Tag: LSU-Vanderbilt

Cemetery Drive

Sunday!

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Dead Dance

Saturday morning with an LSU game on pretty early, at eleven this morning; I’ll still be drinking coffee at that hour. I slept well last night, which felt good–I love the night when the bed has freshly laundered linens and blankets–and Sparky even let me sleep in a little bit. My coffee is tasty this morning as I wake up and prepare for a day in which I probably won’t do much of anything other than read, watch football, and make notes in my journal. I feel a big tired this morning still, but it’s the final stage of the fatigue dying away. I may do some chores and picking up around here during the games, but I am sure by tonight’s Alabama-Tennessee rivalry game I’ll probably be quite sick of watching football games. Miami lost last night, so the rankings are going to be shaken up again, as they will be after all today’s games.

After finishing day job duties yesterday and running my errands, I settled into my easy chair and rewatched Scream, the original, and was reminded again of just how clever this movie is and why I love it so much. I took five pages of notes! The panel on crossing the line between horror and mystery also resonated and has stayed in my head… and I also remembered some things since, like authors we didn’t mention. I also very proudly finished and posted my newsletter on Clown in a Cornfield 2: Frendo Lives, which was a rave, and also has me in mind of slasher stories….the one on Scream is going to be a pretty good one, methinks. We shall see, I suppose.

After Scream, we settled in to watch our shows for the evening, before retiring to bed pretty early. I also picked up my copies of the third Frendo book, Clown in a Cornfield 3: The Church of Frendo, which sound delicious and a continuation of the exploration of trauma the characters have faced–as well as remembering the rules: in a trilogy, no one is safe in the third chapter–and the latest Donna Andrews. (I am four books behind on her series now.) I really do want to write a slasher novel, and have several ideas for one (my favorite potential title is Where the Boys Die); but I have numerous things I want to write before I turn my fevered brain in that direction. I’m going to work on something for the rest of the month (mostly short stories and a novella) before diving headfirst into Chorine for November. Ideally, I want to have the first draft finished by the end of the month so I can work on something else for December.

I am also planning on revisiting A Nightmare on Elm Street before spooky season ends. And today I am going to dive headfirst into Holokua Road by Elizabeth Hand while I am watching the games, if not starting it before the LSU game starts. I don’t know how LSU will do today against Vanderbilt; they’re pretty good this year, despite their sloppy loss to Alabama in Tuscaloosa. It’s not like LSU has been setting the world on fire this season anyway. So, that game could very easily ruin the energy of the entire day if I am not careful. I also have some short stories to read–I have several horror anthologies and author collections–while I continue to celebrate Halloween Horror Month until the very end.

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines for the day. I do have some chores to do this morning as well as some cleaning, filing and organizing. Have a great day, everyone, and I’ll be back tomorrow, bright and early and feeling rested, I hope.

Father Figure

Tuesday morning as I get back into the swing of my reality again. Yesterday was an easy way to slip back into the work grind, and I was tired most of the day. I was very tired by the time I got home from work and errands and things, collapsing into my chair and bingeing more of Boots, which we are really enjoying before retiring pretty early. I had hoped to get some more things done around the apartment, but I can only do what I am capable of doing, you know? It’s still going to take a bit longer for me to get reacclimated, and that’s perfectly fine. I can only do what I can, right? I also need to stop berating myself for being a little wobbly when I get back on the bicycle of my reality.

One of the goals for 2025 was to be kinder to myself–and I am constantly having to remind myself of that very thing. My default is to always take the blame, or to be self-critical, and that’s a cycle from childhood that I need to break. I also cannot believe how quickly this month has passed. What the hell? How is tomorrow the 15th already again? Heavy heaving sigh.

I’ve been thinking I might start trying to listen to audiobooks in the car while I run around doing errands and driving to and from work. I’m never in the car for very long, which is why I’m thinking it may not work–it could take weeks to completely listen to a book all the way through this way–but I could also listen while I take walks. I’d just need to get earphones with a connecting wire; I refuse to sell pints of blood so I can afford ear pods, which I would lose. And since the weather is now cooling down, going for walks in the evening and in the morning might not be a bad thing; and an easy way to start getting my endurance back after this hellish decade for me, health-wise. Although I suppose at my age, my health now is really about the time between illnesses and surgeries. Heavy sigh.

And yes, you can still get wired headphones for iPhones. I checked.

I’m also getting caught up on my day job stuff, and perhaps by the end of the day I can triumphantly shout from the rooftops that I am finally current on those duties. Huzzah! LSU plays at Vanderbilt this weekend, and the game is at 11. YIKES. I hate early games, and the Tigers also tend to not play as well early. Vanderbilt is a good team again this year, and we don’t know if LSU is actually a good team or not. I guess we’ll find out early Saturday morning, but at least the game will be out of the way early and the games the rest of the day won’t matter as much whether I pay attention or not, which means a good time for cleaning the apartment.

I also need to start going through the calls for submission that I’ve bookmarked as interesting ideas for me to try for. The entire time I was in Alabama, I was thinking about a novella-in-progress I have that I would like to get finished…yes, another Alabama story.

And I need to start cleaning out the storage attic. That shit’s not going to empty itself out, is it?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back again tomorrow. I am off to make a to-do list!

I’ve always been fascinated by Baron Samedi

Shake

Well, yesterday was a good day for one Gregalicious. I didn’t get as much done around the house as I would have preferred, but c’est la vie. I did have football games on all day, mostly as a break from monotonous silence, but I did get to see the Florida upset of Mississippi, and surprisingly enough, LSU beat Vanderbilt last night to stop their three game losing streak…but have to play Oklahoma next, who managed to not only upset Alabama last night but beat them pretty soundly. After the LSU game I caught the end of Auburn-Texas A&M, which Auburn finally won in quadruple overtime. What a crazy year this has been in the SEC, has it not? Now the winner of Texas-Texas A&M will play Georgia for the SEC title. #madness.

But one thing I remembered finally is that I usually read during games I don’t necessarily care about, and so I finished The Reformatory by Tananarive Due at last yesterday, and what a read it was. I’d say it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time, and I read a lot of really good books, so that is really saying something. I’ve added Due to my list of “must-read” writers, and she has a substantial backlist I am looking forward to exploring. It took me a very long time to get through this book, because it was so powerful and the horror in it was so completely real, but more on that later. I am going to go out on a limb and call it a masterpiece for now, and encourage you to read it if you have not. Today I am going to start reading Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen, whom I’ve met and found delightful, and whose career I’ve been following avidly. I’ve yet to read one of his books, but I am very excited to read one of the most acclaimed queer mysteries of the last few years. I’m also kind of thrilled to be reading fiction again. Today I am also going to read a couple of short stories a friend sent me to read, and probably will do some writing, either short story, essay, or the book, today as well. I went to get the mail and made a grocery run yesterday, so I don’t have to do anything errand-like today, but I should probably make it to the gym later this morning. The weather has been wonderful, and one thing I am determined to do this year is drive around the city taking pictures of Christmas decorations. I definitely want to write a nice essay about Christmas this year, and the essay I worked on briefly yesterday, “Recovering Christian,” is one I started working on about twenty years ago. The lovely thing about Substack is I now have a place to post those essays, and share them with the world. I do have to make more of an effort to post content there at least once a week.

I do wonder if all the readers I picked up there during my ranting about homophobia post are expecting that kind of content all the time? I don’t know, but in some ways I am thinking that the Substack (also a place to publish short stories, too, if I so choose) is kind of a good place to write about my life, and explore issues of being a queer American writer, and my thoughts and opinions about systemic bigotry, and all the things I was miseducated about as a child. (American Mythology, hello?) That way it will live up to the name it shares with this blog, “Queer and Loathing in America.” I also want to write essays about my gay life, and the lessons I learned the hard way, as well as writing. I’ve been unpacking my past ever since Mom died–the first time I’ve ever allowed myself to look back–and while I am not sorry I never did this before, I am also learning a lot more about myself and why I do things and why I react the way I do and how much of my life was controlled/driven by anxiety. I was fine at the party the other night, but too many people in spaces still makes me uncomfortable and uneasy, but that’s okay. The claustrophobia might be anxiety related, or it may be entirely it’s own thing, but the primary difference was that there was no adrenaline spike or spiraling. I was able to relax, and kind of enjoy myself more.

And that is what I meant when I said I was pulling back from the crime community and centering myself. I want to focus on myself, on Paul, and our needs and what we need to do and handle and take care of, and I don’t want to do emotional labor for anyone else anymore. I’ve been watching a lot of Youtube and TikTok videos about cutting MAGA voters out of your life, or at the very least setting boundaries, and I saw one that really made a lot of sense to me: we don’t feel safe around them, but we don’t have to cut them out entirely, we just have to stop giving them emotional labor. Go get sympathy from another MAGA voter, since you’re all so empathetic and sympathetic to the concerns, fears and rights of other people. It’s why BlueSky has been flooded by Twitter trolls, now that the genius has killed that platform (but hey, let’s put him in charge of government!). They don’t enjoy talking to each other, so they have to “pwn the libs.” But they just get blocked, so they’re the ones who wind up in a echo chamber. Hell, I block people who annoy me. It’s my space, my experience, and if I don’t want the aggravation of annoying people or giving them time or energy, well…no one can make me engage with people who steal my peace.

I also don’t think people understand how casual homophobia, so easy for straight people to slip into with their excessive privilege, makes us feel when we hear it or hear about it or (in some cases) read about it in screen shots. Not only do we no longer feel safe around you, we can’t count on you to stand up for us when the chips are literally down. There’s been some slightly viral conversation about some Jewish lesbian who voted for Trump and has been cut off from her friends and kicked off a team. “I wouldn’t do this to someone who voted for Harris,” she cries her crocodile tears, as she sits down with right-wing podcasters and plays victim and martyr. She voted for Trump because of pro-Palestine lefties…or so she claims. So she aligned herself with someone who actually had dinner with a Nazi, and has been embraced by American Nazis. Who ally themselves with the Proud Boys and other ant-Semites (who precisely are the voters who chant “Jew will not replace us” again?), and now wants everyone to feel sorry for her and pretends ignorance. Sorry not sorry, bitch–your new buddies and the Karens posting on your instagram talking about how horrible it is that queers actually can see this quisling bitch for who she is? Those bitches will be the first ones to turn you into the SS, moron. It’s especially egregious because my education in feminism and social justice was at the hands of lesbians; I’ve always thought lesbians, of all people, would know better than this bullshit. And this bitch is talking about “how we all need to have these tough conversations”–no, we don’t, honey. The time for tough conversations was before the election, and trust me, there’s not a single tough conversation I could possibly have where I’d be willing to come to an agreement or compromise with people who cheered the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 80s and 90s. You don’t compromise with the Klan. You don’t compromise with Nazis. You don’t compromise with people who’s starting position is “you don’t deserve any rights, and you really shouldn’t exist.”

Feel free to pound your head into that wall until it’s pulp, Benedictine Arnold. Enjoy the lonely life of celibacy you’ve set up for yourself.

The funniest thing about her is she is a butch lesbian–short hair, masculine clothes, the whole ball of wax–and you know she is going to get challenged going into the ladies’ bathroom or changing room.

Good. Enjoy what you voted for. I have no patience with queer remoras attaching themselves to the sharks circling the rest of us. I certainly have no forgiveness in my heart for the future informers and camp guards. She showed us who she is, and we believe her.

And on that note, I am going to head over to my chair to read for a bit before I get to work around here. I slept really well again last night, and feel pretty good this morning. I also want to work on my review of The Reformatory, and get some other things done. Have a great Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later on.

Heart Full of Soul

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment! We’re having a cold spell here in New Orleans (yes, I know a high of sixty and a low of fifty-one is spring from most of you that live north of I-10, and you break out the tanks and shorts and sunscreen, but this is the time of year down here where you don’t feel like the climate is actively trying to kill you when you go outside, and it’s lovely), which is wonderful; I woke up feeling very well rested yesterday and had a very productive day. I wasn’t tired the way I usually am on Fridays, and managed to get all my work-at-home duties done, my blood work taken care of, picked up the mail, and made groceries. I’ll have to run out to the store again tomorrow to pick up a few things, but I don’t mind. My new watch came in the mail–I lost the Fitbit charger, and realized hey I don’t need to have one anymore since our insurance changed–so I ordered a cheap Timex on-line. I spent some more time with The Reformatory (it’s so good, so compelling and so horrifying at the same time; societal horror on top of supernatural and just breathtakingly brilliantly done), and worked on my chores whenever I needed a break from my computer duties. I also think the weather change has something to do with my energy picking up again; it might be finally healing from all the medical shit I had done last year (coming up on the one-year anniversary of my first-ever major surgery), and I always sleep better when it’s cold…although that does make it harder to get up in the mornings. I mean, I never want to get out of a comfortable bed as it is, let alone a warm comfortable bed on a chilly morning!

I got all the dishes done and did the bed linens; I also started picking up around here a bit more. I’ve really let the house slide badly since the surgery; it’s more than a little horrifying to think I’ve let it all slide for this long. I am really going to utilize the time Paul’s gone to do a real nice deep clean on the apartment. It’s long overdue. I also am trying to decide what TV show to binge while he’s gone; I’ve never watched Sex and the City (I’ve seen one episode) and I stopped watching Desperate Housewives midway through the first season when I missed one and didn’t know how to get caught up on it. (Both of these came to mind from watching a Youtube video while I was doing some quality assurance on paperwork, whose theme was “When Your Main Character Becomes The Villain,” which focused on Teri Hatcher’s character Susan (I remember getting really annoyed with her that first season), and used Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw as another. I realized I’d never watched these shows that were hugely popular with other gay men (the show-runners on both were gay men), so it would be interesting to see them now, all these years later, and perhaps even make a project out of it? I’m leaning towards Sex and the City because the episodes are shorter, and I don’t there are as many, which is a terrible reason, isn’t it?

Embrace the dark side, Gregalicious.

I slept well last night. Paul was out at an event, so I was home alone for most of the evening, and went to bed early when I started getting sleepy, around nine. It must be the cold (to us) weather. I do have to run out to get the mail and make some groceries, but for the most part I’ll be lazing around here, picking up and cleaning and moving things to clean behind or beneath them and so on (I am waiting to move the couch until Paul’s not here; there’s no telling what Sparky has under there–although he doesn’t try to squeeze his way underneath there anymore). I did cruise through my streaming services last night to see what is on there that I want to watch (I was also searching for Sex and the City and The Assassination of Gianni Versace, of which I’ve never seen more than the first episode), and I cleaned off and organized my desk–which was really nice to come down to this morning–and it’s nice to have all the dishes and laundry done. I’ll probably do some more cleaning and organizing around the kitchen/laundry room this morning, around reading more of The Reformatory. LSU will probably lose to Vanderbilt tonight, and if they do, I won’t be too mad about it. I’m enjoying Vanderbilt’s improbable season, and I can’t help but pull for them since they are always such an underdog every year. Tulane1 is also doing well again this year, which is fun–New Orleans really gets excited for Tulane when they’re doing great, and it’s fun seeing people heading for the tailgating in their green garb waiting for the streetcar along the neutral ground of St. Charles Avenue when I’m driving home from uptown. I’m working on an essay about religion, hoping to work on finishing a short story or two this weekend, and getting back to work on the book.

I also am thinking about rewatching Saltburn, so I can finish my essay about it. It’s not longer timely, of course, but it’s an interesting movie that I think bears some Gregalicious perspective on it. I still have some Imposter Syndrome (“who cares what I think? I never studied film as art.”) when it comes to expressing my opinions on art outside of my own form (literary arts), but reviews are basically what you liked and didn’t like, and I really enjoyed Saltburn, and want to dig through its multiple layers to get down to the heart of the matter. I think I’m going to read a queer mystery next, probably The Lavender House by Lev Rosen, which I’ve been wanting to dig my teeth into for quite some time. I am feeling so much better these days, and I have to say during this lengthy recovery from a major trauma to my body I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to get back to normal, and if that exhaustion I felt almost constantly was something I was just going to have to live with and teach myself some work-arounds2 that I no longer need to do anymore. I don’t need to be constantly efficient when I am doing errands, planning and mapping out the route and order in which I do them to save a few minutes here and there, which is dumb. I also know it’s not going to kill me to leave the house again for something I’ve forgotten as it really isn’t a hassle to do so, or stop on the way home, and so forth. Tomorrow I most likely won’t leave the house at all, other than walking to the gym in the late morning–I need to get back into that routine, since I should be focused on getting into the best shape possible for what is coming3 under this new regime of horrors. My hopes aren’t high…when you have to depend on Republicans to save democracy…I just can’t believe more people didn’t think January 6th was disqualifying.4

So much for the “land of the free.”

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I need to have breakfast and get another cup of coffee prepared before I repair to my easy chair with Tananarive’s amazing book–I really need to exhaust her backlist–and I suppose I’ll have the television on for games today that I won’t pay a lot of attention to for background noise–probably Mississippi-Florida, Kentucky-Texas, and LSU-Vanderbilt tonight. But I hope you do have a marvelous Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later.

It’s a mystery!

What are the odds Facebook will want to take this down as a sexual image? After all, everyone knows butts are for sodomy.
  1. It’s also weird for Tulane to be doing better than either LSU or the Saints. ↩︎
  2. Since getting properly diagnosed and medicated for generalized anxiety disorder, I have begun to realize just how many things I do are workarounds to lessen the anxiety–which I am noticing now because the anxiety is (mostly) gone. ↩︎
  3. I’m hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. Project 2025 is coming, thanks again, MAGA trash. ↩︎
  4. Then again, look how long emancipation took here, and how long Jim Crow lasted. The USA has been one long history of atrocity after atrocity, truly something for fragile white cishet people to truly take pride in as their heritage. ↩︎