Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment, and I am up early. I actually was awake and out of bed before Sparky came looking for breakfast. I feel great this morning, which is awesome. I don’t know how the day is going to play out, but let’s see how it all develops, shall we? Yesterday was lovely. I had some groceries delivered and spent most of the day cleaning and organizing and yes, thinking. Sparky wanted to sleep in my lap while Paul was off doing things, so I did that for about an hour or so, or at least until he decided taking up the entire couch was more suited to his nap needs. I did finally send out that newsletter I’d been working on forever; if you’d like to read my measured response to that horror of an op-ed in the New York Times, you can click right here, if you’d like. No pressure!
The Saints lost their preseason game (we didn’t watch; the games don’t matter so I don’t really get into games that are basically practice skirmishes), but these games don’t matter. I had the LSU-Florida game from 2007 on Youtube while I was doing things–prepping for the season–and then Paul came home. I grilled burgers for dinner, and we watched another episode of Furious, which is incredibly well written and acted; Emmy Rossum is fantastic (and always underrated) and it’s walking an interesting line about abuse that I won’t spoil by talking about. Is anyone else watching?
In other sad news, beloved longtime LSU baseball coach Skip Bertman died; Coach Bertman won five College World Series at LSU and built the baseball juggernaut that is the LSU program. I wouldn’t be such a fan of the baseball team were it not for Coach Bertman, and I remember so many great games and finishes while he was guiding the ship. My heart goes out to his friends and family, and I imagine he’s getting a statue on campus at some point. He also kept going to the games after retiring, too–they’d always show him in the stands during the games. It’s going to be weird not having him there anymore.
My birthday looms this week, too; I have taken Thursday and Friday off for a nice long weekend for it. I don’t remember turning sixty, probably because we were still in the throes of the pandemic, and I was buried in work and responsibilities and didn’t notice or make much of it. It’s astonishing to me that I made it this far, frankly; it’s not like the cards weren’t stacked against me. I’m also not one of those “how did the time go by so fast” people, either. It did not go by fast. High school seems like it was in another era completely–and it was very definitely in a different century, wasn’t it? I also like saying things like “well, you know I was born sixteen years after the war ended” or “Kennedy was president when I was born, and I remember Johnson being president, and when Eisenhower died” and seeing the looks on people’s faces. (You also have to remember that I’m at minimum twenty years older at least than everyone at work, besides one person.) Yikes, indeed. I am going to write a newsletter for my birthday–I’m already working on it–that will reflect on me making it to sixty-five somehow (stubbornness, most likely) and so on. We’re going to get a pizza from That’s Amore in Metairie, and we’re going to see the Spider-Man movie, and potentially a Costco run. That sounds good, doesn’t it?
Today I am going to read, and there’s a very short essay I have to get written today as well. I am making Swedish meatballs for dinner tonight (with egg noodles), and hope to get to the floors today, too.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning before work.
Underground wrestler Cason of Thunders Arena. He looks like a lot of fun, doesn’t he?
Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment and all is well thus far. I am having a very nice weekend, and I do hope you are having one as well, Constant Reader. I’m hoping for another good day today. I’m not sure what Paul’s plans are for the day, but mine will include finding something new to watch, since we finished Cross yesterday. I am tempted, of course, to start The Vampire Lestat but I’d rather wait to watch it until it’s all finished airing. (I’ve always been a bit of an Anne Rice fan-boy, and her connection to New Orleans was one of the things that originally made me think about living here, after reading The Witching Hour, which I should also revisit sometime.) I quite enjoyed Interview with the Vampire, and I might need to revisit those two seasons as well. I just saw yesterday there will be s fourth season, aptly titled The Queen of the Damned, so maybe the entire series will be filmed for television, which would be kind of cool; I did enjoy some of the later books, too. I also like this cast a lot. Anyway, how could I have forgotten Ride or Die? Clearly that would be the best option for our next watch. Octavia Butler and Hannah Wasddingham? Sign me the fuck up.There’s also another film streaming now that I want to see.
I had some groceries delivered, and made baked potatoes for dinner–so delicious with Kerrygold butter, cheddar cheese, fresh ground black pepper, and Maldon salt, with bacon bits and some chives. We’re both trying to eat not only healthier food but smaller portions as well to take off some weight. I bought a new pair of jeans at Costco on Friday (yes, that’s me, the gay fashion plate), and I’d like to get back down to two hundred pounds again, which I think is do-able. Paul worked out with his trainer and then went to the gym to ride the bike for a few hours. Sparky was cuddly and wanted my lap, and I really wanted to finish reading my book…so I put on the 2022 Alabama-LSU game on Youtube while I read and did some things. I finished the laundry and put away the dishes, ordered some groceries to be delivered, and had a very good day overall, despite the late start. When that game finished I put on 2019 LSU-Florida (which we were actually in the stadium for; it was one of my favorite games I’ve attended–the weather was perfect, the game was lit, and the crowd was on fire).
I actually came up with a working title for the new Scotty as well as the opening to the prologue, and the opening of Chapter One as well–and since I also have the disparate threads of plots decided upon, just not how to really tie them all together as of yet; I thought that was some excellent work on a day where I felt like I was being lazy, to be honest. I’ve been writing in my easy chair on the MacBook Air, and I’m getting more and more used to writing on it, so I have less excuses for not writing, which is a good thing.
I also wrote and sent out a new newsletter, which you can read by clicking here! This time out I talk about Lev AC Rosen’s Rough Pages, which I finished yesterday and absolutely loved. I think I am going to reread Larry Kramer’s Faggots next, along with getting back to my reread of The Ivy Tree and I think my next new read will be either Wanda Morris’ latest, or maybe something neither gay nor crime, but will pick out a few today to choose from; I do have so many marvelous books I have yet to read. I ordered copies of Emily Wilson’s translations of The Odyssey and The Iliad, and may get around to the Aeneid, too; it’s been a long ass time and my perspective has shiufted since then. There’s also Celebrity, which a friend reminded me of lately, and I had been thinking about writing about because one of the three main characters is a deeply closted gay man who is also a major movie star–and what I remember about how his sexuality was depicted is, well, pitiful. the life he was living wasn’t enviable, and was actually horrifically sad. I’d like to reread it, not only to reexamine Mack’s depiction but how the book was structured, which I have always felt was intricately built so would like to deconstruct it some.
We also watched Masters of the Universe last night. Nicholas Galitzine looks pretty (despite the lack of fur bikini) and Dolph Lundgren (whio played him in the last live action movie) had a cameo close to the beginning. Despite being visually beautiful and cinematic, as well as clever and funny at times, but the story’s not great; it’s a cartoon story that doesn’t really translate well into a live action big budget film. Masters of the Universe was always an infomercial for toys rather than an actual show, and not much creative thought went into it–He-Man? Skeletor? Evilynn? Sorceress? I remember the Saturday morning cartoon was popular while I worked at Toys R Us. I fucking hated working that aisle, and how stupid I thought the kids who were into it had to be to not recognize how basic and simple everything was. They need so little creativity for their entertainments? I saw the original film in the theater, with Dolph Lundgren and Frank Langella, with a very young Courtney Cox (fresh off that Bruce Springsteen video) and her love interest was the guy who’d played Charlie Brent on All My Children (with Lauren Holly as his love interest, no less–Pine Valley had some very good young talent pass through for teen drama storylines). The movie was fun, but Dolph’s cloak concealed his fur bikini too much for my taste. It was fun and silly and not anything I ever needed to watch again…and I feel the same way about this version. Just empty calories, but there’s nothing wrong with that either. There’s also a strong 1980 Flash Gordon aesthetic I appreciate to the movie–there was even a point where Paul started singing “FLASH! Ah ah, savior of the universe!” and I had been literally thinking the same thing.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will do the same here in New Orleans. See you tomorrow morning!
The ruins of Fort Livingston on Grand Terre Island; another evocative writing-prompt image!
Monday and back to the office with me this morning. The weekend was lovely, if not particularly productive in terms of getting things done, but I do need to rest from time to time. Yesterday I had to do some work for Paul–nothing really, just didn’t want to do it, you know how that goes. I slept later than I’d wanted, but it rained overnight and was still raining in the early morning, which is why I was so asleep and didn’t want to get up. The rest of the day was damp and chill, if humid and gray, but I did manage to get some things done. I didn’t find the time change particularly grueling this year; I just went to bed early on Saturday and slept in a bit. I did have some trouble sleeping last night, and got up to yet another boil water advisory and low water pressure. Heavy sigh. I hope I can shower and have a normal Monday this week–but the fates do seem to be conspiring against me. Oh, well; there are always worse things.
Yesterday was restful which was very nice. I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked on the house yesterday, but that’s okay. I spent time icing my calves to try to help the Achilles tendons stop being sore–they are very much better than they were, it’s barely noticeable now–and made dinner and did do some things before we watched LSU Gymnastics at Florida, and then went to The Traitors-UK again. (I’m hoping there’s enough of it to get me through the Festivals, at any rate. Overall, I had a lovely, relaxing and restful weekend, which was necessary and lovely. I got all errands done that were necessary, did some clean up around here, and got the rest I needed in order to face down this week. I think we’re busy in the clinic this week, too–and I’m a bit behind on my work, so I need to use today to get everything caught up before I am back in the clinic tomorrow (Monday is my administrative day where I try to get everything caught up from the week before). No pressure there, right? I’ll manage somehow. I always do.
I’m dreading looking at the news; over the weekend I don’t pay attention much because I can only take so much, so I limit my exposure to it as much as I can. It isn’t that I don’t want to be informed or know what’s going on in the world around me, but the reality is “24 news” doesn’t mean reporting on news for twenty-four hours, it means regurgitating the same news over and over again while everyone you can get on camera to discuss, argue and debate the same news until you really want to throw something sharp and hard through the television screen. Who have we bombed and/or invaded today? What rights are being curtailed by either Congress, executive order, or the most corrupt and lawless Supreme Court since the Dred Scott decision (which hounded Roger B. Taney for the rest of his life, as it should have)? What other allies are now refusing to share intelligence with us because our president and his court are all Russian assets? (I remember the days when not a single Republican dared support anything Russian; their entire party was grounded in anti-Russia sentiment, only to do a complete 180? The North remembers.) I remember still all the Vietnam news reports when I was a child…
As I mentioned, I didn’t sleep that great last night; I had a fever during the night and woke up to a damp pillow and a damp spot in the bed where I’d sweated. Obviously, I flipped the pillow over and rearranged things so there was a layer of blanket between me and the damp spot in the sheets, and I didn’t feel that great. I woke up several more times during the night–love waking up to a boil water advisory, but at least there was enough pressure for a shower this morning, praise Jesus. I have something going on with my stomach again, but I am hoping it’s not a relapse, and not entirely sure what I would have to do to ward that off. I think maybe I ate too much yesterday–always a possibility–and that’s what the issue is this morning (and was overnight). I also forgot to take my pills yesterday, which also could be a part of this stomach annoyance.
And on that pleasant note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.
It was a great day of college football, and the day was capped off by LSU’s 20-10 win over Florida in Death Valley. The game was very tense, and turned into a defensive struggle the Tigers won. LSU’s offense looked a bit sluggish, but the defense was sharp despite losing two starting linebackers early in the game. Georgia-Tennessee was probably the best game of the day, a back and forth struggle with numerous lead changes in the fourth quarter until Georgia turned on the Georgia switch and won in overtime. After the LSU game, we watched the exciting finish of Notre Dame-Texas A&M (way to go, Aggies!), before going up to bed. I slept well, but do feel a bit laggard this morning. Hopefully, taking a shower and getting cleaned up in a moment will wake me completely. The Saints game is on at twelve, so I’ll just have it on while I’m cleaning and working today. Tulane also won yesterday, beating Duke, which is also cool; first time since 1998 both LSU and Tulane are both 3-0 to start the season. I still am not completely convinced LSU should be ranked third in the country, but as I watched yesterday I realized I don’t care much about the rankings, which really are nothing other than opinions, and often biased ones at that. I also don’t care about the play-off race, either, or who gets into it. I think I’m just watching for good games, really, nowadays, more than anything else. Of course I want LSU to win it all, but…no big deal if they don’t, either.
I did order groceries to be delivered yesterday, so I didn’t have to do anything outside of the house other than take out trash and light the grill (and cook). I’m going to have to walk over to Walgreens at some point (ugh) but other than that and taking out some recycling, I don’t have to go outside much today, either. It really is sad how much I tend towards being a housebound hermit.
It was really nice to shut the rest of the world out yesterday and focus on something besides the collapse of the country. I don’t think the Right’s attempt to turn Charlie Kirk into a martyr is going to work–and his “poor wife” is just as horrible as, if not worse, than the deceased. It’s always amazing to me the way people will always try to make victims out of conservative women, i.e. “poor Melania” or “poor Widow Kirk” etc., when they are exactly where they want to be and no one is forcing them to stay. They are completely on board with their husbands’ bigotry and hate, and reinforce it. They will even turn on their own men if they have second thoughts1. (I really do need to read They Were Her Property.) Tananarive Due also explores this sentiment somewhat in her brilliant The Reformatory also touched on this…and maybe it needs to be the focus of a book where I can explore it all.
I will also add that I am sick and tired of fucking straight white bitches who use my community to bolster (and build) their careers only to stab us all in the back. That’s so fucking despicable. I was never a fan of Kristin Chenowith before, (or Selma Blair, for that matter) and the fact this living troll doll (put a bone in her hair and see what she looks like) is perfectly willing to piss on the community makes me glad I never saw the appeal, frankly. The “pick me” theater gays will undoubtedly continue to worship her (I’ve seen them defending her, but her continued silence speaks more than volumes–i.e. she doesn’t feel the need to explain herself to her queer fans, so in other words…we can all go fuck ourselves. Prove me wrong), but there are also gay Republicans. I turned my back on Donna Summer in the 1980s; you think I’ll forgive this bitch for her opportunism? Here’s hoping she gets a pie in her face on her next opening night. She deserves worse.
Oh, dear, I wonder if this is going to get me on a list? Funny how the Right’s crackdown of free speech in the wake of Mr. Free Speech’s shooting goes against everything he (and they) supposedly believe in. And don’t even get me started on the waste of taxpayer money trying to canonize him since his death. They have a new Ashli Babbitt, don’t they? His-and-hers traitors to worship?
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back in the morning.
Sigh, Florence.
Which was my primary takeaway from Gone with the Wind, by the way. ↩︎
I feel good this morning, like I slept well and recharged, which is always a nice feeling. My coffee tastes great, and so does the coffee cake we got at Costco yesterday. It was a pretty good day, despite some missteps (is every Walgreens in New Orleans a portal to hell?) and I had a strange experience getting gas, which I’ll have to sort out once the charge hits, but other than that and the horrible accident at Jackson and Prytania I saw the aftermath of (someone ran a red light and totaled their car hitting another one, thoughts and prayers) as the cops and tow trucks cleared the intersection. After finishing my work, we picked up my copy of the new Lou Berney and went to Costco. It wasn’t that expensive, comparatively speaking, compared to other shopping trips there. We came home, settled in after putting everything away, and watched this week’s Peacemaker before finishing Wednesday, which was a lot of fun before going to bed (I fell asleep in my chair catching up on news). Today I am going to order groceries, read (and edit), and work on the house during the football games today. Great games today, too–capping off with Florida at LSU (Geaux Tigers!) tonight!
Turns out Charlie Kirk’s murder was MAGA-on-MAGA crime, and not someone on the left at all. With their usual hypocrisy, MAGA was all in on “civil war” and “killing Democrats” before the truth was revealed and they immediately went in to “oh, no mental health that poor troubled young man” with no acknowledgement of their most recent blunder (they really are tiresome). And they wonder why we fucking hate them? I also didn’t have “Broadway icon whose entire career is due to gays being MAGA” on my 2025 Bingo card, either, the disgusting piece of shit. I never cared much for her–her voice, both speaking and singing, always sounded like a castrated chipmunk to me–but seriously, bitch? And you’re opening a new show on Broadway soon? I do wonder if the shrunken-headed leather-skinned flotilla of sewer shit will walk it back, but we really aren’t the ones…as she is about to fucking find out. Thoughts and prayers, trash. How’d that work out for Donna Summer? Do you think anyone is going to be booking Gloria Gaynor anywhere for the rest of her life? Gays have long memories, and we never forget being betrayed by someone who pretended to be an ally for money and fame.
I also loved the “free speech” advocates screaming about the communities he targeted not feeling bad enough about his murder. Remind me of the memorial day Jews have annually to mourn Hitler? If you weren’t targeted by this money-grubbing grifter and merchant of hate you don’t get to lecture or scold those who were. I blocked a lot of people over the last couple of days. Being reminded of how much trash is in the crime writing community is never a bad thing…another reminder of why I will never go to another crime writers’ conference ever again.
And for the record, that’s to protect these pieces of shit from me, because I am done being Mr. Nice Gay.
Sigh.
And on that note, I need to get my day going before the morning slips through my fingers. Have a great Saturday, Constant Reader, and GEAUX TIGERS!
The blues in this image are exceptional, making him look better, too.
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 committhus 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
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. ↩︎
So it’s Monday morning and I took the day off from work, as I have to head out to Metairie for my pre-operation meetings and clearances and so forth. Woo-hoo. But at least today I expect to know what my recovery is going to look like, and how much time I will actually need to be out of the office. I didn’t sleep great on Saturday night, despite LSU’s big win over Florida, and was up before seven yesterday morning and not really feeling like doing much of anything. I did spend some time with Lou Berney’s delightful Dark Ride, which is like nothing he’s done before–something I always deeply admire with authors–and I really love the voice of his main character. There’s a reason Lou’s won every conceivable award from crime fiction writing; his work is exceptional and I only wish he were more prolific. Hardly is memorable, for many reasons that I cannot wait to get into when I’ve finished reading the book.
The Saints played abysmally yesterday, so I was glad I decided I was too drained already to expand any more emotional energy on watching the game. I was very low energy all weekend, which isn’t surprising, given that I’m kind of dreading the information I am going to be getting today even as I know it’s information that I need to have in order to make decisions that need to be made. Heavy sigh, yes, small wonder I was low energy all weekend. But that’s okay; I did actually think about writing this weekend, and did some of the mental groundwork and even wrote a scene in longhand in my journal, of all things. I also started coming up with names for characters for the next book, which is always fun, and started thinking about which direction to take the story. This is progress, and I will accept that gratefully without flagellating myself or wishing I had produced more and had written something on the computer.
I’m not going to lie, my anxiety is spiking this morning and so I am going to need to struggle a bit with it this morning. I know I’m just borrowing trouble, and being anxious or nervous about the appointments this morning will not change and/or affect what I am going to be told today, which is knowledge I am going to try to use as I sit here to calm my nerves and keep my adrenaline from spiking. I’m going to take Lou’s book with me this morning to read while I wait at the surgeon’s office, and thank God for good books with great writing from talented friends, right? It’s weird to think I’m having surgery next week and it’s also Thanksgiving week, too. I am not sure what we’re going to do for the holiday, since it’s two days after my surgery, but I can get some things over the weekend for it and hopefully it won’t be too big of a deal to make pulled turkey in the crockpot, but then how will I shred the meat with just one hand? A conundrum, for sure. I am going to probably be learning all kinds of lessons in these coming weeks about how imperative it is to have two hands–which is ableist thinking, I know; some people make do their entire lives with merely one hand.
The big news in college football is that Texas A&M went ahead and fired their head coach, Jimbo Fisher, triggering the biggest payout ever for a fired football coach. I thought, at the time, that the contract extension was insane; all he’d managed to do was take A&M to a one-loss season during a pandemic and a limited schedule. They finished in the top ten that year, if I am remembering correctly, but they still didn’t win their division or make it to Atlanta, so I thought it was presumptuous. Of course, this was also right around the time that it was becoming apparent that LSU was going to fire Ed Orgeron, and Fisher had been a target before Orgeron was hired….so A&M was preemptively moving to keep their coach from leaving for Baton Rouge. But A&M underperformed other than that one season, and it was a very bad deal–it’s costing them almost eighty million dollars to fire Fisher, which is also going to create a massive mess for hiring a replacement and for the replacement as well. Fisher was terminated immediately and not being allowed to finish out the season, so when A&M rolls into Tiger Stadium Thanksgiving weekend, they’ll be led by an interim coach. It’s not the first time the LSU-A&M game has had an interim head coach calling the game, either, nor will it be the last, most likely. I mean, seriously–how much money do the Aggie Exes have, for Christ’s sake?
Apparently, a lot. I would imagine the Longhorns are even richer, and they’ll be in the SEC next year.
We finished watching Karen Pirie last night, and it was on the third episode that I realized I’d read the book on which it was based–The Distant Echo, which I had greatly enjoyed. We also are watching the second season of the Jane Seymour crime series, Harry Wild, which is enjoyable–and applause for Ms. Seymour for allowing herself to age gracefully. There you see the primary difference between British and American actresses; Maggie Smith, Diana Rigg, Helen Mirren and Judi Densch have allowed themselves to age, and it’s a beautiful thing to see–whereas American actresses their age now have rigid faces filled with Botox and filler and with all their skin pulled back tightly. It always seemed to me that having a face incapable of movement or expressing emotion would be a negative for an actress, but their insecurities and fears are also predicated on generations of youth worship in Hollywood and sweeping actresses out the door once they’ve hit forty. (In All About Eve the age issue for Margo was turning forty; that same year Sunset Boulevard gave us fifty-year-old has-been Gloria Swanson. The irony that Jessica Lange and That Woman were twenty years older when they played Crawford and Davis in Feud–in which the two fifty-something women miraculously revived their careera–wasn’t lost on this viewer.)
And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and start getting ready for this morning’s round of pre-surgery appointments. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back this afternoon for some blatant self-promotion.
Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment, and all is well. I went into the office for a meeting and stayed there to get my Monday work done, since I have appointments that morning. It was weird, like the world had tilted on its axis or something; it felt very odd being in the office (and it also freaked out co-workers, too) and while it’s the kind of thing that generally undermines my equilibrium, it was all fine. Today I am going to run to the library sale, pick up the mail, and wash the car before coming home and settling in for some reading and writing with college football on in the background. I also have to run Paul over to Costco to pick up his new glasses, so I need to figure out if there’s anything else we need from there since we will actually be there. (I can always use more K-cups for my Keurig, and since in a couple of weeks my driving will be severely restricted for three weeks, yeah, it’s better to prepare now.)
In a surprising turn of events, yesterday morning I was digging through the closet looking for a shirt I hadn’t worn in years (there are many, and it’s been a few years) when I stumbled across a pair of pants that I used to love. They were so comfortable, but they stopped fitting about twelve years ago–they were transitional pants, a pair I had bought when I realized I needed to go up a size to 32’s, which was concerning at the time, and then they became too small within a couple of years, so I thought, well, if they don’t fit I’ll take them to work to the clothing closet and showered. Lo and behold, they fit comfortably! So I guess I’ve dropped down to that size again, which is delightful, and probably a side effect to the soft food diet. But it’s delightful to be able to comfortably fit into size 32 waist pants again–I didn’t think that would ever happen, and the fact that it did while I still am above my goal weight by eight or nine pounds is very cool.
I got home from work in the mid-afternoon and the construction guys were here again, working on the deck, which meant they were right outside my windows, so there was no way with all that pounding, drilling and other miscellaneous construction noises that I could focus and do some either reading or writing, so instead I focused on chores. I got the laundry done, did some picking up around here, and also did another load of dishes. It’s really quite remarkable how much garbage and dirty laundry and dirty dishes can accumulate around here during a week. But I eventually made it to the chair so Tug could be a purring kitty donut sound asleep in my lap while I doom-scrolled social media and watched history documentaries on Youtube–more about the Byzantine Empire (which really was the Roman Empire; the West made sure they rebranded the Roman Empire while talking about it and erasing it from history–Western Europe saw themselves as the true heirs to the Romans and their civilization, even as it went on in Constantinople for another thousand years after Rome fell. The West even went so far as considering eastern Europeans uncivilized barbarians, hence the Hapsburg hegemony), and some more stuff about the Crusades. There was also an interesting documentary about what city and culture is truly the “third Rome”–was it the Ottomans with Istanbul, the Russians with Moscow, or the Holy Roman Empire with the Pope’s endorsement? (Interestingly enough, the Nazis and their Third Reich was predicated on them being the heirs of Rome and the Holy Roman Empire, with Berlin as the third Rome, so yes, that Roman influence continues on up through the twentieth century.)
I also read some more of The Rival Queens by Nancy Goldstone, the dual biography of the mother-daughter team of Catherine de Medici and her daughter Marguerite de Valois; I’ve always known and have studied up on the French wars of religion before, but I never really understood how it really all came about under Charles IX and his mother’s regency (I always focused more on the reign of Henri III, his younger brother and the end of the Valois dynasty; Henri III was also openly gay, so of course I’ve always been interested in writing about him even though he was hardly a heroic king or a good role model for future gay kings), so it’s interesting to see how Catherine, who had little to no popular support, played the two opposing parties of the Huguenots (led by her son-in-law Henri de Bourbon and his mother, Jeanne d’Albret Queen of Navarre) and the Guises (ostensibly the more popular Catholic leaders) off against each other to maintain her own power and control of the government–which in trying to keep the peace and herself in power and her son on the throne, generally tended to make things worse. She was smart, though–very smart, and she played a very dangerous game but died in power and in her bed. The French, of course, hated her because she wasn’t of Royal blood and felt their royal family had demeaned themselves by allowing her to marry into them. They called her “The Italian Woman” or “Madame Serpent” or “Queen Jezebel”–all of which were used as titles for Jean Plaidy’s romantic biographical trilogy about her life. The general French distaste for Italians also played a part in her demonization by the people, and of course her having truck with the Huguenots didn’t sit well with her Catholic subjects, despite her being the niece of a Pope and cousin to two more. As I have said before, 1559-1594 was a very interesting period in French history, and the religious question/problem also continued through the next century–leading to the fascinating period of the 1620’s, when Dumas set his The Three Musketeers.
Ah, maybe someday. Reading The Rival Queens is certainly whetting my appetite to write some French historical fiction.
We also watched another episode of Karen Pirie last night, which we are both really enjoying, but alas, I was tired and sleepy and fell asleep a couple of times during the episode. (I also had Tug sleeping either next to me or on me, so of course I kept dozing off; if they could somehow get sleeping cat/purring energy into a sleeping pill form, it would sell like crazy. Nothing puts me to sleep like that, nothing. (I also continued my rewatch of Moonlighting, with an episode that featured and centered Miss DiPesto, “North by North DiPesto”–which was cute and sweet and fun, but ultimately a subpar episode. This was when the filming and writing of the show had started falling behind, and they would give the writers a chance to catch up by doing an episode without much David and Maddie–which meant a lot less dialogue and no talking over each other. I’d forgotten they did things like this to try to catch up on their schedule, and it’s also why there were never twenty-two episodes in a season, which was standard back then; I’d also forgotten that the filming of the show–and all its behind-the-scenes trouble–only spurred on more interest in the show; I don’t think backstage drama and production issues on a television program had ever been news before Moonlighting, which tells you how important the show was culturally.)
So I am hoping to get a lot finished today before it’s time for errands and things. I will probably pay more attention to football today than I need to–LSU plays Florida tonight at home, trying for a fifth consecutive win against the Gators; Mississippi is at Georgia in a clash of Top Ten teams; and Tennessee plays Missouri in another top 25 showdown. Alabama is also at Kentucky, Auburn at Arkansas, and Texas A&M at Mississippi State, so yeah, there are some interesting games on today, so it will probably be more than background noise I have on, alas.
And after I get some things done around here in the kitchen this morning, I am going to curl up with Lou Berney’s Dark Ride and give it all my attention.
Friday, but I am not working at home this morning. We have a department meeting, and then I am going to stay at the office until around two this afternoon to get things done. I am taking Monday off because all my pre-surgery appointments are that morning, and I don’t know how long that is going to take. As Monday is a paperwork and not-in-the-clinic day, it’s not a big deal as long as I get all of the work I would ordinarily do on Monday to get the clinic ready for the rest of the week done today. I am going to run a couple of errands on the way home, and then I am in for the rest of the day. I will have to run some errands tomorrow–post office, mostly–but hope to spend most of the weekend inside the apartment. I slept well last night, mainly because I had the “Thursday exhaustion” that hits me every Thursday since I started working this schedule, but that’s okay. I came straight home from work yesterday, and didn’t do much of anything once I was there. Oh, sure, I watched another episode of Moonlighting–and their lesser episodes are still charming–and later Paul and I watched the season finale of The Morning Show, which was a lot of fun. I did watch some Youtube documentaries about the Knights Templar and the Fall of Constantinople in 1204–which I never get tired of learning about, and will turn up in one of my books one day, just you wait and see.
I’m also looking forward to this weekend. I am going to get some books pruned to take to the library sale on Saturday, and I think I am also going to get the car washed. I do kind of want to see the Georgia-Mississippi game, and of course I’ll watch LSU play Florida, but that game worries me a bit; there’s always a let-down after losing to Alabama and having the pipe dreams of the season dashed finally, and LSU has beaten Florida four straight years, which is tied for the longest LSU winning streak in the rivalry. I also just remembered that this is the last season of the SEC as it has been since the initial expansion into two divisions thirty years ago; sure other teams have joined since, but the East-West divisions remained intact all this time. I don’t know how I feel about the expansion into a super-conference and the addition of Texas and Oklahoma, and the rotating schedule seems like a pain in the ass, but we’ll see how it works out. I suspect in about another decade realignment will be revisited and some teams may break off from their super-conferences and form a new smaller more manageable one…who knows?
I also want to read Lou Berney’s Dark Ride this weekend, and maybe start reading my next book, which I think is going to be Zig Zag by J. D. O’Brien, who was on my Humor panel at Bouchercon (that was probably one of the best panels I’ve ever moderated, and I want to read all of their books), because both have to do with stoners–Lou’s main character is a stoner, and J. D.’s book is about a dispensary heist, so they’re both what I call stoner noir–so they kind of go together. I also want to get to the new Angie Kim sooner than later, I am volumes behind on Laurie King’s marvelous Mary Russell series, have two Donna Andrews novels on deck as well, and then I want to really start making progress through the stacks and get things read.
I also need to do some writing this weekend. I’ve been really terrible this week about being organized, so there’s more of that to be done this weekend. I think I’ve started working on what submissions will go where, and I’d love to get a stronger handle on all of that by the end of the weekend. I know I want to get one of my stories submitted out again somewhere, not entirely sure where, but the worst thing they can do is reject it, right? And that just means my story isn’t right for them, that’s all, and that is fine. I need to get more zen about rejection, you know? And I also need to be easier on myself emotionally about the whole writing thing. Sure, it would have been great to get a lot more writing done before my surgery. No, I don’t know what the aftermath and recovery is going to look like–I am finding that out Monday at my pre-surgery meeting–so I won’t know for sure until Monday what I am going to be capable of doing in December. I think I’ll probably be back to work right before Christmas, but I also don’t know what I am going to be able to do once I go back. Will I be able to test people? How mobile will the next cast be? (I think I am going from rigid to flexible after the first three weeks.)
Uncertainty is not the friend of anxiety, but I think I am doing a pretty good job of not letting my anxiety take control of my conscious brain, at any rate. And this morning I’ve managed to unload the dishwasher already and start another load–and when I get home from my partial day at the office I’ll get started on the bed linens. I am running an errand on the way home, and then I intend to spend the afternoon mostly reading the new Lou Berney while doing some light picking up and pruning of the books, and maybe even get some writing done. Stranger things have happened.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later with some blatant self-promotion. Tuesday is the official release date for the new Scotty, which is very cool, and then the next week we go into surgery. WHEE.
Well, I didn’t get my blatant self-promotion done yesterday, so I will have to work extra hard today to make sure it does get done; cannot go two days without any, after all. I do feel tired this morning, and I am going into the office tomorrow. I have appointments for the surgery all morning on Monday, so I am going to take the day off–which means staying at the office after the department meeting to get all the things done for the next week that I would ordinarily do on Monday. I keep hoping the dentist will call about my dentures; it would be so awesome if I could get them on Friday, but surely they will come in by next week. I know things have slowed down with deliveries to New Orleans thanks to the visibility issues we’re having down here in the mornings. There’s a swamp fire in the East (which is why the whole city smells like burning rubber), and that mixes in with the heavy fog and visibility is relatively non-existent. Yesterday morning every bridge into New Orleans was closed except for the causeway, and there were some bad accidents before the bridges were closed. I-55 still hasn’t recovered from that insane massive pile-up in the same conditions last week, and I think it still closed southbound. As you cannot get into New Orleans from anywhere else in the state (other than Metairie and Kenner) without having to cross a bridge, you can see how closing all the bridges1 could cause delays in deliveries to the city–which is also probably why the grocery stores all look so picked over all the time.
I did manage to do some chores last night when I got home–finished a load of laundry and started another; emptied the dishwasher and reloaded it to run again, with another load waiting to go–and I made groceries on Carrollton before heading uptown to get the mail. My new copy of Chris Wiltz’ The Last Madam2arrived yesterday, along with shaving accoutrement that I’d ordered, which was lovely. I think I am probably going to come straight home from work today. I’ve picked up the mail every day this week so far, it can wait again until Saturday when I take books to donate to the library sale. I really need to get back to work on the book and some of the other writing I am trying to get done before the surgery knocks me out for a while. I don’t know how much writing I am going to be able to do during the three-week post-operative hard cast to keep the arm immobile period, but in a worst case scenario, I should be able to sit in my easy chair and read and watch movies, right?
I watched a documentary last night on Youtube about how Egypt survived the Bronze Age Collapse (which is a period which really interests me–all the civilizations crumbled around the same time but we don’t really know why), and I also watched another episode of Moonlighting, and it just so happened that my all-time favorite episode was on deck, “Twas the Episode Before Christmas”–which also is one of my favorite series Christmas episodes of all time. This was the episode where the show fully committed to breaking the fourth wall regularly (they’d flirted with it before, with the occasional joke about the run time of the show or the viewers), but this is the episode where Miss DiPesto finds a baby in her apartment right before Christmas, and from thus the mystery was sprung. I also absolutely loved that the three FBI agents looking for the baby were all named King (hence the Three Kings looking for the baby at Christmas), and other little clever touches like that. It’s also an incredibly well-written episode, anchored by a truly beautiful and sensitive performance by Allyce Beasley as Miss DiPesto–who was robbed of an Emmy for this episode. This also, along with getting the new Donna Andrews Christmas mystery (Let It Crow!Let It Crow!Let It Crow!) and David Valdes’ new y/a romance Finding My Elf, had me thinking about Christmas again, and my weird bipolar feelings about the holiday, and also had me thinking about how little I’ve written about Christmas in my vast array of work; as far as I can remember there’s one short story (“The Snow Globe”) and one book (Royal Street Reveillon), but that’s really it. I’ve written other Christmas short stories, but have never shown them to anyone or wrote additional drafts, because they were gushingly sentimental, and I despise cheap sentiment. (Oh yes, years ago I edited an anthology of gay Christmas stories, Upon a Midnight Clear, which has been out of print for at least fifteen years, if not more.) I am going to try to read more Christmas-set books this year during the holiday season, much as I read horror the entire month of Halloween.
I’m also thinking I should write more about Christmas, and another Christmas book isn’t a bad idea, either.
I just wish I could get my mind to focus on something, you know? But I suspect that has to do with the looming surgery. This weekend, LSU plays Florida on Saturday night, and I am not sure I’ll watch much else–I’ll have the games on in the background but fully intend to get shit done around the house, and read, and write. I am not going to be able to do much around the house for at least three weeks, which has me a little concerned about the laundry–but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. One nice thing about football season is that once LSU is out of contention for anything, I don’t really have to pay much attention to anything else other than them for the rest of the season. I do love football, but not enough at this point to justify wasting an entire day watching games.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I am going to try to get some more blatant self-promotion out today, too.
Ironically, I talked about how you always have to cross water to get into or out of New Orleans in Mississippi River Mischief; and here we are. ↩︎
More research into gay prostitution and the history of sex work here. ↩︎
Queer and Loathing in America 