Tag: Louisiana

I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am

So, this is another Monday in one of the last weeks of 2025. I slept well, and only hit snooze twice, which was unusual. I feel rested and good this morning, which is absolutely delightful. I didn’t get all my chores done over the weekend, so I’ll have to put away dishes and so forth when I get home from work this evening. I also have some dishes to wash and put through the dishwasher, too. Yesterday was a nice, lovely, relaxing day. I finished watching The American Revolution and New Orleans Soul of a City (the last one was about the Saints and the Superdome–so the series was food, music, Carnival, and the Saints; pretty much the soul of New Orleans). The college football play-off seedings were released, to the anger of several fan bases, and LSU is going to the Texas Bowl to play Houston in Houston. We also watched The Roses, which was interesting. I also spent a lot of time scanning journal pages into my computer so I can get all my notes over the years on Chlorine easily accessible and in one place. It’s chilly this morning, but the rest of the week (I think) will have highs in the 1970s.

ICE is here, sweeping the city with a goal of five thousand “criminals” to deport from the New Orleans area–and they are doing it so far with all the skill, efficiency, and Constitutional adherence they’ve shown everywhere else they’ve invaded with their Gestapo tactics. The reports so far seem to have netted only thirty-eight arrests, a third of whom had criminal records (odds they’ll be here through Carnival?), and they seem to have primarily focused on the immigrant community in Kenner, the suburb with the airport and the last one before you hit swamp heading west on I-10. A friendly reminder, that always needs to be mentioned, that immigrants rebuilt the city after Katrina. That’s why New Orleans was a sanctuary city: gratitude, which always seems to be in such short supply in the American psyche. I’ve been blocking the racist trash from the outer parishes and “metro area” who always claim to be from New Orleans but never are, who show up with their hateful bullshit on social media. I drove one bitch all the way off Threads recently, who pulled the I live in New Orleans which then became I’m from New Orleans to I was born in New Orleans but a quick search of her social media (wide open, I might add) showed she actually lives in ALABAMA, like the lying piece of racist trash she was, and that her husband worked for a government contractor. When I asked her how her husband’s employer would react to her being a racist lying piece of shit on-line, POOF. She was gone.

Keep New Orleans out of your disgusting, filthy, lying racist-ass mouths–and if you’re going to be such a troll on-line, don’t use your real name and leave all of your social media open. They’re rarely smart, you know?

And for the record, racist skanks in the burbs, New Orleans has always had crime; it’s a port fucking city. The history of this city is drenched in blood spilled by violence. Y’all fled the city after integration. Fuck ALL the way off.

Nothing makes my blood boil more than non-New Orleanians complaining about New Orleans. Begone! You have no power here!

But as always, going through the journals to scan my notes from Chlorine (I actually found the very first time I wrote the idea down, which was kind of cool) was revelatory; I really need to go through my journals more regularly to remind myself what is in there. There are some terrific ideas for short stories and essays in there, as well as notes on multiple projects that are still unfinished. As I was saying yesterday, my journals are far more informative about my writing process than anything in the files, so I think one of my projects for the rest of December is to ditch a lot of my files and get everything compressed into the filing cabinet. I also need to prune the books some more, and start clearing out the storage attic, and take everything off the tops of the kitchen cabinets (I literally have boxes of books everywhere).

And then there’s that moment when Carl Hiaasen shares your newsletter post reviewing hid book Fever Beach–yes, I still fanboy all the time. Eeee! (And it’s getting lots of likes and shares, which is really cool and was never the point of the review!)

And so, without anymore delays, I am heading into the spice mines this morning. Have yourself a merry little Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back on Tuesday morning!

The river parishes light bonfires on the levees to direct Papa Noel, an incredibly cool Louisiana tradition. They feature prominently in Ellen Byron’s mystery A Cajun Country Christmas.

All You Ever Do Is Put Me Down

Tuesday morning and I didn’t spring out of bed joyously this morning, but I feel pretty okay this morning. I slept well, just wanted to sleep longer. It rained heavily last night, which was nice–you know I love me some rain when I am safely inside and warm and comfortable. The rain was supposed to bring cold weather with it, but it’s only 51 this morning, which isn’t that terrible. My whole attitude towards cold weather is changing, isn’t it? I didn’t mind the cold in Kentucky–it was bitterly cold on Thanksgiving; my windshield froze over while I was at my sister’s–so what on earth is happening to me? #madness, indeed. Granted, it wasn’t at zero or even close to it; that, methinks, would be an entirely different story.

I did find my copy of The Postman Always Rings Twice last night, and that opening line–“They threw me off the hay truck about noon”–is such a great opening. I think the other noirs I am going to read this month will include The Falling Sparrow by Dorothy B. Hughes1, another Jim Thompson novel (I have several on-hand), a Silvia Moreno-Garcia modern neo-noir, and maybe some short stories, and/or a Cornell Woolrich novel. The well (or TBR pile, you choose) is very deep in the Lost Apartment. I also have to write my reviews of O Jerusalem and Fever Beach for the newsletter, too. Sigh. So much to write, so little time in which to do it all, y’know? But that just means I need to go back to my OCD organization and to-do lists so I can get things done.

I also managed to go over the edits and copy edits of Hurricane Season Hustle, so it is finished for me other than the page proofs. I also got a short story I sent to an anthology a few months ago back with its edits, which is also kind of cool. I always love to sell a short story, you know? I am more confident with my novels than I ever can be with my short stories, and I was thinking last night as I sat in my chair watching The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City that I may try something different when it comes to writing short stories, but I’ll inevitably always fall back on my usual way of doing things. I think we’re going to be busy in the clinic this morning, which will keep me hopping all day. I have to stop again at the store to make some groceries on my way home tonight, and the kitchen is a mess, and I have another load of dishes to unload so I can wash the ones in the sink and run the dishwasher again and the household chores never end, do they? I have measured my life by washing dishes, or something like that.

I was able to leave work early yesterday (Friday was a paid holiday for eight hours; I usually put in about four on a normal work-at-home Friday, so had to shave some time off yesterday. No, I never over-explain, do I?), and so ran by the Fresh Market on the way home and also ordered groceries for delivery. I got home and finished the laundry, put the dishes away and ran another load through the dishwasher. I got caught up on the news and have reached the point where I just shake my head in bewilderment, sadness, and disgust. Heavy heaving sigh. Is there now a light at the the end of the tunnel of horrors? One can only hope, but this dismantling of our institutions and eroding of trust in them has been –and continues to be–nothing more than a disgrace.

Our new LSU football coach, Lane Kiffin, arrived in Baton Rouge yesterday to a cheering crowd at the airport and people lined up along the drive from there to the campus. Controversy about the move continues to swirl, driven by the so-called “talking heads” who know absolutely nothing but somehow think they’re relevant? Dad and I talked about how useless and stupid so many of them are nowadays–“professional bull-shitters,” is what Dad calls them, and accurately–but they have to talk and weave and bullshit in order to earn their ridiculous salaries. I don’t care what you think about this, just as I don’t really care about anything you think, really. And all the unctuous moralizing by trash like Stephen A. Smith and Colin Cowshit and all the rest of the idiots? Spare me. All you are doing is enhancing the victim complex LSU fans and Louisiana residents already have, and they’ll just circle the wagons and it just endears Kiffin to the fans and residents here all the more. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s buddies with Coach O, either. They are billboards and signs all over the state welcoming him.

I do not remember any of that happening for Brian Kelly, mind you.

So, we’ll see how this new era of LSU football will work out for us. Everyone here is excited, as I said, and I am optimistically hopeful but cautious.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for this fine Tuesday morning. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back on Pay-the-Bills Wednesday tomorrow morning.

Pharaoh Thutmose III, successor to the female pharaoh Hatshepsut
  1. Also a book with a fantastic first line. ↩︎

Hurtin’ (on the Bottle)

Monday morning and back to the spice mines with me this morning.

Well, the office, at any rate.

It’s very chilly in the Lost Apartment on this first day of December, which also means it’s the start of my Noirmas Season project. Huzzah!1 I also slept deeply and well yesterday, after a day of rest and not really doing a lot. I was very low-energy yesterday, which didn’t surprise me. I’ve always been tired the day after driving home from Kentucky, which is why I always have given myself a free day before I have to go back to the office. So being low-energy wasn’t a “still not well completely” reaction, but rather a normal one, which was an enormous relief. Sparky was also very needy all day yesterday, sleeping in my lap or insisting I go sit in my chair to provide a lap for him–he’s so sweet. He was kind of distant at first when I got home, too, but eventually forgave me and starting showering me with attention. But yes, I spent most of yesterday in my easy chair too tired to read, and watching news videos and getting caught up on everything I’d missed while on that Internet sabbatical I took. I had to clean out an unbelievable amount of emails, and I also have a lot to read and respond to at some point this week.

The coaching carousel finally stopped spinning yesterday, with Tulane’s coach going to Florida and a directional Florida university’s coach going to Auburn, with the big story of the day being Lane Kiffin deciding to leave Mississippi in the lurch and come to LSU. (Mississippi elevated their defensive coordinator to head coach–not interim, but head coach.) There was a lot of negativity about this, as there should have been. He is leaving his team with a 11-1 record and a play-off birth, so their fans are pretty bitter and angry2. Mississippi hasn’t had a shot at contending for a national title since at least 2003, and they made the 12 team play-offs before LSU, which no one would have thought possible as recently as five years ago. I’m ambivalent about the whole situation, to be honest. Mississippi fans have a right to be angry and they also have a right to hate him; he left them in the lurch before the play-offs to go to an archenemy. LSU-Mississippi is a trophy game every year, and they hate us and have for decades. The difference between this hire and the Brian Kelly hire back in 2021 is that Louisiana seems to have instantly embraced Kiffin, whereas Kelly was never completely accepted, and even after winning the division in his first season–a good start–LSU never saw that level of success again. I’m willing to give Kiffin a chance, just as I was willing to give Kelly (someone I didn’t like or respect) a chance. He did a great job at Mississippi–not an easy task–and three consecutive ten win seasons there is nothing to sneeze at. LSU is a brand (more on that later) much more so than Mississippi, with no disrespect intended; it’s just a fact. An undefeated LSU team, for example, will always be ranked higher than an undefeated Mississippi team–which is completely unfair–but that’s how this all seems to work these days. (Miami and Notre Dame, for example, have the same record but Notre Dame is ranked higher–and Miami beat Notre Dame. Your guess is as good as mine.)

Yesterday morning I finished listening to Fever Beach, and have lots of thoughts about it. It reminded just how important it actually is for funny writers to use their talents to skewer and satirize politicians and the state of the country. I have wondered myself about how much of the current world situation I should put into my Scotty books, and if so, how to handle it. My readers, of course, probably are more left than right; I cannot imagine how anyone could read that series and believe Scotty and his family are conservatives. I don’t remember if Fever Beach was considered controversial when it was published, and once it got started I wasn’t sure how I felt about it and the approach he was taking, but once I started laughing out loud (which happened quite a few times while listening) and got into the spirit of the thing. Mocking them is really the best way to handle them–and really, we should have never stopped calling them weird last summer.

We also finished watching the John Wayne Gacy series, Devil in Disguise, which was incredibly well done. I appreciated the focus on the families and loved ones on the victims, along with the trial stuff and backstory. This, Ryan Murphy, is how you do a serial killer mini-series. You don’t glamourize the killer. We then watched a documentary called The Carman Family Murders, which was interesting, sad, and horrifying all at the same time. (I think we’re going to make Sundays our “true crime documentary” nights.)

Tonight after work I need to make some groceries and order some to be delivered (or maybe I can order them all for delivery? Hmmm). I need to put the dishes away and finish the load of laundry I started last night (fluff and fold is all that’s left to do). I need to clean out my inbox and start thinking more about working on Chlorine. I also got the edits for new Scotty I have to get done, and I have another chore to do as well.

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

  1. Note to self: find my copy of The Postman Always Rings Twice tonight. ↩︎
  2. Again, who can blame them? There are people in Louisiana who’ve never forgiven Nick Saban for returning to college football at Alabama. ↩︎

Cemetery Drive

Sunday!

This morning, I got up earlier than I have all weekend, and I don’t mind. It rained overnight, so I slept deeply and well. I also had a rather productive day yesterday–one that was going to be a mostly easy day of maybe picking things up around the apartment and maybe doing some reading. After LSU lost (I knew they were overrated) to Vanderbilt1, I lost interest in watching games for the rest of the day; I had the television on, but mostly for background noise. Everyone I was pulling for yesterday lost (with the exception of the Alabama-Tennessee game), so it kind of turned into a theme for the day. So, I would sit in my chair and read (or scribble notes in my journal) while doing things around the apartment, which looks a lot better this morning than it usually does on Sunday mornings. I also shaved my head again–it’s been a hot minute–and did a lot of filing. I am also trying to get my writing projects better organized, and managed to throw out a bunch of shit yesterday, too.

I started reading Elizabeth Hand’s Hokolua Road yesterday, and am enjoying it so far. I didn’t get deep into the book, but it’s set during the pandemic and quarantines, on one of the Hawaiian Islands (I think Hand made the island up wholesale, which is okay with me; I love Hawaii and have always wanted to write a book set on the islands). I love how she writes, honestly; I had one of her books already when A Haunting on the Hill, which was an authorized sequel to The Haunting of Hill House (one of my favorite books of all time), came out, so I thought I’d check out more of her work. I also spent some time rereading sections of Stephen King’s Danse Macabre–the sections about Shirley Jackon’s class novel, to help me prepare to write a long form essay on the book, and dove into the New Orleans/Louisiana sections of Colin Dickey’s marvelous Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, which also gave me some ideas for future projects. Yes, my mind is flourishing in creative ways again, which is absolutely lovely. I also need to organize/outline my thoughts for an essay series for the newsletter about masculinity, and my prickly relationship with it. (I knew it was going to be long, so it makes sense to plan it, outline it, and publish it in parts.) I also have tons of notes from my rewatch of Scream, too. I also made some decisions about the prep work I need to do to bring Chlorine to its conclusion, which I am hoping to do in November.

It feels good to be thinking about writing again and getting ideas all the time again. The last three years haven’t been easy for me, physically or emotionally, and so I got derailed to the point of not enjoying the writing or creating; it had turned into an odious chore, which I didn’t like, and had me considering walking away/retiring from the whole business for good. Whew, glad to know that’s passed, or that it’s not time for me to stop just yet. I”m also very tired of living in interesting times, you know? I’m still not physically able to go to protests, so I wasn’t able to attend the No Kings event here in New Orleans–but what a turnout all over the world, not just here in the USA, and that gives me some hope that this nightmare will eventually end. Maybe not the way I’d like–guillotines and a basement in Ekaterinberg–but you can’t always get what you want.

But I feel rested and good this morning, which is nice and the point of the weekend, really. I am going to be in clinic four days again this week, and by myself the last two, so I am feeling pretty certain that I’ll be exhausted when the weekends roll around again. But the summer is over, we’re moving into the cooler season here, and the weather is going to be sunny and low 80’s/high 70’s during the days, but dipping into the frigid 60’s at night.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I am going to do some filing before reading for a while, and getting cleaned up while maybe finishing the floors. Have a great Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back on the morrow.

  1. Congratulations to Vanderbilt, by the way, and good luck with the rest of your season. Your coach is pretty phenomenal! ↩︎

Take It Easy

Ah, here we are on a Tuesday morning, and I feel okay. I’m not feeling as achy as I have since Saturday, but there’s some tired still in my legs and the hips feel tired rather than painful, which is definitely a plus this morning. I wound up having to work in the clinic yesterday instead of having an Admin day, which is going to throw this week off to begin with and make me super-tired by the time the weekend rolls around again. Huzzah?

Last night I managed to work on the book despite feeling like I’d been run through the wringer after making some groceries on the way home. I collapsed into my chair once I was finished and caught up on the news before staggering up the stairs to go to bed. I did sleep really well last night, which is always a plus, and feel good, as I’ve already noted. My coffee is going down quite well, and I’m just a little bit hungry, so will be heating up my breakfast sandwich relatively soon. I don’t feel any mental fatigue today, which is always a plus. I think I am working alone in the clinic this morning, but could be wrong; I have been before, after all. I might even be able to sneak out early today, as we have no one booked for this afternoon. We’ll see how the day goes, won’t we? (That staycation just can’t come soon enough for me, you know.)

But overall I cannot complain about anything. The work on the book is going extremely well, and I am really looking forward to getting this done finally and out of my hair. I think I am going to spend October–since I’ll have edits and copy edits to deal with–writing short stories and essays. I am terribly behind on my newsletter, and maybe I can get one sent out this weekend since LSU has a bye-week so there’s not much urgency to watch games Saturday; I don’t even know who is playing. I’ll have the games on during the day (Alabama-Vanderbilt might be the winner of the afternoon time slot) but I want to read and write for the weekend and so will probably not pay much attention–unless it’s a really good game. Looks like Texas is playing Florida this weekend, too, and Florida State-Miami is the big night game of the day. I also kind of feel like I’m coming out from under all the gloom that’s been hanging over my head almost this entire decade, you know? When my mind isn’t foggy or tired, it’s sharp the way it used to be, even if the memory banks don’t work as quickly as they used to (if they work at all); I get the spinning wheel in my brain a lot when I try to remember things.

Yesterday was the two year anniversary of Sparky’s “gotcha” day!

In other exciting news, Governor Landry admitted to a national audience that he is a failure at governance and asked for the National Guard to be deployed in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Hope they’re good at filling potholes, because you know damned well they won’t be going anywhere near the parts of the city that are riddled with crime. They’ll be stationed on Bourbon Street, and maybe Rampart and Canal as well. (I don’t think the Governor, who is all about his ambition and sucking up to the MAGA trash, is aware that he’s confessed to utter failure as a governor, while also admitting that a red state needs federal help because it can’t function properly is a hell of an admission to make; why would any other red state reelect their failed politicians after this? Because racism, that’s why.) Apparently, LSU is also going to be having a “Charlie Kirk Lecture Series.’

Which makes me not mind the loss to Mississippi this past weekend as much as I did.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and be grateful you’re not a higher-up in the military, letting you off the hook for the idiotic meeting in DC today.

We Are Family

Work at home Friday, and my alarm kitty let me sleep in a few extra hours, so praise be at the very least, right? I do feel a bit fatigued this morning–my hip joints and legs ache a bit–but hopefully that won’t impact the day too terribly. I have some data entry to do and quality assurance to check off my to-do list. I have some errands to run, too–making groceries and the mail–which I will do after I get my work done. It looks to be sunny outside this morning; we’ve not had rain in a while, and there’s none in the forecast, either. As much as it rained in July and early August, we’re still almost in a drought in southeastern Louisiana. Wild that we’ve not had enough precipitation down here to stave off a drought…but it’s also why the humidity dialed back these past few weeks.

I finished reading the manuscript last night and made lots of notes, so I am also hoping to make a lot of progress this weekend on getting it finished, or at least much closer to the finish line. I was pretty tired when I got home from work–being client-facing in the clinic for thirty-two hours is a lot–and so ensconced myself with the manuscript and my lap kitty into my easy chair while catching up on the news, before watching the first episode of this season’s Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, which somehow manages to keep the original spirit of these shows–delusional, petty women who create drama out of nothing–without somehow ruining it in some way. I’m pretty sick of most of the others, and it is true that Bravo will try to milk every single penny out of a franchise rather than letting it die a natural death when it’s time. It’s the way of American television, after all. I also slept deeply and well–the exhaustion, most likely–and so am hoping to get a lot done today.

First things first, though–I need a new to-do list.

This week saw the most horrifying example of government overreach and censorship perhaps in our nation’s history, directly violating the First Amendment. I was also extremely disappointed to see ABC/Disney caving in to a government demand, particularly when you think about how firm and steadfast progressive support for Disney has been when they’ve faced boycott threads from the Hard Right. Is this the same fucking company that filmed Johnny Tremain? As far as I am concerned, I would have sued the complaining Hard Right affiliates for breach of contract or cut off their national ABC feed. You can’t make money without any content, can you? The fact that major network affiliate companies have just publicly admitted that they don’t support free speech and filter content with an agenda for their audiences means they shouldn’t be allowed to be in broadcasting, period. You either take all of our content, or you get none of it, would be my position. Obviously, my view and opinion on how all of this works is uninformed and possibly naïve, since I don’t know how this stuff works, but when a media company goes on the record making demands of talent and makes threats? I really don’t think you should be in business when you’re on the record as pro-censorship of ideas and speech you don’t like. Disney used to always play hardball and always won. This cowardice in the face of authoritarianism and the fall of the Constitution is something I personally will never forget. And going to their theme park in the middle of Disease Central? No fucking thanks.

Never ever forget that corporations are soulless entities only interested in profit and power, for all that the Supreme Court had determined they count as a person…although a person who cannot face criminal charges or jail time. How precisely does that kind of personhood work? Sad that corporations have more legal protections than people, isn’t it? And isn’t that really the bottom-line problem in this country, after its systemic racism and dedication to preserving white supremacy and the American heresy?

I’ve also gone back to my old standard rule of social media: if you come across my feed talking stupid-ass shit, I am going to not engage but just block you. Yesterday I saw an author stupidly claiming that this recent outrage wasn’t a First Amendment violation but a business decision. This woman, who clearly is too stupid to understand anything, has had some shitty takes before–but I have no time or patience for anyone who is that stupid…so out the airlock she went, and not sorry to see her stupid flat unwashed ass go, in all honesty. Here’s hoping this helps my sanity going forward and stops me from wasting my time.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back on the morrow most likely.

Oh, look, yet ANOTHER sexy image of St. Sebastian. At least he hasn‘t been “penetrated” yet by the arrows…

Shambala

Tuesday, and we made it through Monday, did we not?

My first injection went very well, I think. It doesn’t hurt at all; the needle is tiny, and the device is pretty easy to assemble and put the medicine into. It’s every eight months, and there’s an app to remind you to reorder and to inject, and it only takes about three and a half minutes to process. I think I can handle it the next time on my own, and it’s not going to be a terrible inconvenience for me, nor was it painful. I wasn’t entirely sure the needle had punctured my skin, to be honest, but I didn’t feel medicine running down my body, either, so it must have worked. The medicine vial was empty, tho, when it beeped. All in all, not bad, and while I am not entirely certain there were no side effects–the arm where I got my flu shot on Friday, for example, was achy and sore, which doesn’t make sense. I did get tired in the afternoon, but…not sure that had anything to do with the shot as I was tired already. I slept really well last night, and had a bit of a sinus attack this morning when I first got up. I feel rested and relaxed, not fatigued or exhausted, but we’ll see how the morning and the rest of the day go. (I also took a Claritin to battle the sinuses, and once that kicked in everything is rather heavenly this morning.)

I stopped and made some groceries on the way home from work last night, and baked potatoes once I was safely home and everything was put away. Sparky cuddled in my lap as I had on the news while reading (or trying to read) my manuscript, and after dinner we enjoyed an episode of Wednesday before I went to bed. It was a nice, calm, relaxing evening at home, and I think that may have helped with my sleep. I also got my COVID vaccine prescription called in to Walgreens (CVS doesn’t have any in stock) because fucking Louisiana and our POS shit governor and legislature passed laws requiring a prescription for it. A prescription from a doctor for a vaccine for a communicable disease.

I am so glad I don’t have kids.

I have to say that Claritin has made a world of difference. I actually feel good; not tired or fatigued in any way, and the telltale leg tiredness is also a thing of the past. So, it was all sinus-related this morning. The shot didn’t have any side effects that I can tell, so we’ll see how that COVID shot on Friday will go. Sometimes they make me ill or tired or both, but having had COVID–yeah, don’t want that coming back anytime soon into my system…and of course my immune system is also compromised now. SO, anti-vaxxers? Go fuck yourselves, and fuck Florida, too. Why would anyone bring their kids on vacation there now?

I do hope this good feeling lasts for a while, you know? I have so much to do–nothing new there, right?–and today I am going to make a list. I need to take the reins of my life by the hand again, and steer it forward properly. I hope this good feeling isn’t just a temporary thing…and on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I will be back again in the morning.

Lonesome Loser

Thursday and I have the day off blog because I am having dinner at 5 with a friend and after that I am hosting Noir at the Bar: Morally Grey. Tomorrow is a work-at-home day around my doctor’s appointment, and I was thinking about going to the Crooked Lane party Friday night but…not so sure about that. I was terribly tired when I got home from work yesterday evening, and just collapsed into my easy chair. Sparky joined me post-haste, and I basically watched the USOpen with Paul all night before I fell asleep in my chair before nine (the match we’d been watching concluded, and I couldn’t even tell you who played? Naomi Osaka?) but I slept deeply and well last night. I got up at my usual time to feed Sparky and went back to bed and slept for another two hours…but Sparky came up and cuddled with me when he was finished eating AND he was purring. Coincidence I feel refreshed and rested this morning?

I think not.

Today I want to get some things taken care of around the house before I head to the Quarter to have dinner, including some writing and reading, and I also have to get prepared for tonight as well. I have to work tomorrow so I am not going to be doing anything after the reading besides coming home and going to bed. Pretty nice, if I do say so myself. I actually feel good this morning, which is a lovely feeling. (Never underestimate how well the soothing relaxation from the purr of a cuddling cat works.) I also have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning after my department and team meetings. The Crooked Lane party is tomorrow night, and I may head down for that; never hurts to stay in the good graces of a publisher, am I right?

Yesterday, our shitstain of a governor applauded the mention of the military being sent to New Orleans (and other Louisiana cities) to clean up the “crime” problem by the demented president. That presence here won’t affect our already struggling tourist economy at ALL, will it? And how will such a thing fly in Moses Mike Johnson’s district of Shreveport/Bossier City? Yeah, no government overreach here at all. Imagine had Biden sent the military in to Dallas or Kansas City or Nashville to help with crime? I will say this–a city known for its hospitality and welcoming attitude will make those soldiers sorry they were ever deployed. Don’t fuck with New Orleans. And seriously, fuck our failure of a governor, who is doing nothing about the wetlands (other than making everything worse), and he also ran on cleaning up crime…so he’s admitting, straight up, he’s an utter failure and so is his administration. We already knew that, of course; our state government makes Florida’s look like California’s.

If the federal government really wanted to clean up crime in Louisiana, they’d start at the Governor’s Mansion in Baton Rouge before making their way to the capitol. Louisiana has more oil than Kuwait, but we’re in the bottom five of everything. This is your Republican governance example as to why you should never vote for one of them; DeSantis is another great example of shit stain governance. You’d have thought we learned our lesson from Bobby Jindal’s corrupt incompetence, and how a Democratic governor basically cleaned up that mess…all so Landry could drive Louisiana into the sewer with little chance of getting out.

I know I’ll do my best to make the troops uncomfortable here. Landry also announced that ICE prisoners will have their own special section in the inhumane hell of Angola. (Reminder that immigrants have always rebuilt Louisiana after disastrous hurricanes. New Orleans would have been in ruins for years without them.)

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, and I hope to see you tonight at the Crescent City Brewhouse for Noir at the Bar: Morally Grey.

Ramses II statues with drifting sand at the Abu Simbel temple

Turn the Beat Around

Nottoway Plantation, one of the beautiful old homes along the River Road north of New Orleans, burned to the ground Thursday.1 But what that lovely old historic home actually was? Just a monument to enslavement and stolen wealth. I also can’t help but hope the backstory to the fire is some Gothic shenanigans, a la Rebecca and Manderly burning to the ground.

Nottoway before
Nottoway after

I’ve certainly come a long way from that kid who was raised to believe in white supremacy and the Lost Cause ideology, haven’t I? My relationship to the South has always been fraught, once I began to read more and understand more and deprogram myself from that horrific grooming as a child. I can remember, though, reading Gone with the Wind when I was ten or eleven for the first time and my hackles being raised by the happy, contented enslaved people and how they were described and how they talked. (I loved the story itself, but the racism was so unrelenting and unending and horrible; I need to do a deconstruction of that book sometime–as well as other “make white people feel better about racism” books.)

Nottoway was a beautiful home, but it was also one of the most monstrous sugar plantations in Louisiana with an excessively brutal history. I am not sorry in the least this horrific place–where they teach nothing about the true history of the place and rent out for weddings and parties for white people (“yes, you too can have a Scarlett O’Hara wedding on an old plantation! So what about the brutal treatment of generations of enslaved people?”). It really was nothing more than a monument to oppression, cruelty, and the evil that men can do.

I started dealing with the ghosts of my own Southern past in Bury Me in Shadows, and this new repurposed book from an old manuscript is also going to deal with race in Alabama, too. I just have to finish this damned Scotty book and get it out of my scalp. New Orleans also has its own dark, bloody and brutal history I have to deal with at some point, too. I was reading a piece about Madame LaLaurie and her abuse of her enslaved people, and wondering how to turn that into a short story–and likewise, my Sherlock story will also have to deal with race, because of the Voodoo Queen. I’m not afraid to address any of these issues, really; as long as I do it and am mindful of the potential for offense and/or getting it wrong (I have a great editor, thank God) and tread carefully. You really can’t write about the South authentically without talking about race.

After I finished working yesterday, Paul and I ran some errands (including Costco) and by the time we got back I was completely worn out and exhausted. I started reading a Dana Girls 2mystery (one of the kids’ series I collect) titled Mystery at the Crossroads, which was originally published in 1954–right around when the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books began being revised to remove problematic content–and ho boy, is there some problematic content in this book! It’s about “gypsies”–and every handy stereotype about the Romani people is crammed into this book. But it was easy to read, it engaged my brain, and now maybe today I can get back into reading something substantial.

I also rewatched two movies last night–the animated Beauty and the Beast (yes, I get that it’s problematic but I love it) and Jesus Christ Superstar before falling asleep in my chair. Paul woke me at one, and I managed to sleep through the night and this morning I feel rested and good. I have some errands to run today, but I am going to try to just clean and read and rest and relax as much as humanly possible. I am still not 100% recovered from the illness, but I am getting there.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back on the morrow, if not sooner.

  1. And yes, the Lost Cause traitors are weeping publicly of the loss. Since it was one of those destination wedding/party places that glossed over its hideous history…good riddance. ↩︎
  2. I will be writing about the Dana Girls for my newsletter at some point; I want to write about all the kids’ series I read growing up. ↩︎

Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)

Saturday morning and I have a couple of errands to do this morning. I need to go by the bank (I haven’t made a deposit in person in eons) and I have to swing by the grocery store. Sigh. I really didn’t want to leave the house today, but here we are. It’s also a struggle these days to get through as we go through and experience the collapse of the American experiment in self-rule. I think another significant part of our history that isn’t taught the way it should be is we aren’t taught about how many Tories there were in the colonies during the lead up to and aftermath of the Revolution. We aren’t taught New England threatened to secede during the War of 1812, or that there were people on both sides of the Civil War1 that sympathized with the other side; North and South weren’t monoliths the way we are taught. We aren’t taught about how many Americans were Nazi sympathizers and isolationists before Pearl Harbor, using the slogan “America First”–so you see why I have always raised a cynical eyebrow whenever anyone uses that slogan; it was tied to Nazi sympathizers to me.

Watching the collapse of our country is challenging and more than a little bit depressing. It is terrible that just as I approach the age of retirement and the final chapter of my life…well, the retirement may turn out to be involuntary, as my clinic’s funding is definitely on the chopping block, Social Security is about to be looted and destroyed, and I don’t want to even look at the paltry 401k, which has also probably evaporated. No job and no retirement funds is going to be awesome when I turn 64. Paul got the notice from the NEH to not bother applying for grant funding, as it’s all been cut, so his job may not survive this, either–no more festivals in the spring. So, miss me with “we need to be nice to MAGA voters now finding out”–fuck them now and forever. I will never forgive them, and their suffering lightens mine. You want to embrace them, be my guess. Me? I will never stop laughing and pointing, let alone mocking them and enjoying their tears. My patience has worn out for ignorant haters, sorry not sorry– and as they so eloquently put it, “fuck your feelings.”

Yesterday was a nice day, overall. I got up, had a virtual meeting at work, and then did my Admin work before running some errands. I got that done, and then Paul and I made a Costco run and spent an insane amount of money. After getting home, lugging everything into the house and putting it all away, I was tired. I collapsed into my chair for a while as Paul went upstairs to work on the NEH grant–but got the email so didn’t have to bother for the rest of the evening and we dove further into The Residence, which I am greatly enjoying. Uzo Adoba is fantastic as Cordelia Copp, the world’s greatest detective, and it’s very well cast, high production values, and the writing is quite crisp. The chief usher at the White House (the divine Giancarlo Esposito) is murdered during a state dinner, and Cordelia is brought in to solve the murder. I think what’s most interesting is the divide between the White House domestic staff v. the White House political staff; the domestics work for the House, the political staff comes and goes. I’d never really thought much about the staff of the residence, so it’s an interesting look at how that all works, and it’s very cleverly structured. Highly recommend.

I do have some errands to do today, and a lot of straightening up to do as well. I want to get some reading and writing in this morning, so I can go to the gym tomorrow (I know, right?) and get some more done. I’ve been letting things slide a lot lately, which probably means I am depressed, which isn’t surprising, given the state of the world and everything else going on in my life. I think there’s an element of why bother with this book, to be honest, which is counter-productive and quite self-destructive, but it’s hard to be productive when your default is almost always pessimism. I always knew Republicans were working very hard to destroy everything decent about this country (unfettered capitalism is sociopathic in nature), but I never dreamed they might actually succeed. To paraphrase Game of Thrones: “Whenever I wonder why the Republicans would do something so counter-productive to democracy, I like to play a little game: what is the worst reason they would want to do this?”

Littlefinger was right, even if he did end up with his throat slit for his treachery.

Yesterday I also realized that one of the great American traditions, going back to colonial days, of evading paying duties and tariffs was smuggling. I used to love to read about Colonial smugglers (John Hancock was one), and some great fiction was built up around smuggling. I’ve always thought the years of Prohibition (and alcohol smuggling) in New Orleans would be an interesting time to write about. That decade saw the rise of Huey Long to power in Louisiana, and there are some fantastic stories about that post-Storyville time here. Jean Lafitte was a pirate, too–but he was also a very successful smuggler. But again, one of the great problems of New Orleans/Louisiana research is going down wormholes and sidebars–my ADHD does not matters at all in this regard; I do remember wanting to write about “Mrs. Officer,” the first woman cop in New Orleans, who was hired because they needed a woman to search and interrogate criminal women, which was a problem during Storyville days. I mean, what a great decade to research and write about! Imagine what “Mrs. Officer”2 endured in terms of misogyny as the only woman cop in an era where women couldn’t vote.

There’s also a protest today scheduled in New Orleans, as well as around the country. I’m hoping to make it, it just depends on how tired I am after getting things done this morning. I feel pretty good right now, but that also doesn’t mean I won’t flag later, either.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you most likely tomorrow morning.

  1. This is a classic example of why I say we don’t teach history properly (which will end up being a longer-form essay for my newsletter at some point). There were plenty of Tories during the American Revolution. There were Southern sympathizers in the North and Unionists in the South–I knew about the North, but whenever I’d come across that about the South I figured it was after-the-fact apologia, excusing Southern whites for their inhumanity. But over the least few years as I’ve done more deep dives into Alabama history, and hearing more old family stories, I’ve come to realize it was actually true. Erik Larson discusses this in more detail in his The Demons of Unrest, which I do recommend. ↩︎
  2. SHe was always referred to as “Mrs. Officer,” which also makes a great title. ↩︎