Actually, I am in Albuquerque for Left Coast Crime. I have never been to either Albuquerque or Left Coast Crime before. As for the former, it’s very very dry and the air is a lot thinner here than it is in New Orleans. The trip wasn’t bad; the flight from Austin (where I changed planes) was delayed an hour and there was horrific turbulence on both the take-off there and the landing here that had me closing my eyes and making my peace with the Universe, but other than that it was relatively unremarkable. Lots of people everywhere, but neither flight was full and I had a bit of crowd anxiety at every airport I was in, but it was all okay. I managed to finish reading Mia Manansala’s marvelous Arsenic and Adobo and got halfway through Wanda M. Morris’ All Her Little Secrets (which is also marvelous) and once I got to the hotel I started running into friends I’ve not seen in years–which was again quite marvelous. I went to dinner with a friend (I hadn’t eaten all day, and then had a glass of wine–which, given the lack of food in my stomach, and the altitude, and being tired, wasn’t probably the brightest move to make), and then ran into even more friends when I made it back to the hotel. The hotel bar closes at nine (much to the disgruntlement of many a mystery writer), but it was probably for the best that I not imbibe any more alcohol. I haven’t really drank anything alcoholic since the pandemic shutdown–if I have, it’s been so few and far between that any tolerance I might have for it is long since gone–and so having a typical mystery convention weekend’s worth of drinking this weekend is probably not the brightest thing to do. Perhaps I am finally growing up?
As if.
I didn’t sleep well last night–first night in a hotel, not my own bed, yadda yadda yadda–despite my complete exhaustion last night when I turned out the light and got under the covers; I was too tired to read, even for a little to shut my mind down a bit. Part of it was overload, I think; I am not used to being around groups of people, plus seeing friends and acquaintances I’ve not seen in nearly four years–as well as meeting new people–caused a bit of overload of my circuits last night, which shoved me headfirst into punchy mode. I probably should have come to my room immediately after dinner last night–but I ran into people in the lobby, which is what always happens at these things, and yes, I probably shouldn’t have gone into the lobby at all and headed straight for the elevators. Lesson learned, although I’ll probably do the same damned thing tonight.
Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment and I didn’t sleep particularly well last night–more of a half-sleep most of the night more than anything else, when your mind doesn’t shut off and at any time you can just open your eyes. I fucking hate that. I have a lot of work to do today–maybe that’s why I was sleepless last night, I don’t know–but there’s nothing to be done about it this morning rather than swill down coffee and hope for the best.
Yesterday wasn’t as productive as it should have been. I did some chores yesterday morning and then sat in my chair, intending to spend a few hours reading Chris Holm’s Child Zero. Mistake. I kept reading until I was finished, around three in the afternoon, and with only a few hours left before five, I decided to do more chores than my taxes or write my short story or do other work I have to get done. (Even on the weekends, I don’t work after five.) We tried watching Cruella last night, but got bored very quickly and turned it off, switching back over to Netflix for more episodes of Dark Desire, which has such an incredibly complicated plot–it’s way fun if you’re into noir-ish erotic murder thrillers, and Alejandro Speitzer is just fucking gorgeous to look at–that I am not entirely sure I am completely following it anymore; I’ve kind of given up on trying to figure out who the killer this season is and how all the backstory from the first season as well as the characters’ pasts is interwoven into the plot because there’s just so much–kind of like How to Get Away with Murder was; but it’s also, like Murder, a lot of fun to watch. Ozark’s final episodes are also on their way, and I want to check out Moon Knight too.
There’s so much to watch, seriously.
And read. I have to decide now what to read next. So. Many. Books. I want to read the Wanda Morris, and of course I’ve got some Mia Manansala on hand as well…ah, decisions, decisions, decisions. But I have to get my taxes ready today and off to the accountant–I am really dreading this tedious chore; I don’t know why I can’t just fucking update the expenses spreadsheet at the end of every month, which would make this odious chore so much bearable at the end of the year; procrastination never makes anything easier or better, quite frankly–and I have to do some things with other work I am doing. Maybe I’ll have time to work on “Solace in a Dying Hour”; I certainly hope so, since next weekend I will be in Albuquerque and won’t do any writing at all (I am already having conference anxiety about who I am going to hang out and have fun with; my usual con crew isn’t going to be there, I don’t think–maybe I will end up hanging out in my room and reading most of the time, which is what I used to do back before I knew anyone). But you never know…
Stranger things have happened. And probably will again.
Egad, is my kitchen a mess. I can see all kinds of ways to procrastinate today. But at the top of today’s list is get the tax info to accountant and that’s really not something I can fuck around with, you know, no matter how tedious the chore may be or how little I want to actually, you know, do it. (I should have at least started it yesterday…)
Okay, now I am boring myself, so I am going to go get cleaned up, make some more coffee, and get this odious chore out of the way.
And will check in with you tomorrow, Constant Reader–happy Sunday!
So we had a major thunderstorm yesterday afternoon, complete with street flooding and thunder and lightning and all the fixin’s. This naturally led me to wonder, as the lights flickered at the office and Elysian Fields (the street, not the Greek afterlife) filled with water, whether or not to wait until the advisory was lifted (in theory at 5:45 pm), or head home when my work day was complete? One can never be certain where and when parts of the city are going to flood; and the last thing in the world I need–being this close to having the car paid off–is to risk flooding it out and possibly ruining it.
Sigh. It’s never easy living in New Orleans.
Getting home was a challenge; Claiborne Avenue’s low-lying areas were filled with water, water was pouring down not just from the clouds but from the I-1o high-rise, and I decided to risk going through the CBD, never the best option, but potentially even worse than usual since the Plaza Tower started falling apart and
And now for some blatant self-promotion, The Queer Crime Fiction roundtable I participated in for Crime Reads can be found here. And my brief appearance on Writer Types recommending queer crime writers can be found at this link right here.
Thanks again to Lisa Levy for the roundtable, and to Eric Beetner for inviting me onto his podcast. Both were a lot of fun, frankly, and it’s always fun for me to have the chance to talk about books and writers and make recommendations of books and writers I admire and enjoyed. I really missed that during the pandemic.
We got caught up on Lisey’s Story last night–we were both dismayed to see that it hasn’t all aired yet, and so no new episode until Friday–and then went on to the second chapter of The Underground Railroad, which was equally as disturbing as the first, but in a completely different way; I do remember, reading the novel and thinking, my God, so many different ways white people have found to punish and hurt black bodies and souls throughout our history. The show, being a visual medium, is even more disturbing than the book, because my imagination wasn’t quite strong enough to erase the imagery from my head I had grown accustomed to throughout a lifetime of privilege, that kept elbowing the stark realities Colson Whitehead so poignantly and beautifully wrote about in his book, out of the way; the show does not allow this, and the beautifully way it is filmed so poetically reflects the beauty of Whitehead’s language, even as the subject matter in truly an abomination.
Laura Lippman’s Dream Girl drops today, and so those of you not fortunate enough to get an advance copy can now indulge yourselves in reading a truly marvelous book by a great thinker and a terrific writer. I need to get back to reading; Robyn Gigl’s By Wayof Sorrow needs to be finished, and on deck I have Bath Haus by PJ Vernon, Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng, Arsenic and Adobo by Mia Manansala, and several others. So much reading; I really need to focus on getting my reading done and caught up. Now that I’ve finished the novella I can take a look at duMaurier’s “Don’t Look Now” again, as well as her “Ganymede”; I already know, from doing some post-writing research today that there are some major adjustments that need to be made to my novella, and it may wind up being longer than than 20, 430 words it sits at now–not the least of them the days of the week, and so forth. I also have to figure out some way to make the story work a little better, more suspenseful, than it sits right now; but that has a lot to do with figuring out the story as it went. I also want to start pulling together the next short story collection–madness, I know–but I do love when I am basically overwhelmed with projects; so I always have something to be working on if something stalls out or I just don’t want to work on something in particular.
I also took some time and started plotting out another Scotty; yes, I know–I really need to dive into Chlorine again, but I had also decided that I was going to do that in July; it doesn’t hurt to have the Scotty’s various intertwining plots planned and mapped out. I generally don’t do this with Scotty books, primarily because the writing inevitably takes me in much different directions than I had planned, and thus inevitably all the planning turns out to be waste time. Also ironically, despite having any number of possible and potential titles on hand, none of them seems to fit this story–and since I can’t ever really work on anything without a title, and knowing that the title can be eventually changed–I am calling this one, for now, Mississippi River Bottom, which was actually the working title for Jackson Square Jazz.My editor didn’t like Mississippi River Bottom (which I rather thought was a clever play on words) and asked me to change it. I also know that this working title doesn’t really fit the alliteration patterns of the rest of the series, and thus will inevitably have to be changed. Perhaps while I am actually writing it, the title will come to me; stranger things have, indeed, happened before.
Last night’s sleep was terrific–there were strange dreams, of which I’ve been having a plethora of lately; last night was me working at Target for some reason–but I again feel terrific and rested this morning; everything looks wet outside, so I am assuming the rain continued over night. It must not have been terrible or dangerous, as we never got one of those horrible WARNING alerts during the night on our phones. Tonight when I get off work I’ll go uptown and get the mail before heading home and to the gym. The Tuesday night workout is somehow always rushed, with me skipping things–more to do with too many people being there than me being lazy, really; the free weight area is always so crowded I inevitably skip the two exercises I used free weights for–and then it’s back home to watch some television and possibly do some writing. This weekend is going to see weird; I have a broken tooth that needs to be extracted, and I scheduled that for Friday afternoon. That inevitably will mean a strange diet of soft food over the weekend and pain killers; but better that than the dull throb and swollen gums I’ve been dealing with since the molar broke. Ah, the endless saga of Greg and his bad, bad teeth. One thing I definitely envy in other people is good teeth…I also want to get to work on “The Sound of Snow Falling.” I am assuming I’ll be incapacitated this weekend after the tooth extraction, but I am hoping I can at least sit in my easy chair and edit.
And yesterday, the first active roster NFL pro football player to come out came out! Yay, and welcome to the team, as it were. I’m old enough to remember when David Kopay came out in the 1970’s; the first former NFL player to do so.
And on that note–writing ADHD, my bad teeth, NFL player out of the closet–I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely and winning Tuesday, everyone.
There’s really nothing like rain for a good night’s sleep, is there? There’s just so comforting about being under the covers, warm and snug and dry, while everything outside is getting drenched. I’m not sure why that is, but rain always helps me sleep–and I never want to get out of bed if it is still raining. I also love curling up under a blanket in my easy chair with a good book when it’s raining outside. There’s something about that constant pattering of drops against the house and the sound of the wind, the occasional brightening of the gloom with lightning, followed by the rolling thunder…one of the things I love the most about living in New Orleans is our wonderful rain, the marvelous raging thunderstorms–but I will admit, I am not thrilled about the streets filling with water and the potential risks of water damage from flooding to my car. (I got caught once in a downpour/flash flood with my old red Chevrolet Cavalier back in the say–it cost about $600 to get it running again, as well as to get the smell out of it. I can’t imagine how much it would cost now, or if the car would be totaled if the computer systems got wet…)
It’s rained off and on ever since Wednesday night, and it’s kind of gloomy outside my windows again this morning. I’ve been sleeping fairly well for over a week now–last night was the first night I woke up a few times and had some incredibly odd and vivid dreams. The house is still a mess–after my appointments and errands and so forth, I was very tired when I got home and just spent the rest of the day relaxing–at least, what was left of it. We got caught up on Hacks, which is so marvelous, finished the first season of The Sinner (it’s so weird that we watched it backwards, but it really doesn’t matter what order you watch in; as I said, the personal story of detective Harry Ambrose isn’t the point of the show, and its kind of interesting to see it unfold backwards), and then watched another episode of a Hulu show (like The Sinner, executive produced by Jessica Biel, and good for her) called The Sister, starring Russell Tovey. It’s an original crime series (not based on a book or anything) and what drew me to it was star Russell Tovey, whom I’ve enjoyed since his days as the werewolf on the original British Being Human, and he’s also an out gay actor. He’s great and the show is interesting with a clever premise, but the pace is a bit slow and the bad guy/villain is so over the top and creepy that he’s hard to watch (I keep thinking for fuck’s sake just kill him and make it look like an accident already); but we’ll probably keep watching it around other shows we are more interested in.
The rest of this morning is going to be spent organizing and cleaning and straightening up this kitchen/office, which is a disaster area, and then making my long overdue to-do list. I need to record a video somehow to promote a panel I’ m doing this month for the San Francisco Public Library on queer mysteries (moderated and arranged by Michael Nava, and including Dharma Kelleher, Cheryl Head, and PJ Vernon, whose Bath Haus I really need to get my hands on); I also have to make arrangements to record my panel for More Than Malice this month (another stellar line-up), and I am also doing something this coming Thursday for Tubby and Coo’s Bookshop here in New Orleans.
I also kind of need to get back to my writing, and to the gym–but the gym is now open at its pre-pandemic schedule, so I can go much later in the day than I had to before.
I also want to finish reading The Zimmermann Telegram by Barbara Tuchman, and Robyn Gigl’s impressive debut novel, By Way of Sorrow, and next up is either Mia Manansala’s debut Arsenic and Adobo or S. A. Crosby’s Razorblade Tears–his Blacktop Wasteland was one of my best reads last year, and has been winning all of the awards for last year’s books. I’ve also realized one of the reasons my TBR pile always seems so mountainous and ever-growing is because there are so many excellent choices to read that I become paralyzed with the inability to choose and as such, never progress and wind up choosing a movie instead, or history videos on Youtube.
And of course, I really need to start writing again, and deciding what I want to work on over the course of this weekend. I think I want to rewrite the first chapter of Chlorine–which is all that is done–and maybe chapter two; an I also want to get back into the short stories and novellas I’ve been working on; you can imagine my horror when I opened the file for “Never Kiss a Stranger” and realized most of what I thought I had written was actually just written in my head…oy–and the same goes for “A Holler Full of Kudzu.” I hate when my imagination is so vivid that I actually think I wrote things when I merely wrote them in my head…
And on that note–hello spice mines! I am heading in there now.
Queer and Loathing in America 