Tag: Love

Rock Me Gently

Thursday morning and my last day in the office for the week! Huzzah! The bed felt very comfortable this morning, and Sparky has started cuddling with me in the mornings after the alarm goes off the first time, which makes it even harder to get up. (Of course, he’s only doing this because he wants me to get up and feed him, the mercenary little dear.) I also feel a bit tired in the legs, which means I will probably be exhausted when I get off work, but that’s okay. There are worse things. We’re also completely booked up in the clinic, too, so I will be kept hopping at the office all day, too. I think I will most likely just come straight home from work tonight, too, although my copy of the new Lou Berney has come in for me to pick up, which I’ll do this weekend, most likely.

Today is also 9/11, which is always a rather somber day. Twenty four years ago, the country and the world changed forever. My condolences to those who lost people on that day, as well as those forever traumatized by witnessing (or escaping) the tragedy. And I hope those who exploited the emotion of the moment and the years immediately after to push an un-American agenda through Congress to gain more power. The PATRIOT Act was the first step on the road to authoritarianism, and it’s still in effect…the key word to throw out the Bill of Rights was, apparently, “terrorism.”

The murder of Charlie Kirk yesterday was a real shock; when I first saw that he’d been shot on social media I wasn’t sure it wasn’t a hoax or some trolling or something else like that…but it did turn out to be true, and he died at the hospital. I saw one of the long-distance videos of it, which was sickening enough (and it was a result of auto-play on social media), and have no desire to the ones that were shot closer and are much more graphic. I am not now, nor have ever been, an advocate of violence of this type, but at the same time I am not going to feel bad that someone who thought I should be stoned to death for the crime of existing–and no one is going to guilt or shame me into feeling otherwise. I saw a lot of cisgender white women (of course) taking off their masks once and for all yesterday, who are apparently okay with gays being stoned to death and Blacks are inferior and school shootings are the price we pay for freedom. I am also tired of this double standard the right-wingers live by–how they haven’t been driven insane by the cognitive dissonance in their shitty little brains is beyond me. There has already been plenty of political violence from the Right–1/6/20 ring any bells? Remember the Minnesota legislators and their spouses? Remember the arson of the Pennsylvania governor’s home? Where was all this collective right wing outrage then? We should all be shocked and appalled…but no one seems to care that the right is calling for the murders of all non-MAGA’s in the country? For a civil war? OVER CHARLIE KIRK?

Bitch, please.

If you want to mourn him, that’s fine. I never tell anyone what they can think or feel–but I one thing I have never, and will never, tolerate people trying to climb on some kind of moral high horse about this and trying to scold/shame people about how to feel and react. You’re not my mother, thank you very much, and if you’re perfectly okay with someone saying queer people should be stoned to death, I know you aren’t safe for me. You’ll vote against my rights and dignity, and you’ll turn your head when the military police come for us. You’re just a good little German, and I don’t fucking need to know your dirty, unwashed wide flat Karen ass.

He wanted me, and others like me, to be put to death. That is who you’re telling me I should be empathetic and kind about? Were Black people supposed to grieve Bull Connor? Robert E. Lee?

And in the 1950s you would have claimed a black child whistled at you and never admitted culpability for his murder. That’s who you are.

And so very interesting that your panties are in a moist wad over Charlie Kirk but you’re okay with the school shooting yesterday? Is the air so thin up there on your high-horse that you’re not getting enough oxygen to your brain?

I also love knowing that the only reason you’re friends with me, either on-line or in real life, is because I sometimes edit anthologies so you want to be on my good side. Welp, you kind of blew that, didn’t you? I never forget. So sorry.

This is also why I say I respect Westboro Baptist’s homophobia: they don’t pretend. At least they’re honest–and when you’re negatively compared to Westboro, you need to reevaluate everything about your life. They won’t, of course; they think everyone else should change.

Ugh. This is such a dark time. I hate being here for the inevitable fall of the American empire. This post will probably cost me friends and followers, but

And on that somber note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a good day, Constant Reader. Here’s hoping we make it through all of this.

I wonder if this picture is too sexual for the prudish Puritans at Meta?

Abraham, Martin and John

Wednesday and Pay-the-Bills Day has rolled around for the first time in September. I didn’t sleep all that great, but don’t feel groggy at all this morning. However, if I had to I could easily go back to bed and fall asleep all over again. I am slowly starting to lift myself out of the abyss and pull my life back together. Yesterday was a pretty good day, actually. I felt great all day, not tired at all, and was able to get a lot done at the office. I wasn’t even tired when I got home after work, either! Huzzah and hurray! I spent some time getting caught up on the news when I got home, and then read for a while before Paul got home and I went to bed. I don’t know if this is all because of the injection on Monday, but whatever caused it, I am delighted and thrilled it happened. I suspect I’ll be a bit more tired this evening than I was yesterday, but I will happily take it, you know? The fatigue over the weekend was so intense and brutal–I’ve never been so tired it hurt, you know?–and I hope I never experience that again.

I am a bit tired this morning (mostly because of restless sleep and waking up several times during the night), but it’s not that horrible fatigue, which I fucking despise. I feel a little off, but nothing terrible that I can’t deal with, but no promises for this afternoon, you know? I was thinking about ordering groceries to be delivered this evening, but am not sure I shouldn’t just wait until Saturday. I am going to barbecue for the LSU-Florida game–burgers and cheese dogs, the regular tailgating action–and there are an awful lot of great games Saturday–Georgia-Tennessee, Wisconsin-Alabama, and two other games at the same time as LSU, Vanderbilt-South Carolina and Texas A&M-Notre Dame. I do love football season, even as it takes away from my productivity.

At least I enjoy cleaning while the games are on.

The world and country continue to burn to the ground, and social media continues to be filled with bots, grifters, rage baiters, and sad, broken people lashing out in a pathetic attempt to somehow feel better about themselves as American mediocrities and failures. I have very little hope for the future of this country, now that the small-minded hateful bigots who don’t understand the first thing about freedom and liberty are in control. It’s also interesting to see how many Americans are into the whole fascism thing. Sinclair Lewis was very prescient with It Can’t Happen Here, wasn’t he? I also saw some insane shit-posting about To Kill a Mockingbird being racist1, but not for the reasons most people do. No, this empty-minded moron was bitching about the book being racist because it showed an all-white jury wrongfully convicting a Black man for a crime they knew he didn’t commit thus making white people look bad.

Excuse the fuck out of me?

As I replied, you’re right–it would have never gotten to trial. He would have been lynched the same night he was accused.

Because that was how it was done in Alabama in the 1930s, and to suggest anything else is a blatant lie.

I also love the MAGA bitch from Georgia who got the proposed Hyundai plant shut down completely, dealing a harsh blow to her own state’s economy and that of the district she is running to represent. If this were an episode of Law & Order, her body would be found and they’d work their way back around to her ignorance and stupidity. I am so tired of the rampant stupidity as the American empire crumbles and dies…this is going to be one of those times future history students will look back on and think but why were they so stupid? Couldn’t they SEE?

I was once that child reading history.

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

Artist’s rendering of the Temple at Edfu, Egypt
  1. My feelings about To Kill a Mockingbird are very conflicted, as I don’t see it as a great American novel about race the way most white people see it, and that may become an essay at some point. ↩︎

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

It’s All I Can Do

Tuesday and all is well in the Lost Apartment. It was, indeed, lovely having yesterday off. I had my last infusion yesterday, and yes, I was fatigued when I got home. I swung by the Apple Store while I was out in Metairie, and came home to finish reading Megan Abbott’s brilliant El Dorado Drive (more on that later). Last night, we tried to find something to watch but just weren’t in the mood for anything we found that looked likely for us; we actually started watching two things that I’d forgotten we’d already watched! I decided to read the room and went to bed early. I didn’t want to get up this morning, either. I am feeling fatigued this morning–physically, not mentally–which will certainly make today a challenge. The coffee is going down well and that’s always a good thing. It looks pleasant outside the windows this morning–but it’s probably like soup out there.

El Dorado Drive was classic Megan Abbott–noir to the core, and about the complicated, complex relationships between women. This time, the women are sisters, all born within the space of four years or so, who grew up wealthy and privileged…until the auto industry cratered and they are having to deal with, well, not being rich anymore and not really knowing how to handle the poverty. All of the sisters owe money–the eldest’s husband is dying of cancer; middle sister Pamela is going through a horrible divorce; and youngest sister, Harper (who also is a lesbian) is barely scraping by…so of course, they are the right audience for a get-rich-quick scheme that is simply too good to be true (isn’t everything easy?). I loved this book, and couldn’t put it down yesterday. I read it through my entire infusion, and then picked it up once I was safely home to finish. I will do a more in-depth review for the newsletter, methinks.

I also decided to move on to The Hunting Wives next, leapfrogging it up to the top of my TBR stack because I want to read while my memory of the show is still fairly fresh in my head. I bet there’s not as much sapphic activity in the book as there was on the show, but I am very hopeful the book isn’t terribly different from the show? I will report back, of course, once I have the answer. I also started my reread of Shirley Jackson’s Life Among the Savages and The Secret of the Red Scarf. I did a load of dishes but forgot to turn on the dishwasher. Must remember to turn it on before leaving for the office.

Tonight I am going to stop and make a small bag of groceries on the way home from work. I don’t need much, just coffeecake, cat treats, and Tylenol PM. I also need to balance my checkbook and pay some bills. Pay-the-Bills Day is tomorrow, but some are due today that I’ve not paid yet. Must do that today, as well as update my checkbook. There were a lot of Barbara Michaels and Elizabeth Peters ebooks on sale the other day, and I downloaded all of them (I need to stop buying ebooks on sale…).

I also need to do some writing tonight after work.

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

My Best Friend’s Girlfriend

I’ve always thought today’s title, an old classic by the Cars, would make for a great y/a title. What if a gay teenager was in love with his straight best friend (it happens), only to have the best friend get a girlfriend the gay kid suspects is evil, as in occult evil? No one believes him because they think it’s jealousy…this story always springs to mind whenever I hear the song.

And that first album by the Cars is still a jam, almost forty years (!!!!) after release.

Saturday morning here in the Lost Apartment, and Sparky let me stay in bed later than usual, which was lovely. I am slurping down my first cup of coffee and have already had my coffee cake, probably moving on to cereal in a moment. I do feel good and rested this morning. I took it easy after work yesterday, simply sitting in my easy chair and morphing into a cat bed for a worn out purring kitty. I finished watching Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time, which I really appreciated. I did get a little teary when listening to the experiences of the people who couldn’t leave and the clusterfuck of the response to the catastrophic levee failure (which failure was lain entirely at the door of the US Army Corps of Engineers, where it belonged), and the response was entirely a systemic failure. It also went after the media reporting, which was wrong and caused problems for the efforts to rescue people and get them out. I did remember how angry the reporting by the legacy media made me (fuck Fox News and their racism now, then, and forever) because I had a flash of anger again at the incompetence. I’m glad I watched, but I will never stop mourning the New Orleans that was before, or the people we lost. I also decided to go ahead and write a twenty years later essay for the newsletter. Last night as I watched, I was trying to remember what I actually did write about Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath (besides the blog): my novel Murder in the Rue Chartres; my essay “I Haven’t Stopped Dancing Yet” and a shorter, edited down version called “I’m Still Dancing”; and the short stories “Annunciation Shotgun” and “Survivor’s Guilt.” I think part of the reason I wrote so little about Katrina and the rebuilding was because I didn’t want to be defined as a writer by the storm.

But I think there is another essay about Katrina inside of me that I need to write. I may start writing it this weekend, but we shall see.

I do have to go pick up some prescriptions and some groceries while I am out, and I am going to potentially order some more to be delivered this afternoon. I also made good progress on chores yesterday; I did all the bed clothes, and a load of dishes that needs to be put away, and I also cleaned off my kitchen counters. I also picked some things up around here, too. I want to write and read today, too–once I finish this I will go to my chair and read for a bit before I go run those errands and get them out of the way so I don’t have to leave the house tomorrow. Monday is my last infusion and I took the day off so I can come home and rest and read some more. Huzzah? Huzzah! I think we’re probably going to move on to watching Wednesday’s second season tonight, too.

I do feel good this morning–the cereal was an excellent choice, but now I need toast–and so I am hopeful I’ll be able to get some things done today. So, I probably should put some bread in the toaster and bring this effort to a close for the day by heading into the spice mines for the rest of the morning. Have a lovely and terrific Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back either later today or again tomorrow morning.

Adorable out gay Olympic gold medalist in diving Tom Daley of the UK

Take a Chance With Me

Well, here we are on Monday morning and I am getting my second infusion today, which means driving out to Clearview on I-10 and spending two hours in a heated massage chair as I get this stuff infused into my blood stream before heading to the office. I am already a bit groggy and sleepy/tired this morning, so who knows how I am going to feel once I am finished? I got nothing done yesterday–Paul came downstairs and turned on Wimbledon, which I then got sucked into watching, and soon enough I was no longer in the mood to get much of anything done. The chair is like a black hole sucking me in…and of course, Sparky turned my lap into a bed for most of the day as I watched the MAGA meltdown and civil war raging across all news networks and all political influencers. What can I say? I enjoyed a lot of cruel laughs at their expense (odds they’ll begin to think he’s lying about other things? Too soon to tell) last night–but while everyone not in the MAGA bubble is very well aware of the Trump/Epstein connection and have been for a very long time…I’m beginning to think they had no idea? And thought of course if your only source for news coverage is Fox or Newsmax–which would never do anything to connect Dear Leader with convicted sex trafficking pedophile–you might not have known.

Which could finally explain the shock and horror– and the outright rejection of the party line.

Could this be the tipping point? There was an awful lot of anger from the right over the weekend; even Hitler Mini-me Nick Fuentes pronounced MAGA dead and “good riddance.” Did I miss a falling out between that POS and MAGA?

And for the record, Pam Bondi has always been trash.

We did finish watching Too Much last night, and kudos to both Megan Stalter and Will Sharpe for inhabiting the main characters and their relationship. They really had great chemistry together, and Sharpe is both charismatic and handsome. He looked familiar, and I think it’s because when he was on season 2 of The White Lotus (which also got him an Emmy nomination) all the gay sites were posting shots of him from the show in his underwear, so he was kind of everywhere but not in a way that would stick in my mind (I looked him up, and once I saw the pictures from The White Lotus I knew where I knew him from). We really enjoyed the show and the romance between their characters. I don’t know if there will be a second season or not; the first season kind of definitively ended, but I can also see how they could spring a second season out of that ending.

I did do some more filing and cleaning around here yesterday, and ordered some groceries for delivery. I have to stop again on my way home from the office to get a couple of things I couldn’t order, but based on my bloodwork from the other day I probably should cut ice cream and some other high-sugar foods out of my life again. I’ve reached the weight I’d like to stay at (actually, I’m a bit heavier than my preference), so it’s time to start eating in a more healthy manner again.

I’m taking Megan Abbott’s new one with me to read during the two hours of the infusion, primarily to keep me off my phone, and get back into the swing of reading. Tonight I am going to put my editing hat back on and start tearing through all the things I need to get written by the end of the month. I’m not really sure what we are going to watch next, but I know I want to see the new Taron Edgerton show on Apple Plus; I’m a fan, what can I say? But we may have to wait until it finishes airing to stream it all at once.

And on that note, I am heading on out there. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning with a report about whether or not the infusion made me tired again.

Here and Now

Saturday morning and the demon cat allowed me to sleep in until way past eight, almost nine, even. Madness! I feel rested but slightly mentally foggy. Yesterday turned out to also be a low energy day. I got my work-at-home duties completed, but we had an incredible thunderstorm all afternoon with tons of rain, and that kind of zonked me out a bit. Paul was also exhausted yesterday, so there was no Costco run to be had yesterday. I don’t know if that means we’re going today, or if we’re going to see Superman today, either. I hope so, but I could also be easily convinced to do nothing today, too. The sun is out this morning, and I think we may be done with rain for a few days–I haven’t checked the weather forecast yet.

I did manage some chores yesterday–I got all the bedding washed and dried, as well as two loads of laundry, and I did clean out the kitchen sink, so the dishwasher needs to be unloaded this morning1. I was thinking about getting the car washed and making a minor grocery run this morning–Fresh Market, so I can grill burgers later today–but that will also depend on whether we are doing anything today. I did look it up yesterday, and Superman is playing at the Prytania Theater on Prytania AND the Prytania at Canal Place theaters, so we don’t have to go to Harahan to see the movie; Harahan’s AMC does not have convenient times for us today. I don’t know if he has his trainer today, either–which will make a difference on what we do, if anything. I do love that Superman is getting great reviews (except, of course, for the traitors of MAGA, who need a safe space because the movie clearly triggered their treasonous asses). But I am waking up now and my mind is clearing, which is nice. My sinuses are behaving this morning, too, which lets me know it’s perhaps not as humid as it’s been.

We started watching the new Megan Stalter show on Netflix yesterday. I’ve enjoyed Stalter since she used to post comedy reels on Instagram, and love her on Hacks. Too Much is clever, and a great showcase for Stalter’s talents. Her love interest is played by the gorgeous Will Sharpe, and they have a lovely chemistry together. There were a couple of scenes in the first episode where I thought, “Is her sister being played by Lena Dunham?” But she looked so different from the last time I saw her I wasn’t sure….then I saw her name in the credits as creator and executive producer, and I was thus torn. Do we continue watching something we enjoy and supporting Stalter and Sharpe, or do we abandon the show because of a problematic person behind the scenes? I’ve decided we should keep watching. I never watched Girls, and most of what I know about Dunham is stuff I’ve read about what a problem she is. It’s not like she’s on the Epstein client list…which apparently doesn’t exist.

Hmmm….who’ve been the primary drivers about taking the Epstein list public? Oh, that’s right, the President and his foul base…so I am enjoying watching this karmic repayment as this entire thing blows up in their fucking faces, since they are now on record as protecting pedophiles. I wonder how that bitch Libs of TikTok is rationalizing this all in her head this morning? (One of my greatest joys in leaving Twitter last summer is how little I hear about TEMU Anita Bryant now.) I am really enjoying all the awful MAGA trash realizing that they’ve been conned and lied to all this time…to which I say, “hey, if he lied about this, doesn’t that throw everything he says into doubt?” I also love the “out damned spot” moments of “I didn’t vote for this!” so many of them are having.

But you did vote for this. He lied about everything and you believed him.

Sorry, MAGA, you can’t wash your hands like Pilate and walk away. You made this mess, so you need to roll up your goddamned sleeves and get to work fixing it.

You can start by apologizing to the rest of the country.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines, methinks. I slept later than I’d intended, so am a bit behind on getting things done around here. It’s almost time for the Wimbledon women’s final, which I’ll probably have on while I do stuff. I may come back for an entry later; it may wind up waiting until tomorrow. Who knows? But I hope you have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader!

  1. See? I did get some things done yesterday. I also organized and filed. ↩︎

Stumblin’ In

Well, I am heading into the office to work a full day there for the first time in weeks. I feel better, but am not 100% yet, either. The final tests finally came back, and nothing. They are sending me to a specialist next. I think I need to eat some probiotics, and I definitely dehydrate overnight. I also have to figure out all the things I am behind on, and get my shit together on that score. I was supposed to meet Dad for Cemetery Day this weekend but had to cancel out because I don’t want to relapse and the surest way to do that is to overdo things. This kind of stuff always happens around trips.

Tomorrow is my usual remote day, and I think this weekend I am going to mostly focus on getting rest, while trying to get some things done with no pressure on myself. I really crashed and burned hard, physically and mentally, and I am still trying to dig out from under the ashes. I overtaxed myself and didn’t listen to my body, which is always a mistake–and I just can’t do that at my age anymore. I’m going to try to start taking walks and exploring the neighborhood more. There are all kinds of new places to eat on St. Charles, and why not give them a try? I noticed a new pho place the other day–and I’ve been wanting pho lately. I’ve actually been craving all kinds of food lately, and I think I am going to put more effort into cooking rather than just lazily throwing something together. I mean, I love guacamole on sandwiches; is there anything better than a grilled cheese, guac, green tomato and bacon sandwich? I think not.

It’s more about energy and being tired–I am still so fucking tired it’s unreal–but the last of the tests came back, nothing, and so they are sending me to a specialist whose first available appointment is September 9th.

Ah, health care.

Have a great one!

I Want You to Want Me

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. Huzzah!

I am a bit tired this morning, but not from the week. I woke up around three in the morning and couldn’t fall completely back asleep…so when Sparky started trying to get me up before the alarm, I was able to have some fun with him. Usually I bury my face, hands and feet under the blankets so he can’t claw or bite them (swipes and nips, designed to wake me up–but the claw in the face is a bit much); this morning instead I’d grab him and cuddle him and hold on to him until he squirmed away and tried again….so I grabbed him and made him cuddle again. He really is such a sweet boy. When I start putting on my sweats he’ll run to the stairs…and then come back wondering what is taking me so long, and then runs ahead of me down the stairs. Every morning when I leave, he walks down along the back of the couch to the living room window and watches me go…and he’s always right there at the door when I get home to greet me (and beg for food and attention). I’m so glad we got another cat.

I did some writing last night, but was very tired both physically and mentally. I did get the laundry finished, so tonight I need to empty the dishwasher and refill it. I may have to stop on the way home tonight to get some things, but I can do the Rouses in the CBD as opposed to going all the way uptown, which can wait until Saturday. I have some things that need to get done between now and Monday–short story revision, more work on the book, reading The Get Off, which I’ve moved to the top of the TBR pile–as well as cleaning up the house some. Working on the book last night was difficult, primarily because I realized how shitty the work on the current chapter was, and I also realized I have ten characters to keep track of in the Diderot House during the hurricane–not very easy, and means I need to pay a lot closer attention. I am enjoying the writing, though yesterday’s being tired meant it was more of a slog than anything else. I am physically tired this morning but not mentally fatigued, which is a lovely thing. My synapses aren’t all firing properly this morning–I got confused about something I should know like the back of my hand, which was a little alarming, but once the coffee kicks in I should be able to make it through the day.

And the SEC Gymnastics championship meet is this weekend, too, which will be fun to watch. GEAUX TIGERS!!!

The world is continuing to burn to the ground as I type, and every day it seems to be a bit worse. That slippery slope they always warned us about when it came to the Second Amendment? Turns out the entire Constitution and all of the institutions and systems put into place to preserve liberty and freedom was also a slippery slope, and now we’re at the bottom of the slope, having slid all the way down into authoritarianism. It has always amazed me that racists would rather lose all their freedoms and liberties instead of sharing that with everyone else.

And the rebranding of the new party from the left that will rise from the ashes of the once great Democratic party? It should be called the Liberty Party. Go ahead and call us libs, racist garbage, just know that from now on I will be hearing that as “pro-liberty” instead of “liberal.” Fuck off all the way, Cons. I’ve never understood why we never called them cons, in all honesty. They are the party of con artists and convicts, after all–and in the instance of “pros and cons”, again, a negative connotation for those three letters. At some point I will write about the decline of the American Right–but did it really decline? Weren’t they always the pro-Fascist party? And moderates can also go fuck all the way off. They’ve been surrendering to the Fascist Right for so long it’s their second nature.

Sigh.

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

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You Can’t Change That

Here we are on a Thursday morning. Everyone is arriving in Denver for Left Coast Crime, but I don’t have any FOMO. Sure, there are people I would love to see and spend time with, and I always have fun at conferences, but…there are also other people there. I thought I would really miss not going to Bouchercon in Nashville last year, but…I didn’t. I’ve always been a FOMO person, scared that I was missing out on a good time, but I didn’t the entire time it was going on, or even after. And the local ones are next weekend, anyway.

I just saw that we are in the path of some massive storm system this weekend that’s going to throw up potential tornadoes in New Orleans, which means we may lose power, which will be incredibly annoying if it happens, but also means I can just light some candles and read in my easy chair. I do want to make some more reading progress this weekend in addition to everything else on the to-do list. We just can’t seem to catch a break down here this year, can we? Terrorism, blizzards, high winds, the Super Bowl, Carnival…sheesh. It’s like we can’t ever just breathe…and we are heading into stinging caterpillar season, with swarming termites not far behind.

We were busy at work yesterday again, with the end result that I was, as I suspected, exhausted when I got home from my post-work errands last night. I collapsed into my easy chair with a purring kitty and was down for the rest of the night. I caught up on my reality show, caught up on the latest news of the great American collapse (or whatever future historians will call the end of the Great American Experiment in Self-Rule), and then went to bed at a fairly early hour. I did run the dishwasher, as planned, but not the washing machine as planned. I am a bit fatigued today–synapses aren’t quite firing the way they should be–so I may not be able to write or read when I get home tonight. I guess we shall see. We’re also busy today, too. Sigh. It’s been a week at the office, has it not? But at least I only need to log four hours of remote work and then the day is mine.

Woo-hoo!

I was, naturally, saddened by the loss of a long-time friend this week, Felice Picano. It’s very strange to think I won’t ever see him again, or get that mischievous kid look on his face when he was about to say something absolutely terrible about someone to me. Felice was the first published writer I ever met. I went to a signing he did for the paperback release of Like People in History at the Borders in Minneapolis that used to be on the corner of Lake and Hennepin. Paul had bought me a hardcover copy as a gift the year before, and I’d loved the book. I was too shy and awestruck to do anything but put my book down for a signature…but when Paul went to work for the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival, they wanted to put together a queer panel and I suggested Felice for it, and I got to pick him up at the airport. That ride in from the airport was my first actual conversation with him, and the start of a friendship that lasted almost thirty years. We always tried to have coffee or lunch or something when he was in town for Saints & Sinners after that, I stayed in his house in the Hollywood Hills several times, and there was one amazing weekend when he gave me a lift to Palm Springs from LA, and oh, how hard we laughed in the car on the way there. I didn’t see or interact with him as much as I used to, but every time I saw him, it was like we’d just seen each other the day before. He meant a lot to me, and the fact that he always treated me as a peer from that first meeting at the airport on meant the world to me.

I just can’t believe I’ll never see him again. The worst thing about getting older is losing people.

And on that somber note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday Eve, everyone, and I’ll be back eventually.

Ballerinos have the most amazing bodies–and even more amazing is what they can DO with those bodies.