Tag: Mary M. Luke

Road, River and Rail

Work at home Friday, and all is well thus far in the Lost Apartment. I did make it through the day somehow–don’t ask me how–but I didn’t feel tired for most of the day and it wasn’t until I headed home that I hit a wall of sorts. I had to pick up the mail–yay for my copy of All The Sinners Bleed!–and then picked up a prescription during a massive thunderstorm, which was kind of fun. I actually love when it rains; I just don’t love that no one in New Orleans seems to know how to drive in rain. One would think that, given how much torrential rain we get here, that–I don’t know–that drivers here would have learned how at some point? (I also got some other buys from eBay in the mail; Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories to Be Read with the Door Locked, which looks fun, and Mary M. Luke’s A Crown for Elizabeth, which picks up the tale of the Tudor dynasty with the continuation of the story from Catherine the Queen, covering the years 1533 thru 1558. I am excited about both, to be honest.) Paul worked on a grant last night while I watched the last extended gay disco remix episode of the Vanderpump Rules reunion, which was remarkable. I do want to write about reality television, particularly the Bravo flavored kind, but I am also trying to do all these extra Pride entries about not just being a queer crime writer but being a queer American trying to navigate an increasingly hostile world. There’s also been so much coverage of the scandalous last season of this show–along with its mother show, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills–that I don’t really have anything new to add to the discourse, other than to make some observations from a cultural and societal perspective? I think it also might not hurt to unpack why I get so caught up in the (usually) manufactured drama of these shows.

But after I got home and watched, my brain was a bit too fried from the day and the week for the work to be able to make up for the lost time last night and get back on track. It’s getting very close, to the point where I am almost starting to get antsy and have to resist the urge to hurry and finish it as quickly as possible. I am always afraid the endings of my books are rushed because I am so heartily tired of it already and cannot wait to be finished and on to the next thing. I am looking forward to this weekend, primarily for the rest and also for getting things very caught up that have kind of slid this week. I have some chores that have to be done today around the work-at-home duties, and I’d like to finish reading Chris Clarkson’s That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street this weekend, since I now have the latest S. A. Cosby, Megan Abbott, and Christopher Bollen novels to get through. My reading has definitely slid a bid this year, too. I spent some time last night reading the introductions to the Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthology as well as an old MWA one, edited by Robert Fish, that came in Wednesday’s mail, With Malice for All (or something like that). I read the first story in the Fish MWA anthology, and it was very creepy and very short and quite the punch in the face to start off the book.

I really need to get back to the Short Story Project, too.

It was a pleasant week, for the most part. I got a lot of work done this week, which feels great, and I feel pretty confident about moving on and getting this all finished sooner rather than later. I’m looking forward to sleeping in both mornings this weekend, and while I am going to have to leave the house to run errands at some point, at least this morning I can sit here in my chair sipping coffee and thinking I may not have to leave the house all weekend. At one point this week during the office I wandered up to the front desk where some of my co-workers were sitting during the needle exchange (making it Wednesday afternoon, thank you, logic modules in my brain) and they were asking each other icebreaker type questions. When I walked up, the current question was what animal would you want to be so I replied, “My cat, because never leaving the house and sleeping 22 hours a day sounds really appealing.” Scooter has been super-cuddly and affectionate lately, more so than usual, which is saying something because he’s always been super-cuddly and affectionate. I worry about him because we’ve now had him for thirteen years this September, and he was supposedly already two years old when we got him. He’s a sweet boy. I think we’ll probably always have a ginger cat; I suspect when we lose Scooter we may even end up with two of them.

The Strand Critics’ Award nominations came out yesterday, and as always it’s a friend-studded list. Shout out to every finalist. The books nominated that I’ve read are superb, so the choice of a winner isn’t going to be easy–glad the choice didn’t fall into my hands. I am already glad I am not judging any awards this year–I’ve already read so many good books this year that I don’t know that I could chose just the one–and like I said, I’ve not gotten to this year’s releases by some of my favorite authors (and people) and there’s a new Laura Lippman dropping this summer. Woo-hoo! And of course, my TBR pile is already stacked with amazing reads I’d love to make a serious dent in this year.

And on that note, I think I’m going to grab another cup of coffee and put the dishes away and start making a dent in the mess that is the Lost Apartment before I start working for the day. May you have a fabulous Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll talk to you again later.

Gold and Braid

Positive again this morning, despite waking up and feeling pretty good–and then I remembered the last few mornings were the same and it started kicking in about an hour after getting up. So, I am sitting here drinking my first cup of coffee, staring glumly at the two lines on my test strip, and waiting for this stupid virus to wake up inside my body and start fucking with me again. Ah, well, I should make use of this hour, shouldn’t I?

Yesterday was glum, really. I started experiencing fever for the first time since I tested positive last Friday or whenever it was, and that was particularly unpleasant. I did, however, realize hey one of the things you’ve never done is have things delivered rather than going to the store, and since I needed to be isolated from the world during this period, I thought why not go check and see if, say, Costco will deliver? So I went to their website, saw that yes, indeed, I could have an order delivered to my front door, and so I did. When Ashanti (my shopper/driver/delivery person) arrived, I put on rubber gloves and a N95 mask to go meet her at the gate–she saw the mask and gloves and wisely kept her distance (I have never before in my life understood how lepers must have felt back in the day the way I did when I saw the look on her face)–and then wore myself out lugging everything back to the Lost Apartment…but still, I got the stuff I needed. I couldn’t focus long enough to read anything–I had started Sandra SG Wong’s marvelous In the Dark We Forget at some point over the weekend, but I wasn’t really able to get far into it or focus on it yesterday, either–so I mostly spent the day under blankets in the easy chair trying to brainstorm and so forth on the things I am working on–without much luck. I also had a marketing meeting yesterday afternoon over the phone with Crooked Lane, which was daunting–reminding me again how far behind on everything I am, but it was nice for them to do and to give advice and tips on what to do, which was very cool. I also spent a good amount of time writing two emails–which ordinarily wouldn’t have taken long at all, but yesterday it took hours because of the inability to focus I mentioned–and after writing each, had to go sit and rest for a while as they wore me out. Dragging the Costco order back to the apartment in the heat also exhausted me.

Ah, there’s the muscle fatigue and joint aches I was missing when I woke up this morning.

Paul is feeling much better, which makes me tend to think he had it first and gave it to me (there’s no way of knowing, really, since it’s different with everyone) but I’m glad he’s feeling better, to be honest. If one of us has to be ill, I would prefer it to be me because I don’t worry about me the way I worry about him when he gets sick, if that makes sense at all? I hate that helpless feeling when someone you love isn’t feeling good and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it. That’s the absolute worst.

We’re watching Becoming Elizabeth, and I have to say–while I am certainly not an expert by any means on Tudor England or on Queen Elizabeth (I do have some knowledge–for example, at one point last night a new character was introduced and I thought, “I bet that’s Amy Robsart” and I was right) I have to say this is one of the most accurate fictional series based on history I’ve seen. There aren’t many books about the period when young Edward VI reigned–obviously, it’s talked about in other books from a sideways view, like Antonia Fraser’s Mary Queen of Scots–and the only one I can actually think of is Mary M. Luke’s A Crown for Elizabeth, which detailed the Tudor period from the deaths of Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn through Elizabeth’s succession to the throne in 1558, and of course Carrolly Erickson’s marvelous Bloody Mary also covers this territory, but from Mary’s point of view. Sigh, I do love history, and watching this is making me want to reread not only Anya Seton’s Green Darkness but Philippa Carr’s The Miracle at St. Bruno’s.

And now I am feeling tired again, so am going to go sit for a spell. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader.

Let Her In

Yesterday was simply lovely.

I didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped, but I also suspected as much would occur–I know myself all too well–but I got the laundry room cleaned, even the baseboards–and all the bed linens done, vast arrays of dishes, and filing and organizing and other general duties that probably don’t get done as often as they should. I am really the most horrible housekeeper; my apartment would never pass muster, and the way my mother would react to it sends chills down my spine. I don’t like have a slovenly home, but there simply isn’t enough time for me to keep up with it all, let alone do the deep dive it really needs.

You learn to live with the dust.

I shudder to think what the tops of the cabinets look like, or what’s under the refrigerator.

But it was lovely, I enjoyed doing what I was doing and I listened to music and I made progress on answering my emails and I even looked over the revision of “The Snow Globe” I had begun. I also discovered that–utter Luddite that I am–that I can broadcast the screen of my computer onto the living room television. The mouse also works in there, but not the keyboard; I am not sure what the problem is there, but it’s probably solvable. Imagine, me being able to write on my computer while seeing it on the television screen while I recline in my easy chair with a lap desk.

How much fun would that be?

Pretty darned fun, methinks.

We started watching the new Renee Zellweger show on Netflix, What If, but lost interest in it about halfway through. Paul fell asleep and I was scrolling through my phone, and when he did wake up I really couldn’t explain what was going on because I hadn’t been paying attention–so off it went. We may try it again later, but we’ve never been big fans of hers, and while I hesitate to comment on the way people look, particularly people in the entertainment business, she’s had some work done and she doesn’t look quite right, if that makes sense. She looks pretty, but now there’s a kind of artificiality about her face which wasn’t there before, if that makes sense? Maybe not. Maybe I am being too hard on her and too hard on the show, but I was hoping for something good, particularly since one of the male actors was stunningly good looking and had a nude scene in the first few minutes, appearing again later in just some boxer briefs.

We may try again later.

I also watched another episode of The Spanish Princess, which is entertaining enough, if not as well done as other similar type series about royalty. I never did finish The White Princess, but I rather enjoyed The White Queen, and am really looking forward to HBO’s Catherine the Great with Helen Mirren–although that may be just a film. But watching The Spanish Princess, I was struck by how very different this take on Katherine of Aragon is then anything I’ve ever seen (or read) before. Katherine is primarily of interest to filmmakers/playwrights as an old woman, past menopause and having lost the love of Henry VIII, while desperately resisting his attempt to divorce her to marry Anne Boleyn. She is always portrayed sympathetically–the tragic devoted wife, deserted and abandoned for a younger model (the age-old story), proudly holding on to her dignity and fighting for the inheritance of her daughter. I’ve always kind of been more #teamAnneBoleyn, to be honest, and the older I get and the more I read the more suspicious I am of the kind of person Katherine was–and she doesn’t really have my sympathy. Don’t get me wrong, neither does Henry; he was an idiot and a fool and he didn’t understand his first wife at all. They were both willful and arrogant and too proud. Katherine should have understood her duty better; Henry should have known better than to ask his wife to say she’d lied to the entire world in order to invalidate their marriage.

Simply stated, there wasn’t any way Katherine was ever going to do that, and that he even asked guaranteed she would fight him to the end.

But it’s amazing how well she has done in the court of public opinion over the centuries; the “wronged woman” getting all the sympathy. One of the things I loved about Carrolly Erickson’s biography of Katherine’s daughter, Bloody Mary, is that she wrote about the influences constantly at war within Mary’s nature; her role in the world as a woman, and how that came into conflict with her role as princess and later Queen. (Her sister Elizabeth, on the other hand, was a master of playing both conflicting roles to her advantage, based on the situation at hand; Mary could have learned a lot from her much younger sister.)

But the interesting thing about The Spanish Princess is that we are, just as we can never be certain about the truth in history, not certain whether or not Katherine’s first marriage, to Henry’s sickly older brother Arthur, was actually consummated. The way the show was filmed (and I could be wrong), it implies that they did consummate the marriage–and she changed her story later to fulfill what she believed was her destiny: to marry a prince of England and bring the two countries into alliance against their common enemy, France. This is a very different take on Katherine’s story; usually it is pretty much taken for granted that she was telling the truth and she and Arthur never had sex.

I like this entire concept of telling the story from the perspective that she actually lied in order to become Queen of England; and I’ve always believed, from the very first time I read the highly sympathetic biography of her by Mary M. Luke when I was eleven (Catherine the Queen), that she may have lied because it was in her best interest to do so.

And having lied, she could hardly admit, thirty years later, that she had.

Such a fascinating woman, really. I still am not certain any biography has truly done her justice.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines. There’s cleaning and reading and writing to do; and I need to run some errands later.

Have a lovely day, Constant Reader!

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