Tag: Louisiana

When the Morning Comes

Hello, Monday. Another week of getting up early and going into the office. Yay. It was a good weekend of work and getting things done and relaxing. I’m not fully conscious yet–hopefully my coffee will start working its magic soon enough. The bed was again extremely comfortable this morning. It’s going to be a lovely day today–it’s in the sixties now, and will reach a high of seventy-two–and it’s my Admin day, which means I should be able to get caught up on my in-the-office work today. Yay! Now I just need to get caught up on everything else and I will be just fine.

And I have a bridge across the Mississippi River to sell you–I’m never just fine, you know.

Sparky did let me sleep in a little later before his breakfast hunger pushed him to annoy me enough to get up yesterday, and it was still early enough–and I was rested enough–to buckle down and get some things done. That felt good, and then I was able to read for a while on Winter Counts, which I am enjoying. Paul worked for most of the day, then came down so we could finish watching Black Doves and start watching The Diplomat, which is also excellent–it always trips me out that it’s Keri Russell, aka Felicity, in the lead–before we went to bed. It also finally hit Paul and me both yesterday how lucky he was Saturday night to have managed to not even notice the partial collapse of his building, which kind of shook us up a lot more once that reality sank in. He easily could have been killed, and his experience with the fire department and the police when he was leaving Saturday night isn’t exactly confidence building–they didn’t know it was an office building, not an apartment building, and they didn’t really check for people inside very intently–and it was yet another one of our many close calls; our alarmingly regular proximity to death and destruction but escaping with minimal problems.

Hard as it is to believe sometimes, we do live a rather charmed existence. Although–the next four nightmarish years are going to put that to the test, won’t they? Sigh. I am still living in denial that January 20th is going to happen. Louisiana continues to circle the drain under our horrific white supremacy governor, who is about to get rid of income tax but increase sales tax–who precisely is that going to benefit, Governor Asshole? New Orleans will get nothing but grief from this asshole’s administration, which is perfectly fine with Louisiana’s racist majority. They never really understand how vital New Orleans is to the economy of the entire state; and to the country overall. (That should have been the takeaway from Hurricane Katrina, but of course it wasn’t.) They just see New Orleans as a majority Black city, which therefore means it’s poor, crumbling, and crime-ridden; not safe for white people. It’s also a Catholic city of sin, which the Bible-thumpers really hate, even as they pass protections for the Catholic Church’s child-molesting priests while screaming about drag queen story hour. New Orleans really should be it’s own city-state; Senators Kennedy and Cassidy don’t give two shits about New Orleans; they only care about their greed and their bribes and their steady income from foreign enemies. Has either accomplished anything in Washington other than embarrassing their constituents who will just keep voting for them because they’re racists?

For the record, immigrants rebuilt New Orleans. Not Louisiana, not white people, not natives. In fact, New Orleans has always been an immigrant city (like every other major port city); hence the incredibly diverse mix of ethnicities here–from the Isleños to the Filipinos to the Greeks to the Italians and Irish and the French and the Spanish and the Americans–and the biggest influence on the city’s culture and heritage–Black people. Everything everyone loves about New Orleans comes from its Black people and their history, so yeah, racists, if not for the “crime1” here there would be nothing unique or special or beloved about this city. Funny how that works. And the state of Louisiana certainly has no issue with spending the city’s revenues.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have the best Monday you can, Constant Reader–I know I am going to try to!

  1. When the racists decry New Orleans’ “crime”, what they really are saying is “we left New Orleans when they desegregated the schools and everything else and Black people no longer had to sit in the back of the streetcars”–make no mistake about that. ↩︎

Tell Her No

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment, and all is well–at least so far, at any rate. I slept super well last night, and Sparky even let me sleep later, which is not his norm. But when he decided enough was enough, enough was enough. Yesterday turned out to be a very needed day of rest after I finished working; I ran my errands and was drained by the time I got home. I did some chores and the laundry, before settling in for some reading as my brain began misfiring again and the tiredness from the week settled in when I walked back into the apartment lugging groceries around four thirty. I settled into my easy chair and read for the rest of the evening, finishing The Demon of Unrest and starting another new non-fiction read (White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity by Robert P. Jones; yes, I am studying the racist history of the country right now), and caught up on Real Housewives (SLC is lit this season, y’all) before going to bed.

Remember a few weeks ago how I finally talked about how sick and tired I was of every form of homophobia, and especially the passive-aggressive bullshit from so-called “friends” and “allies”? Yeah, got one of those comments on here. Fortunately, I have to approve comments (because I do get the occasional homophobic diatribe; I learned the lesson to approve comments with Livejournal over a decade ago), so you’ll never have to see it, but it’s always a jolt. My favorites are always the ones like this morning–couched in language that appeared friendly, but was actually insulting, demeaning, and invalidating me as a human being with lived (and learned) experience. I love when people think their own lived experience as a straight white man is more valid than my own–and their knowledge of my community and its history is vastly superior to mine, despite their never needing to know anything about it and I’ve studied it extensively over the last three decades, but then again–I’m just a faggot in need of a straight person to get my shit together.

It’s always lovely having that kind of shit drop into your inbox first thing in the morning, before you’ve finished your first cup of coffee. This is why I finally had enough a few weeks ago. I’m not putting up with this shit anymore. Sixty-three years of being excluded, made to feel less than, and putting up with all bullshit that comes with being a gay American man born in the second half of the twentieth century. It certainly got my blood pumping this morning, and made me wake up faster than my morning coffee. It’s almost as funny as the lead singer of the Village People claiming that “YMCA” isn’t a gay anthem. Oh, honey, all your songs are gay anthems, and no one needs your permission to say it. The gays made you, the gays made your songs, and the gays kept your songs alive long after their shelf-life had passed, but go ahead and kiss some mango ass, bitch. Don’t let me stop you, by any means.

And if “YMCA” isn’t a gay anthem, it’s only because the community ditched it after it started being played and danced to (by the way, the song is from 1979…) by mediocre, rhythm-less straight white people at sporting events and political rallies. It always amuses me to see your homophobic asses dancing (badly) to a song about cruising other men at the Y. Butt-fucking and blow-jobs, that’s what the song is about. Remember that the next time you decide to stand up and dance at your next sporting event, straight people. At least the MAGA dance to it works, since it looks like the dancer is giving out handjobs with both hands.

And yay, we get to experience another four years of this kind of shit. At least. I don’t know why my sex life–which is no one’s business but my own–bothers so many people; I certainly don’t hold other people’s sex lives against them. It’s also election day here in Louisiana–this is when we have the elections when someone or something didn’t pass outright in the general. I think it’s just amendments to the state constitution, which I am going to have to look up before I walk over and vote. I also suppose I should be grateful that I don’t get more homophobic abuse on here and on-line; which is one of the reasons I never check DM’s on social media and usually will just clear them out in one swoop without looking at them (words of advice: for this reason, direct messaging is literally the worst way to reach me, especially if you need an answer from me right away), but…as I said a few weeks ago, I am not taking it anymore.

This is why I am no longer attending conferences and conventions–this sort of thing, never knowing who you’re going to meet who is a homophobic piece of shit (and there are quite a few of them, spread out over all sub-genres–you know who you are). Until such time (ha ha ha ha) that these events stop allowing and condoning this kind of shit–or not caring that it happens–why would I support them with my money and my paid vacation time? I know, I know, visibility and all that–but I’ve been doing all that for almost fifteen years, and I am tired.

After all, I’ve not been back to Left Coast since that horrible woman was racist and homophobic to me.1

Heavy sigh. I think I am going to get another cup of coffee and will read for a bit. I do have to run errands today–wash the car, pick up the mail, a little bit of groceries–before coming home and getting back to work. I don’t really care about any of the football games today, so I may turn on the SEC title game, or I may not. I don’t really have an interest in who wins it, so why not read, clean, and work during the day rather than watching games? I’m going to barbecue a pork tenderloin later for dinner, which will be nice. It’s sunny outside, but it’s only 48 degrees outside, and the high for the day is fifty-nine. I’m also going to do a German lesson this morning, and try to get a grip on my inbox, and I am also going to try to finish a substack entry this weekend; I have sixteen started (seriously) and they aren’t going to write themselves. I need to get this editing job finished, and I need to get back to work on my Scotty book. I also had breakthroughs on several other books ideas, so I’d like to get some work done so as to lesson the Sisyphean tasks I always have before me.

  1. I can honestly say I never expected to hear the slur terms for biracial in casual conversation, let alone directed at me. Live and learn. And for the record, this is why racism is so insidious; no one is actually safe from it. That experience also made me wonder if sometimes when I am treated badly by service staff, it has to do with racism? Because they think I’m biracial? And for the record, my brain never jumps to bad treatment = homophobia; I just think the person is a dick. But now I have something else to wonder about. ↩︎

What The World Needs Now is Love

Yesterday’s post was removed from Facebook because bare male torsos are sexually explicit, you know. I don’t think I’m going to be around there much longer, frankly. There was nothing sexual in yesterday’s blog image, other than it being a man in his underwear (and I get hit up by underwear and jock ads there all the fucking time that are more revealing than anything I post) but hey, male nipples might offend someone, you know. But if you’re a person who finds this blog on Facebook every morning, you might (and it’s perfectly okay if you don’t) want to subscribe to it and my Substack. Both are free, and will always be free; and if I should ever decide to make this an income stream (not likely) there will be plenty of notice. Decisions, you know. Paul and I have also come up with a worst-case scenario plan in case things get really bad–which it’s looking more and more like it will with every passing day–and so that’s kind of a relief of sorts. Kind of half-joking, half-serious. Paul and I are both too pragmatic to not think ahead for possible worst cases, and I feel okay about it. It’ll be a huge upheaval–but it won’t be one of our making. (I have some research to do, but it’s a good plan.)

The funniest thing about living in New Orleans is, despite Louisiana’s descent into Gilead since the election of Governor Can’t Be Wrong and his lickspittle legislature, is I feel far safer here than if I lived in a city in a blue state. Orleans Parish (aka New Orleans) went over eighty-two percent for Harris/Walz; can your city/county say the same? New Orleans isn’t just a blue island in a red sea, it’s so fucking blue that it can be seen from space. There’s going to be a lot of conflict coming between city and state as well as city and federal–it’s one of the reasons the governor sent the state police into our city (Troop New Orleans, or NOLA or whatever fascist thing he called them) to fight “crime”. They have no legal jurisdiction here, but every time I see one of their vehicles on the road I think “ah, the SS is here.” So much material in Louisiana to write about–as long as I get to keep writing about anything, really. And the Super Bowl is coming in a few months, too. Sigh. That means a conflict with Carnival, which I’ve not bothered to look into quite yet.

It rained as I ran my errands last night after work. It rained pretty much all day, and it’s raining again this morning. I slept really well last night, too, and didn’t really want to get up this morning but I did. I felt rested, and while I would love nothing more than to climb back into bed with Sparky and go back to sleep, that’s not possible since I obviously have to go into the office today. Next week is only a three-day work week, and then I have a lovely four day weekend while Paul is out of town where I am hoping to get some serious rest as well as get some shit done around here. I did work a bit on writing last night when I got home; mostly an essay for Substack which is still unfinished but it was still writing. It’s a start, after the derailment of the election and the horrors to come. I suppose the best thing to do here is to enjoy the time we have left before January 20th, when our country ceases to be a democracy and becomes whatever the hell it becomes once dollar store Mussolini and a cast of monsters move back into the White House. I imagine my blog and my Substack are enough to damn me as a dissident–without my writing, my life, and my sexual orientation–and of course my day job, however long it lasts in our brave new world.

We also finished Outer Banks over the weekend (or as Paul calls it, “outer skanks”), which was fun. It’s nothing terribly serious, and the plots on the show never really make a lot of sense, but the writing is bonkers and it moves really fast, and I kind of loved how completely insane and over the top it was. A lot of shows we enjoy are back with new seasons–Bad Sisters, for one, and The Diplomat for another–so we have plenty to watch, but the TF Gala is Thursday (the party at John Cameron Mitchell’s, he bragged again) so Paul’s evenings will be taken up this week with last minute details and plans, so we won’t be watching anything this week, so I need to dig up shows that Paul didn’t want to watch but I did so I can do that while he’s gone. I’ve let college football pretty much go this season–I’ll still watch LSU games, but no one else other than as a background noise while I clean around here–so my Saturdays are pretty much freed up for the rest of the year. It’s also hard to believe Christmas is just around the corner–and New Year’s, then Mardi Gras, then the festivals…sheesh. So I really need to get back to writing the book sooner rather than later, don’t I?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again soon; maybe even later on. I still have to write about Agatha All Along, which was probably my favorite show of the year, and Joe Locke, and any number of other posts I have started but never finished for some reason or another. Having that many drafts is starting to bug me, so I need to get them cleared out. A good project for me between clients today, methinks. Sorry if this was boring, but I’m not always jousting with dragons. Sometimes I take time off. 🙂

This is gorgeous, out triple-threat performer Nick Adams, who sings, dances and acts. He also has the most beautiful eyes, an incredible physique, and a great face. He’s the one who had to wear sleeves in A Chorus Line because he had bigger arms than Mario Lopez, the star. He always plays arrogant bitchy queens, like he did in Fire Island, which is a waste. He’d be great for the lead in a gay rom-com.

Blowin’ in the Wind

Wednesday morning and the middle of the week! We’ve made it this far, Constant Reader, even though this week hasn’t quite gone the way I would have liked.

The decision to limit social media consumption isn’t going as well this week as I would have liked; I hadn’t anticipated the pull of my phone while I am at work. And getting home from work every night this week, after I finish whatever I need to do (errands and so forth) I’ve repaired to my easy chair and watched some “MAGA voter regrets” videos on Youtube before my eyes started to glaze over and I kind of zoned out for the rest of the night. I don’t like the part of me that enjoys their pain; it is not my instinct to default for sympathy for people who want to harm everyone else. You can never go wrong not having any faith in the decency of the majority of Americans, because they have no decency or shame.1

But, I am not going to be hard on myself. I am trying, at long last, to break all the programming/grooming that I don’t deserve anything or even a writing career. I am going to keep writing–make no mistake about that–and i have to figure out ways to market them and get the word out there. Going to mystery conferences was clearly a mistake; why bother pitching readers on books that are not in the booksellers’ room2? I finally got resigned to them never having my books–or only one copy–and hoped people would possibly enjoy listening to me on panels and maybe take a chance; and now I am wondering if my presence also gaslit queer writers into feeling safe at conferences? I guess that will be on my conscience till the day I die. (Ironically, the substack posts about homophobia get way more than ten times the views that my other essays get, which means one of two things, or both. I was either wrong about scaring people off by being honest about how much it sucks to be queer in this modern time, or people enjoy reading about queer pain. I don’t think I want to know which one is right, to be honest, or even consider that the two are linked.)

But what I need to do is get back to writing my books and stories; I need to put all this shit aside and focus on my work. I was able to get through the first forty-two years of my life with my sexuality and my love life against the law in every one of the fifty states (and the territories! Can’t forget those bigots either!). I lived through the Reagan administration and the George W. Bush years, both of which callously didn’t care whether we lived or died (in fairness, Reagan and his people thought AIDS was an excellent way to get rid of us). My country was willing to let us all die. Remind me again why I should be a patriot, or a conservative? All our equality movement did was make people realize if they were openly homophobic, some people they cared about would think they were bad people.

And I’ll keep writing about the bad shit, of course. It won’t change any hearts or minds, of course, but I need to get that poison (and anger) out of my system before it festers and makes me as bad a person as everyone else is. I don’t want to be a bad person. I don’t want to give into the darkness; I don’t want to feel bitter about the crime fiction community. I know I have friends, actual friends, in this community, and I do cherish them because they love and support me. But I need to stop thinking well of people who I’ve met and have been nice to me because I always forget the vast majority of people default to polite when confronted with someone/something they are revolted by. I don’t think most straight people realize what it’s like to be viewed with revulsion, like you’re some disgusting thing, some abomination. But it’s also much easier to go through life assuming people aren’t bigots until proven otherwise. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be someone we’ve racialized as a society. I kind of get it, but am still white privileged so will never understand completely; even my imagination is too limited.

The good news is a federal judge struck down Louisiana’s Ten Commandments in Every Classroom law as unconstitutional, but an immune from prosecution or consequence executive order from the White House will overrule that. And this Supreme Court already is on its back with their legs up in the air and their ass lubed, ready for some serious Constitution fucking. The Federalist Society is about to get their wishlist for the country for Christmas, isn’t that great? I, for one, look forward to not paying income taxes to educate other people’s children anymore. Wonder how my MAGA nieces and nephews are going to educate their kids, but hey–they voted for it.

I’m so tired of being ignored like Cassandra on the walls of Troy.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great day. Constant Reader, and we will soon be returning to our regular content. I’ll go back to ignoring the slings and arrows of “allies” and enemies, like a good little gay, back in his corner–and no worries, folks. I wouldn’t go to a conference even if they asked me to be a special guest–and that is never going to happen anyway. Not as long as a straight white man has written a first novel, anyway.

  1. And even as this administration destroys their lives, the government-controlled media will help convince them it’s someone else’s fault, because it always is. Is anyone ever surprised about how horrible people after all the genocides? The gleeful bigotry and the embrace of hatred? ↩︎
  2. This is something I left out of my Substack essay yesterday about homophobic booksellers: they are also never to be criticized, no matter how bigoted and horrible they are. “They work so hard on conferences,” is always the response, “you can’t even question their bigotry.” If you want to read it, this link should take you there. ↩︎

I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am

Yeah, I’ve been big on the Tudors for most of my life–first the Virgin Queen, and then her father, Henry VIII and his many wives1, and eventually the entire family (Henry VIII’s sister Margaret was a pistol–and it is her descendants who sit on the throne today, not Henry’s). As I got older, I became more interested in the century as a whole, and eventually I moved on from the Tudors to the Stuarts, who I find much more interesting. I still love the Tudors, and will watch documentaries and films, but won’t read any more books about them, especially because I’ve not really scratched more than the surface with the Stuarts, and I want to read more about the Tudors’ French contemporaries, the House of Valois. (Yes, I loved The Tudors, because it was more of a Renaissance version of Dynasty; I don’t watch historical films and expect accuracy2, and if you are, wake the fuck up. Book adaptations are never the same as the book, either. It’s entertainment, not a fucking documentary.)

Speaking of entertainment, I finally gave up on Jon Stewart with his defense of the indefensible. His joining in on the media’s decision to badger and hound Joe Biden–one of the most successful presidents of all fucking time–out of the race? None of that, not one bit of that, was actual concern; they all were giving (and continued, until recently) Shady Marmalade a pass on his obvious mental decline…and Jon’s decision to defend the indefensible “because comedian”? Fuck off and die, you arrogant rich white cisgender piece of shit. I’ll never watch him again, so congrats on that year contract extension, Comedy Central. You thought calling Puerto Rico a floating pile of garbage was funny? You thought comparing Travis Kelce to OJ, implying he’ll murder Taylor Swift, was funny? And on and on and on. Straight white male comedians will always circle the wagons for another comedian with a penis, but when a woman comedian (see: Kathy Griffin) is being attacked, not a fucking word? So he’s a misogynist, too. I’m not telling you what to do, Constant Reader, but Jon Stewart is dead to me, now and forever. And don’t even get me started on the 49ers and Nick the Traitor Bosa. Talk about pussy. Someone got slapped down by management when he hit the locker room and before he talked to the press, and like a good little beta soyboy, he caved and sulked like the pathetic emotionally-and-intellectually stunted bitch he is. He’s not being punished because when asked he shut his fucking mouth, which is the other primary difference between him and a true hero, Colin Kaepernick (besides the obvious “white man gets away with shit a Black man never could” racism).

And really, 49ers managers and coaching staff? Your team represents San Francisco, the most tolerant city in the country. Trade him to Dallas, where he belongs.

Thank God I am on anxiety medications. If not, I probably wouldn’t have slept at all since June. But the medications and my personal ban on legacy media companies who are garbage and untrustworthy has helped a lot with my election anxiety, and refusing to engage with the trash on-line (block, block, block) I’ve managed to take good care of my own mental health this time around. I refuse to worry about what will happen if he wins, or if he loses and they try another violent coup; I do, every once in a while, think you always wondered what it was like to be a Berliner in 1933…and I didn’t really need to get an answer to that question, you know?

I feel good this morning yet again; I’ve been sleeping well every night this week and it’s been really nice. I did my errands last night, got home and got started on the dishes and did some other clean-up around here. Paul didn’t get home until late, so I mostly went down Youtube idle curiosity research holes. I also managed to get the Scotty Bible’s first draft finished; it’s just raw information for now that I have to reorganize and pull together. I am also realizing, as I mentioned yesterday, that I should do a concordance of everything I’ve written by place; Kansas, California, New Orleans, Louisiana, Florida, and Alabama. That’s the problem of having characters cross over from stand-alones to the series and back again, you know? I was realizing that the lawyer the boys hire in Royal Street Reveillon doesn’t have as much information in the Scotty series about him as I would have thought…only to remember that Loren McKeithen has a much larger role in the Chanse series than the Scotty. Oops!

I also realized last night, as I watched news clips and documentaries about the Civil War, that with my anxiety gone I no longer feel the need to belittle and dismiss things I’ve accomplished in this wild and crazy career of mine. I’ve written a shit ton of books, short stories, and blog posts–and when I think about all the queer papers and magazines that I’ve written for over the years, yes, my output has been a bit prodigious. It wasn’t false humility (though I am often horrified at how easy it is to slip into egomania, and always over-correct once I catch myself); I honestly still thought I wasn’t very good at what I do. I always compare myself to other writers and come up wanting; but it’s really not a competition of any kind; I appreciate great writers who produce great work, and my work is different from theirs. I always strive to be better, to get better, and not stagnate–the problem that creates is it extrapolates to I could have done that better and dismissing it. Those are the kind of brain landmines I need to watch for, and avoid whenever possible. I’m proud of all my work, for the record. Sure, going through the old Scotty books was always difficult (I always edit it another time as I’m reading it) but doing it for the Bible, where I’m just looking for information, was different. Sure, there were some clunky things I could have said better, but overall, I was actually a little surprised to see how good–and clever–the books actually are. It also reminded me of how I used to write the first ones, what I have always tried to do in my work–whether anyone notices or not. (Someone once emailed me after reading one of my books and said, “Did you deliberately do this?” and delighted, I wrote back “Absolutely!” That was a big thrill for me.)

And I am proud of my work. I overcame so many obstacles to build this career, and I am pleased with myself, too. My books are pretty good–yes, there will always be a few where I think, God I wish I could give that one more pass, but even those are pretty good. There are some I am more pleased with than others; yes, I have favorite children. But that doesn’t mean that I am not pleased with all of them. How many people told me along the way that this would never happen for me, that I didn’t have what it takes, or that I have no ability at all? Maybe, maybe not–but if that’s what you think, how many books have you published? How many awards have you been nominated for, or won?

I really wish I’d known it was anxiety much sooner.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again, perhaps later!

  1. I love that historians count all of the women he married as his wives; although technically the first two were actually annulled, so the marriages were never, at least legally, valid. ↩︎
  2. I totally understand why films and television shows based on history have to make changes; the actual stories don’t play out perfectly for different media and thus must be adapted. I do ↩︎

Down in the Boondocks

What exactly are boondocks, anyway?1

Monday morning and back to work with me today, which is fine. Yesterday was nice–despite the Saints losing; not a good weekend for Louisiana football outside of Tulane–and I feel rested and relaxed this morning, which is great. I have a lot to do today, and am really looking forward to having a good day. I did work on the book; I got the outlining of the first seven chapters done; I made a character list (a good start); and also recognized in the rereading what needs fixing and what needs adding and what needs redoing. I also outlined the rest of a short story I am working on, and figured out how to solve the problem of another one, too, which is very cool. I also read for a while, and really am enjoying House of Rain and Bone. I also figured out why it’s taking me so long to read, which I am puzzling over, and it hit me this morning–I am reading it slowly because I am savoring it, and because it’s making me think as I engage with it, and that’s not an easy thing for any writer to do with their work. The book is also a lot of things I generally don’t care for or like–lots of violence–but the language is very beautiful yet raw, the emotion is like an exposed nerve, but I am enjoying it very much, and it’s very intense…but takes me a while to process and digest what I read, so it’s not going very quickly. This is not a bad thing. Most readers will take this ride and not be able to put it down–it moves very quickly, the characters are remarkably likable, the main character is a relatable guy–but as a fellow author, I want to savor the language, the structure, the pacing, all the things that make the book so stunningly brilliant.

And that’s a good thing.

I feel pretty good this morning, actually. I slept really well last night, and feel rested and relaxed as I face the day. It’s my Admin day at work, so I have no pressures or stress and no interactions with clients, unless I see one by chance as I walk around doing other things this morning. I love my clients–I really do, and the long-termers are lovely to see every quarter–but interacting with people all day as someone who is, at heart, an introvert despite being a Leo (I like attention but it also makes me uncomfortable2), wears me out a bit.

I also worked on the Scotty Bible some this weekend. I marked up the final volume that wasn’t (Royal Street Reveillon) and then took down the notes from those pages, and will need to get that typed up. The last step of finishing the Bible includes reorganizing the notes into book order, before sorting them all into categories and so forth. I also need to do a synopsis of each book, detailing not only the case but developments in Scotty’s personal life, the family tree, and so on. Also going through the books to do this–even just pulling the notes out–has given me the opportunity (without the anxiety and all the little naysaying voices in my head, banished by my new medications) to reread (a bit) and reacquaint myself with the work with fresh eyes. As you probably already know, I am very hard of myself and was always dismissive of any achievements or recognition I may have received, and have forgotten a lot of the stories and what happened and why and where the idea came from and why I wanted to tell this story…but this revisitation without the usual Greg-crazy has made me appreciate the stories and the writing all the more, which is lovely and incredibly cool. I also realized yesterday while making the notes that while a Scotty Bible is needed and necessary, that an overall Greg Multiverse of New Orleans Bible is necessary; I’ve crossed over all my New Orleans writing (short stories and novels), using the same fictitious spaces and minor characters. (For example, Cooper Construction from A Streetcar Named Murder is also the construction company Scotty is using to renovate the building on Decatur Street.) So, yes, it needs to be more encompassing. I realized that Paige–Chanse’s best friend–whom I’ve also used in the Scotty series–most of her background is in the Chanse books, and yes, I should probably do one for him, too….sigh. It’s like pulling a string from something knit.

I’m kind of going to miss the Swifties, to be honest. We’re used to tourism here–non-stop conventions, the big events, and so on–but there was a marked difference between the Swifties and other big groups that take over New Orleans. For one thing, they were incredibly friendly and nice! So much good energy that I didn’t mind the crowds of them I had to pass through, and the outfits and everything. They were here to have a good time, of course, and the city welcomed them (and their wallets) with open arms so that it became almost a symbiotic pairing. Hospitality workers marveled at their kindness and their generous tipping; store owners and workers didn’t mind being busy because everyone was nice and polite and didn’t complain about anything. I loved the friendship bracelets adorning the Superdome. I loved the endless karaoke of Taylor’s songs that went on as they took over Bourbon Street. Every bar and every shop was playing her music. Her economic impact on the city was undeniable, and I can’t wait to hear about her local charity giving, which she always does–usually food banks and homeless shelters, bless her.

It’s no wonder MAGA hates her. They hate anyone who is kind and giving–they certainly do not recognize Jesus’ messages in her (which goes to show you how they would react to Jesus’ return, doesn’t it? I find it very interesting that his followers are the ones most likely to reject and crucify him). I won’t talk about the Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden yesterday because what else is there to say, other than “we’ve not seen anything like this since the Nuremburg rallies” but we did have one in MSG back in 1939, didn’t we? (And it should come as no surprise that it was conservatives who were pro-Hitler in 1939 America, does it? They hated FDR with the same kind of passion Trump ignites in his acolytes, and since they smeared him as a socialist/communist, naturally they got into bed with Nazis.)

Everything old is new again.

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

  1. So, turns out it means “rough, isolated country”–and has come to mean, in slang, a remote place with little to no civilization. Interesting. ↩︎
  2. And yes, that is on the list of issues to unpack and make peace with. ↩︎

That Song Is Driving Me Crazy

Friday, and after I get my work at home duties finished, it’s time to head up to Alabama. It’ll be nice seeing Dad again, and I will be listening to Paul Tremblay on my way to and fro; Survivor Song, in case you were wondering. I’ve almost finished all of his canon, which means the last book will be saved until his next new one drops, so I won’t be out of his work to read (I know, it’s silly to do this, and maybe I’ll finally stop holding books in reserve because I don’t want to be out of that author’s work to look forward to *coughs* Daphne du Maurier *cough* Mary Stewart *cough* Shirley Jackson *cough*)1. I think I am going to have some down time while up there, so I can possibly get some reading of the new Gabino done as well. (Dad is doing some things with the other survivors from his graduating class2.) I did wind up sleeping in a little later than I intended, but I was very worn out by the time I ran my errands and got home from everything. I relaxed last night once I was home–Paul was at an event and didn’t get home until later (we watched this week’s Agatha All Along and the season debut of Abbott Elementary)–with Sparky (who was a demon cat for a lot longer than usual) and got caught up on the news while resting and waiting for Paul to get home. I feel a bit more rested this morning, but I have to drive for between five and six hours tonight, so I worry that I’ll be super tired when I get there tonight. We’re having a cold spell (for us) and the temperatures are very fall for us. Next week it’s going to be in the fifties at night, with highs in the seventies during the day. Woo-hoo! The season of sweat appears to be behind us at long last.

I saw hints and rumors that the same area in the western Caribbean that spawned both Helene and Milton might be looking to hatch up another one of these accelerated storms that will follow the same approximate path, which is horrifying; Nadine will be the name3. What a horrible season–and I also can’t help but remember former patterns, in which New Orleans and Louisiana got slammed pretty hard the year after Florida got hit four times in one year. (I always look for patterns, because on a deep level I find patterns very soothing)

I did do some work on writing last night; I started looking through the new Scotty to see where I was already wrong on things (I have always based his grandparents’ home in the Garden District on one specific house; I was writing it from memory, but in reviewing a lot of the photos I took of the house at one point, I saw my memory had been faulty and incorrect. I need to have some things wrong, of course, so people won’t know the actual house (or so the owners can’t sue me for having people murdered on their property), but it cleared up some confusion in my brain about what I was writing, and so I will need to go in and fix that. I think that’s my project for the next week; revising and correcting the chapters I already have finished, while also preparing a cast list and an outline as I go. I also have to come up with a synopsis and cover text and marketing copy for it; so those are all things I can work on over the next week. I also have to finish revising that short story for the anthology whose deadline is the 15th; I think I know how to really make the story finally work after all these years…and if they don’t take it, I can put the revised version in my new collection. I love that for me, and I also figured out what story I am going to write for another anthology I’ve been asked to contribute something to; and I also want to write something for another anthology whose due date is November 1–so I’d best get cracking on that, don’t you think?

I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed and stretched pretty far this past week–lots of things to do, more pressure at the day job (and it’s temporary, Mary, so get over yourself), a messy home, a trip to take and another to plan, and of course my own pressures from deadlines and writing. That’s not even taking into consideration the existential crisis facing us in this upcoming election–blocking and avoiding all legacy media has been wonderful; their corrupt betrayal of the American public since 2015 (if not sooner; I am pretty sure they didn’t report on Obama fairly, either) has rendered them forever meaningless in my eyes. I am not nearly as stressed about any of this as I usually am. I am sure that’s partly the generalized anxiety disorder being medicated properly, and the other was a conscious decision. The deletion of Twitter has been probably the best thing I’ve done for my mental health since deciding last year to get the right medications for that (properly diagnosed at sixty-two at long last). It has freed up so much time–I thought of myself as a casual Twitter user, but now that I no longer have that wretched app, I am seeing that I used it a lot more than I ever thought, so breaking that wretched addiction and walking away from it for good was incredibly wise. Paul isn’t on social media at all, and he is much happier without it than I was with it all this time.

But now that I’ve had a good night’s sleep and got some extra, I am feeling good and like I can handle everything. I am not going into the office on Monday–I have some appointments so took the day off–so I am going to be able to get the house worked on some and run some necessary errands on that day to prep for the week. I’m going back to Kentucky later this month for a longer visit, but I’ve not really figured that out just yet, either.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines so I can get my work done and head north. Have a great Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow–and if not, definitely Sunday after I get back to New Orleans.

  1. There are also a couple of Agatha Christies I’ve not read–Death in the Air and Murder in Three Acts. ↩︎
  2. Yes, I can hear how grim that sounds once I started typing it out, but it’s accurate. How else to say it simply? They all graduated sixty-three years ago (and yes, I was born three months after my parents graduated), so they are all at least eighty-one–and much as modern medicine has extended longevity, they are also the last generation that was encouraged to smoke, along with all the other unhealthy ways they loved. Imagine cooking with lard, for one. ↩︎
  3. IMPORTANT CORRECTION: It was fake news. There’s nothing there right now, but it’s possible and any potential path of something that doesn’t exist is obviously incorrect. Sorry for including this, but I did say it was a rumor. ↩︎

Take Good Care of Her

Ah, here we are on what I wished were Taco Tuesday, but alas, it is not to be. Too much food already on hand to go out and get something entirely new. It’s dark again this morning, and of course there are any number of tropical systems out there that need to be watched, but at least we’re in the final months of the season. I was very comfortable in the bed this morning–Sparky was cuddled up with me when I woke up–but forced myself to get up. My week is kind of messed up already. I had to cover the clinic yesterday because someone’s on vacation (I kept thinking it was Tuesday all day), and now today I am working clinic by myself. That means I’ll probably be tired when I get home tonight, which is okay. I made groceries and got the mail last night, so I can come straight home tonight. I ordered some things on-line this week–new shoes, coffee–and I also repaired a book whose binding had broken (a Three Investigators tome), and tried repairing a pair of very cool Oxfords. I’ve had the shoes for almost thirteen years now, but have only wore them a handful of times (I rarely dress up and they’re too dressy to wear otherwise) so am not comfortable with just throwing them out when they just need to have the sole reattached. (Gorilla Glue failed me, so they’re going to have to wind up going to a shoe repair.) There wasn’t a lot of traffic last night on the way home, and after getting home and bonding with Sparky, I relaxed in my easy chair and bonded with the kitty while watching the news on-line. We did end up watching another episode of American Sports Story, and this season is really about the dangers of the closet, and how that level of self-loathing can twist someone into something dark.

Kind of sad, really; yet another example of the dangers of toxic masculinity (as if we needed another). And the guy who plays Urban Meyer is kind of uncanny.

I also read some more of Rival Queens, and have finally reached the part where the final Valois king, Henri III, has ascended to the French throne, and talks about his gender identity and homosexuality–and of course, the most interesting part to me; the mignons, his handsome young men that danced attendance on him as his favorites. Both mother and sister queens (Catherine de Medici and Marguerite of Navarre) despised the mignons, but weren’t so above the fray to not use them in their own attempts to either control the country or save her own life. It would be interesting, methinks, to write about this treacherous period of religious civil wars in France, with Spain, the Empire and England all meddling in French politics–lots on intrigue, back-stabbing, the changing of sides, assassination and murder, and of course, war. The second half of the sixteenth century saw France torn apart by factionalism and war, which wrecked the economy and kept France from building itself into a major power; fear of France really drove European history for centuries.

There certainly has been a lot of celebrity death lately, so much so that I’ve not really been able to keep up. Maggie Smith–what can I say about Maggie Smith? I first saw her on film in Murder by Death, and she was my favorite part of the movie. When I saw California Suite in the theater, I fell in love with her and wished the entire film had focused on her and Michael Caine; the other stories were dull and trite and cliched. From then on, I made a point to watch anything with Maggie Smith in it, and I was never disappointed. Such a massive talent, and so many great performances left behind. Kris Kristofferson was another giant, of music and acting. I first really noticed him in A Star is Born, and DAMN the man was fine. And that voice! Kristofferson was also a progressive and that came across in many of his classic songs. Just “Help Me Make It Thru The Night”, “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” and “Me and Bobby McGee” is enough to ensure an impressive legacy, and that’s just scratching the surface. He was also a very good person, a classy guy who cared about people and the downtrodden–from that period of country music where the greats (Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kristofferson) were progressives who stood up to oppression and bigotry. (I also love his quote about Toby Keith’s music–“he’s done for country music what pantyhose did for finger-fucking.”)

In other exciting news, the so-called “abortion pills” have now been banned in Gilead, er, Louisiana; the bill banning them outright went into effect this morning. I never thought I’d see the day when we had a worse governor or legislature than we did during the Bobby Jindal “burn Louisiana to the ground” administration…so of course the Reich Wing bigots in Louisiana had to elect someone far, far worse. Such a beautiful state–with so many ugly people living here. That is unfortunately true about the entire South, really, and no, Southern states don’t deserve hurricanes as punishment, either; that’s the kind of hellfire and brimstone shit the Reich believes in, and I reject any natural occurrence as being “God’s punishment” for sin–when God doesn’t choose to protect children from physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, you can miss me with your bloodthirsty god.

I’m looking forward to working on the book some more, and I also want to submit a story to an upcoming anthology deadline that could actually work for me. We shall see how motivated I am, shan’t we?

And on that note, tis off to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I hope you get some tacos tonight!

I See The Want To In Your Eyes

Ah, Thursday and my last day at the office for this week. Huzzah?

Yesterday was a good day at work. I managed to get caught up on all my paperwork and admin stuff (just in time to get trained for some more new duties, woo-hoo!) before getting the mail on my way home. I also managed to finish Chapter Six (it’s terrible, but that’s what future drafts are for) before repairing to my easy chair for Sparky cuddle time. He was especially sweet last night; he even went and cuddled up to Paul on the couch on his own, which was delightful for Paul. Our cats have always been more Paul’s pet than mine (not that I didn’t love them), so having me be Sparky’s primary parent has been a bit weird for us. But when I woke up in the middle of the night, he was curled up at the foot of the bed between my feet and Paul’s–so he’s starting to sleep in the bed, too. Progress! The problem, of course, is that we got Sparky right before my surgery, so I was stuck in my easy chair for several weeks while Paul was gone all the time because of work…so Sparky got used to me. It’s also kind of hard to believe that the one-year anniversary of the surgery is coming up. Last fall was rough for me, wasn’t it? LOL. I went to Bouchercon for Labor Day, came home to oral surgery, and once that was all taken care of I had my other surgery.

2023 was quite a year.

Helene is battering Florida today, should make landfall this evening, so stay safe, my Florida peeps. This storm is large enough to effect everyone in the state–Miami is getting strong winds already, and they aren’t even in the cone–and it looks like it’s going to be even rougher the further inland and north it goes. Looking at the map, even Kentucky is going to get slammed with about 2-4 inches of rain, which I know is a lot for a place that doesn’t really get flooding rains regularly. Everyone in the path, please be careful and I hope you’re prepared for it.

We watched this week’s episodes of Bad Monkey, English Teacher, and Agatha All Along, all of which we are thoroughly enjoying, and I think we’re going to start Grotesquerie and American Sports Story tonight. I don’t have to go into the office tomorrow, which is a lovely thought, and then it’s the weekend. Woo-hoo! I want to get to work on Chapter Seven, and I also want to finish a couple of essays. I still want to rewatch the first episode of Monsters before I write about the show (it truly deserves its own entry), and I also would like to get some of my other essays completed this weekend. I think I’ll try to make a to-do list at work between clients this morning.

I was realizing last night that my life seems so weird to me now because I was on a serious treadmill for well over a decade and now I am no longer on a treadmill with an inbox full of emails every morning needing to be answered and books and stories to write and volunteering on top of my day job and that I was also editing anywhere from fourteen to thirty novels a year. Editing was the first thing I cut loose to try to get myself more rest and free time, but the last almost but not quite two years has been very rough for and on me, and also made me realize that giving up on the volunteer work was the smartest thing I could have ever done for myself; there is no way I could have handled everything since January 2023 on while still trying to get the volunteer work done, too–so that was the right decision. Right now, I am using the free time to acclimate and write and clean and organize and read and to relax, which is very lovely and nice.

It’s also super lovely to not worry about making sure I answer all my emails within 24 hours of receiving them, either.

Oh! And in another great and delightful development this week, I solved the primary problem with another thing I am working on and am delighted and excited to get back to it. Yay! I also got some thrilling (for me) news from Paul last night re: the Festivals, which is going to be awesome.

Louisiana politicians continue to prove they are raw sewage, and will always try to one-up each other: “Oh, Senator Kennedy went all Klan Master on someone at a Senate hearing? HOLD MY MOONSHINE!” Clay Higgins continues to embarrass the state and his constituents, and it’s really amazing how the quality of national politicians from the state of Louisiana has declined since the rise of the Tea Party and the horror of the country electing a biracial president two elections in a row. Louisiana used to have people like Hale Boggs, Russell Long, and Mary Landrieu on the national stage–now we have garbage like Kennedy and Cassidy and Higgins;1 who is probably more racist than David Duke. We also can lay claim to disgusting piece of shit Steve Scalise, a power-hungry hateful bigot whose only god is power and money. I’m not sure what happened to the Democratic Party in Louisiana, but it’s been pretty ineffectual for quite some time. Louisiana has always been a banana republic under one-party rule, but there are still Democrats in Louisiana and the Project 2025 takeover of the state has been unopposed for the most part. Part of is the national party’s total disinterest in red states to the point they’ve written them off completely. We do get some decent candidates in races, but without money or active boots-on-the-ground work, we will continue our slide into a third-world country (we’ve always joked about the state being just that, but now it’s not a joke anymore). Alas, I don’t have the energy or time to do much about any of this, and so that’s why I don’t complain about the situation more. But on the other hand, if I can bring attention to what’s going on in Louisiana to my small audience, that is something, isn’t it? Utilize my own gifts and focus on writing about situations that concern me? Well, I can try but I make no promises. (For the record, I love when I post something on social media about something going on here that’s horrible and then people come shrieking in to scream about how horrible it is here…um, thanks I HADN’T NOTICED)

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and please stay safe all those in the path of Helene.

Screenshot
  1. And Moses himself, the false prophet Mike Johnson, who is no Christian. ↩︎

If You Talk In Your Sleep

Well, here we are in the cone of uncertainty for a tropical storm that should be forming due south of Louisiana in the Gulf, which should make for an interesting week, don’t you think? How things have changed since I posted my blog yesterday morning… I imagine we’ll be hearing about contingency plans today at the office.

Sigh. Wednesday is also Pay the Bills Day, which should make everything all the more interesting. According to the hurricane center, landfall should be around seven pm on Wednesday, so who knows? It might impact work on Thursday, too. And of course, I am writing about experiencing a Category 1 with this new Scotty, and this one will be a Category 1, too, if not stronger. Yay. Needless to say, we won’t be evacuating as this has come up a little too quickly; we’d have to get packing and on the road today, tomorrow morning at the latest. There’s no call for evacuation, so we should be okay. But…we may lose power, and that truly sucks. If the weather is going to be cool…it might be kind of nice, but I don’t think that’s going to be the case. Guess I’ll be getting that case of water down from the attic and tossing a few of them into the freezer. But there doesn’t seem to be much concern in the news or on the weather channels, so I am assuming it’s nothing to be terribly concerned or worried about. It’s 3’s and up that are the real problem…and of course, now that I’ve said that…

Since it’s a Monday, it’s back to the office with me this morning. I had a lovely, restful weekend, how about you? Yesterday was a really lovely day here. I overslept so was a bit off for the rest of the day, but the weather was gorgeous. I didn’t do a whole lot of anything, but one thing I did was start the Scotty Bible, going through the already post-it noted copy of Mardi Gras Mambo and getting some interesting (and necessary) information out of it (the first names of his grandparents and his dad; the street the Diderot mansion is on) that I needed, and I felt very accomplished getting that part of it done and it’s off to a start. It was also kind of nice revisiting the old book, something I wrote almost twenty years ago. I’d forgotten how insane the plot of this book actually was, and I’m kind of impressed that I managed to pull it off, especially given how many aborted starts I made on it. But I certainly picked the right back-list book to start compiling the Bible with; it had all the answers I needed for this one in it. Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop doing it, mind you; I am planning on getting through one book per day (I already marked the places I need to get information from in the entire series, many years ago); today is Who Dat Whodunnit when I get home tonight. I’m also going to correct the chapters I’ve already written with the right names and places and so forth.

I ran an errand and the weather was stunningly beautiful–the 70s and cool; the breeze was nice and cool, a lovely change from it feeling like the air coming out of a floor vent in Minneapolis in January. I watched the Saints win, which was also lovely, and then I had a ZOOM call with some friends before settling in for the evening, where we got caught up with Bad Monkey and Only Murders in the Building.

So, all in all, a pleasant if lazy weekend here in the Lost Apartment, if not a particularly productive one. Which is also fine, you know. Weekends don’t have to be productive anymore.

It’ll be interesting to see how this storm–which is now projected to be a Category 2 when the eye comes ashore–is going to interrupt the week and my work. If we lose power, we have plenty of candles and things to drink, and I can catch up on my reading. Now that I’ve broken through my “reader’s block” and binged an entire novel in one sitting (Alison Gaylin’s We Are Watching, available now for preorders and being released in January), reading isn’t going to be as big an issue as it was. I am also making progress on getting through Rival Queens, and am revisiting some Ira Levin classics, preparatory to a longer essay for Substack about one of my favorite writers that I sadly forget about when asked about influences; Levin’s work had an influence on mine in some ways, but he was definitely a master. He wrote one of the greatest crime novels of all time (A Kiss Before Dying, which still amazes with its twists and turns and surprises), and three others that became part of the zeitgeist and had a lasting impact on our culture: Rosemary’s Baby, The Stepford Wives, and The Boys from Brazil. (I also want to reread “A Rose for Emily” this week, too.) I also haven’t reread Rebecca in quite some time, nor The Haunting of Hill House, either. I am going to be trying to read horror all month for Halloween again; I have some terrific horror novels collecting dust that I need to get around to, and Halloween Horror Month sounds like a great idea to me.

I also want to watch The Deliverance this week.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. It’ll be an interesting day, for sure, and maybe I’ll be back later. Stranger things have occurred.