, may they both burn in their own hells for all eternity)…yet conservatives called Huey Long a dictator…when Huey never pulled any of this kind of shit on his own, and he and his candidates always won in landslides. At least the day to day people loved Huey because he fought the 1% to benefit the people–which our modern day demagoguery can’t be bothered with.

I’ve been listening to some old favorites lately in the car as I drive to and from work and around town–albums by Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks, and Pat Benatar from my youth and most of them still hold up today and could be hits. Some of Stevie’s 1980s albums are very much of their time, vastly over-produced like the most excessive Bonnie Tyler hits of the period, unfortunately; I’d love to hear them remade with a more timeless production style.

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines for the day. I need to do some chores, and I need to get the kitchen and my workspace back under control. I hope you have a lovely Holiday Eve, Constant Reader, and I hope to see you again here tomorrow morning on the nation’s birthday. Until then, Constant Reader!

Little Too Late

Home again, home again. It’s hot as Satan’s taint here in New Orleans–Alabama was cool and lovely in comparison and it was hot as fuck up there–I was drenched in sweat getting the car unloaded; something was going on in the ‘hood yesterday because I had to park at Coliseum Square and walk back, which exhausted me and so I just collapsed into my chair and sat there for a bit before showering and relaxing for the evening. We got caught up on Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, which is absolutely delightful (Tatiana Maslany never disappoints; how she didn’t win an Emmy for every season of Orphan Black is yet another example of how wrong they often are) and then a few episodes of Citadel. I slept in this morning a bit, which was also nice, but I feel a bit worn out this morning. I slept very well last night, too. I did sleep well in Alabama, and I am glad I got to spend time with Dad; even if it was so brief. I didn’t do much of anything up there other than hang out with Dad and sleep, but it was nice.

I was very lucky with my parents for the most part.

The drives up and back were lovely and uneventful. I listened to Margot Douaihy’s marvelous Blessed Water in the car, and got to chapter eight listening to Lev AC Rosen’s Rough Pages, which is also excellent–for the record, queer crime writers are consistently knocking it out of the park, people, what are you doing? READ them. On the way up I stopped in Ellisville to get gas an they had a Jack’s (their hamburgers are good good good so you’ll go back back back for more more more) so I ate there. New development on the drive up–my legs stiffened on both drives, making walking when I got out more difficult than it needed to be, but that can also be chalked up to Greg is now so fucking out of shape it’s like he never worked out in his life ever. I stopped at the Love’s at Mile 24 in Mississippi and brought Arbys home for dinner. Paul very kindly washed the bed linens yesterday so I came home to fresh and clean bedding, which was so marvelous. I slept for almost eleven hours last night, and I cannot remember the last time I did that. I feel a bit rung out this morning, but that’s the sleep hangover and some muscle tightness in my legs. Gee, Greg, why don’t you just stretch?

I am oft times oblivious and clueless.

I’m not sure if I am going to do any writing today; like I said, I feel a bit worn today, so I don’t know how that is going to play out. I do need to do some work on the kitchen and living room, too, and some laundry. A rest day to do absolutely nothing would have been lovely, but if I get it all done quickly–and focus–I can get it all under control in a couple of hours…but I really want to get back to reading Rough Pages. I’d like to do my essay on Blessed Water today, but that’s going to depend on my energy levels and how much I can get done around the house, too. I am going to at least finish the chapter I started in the car yesterday and possibly another.

One of the nice things about these trips is they enable me to disconnect from the world’s insanity and get some perspective on things. (The “State Fair” is another humiliation for him and the country; the Lyon County Fair back in Kansas had higher attendance (and better rides and activities)…a county fair. State fairs are a bigger deal than this “national” one. I can’t seem to remember Gerald Ford making the Bicentennial about him, or him coming up with an “alternative” Bicentennial he could make money from…but Republicans in the 1970s put country before party nor were they a insurrectionist movement looking to install fascism back then….these Republicans would have let Nixon serve out his second term. All of where we are now is a result of Reagan, whose money and power above all else mentality began the tribalism, and brought us Newt Gingrich and the divine right of Republicans to rule.

Sigh. And catching up on the news after three glorious days makes it all the more surreal, you know?

And on that note, I am heading for the spice mines. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back in the morning. Stay cool!

Bayou sunsets are so gorgeous! I highly recommend they use this color next as the Reflecting Pool cycles through the Pride flag.

Country Sunshine

You say you love me, and it’s inviting…to go where life is more exciting…but I was raised on country sunshine!

I wasn’t, of course, but those summer vacations to Alabama definitely shaped a lot of who I am, I think. I tend to think about it far more than I think about Chicago or our suburb or Kansas or California, or anywhere else I’ve lived besides New Orleans. It is where we are from, I suppose, and having grown up listening to stories–family stories, mostly–I am not sure what is actually true and what I invented in my imagination. Sometimes I think, if I outlive Dad and Paul, that I might move back there to live out my days; but who knows? I have five years to worry about where I may be in five years. But my plan is, for now, to retire when I hit seventy. I am not going to count down the days (weeks, months, years) until then, because that seems to make the time pass even faster than it actually does–which at this point is pretty fucking fast, no lie. But I slept deeply and well last night, which is good. I was still a bit drained yesterday, which I didn’t realize until I posted and got up from my chair to start doing things…which ended up not going well. As soon as I sat down in my easy chair yesterday morning, Sparky curled up in my lap and went to sleep, purring. I thought, oh I’ll just watch another episode of Season 2 and then I could do some things. Sparky didn’t budge and I got sucked into the show, finally getting up to go to bed at almost ten! There really is no worse influence than a purring sleeping cat, is there?

Oh, well. Like I said, I felt drained all day yesterday, physically and mentally, so letting everything just rest with another day of not doing much worked, because I feel pretty good this morning. I feel like this week I’ll get back on track–a normal four days in the office and a work-at-home Friday again–and start getting used to getting up and going to work every day and doing things when I get home at night. I don’t feel like I’ll be terribly tired (one never knows) so I have to push through in the evenings after I am home and feed/acknowledge/pet Sparky.

So, no, despite big plans, I didn’t get much done this weekend. I didn’t even run errands! I just stayed at home quietly and pretty much rested, other than doing laundry all day Saturday. The apartment is still a disaster area, which I need to do something about this weekend; Paul’s knee replacement is a week from Friday, so I need to clear out some stuff and get the place as organized and easy to navigate as possible. I do worry a bit about the kitchen rugs and how Sparky likes to pull them up, creating rug speed bumps, which won’t be fun with a walker.

Our evil, corrupt bitch of an attorney general is planning some “big announcement” for New Orleans today; there’s a reason she is being recalled (fingers crossed!). My personal favorite of the rejected amendments was the rejection of the creation of a new school district for St. George, the wealthy sundown town suburb of Baton Rouge that seceded from Baton Rouge–and also wanted to pull its tax money out of East Baton Rouge–you know, so they wouldn’t have to pay to educate Black children (fuck the St. George racists from now till the end of time). That amendment was soundly trounced by the voters. Sucks to be a St. George racist. Thoughts and prayers, upper middle class pigs living in tacky McMansions.

God, I am sick to death of our current national politics. I was thinking this morning, as I shaved, how this nightmare is really never going to end. Even with MAGA dying, it’s like the hydra; it’ll just grow another head, like how Sarah Palin and her racist Tea Party shenanigans (don’t forget that bitch Ginny Thomas was a big part of it, either–future historians of this time will not be kind to either of them) morphed into this bullshit to begin with; an astro-turf movement fueled and encouraged by the propagandists at Fox and Newsmax. (You know, the vast right-wing conspiracy Hillary warned about in the early 1990s only to be mocked and derided….she was right then, too, just like she’s always been right.) The Trumpers who are turning on him now aren’t becoming progressive; they’ll line up behind the next grifter who tells them what they want to hear; there’s a direct line from Palin’s grift to Trump’s.

But we never want to talk about how the 2016 election was a replay of the 2000–the results of which got us Roberts and Alito. May Susan Sarandon burn in hell for all eternity, thanks again, “liberal” media.

It’s really no wonder I don’t want to write, because I don’t want the poison of these times to leak into my writing, which is one of my joys in life. But…I am going to give it a try again this week. I think being out of my rhythm the last two weeks has also had a lot to do with it.

Sigh.

And on that somber note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and it’ll be tomorrow morning before you know it!

Another World

Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day…

And so today it is back to the office with me, lickety split. I slept well and had a nice, relaxing weekend, which was great. Yay! We shall see how my week goes, though, won’t we? I feel like I’ve not been in the office in months, while it was really only a week and I went in for a half-day on Friday, which wasn’t so bad. I also now kind of/sort of have a plan for the next five years–subject to change at any moment, natch–which is a good thing. I haven’t made a plan since Katrina blew my last one to smithereens, for obvious reasons, but if your plan is flexible and adaptable to change, there’s no reason not to have one, you know? Five years isn’t such a long time, either.

Imagine my joy and delight when making groceries the other day to discover they had Creole tomatoes back in stock, so they must be coming back into season and to that I say, huzzah! I love them! They are the best tomatoes, and…you know, I’ve been wanting to make fried green tomatoes for a really long time now, and why not make them with green Creole tomatoes? How delicious would that be? I ate one yesterday with some mozzarella cheese balls and Italian salad dressing and it was heavenly.

I was also very pleased to finish and send out another newsletter on Saturday, writing about Alafair Burke’s marvelous The Note, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I also got the next week done and scheduled it to go out on noon, Wednesday, giving me five days to think about, write, and edit the next one. I kind of like this “getting ahead” of things; it makes more sense and relieves any pressure on me about blowing the weekly deadlines I’ve set for myself. Despite being easier on myself now, I still berate myself for missing deadlines.

Like I said, yesterday was chill. I had some groceries delivered via Instacart from Fresh Market (including my favorite jelly beans, which I need to stop eating), and I did some cleaning up and organizing around the house. I got caught up some more on the news (which was as horrible as I figured it would be; don’t even get me started on Janky Jeff’s KKKLan redistricting plan, bootlicker that he is), worked on a newsletter a bit, and we watched some more of our shows; we had another two episodes of Hacks before moving on to Widow’s Bay, which we are getting more into. It’s a bit of a slow burn, but the more we get into it the more curious we become.

While all this was going on I was paging through my copy of In Cold Blood, which remains one of my favorite books. Capote was so talented, I always think about how he wasted his abilities focusing on being a social climber and the gay pet to his swans, whenever I pick up the book and look through it again. I remember watching the film on television while we still lived in Chicago; I don’t remember much of it other than Robert Blake. I picked up a used copy at a second hand bookstore in the late 1970s while I was living in Kansas–it hit a little close to home, as you can imagine. I got another trade paperback copy after we moved to New Orleans, but I currently have a second edition signed hardcover that I bought off ebay for a ridiculously low price (maybe only the first editions have value, but a second edition–printed before the official release date–might be worth a bit. It doesn’t matter because I’ll never part with it). Capote’s description of the lonesomeness of the Kansas prairie and its sparsely populated counties that is probably the best I’ve read so far. It seems weird to consider a true crime novel about the brutal murders of a farm family a comfort read, but there you have it.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back in the morning.

This is one of my favorite buildings in the Quarter, on the corner of Royal and Orleans.

I’m In Touch With Your World

Sunday morning and I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning. Sparky, of course, had opinions, so I got up and fed him and had a cup of coffee and now am feeling a bit run down this morning. I think after I post this I am going to repair to the easy chair for the rest of the morning, and do some reading before settling into the saddle to write. I didn’t write yesterday–I ran all my errands in the morning and then spent the rest of the day cleaning and organizing everything we bought/had delivered on Friday. We finished watching The Hunting Wives (more on that later), and then caught up on the news before I got ready to meet some people for dinner (more on that later). After dinner I came home and fell asleep in said easy chair, and Paul had to wake me so I could go to bed.

And here we are.

I really enjoyed The Hunting Wives, which was Dynasty-like in its over-the-top characters and storylines. The first season ended on a cliffhanger, and a humdinger of one at that, with a body being buried in the woods. The show was full of twists and turns and surprises, but I was pretty sure who the killer was and, he typed modestly, I was proven right. I did doubt myself a few times, but every time someone else would all under suspicion, I couldn’t figure how that person–despite their motive and their actions–could have done it. Brittany Snow was amazing as lead character Sophie, and overall, the entire cast was excellent in their roles. I’m going to probably read the book at some point, now. Perhaps another new-to-me author I am going to enjoy? I don’t need more authors to read at this point, but…I kind of want to see how different the book is from the show.

So, last night I had dinner with two women I went to high school with in Kansas and their husbands. It was nice to reconnect with the distant past once again–I graduated from high school almost fifty years ago, and maybe the most interesting thing about said reconnection is hearing how people you went to high school saw you back then as well as what they remember. We’re always so certain that people see us the way we see ourselves, aren’t we? I was, for the most part, miserable for the most part when I was in high school, for any number of reasons, but I always thought, you know, like I was weird-looking and there was the gay thing and being dorky and all of that. It’s strange to hear contradictory opinions to what I was so roundly convinced was true, you know?

Not to mention seeing people who knew me when I had hair. I don’t encounter that very often.

So, it was very nice, actually. I’m still processing it all, to be honest, but…I’m glad I made the time to meet them all for dinner.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, and I’ll be back on the morrow.

Adrian Zmed

No More Words

Monday morning and I have an ophthalmologist appointment before I head into work. I slept super-great again last night, but didn’t really want to get up this morning. The appointment is pretty far out for me in Kenner (near Clearview), and I have no idea what time I will get to work. This is to check me for Stargardt disease, which my sister has and is genetic. I also have errands to run after work tonight–post office, make some groceries–before I come home to an apartment and all my chores. I was very tired yesterday–drained from the trip and all the driving over three days or so–and was able to only get some filing and organizing done, as well as ordered groceries for delivery and put them all away. The sink has dishes in it, there are dishes in the dishwasher that need to be put away, and the floors are always the worst. If I can stand it, I can do a bit every night before really focusing on it Friday, which is a holiday I don’t feel much like celebrating or acknowledging this year, given the dismantling of everything since January. I also have to get the bills figured out–I am terribly confused about these medical bills I am getting–and have a shit load of writing to do.

We started watching Olympo, a Spanish series about an athletic training school, and it’s quite fun. Not as fun as Elité, but we’re also only three episodes in. The big mystery of season one seems to be the use of performing enhancing drugs, with a swimmer collapsing and another swimmer determined to find out what’s going on. There’s also queer content; both gay and sapphic, which is very fun. Naturally, the cast is all gorgeous young Spaniards, which makes it very pleasant to watch. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I need to finish reading my current three reads (Summerhouse, Sing Me a Death Song, The Crying Child) before moving on to my next three. I also need to get back writing again; it seems like months since I’ve worked on anything, which is silly–I worked on writing last week, but the trip makes everything seem like it all happened an eternity ago, which is one of those weird time things I’m becoming more and more aware of the longer I live. I also need to clean out my email inbox, pay some bills, and pull my life back together–I’ve not been on top of things since I got sick after Saints and Sinners, really. Definitely need to. make a to-do list and a grocery list before heading out this morning, and maybe do some things around here before leaving for the appointment.

I did go down a research rabbit hole on Youtube again yesterday, though–more 1970s research, and I was also remembering the Bicentennial and how it really started overpowering the zeitgeist after President Nixon resigned and was pardoned. Next year is the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence; I am a little surprised that it’s not as big of a deal, or even a deal at all, so far. But we were a different country in 1976 than we are now, aren’t we? I was still in high school, we’d just moved to Kansas, and the Olympics were coming up, too–Montreal and Nadia Comaneci–so that was a busy summer for me, and one of major changes for one Gregalicious. (If you think it wasn’t a major change to go from a suburban Chicago high school to a rural one in Kansas, think again.) I also have Alabama stories bouncing through my head since I drove home on Saturday.

But now I have to get back to the spice mines and make that to-do list before cleaning up for the appointment and a short day in the office. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow as the month changes and the summer ratchets everything up even hotter than it was in June.

It’s going to be a looooong summer….

Masquerade

Sunday morning and all is quiet in the Lost Apartment. Sparky’s been fed and I am almost finished with my first cup of coffee, and it’s about time to put bread in the toaster. Sparky let me sleep later than usual this morning, which was nice, and now I am down here in the workspace waking up to face a new day and week. I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning, and then of course I am heading to Alabama Wednesday afternoon (this trip has strangely snuck up on me) to see Dad for a few days before returning back here on Saturday. Paul has his trainer this afternoon, so he won’t be home, so I should be able to get chores done while I am restlessly watching LSU play today for the College World Series championship.

The Tigers did win last night (hence a shot at winning the whole thing today) over Coastal Carolina 1-0; ending the Chanticleers’ 26 game winning streak. It was, as pitchers’ duels and close games always are, intense and nerve-wracking. The Tigers scored their lone run in the first inning, and made that lead hold through all nine innings behind pitcher Kade Anderson, who played the entire game and threw the last pitch of the game. I had seen Coastal Carolina’s team’s press conference, where they mocked and dragged LSU–which is an incredibly cocky and ignorant thing to do; that’s the sort of thing that motivates your opponents to whip your ass and last night, that’s what happened. I hope it’s all over this afternoon, frankly–but if there needs to be an intense and nerve-wracking third game Monday night, I’ll be watching, GEAUX TIGERS!

I did some work yesterday, and hopefully will get some more done today. The house is a mess–I ran errands and had groceries delivered–and so I need to put everything away and I also need to do some things, like make watermelon gazpacho, and clean out the refrigerator and pick up the rugs and so forth. I also need to do some filing to clear up the clutter around my workspace; and I don’t have to go anywhere today, which should make things a lot easier around here to get done. I also spent some time with my y/a reread, Sing Me a Death Song (Jay Bennett was truly a great and under-appreciated writer), and started The Crying Child by Barbara Michaels. I’m hoping to get further into Summerhouse today as well–but that kind of depends on how much writing I am able to get done this morning before the game (I should write before the game, because I can always read during the game) and how much cleaning I am able to do this morning to set the apartment to rights. I kind of was a bit on the lazy side yesterday, in all honesty, and let things slide a bit because I was busy relaxing.

And apparently we are now involved in yet another Middle Eastern conflict. Jesus fucking Christ, how do we as a nation never learn from our mistakes? Weren’t all the LIES we were told in 2003 about Iraq bad enough? Yes, I am old enough to remember that, and all the other bullshit the Right pushed through Congress (the PATRIOT Act needs to be repealed, and clearly Homeland Security needs to be abolished) as a result of 9/11, using fear and intimidation tactics to silence any opposition. Remember the Chicks? Whenever someone on the Right bemoans “cancel culture,” I do like to remind them they invented it–and the Chicks were fucking right; have we ever as a nation collectively apologized to them? But at least the mask is completely off; the last election was all about racism and misogyny. THANK GOD we didn’t elect the biracial woman, right? Miss me with your MAGA regrets–and I hope all your sons are lining up to enlist.

I love that we have money for a war but no money for Medicaid and Medicare. Choices.

Yesterday afternoon, I watched two documentaries while doing other things, and yes, I rewatched Surviving Ohio State, which deserves its own entry (and paying more attention made me realize how much worse everything was there than I thought, even after a scattered initial watch) and one called Southern Fried Lies, about criminality in a small Arkansas town (it kind of reminded me, at the end, of Mildred Pierce), which was also kind of nuts and crazy. I do recommend it–those small, rural town tales always make me smugly thing of all the odes to idyllic small town life, and how it’s so much better than urban life…sure, Jan, sure. (I always think what fucking small town are you talking about?) I have an idea for a murder story in a small town of less than a thousand people, and yes, that small town is in Kansas. (I have a lot of Kansas and Alabama stories to write; funny how I write so little about Houston and Fresno and Tampa.)

And on that note, I think I am going to head into the spice mines for the day. Have a lovely Sunday (we’re in yet another heat advisory), and I’ll be back tomorrow morning before I see my doctor.

Baryshnikov. Don’t really need to add anything, do I?

So It Goes…

Tuesday and back to the daily grind of up early and back to the office. It’s a short work week, after all, and the weekend will be here before I know it, right? I feel good and rested and centered, which was what I really needed from this long weekend, and that’s a good thing. We’re also supposed to have stormy weather all week, which is kind of fun; I’ve been wanting some rain and thunderstorms, so I can curl up under a blanket and read. I managed to get the kitchen cleaned and organized, and made some progress on the living room, which I’ll gladly take. There’s some laundry to finish and dishes to do and put away that I left for today (I was really sleepy last night and went to bed early), but that’s okay. I have to run some quick errands after work–mail, library, and of course I have to stop at the grocery store because the primary reason I made groceries yesterday? Was the one thing I forgot to get. Typical Gregalicious. I forgot my list, of course.

And moisturizing has been amazing. I’m no longer ashy, and I love how my skin feels. I may never stop! I am also getting stronger, slowly but surely, every day, which is also kind of nice, you know? The stairs are still a challenge, but getting to be less of one every time I go upstairs.

This weekend also gave me the time to think and reflect about my life.

I’ve been really lucky in my life, you know?

As I wrote my remembrances of my friends Felice and Victoria this weekend, I couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that I knew, and was close to, two of the most important queer voices of the last fifty years, and that I was able to learn from them. I know so many amazingly talented people, and can call some of them friends–the kind of life I dreamed of having all those years ago when I was miserable closeted teen in that hellhole known as small town Kansas–that I wish sometimes I could go back and tell that sad unhappy child that his dreams would, indeed, someday all come true for him.

I finished reading Christa Faust’s fantastic The Get Off yesterday morning (you can read my thoughts on it here) and started reading Laura Lippman’s Murder Takes a Vacation–what a lucky reader am I, right? Yesterday was a pretty good day, overall. I rested, did some cleaning, and of course did a lot of reading (I also read some more into Moonraker), which was really nice. I also tried a quick and easy chicken and dumplings recipe I found on-line (knowing it wasn’t going to be as good as Mom’s, and I really need to find her recipe) for dinner. It turned out pretty good, actually, and as always, I followed the recipe the first time to see how it was, and am thinking already of ways to improve it and make it my own. There was no milk or flour in it, for example–the dumplings were quartered biscuits from a roll can–so that could also make a difference, but who knew boiled and simmered biscuits could be so damned tasty? I was also kind of pleased with myself for trying something new, too–it’s been a hot minute–and now that I seem to be settling into a new, post illness phase of my life, I want to do more of that.

I wrote three newsletters this weekend, didn’t I? One per day. I am actually finding that I enjoy writing the newsletters, because I can take my time and think about them, putting a little more thought and effort into them than I do the blog, which I just dash off every morning over my coffee.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Happy Tuesday!

El Castillo at Chichén Itzá. I visited here in 1993 and was blown away by the Mayan ruins.

We Are Family

I got all my sisters with me!

“We Are Family” is one of those songs from the disco era–the ones that still get played on oldies nights in queer bars and continues to live on. Obviously, it’s an iconic gay anthem–about our found families rather than the blood ones that so often want nothing to do with us–and it’s also really popular with sororities…at least it was back then. It’s a very joyful and uplifting song, lyrically, so it’s also fun to belt out at the top of your lungs. Disco was a really fun time for a gay boy in sparsely populated Kansas…it’s where my love of dancing really took off. The dance floor was, for many years, the only place where I felt free.

Yesterday was a decent day. We were very fortunate to not have any of that bad weather that was forecast, at least not here in the Lost Apartment. I’ve not checked on the storm toll throughout the rest of the South yet, primarily because I’ve not even finished my first cup of coffee yet. But I did see yesterday some horrific weather was happening throughout the South as the result of that storm cell yesterday, so I hope everyone got through it okay and is doing well this morning. Weather events are both terrible and terrifying. It’s kind of ironic that my current book I am writing is set during a weather event. But I feel rested this morning and I got up early (Sparky wasn’t quite as kind about letting me sleep later), and am about to start my second cup. I did okay yesterday. I was still mentally fatigued yesterday so wasn’t able to get a lot of creative work done, but managed some. I also did some chores and picked up around here, and walked to Walgreens in the morning to get butter, which I’d forgotten at the store on Friday (and I need a stick of butter for today’s dinner). Aside–Walgreens actually had stock. The one-two punch of Hurricane Ida and the pandemic dealt it a blow I didn’t think it was going to ever recover from; there were empty shelves everywhere, empty refrigeration cases, and you could never be sure they’d the one thing you needed–which happened more than once over the years since then. But I was very pleasantly surprised to see they had finally restocked, and they had things….not just the butter I needed but some other things I also needed and didn’t think they would have. NARRATOR VOICE: They did have those things, which was most pleasing to mine eyes.

This is delightful news–not quite “oh they opened a new Rouse’s in the CBD that’s actually on my way home” delightful, but it’s nice to know that I don’t have to get in the car to go get things necessarily anymore. I love when my life becomes more convenient.

I spent some more time with Moonraker yesterday, and it’s…something. There’s an unemotional distance in Fleming’s voice (he also uses the distant third person omniscient narrator style of writing, which I was trained so long ago not to use–I always use first or close third person, and it always surprises me when I read a legendary author’s work to find they use it), and there’s no sentimentality to it, either. The casual misogyny of the time is an eyeful, as well as the way Bond (and by extension, the secret service and the culture/society as whole) doesn’t really view women as people, but rather as almost ignorant children who need the guiding of a man). It’s also a good reminder that the Bond novels weren’t as over-the-top and tongue-in-cheek as the films1. The original novels definitely have a completely different feel from the movies, that is for damned sure. Fleming died around the time the first film was being made, so he never saw what Hollywood did to his characters and stories. I suspect he wouldn’t have cared much for them; the books are very cold. But it’s interesting to revisit it, and the similarities/prescience of Hugo Drax to Elmo Dusk are definitely eerie and make the book more compelling to read than it would have been a year ago.

Three out of four of the Lefty Awards last night went to friends–James L’etoile won Best Novel; Rob Osler won Best Humorous; and John Copenhaver won Best Historical–and two were openly queer writers writing about openly queer characters! Woo-hoo! The times, they are a-changing! There were also a number of other friends also nominated, so shout out to one and all the nominees and winners! Huzzah!

We did finish watching Running Point, which was a lot of fun and we greatly enjoyed it. We then watched the first three episodes of Adolescence on Netflix, which is disturbingly real. It opens with a 13 year old boy being arrested for the murder of a classmate, and the child is very definitely disturbed. We’ll finish that today probably, but I also have a lot of writing to do. We’ll see how everything goes.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, all, and I’ll be back at some point.

  1. Ayn Rand, in writing about “heroes” in film and novels, wrote about the early Bond films in an essay about art. I remember how much she loved Dr. No–really one of the only Bonds to be done as a serious film–and how much she hated Goldfinger. ↩︎

What You Won’t Do For Love

Monday and back to the office with one Gregalicious. It’s very cold this morning, and I may need to go turn on the heat. It’s 39 (!!) currently in New Orleans, so layers are clearly in order for the day. Yikes. At least I didn’t wake up to snow this morning.

I was tired yesterday still from the trip, but managed to run errands and pick up my prescriptions before repairing to the easy chair and pretty much wasting yesterday. I slept well again last night, so am hopeful that I won’t be tired until later today. (Errands after work tonight, too.) I have to get back into the swing of my life again, you know? I’m behind on everything, need to get to work again, and have jury duty next week (sigh). Parades start this weekend but I think it’s going to be horribly cold. I might layer up and go to King Arthur (the unofficial gay parade) next Sunday afternoon, but I don’t want to risk getting sick either by spending a lot of time outside in the cold. Beads also hurt to catch when it’s cold. Not sure why that is, but there we are. I did turn the heat on this morning, so at least it will be nice and warm when I get home this evening.

I started writing my newsletter about Nick Cutter’s The Troop, which I greatly enjoyed, but there was too much brain fatigue for me to start my next read, which I hope to start reading this week. But I didn’t finish writing the newsletter, didn’t do a lot other than chores (and not many of those got done, either) and spent the day kind of zoning out and watching history documentaries on Youtube (mostly about the Hapsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire and the unification of Germany in the 1800’s), and also watched some 1970s nostalgia videos for research. Despite how awful everything seems today–what a horrible world and society we lived in during that decade. The rigid gender roles! The rampant sexism! The fear of being left by your husband for not being a good housekeeper or cook! The absolute lack of Black or Latinos on television! The horrible sitcoms! The cutesie euphemisms for fucking! (Making whoopie has always made my stomach turn.) The game shows! The Bicentennial! The great irony is all this research will most likely not wind up in the book, but knowing all this will help ground the voice in the time period. Researching the 1970s has been terrific fun, and has gone hand in hand with me spending time with Dad and talking about my childhood. It’s so weird to hear what your parents actually thought about you when you were a child. Dad told me this past weekend that I was one of the most beautiful babies he’d ever seen (no bias, of course; but my sister WAS a gorgeous baby; lots of pictures of her as a little girl, but by the time I came around Dad was starting college and they were poor as fuck), and such a sweet, handsome little boy that all the adults liked and petted and made much of; I don’t remember any of that, really, but it does make sense to me in the sense that moving out to the suburbs was such a shock, and the cruelty of the kids I encountered out there was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. It was unsettling, and left the ground shaky under my feet for the rest of my life…I think before then I just childishly assumed everyone was nice and everyone was kind and so unwarranted and unnecessary cruelty shook me to my core. I think my sister must have told him I was bullied; he asked about that once and I just kind of brushed it off; he of course thinks everything was his fault now and I was bullied because I was so much younger than everyone else and how he shouldn’t have let me skip a grade. I think I said something like “they were assholes”; when he asked me if I would ever go back to Kansas, I replied, “why? I didn’t care about any of those kids and none of them ever spoke to me again after we graduated so why would I waste my money and time going back there? If I want to see anything there I can use Google Earth.” There’s absolutely nothing to compel my return to Kansas other than nostalgia and curiosity and I don’t care for nostalgia…and I’m not that curious. I write fiction, so I can just make up places if I want to, right?

I am also looking forward to getting back to work on writing again. I do feel like it’s been a hot minute since I left–it seems like Thursday was another life time ago–and I need to get oriented and check my to-do list and update it. I am so behind on everything, and there’s some stuff that is extremely urgent–like all the stuff sitting in my email inbox. Heavy heaving sigh. But there’s aught to do but do it, you know? But now that I am sliding back into my life again–odd how basically forty-eight hours away can seem like a complete reset–I am feeling like I can conquer the world again, which is a lovely feeling.

And on that note, I am diving into the spice mines. Y’all have a great day, okay?

You have to love Olympic swimmers!