Wednesday and we made it to midweek. I am tired this morning–I tossed and turned all night yet again last night, and I’ve also been having heartburn1 lately, too, despite the medications I take for each–but this morning I don’t seem to have the heartburn problem, at least for now, and I’ll take it. I have things to do today, too, that definitely need to be done. I got one of them done already. I am tired physically this morning and my brain is a little spacy this morning, but that should clear with some more coffee and writing this.
It started sprinkling last night, and after the rain clears up today we’re having lower temperatures and high winds. It’s going to get close to freezing again down here, so it’s going to be another pipe issue weekend. Not for us, but definitely around southeastern Louisiana for sure. I don’t mind, as I don’t think I really need to leave the house all that much this weekend–it’s nice to be warm and toasty inside while it’s horrifically cold outside–but I definitely need to work this weekend. I did work on my short story yesterday and got about 1500 or so words down, so hopefully I can get that done this week as well as get back into writing the book again.
Parades supposedly start this weekend, but it’s supposed to be cold and rainy all weekend, so I am not sure if I’ll be going down to the corner at all this weekend, other than for King Arthur on Sunday, which is the unofficial queer parade. I always get lots of stuff at King Arthur.
I had wine and appetizers (truffle fries, yum) with a friend in from out of town last night, which was fun. I walked to meet her at Gris-Gris, but it was closed, so we walked over to St. Vincent’s and sat in their bar. It was drizzling last night, giving the city that weird sky glow we get when it’s raining (all the lights and neon reflecting back), and there was kind of a fun noir, opening scene of Mildred Pierce (with Joan Crawford walking out onto the pier in her mink) feel to the early evening. It’s always fun to talk to another writer, you know? One of the things I miss is having local writer friends that I see periodically. Emails aren’t the same thing, you know? (Mine are always far longer than they need to be, and probably don’t get read all the way through.)
Okay, I think I’m going to head into the spice mines. Sorry I’ve been so dull lately, but here’s hoping I’ll get interesting again relatively soon!
And this morning, I figured this out when I went to take my pills and noticed…I hadn’t put my acid reflux medications in the pill sorter. So, I’ve not taken it since Sunday morning. Duh. ↩︎
Super Bowl Sunday, for those who celebrate (we will not be) and for those who do not, Happy Sunday otherwise. I slept in this morning, and am not entirely sure why. Yesterday was a decent and easy day around here (I was terribly lazy, despite all my pronouncements to the contrary in yesterday’s morning’s post), but I didn’t get my errands ran because…Super Bowl. Traffic in Uptown was horrendous–turns out I was trying to run my errands during the Super Bowl faux-Carnival parade–and so after successfully completing one errands, I called off the rest and came back home. I did finish reading She Who Was No More (more on that later) and we started watching Arrested Development finally, and we are absolutely loving it–and it should keep us entertained for a while. I’m glad we never got to it before, because these times need comedies, and more of them, frankly.
I am not leaving the house today because of the Super Bowl, and I hope to make it down my to-do list this morning so I can, you know, get some of that shit done. It’s going to be a hectic week; I am only working a half-day on Thursday so I can drive up to Alabama for Valentine’s to meet Dad (a short trip; up Thursday afternoon and back Saturday morning), which of course means I won’t get much done next weekend–although I reckon I could take my grocery list with me and stop to make groceries on the way back into town Saturday. At least there are no parades this coming weekend to negotiate on my way home. Sigh. It’s about that time of year, too, and complicated even further with my goddamned jury duty the last week of the month. Hurray!
Ah, well, no sense in getting overwhelmed and off-track. That is not going to help me get everything done that I need to get done today, now is it? I’ve picked Lev AC Rosen’s The Bell in the Fog as my next read, and when I get this finished and some other tasks here in the kitchen this morning, I am going to go read it for a while. I really enjoyed Lavender House, the first book in this series, and I love that he and John Copenhaver are exploring what it was like to be queer in the 1950s. Since one of my future projects is also set in that time period, reading their work is not only intimidating but also a bit inspired; they’re so good it will push me to really make mine the best I possibly can–and it will still not hold up against theirs. (You never can write enough books to get over Imposter Syndrome; I think it even affects the bigger names from time to time. I guess I won’t know since I’ll never have that kind of career–which is fine. Yes, huge financial success would be lovely, but it’s not necessary. I am satisfied with my career and the work I’ve done so far…which really has all come about because I’ve just refused to stop doing it. Smarter people would have quit by now, I am sure.)
But I also need to stop being so hard on myself. My job changed, too, during the time of the surgery and the aftermath, and it’s actually become more intensive, too. Dealing with clients is draining, and so it’s not really surprising that my batteries are so often depleted after I get off work, and there’s always an errand or something to run on my way home, too. Plus, it’s not my natural body clock to get up at six in the morning every day I have to go to work, either. (I really miss the days of not going in until eleven.) I’m older, have been through some things physically these last five or so years, and so it’s not surprising that some nights I just don’t have the energy to do anything other than cuddle with Sparky and sit in my chair watching the latest in our mad dash to the end times. I really miss the days when the news wasn’t always a dumpster fire…but on the other hand, I can’t actually remember a time when it wasn’t. I just didn’t pay attention because I was a child.
And I think there’s my hint to jump over to the spice mines, so have a lovely Sunday, best of luck to those of you watching the Super Bowl (I will not be), and I’ll be back later on, I would imagine.
Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment, and it’s Super Bowl Eve; aka a mere forty-eight hours or so before New Orleans gets back to what usually passes for normal around here. Sparky got me up early this morning, but after a sluggish start I did get up and now, after my first cup of coffee, am starting to wake up. I did sleep well again last night, which was lovely–it’s always lovely to sleep on freshly laundered bedding–and after I finished my remote work duties yesterday, spent the rest of the doing more cleaning and organizing and did some writing. This morning I have some things to do around here as far as cleaning and organizing are concerned, and a couple of errands to do this afternoon, and then it’s back to the safety of the Lost Apartment for the rest of this Super Bowl weekend. I have literally zero interest in the Super Bowl; the removal of the end racism from the end zones by the NFL–an organization that makes the majority of its money off the bodies of Black athletes–is the kind of capitulation to tyranny one can expect from the ultra-rich. They’re getting their tax cuts, and their money is more important to them than anything else. I think that an oligarchy was always a danger to a capitalist system; the great irony is that was the preachings of false prophet and disgusting hypocrite Ayn Rand; it is impossible for ethical conduct in a country that prioritizes the dollar above all else. Capitalism has even infected Christianity, but that religion has been a rotting hulk for centuries already by prioritizing political and earthly power over spiritual.
It really is lovely having a working garbage disposal and a clean apartment; Paul and I even talked about how weird it is that such a little thing makes such a difference. The plumber also fixed the sinks so they drain properly and repaired the bathtub faucet so it no longer leaks, and just those little changes make such a huge difference. My kitchen is galley style, so counter space can be pretty limited, with the Keurig, the microwave, and my computer printer on the counters. The garbage disposal not working also meant the dishwasher didn’t drain, so I couldn’t use it–nor could I let anything go down the drain with the disposal because it would wind up backing up into the dishwasher. So, I needed counter space for the dishes to dry, and I needed to fill a stockpot with hot water to rinse the soap off them when I washed the dishes, cutting down on counter space because I had to put a beach towel down for them to dry on. This snowballed, made me feel like the apartment was getting smaller and closing in, and that it was pointless to even try to keep the house neat because it didn’t take very much for it to look like a disaster.
But finally–we’re getting it back together and it feels quite marvelous, in all honesty, to come downstairs to a clean, empty sink and nothing on the counters.
It’s been in the upper seventies/low eighties this entire week–which says everything about New Orleans weather; just a few weeks ago we had a blizzard and the city shut down for like three days–but here we are, having great weather for all the tourists here for the Super Bowl, which I am not going to watch. We did watch LSU Gymnastics defeat Alabama last night, and after that we watched this week’s Prime Target, which we are really enjoying–but we should have waited until we could binge it, as my short term memory problems mean I easily lose the plot thread from week to week. I hate losing my short term memory like this, but what else am I going to do but deal with it and come up with work-arounds? (LOL, I am realizing now that I have anxiety medications that my life has always been about finding work-arounds!) But I am feeling better these days, and here’s hoping that will continue as we move forward and despite the dumpster fire the country is gradually turning into. Thanks again, MAGA voters! But today I am going to clean and write and run my errands and try to finish reading my book and get things checked off my to-do list. I’m hoping for a good day, like yesterday was, and I don’t think that’s a whole lot to ask, you know?
And now I am taking my coffee and my peanut butter toast to the easy chair to read for a couple of hours. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back, either later or tomorrow.
Work at home Friday, and I have two on-line meetings today and some simple quality assurance and trainings to do. Woo-hoo! Yesterday wasn’t too bad, despite me being so damned tired. I was exhausted by the end of the day, as I suspected I would be, but I wasn’t crabby from being tired, either. I took I-10 home (I’ve been doing that lately and despite the traffic back up on the ramp to 90 and the bridge, it’s been fine) and dragged myself inside where i promptly let Sparky climb me and ride on my shoulders while purring and rubbing his head against my face (which does get awkward as I change out of my work drag), which is lovely. I did come home to a NEW garbage disposal; did I mention yesterday that we cleaned Wednesday night because, well, the house was a disaster area to the point we didn’t want our plumber–who’s been our plumber for over twenty years now–to see it? It was nice to come home to a clean apartment, just as it was nice to get up to one yesterday (and this) morning. I’ve really let the house get out of control, and I feel like now that we’ve got this deep start on it, it’ll be easier to finish what’s left and then maintain it. High hopes, y’all, I got high hopes again on a micro personal level. I even made a to-do list for the weekend. I know, right? Who am I and what have I done with Gregalicious?
And there are few things I love more than cleaning and writing at the same time. It’s a sickness, I know. But it is my happy place. I actually daydreamed last night as I caught up on the End Times (which is what I call the news now) about how much better my life will be with a working garbage disposal again and realized, with not even a pang, that I actually like being able to find so much happiness is getting a household appliance operating again. That will dramatically help keep the kitchen clean (see? I really went deep down that rabbit hole), because it means I can also use the dishwasher again (I don’t understand this, but I don’t need to–it just is) which means…washing dirty dishes off and loading them into the dishwasher to run once it becomes full. It’s weird how things like that please me, make me feel contented, and settled. Paul and I did talk about that a bit (before I finished watching the reunions of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City); that since the world is being such a dumpster fire and every day brings a new barrage on our intellects and senses, what need to do is go back to thinking about the apartment the way we did when we were able to move back in after Katrina–our safe space, a comfortable and quiet place where we can get away from the insanity and shut the outside world off and withdraw into a bubble. Our haven, as it were. And even now, with things still needing to be worked on and put away or taken to the dumpster, it looks so nice and clean and different, so better, than it has in a long time and I’m so pleased.
And with the Super Bowl this weekend, who wants to leave the house? No thank you. I’ll go uptown to run some errands, but downtown? No fucking thank you. I don’t want to be around crowds unless catching beads is involved. I think there’s a Super Bowl parade today for the visitors, but…I don’t know. I’m glad they get a taste of what our parades are like, but it’s still not quite the same as standing on the sidewalks of St. Charles Avenue on a crisply warm evening with the sky so dark blue it’s black, the glow of streetlights casting flickering shadows as people dance to the music of a marching band and wave their hands in the air while masked riders toss some beads to the waiting gleeful celebrating hordes of the unwashed1.
I also want to get my email inbox cleared out. I also think I need to send some emails to people I’ve not touched base with in a while. Not to worry, I still intend to spend most of my time in isolation like an anchorite (which would be a good title, wouldn’t it? Anchorite, by Greg Herren. I actually like the sound of that), but it doesn’t hurt to have contact with people that I do actually like and care about. Make sure they’re still alive, you know? I still need to get some things worked out within my life and my schedule and the barely contained or controlled chaos of my existence. I’ve got to get this exercise thing back into swing, and I need to start working on trying to eat a bit more healthier. I hope to finish reading She Who Was No More this weekend, and then I am going to get to pick out another new read. I also get to pick out something to listen to in the car on the way to and from Alabama next weekend (not sure how much I’ll be posting from up there, but it’s only a quick trip and back. I am very grateful I live that close to where we’re from; I could not make trips to Kentucky with great regularity), but I always like something Gothic and fun in the car. I know I’ve got a lot of titles built up on Audible; I’ll have to look through and see what sounds fun.
Look at me, making plans and shit, looking forward to a future. I guess there’s no point in letting myself burn down with the rest of the world. I got up earlier than usual this morning (before seven; Sparky was hungry and would not be denied) and I feel pretty good, to be honest. My coffee is going down well, I feel rested and alert, and here’s hoping I’m going to have a great day.
And on that optimistic note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; if not, tomorrow morning.
Gorgeous young Spanish actor/singer Manu Rios. I’ve had a crush on him since he played chaos gay Patrick on Elite.
I count myself as one of the unwashed; I’ve never ridden and I don’t think I would ever want to. I’m not sure why that is, but I’ve never really wanted to belong to a krewe and go to a ball and ride in a parade. ↩︎
Saturday morning and I feel rather well rested this morning. I wound up, of all things, sleeping on my left arm weirdly (on my stomach with arm across my chest) and this morning, it doesn’t feel either sore or tight. I knew it needed to be stretched, but this is very good news, meaning I can go back to the gym again tomorrow. I was very tired all day yesterday, too. I got my remote work done, ran some errands, and came home to write for a bit, but my brain was too cloudy for me to get anything done, really. I eventually gave up and sat down in my chair with Sparky to watch the LSU Gymnastics meet (they scored 198.00, which is a GREAT team score and something they didn’t do last year until towards the end of the season), and then we got caught up on Abbott Elementary before catching up on the news (always a mistake these days) and going to bed. I managed to get my chores done, and still haven’t made that to-do list yet–but hope springs eternal and hopefully I’ll get that done today, too. We shall see, but right now I feel pretty good. I hope it lasts.
Man, the kitchen is a mess this morning…well, the entire downstairs at any rate. But I will get that done as I write today. I do have to run a couple of errands today, so that will probably slow my progress down today, like it always does, but at least there’s nothing on television for me to get sucked into today, like tennis or gymnastics or figure skating or anything of that nature. So I have no excuse to not get things done today, right? That’s what I think, too. But it’s easy to get distracted and it’s even easier to get lazy and distracted. SO the key today is to not read the news or let our slide into fascism, aided and abetted by a legacy media that is not up to their jobs–or onboard with it all, like Fox, Newsmax, and OANN–not to mention a wimpy Democratic party that has essentially betrayed its donors and its voters and are now on-board with appeasement and sycophancy–so we’re basically on our own. The Democrats have been essentially spineless (with a few exceptions) my entire adult life, and now the party leadership can’t read the room and refuses to move aside for the bright young crop of future leaders; I’d rather fail fighting than fail rolling over playing dead. I have seen this, over and over, my entire life and yes, they have failed the country. Most of my ire is directed at the Far Reich, of course, but that doesn’t mean I have to accept the ineffectual leadership of the party anymore–and I sure as FUCK aren’t giving them another cent of my money. At this point, it’s simply throwing more good money down the drain for nothing. I’ve been waiting for results since I was twenty and have been disappointed repeatedly. If living as a gay American has taught me anything, it’s that being polite and being nice while working for change doesn’t work. It takes action, protests, and people willing to put their bodies on the line for it. ACT UP didn’t place nice, and they got results, didn’t they?
We need more Ted Kennedys and AOCs, not more Amy Klobuchars or John Fettermans (neither of whom will ever be president). Instead of fighting with policy, they are always playing defense, and badly at that. I honestly think their approach to opposition now is to cave on everything and let everyone suffer, while hoping things will get so bad we’ll win the midterms and 2028, in a repeat of 2006 and 2008. That isn’t leadership, for the record–although I am past the point of letting it all burn to the ground quickly so we can rebuild our new country out of the ashes of the old. Enough of this slow strangulation of freedom already.
And if anyone thinks I will ever mention Sean Duffy without making a reference to The Real World-Boston or Real World/Road Rules Challenges, they are very much mistaken.1
But somehow, I’ve managed to make it to sixty-three, which I never thought would happen. That should count for something, right? I’m kind of like Cher, I think–somehow I manage to keep going on. That’s the thing I suppose I cling to, my cockroach-like survival techniques. I never think bad things can’t happen to me–they certainly do enough times, and one thing I have learned over the course of hurricanes and hate crimes and death threats is that you can’t imagine bad things happening until they do, and so far I’ve managed to keep my few shreds of sanity intact, and knowing that I have somehow managed to get through it all somehow. I guess I’m a survivor? I certainly do have survivor’s guilt, for sure. I can never reconcile the randomness of my survival, either. I don’t think I did because I have some important role to play in the world, either–it’s literally one of those random things that happen people always try to find meaning in, when the truth is our lives, for the most part, are meaningless, but our egos are too fragile for any of us to consider we’re unimportant in the overall scheme of human and world history. I have no expectations of being remembered for long after I die, either. People will think it’s sad and then move on and forget me.
And I’m okay with that. My ego doesn’t require me to “live forever,” although I guess the books will, maybe.
And on that cheery note, I will head into the spice mines. I am going to read for a bit after I clean up in here, after which I will write, run my errands, and come home to read or write some more. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow or even later today; it depends, does it not?
And for the record, I don’t think I’ll be flying anywhere for a long time. ↩︎
Thirty-three degrees in New Orleans this morning, and it’s very cold here at my desk. I slept deeply and well, forgot to set the alarm last night, but woke up on time anyway–and it felt much better getting up this morning, too. I don’t feel groggy. It was also so cold last night (we had the heat on, but still) that Sparky actually slept in the bed last night, down around my feet! (Paul said after I left for work yesterday morning Sparky got into bed with him and cuddled for a while, too–we may wind up with a cuddle kitty after all!) Yesterday was exhausting at work, in all honesty. We were busy, and I was trying to get caught up on some of my Admin work around the clients, and my ass was dragging by the time I got home from work. We did finish watching Missing You, Harlan Coben’s new show on Netflix, and we enjoyed it. It’s always so nice when really lovely people find a great deal of success, isn’t it? But today is my last morning the office this week, and I look forward to my remote day and my weekend, huzzah! I’m also going to try to make it to the gym tomorrow and Sunday for my two days this week, and I think that’s something that is helping me sleep better.
These wildfires in Los Angeles are terrifying, aren’t they? I have so many friends who live in LA, and of course the last thing any of them need right now is me checking on them to see if they’re okay or out of harm’s way; I remember how awful it was when the mountains around Fresno would catch fire in the summer time. I got up one morning to go to work and it was so hazy from the smoke that the sun was red and it looked like there had been some kind of apocalypse overnight; there were no signs of life, either, and I didn’t see another car until I drove out of the neighborhood, which was creepy as all hell. I’m not sure what the solution to the California wildfire problem might be, but I know it doesn’t involve “turning on a giant faucet up in Canada.” (Jesus, how did this cretinous moron get elected? Oh yes, systemic racism and misogyny–that always works in this shithole country.) It’s always so awkward when friends are going through something horrific like this; I care, obviously, but dealing with well-meaning, concerned friends somewhere else while you’re in crisis–well, they aren’t a priority nor should they be. I never want to be one of those odious chores for someone in crisis, you know? Maybe I overthink it, which I suspect I do a lot more than is completely necessary–which is part of the whole “I never really know what to do when someone I care about is going through something awful.”
That’s where thoughts and prayers comes from, I suppose; the frustration of feeling helpless in the face of something other people are going through. It’s horrible, I know, having felt it myself on more than one occasion–an abbreviation of “thinking about you and sending you good thoughts”–but it’s constant invocation around the latest school shooting massacre (can we start calling them school massacres rather than school shootings, which softens it somewhat? “Shooting” after all, can also mean woundings, but it’s a goddamned massacre AND a terrorist attack, I might add.
And of course, the morons who hate California are out in droves, laughing at this and mocking Californians. What’s especially egregious are the people from Lousi-fucking-ana doing this and being smug about not having wildfires here “because we don’t hug trees down here” and “you get what you vote for”. Can you believe anyone from a state that is in the path of hurricanes and tropical storms every year, and floods on a regular basis without storm surge and hurricanes, would be fucking smug about us not having wildfires? Yet another example of the sorry state of Louisiana education. MAGA cultists really are the absolute worst people to ever live. I wonder what it’s like inside their brains? I always wonder how the cognitive dissonance necessary to keep them from going insane is even possible. I question myself all the time; and try to keep an open mind, so I can adapt and change my values, morals and beliefs based on new information. I can’t imagine freezing my brain in amber and defiantly refusing to learn and grow.
Although–preserving my brain in amber could give way to Jurassic Greg…
Better not, for the sake of humanity.
Okay, on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a marvelous day, Constant Reader, and I will check in either later or tomorrow. Stay warm and stay safe!
Well, hello there, Constant Reader! It’s another Friday work-at-home morning, and it’s very chilly in the Lost Apartment this morning. It’s only fifty here this morning currently; the temperature dropped significantly over night here in New Orleans. I don’t have any meetings this morning, which is also lovely.. I do have some trainings to get done and some data entry to do as well as some quality assurance, which is one of those things you can do with the television on while sort of watching something. The weekend is looming large before me, and I would like to get to the gym twice–tonight, and possibly Sunday morning. Yesterday’s Secret Santa at the office was nice; I got a lot of candy and one of those single-serving portable blenders, which is super nice–and will come in very handy for my post-workout protein shakes. I also want to get a lot of reading and writing done over the course of this weekend, and I want to get some rest, too. I have some errands to run for sure, and…and…and…all this stuff to do (I also made a to-do list yesterday) but it’s not overwhelming to me the way it was recently (which is why I think I was avoiding making said list for so long); now I look at it and think get to work, bitch.
I really need to stop swearing at myself. I should add that to the list.
But I had a nice evening at home last night. I worked on the book (MY book!) a little bit, made groceries on the way home after work AND picked up the mail, and did my reading last night. It was for the Publishing Triangle, and was quite lovely. I read my story “Moist Money,” completely forgetting that maybe something seasonal might have been more appropriate than a dark tale of gay rage, but ah, well. Things happen. But the response to it was quite nice, and it’s always nice to do a reading, you know? It’s also nice to do them without anxiety or stress, which was super-lovely. Before the change in my medications last year, I would have spent the entire day with the reading hanging over my head, nerves and pressure from the anxiety building all day until I was a sweaty-palmed, butterflied stomach, trembling mess–so it was lovely to know that public appearances no longer will do this to me. I wish I’d been on the right medications all along. Ah, well–live and learn, as they say.
I slept about an hour later than usual this morning, but I feel pretty good and rested. The kitchen is cleaned up already–still need to do the floors–so I’m starting out ahead of the curve for this weekend. I guess there is college football this weekend, the first round of the play-offs, but I don’t really care about watching when I can just check scores and highlights Sunday morning. Christmas is in a few days–I have to go into the office on Monday and then am free again until Thursday. These next few weeks are going to be disorienting, and I don’t think I’m going to be able to do an end-of-the-year review of highlights and lowlights because I can’t fucking remember anything anymore. That’s fine, although I wish I could remember all the amazing books I read this past year. I know I read two Scott Carson novels that were fantastic, Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory was one of the best things I’ve ever read…but beyond that I don’t remember much of anything I read, which is more about my brain than anything else. I’ve also forgotten television shows and movies we’ve watched, too, so I can’t do a round-up of that, either–but I am leaning toward picking Agatha All Along as my favorite television show of the year. (The cast alone was fantastic.) I’ve also fallen down on the job as far as writing a Substack essay every week, too–does the twenty-two different essay drafts count?
Yeah, I didn’t think so, but it didn’t hurt to ask, did it?
I saw the insane pictures of the security escort Luigi Mangione1 had for moving jurisdictions yesterday and cannot believe the insanity of this political theater we’re seeing. Granted, he planned and committed a brutal crime, but how is he any more dangerous than say, I don’t know, a mass shooter like Dylan Roof? Why was he charged with terrorism, as opposed to someone like Dylan Roof or the Oklahoma City bomber, or even the Unibomber? School shooters? He can be escorted from place to place by basically a military unit, but the cops won’t enter an active shooter situation while children are being slaughtered. It’s nice to know that the “children” the Right and their cosplay Christianity are always so concerned about–always less important than gun rights–are even less important than CEO’s.
But sure, yes, by all means, Reich-wingers, call me a child-killer for supporting women’s right to healthcare.
Even the Democratic governor of New York is offering CEOs state police fucking protection.
So the taxpayers are paying for security for corporate CEO’s who make a shit ton of money and whose heartless, soulless companies are rolling in cash.
Priorities, right? And Congress is already melting down and the new “administration” hasn’t even been sworn in yet. They are already eating each other’s faces, which means the next four years are going to be even more horrific as I’d assumed this Hogan’s Heroes American version of fascism would be in fact…although it is going to be interesting to see one narcissistic sociopath being a beta soy boy to an unelected billionaire. Tell me the Republican Party in this country isn’t bought and paid for by foreign interests.
And on that note, I have an on-line training to do. Have a great Friday, Constant Reader!
And to me it looks like the Right has decided Italians aren’t white anymore. The leopards are already eating their faces. GOOD. ↩︎
Wednesday morning of Pay-the-Bills day, which is always a pleasant day, much as I loathe paying the bills I am just grateful that I can pay the bills; I’ll never not be grateful for that. I remember all too well the days when paying the bills was a nightmare, there wasn’t enough to cover everything and buy groceries…and there were late fees and so on and ugh, you never could ever just breathe easy and catch up. Once you get behind financially, it becomes exponentially harder to ever get caught up. One of the reasons I never address financial concerns in my work is because it’s too hauntingly familiar for me, and I don’t really like remembering those days very much. That’s not good–and not really true entirely; I have written about working class/the working poor in short stories, which is about as long as I can handle it. Of course, now that I’ve said that, I’m thinking I do need to write about someone poor or working class in a book sometime, so I can process the shame of my poverty-stricken past. I’ve also been thinking about this because I am writing an essay about my first job (McDonald’s; can’t imagine why I’ve been thinking about that lately, can you?), and that has also brought back the memories of being one of the working poor for so long, and all the money worries, and everything else that went along with it1. I’ve had some pretty awful jobs…but the only thing worse than having an awful job was looking for another awful job I would grow to hate.
Ugh, those low wage job years were the worst. It’s no wonder I had so little self-esteem. Scrounging in the couch for change to get a burger at McDonald’s. Going through the car looking for change. Nothing in the cupboards to eat, no money in my wallet and no money in the bank, but super hungry. Lots of eating macaroni and cheese in the blue box, any flavor of ramen, and buying store brand deodorants and shampoos and shaving cream. Not being able to afford an oil change for the car, or a new tire should one go flat. To this day, I have food anxiety, where I’m scared there won’t be anything in the house for us to eat and nothing in the cupboards and no money. This led to a small scale hoarding situation with me and food; in which I am always stocking up on dried stuff so there’s always something I can make to eat. I have canned baked beans and boxes and boxes of Lipton’s Double Noodle Soup and all sorts of things that I hoard…but I’ve managed to stop buying more of these things, and have cut back on buying more than we need. There’s still more than needs to be done in the kitchen cabinets and in the grocery stores, and I am still working on the food anxiety. There are also any number of Asian vinegars and wines and sauces for cooking in there that had probably gone bad over the years.
Sigh.
I slept well again last night, which feels great this morning. I have tomorrow off because I have appointments during the day, which is going to be weird–especially since Friday is my work-at-home day; my weekend is going to be all messed up and potentially my week next week, too. I have some errands to run tonight after work, too. I didn’t do much of anything once I was home last night–big plans often come to naught in the Lost Apartment on weekday nights–but today I am planning, again, to get some things done. I need to finish working on the Scotty Bible, which is the plan for this weekend. I also need to get started revising the first seven chapters and fixing them for the continuation of the book next week before I leave for Kentucky. Funny how I always have big plans for the evening in the morning that so rarely come to fruition, isn’t it? But by the time I negotiate traffic on the way home, I am usually a bit tired when I get home to begin with–and then when Sparky keeps insisting on needing a lap (like Scooter used to) I’ll sit down for a moment and then am down for the evening because he’s so deeply asleep and so cute–he sometimes purrs in his sleep–that I don’t want to disturb him. Last night he was back to normal completely and over his sulks; he pounced on me several times and wanted to play with some Big Kitten Energy after he was done napping. I have a busy morning at the office today, but it’s not that terrible, and of course I have to make two stops on the way home today, which isn’t a big deal but also might be an issue about being tired when I finally park and go inside.
I also decided that I am going to Kentucky the first week of November, so I don’t have to listen to horror on the way there or back. I think I will listen to Shadowland on the way home from up there, because it’s thirteen or so hours long and I have the ebook on my iPad so I can finish it when I get back to New Orleans. (I thought I had a paperback copy, but can’t seem to find it.) But since October and Halloween will be over by then, I am not bound by my “only horror reading in October” rule. I want to finish reading Gabino’s book this weekend, too. I think there are some good games on this weekend; LSU is playing Texas A&M at night to see who will be alone on top of the conference standings. The day games are not the greatest, but there’s Missouri at Alabama and Texas at Vanderbilt (!!!) and Oklahoma at Mississippi, so not anything terribly involving unless they turn out to be great games…and there have been a lot of those this season. I didn’t know what to expect from this season of new everything and big changes, but so far it’s been a lot of fun.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Pay-the-Bills Day, and I might be back later, one never can be sure!
The only luxury item I never did without was books. I would always spend money on books because that was something just for me, and for me alone. I also really resented having jobs where I had to consider books as luxury items I technically should have done without. ↩︎
Friday morning and have to go into the office for a number of meetings and things today, but hope to get out of there around 2ish to run errands and head home. Huzzah! I slept well last night (and all the way through; didn’t get up once) and feel pretty terrific this morning. Maybe it was the bellinis I had with dinner last night? Perhaps.
Yesterday was lovely. I had a nice day at work, then came home and wrote before my dinner plans. I managed to finish Chapter 7, which was enormously pleasing, and then went to meet my friend for dinner. Look at me, out on a school night and having two drinks with dinner! But it was very nice. Lilette, the restaurant on Magazine where we had dinner, is marvelous; I always have a good time whenever I have a meal there. The conversation was also quite fabulous; and it was a very contented Gregalicious who got home from dinner around eight thirty. Paul and I watched another episode of American Sports Story; it’s an interesting exploration of toxic masculinity in sport, and how damaging that was for someone like Aaron Hernandez, deeply closeted and so terrified anyone might ever find out. (I did wonder what Tim Tebow would have said to him if Aaron had told him the truth–I think we know, and what a shame there wasn’t a single person in his life he could be honest with.) It’s very well done (although some of the reproductions of Florida football games were clearly reproductions and not actual game footage; it may have even been CGI but it didn’t look real), and the acting is, as always and ever in a Ryan Murphy show, superb. The young man playing Hernandez is quite good. It’s also quite excellent at showing what a monster Urban Meyer is as a coach, and how little he actually cared about his players (every time I think that Urban Meyer had Joe Burrow on the bench, wasting his talent for two years, I smile); I have never liked nor trusted that man. He’s clearly a good coach–he won three national titles at two different schools–but he’s not the kind of coach whose players speak well of him–and his teams at Florida were clearly out of control. (He also had Cam Newton on the bench at Florida; that’s two Heisman Trophy winning quarterbacks who rode the bench for him.)
I do have some errands to run after work; I have to get the mail and pick up prescriptions and maybe do a bit of a grocery run. I also have laundry to do once I get home, and then I think I’ll be in for the day. I have another writer friend in town this weekend that I am hoping to get to see, so I think I’ll try to do that tomorrow. I also want to work on the book some more this weekend, and start playing around with the next one I want to write. I want to finish reading Gabino’s new book–I started it last weekend, and it’s off to a really powerful start. It grabs you by the throat and won’t let you look away, no matter how badly you might want to!
I also have some cleaning up to do around here as well. It never really ends, does it? At least my filing it pretty much caught up, and I certainly can’t let the inbox stack up the way it has in the past. Staying on top of things is usually the smart thing to do…but I sometimes get lazy, particularly if I’m tired; that’s when I really don’t want to do anything when I get home except catch up on the news. I am so much happier now that I’ve blocked every news source that started the “get rid of Biden” nonsense in July; the age and mental acuity of a presidential candidate ceased to be an issue in this election once the President dropped out, despite the patentedly obvious decline of the Republican candidate, not to mention his planned vengeance tour if he wins. After doing everything they could to ensure Hillary lost in 2016, they have the nerve to continue to both-sides everything while pretending this is a normal horse race election because they are a national and historical disgrace, the New York Times editorial board endorsed the Vice-President while continuing their horrendous, clearly partisan reporting.
Your words are hollow when you are sane-washing an incredibly dangerous narcissist. It’s not what you say, but what you actually do, and I will never forgive nor forget their collaborationist quisling bullshit as long as I live.
So, after work today I am going to go run those errands and then come home to be productive. I have my to-do list ready to have things checked off, and there’s some writing that definitely needs to be done this weekend. Next weekend I may be meeting Dad in Alabama, and will probably head up to Kentucky for a week around Halloween; not sure when that would be, but it’s on the schedule.
And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines on this rainy Friday morning. Have a great day, and I may be back later; I’m tricky that way.
Work at home Friday (gotta get down it’s Friday) and I slept a little later than I thought I would; Sparky didn’t even try to wake me up at the usual time (how does he know?) but there you have it. I feel good and rested this morning, and I have errands to run this morning before my work-at-home chores this afternoon. I have to take Paul to some appointments and since I’m already out, might as well run my own while I’m at it, right? I am going to get a new desk chair today; this one is incredibly old–I bought it when we moved back in here after Katrina from the carriage house–and Skittle is the one who ripped it to shreds, and he’s been gone since 2010, so yeah, I am overdue for a new one. It always sinks, too, so I sit too low at the computer.
I hope everyone still in Helene’s path are sheltering safely, and those over whom it has already passed are okay. She’s turned out to be quite the bitch. I worry about the flooding, which looks to be horrific. Although all this rain water and swollen flooding rivers will help deter this year’s salt intrusion up the river, which isn’t a bad thing.
I had a pretty decent day, but by the time I got home from work last night I was feeling a little brain fatigue. I worked a bit on the Scotty Bible last night (got Garden District Gothic entered, leaving only a few left to go, including Jackson Square Jazz), and went ahead and rewatched the first two episodes of Monsters, and within the context of the rest of the series, they aren’t as bad as I originally thought they were. I’m still not sure whose perspective that first episode was supposed to be from, but I think it’s the American public’s, and the second was the cops’. It is really interesting how much thinking I’ve done about this show, and there’s some interesting commentary, methinks, that I should be able to write and talk about. I want to start watching Grotesquerie tonight (love me some Niecy Nash-Betts) after Paul gets home, and I also want to get some cleaning done today. I have to launder the bed linens, and there’s still a sink filled with dishes to wash. Heavy sigh. But I was thinking last night I might put the film of the Eras tour on again while I am working around the house today; I do love me some Taylor Swift, and I was thinking I am not as familiar with her newer stuff as I am her older stuff (which I still love and has never gotten old to me), and I enjoyed the concert film, so why not watch it again?
The LSU game tomorrow night is being broadcast on the SEC Network, so I can watch it if I so desire, but it’s also on at the same time as Georgia-Alabama, which is what I will probably end up watching. The Saints game is at noon on Sunday, and we’re playing the hated Falcons, so I am going to have to plan my Sunday around that. I am not sure of the college football schedule for tomorrow, but I should try to do any remaining errands tomorrow morning before the games start. A quick glance over the schedule really doesn’t show anything I absolutely must watch, so I am hopeful I won’t go into a football coma and get sucked into watching games I don’t care about all day. Que sera, sera.
I am going to be taking Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows with me on this morning’s Paul’s appointments tour of the city, and I also hope to finish reading it this weekend before diving into my October Horror reading, starting with a reread of We Have Always Lived in the Castle and Gabino Iglesias’ new book. I’d like to get through several horror novels this coming month, but I also am not sure how that would look. I am going to have to go up to Kentucky later in the month–LSU’s bye weekend is looking pretty good for that trip–and I should be able to get a lot of reading done while I am up there. Also, I can listen to books in the car. I am probably going to meet Dad in Alabama for the weekend weekend after next (the Mississippi game), and then go up to Kentucky a week or so later for a longer visit. It’ll be cold up there (of course), but it’s been a hot minute so I’ll probably drive up on a Saturday and back on Sunday.
And on that note, I am bringing this to a close so I can get cleaned up and do some other things this morning. Have a lovely Friday, and please please please stay safe if you’re in the path of Helene.
Queer and Loathing in America 