Tag: LSU-Alabama

Behind the Mask

Saturday here in the Lost Apartment and Paul is coming home tonight. Huzzah! Also a big day in college football down here in the South, with Georgia-Tennessee this afternoon and LSU-Alabama tonight (and the good news for Florida and Texas A&M fans is one of them has to win the game, so one team’s losing slide will temporarily stop). I have things to do this morning, lots of things to do and many miles to walk before I sleep. Last night I was very tired when I finished my day’s work; and so repaired to my easy chair with Scooter in my lap and watched Low Country, a documentary series about the Murtaugh family crimes in South Carolina. Ironically, I started watching it because I vaguely remembered hearing about the story–wife and son murdered, father shot and wounded, etc.–but I did not know the back story to all of it, which this series provides a small window into; it really only covers the recent crimes, not the criminality of the family going back almost a hundred years–but as I watched, I started seeing similarities to the book I am writing now (powerful corrupt wealthy family that basically rules a rural area as their own duchy), and ideas and things to make my own book better started riffing through my mind. One thing that urban people never get about rural areas is how much of that sort of thing goes on, especially in the South. I am really going to have to go back and dig deeper with what I’ve already done, but I am confident I can get that all worked out this weekend and then get to work on the second half of the book next week.

I slept really well again last night. I started falling asleep in my chair once I finished watching Low Country–again, worth the watch, and yes, very shocking that rural counties in the twenty-first century are still so feudal, so undemocratic, so twisted that any one person or family can be so above the law that they essentially control the justice system in the region, to the point that they get away with murder–and so went to bed early. Scooter has started sleeping with me at night, purring and cuddling, and that also helps me sleep (Paul and I have agreed that Scooter’s super power is the ability to put anyone to sleep by cuddling and purring) and I woke up feeling very settled and relaxed and rested this morning, which is terrific since I have so much to get done today (as always). But I am going to do some cleaning this morning while I do some computer clean-up and so forth (ugh, my files are such a scattered and disgusting mess, it’s not even funny; I would be better about this, of course, if Macs didn’t have that search function) and don’t plan to go anywhere today. I’ve ordered groceries to pick up for tomorrow–I also have to air up one of my tires–and other than that, I don’t plan to leave the house tomorrow either. I need to get caught up and reorganized and all of that–the usual stuff I complain about on here every day. The week went by relatively quickly, too. I read some more of the new Wanda Morris novel, which I took to bed with me but I didn’t stay awake long enough to read more than a few pages–which were fantastic. I can’t begin to talk about how delighted and exciting it is to see new perspectives, new voices, and new stories from marginalized authors. I’m just sorry it took so long to get us to this point, but this was exactly what our genre needed.

My book’s official release date is rapidly approaching, and I am trying not to get over-anxious and/or nervous about it. I need to start pushing the book more, but I am not really certain how or what to do, to be honest. I’m excited about it, of course. The reviews have thus far been pretty favorable–other than that snarky Kirkus one, but even it didn’t bother me at all, and besides, they’re known for being snarky in their reviews and always have been; I guess that’s growth of a sort. Bad reviews don’t get under my skin the way they used to when I first started doing this, you know. I tend to stay away from Goodreads and Amazon reviews–therein lies the path to madness–but my skin has thickened a lot over the years and I know what my reactions will be and why put myself into a position of any kind that might emotionally unbalance me? God knows I don’t need any help in that direction, for sure.

I also watched another documentary about gay porn, Seed Money: The Chuck Holmes Story which was very interesting. Holmes was Falcon Studios, one of the bigger and more successful brands in gay porn for a very long time, and it did give me some ideas for future projects. I will probably, most likely, keep writing Scotty books until I die (for those of you who were wondering; the next one will probably be another Carnival mystery, French Quarter Flambeaux), but I may not write anymore young adult novels. It’s not that I don’t want to or have a lot of ideas for them, but my time is limited and I want to explore other writing options and genres within crime fiction. I really am feeling the desire to work on my queer historical noirs–beginning with Chlorine–and then moving on to cover other parts of queer history from the second half of the twentieth century. Obscenity would be about gay porn; Indecency would be built around Joey Stefano’s arrest in Tampa for public indecency…and of course there would be more but that’s the original trilogy I’d want to write. They wouldn’t be connected stories–the only commonality would be the fight against oppression and repression–but I think they would be a lot of fun. I have titles for others–Beefcake, Peplum, Physique–but don’t have stories to go with those yet (although I do introduce a Bob Mizer-like character in Chlorine who could drive one of them; Peplum would be, in some ways, a sequel to Chlorine–but it wouldn’t have to be, since I’ve not really decided on the end of that book yet, but one of the possibilities does leave the path open to a sequel.

And on that note, I am going to get to work on the chores and get cleaned up and get this party started. Have a lovely Saturday, and GEAUX TIGERS!

When the Sun Goes Down

Work-at-home Friday has rolled around again, and today I get to do data entry and quality-assurance on forms until my eyes cross. I have a couple of errands to run this afternoon–but other than that, I am looking forward to a nice, peaceful day at home doing my work-at-home duties and my chores. Later on, I hope to get some good work done on the book before I repair to my easy chair with the latest Wanda Morris novel. It was a tough choice between that and the new Donna Andrews, but I am thinking since Dashing Through The Snowbirds is a Christmas tale, I may save that for Christmas reading this year–it makes the most sense, and since I generally don’t watch any Christmas movies or specials anymore (I do sometimes watch A Charlie Brown Christmas–it’s my favorite), maybe I could read Christmas-themed books and stories this year in December; maybe call it “The Twelve Reads of Christmas” or something like that. Hmmm, it’s a thought.

It really is amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for you after a few days of insomnia and exhaustion/fatigue.

Last night I didn’t sleep as deeply or as well as I did on Wednesday night. I kept waking up, partly due to Scooter’s restlessness and sometime need to let me know his outrage about something, but was always able to fall back asleep. I had to have bloodwork done this morning; I got an email from the lab telling me I had lab orders waiting for me, so I scheduled it. I got there this morning and checked in–mind you, I needed to fast, so I didn’t eat last night or have anything to drink or eat this morning before leaving the house–only to find out they didn’t, in fact, have lab orders for me. Hilariously, I am terrible about remembering to do the labs after my doctor appointments, so this last time in July I made the appointment for Labs the same week as my doctor appointment and had them done. Once they told me I didn’t have orders in, I looked in the app and saw that I had, indeed, had them done back in August. So, no need to fast overnight, no need to not have coffee before leaving, no need to leave, in fact. Heavy sigh. But I did start reading Wanda Morris’ new book while waiting to be told I didn’t really need to be there, and it’s quite marvelous already. I knew it would be–her debut novel was superb–and it’s such a delight, as always, to see exciting new voices grow and become even stronger as their career progresses.

Last evening as I relaxed before heading to bed I watched another documentary about the history of gay pornography–I’ll probably watch another one later today–which of course put me in mind of writing about that history. I really do need to focus on getting this Scotty book and the next thing I have to write finished so I can get back to Chlorine; my goal for the rest of this year and 2023 is to get these two books finished, finish two other in-progress projects, and wrap up some other things that are unfinished but need to be finished so I can cross them off the list. I may do another short story collection; I’m not sure but I think I have enough sold and/or published for another collection to actually be possible. This one, when it materialized, will be called This Town and Other Stories, because the strongest story I’ve done since the last collection was “This Town”, which was in Holly West’s anthology Murder-a-Go-Go’s. At least in my opinion, although The Affair of the Purloined Rentboy and Other Stories would probably sell better…

And of course, tomorrow is a big day for the Southeastern Conference, with division championships on the line. LSU can actually get a leg up in the West by accomplishing the gargantuan task of beating Alabama in Baton Rouge for the first time since 2010–but I don’t think that’s going to happen. Sure, it’s possible–anything is possible in college football on any given Saturday; I am sure no one would have thought Kansas State would shellack Oklahoma State the way they did last weekend–but despite all the hype chatter, I’m not getting my hopes up terribly high. Yes, I want the Tigers to win–but I don’t have any expectations, just as I really haven’t all season. I’m just delighted the program seems to be on the rise again after the last two horrible years. I certainly would have never thought LSU would be coming into the game with Alabama tied with them and Mississippi for first place in the division. And earlier in the day Georgia and Tennessee will play for the leg up in the East–which again, no one would have seen coming before the season started; no one really give Tennessee much thought as the program has been moribund since at least 2007, the last time they won their division (which also happened to be the year a two-loss LSU team won the national championship–see how you can see omens and portents in everything?). I am not a Tennessee fan by any means–I rooted for them during the Peyton Manning years because I thought he was a phenomenal athlete plus I despise Florida with every fiber of my being, but that was about it. I only root for them in non-conference games and bowls, but I am happy for their fans–just as I was happy for Georgia fans last year as they finally beat Alabama and won the national title; I always think back to what a glorious ride 2019 was for LSU fans, so it’s always nice to see a long-starved fan base finally get something they can be excited about. Pundits and fans are already comparing 2019 LSU and 2022 Tennessee…but it’s really not even the same. Sure, no one thought LSU would be as great as they were in 2019, but they were also coming off a 10-3 season. Tennessee was 7-6 last year, so it’s an even bigger turnaround for them on that level. I plan to get my writing and my errands and chores finished tomorrow morning well before the 2:30 Georgia-Tennessee kick-off, so I can spend the rest of the day nervously cleaning with the games on in the background. Paul also comes home tomorrow (yay!) so I am going to need groceries, too.

And my kitchen, as always, is a disaster area on a Friday morning, so it’s perhaps time for me to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you later or tomorrow.

Do You Know

Tuesday and all is well again this morning–at least so far.

Yesterday was very productive. I got some day job things taken care of that needed taking care of, I worked on the book and wrote a chapter, and I managed to get some emails cleaned out of my inbox. I did start feeling a bit fatigued in the later afternoon, so decided to try to take it easy once I got home from the office but managed to plant my ass in my desk chair and get the fucking chapter written. I also managed to read three short stories by Paul Tremblay from his collection Growing Things over the weekend–he’s such a good writer, seriously, you should be reading him–which was nice, and perfect reading for Halloween times.

I had insomnia again last night–which I can’t help but wonder wasn’t tied to the cappuccino I made yesterday morning, but that’s nonsense; I’ve had cappuccinos in the morning and slept well that night, so I don’t know. I guess I was just due for another night of it at some point, and last night just happened to be the lucky night. I don’t feel physically or mentally fatigued this morning, but then again you never know. I have to work in clinic today, face to face with people, and that is usually draining on several levels. Hopefully when I get home tonight I’ll have the energy to write more on the book. But like I said, so far so good this morning. I feel physically rested, at any rate, or no more tired and fatigued than usual when I get up, at any rate.

I can’t believe it’s November already, and there are only two months left in 2022. I am going to Kentucky for Thanksgiving, so I have a lot to get done this month before I leave–I also have to have the heater in my car looked at, because it no longer blows warm air and I cannot drive up there without a working heater in the car because cold–and who knows how much that is going to cost me? Yay. You got to love these out of nowhere extra expenses–I just got a raise so of course now instead of paying down debt I’ll have to add some more, hurray. But it’s necessary, and of course the car is now at that age–almost six–where things might start to go a little wrong here and there. I’ve already had to replace the battery, and I also need a new windshield wiper for the back window.

The good news is I started solving some issues within the book last night after I gave in to Scooter’s demands for a lap to sleep in (he never stays there for longer than half an hour, which makes it even more frustrating to give in to him; he sleeps in my lap long enough to make me lethargic and remove the desire to do anything, which can be a problem. I also did some dishes and am trying to stay on top of the kitchen; I had to stop to make groceries last night on the way home (out of bread, among other things) and will have to again tonight–the store in the CBD didn’t have everything I needed, which was extremely irritating–but I have to go uptown and get the mail after work anyway. I’m still hoping my box o’books of A Streetcar Named Murder are going to arrive soon–I know it seems early since the pub date isn’t until 12/6, but they told me they’d come before the end of the month and….yesterday was the end of the month, and I am nothing if not a completely literal person.

So, anyway, as I was saying, I started solving some issues within the book last night as Scooter purred and slept in my lap and I let my playlist of music videos run on the television, and for the first time in a while I am starting to feel like this book will not be a complete disaster and may actually turn out to be fairly decent. One never knows, does one? And no matter how many books you’ve written in your career, you always fear that somehow the ability to do this is magically going to disappear from your brain overnight, and everything is going to blow up in your face. I literally was considering that very thing this past weekend, thinking that what I really needed to do was just tear up the contract and asked to be released from it and just hibernate in the apartment for a few months. But that was probably chemical–there are so many chemical issues in my brain–and an unconscious or subconscious reaction to Paul not being home, which probably depressed me and imbalanced the delicate balance of everything in my brain, which is why I wasn’t able to get very much done over the weekend the way I had hoped and planned to. Paul won’t get home until Saturday evening, and while yes, this Saturday is the double-header of Georgia-Tennessee followed by LSU-Alabama, I should be able to get up in the morning and get things done before it’s time to start watching the games–and of course, I can always just have the game on while I clean and so forth. Heavy heaving sigh.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the morning. Have a great day, Constant Reader and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning, as always.

Save Me

Sunday morning and I guess there’s probably a Saints game today? I am a terrible fan this year–I can’t seem to remember ever to check on the schedule to see when the games are, so maybe it’s my fault they’re having a really terrible year? (Yes, Greg, because that’s exactly how professional sports work…)

The sun is bright this morning–it was gloomy, overcast and humid yesterday; I also got rained on while running my errands. I am having my morning cappuccino, which is marvelous, and feel like I again slept extremely well again last night. Ironically, despite the same feeling yesterday morning, I succumbed to fatigue much earlier than I thought I would yesterday, which didn’t bode well for getting things done the way I had hoped and/or wanted to. So, no, I wound up not getting nearly as much done yesterday as I had originally hoped I would; but I am also still at the point where I think any progress is better than no progress so I am taking the day as a win. I did have the football games on in the background while I tried to get things done around here, and they kind of turned out the way I figured they would: Mississippi taking down Texas A&M; Tennessee embarrassing Kentucky; and Georgia made a fool out of Florida. Missouri surprised South Carolina, and Arkansas embarrassed Auburn at home. The big surprise of the day was the way Kansas State embarrassed top ten ranked Oklahoma State–no one, I think, saw that coming. But this weekend did a good job of setting up next weekend: the winner of LSU-Alabama takes control of the West, while whoever wins Georgia-Tennessee will do the same in the East. I try not to get involved in the whole “conspiracy theory” aspect of fandom, in which some controlling elite wants certain outcomes to drive their ratings, but I can’t help but think everyone at ESPN and all the college football reporters are hoping for an Alabama win, to make the Alabama-Mississippi game matter in two weeks as a “winner takes all” battle for supremacy in the West. I don’t expect LSU to win, honestly; that’s almost too much to hope for (although I do hope it happens), and all I am really hoping for is another great game, not a blow out.

I think the weather had something to do with the doldrums I was suffering from yesterday. I don’t have that same feeling this morning, but at the same time I think maybe not waking up three mornings in a row to an alarm helps make me feel more rested for some reason. It doesn’t make sense (little does, really, when it comes to my mind and my theories about my life and so forth), but I am hoping that once I get this done and the kitchen repaired a bit (the sink has dishes, things need to be put away) I can dive into working on the writing and some other things I want to get done. I’m going to take a break momentarily after finishing this to read a short story by Paul Tremblay, after which I’ll get cleaned up and get a move on with everything.

Or so I hope, at any rate.

I watched an episode of American Horror Stories before I went to bed last night–the one called “The Lake”–and it was much better than the earlier episodes I’d seen. Alicia Silverstone, Teddy Sears, and pretty young Bobby Hogan were an appealing cast, and while the story was terribly derivative (the curse of towns flooded by dams is an old trope; there’s a great German show with a similar premise–but it’s also a trope I’ve always wanted to use as well), the acting was fine and the ending–while a little like The Fog, it worked within the construct of the story and was really the only way for it to actually come to an end. It reminded me, in some ways, of another idea I had for a story a long time ago–about college kids camping out in ghost town in the Sierra mountains in California that I’ve always wanted to write–but who knows if I will ever get around to that or not? It was entertaining, though, and now of course it’s Sunday–several of the shows we watch drop episodes on Sundays, but I can’t watch any of them until Paul gets home. Heavy sigh. Although I think tonight I’ll rewatch Halloween–the original. It is, after all, the seminal slasher movie and the one that kicked off the slasher craze of the late 1970’s/early 1980’s (along with Friday the 13th).

On the other hand, one can never go wrong with Scream, for that matter.

Well, I can figure out what I am going to watch later, right? It’s not like it is of the utmost importance to figure this out right now, either.

Or maybe I’ll watch a horror movie I’ve never seen before–there were so many in their heyday that I’ve not seen them all, like Terror Train or Prom Night–then again, on the other hand, there are so many it’s entirely possible I’ve seen some of them and forgotten that I have, as well. My memory is no longer trustworthy, after all–as I am finding out while writing this book–which makes me wish I’d written more things down over the years or been more faithful to keeping a journal; I’ve never been as faithful to a journal as I have been to this blog, for example. Yet another reason why I don’t write a memoir or many personal essays; I don’t trust my memory, and I know I have most likely revised my own personal history to make myself more of the hero of the story than I should be–it’s something we all do, really; it’s also how we perceive things, through our own lenses with all of our foibles and miscues and flaws helping to interpret and record things in that great back-up hard drive inside our skulls. We are all the heroes of our own story, even if we are the villain in someone else’s.

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

Rain

Daylight Savings Time is one of those things, you know? I enjoy the gift of another hour’s sleep when it comes in the fall, but I deeply resent giving it up in the spring. But this morning it was lovely to wake up, look at the clock, and know I could continue to relax in bed for a little while longer; it was most comfortable and my body was completely relaxed, so it felt simply marvelous to stay there for a bit more.

Yesterday was kind of a lovely day. I finished my page proofs for #shedeservedit, and of course, reading through it again made me incredibly nervous, anxious, and insecure about its looming publication. This is nothing new, of course, and I often go through this with every book I write and publish–there’s nothing like page proofs to reawaken the imposter syndrome firmly implanted into my brain–and while I know it’s coming and I know it’s possible and I know it’s going to happen, it hits me like a 2 x 4 between the eyes every. Single. Time. I hate that for me. I also revised a short story for an anthology I was asked to contribute to–incredibly short turn around time, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to write something new; so I looked for something I had on hand I could adapt for it. The editor seemed to like it, with some notes to come–but I will probably revise the story again myself; I mean, I just grafted the concept of the anthology onto an existing story to see if it would work, and I guess it did since he liked it, but I really should go over it again myself with my editorial pen uncapped and my editorial eyes wide open. But it was, overall, a very productive day, and I was most pleased with how it all turned out. I had football games on while I was looking over the proofs–Auburn-Texas A&M, to be specific–which was nice; all the real pressure has been taken off watching games this season because I don’t really care that much if LSU is out of the running, so I can just watch and appreciate. Yesterday was a wacky day of upsets and near-upsets; and in all honesty, I assumed I would stop watching the LSU-Alabama bloodbath at the end of the first quarter.

Instead, plucky third team players on defense rose up and almost successfully smote the mighty Tide in their home stadium, 20-14; and a play here, a play there, and Alabama would have lost to a 4-4 29 point underdog team that all week long sports journalists (and I have to admit, I bought into it myself) didn’t have a chance. Coming within a whisker of an upset win, that really came down to the last play? Never saw it coming, and it was, frankly, one of the best LSU-Alabama games I’ve ever seen. I don’t think the way Alabama played last night–or the way they played in their loss to Texas A&M–is indicative that they are going to get trounced by Georgia in the SEC title game, or that they won’t do well in the play-offs should they make it that far; it’s Alabama, and they always seem to play better when something is on the line for them. Let’s face it, nothing was really on the line for them last night, but with no disrespect intended, you generally don’t see Alabama play that badly against a team they are supposed to run all over. Did they play badly, or did LSU play above their own level? Perhaps both? I hope LSU uses this to motivate them for the rest of the season, but who knows? They could easily lose to both Arkansas and Texas A&M to close out the first losing season since 1999. But I will always give the 2021 team props for giving us fans an unexpected great game against one of the greatest programs in the history of college football.

I honestly believed this year’s game would be a repeat of last year’s rout, and for that, I owe the program an apology. Sorry, guys, for not believing in you.

Today I have to make groceries. I am going on a trip this week–New York during the week, Boston over the weekend–which I’ve not really talked about much because I wasn’t sure the trip would happen. I mean, sure–I have the air and hotels booked, even the Acela Express from New York to Boston–but with pandemic times and so forth, let’s be serious; any trip can be canceled at any time because everything can change overnight. I am flying up on Tuesday, returning to New Orleans on Sunday; it’s my first trip anywhere other than to visit family since the world shut down, and I am actually very excited about it–despite all the nightmarish posts I see from other people experiencing horrors when they travel, primarily from the anti-mask morons for whom I have absolutely no patience whatsoever anymore. I’m also driving up to visit my family later this month–now you see where the stress and pressure about getting to work on the book is coming from, don’t you? Hopefully I’ll be able to get some writing done on these trips–and some reading, too; I definitely am going to check out an audiobook or two to listen to on the drive. Maybe one of my lengthier Stephen Kings?

Project Organize is working pretty well, too–I can’t complain about it (although I always can complain about something, it’s my super-power); the area around my desk is looking pretty good this morning, if I do say so myself. I still need to buy a day planner for next year–I definitely want one, I think it may help in some ways to have things actually written down as well as the digital calendar–and I am also going to try to figure out a writing schedule for next year. I think I may spend next year finishing things that are already started; Chlorine for one, and I have actually started another Scotty, even if it’s only one page–but I really want to get these novellas finished as well as getting some more short stories out there.

The Saints play the hated Falcons today at noon; which of course cuts right into the heart of the day but that’s also fine; my plan for today was to finish editing and correcting the first four chapters of A Streetcar Named Murder as well as map out the next four chapters, and delve into my characters a bit more. I generally don’t watch the Saints games anyway because it’s too emotionally stressful for me; and when they are over I am emotionally depleted and exhausted and unable to get anything done anyway. I only have to work one day this week–tomorrow–since I am leaving on Tuesday; and so I do have quite a bit to get under control today.

And on that note, tis off to the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader–and GEAUX SAINTS!

Stay with Me

Gotta get down it’s Friday!

I slept late this morning, which is a latter-day miracle. I’ve been waking up at five for over a week now, which, while not entirely unpleasant, has resulted in me not necessarily feeling as rested and energetic as perhaps I could and/or should. I am hoping this is a good sign, and the fall back this weekend (which I resent every spring when we have to give the hour back) will give me an extra hour of sleep every morning until I adjust, which is also incredibly lovely. It’s another work-at-home day for me, and the data is glaring at me from the stack of forms I have to input today. But getting this finished and the forms out of the house is yet another step in the right direction in my attempts to get everything around here under control at long last.

I also need to get some more work on the book done today. Yesterday wasn’t a good one, frankly, so I tried going over the page proofs for #shedeservedit, which are due on Monday. In fact, I think I will try to get that finished this evening so I have the weekend completely free to write. LSU plays Alabama this weekend, which will undoubtedly be a tragedy in four quarters–and last year I stopped watching at half-time when the score was like 100-0. I don’t see this year being much more promising, frankly. Tomorrow morning I think I’m going to take a walk to scope out the neighborhood for the book a bit more–I am going to have to be a lot looser with the Irish Channel’s actual geography than I prefer to be in my books about New Orleans, but moving a house a few blocks really isn’t that big of a deal, as long as I get other things about the city right. New Orleans will have to be a character in the book, of course; my settings generally inevitably are characters in their own right–setting and atmosphere is probably my biggest strength as a writer, actually (someone shouts you have no strengths as a writer from the back; shut up, Imposter Syndrome! How very dare you!)–and I also really need to start getting more and more into who my point of view character is. She’s the key to the whole story, isn’t she? As well as her community of friends and family?

We shall see.

We got caught up on this week’s episodes of Dopesick and The Sinner last night once Paul got home from the gym. Dopesick, like the documentary Crime of the Century, sicken and disgust me; it’s impossible to watch either without feeling utter disgust for the billionaire Sackler family–still trying to evade any punishment for their crimes against the country, all in the name of greed and power–and for the corrupt system that allowed them to create an addiction crisis. Their intent was never helping people; it was about getting rich and doing whatever they could, including bribing people in oversight positions, to push this horribly addicting drug on unsuspecting pain patients, or people suffering from chronic pain. Pain is exhausting; the times when I’ve suffered through it–usually something relatively minor at that, like an abscessed tooth or a pulled/strained muscle–has been completely debilitating, and was always in the short term, over quickly with me only losing a few days to it. It’s impossible to think or work through pain; let alone function as a human being. I cannot imagine chronic, constant pain–and I can see how something like this drug could have seemed like a miracle to sufferers at first.

But things that seem to be too good to be true inevitably prove not to be.

Addiction is one of the things that absolutely terrifies me. I am terrified of developing a dependence on something, particularly at my age, and I feel relatively certain I wouldn’t have the strength to fight through it and recover. I’ve always worried about this at various times in my life; I certainly have a weird relationship with alcohol that I should probably write about someday. Currently I do worry about some of the medications I take daily, but I think I’ll be okay.

At least for now, at any rate.

And on that somber note, I am heading into the spice mines. I am kind of dull this morning–it’s also gloomy outside, but not “it’s going to rain” gloomy, but simply “lots and lots of white clouds” gloomy,

Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader.

I Drove All Night

Friday and the first day of my four day weekend! Woo-hoo!

And I got my new computer yesterday–and practically wept for joy once I had it set up (which literally took NO time at all). It’s so fast, the picture quality is stunning (I played the 2019 LSU-Alabama game on it thru Youtube while I did the dishes, and the picture quality is better than my television’s. And yes, that game is one of my main happy places, sue me.) It’s been amazing so far; but I also need to remember to enjoy these it’s amazingly functional and fast days for the inevitable day when the spinning wheel starts showing up again, or programs start freezing or locking up, and the whole hellish Mac computer thing starts all over again.

Today is a Gregalicious day; I had already decided earlier this week that would be what today would be for me. I have a spa appointment at twelve thirty (for a waxing, if you want to know, and sorry about the TMI if you didn’t) but it’s all a part of the new attitude towards celebrating being sixty, and part of my personal wellness journey. There was just something about going to the gym the other night for the rebirth of Leg Day into my life that switched my mindset around, or flipped a switch in my head about working out; maybe it was the tiredness of my legs the last two days around here, which means I am aware of the work my body is doing? While I have been going to the gym and working out fairly regularly since we joined the new gym, it’s not like I’ve been enjoying the workouts, or even had much of a goal going forward with it–more of a I am doing this to be healthier and to try to be in better shape. I’ve not wanted much to mess with my eating habits/diet; I’ve never rearranged the way I eat for weight control, choosing the workout path on its own entirely. Maybe I should do something about my eating habits; trying to eat healthier, or something. I want to lose some fat weight–I had gotten down to 200 but am now back up to 211 again, and i’d rather be around 200, possibly even as low as 190. It’s possible and I am going to work my way up (down?) to that goal. Part of the issue with the working out is that I didn’t have a set goal–before, as I have said, I always planned my goals around peaking at the holidays–Decadence, Halloween, and Carnival–and while I have no intentions of ever running around at those events next to naked again under any circumstances, maybe it’s not a bad idea to use those dates as goal dates…my mind is already wired that way.

We started watching the new season of Titans last night on HBO MAX–I’ve always loved the Titans; they were amongst my favorites in the DC Universe, and Nightwing has always been one of my favorite heroes in that universe–and was surprised/not surprised to see the Joker killing off Jason Todd before the opening credits of Episode One. As I explained to Paul, back in the 1980’s as a publicity gimmick, DC ran a contest about killing off Jason Todd/Robin, fully expecting the readers to vote to keep him alive. They didn’t; and I will be the first to admit I voted for him to die daring DC to actually pull the plug on a major character in the Batman universe; DC called the readers’ bluff and killed off Jason in the now famous “A Death in the Family” story, which was also around the time the Batman stories took their turn toward the truly dark and noir.

Today I am going to, as I said, have a spa appointment. I also have to pick up another box of Scooter’s insulin syringes and get the mail. Obviously, I am trying to figure out the most efficient way to do the errands, as always, and think I’ll start with the spa day and go further afield uptown from there before coming home and spending some time with The Other Black GIrl. I also need to head to the gym at some point today, preferably before five (when it starts getting crowded again) and I will probably spend a goodly amount of time playing with my new computer, which is always a fun way to spend time. I’m going to spend the rest of this morning probably cleaning out my email inbox, as well as doing some other neatening/straightening up around my office area; I don’t have to be at my spa appointment until twelve thirty. I would like to get phô today, but with the gym and the protein shake I may have to put off the phô until tomorrow, alas.

I’m also going to possibly–just possibly–do a little bit of writing work today–I know, that’s not a Gregalicious Day Off thing, but I do need to get that short story revision typed up, and I also need to get my notes for the revision of #shedeservedit typed up, and I should probably spend the weekend going over that manuscript and making corrections to be input while I am on vacation in two weeks in order to get it all finished by the end of the month.

So, yes, I have a lot of plans for the rest of this month that really need to get done absolutely; and the first thing in order to be certain it’s all going to get done is to make sure that I have a to-do list in place….and so that’s what I am going to do for the majority of the rest of this morning; getting a bit organized. And yes, that does count as a Gregalicious Day Off activity; because it will relieve my mind and help me relax.

And on that note, tis off to the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday the 13th, everyone!

Seven

Saturday morning and it’s rather chilly in the Lost Apartment . The sun is shining and there aren’t many clouds in the sky–I see plenty of blue up there at the moment–and I haven’t checked the weather yet. All right, I just looked and it’s currently forty-nine, with a high of fifty-three predicted for the day. Sounds like the kind of day when one just wants to stay indoors all day and under a blanket, does it not? I have a lot to get done this morning–the sink is full of dirty dishes; more than will fit in the dishwasher, so I am going to have to do two loads–and of course, there’s filing to do and organizing to be done; notes to be read on the work-in-progress as well as chapters to be revised; and I’d like to be able to read some more of The Bad Seed, if not finish reading it today. LSU is playing Alabama tonight, and it’s not going to be pretty, but at least it won’t be disappointing. It’s very weird, there’s always a minor hope, even in bad years, that we might beat them, but not this one. I love my Tigers and I’ll tune in–but I am under no illusions that they’ll pull off a major upset here. Our only hope is a sustained three and a half hour miracle, really; but this entire football season has been such a wash anyway–I really think it should have been skipped, which is what I’ve thought all along–yet here we are.

I do occasionally think that LSU having one of the greatest football teams and seasons of all time last year somehow broke the world, and if LSU having a shitty season is what it takes to reset everything, I can live with that sacrifice.

Yesterday was a good day. I had to swing by the office because I had run out of lube for the condom packs–I brought home flavored–so I had to swing by there to pick up regular lube tubes–and then after returning home, I made condom packs while watching Logan’s Run, yesterday’s entry into the Cynical 70’s Film Festival. I had never before seen it; I, of course, remember what it’s plot was–a world where everyone dies at thirty; the title character is about to turn thirty and he runs. Well, turns out that was a vast over-simplification; Logan, played by a stunningly beautiful young Michael York (I’ve waxed euphoric over his beauty before; I had a major crush on him throughout the 1970’s; have continued to appreciate his work as I got older; and he came to the Williams Festival one year, so I not only got to meet him but was delighted to find he was very charming), is a “sandman”–in the future, after over–population and depletion of resources and so forth, society collapsed and a utopian human city was built under a dome, and all humans devote themselves merely to pleasure, and when they turn thirty, they are renewed; in a ritual, everyone gathers to watch them sacrifice themselves, to be reborn–someone has to die in order for someone to be reborn. The “sandmen” are those who hunt down the ones who decide they want to live and run for their lives. When caught, they are killed and are dead forever–no chance of being reborn. Logan actually has about four years left before he turns thirty, but he is given the job to search for Sanctuary–a place all the runners try to get to safely–and the controlling computer also speeds up his life, turning the life clock in his hand all the way up to almost time for him to die. Jenny Agutter plays the love interest who can help him get to Sanctuary; they run, and it becomes very weird once they escape. The special effects are pretty bad–the movie was pre-Star Wars–and so are the sets and costume designs. It does, I decided, fit into the film festival because the film itself is kind of cynical; it basically took American youth obsession and created a world based entirely in youth; and it’s interesting they chose thirty as the end point of life–after all, the youth movement of the 1960’s always said “never trust anyone over thirty.” As I watched, I couldn’t help but think of all the possibilities they couldn’t explore in a two hour film–and thought, you know, this show could easily rebooted as a mini-series that could go into all of those explorations–the collapse of society, who built and created this new world, who actually is in power in this utopian paradise, how did they get the initial buy-in necessary–and so on and so forth. And with our country growing evermore obsessed with youth and beauty–yeah, this could be really good. Logan would be a good role for someone like Nick Jonas or Alexander Dreymon or any number of beautiful young actors in the business today.

The lovely thing about HBO MAX is they are continually adding more and more films to their TCM app–you can only imagine my delight to see the delightful Peter O’Toole film The Stunt Man was recently added; The Ruling Class is already there. I am a huge Peter O’Toole fan–the fact the man never won a competitive Oscar despite giving career-defining performance in those two films, along with My Favorite Year, The Lion in Winter, Becket, and Lawrence of Arabia never ceases to amaze me. Both The Stunt Man and The Ruling Class certainly fit into my Cynical 70’s Film Festival–they have also added the original The Omega Man and Soylent Green, both of which I intend to watch despite the fact both star Charlton Heston, the king of over-acting. But…both definitely belong in the Festival, and I really wish they would add Serpico.

I also would like to watch Cruising again–to see it from a present day perspective.

The Mandalorian continues to delight as well, and our favorite raunchy junior high puberty comedy, Big Mouth, also came back yesterday.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader.

Love Story

Thursday morning, and I am working from home today. I have some errands that simply must be run this morning–fortunately I only have to work a half-day today–so once I get this posted and get my own act together, it’s off to the errands so I can come home and do data entry/make condom packs. I think I am going to rewatch the Christopher Reeve Superman–it’s a 1970’s movie, after all, and I don’t know yet if it will deserve a place in the Cynical 70’s Film Festival; I don’t think so, but I think it could be a fun reread while working with my hands.

I was very tired when I got home from work yesterday–so tired that I skipped the gym (!) and didn’t work on the book. Tonight when I finish my condom packing I am going to have to get back to the book, and figure if I can get two chapters done in one day I’ll be back on schedule. LSU’s lamb-to-the-slaughter game against Alabama isn’t until Saturday evening, so I should be able to get several chapters finished during the day that day, and maybe even more. Who knows? There’s a plethora of possibilities.

I slept late this morning–I did wake up at six, again at seven, and finally at eight. I feel much better: very rested, relaxed, my muscles feel good, and my back also doesn’t hurt at all. This is, needless to say, quite lovely, and while it is cold this morning, the cold is nowhere near as bitter as it was the last few mornings, so I can handle it. I haven’t even put on a cap to keep my head warm, which is a lovely thing. It’s very gray outside–the sky is covered with clouds, so it’s kind of grayish-gloomy; like winter mornings I remember from my childhood in the Midwest. I ordered electric blankets the other day–a friend on Facebook suggested it when I was complaining about the cold, and had one of those wow it never ever occurred to me to get electric blankets moments when I truly wonder about my intelligence and intellectual capacity. But in fairness to me, I don’t think I’ve ever owned an electric blanket, and we certainly didn’t have any when I was growing up….but thinking about it this morning, what a difference that could have made that bitterly cold winter I spent in Minneapolis twenty five years ago….

I am still reading both The Bad Seed by William March and Lincoln by Gore Vidal; obviously I was too tired last night to make any headway on either. Paul and I did watch an episode of something that might turn into a guilty pleasure for us….Cajun Justice, about the sheriff of Plaquemines Parish. Louisiana was an enormously popular location for reality television shows back in the day–remember Duck Dynasty?–and since one of my co-workers is moving to Plaquemines Parish (Houma, specifically) she was the one who found this single season reality show…when she mentioned it to me the other day–when we first talked about her move down there, and it’s been a couple of weeks; it was around the time I was looking up Cajun/Louisiana folklore for a potential Christmas horror story, which is when I was finding all those wonderful bayou supernatural legends, like le feu follet and the lutin…which I was able to look up in Gumbo Ya-Ya. The show is kind of, I don’t know, offensive in some ways, as it depicts Cajuns and their culture as an exotic thing; lots of talk about voodoo and black magic and so forth. (This is part of the problem I had with writing about Cajuns and the supernatural; I’m afraid I’ll give in to the stereotypes rather than depict the culture and the people authentically.) I mean, I do want to write short stories illustrating Cajun culture and their interesting folklore and legends (Monsters of Louisiana), but I also want to do it correctly. Gumbo Ya-Ya is an excellent source material, a great starting place, but I am also very aware that its authors were also steeped in the white supremacy and racism of the time in which they wrote and compiled the book, which also makes it harder to decipher what is real and what isn’t.

All right, I’ve got dishes to put away and laundry to fold before I hit the errand trail, so have a happy Thursday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you later.

Babe

Saturday morning and no LSU game today–kind of a relief, really; I imagine watching us play Alabama this season would be kind of painful and awful, to be honest. I am going to go make groceries and pick up the mail later on–and then I am hopefully going to write and work the rest of the day. The Saints are playing tomorrow, so that’ll take up the late part of the afternoon, so I will be going to the gym in the morning and then heading home to write, read, and clean some before the Saints game starts.

Yesterday was nice. I can’t say why yet, but it started off very nicely and continued in that same vein for the rest of the day. It was a gorgeous day, and I took some time off in the early afternoon to go to the gym and go to Garden District Books to get my next journal–the current one isn’t finished yet, but I like to get the next one ahead of time–and it was just stunningly beautiful in New Orleans yesterday, stunningly beautiful; sunny and low 70’s and blue skies everywhere you looked when you looked up. I am still behind on everything–what else is new?–but am hopeful things will start turning around sooner than later. The Lost Apartment is starting to look much better–neater, cleaner, better organized–which is a lovely, absolutely lovely thing, and that is helping me to get better and more organized with everything else, which is also lovely.

It is a beginning, which is a very lovely place to start.

It looks to be another beautiful late fall day here in New Orleans–gorgeous sky and lots. of sunlight; I have my laptop turned to the side and my chair pulled over to the side of my desk, like I had to do yesterday–and while I do have to get the mail and make groceries at some point today, the lack of an LSU game today and the total lack of care about any other games being played today has opened up my entire day for me, which is absolutely lovely. I’m afraid to think that this year has begun to turn around somewhat–the pandemic’s second wave is still rising after all–but hope has returned.

We watched The Mandalorian last night, and yesterday I was kind of amused to see there was a backlash of sorts to last week’s episode, in which The Child was eating the eggs of the Frog Lady–the eggs she was hoping to get to her husband to fertilize else they would be the last of their line (there seems to be some confusion as to whether it was the end of their race or the end of her family line; I took what she said to mean family line, not race)–and honestly, people need to get a fucking life. It’s a fucking television show, for one thing, and it depicts things that happened “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” Aren’t there enough genuine problems confronting us to be concerned about rather than what happens on a science fiction/western hybrid television program? We’re still enjoying the show, and apparently The Child became attached to the babies as they hatched, which was a nice coda to that story. But it also remains one of the best Star Wars universe tales, and as I said before, they should have ditched the Skywalker saga and moved on to other tales from the same universe.

We also watched another episode of Mr. Mercedes, which continues to enthrall and hold our attention. I didn’t give near enough credit to the actors playing the Hartsfields: Harry Treadaway (best known as Dr. Frankenstein from Penny Dreadful) as the psychotic killer known as Mr. Mercedes, and Kelly Lynch as his mother, with whom he has a disturbingly incestuously close relationship with–both are killing it, as is Jharrel Jerome as Jerome. This show is really well done–one of the best King adaptations I’ve seen–although I do wish Cynthia Erivo was playing Holly in this, as she did in The Outsider. Holly Gibney is one of my favorite King characters; and while she hasn’t appeared yet in this show, I am really looking forward to seeing Justine Lupe’s interpretation of the role. Brendan Gleeson is also perfect as Bill–I’m not sure why they decided to go with making him Irish, to fit the actor, but it’s working. I also couldn’t help but think what a great role this would have been for Ed Asner or Ernest Borgnine or Carroll O’Connor or Burl Ives. I also don’t know why this show didn’t really get much attention, unless it was because it was on a lesser streaming service. Here’s hoping it being on Peacock will help it find a bigger audience. It is so well done, and Dennis Lehane wrote last night’s episode!

Ironically, I’d been thinking about Stephen King a lot lately–the Halloween Horror thing, along with the rewatches of Carrie and Christine–and while I am probably not as rabid a fan of his as I was for a very long time (I no longer buy the book on release day and everything in my life comes to a screeching halt while I devour the book) I am still a fan. The Hodges trilogy is King in top form, and so was Joyland, his paperback original for Hard Case Crime. I’ve never finished The Dark Tower, primarily because so many years passed between The Waste Lands and Song of Susannah that I lost the thread of the story and realized I’d be better off rereading the entire thing; I thus decided to wait until the series was finished and then go back and read it all the way through. Surprise! I haven’t done that yet, and there are still some volumes of his that I have yet to read (Doctor Sleep, 11/22/63, The Outsider, The Institute, If It Bleeds) which would have never happened back in the day. I enjoyed all of King’s earlier work–I never reread Pet Sematary or Cujo, primarily because they were too disturbing, which I understand now; a recent reread of Pet Sematary made me very aware of how actually brilliant it is–and reread them constantly; The Stand is one of my all-time favorite novels, and of course so many of the others are equally brilliant. The Tommyknockers was the first book of his I actively disliked, and believed the entire first third of the book could have easily been cut out. And while the books that followed were either hit or miss for me–more hits than misses–I can honestly say that Dreamcatcher was one of the worst things I’ve ever read. I absolutely hated that book, hated everything about it, and even the characters—usually a major strength of his–weren’t memorable or overly likable. One thing King does that he doesn’t nearly get enough credit for is writing about working class people, and how the grind of poverty, or the fear of lapsing into it–drives and hardens people.

Ironically, I saw a thread yesterday on social media where some writers were taking a whack at King, since King has been on my mind so much lately these days. I am constantly amazed at how many pseudo-intellectual writers always smugly assert their own dismissive opinions of King–when I’ve never heard of them, probably will never hear of them again, and kind of don’t want to ever hear about them again. I strongly disapprove of writers trashing other writers (although hypocritically I am down with it if it’s Stephenie Meyer or E. L. James) and books–which is why I stopped being a paid reviewer years ago–and sure, it’s easy to take potshots at writers who’ve become brands, like King (and Anne Rice and John Grisham and Dean Koontz and numerous others), but I always like to remember that those brand name authors sell huge amounts of books, which keeps publishers in the black and enables them to take chances with other authors who might not be as marketable or salable.

I slept really well last night also, which was absolutely lovely. I feel very well rested, and looking forward to my fourth week of working out, which begins tomorrow morning. I really am hoping to get a lot done this weekend. Wish me luck as I head back into the spice mines!