Tag: mental-health

Ring of Fire

Monday and I am staying home from the office this morning. I didn’t sleep as deeply as I would have liked, and woke up several times before the alarm (and Sparky) got me up. It was after getting up and pottering around the way I always do that I started feeling hot and started sweating and my stomach git a little bit on the roiling side, so that along with a bit of being tired…and yeah, it was a no-brainer. I think my sinuses kicked in overnight somehow, and yes, blech. I really dislike being sick, but it’s one of those things you can’t control. Paul is departing tomorrow, and I don’t leave until Friday, so I am going to be home alone with Sparky–who will need lots of affection and reassurance and cuddling. I don’t mind that, of course; I just am hopeful I’ll be able to do things in the evening as well. I should be able to just read, too, if Sparky’s need for my lap is overwhelming.

Sigh.

I did send out a new newsletter yesterday, about my set of World Book Encyclopedias that my parents bought the summer I turned nine; they may have been birthday gifts? But they were treasured possessions I still miss sometimes; I miss being able to pull down a volume and just open it randomly and start reading. But as I said in the newsletter, I don’t have space for them in my house and they are, despite holding so many wonderful memories for me, they are in the end just things. I was proud of myself for getting it done and sent out on the weekend; I still missed the midweek one, though. We can but do better.

We started watching The Beast In Me last night, and I am really disappointed that none of you convinced me to watch sooner. It’s exceptionally well done, and the performances of Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys are exceptional. It appears to have been based on the story of Bobby Durst and Susan Berman–after the disappearance of his first wife; that jumped out at me right away. WE watched three episodes last night, and while I don’t know what Paul’s schedule is like today, maybe we’ll be able to finish it tonight.

This weekend was lovely, in all honesty. I did get some chores done, and I did some reading: a short story I want to write about, and another chapter of Listen to the Whisperer by Phyllis A. Whitney, which I am enjoying a lot. I had never really read her works before in an analytic kind of critical mind way, and so things are striking me this time around. Her plots usually involved a young woman with some sort of traumatic past, trying to find resolution in the present day, and very often involved her getting to know a family she’d never known before. In Listen, the heroine is heading to Norway to meet, for the first time, her birth mother, an Oscar winning actress whose career was ended by a scandalous murder on the set of her last film. She uses a more formal style, like the older Gothic writers, but she updates and modernizes it. I’m looking forward to writing about her and the book in a rather in-depth newsletter.

Obviously, given the newsletter post of the weekend while revisiting a novel I originally read when I was ten or eleven, I’ve been thinking about, and trying to remember, more about my childhood and the influences on me and my work. If I had never credited the encyclopedia as a major influence and having a great impact on me, I certainly never credited the made for TV movies of the 1970s! I used to love watching the “Movie of the Week,’ which if you didn’t watch when it originally aired, you might miss completely unless it was rerun during the summer. (Hard to believe we used to plan our lives around television so completely when now everything is available on demand.) I have a book about those movies, particularly ABC’s–and over the weekend I found videos on Youtube from horror fans remembering how amazing some of those films were, despite low budgets and bad sets. SOme of them were terrifying–Crowhaven Farm, The House That Wouldn’t Die, Scream Pretty Peggy, The Night Stalker and Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate. They often starred either fading movie stars or television stars, or a combination of the two. The 1970s were also an interesting time for horror movies and novels. This is when Stephen King got started, after all, and I was a fan from the moment I started reading the paperback of Carrie when I was a freshman in high school.1

But probably my favorite Stephen King book was Danse Macabre, which doesn’t get nearly the love it should. Reading it broadened my mind to think critically about genre, and it also introduced me to any number of writers I grew to like and admire, like Harlan Ellison. I should revisit that…it was the first easily accessible academic tome I’d read at that point, and I loved how he got into literary theory through applying it to horror. It’s still not that much different these days, but literary writers always give genre writers grief —oh you’re in it for the money–and it was much worse back then when very few genre writers were considered literary writers, too. Stephen King wasn’t taken seriously until he was well into his career–despite his genius, his originality, memorable characters, an uncanny eye for human behavior, and his ability to make unbelievable situations feel absolutely real. I had already read some horror before Carrie–I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, The Other by Thomas Tryon, The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, and Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin jump to mind–but King got me truly interested in horror as a genre and to consider writing it (I spent most of the 1980s trying to write horror to no avail).

And on that note, I think I am going to go lay down for a bit. I feel a bit queasy still, and you never know how my stomach is going to be these days. Have a happy Monday, Constant Reader, however you choose to spend your day, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Till then!

  1. King was also another revelatory author for me, but that’s for another time. ↩︎

I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me

Thunder woke me up from a lovely deep sleep around five this morning, and we had a marvelous thunderstorm (and downpour) that last for about three hours…and yes, it was snug and comfy in the bed, especially after Sparky joined me in the bed for a cuddle-nap of his own. It now looks as though the storm has passed–and yes, I know Jazz Fest is this weekend, and yes, it sucks for the attendees and acts when it rains, but I still selfishly want more storms. I have to make groceries and get gas today, and would rather not do it in the rain…but it would be lovely if it kept storming this morning. According to the weather, we may have more later today and the drizzle we’re experiencing right now will last another couple of hours. I can also scratch “wash car” off the to-do list. Thanks, rain!

I slept well and feel good this morning. Paul is leaving on Tuesday for a week, and I am heading north next Friday for Alabama and then a few days in the panhandle visiting my recently widowed aunt. Sparky will be boarded (and get those razor blades trimmed), and he of course will be glued to me like velcro the entire time Paul is actually gone. Yesterday was a good day; I ran a couple of errands after work and came home to try to do some cleaning and picking up around here–as well as thinking about the work in progress, whose name may change…it occurred to me yesterday that there was a better title than the one I’m using–but I do love one-word titles and rarely get to use them.

We ordered pizza for dinner last night and finished watching Unchosen, which was, indeed, a wild ride. I am not certain they stuck the landing, but whoever came up with the idea to use the trope “a stranger comes to town” only having the “town” be a religious cult was a genius. It was very well done, though, and it was a fun ride. I do recommend it–Fra Fee is gorgeous to look at, and the acting is incredible–and since “cult”…you really don’t know what’s going to happen, and the surprising twists are all earned; there’s nothing there that wasn’t set up if you were paying attention. And as I said to Paul as we watched, “cults are really about the subjugation of women as lesser” and yup, that even holds true for the national cult we’ve been dealing with since the 1980s–the marriage of evangelicalism to the Republican Party. I’m sure there’s been some political history written about that horrible shift if the 1980 presidential election, and in retrospect, I’d say not electing Carter to a second term was one of the biggest mistakes this country has made. I don’t know whether or not Carter was a good president or not–but he was also trying to clean up the economic mess he inherited from his Republican predecessors and took all the blame for it; and you know, the Camp David accords did end decades of war between Egypt and Israel–and has lasted; the longest lasting peace in the Middle East since 1948. I’m not deregulating the airlines was the right decision–sometimes, regulation is necessary and needed; and what has happened to the airline industry since deregulation is certainly an interesting political and economic example someone should do an in-depth heavily researched history of how it impacted the nation’s economy, whether good or bad. It would be an interesting read.

When I finish this, I am going to repair to my easy chair and do some more reading. I want to read another chapter of Listen for the Whisperer and a short story I started reading this week so I could write about it, and I want to do some writing today, too. As I said earlier, I need to run to the grocery store and get some things, and I should get gas while I am out and about. I think I am also going to watch a documentary so I can write about it–I’ve been meaning to for a very long time, and I think I may have even watched the documentary once already; or maybe I just intended to and never got around to it. My sense of time is very skewed now; it’s very hard to believe the summer of the shutdown was six years ago; at this time six years ago I was already working in the garage, getting to eat donated meals from places grateful we were doing COVID testing (the meals from Waffle House were definitely my favorites; the hash browns were to die for) but it does seem like a million years ago now, doesn’t it? Likewise, things that have happened in the interim since? I have no idea when it happened. Then again, it freaks me out to know that I had those impacted teeth pulled sixteen years ago. Crazy, right? My concept of time, always not the best, has definitely been impacted.

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and get another cup of coffee so I can get going on my day. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow. Till then, ta ta!

Rhinestone Cowboy

Tuesday morning and all is well this morning in the Lost Apartment. I slept well and feel pretty good this morning–thus far, at any rate. Yesterday was Injection Day, and the distress I’d been experiencing for the last week gastronomically is now over, which is terrific; you always wonder if the medication will stop working at some point. I even wrote a little bit of fiction yesterday–not much, but every little bit gets me further from the starting place and closer to being finished. Every little bit definitely helps, you know?

We finished watching the FLDS documentary, Trust Me: The False Prophet, which was actually chilling. These documentaries inevitably focus on the crimes of the cult leader, but what I loved about this one was it actually focused more on the victims, and how the documentary filmmakers just really happened to be in the right place at the right time to earn his trust and his endorsement of filming everything. It was absolutely fascinating, and it was interesting to see that one of the victims realized what was going on was wrong (“the path to hell”) and became an informant for the FBI. How fucking brave was she, and then the other women, having to wake up from what was going on and wonder how they were so easily fooled–but the lesson here is how easy it is to convince true believers in false doctrine, which is a very singularly important lesson for these times, right?

Likewise, these social media posts from people choosing The Filth over their lifelong Catholicism just make me shake my head1. There are none so blind as those who will not see. The MAGA regrets we are seeing everywhere aren’t deep or meaningful–no, they just think The Filth lied to them and deceived them, not that the evil policies being enacted and enforced are wrong; they’ll vote red happily and proudly over and over again, even as it is clear to anyone not wearing blinders that the policies they voted for are what they hate–but it’s easier to blame someone else for our failings rather than take accountability, true repentance, and behavior change. No, they aren’t sorry about ICE’s abuses and the racism and the misogyny or any of their horrible positions; they’re mad because the price of gas is going up, and nothing else. “He lied to me” is much easier than “wow, what I believed and voted for are actually wrong and pretty fucking awful in practice” and it has the added bonus of absolving the person of any responsibility for their conduct.

Frankly, their vote is one thing. Being MAGA is entirely different. I also love that they are also trying to police how we receive their regrets…which makes me question their actual regrets as they try to again paint themselves as helpless victims who “didn’t know any better.” It would be one thing had they been polite about differing views from the get-go, but they were all pretty fucking awful. MAGA parents whose children have gone no-contact also love to paint themselves as victims, too–“but we’re family!” falls on deaf ears when you haven’t been acting like family. MAGA is usually the last straw, to be honest–and if it’s not, then you must have been pretty fucking awful to your kids about politics. Were you being racist, homophobic, misogynistic, or transphobic? IMAGINE how awful the things you said must have been…and then to come on-line to engage for sympathy? “How could my kids DO this?” Well, if that’s the question you’re asking, they are going to keep doing it for a very long time, and I hope not seeing your grandchildren was worth being MAGA.2

When someone goes no-contact with me, I figure I must have done something to trigger that response, or that person has simply decided I’m too “extra”–that’s happened a lot during my life; maybe not that word, but basically that’s what it was–and sure, it bothers me and makes me wonder a bit–but I also respect their wishes and don’t try to fix it.

I was actually thinking last night that I’m feeling much better than I have in a long time. The corrective shoes have eliminated leg fatigue and aching joints. I’m sleeping well and feeling rested. Getting up in the morning to the alarm, which I would still prefer not to do, hasn’t been an issue, and Sparky isn’t as pushy about me getting up in the mornings as he has been–now he’s more purring and cuddling and mewing softly rather than attacking my feet and smacking me in the face. I may relapse again back into aches and pains and fatigue–one never knows–but right now I feel pretty good, and we’re going to leave it at being happy and feeling good on a day-to-day basis. Baby steps, y’all!

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Tuesday, everyone, and I’ll be back tomorrow on Pay-the-Bills Wednesday (again???).

How come I never come across a gorgeous man in his underwear hanging out nonchalantly around columns?
  1. It also tells me how deep and real their faith was. You’re giving up your religion because the Pope criticized your mad God-Emperor? I’ll leave that to God, no need for me to comment. ↩︎
  2. As for me, I side-eye these folks. If people want to let bygones be bygones, so be it–but not me. I will go to my grave resenting and hating these people. I’ll never trust them. ↩︎

Smoky Mountain Rain

Yes, this is yet another song that inspired me to write a short story–“No Security Provided,” thus far an unfinished first draft, about a woman driving north on I-75 hurriedly but has to make a rest stop and finds herself in a bad situation–which I really should finish someday. It has the potential to be a very good story, you know? Or it could be a worthless piece of crap no one will want. Your mileage might vary. I’m sure it often does.

For the first time in three weeks I have a work-at-home Friday, and it feels nice to be getting back into my normal routine. Yesterday was fine; I made it through the day unscathed, not tired, and pretty cheerful for the most part. I got home in time to see the final rotation of the Gymnastics national semifinals, in which LSU clinched a spot in the finals with three incredible floor routines back to back to wrap up their night. That made me even cheerier, and watching the news didn’t upset me too terribly. (I think I’ve just snapped about the country, to be honest; I’m numb to it all, with one notable exception–more on that later) I have some quality assurance to get done this morning, and some chores I’d like to take care of. I’ll need to also figure out what to get from the grocery store and what to have delivered, and when. I do need to run uptown to the post office, and maybe can drop off a load of books to the library sale. I can do that tomorrow, and swing by–oh, you don’t need to know the rundown of my plans for the weekend. I’m not sure I do, to be honest, other than as a reminder. I’ve been watching Jeopardy! clips on Youtube, trying to sharpen my mind, as well as playing a computer game that requires focus and concentration. I don’t know if that will work or not, but it seems to be? Anyway, I am feeling content this morning. The good night’s sleep undoubtedly helped with me feeling good and rested this morning, and that is so awesome, you know? I didn’t even sleep in that late, either. Sparky was a cuddlebug again this morning, but not as patient as he was last weekend waiting for me to get up and feed him, so I was up shortly after seven without issue. I am on my second cup of coffee this morning, and I already had my morning coffee cake, but my stomach still feels a bit on the empty side, so I’ll be making some toast or something in a moment.

It occurred to me yesterday, as the news of the CNN story on the so-called on-line “rape academy,” that I will never run out of material for my newsletter series on masculinity, will I? Certainly not as long as mediocre straight men can’t get laid due to their looks or lack of personality….scratch a straight man, and the odds are in your favor when it comes to finding one who’s a rapist, or one who has thought about it. Intrusive thoughts are still your thoughts. And the way men will always circle the wagons without question or thought when a man is credibly accused of sexual assault has always been rather telling, I’ve always believed. Not all men, of course, one can never truly generalize any demographic group as there are always plenty of exceptions to the generalization, but…it’s always a man.

I remember as a kid, when reading about history or mythology, I’d encounter the word rape and not know what it meant; I assumed it meant abducting them and nothing more than that–the rape of the Sabine women comes to mind–and it wasn’t until much later that I realized what the gods and soldiers were actually doing, and how casually the concept was introduced to me, and by extension, to all kids in that time period as not a big deal that it’s no wonder than men are socialized to think their cavemannish belief they are entitled to a woman’s body whenever and wherever they want. (This is why I love Sarah Weinman’s work so much–Without Consent is probably one of the most important non-fiction works on women’s bodily autonomy in years–or at least since her last book. I really need to read it again so I can write about it. It’s just too important of a book for me to dash off some thoughts without being thoughtful, you know?)

It also looks to be another stunning April day outside, so maybe sitting outside with a book this afternoon might be a good call. Or a little walk down to the park and back, or over to Walgreens; I do need to get some Claritin. So, I think I’m going to bring this to a close and head over into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, y’all, and I’ll be back yet again in the morning.

He Thinks He’ll Keep Her

How is it Thursday already? This is what happens when your schedule disrupts. Yesterday I kept thinking it was Tuesday, and Tuesday was the same. Argle-bargle, but at least this weekend I will reset. Yesterday wasn’t a bad day at all; I never really was tired while at work and I got a lot done; likewise after I got home. I did some laundry and the dishes, read a short story, and picked up some around here–it really doesn’t take much to maintain order during the week, and if I don’t have to do all of that over the weekend, I can do other cleaning that needs doing; like the stairs haven’t been swept in I don’t know how long. In fact, after work-at-home Friday I should be all current with everything from work. Tonight is the national semi-finals for college gymnastics; LSU is in the second bracket which fortunately airs after I get home from work. GEAUX TIGERS!

We finished watching Stick last night, which is an absolutely charming little comedy about relationships and grief and healing, just like Ted Lasso–and if you loved Lasso, you will love Stick, which also has a most excellent cast. It’s a delightful comfort show, much as Tad Lasso and Schitt’s Creek, and it just makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Owen Wilson is an absolute delight in the lead, and there is excellent chemistry between the cast, too. I’m sorry it’s over, but at least with the gymnastics tonight we don’t have to figure out what to watch next, which is really nice.

I also realized last night that I missed my newsletter schedule for the week again. Heavy sigh. As I said, I did read a short story last night; Cheryl Head’s marvelous “Finding Jimmy Baldwin” from Crime Ink: Iconic, which was recently chosen for the Best Mystery and Suspense anthology by editors Megan Abbott and Steph Cha–I’m telling you, this anthology is fire–and it delivered, as I knew it would. More on that later, of course. Maybe that will be my next newsletter? Cheryl is an absolute gem, both as a person and as an author, and so fiercely intelligent and competent and kind! I am grateful she came to Saints and Sinners all those years ago with her first Charlie Mack mystery, and I’ve been a fan/reader ever since. (S&S is why I know a lot of really amazing people.) I’m also glad I decided to go back and read short stories since I can’t seem to concentrate enough to read an entire novel (I do think there’s something to the not being able to read a novel and the I need to read for research combination.)

I have been feeling a bit at sea lately, and I am sure it has everything to do with not having a normal weekend around here for a few weeks. I just can’t seem to focus or concentrate as much as I need to, but for now, at any rate, I am just letting my mind wander freely and keep up its ADHD creativity of thoughts and ideas and so forth…because it’s been a long time since my mind and body and spirit were rested and in sync and really been creative. Hurricane Season Hustle was a lot harder to write than most books I’ve written because my brain wasn’t free enough to create on its own and I had to force it. I think that’s part of why I look at the book slightly askance; it’s not just that I got so damned sick while working on it but because I had to put effort into thinking and writing it, which usually isn’t as hard as it was…but in fairness, this has been a very rough decade, and not just for me, either; others have had it much worse than I have, but it’s not a competition, and I don’t have to feel bad about recognizing how rough it’s been without having the tones of toxic masculinity whispering in my inner ear–“tough it out” or “get over yourself wimp” and other hateful things of that type.

This is why toxic masculinity is so damned damaging; it take root deep in your brain and goes off at inopportune moments like a blue light special. I wish I’d started unpacking all of this a lot sooner, frankly. Ah, well.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the day. May your Thursday be bright and lovely and filled with love and success, Constant Reader, and no worries. I’ll be back on the morrow.

Flooding in Venice.

All the Gold in California

…is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills, in somebody else’s name….

I always loved that song, and when I was planning on submitting a story to the Sacramento Bouchercon anthology, I was using that as the title. I don’t think I got any further than the title, the main character, and that was a “friend of” the Real Housewives. Maybe someday I’ll get around to working on it again. This, by the way, is what I am like all of the time. Yesterday was rough on me; we were busy in the clinic and I had a lot of work to catch up on. Today will be more of the same, I’m afraid, but am hoping it won’t be too bad. I did make groceries on the way home (only two insane drivers I managed to evade successfully; I swear sometimes it’s like people don’t care if they’re in an accident or not), and the traffic wasn’t too terrible. It really hasn’t been bad in quite a while, actually, even going in on the highway. Or maybe my timing has just been good lately, I don’t know for sure. But I was tired when I got home. Paul and I almost finished Stick, which I am really enjoying a lot and highly recommend, and then I had to do the dishes before going to bed. I did sleep well, and I feel more awake than I did yesterday.

I was so tired last night, y’all, it wasn’t even funny.

I have some things I need to get done today and I think we’re busy in the clinic again too. It’s a busy scheduled week, methinks, which is okay and fine. My supervisor is about to go to London for two weeks, which will make the next weeks interesting around the office. Sigh. But it’s always something, isn’t it? I have to go to Alabama for Decoration Day, and then down to Panama City Beach to visit with my aunt and Dad, at the end of the month. It’s also Paul’s birthday later this month, and I should get him something nice.

The country’s madness continues to rage, and will until it entirely burns itself out. Humanity never learns anything, does it? I don’t know what will be left when that finally does occur, and what will rise from the ashes as a phoenix. I can’t speak for anyone else, but it really does seem sometimes like civilization will never advance or progress because there’s always some completely horrible people in power somewhere. (I do think some people are beginning to understand why Iran has hated the USA for decades, which is something, one supposes.) As I was watching some of those Iranian LEGO videos the other day–they’re actually kind of entertaining, and very well done–because someone claimed we were “losing the propaganda war.” (I’d heard about them but hadn’t paid a lot of attention), which made me think about my childhood again, and how I–all of us–were essentially brainwashed by pro-American propaganda, especially when it came to history, while at the same time we studied propaganda as an evil on society. They showed us both Soviet and Nazi German propaganda, taught us that all propaganda was bad…while teaching us an idealized iteration of this country and its history, centering colonizers as heroes. (Which, I think, is yet another reason I never much cared for Westerns growing up; I could tell it was “natives bad!” propaganda, and not reflective of the west as it truly was. (Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller1, which was derided by Western purists, pretty much showed the actual reality that the west was “won” by whores, grifters and drifters.)

Likewise, Columbus was a genocidal monster who didn’t really discover the Americas; it can only be said that he opened the era of American colonization and indigenous genocide.

Not a hero, really.2

I am starting to feel awake, and I don’t feel very achy or groggy this morning. Maybe I’m adapting to getting up at six again; I really shouldn’t let myself sleep in so late on weekends because adjusting back is such a fucking bitch. But this past weekend was messed up; I’ve not had a normal weekend in several weeks, and I would really like for that to go back to normal…which it will, in time for me to take another trip out of state. Woo-hoo. I don’t mind, though, it’s always nice to spend time with Dad and my newly widowed aunt. I really need to stop drifting through my life and starting to get it back under control again; I don’t necessarily have the anxiety of not knowing what I need to be doing or what is coming up and forgetting things anymore; but it still bothers me on some levels. I know I have doctors’ appointments and an injection and labs and things that need to be done, and I need to mark up my day-to-day calendar. I do feel better this morning than I did yesterday, when I just felt a bit overwhelmed about everything. I know I can get everything done that I need to get done; I just need to consult my on-going to-do list to center myself, and come out of that coasting through life feeling.

And on that cheery note, I am going to have a bit of breakfast before I head into the spice mines for the day. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning.

  1. Note to self: watch again. ↩︎
  2. He really was a horrible person. Most Americans never learn much about him other than the standard “discovered America, funded by Ferdinand and Isabella, his three ships were the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. But he was absolutely a monster; if you don’t believe me, look it up. ↩︎

I Wouldn’t Have Missed It (For the World)

Tuesday!

It feels a little off to be heading for the office for the first time this week today, and I will most likely think it’s Monday all day. Ah, well, there are worse things, right? (Gestures wildly at the world around me.) I was busy thinking about other things yesterday that I kind of lost track of the news. I think we’re blockading the Strait of Hormuz even though the idea was to open it? This 3-D chess is just too much for my obviously simple mind. And a congressmen from each party resigned due to credible sexual assault/harassment charges, but the adjudicated rapist is still in office? Did I miss anything besides PPP (Pedo President Pestilence) striking out at infamous fifth-place finisher Riley Gaines because she played the blasphemy card on His Imperial Flatulence? (I do wish he’d added, “she’s a loser. She finished fifth.”) The worst part of our current situation is not knowing what news is actually true or not. I literally hate this timeline. I’ve been checking out both the BBC (not entirely trustworthy) or Al-Jazeera (same) but…I trust them more than I do our American outlets.

I also think I have actually figured out why I am having difficulty reading anymore; it’s because I have to read for my works-in-progress and since I am not reading those, my mind isn’t letting me read for pleasure. It’s more of that evangelical Christian work-for-reward mentality that was drilled into me as a child (more of the miseducation I and so many others received); if you’re not reading for your work you cannot read for your pleasure. So, so puritanical, and so typical of the American Dream mindset, whose very first corollary is you must work your life must be about work and should revolve around work and then you die.

I personally think that kind of live to work mentality is a huge problem, but…what can I say? My preference is always to be relaxing. Sue me for not fitting into the American norm (AGAIN). I also think this is the smarter way to live, but others are certainly free to disagree. Maybe the difference is because my true calling isn’t a 9-to-5? My writing has always been, to me, my true job, which gives me a healthy distance from my day job; I don’t depend on it for my self-worth or self-esteem. I perform my job efficiently, my clients like me, and I believe in the work I do while I’m there, which puts me ahead of so many Americans. I never wanted to chase dollars; contentment was always more appealing to me and feeling well-rounded. I haven’t even let my actual career my life, either. It’s satisfying. I enjoy writing, even the drudgery parts I have to endure to finish telling the story I want to tell. Some discipline is necessary, of course; probably more than I certainly have allowed lately, that’s for sure. I want to get back to writing some fiction this week; anything, really, be it a short story or a book.

We started watching a new show on Apple TV this past weekend, Stick with Owen Wilson. It sounded like it could have been like Ted Lasso, but at the same time it’s another tired sports cliche show so I wasn’t wild about starting it. Well, it is like Ted Lasso, and it’s heartwarming and sweet and hits all the right notes for people who’ve been looking for their next great watch. I’m looking forward to watching more.

And huzzah for Hungary! The masses are rejecting authoritarianism (Trumpism?) worldwide, and it is wondrous in our eyes. It also gave me hope for the midterms. MAGA is burning to the ground, but they still have Fox and all the rest of the lamestream media carrying their water for them–and even the ones who are leaving MAGA aren’t becoming progressives; they’ll just hibernate until their next demagogue comes along. We’re always so relieved the threat is over that we kind of want to just get back to normal without any punishment, or atonement…just like after the Civil War. Are we finally going to deal with all of this shit from the past, or are we going to leave it to fester and rot and poison the country from within yet again? My guess is the latter; it’s what we always do.

Hungary

I don’t feel tired this morning, either. I didn’t want to get up at my usual time, but did and I am not as tired as I worried I’d feel. I am going to make groceries on my way home from work tonight, and I have some things I need to get done. I did spend some time after work yesterday cleaning up the kitchen and even doing the floors, and it was nice coming downstairs to an orderly kitchen this morning. I shaved my head yesterday, too, so am feeling a bit better about how I am presenting to the world today–I hate how gray what little hair I have left is–and I have a sink full of dishes I need to wash tonight after work. But the coffee is kicking in and I am feeling good, so I am going to go head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning.

Given my lifelong affinity for ancient Egypt, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that I became a cat lover.

Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses

Here we are on my first ever (and hopefully last ever) work-at-home Monday. I did used to do work-at-home Mondays, but I didn’t like them very much. I didn’t get up as early as I would have liked to, but …the bed was comfy, the blankets were heavy and warm, and Sparky was being a cuddle-bug. Since I didn’t have to get up early to shower before work, I allowed myself more time in the bed this morning. What can I say? I don’t know why Sparky has become a morning cuddlebug, either–he rarely sleeps in the bed with us; Skittle and Scooter loved the bed and slept there without us all the time, but not Sparky. I do have a lot of work-at-home stuff to get done today, which means fighting with Sparky over my chair (something I also had to do with both of his predecessors)…but there are very worse things.

A lot of worse things, actually. I shudder to check the news this morning. Hmm, I see someone sent out an AI image of himself as Jesus. Remember those ten commandments that the Right wants to post in every classroom and outside of public buildings? I believe the very first one is Thou shalt have no other God before Me. Maybe they want to put them up because they need a constant reminder?

I think I may be on to something here. Sheesh. And yes, I screen shot the blasphemy to keep to share whenever some fucking smug Christian pulls that faith bullshit with me on line.

Yesterday was kind of nice. I slept late, felt relaxed and good, and did get some things done around the apartment. I was also creative for a lot of the day, thinking and taking notes and trying to wrap my mind around a few things. My mind is flooding with creativity again, and was kind of all over the map the last few days so much that I didn’t even remotely try to contain it and just let it roam wherever it wanted to go without restraint. I also realized part of my motivational issue with writing right now is because I have so much to work on I feel overwhelmed and paralyzed at the daunting chore ahead of me. But…that isn’t helpful and only increases the feeling of being overwhelmed, so I need to start putting one foot in front of the other and getting things done. So…list and prioritize, get organized and stop just floating from day to day with no plan. I was going to get the mail and maybe some groceries today after my work at home duties, but I can also do that on my way home from the office tomorrow. It was a gorgeous day yesterday, and it looks like another one today–this truly is the best part of the year in New Orleans, when everything is blooming and the air smells lush and sweet and redolent with sweet olive, jasmine, magnolia and honeysuckle. I’ve yet to see a stinging caterpillar, and the return of the termites is just around the corner.

I’ve also kind of reached that same point about the world and the country as I have with the writing; all I do now is just laugh at the insanity and think about how apropos that we’re dancing so close to the abyss because everything is fucking stupid. Yes, I think I may have snapped. I mean, we have the First Lady throwing her husband under the Epstein bus and bringing it back to the forefront again, the disaster of the war and the explosion of inflation because of it–I don’t even want to think about gas prices; another reason I don’t want to leave the house today–but at least there was a bright spot in Hungary as the people there voted out right-wing extremism in a landslide; another slap in the face to MAGA as the world recognizes the scourge of fascism and rejects it yet again. Hey Americans–you have an opportunity to do the same and purge these anti-American traitors this fall. Maybe we can even get the world to start forgiving us for our arrogance and stupidity.

I started a reread of Listen for the Whisperer by Phyllis A. Whitney yesterday on my iPad, and the Gothic-tropes were just radiating off the pages as I made it through the first chapter. I originally read this shortly after Victoria Holt’s The Secret Woman and Mary Stewart’s The Ivy Tree, which put me all in on romantic suspense for the next two decades. Gothics/domestic suspense were about women’s fears; and what could be more hardboiled than thinking the man you love might be trying to kill you? This was my first Whitney novel for adults after reading many of her juvenile mysteries; it had everything I could possibly want: a fading movie star, a decades-old unsolved murder mystery, and some histrionic family melodrama. Leigh Hollins is a professional young woman with emotional issues, so she wasn’t an heiress; her father was a best selling novelist so she had some privilege; she’s in her early twenties. And then it’s off to Norway; more on this later obviously once the reread is complete.

The next Scotty is going to be a sort of Mardi Gras mystery, even though I’ve already done one, and am still working out how to include and interweave all the things I want to include and its going to include some callbacks to the series history, methinks, which will make it more fun for me to write.

I also completed my rewatch of The Traitors fourth American season, and am digesting my thoughts to write about my latest obsession.

And on that note, tis another cup of coffee for me and into the spice mines for the day. Have a great Monday, everyone, and I will be back tomorrow morning bright and early.

Beautiful physique model Dick DuBois from the 1950s and the “fitness” magazines—which would also be an interesting setting for a queer noir.

Wide Open Spaces

Sunday morning and I am still feeling disoriented. I kept thinking yesterday was Friday, and that today would be Saturday. I have an errand to run and some groceries to have delivered. I stayed up late finishing the laundry–it was launder the bed linens day, postponed from Friday, which also helped with the day mind-fuckery–but slept very well and slept in. The kitchen looks much better than it did yesterday morning, but it still needs some work. After Paul got up, we just had a lazy day hanging out and watching television. It was indeed a gorgeous day out there yesterday and it looks like today is going to be just as lovely. I may take a walk later just to revel in the day and get some exercise. Maybe I’ll stretch today too–can’t hurt, right? I’m starting to feel the itch to become more physically active, since I am not nearly as tired all the time the way I used to be. It’s so lovely not to be tired, Constant Reader, you have no idea!

I can also tell my injection is due next Monday.

I was thinking–I did do a lot of that yesterday–about my recent newsletter essay about gender roles and my not fitting in as a child as a boy who didn’t conform to my assigned gender role (which meant I was gender-nonconforming) and that really, it was the late 1970’s/early 1980s when those rigid roles began to loosen slightly. I’m enjoying all this introspection and self-discovery journey I’ve been on for the past few years (beginning with Mom’s death), which also makes me realize how long I avoided examining myself and my life. I thought I did a lot of navel-gazing before, but it was always pretty shallow and never went very deep, ever; often, I think, because there were things about myself I preferred not to know, or to confront. But I’m more interested now in accepting patterns of behavior that I now understand were driven by the anxiety, which is now under control.

I also spent some more time paging through Jackson Square Jazz and kind of enjoying it, because it also is reminding me of writing the book and the research that went into it, particularly the Cabildo Fire, which was a real event that I wrote into the book as a pivotal moment for the plot and I got to write about some New Orleans history that may or may not have ever been talked about in fiction. (I also remember being rather taken aback when someone told me the pre-Katrina Scotty books were also important historically because they documented what gay Quarter life was like before everything changed; Jean Redmann did the same for the lesbian side.) I am in the thinking stages of the eleventh (!!!) Scotty right now, too–I know the plot elements I want to hit–and I am also thinking about getting back into the in-progress manuscript I am trying to focus my energies on (rereading Christa’s story from Crime Ink: Iconic got me back into that mindset again, even as I realized I couldn’t tell my story as well as they told theirs); I need to immerse myself into that world again as I reconfigure my main character, who I was softening a bit. No, the main character, Greg, needs to be on the make, as they used to say back then, using his looks and his body to advance himself in Hollywood, while painting a dark picture of what being queer in Hollywood used to mean.

And so, on that note, I think I am going to bring this to a close and go have some breakfast before settling into my easy chair to read; I think I am going to reread Listen for the Whisperer by Phyllis A. Whitney and try to get further into my first-time reading book. I also need to do the floors and clean up the workspace a bit this morning. Have a great Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow on work-at-home Monday. Till then!

The beauty of Yosemite

Cheeseburger in Paradise

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment, and I slept late. I fell asleep in my easy chair around ten thirty last night, woke up and went up to bed and didn’t get up this morning until nine thirty. Sparky was a sweetheart this morning, getting into the bed and snuggling until his hunger got the best of him and it was time for me to get up. How does he know which day is which? He doesn’t bother me at six in the mornings on the days when I don’t have to go to work, which is wild, or he’s a genius….which is hard for me to believe because he is such a complete dork sometimes. Always adorable, of course. I picked up his water fountain this week and so today, around everything I need to do and all the errands I need to run, I am going to assemble it to see if he’ll drink out of it. I have errands up the ass and the apartment is a wreck; laundry to do and dishes to wash, things to pick up and throw away and floors to vacuum. I was groggy when I first got up, but I am waking up and feeling better with every moment. I also swapped Friday-at-home for Monday-at-home and yes, I’ve not had a normal weekend in weeks. No wonder I feel so off-balance all the time…

I also wrote another newsletter yesterday–two this week!–about Christa Faust’s Derringer Award nominated short story, “Hollywood Prometheus” from Crime Ink: Iconic, which is fantastic. (You can read it here.) I had meant to write about every story in the book–I always want to do this with anthologies I am lucky enough to be in, and somehow never got around to it. Maybe since I am having so much trouble reading novels, I should switch to reading short stories again? A renewal of the Short Story Project and maybe even the Reread Project could do the trick; it’s always fun to revisit Mary Stewart or Phyllis A. Whitney, and since I do want to talk about the Gothic influence on me and my work in a newsletter at some point, why not go back and reread one for a “these books made me who I am .” I’d really like to tackle Green Darkness by Anya Seton again, but it’s soooo long. I used to love thick books–the longer the better (hence my deep dive into James Michener and Herman Wouk in high school)–but now I just think I ain’t got time for that. Who does? Seriously.

Last night we watched another episode of The Boys, which is very dystopian and a very harsh critique on our government, country, and politics, and I fucking love how pointed it is. We also watched the season premiere of Hacks–Jean Smart is so sharp and brilliant, and it’s just an excellent show–before I started getting sleepy. I also caught up on the news after I got home from the office yesterday, and Christ, there’s so much insanity and craziness in Washington and the country right now. All I do know for sure is that there’s no 3-D chess being played, anywhere–except maybe Tehran.

It’s also a stunningly beautiful morning outside; I think the high is the eighties. The sky is blue, no clouds anywhere, and I can see by the moving of the crepe myrtles there’s probably a really nice breeze. Maybe I can take the iPad outside and sit reading for a bit, which might be lovely. I’d also like to wash and clean out the car this weekend. It really needs to be waxed after using rubbing compound on it. Maybe I can do that when I visit Kentucky next. I was thinking about going up there in late June, after the wedding anniversary visit to Mom’s grave, and that would be the right kind of weather for sure.

I also made the right decision yesterday about my attitude about having to go into work. Now that I am medicated, I can make those kinds of decisions about my mental health rather than spiraling into bitter anger about the disruption to my routine. It was actually nice; I hadn’t done walk-in testing for the general population in years, and in all honesty, was worried about it some–part of my irritation. But I pulled off the scab, remembered how to be present, friendly and kind to the clients, and connected with all of them, which made me feel like I was helping these strangers, and that’s a good feeling. Maybe I should help out with that more often?

And on that pleasing note, I am heading into the spice mines for today. Have a lovely Saturday (that feels like Friday to me) and I will certainly be back again in the morning. Huzzah! Onward and upward!