Tag: Muses

Sultans of Swing

No jury duty today! And I think I am finished with it all this time around. Trials, according to what the judge told us on Monday, rarely start this close to the weekend of the last push of Carnival, so if I don’t have to report today I shouldn’t have to report anymore. I was only there for an hour or so yesterday before we were released, which was great. I came to work–my testing in the clinic shifts were covered–and got some odds and ends and other things taken care of. I wasn’t feeling too hot by the end of the day–and getting home from work was a nightmare–but by the time I went to bed I was feeling terrible. I woke up to a fever this morning, a sore throat and some major coughing. I decided that it was wiser to use sick time rather than risk getting everyone at the office sick–which would thus spread exponentially, call me Typhoid Greg–and so called out. I can’t remember the last time I missed work because I was sick; probably when I had COVID? I should probably take a test today myself, shouldn’t I? Heavy heaving sigh. I’ll do that before I go lie down with my book.

As far as jury duty goes, this wasn’t too terrible, really. And I don’t mind doing it, either. I always serve whenever I am called; the only time I’ve tried getting out of it was when I was supposed to serve the week after the shoulder/arm surgery, which wasn’t possible. I find it interesting and a solemn responsibility; it’s part of our civic duty as citizens after all, and weighing the evidence and deciding someone’s fate is kind of a big deal. Plus I like seeing how the courts actually work in real life, as opposed to books and movies. (The judge also said on Monday that court isn’t like Law and Order, there’s a lot more they don’t show. It’s really funny the cultural impact those shows have had on the country; someone should do a study on that. I have some thoughts myself about it and other “copaganda” shows, as well as the books about cops/lawyers.)

The not feeling well definitely sucks, though. All of my joints ache, and my legs feel exhausted. I did have to park fairly far from the house, on Race between Camp and Magazine. I’ll try to get the car moved today, so it’s closer to the house. I am hoping this doesn’t last another day–I don’t want to take another sick day and if I do, I still need to go by the office and get my computer so I can work at home on Friday–and the COVID test is negative. If the COVID test isn’t negative, it won’t matter because I won’t be allowed back into the building until next week anyway. I don’t want to use all my sick time, but if I have COVID, there’s no choice.

Good news! The COVID test was negative. I am feeling a bit better, but still running a fever. I also have a tickle in my throat and it’s sore. It also looks like a beautiful day outside, and the weather should be lovely for the parades this weekend, if I am feeling up to it. I definitely want to do Iris and Muses, if I can, and maybe some Thoth on Sunday. Bacchus is too much of a madhouse, but I love Orpheus on Monday because the crowd starts clearing out early because people need to go home and get ready for Fat Tuesday. I just hope I’m feeling better by tomorrow so I can go in to work. I do not like being sick.

The good news is that I signed a short story contract yesterday. It’s been a hot minute, so I am very well pleased. (This is for a submission to an anthology call; the other one I signed was one I was asked to write, so it’s a bit different.) I’m not sure if I can talk about this anthology or talk about my story–which I am dying to tell you about–but I’ll have to be annoying and not say anything for now. One I can talk about is called “The Rhinestone,” since the contract is already signed and the book has been announced. I have to revise and edit the story with notes, but it’s kind of a done deal. “The Rhinestone” is a book excerpt, and what’s really funny about this particular book excerpt (besides the fact that the book itself isn’t finished; this is from Never Kiss a Stranger) is that it was the actual kernel the entire book idea grew from, too. Funny how that works sometimes, isn’t it? I’ve often had ideas that I thought were interesting, but didn’t know if it was a short story or a novel until I tried writing it one way or the other. I used to always be expanding short stories into novels (because I overwrite and always have more to say); it was around 2012 that I began thinking in terms of maybe your novel ideas can actually be written as short stories instead), but shortly after we moved here, Paul and I had lunch at a place called the Quarter Scene, which was either queer-owned or just extremely queer friendly. It was our first time eating there, and I don’t remember why we did in the first place or why we were in the Quarter. Regardless, the table we were seated at–in the big picture window–had a little plaque on the wall reading TENNESSEE’S TABLE with the note that whenever he was in town, Tennessee Williams always sat at that table for lunch. We both thought that was kind of cool, and I thought “Tennessee’s Table” was a great title for a short story. The original story in and of itself wasn’t anything–just two gay friends meeting for lunch and sharing stories. It was a melancholy little story, really, not much to it. But when I started working on Never Kiss a Stranger–I originally wrote it as a long novella, about 30k words–I decided to reuse that setting and write a scene between two of the main characters. When I was asked to write for this anthology–the theme was the story had to be inspired by a queer icon–Tennessee Williams, who has had an enormous impact on both Paul’s and my life, was a no brainer. And then I thought, hey, that scene is set at Tennessee’s Table, why not adapt that back into a short story? So I pulled the chapter and reworked it a bit. I also have notes to make it stronger as a short story, so looking forward to revising that.

As for the country and the world, well, it kind of speaks for itself with no need for comment from me, does it?

And on THAT sad note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.

Hurting Each Other

Friday morning after Muses, and I am a little tired–physically. Mentally I am alert as ever and feel great, but I am not used to standing on the sidewalk for so long anymore. Chaos last night was my first parade (the floats were hilariously inappropriate; all I will say is the theme of the parade was “balls” and leave it at that), and we came home to rest before Muses arrived. We didn’t stay out for long, I was tired and sleepy and it got here around ten; we lasted out there for about an hour before I started flagging and came back inside. However, I realized I should have gone to parades to warm up for this weekend; I forgot that it takes a parade day to warm you up and get you in the proper spirit; I should be good to go tonight if my PT this morning isn’t too vicious.

And yes, we got a really cool shoe.

I had a good day at work yesterday, got a lot of things done and caught up and feel confident not being in the office again until Ash Wednesday will not be disastrous for me or put me really behind on things. I came home early (it took me an hour), and I came inside and watched this week’s episode of Capote v. the Swans, which was done in documentary style, which was an interesting take. I’m not quite as obsessed as I was about Capote when I first started watching, but I do want to read the Gerald Clarke bio of him, and maybe even George Plimpton’s Capote. It’s taken me awhile to get interested in Capote, and while I wouldn’t say it’s an obsession anymore, I am still very much interested in this incredibly famous openly gay man in the middle of the twentieth century. I have added Deliberate Cruelty, a true crime narrative about Ann Woodward’s feud with him by Roseanne Mantillo, to the books I am reading and I finished it last night.

And yes, I am beginning to understand precisely why he wrote “La Côte Basque 1965” and why he published it, but more on that when the show is finished and I give it, and Capote, an entry of their own.

As for me and the weekend, I have taken Monday off and so I am hoping that I’ll be able to get some reading and writing done today, Sunday and Monday (I will always take Saturday off from everything to go to Iris). I want to finish editing this one short story and finish writing another, and perhaps get them submitted somewhere. I have laundry going already and a dishwasher to unload and reload. I have PT this morning, a prescription and the mail to pick up, and then the car won’t move again until Monday at the earliest, as I will need to probably make a grocery run. I also should be able to finish reading Deliberate Cruelty so I can focus on Lina Chern’s Playing the Fool, which I am greatly enjoying. I also have some blistering blog entries to write, so this weekend should be fun on that score.

And hopefully I’ll be able to get this place ship-shape and get myself caught up on everything that needs catching up on.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have yourself a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later.

Without You

And now its Muses Thursday. How we got here so quickly is a mystery, but here we are. I am slowly waking up, the coffee is helping, and yesterday was actually a very good day, perhaps one of the best I’ve had in a long time. It was the first time in a very long time (several weeks, at least) where I was alert and awake and felt good. I was also in a good mood all day…all of which added up to a very productive day. I ran my errands after work (I left early because parades) and managed to get everything done AND find a place to park close to the house when I got home. I put the laundry away and started working on chores, getting things cleaned up and taken care of. It was nice to wake up on a Thursday and come down the stairs to a tidy kitchen. I watched my reality television shows (Vanderpump Rules, which is actually boring this season, and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) and then Paul got home. We got to hang and chat for about half an hour before it was time for me to go to bed, and I went out almost immediately. I like this new sleep pattern, and having the right kind of medication that helps me not only sleep deeply but feel very rested when my body and brain finish waking up–it’s much easier than before, that’s for damned sure.

In honor of Muses, I switched to a new pair of every day shoes this morning, and it’s always quite an adjustment. I should probably change every-day shoes more regularly; I have flat feet and my feet (the technical/medical term for it is overpronation; eventually my shoes will reflect that and need to be changed out) roll inward. Shoe inserts have helped dramatically with my ankles, knees, and hips; before using inserts I needed to get new shoes every six weeks. They last longer now, but I still need to change out my shoes more regularly than most…which is why I always buy at least two pairs of shoes every time, so I have the next pair ready to go when I change them out, always buying two pair when I start wearing the second pair and thus no longer have a pair of shoes “on deck”. I also don’t have to walk to the office and home, or stand out on the corner hawking condom packs to partying people all weekend–which of course will help my shoes last longer. (I still miss my old office, though.)

I’m just fascinating this morning, aren’t I?

The Krewe of White Supremacy and the Lost Cause rolled again last night, but once again New Orleans said nix to Nyx and their dying, pathetic parade needs to have its fucking permit pulled once and for all. Let them parade in Metairie or the North Shore where their deeply offensive and archaic values would be more appealing. New Orleans doesn’t forget and holds a grudge forever. You racist skanks and your Confederate flag throws aren’t welcome in New Orleans, and you know it, so why do you bitches keep parading to empty streets and the utter contempt of New Orleans? To prove a point? Think of all the money they waste to prove a point. I can’t wait to write my book about the murder of an all-female all-racist krewe captain. I had no difficulty finding a place to park on my block last night after four, which doesn’t happen on days when the popular parades that everyone goes to–no matter how minor it may be–roll. I could have probably left the office at the usual time yesterday and still been able to find a place to park on my street (note for next year if this year wasn’t their death rattle). Tonight I will drive straight home and probably won’t be able to find a place to park, Sigh.

I am going to Alabama the weekend after Fat Tuesday to meet Dad. I’m really glad to spend the time with him, but I hate the reason for it.

There’s controversy brewing again in the mystery community, and while I generally don’t opine on these kinds of things, I kind of am feeling my oats and I may just have to voice an opinion. I always forget that I had anxiety with my commentary and observations about controversies in publishing because of my volunteer work on the MWA board; I never wanted anyone to ever think I was speaking for the organization when I was not and didn’t want to have to deal with any controversies for the org things I said may have caused. But my anxiety is gone now, I have very few (if any) fucks left to give about anything or anyone, and I have a voice and a platform (no matter how small it may be in the overall scheme of things) so I should make better use of it than introspective navel-gazing about my life and career and so forth. So what if I piss off a few people? No one cares if they piss me off, do they? And I’ve been the target of other people’s bullshit far too many times and for far too long to worry about offending people who find my very existence offensive, so they can fuck right off. I’m not saying I’m going back to channeling my inner Julia Sugarbaker regularly or anything, but I will probably be speaking out more in the future…and I have some definite thoughts about the current one. LOTS of them, in fact.

So, buckle up, buttercup. 2024 is a whole new mentality for me.

Amazing Grace

Wednesday and the parades are rolling again tonight. I don’t think I’m ready to deal with this, to be honest. I can’t believe it’s the final weekend of Mardi Gras madness already, can you? I have to run a couple of errands today after leaving work, trying to get it all accomplished and get my ass home while it’s still possible to find a place to park. Much as I don’t want to deal with the errands tonight, tomorrow would be even more difficult as it’s Muses Thursday, and going straight home from work is no guarantee I can park within a mile of the house. Sigh. The pleasure of living inside the box, right?

I was super tired when I got home yesterday, and I never did feel like I was fully awake all day, to be honest. I was finally able to get my night time prescription refilled again, after the first pill bottle mysteriously disappeared (all fingers point at Sparky, and it’s probably under the dishwasher or the couch), and so I had to adjust back from one medication (I still had my old night time medication) to the right one again, which would explain why yesterday I never felt like my brain escaped the fog. Today is, in fact, the first day in a long time where I’ve felt mentally alert again, which is great. It’s terrible when you’re not on your game, and you aren’t sure why; now that I am in my sixties mental things are much more alarming than they used to be–and some memories I’ve forgotten are so forgotten even when I am reminded, in great detail, I don’t remember anything about it. That’s disturbing on a very deep level; my mental acuity is something I do worry about as I get older. We don’t have any mental deterioration diseases in the family as far as I can remember–I need to ask Dad about that, along with any other genetic conditions he and Mom might have or know about within the family (we aren’t a family that talks about that sort of thing much; I think it’s mostly because we have so much genetic tendency to faulty wiring in our brains to begin with)–but I think I’d know about it if it was in the immediate family.

Anyway, tonight when I get home from work I need to do some laundry and the dishes. I don’t know if I’ll go out to the corner tonight or not, but all signs point to not. Nyx is the final parade tonight, and as far as I know, Nyx is still a horrific white supremacy krewe (last year my mind was not on Carnival), so I don’t know if I’d want to go to that even if I didn’t have to get up so early in the morning tomorrow. I do need to write about that at some point, don’t I? The great thing about being a crime writer is you never run out of prejudice, bigotry and hate to write about.

It looks like I’ll be going to Alabama to see family and visit Mom’s grave next weekend; Dad is going down for the anniversary of losing her, and I’ll go up and meet him up there for the weekend. It’s just easier, really, for me to go instead of my sister, and I don’t think Dad should do these grave visits without one of us there for him. It’s also kind of for me; it’s just easier mentally and emotionally to focus on Dad’s loss rather than my own. It’s probably not the healthiest way to deal with it, but this is how I generally deal with any kind of personal loss or tragedy in my life: focus on the grief of others. I also suppose that the impending anniversary (today, I think, is the anniversary of her final stroke? It’s all murky to me other than knowing she died on Valentine’s Day) has probably also been working on me subconsciously (subconscious BASTARDS!!!) and could have something to do with the foggy funk I’ve been in lately, in addition to the unfortunate medication change of the last couple of weeks.

I didn’t watch the Grammys the other night, but I did watch the Tracy Chapman/Luke Combs “Fast Car” performance on Youtube, which brought back a lot of memories. “Fast Car” was a very important song in the development of my life and my adulthood; the lyrics of feeling trapped and needing to escape a toxic life situation resonated very deeply with Double Life Gregalicious, and helped start the process of finally merging those two very separate mentally unhealthy existences, which is something else I should blog about–but it was amazing seeing the audience reaction to a middle-aged out Black lesbian, and I’m going to have to listen to her album again; it’s been a hot minute. But thanks again, for your voice and your music and your soul, Ms. Chapman.

I did edit a short story–or started editing, at any rate–last night, and it really is amazing what you don’t see when you’re in the midst of writing it and when you come back to it again after a lengthy period of time. “How the hell did I not see how clunky that sentence is?” was constantly running through my mind, and I also realized what the point of the story was–he’s reached his breaking point, and I need to communicate that to the reader more clearly than in the original draft. It felt good, you know, to work on something, and feel like I was doing some good polishing work on it. I really do love writing.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will most likely check in again with some more blatant self-promotion later.

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

I did not want to get up this morning. PT was particularly exhausting yesterday after work, and I also made groceries right after. By the time I got into the apartment and had the car unloaded, I…don’t really remember much of the rest of the evening, other than I sat in my chair and watched documentaries about the Eastern Roman Empire on Youtube for most of the rest of the night before I retired to bed early. I feel very rested this morning but still a bit tired, and also like I am running a bit on accessory. I know once the fog in my mind clears I’ll be ready to get this show on the road, but right now all my body wants to do is go back to bed and climb back into the blanket cocoon. Today is going to bounce around between 48 and 55 degrees, with the potential for wind and rain all day. Sounds like the kind of day when you’re very grateful to get back into the house after work, doesn’t it? It’s hard to believe it’s only Tuesday.

I know I will be very grateful to go back to bed tonight and go back to sleep. Clearly, I need more coffee.

I ordered a toy for Sparky that comes on a stretchy string and you hang from the doorframe, and he’s been playing with it almost incessantly since I hung it up. Given he bored very quickly of every other toy we’ve gotten him, I now know the answer: a hanging toy. He’s been trying to get the mouse ever since we came downstairs, and he spent hours jumping at it last night (which was cute; he also finally got it down at one point and dragged it into the living room to show me, and then took it upstairs to show Paul; who brought it back down and rehung it for more hours of kitty entertainment). He was also cuddly last night when he wore himself out, and he was cuddly this morning in bed. Could it be all he needed was a hanging toy? He’s also getting so big! He still likes to ride on my shoulders, draped around my neck–I have to let him up there every time I get home from work, and then I have to walk him over to the dangling ceiling fan cords–and wants to go up there every morning, and he rides up there as I walk down the stairs, chirping happily. He still doesn’t meow; like I said, he still just chirps, or some variation of the chirp–he draws it out into a whine sometimes, but that’s really it for cat noises from him so far.

Ah, now the caffeine is starting to jumpstart my engine and I am beginning to feel more awake, more alive, more ready to face this Tuesday before Mardi Gras. Parades begin again tomorrow, and run every day from there till Fat Tuesday. I have to leave work earlier every night the rest of this week, so I can get home before they close the streets and (hopefully) find a place to park within a mile of the house. I did take Monday off, so once I am finished here Thursday I don’t have to go anywhere other than to PT Friday morning and one final grocery run before the car is parked for four days. (Oh, I take that back; I do have PT on Lundi Gras in the morning–hopefully I’ll be able to park coming home from that excursion) and then I only have a three day work-week next week, which will make for a nice break. I hope to get stuff done on all those days at home; I will probably skip Wednesday night parades, go to Muses on Thursday, do the Friday night parades and Iris and Tucks on Saturday before skipping all of Sunday and going out for Orpheus Monday night.

I also felt a little off yesterday, and this morning realized I hadn’t taken my medications yesterday, which is never a good thing. It does make a difference–the absence of a new does of blood pressure and acid reflux and anti-anxiety meds is always noticeable the first time I forget, and extremely noticeable if I miss two consecutive days. I do feel calmer today than I did yesterday, and I was anxious a few times (should have been the tip-off, really) and snapped at other drivers a few times while driving around town. I also grew irritated and impatient with the woman in front of me at the grocery store, who seemed to think the smart way to unload her entire cart onto the belt was one item at a time per hand while trying to decide how she wanted them bagged, I suppose; she was arranging things on the belt and then digging through everything to find the next item to go on the belt properly. It was a very slow process and had I been on my meds yesterday I wouldn’t have been annoyed or irritated–because I would have thought ah, she has anxiety or is OCD or somehow isn’t wired right either rather than letting my own faulty wiring default to impatience. (As I started writing that example is when I realized her brain probably isn’t wired right, either–which I would have thought instead of impatiently scrolling through my phone and resisting the urge to say something snarky. Meds make a difference, seriously.)

And on that note, I am getting another cup of coffee and heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later–you never know.

I Can’t Love You Enough

No matter the fact that civilization is crumbling and the world is on fire, the one bright spot of these interesting times in which we find ourselves is that this is the Platinum Age of Crime Fiction. There are so many incredibly gifted and talented and amazing writers publishing in this time that I’ll never catch up. There are, however, a few writers that I will always move to the top of the stack once it arrives and I’ve finished the current book I am reading.

For over twenty years, one of those authors has been Laura Lippman.

And this new one? Chef’s kiss.

The lights were off in the bathroom, but the door was ajar and light had begun seeping into the room. The day came at Amber in a series of unpleasant sensations. Hard–she was lying on the floor. Cold–she had on only her strapless bra, the floor was tile, the air conditioning had been set low.

Sticky. That was the blood. So much blood. She didn’t know a body could lose this amount of blood without going into shock. Maybe she was in shock? She had taken a first aid course at the Y and remembered what to do for someone else in shock–get them to lie down, elevate the legs–but no one ever told you how to know if you yourself were in shock. Besides, she was already lying down.

“Joe? Joe?”

No answer. He wasn’t here, of course. Why hadn’t he tried to check on her? Was he so busy mooning over his ex-girlfriend that he couldn’t be bothered to see if Amber was going to rally and make it to the after-party? He must have gone without her–fair enough, given how she had demanded the only room key and bolted from the prom, never to return, but couldn’t he at least pretended concern?

He doesn’t really like you, her mother had said when Amber had told her about the invitation. Not in that way. That’s okay, Amber had replied, and it had been okay, because she believed it was only a matter of time before he realized that he did like her. She had thought it would happen last night.

Thematically, Laura Lippman’s incredible new novel explores the Bryan Stevenson quote, “we are more than the worst thing we have ever done”, and what does it mean and how does it feel to be defined and always characterized by the worst thing you’ve ever done. The “prom mom” of the title is Amber Glass, a lonely but intelligent teenager who is a non-entity at her high school. Amber was a volunteer student tutor, and she worked with golden boy Joe Simpson, whose grades have slipped since his long-time first love girlfriend dumped him for a college guy. Amber is of dazzled by him and falls for him (the book cleverly makes a She’s All That reference here). Her exit from the prom is because she is experiencing cramping and feels sick…and gives birth prematurely in the bathroom. She didn’t know she was pregnant because she was ignorant about her body and its functions, and just thought she was gaining weight. The baby is dead, and Amber becomes known as “prom mom,” and is sentenced for matricide as a juvenile; sealed records and release at eighteen. Joe becomes “cad dad” (not checking on his sick date, and the real reason why is even worse than the tabloids print). Both Joe and Amber are damaged by the events of their prom night, and spend the next twenty-two years trying to get past their past and move on, always terrified that it’s going to come back into the news sometime and wreck their now comfortable existences.

Flash forward twenty-two years to 2019, and Joe is a successful realtor (thanks to some handy nepotism) married to a brilliant plastic surgeon (originally from New Orleans) and they live in a huge beautiful old home–they have no children, by choice (both have their own reasons, and this character building here is incredible) and has a perfect life on the surface. Meredith is very Type-A and rational, she and Joe are each other’s entire world–but Joe is also having a sordid little affair with another, younger realtor, and he is also taking an enormous business risk with their financial security without consulting or even telling her. Both Joe and Meredith are point of view characters in the present; there are occasional flashbacks to how the Joe/Amber dynamic began, how they came to go to the prom together, and how both were very similar beneath the enormous surface differences.

But Amber, our title character, is perhaps one of the most intriguing and interesting characters Lippman has created in her best-selling, critically acclaimed and award-winning career, which is saying something. Lippman has no flaws as an author, only strengths, but one of the things she is capable of that I truly envy is her consummate skill at character, all the incredible little details and touches she gives them that provide so much insight into who they are as people and, no matter how bad the decisions they make or whatever horrible things they may do (or are capable of doing), those little incisively precise details make them relatable and understandable, if unlikable. Meredith seems very cold, for example, yet her own tragic backstory explains who she is and how she became who she is so brilliantly that you can’t help worrying about what may happen when she finds out the things her beloved (and always forgiven husband) is hiding from her.

Yet Amber….Amber is the unabashed center and beating heart of the book. Her backstory, putting her life back together and keeping her past hidden, takes her many places before she lands in New Orleans (oh, my heart); and her New Orleans world is just as beautifully crafted as I knew it would be if and when she ever wrote about New Orleans. The little touches of local tribalism (chess pie, anyone?) were simply perfect without the slightest hint of cliché. A perfect example of this is her incorporation of the Muses shoe. The shoes are always beautiful and deeply coveted; adding in one would be a trope in the hands of a less skilled author. But Lippman adds that little unique touch that takes it from trope to brilliant detail–the dust. The shoes are fricking dust magnets that are impossible to clean because of the glitter, and that’s the kind of touch only a local might know to add, so much so that I thought why the fuck have I never talked about how goddamned dusty those gorgeously decorated shoes get?

It made me, with at least seventeen New Orleans novels to my credit and countless short stories, feel like an amateur New Orleans novelist.

She also managed to work the pandemic into it so that it becomes pivotal to the plot, which I was beginning to think wasn’t possible and something I’ve wanted to do, but have been afraid to try.

This book is an exceptional, compulsive read–and an excellent addition to the Lippman canon. Every book is different–which is amazing–so it’s impossible to say one is better than the other, but her continual growth as a writer and the risks she is willing to take is just another one of the reasons she will be known as one of the greatest writers, let alone crime writers, of our time.

Get this book NOW.

Undercover of the Night

Work-at-home Friday, during which I also have to get ready to leave town tomorrow. That means making groceries, picking up a prescription, and packing all on top of my work-at-home duties–which means I’ll have to work a little later than usual. I’ll be on Bereavement leave next week, so I don’t have to work again until Friday (which is a work at home day, but it won’t kill me to come into the office that day anyway; I’ll need to pick up my work-at-home stuff at some point–although I could swing by the office on my way home from Alabama…or, I could just drop in on Friday morning next week to pick it all up. I don’t know, I guess I am going to play it all by ear from now on.

January seemed to last forever and a day; yet February is flying past like an Air Force flyover at Tiger Stadium. Granted, I think I lost the thread of time after Mom’s stroke, but I was incredibly startled yesterday at the office writing “02/16/23” as the date on forms. 02/16/23? How weird does that look? It makes me vaguely uncomfortable whenever I see it, thinking that can’t be right, can it? But it is correct, and since I put the reminders in our clients’ files for when they need new paperwork along with the date their current expires, I have to use 2024 which really looks wrong.

It’s going to be weird being back in the part of Alabama where I’m from–I’ve not been there since my grandfather’s funeral at least twenty years ago and more likely even longer ago. I had been wanting to go back out of curiosity more than anything else; wanting to see how different it is now from what I remember, and I’d like to drive around taking pictures of things and so forth–I’d also like to see my maternal grandparents’ graves, since I am there–and just in general remember, you know? See how much of it I got wrong in Bury Me in Shadows, and if there’s anything to inspire my next Alabama book. You never know, right? I am probably going to leave early enough on Saturday so I can do some of that driving around before checking into the hotel–see how lost I can get, right?–because really it’s all not very far away from where I’ll be staying. The nearest motel is about seventeen miles away from the cemetery, and the cemetery itself is in between the county seat and where we’ll be staying. It’ll be interesting to see how differently I remembered things for the book as opposed to the current reality.

I didn’t go out to the parades because I have somehow managed to injure my big toe. This is making walking a bit of a challenge, and I am not exactly sure what I did or when it happened. I don’t think it was an obvious oh my God fucking ouch moment, but more of a little twinge or something that I thought I hope that doesn’t hurt and promptly forgot about until I stood up again, but suffice it to say the toe is painful and swollen. I don’t think it’s broken as I can move it without pain, but putting weight on it is an entirely different story. But Paul managed to get his annual shoe from Muses (a particularly nice one I’ll post a picture of at some point) before the predicted downpour occurred and managed to get home without getting wet. So, all in all Muses was quite a victory for Paul again this year, even though I had to skip it. I doubt that I will go out there at all tonight, either. If my toe is better Monday I may go out for Orpheus, but parade season has been a bust for me this year so far.

I slept late this morning, too–it’s been a hot minute since I had the chance to actually, you know, sleep late–and it did feel rather marvelous. The toe doesn’t hurt as much this morning as it did last night and I think some of the swelling has gone down. Since I’m home I can alternate heat and cold on it for a bit to see if that helps at all. I’d rather not be limping at my mother’s funeral–and seriously, how can I not remember when I did it or how? Sigh. But my coffee is wonderful this morning, and it’s chilly outside, and I have a couple of errands that need running later. Sigh–including a trip to CVS to get stuff to keep the toe wrapped up with. Such terrible timing for this, too. Heavy heaving sigh.

But I’ve downloaded Tara Laskowski’s One Night Gone and two Carol Goodmans (The Other Mother and The Seduction of Water) to listen to in the car on the way up there and back; I’ll take my hard copy of whichever one I decide to listen to in the car with me so I can finish reading it while I am there and can listen to something else on the way back to New Orleans on Monday morning.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. May you all have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably post here before I leave tomorrow morning before they close the streets for Iris.

Rock and a Hard Place

Thursday and the morning of the Muses parade. There are three parades tonight–first Babylon, then Chaos, and capped off by super-krewe Muses and their shoes–and while I am not in a great parade mood, I will probably go out there for a little while at the very least. Tomorrow and Monday are work-at-home days for me because of the parades, and also the days I have to get any errands or anything done that requires using the car because from about five o’clock on Friday till about one in the morning after Bacchus my car cannot be moved–I mean, I can move it, but won’t get very far because I have to stay inside the box. So I will probably try to make groceries on Friday morning, and then on Monday I will try to get the mail and pick up a prescription. It’s going to be an odd weekend. I have lots of stuff to do and I don’t really want to miss the Iris parade Saturday morning; I’ll probably also do Orpheus on Monday; I may go out there a bit on Friday night–those Friday night parades are fun–but for the most part I think I am going to skip the festivities as a general rule. I am already exhausted, but we’ll see how it all goes.

I’m adjusting. My friend Victoria, who lost her wife just before Christmas, compares grief to an undertow: “one moment you’re perfectly fine the next you’re being sucked under.” She’s not wrong, and it’s a pretty good analogy, to be honest (she’s always been an intelligent writer). I find myself getting dragged under at the most unexpected times, and triggered by the most unexpected things; I was going to wash dishes on Tuesday night, so I filled the sink with soapy water and had just put the last dirty dish in the water when I heard my mom saying you always wash the dishes first because the dishwasher is really just good for sterilizing and so I’ve always washed the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. It made me smile a bit wistfully when I heard her, and then came the waves and I was sucked under, and I never did get back to the dishes Tuesday night (I finished them last night). I wash and fold my clothes the way she did–there’s all these little things I do every day that I do because that’s the way my mom did them.

Sigh. Even though I lived over seven hundred miles away from my parents for the last twenty-four or five years, my mother’s influence on me and how I do things will last until I’m in my own grave. I did manage to get a load of laundry done last night, put the dishes away, and managed another load in the dishwasher as well. I’m not motivated this week, which I suppose isn’t really the surprise that I think it is, really. What makes it worse is I was already in the malaise after finishing two manuscripts back to back. I had hoped to get one of them edited and revised this month, and here we are on the 16th with only twelve days left in the month and I haven’t revised a fucking thing. When I got home from work yesterday I discovered a very sweet voicemail from my father on my phone which kind of sent me into a tailspin of sorts–he was worried about me being down here alone with my grief; at least he “has (my) sister and her kids” around him to lessen the grief and keep him occupied. I was so incredibly touched–even writing the words just now filled my eyes with tears again–that in the middle of what has to be all-consuming grief, living alone in the house they shared for the last twenty-five years and where everywhere you look is a reminder of her, he was able to put all that aside to worry about me?

Well, I just found out the service in Alabama is this weekend, so I’ll be leaving New Orleans Saturday morning before they close St. Charles and staying through Monday–so I can get home before they close the streets for Orpheus. I guess that will be the official closure for me–but I am fairly certain the grief is going to be with me for awhile yet. So no Iris or Tucks or Bacchus for me this year, which is kind of fine, really; I am not feeling parade season this year, honestly. I had been thinking that I’d be able to forget everything and enjoy myself for a bit at the parades, but…last night when I heard Druids passing at the corner the last thing in the world I wanted to do was head to the corner. I also did something to my big toe–sprained it maybe–I don’t know what or remember how I did it or when it happened, but at some point yesterday my big toe started throbbing and it hurts still this morning; whenever I put weight or pressure on it, it hurts. It’s so lovely having your body break down all around you, one of the great joys of becoming older.

I slept pretty decently last night, too, which was nice. I hate the lethargy of malaise mixed with grief; this is a witch’s brew I could have easily gone the rest of my life not knowing about. It’s also going to be weird being back in Alabama, too—I’ve not been back to where we’re from since my grandfather’s funeral, in either 2003 or 2004? Maybe it was earlier, because I think I had a car and there was a year or so at the beginning of the century when I didn’t have one. I should take advantage of this to drive around and take pictures of things for my memories and for future writing…and on THAT note, I think I’m going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will be back later.

Walking to New Orleans

One thing I do miss about Carnival season is walking home from work along the parade route–and I could tell I was out of practice walking this last weekend in New York, trust me.

For years, I worked on Frenchmen Street, one block downtown from the Quarter. I live inside the Carnival parade route (we call it “inside the box” here–the box boundaries being Tchoupitoulas, Napoleon, St. Charles and Canal–which means those streets generally close to traffic (only the downtown-running side of St. Charles closes; the uptown side does not, but you can imagine how horrific the traffic is on that side when there’s a parade on the other side of the neutral ground) about an hour or so before the first parade rolls, which means if I didn’t have my car “inside the box” before the streets closed, I’d have to wait until after the parades all ended–usually sometime after eleven, and the last thing I’d want to do is walk blocks to where I’d left the car to bring it home through all the after-parade traffic and mess–yeah, no thanks. We also used to do a lot of condom outreach during Carnival nights, setting up a table at the corner of Bourbon and St. Ann. So, on days when I had to actually go into the office I took the streetcar (which doesn’t run on Lundi Gras, so I had to walk the entire way) and walked through the Quarter–then would go do outreach and walk home from there. It was always tricky crossing the parade route itself; if I timed it right and got to Canal between parades, I could cut across to the inside easily; if not, I’d have to walk up Baronne to Harmony (formerly Lee) Circle, and I could always cut across at St. Charles (in the CBD and along Canal Street, barriers are erected to keep people out of the street). I may have been tired, but I always was in a good mood by the time I got home because I’d have a lot of beads already from walking along the parade route.

People used to love my post-parade bead selfies—as you can see, I am wearing my work shirt, so these beads were caught while walking home. Also, disregard the horror show that are my kitchen counters, thank you.

It’s funny, because I used to always bitch about having to walk to the office or condom outreach, and then having to walk home after. So, of course now I miss it.

I also sometimes take selfies when I am out on the parade route, to give everyone an idea how the throw-catching is going.

Obviously, I don’t care how I look as long as the throws are visible. This is from Iris in 2020, the last carnival before the pandemic.

And yes, the correct terminology is “throws,” because the krewes throw more than just beads. They throw candy, bubblegum, plush toys, moon pies, bags of potato chips, boas, and go cups, for starters. And of course some of the krewes have signature throws, such as the Zulu coconut, the Muses shoe, Tucks’ toilet themed throws (sunglasses that look like toilets, rolls of toilet paper) and the King Arthur grails. The signature throws are coveted, by the way; you’d be surprised at the way people will fight and claw and shove to get them.

One of our many Muses shoes. Isn’t it pretty? Paul manages to get at least one every year.

New Orleans is an extremely walkable city in my part of town. Twenty minutes maximum to Canal Street, another twenty minutes the other way to Touro or the Fresh Market, and of course the Marigny is another fifteen minutes past Canal. I don’t walk as much as I should; maybe after work every day from now on when I get home I can take a walk until I’m certain my arm is better and I can go back to the gym again. I love walking to the gym, I love walking through the Garden District–but sometimes it’s way too hot to walk, and of course, there’s always a chance of getting caught in a sudden thunderstorm/downpour (it’s why we own so many umbrellas; you end up getting caught out in a storm without one so of course you buy another). That was something I wanted to stress in A Streetcar Named Murder–that someone who lives where Valerie does, for example, can pretty much just walk anywhere to do her errands; I lived in New Orleans without a car for two years. (Good thing my parents insisted on me taking their old Oldsmobile–the Flying Couch of yore–that summer of 2004, or we would have been trapped here for Katrina.)

And one of the best memories I have of all Carnivals was the 2006 one, when New Orleans briefly flared to life again in the midst of the reconstruction, when for a few brief shining days it felt like New Orleans again, and gave us all hope that someday we would have our beautiful, wondrous, wacky city again. That Fat Tuesday was so beautiful; it was in the 70’s, clear sky, cool breeze, and no humidity. As I said that day, marveling at how gorgeous it was, “To be fair, Mother Nature kind of owes us.”

And I definitely need to spend more time walking around my beautiful city finding hidden treasures.

Twelfth Night

The other night, as I walked to Lilette to meet my friend Laura for dinner, I walked past this house:

It made me smile, as the New Orleans dedication for decorating for the holidays (any holiday, really) always does.

I posted this picture after taking it, along with a caption along the lines of it’s almost Twelfth Night and the start of Carnival! Someone commented, a bit surprised, “already?” which once again made me realize how different living in New Orleans is from living anywhere else, really, in the country. Nobody outside of Louisiana (unless they’re Catholic) understands how Carnival actually works, which makes sense. If it doesn’t affect you, how would you know? So, I decided explaining Carnival would be an excellent blatant self-promotion post, particularly since A Streetcar Named Murder is built around (sort of) a Carnival krewe and their membership recruitment ball. So, buckle up, Constant Reader, I’m going to give you a sort of primer for New Orleans Carnival.

Carnival begins on Twelfth Night, January 6th, and the season continues until it ends at midnight on Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras is actually the last day of Carnival, not the entire season; but over the years Mardi Gras has become synonymous with Carnival, but the locals will always correct you when you call it Mardi Gras instead of Carnival; and ‘mardi gras” literally translates from the French to Fat Tuesday), when the bells of St. Louis toll the beginning of Lent and the police clear everyone off the streets of the city (no one is supposed to be out on the streets after midnight; I used to love to stand on the balcony at the Parade watching the mounted police officers slowly making their way down Bourbon Street as the crowds disperse before them–and behind them the street is empty). I’m not going to get into the history of Carnival and how it all began as a “farewell to the flesh” before the religious solemnity and penance of Lent; but that’s the part most people don’t get if you’re not from here or Catholic. Christmas, Carnival, Lent, and Easter are all tied together. Twelfth Night is always a fixed date because Christmas is fixed for December 25th; but since Easter’s date is never the same, neither is the date for Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday, which is always forty days before Easter.

So, first things first. If you want to know all there is to know about each year’s Carnival, you start by getting a copy of Arthur Hardy’s Mardi Gras Guide, seen below. (You can order it on-line if you’re curious about it.)

(Don’t @ me, I know it should be Carnival Guide, but Mr. Hardy is Mr. Expert on all things Carnival, so we let him get away with it every year.)

The guide is invaluable, even though now there’s a parade tracker app so you always know where the parades are. The parades are what most people associate with New Orleans and Carnival/Mardi Gras; the big ones that shut down St. Charles Avenue and Canal Street aren’t until the last two weekends before Fat Tuesday. I don’t even know how many parades pass by our corner during parade season, but it’s a lot. (I’m hearing that the parade routes are being truncated a bit because of not having enough police officers to pull parade duty, but I don’t pay a lot of attention and just look at the Guide–which I have yet to get a copy of this year.) So, parade season is the two weekends prior to Fat Tuesday. The first weekend is easy, really; there’s parades on Friday night, Saturday afternoon and evening, and Sunday afternoon. Then we get a two day respite before they start in earnest, and there’s always at least two a night beginning the Wednesday before Fat Tuesday. Muses is Thursday night, following two others; there are also three on that Friday. Saturday afternoon is my favorite, Iris, which is followed by Tucks. Endymion is the big parade on Saturday night but it has a different route; it doesn’t come down St. Charles unless rain has caused it to be postponed for a night (when Endymion rolls down St. Charles on a Sunday night it’s a nightmare out there at the corner because Endymion is HUGE). There are parades all day Sunday, culminating with Bacchus Sunday night; Orpheus is the grand finale on Monday night, and of course on Fat Tuesday Rex follows Iris and then come the truck parades. There are also other, smaller, walking parades earlier; Krewe de Vieux, for example, is enormous and is a Saturday night later this month. After Twelfth Night and before Parade Season, there are balls and parties and walking parades and all kinds of celebrations leading up to the parades. The bleachers are already going up at Liberty Circle and all along St. Charles.

So, what does A Streetcar Named Murder, which is set in October, have to do with Carnival, and how is this a blatant self-promotion post?

Because the plot of Streetcar is set around an October costume ball for one of the newer Carnival krewes, the completely fictitious Krewe of Boudicca (it was Athena in earlier drafts, until I realized that I should check to make sure such a krewe doesn’t exist anywhere and sure enough, there is one; either in Metairie or on the north shore), which is also kind of new-member rush for the krewe. Our main character, Valerie, has no interest in belonging to a krewe; as she says, she’s fine “just going to parades and catching throws.” But her neighbor/best friend Lorna wants to join Boudicca, and she is dragging an unwilling Valerie along for the ball. It’s at the ball that the murder takes place; turns out the membership chair for Boudicca is Valerie’s nemesis, and of courea Valerie is the one who finds the victim after she’s stabbed.

And of course, it’s Carnival season again in New Orleans! So more info and blatant self-promotion to come!