Tag: Netflix

Don’t Shoot Shotgun

Goodbye, ruby Tuesday! We’re still having a heat advoisory today, and at this point I am trying to remember the last time we weren’t in one. I slept well again last night, and again didn’t want to get out of my comfy bed this morning. Ah, well, get over it, Gregalicious. I had a good day at work yesterday and got a lot done; but once I was home my ambitious plans for the evening fell by the wayside yet again as I provided a cat bed for Sparky and actually fell asleep for a little over an hour! That never happens. I did get some work done last night before falling asleep, and I am hoping that I’ll get some more done tonight. I am not going to be hard on myself because part of this new leaf/new stage in my life is being kinder to myself when I don’t live up to my own expectations.

We’ll see how that goes.

I also wrote two more entries, about the short stories I contributed to a couple of anthologies that are about to drop, and that felt kind of good, you know? I reread the stories for the first time since copy edits and you know, they are pretty good stories, and I am very pleased to be in anthologies with such terrific writers surrounding me. I also sent out a newsletter, about my reread of The Dark on the Other Side by Barbara Michaels, so yeah, I did get some writing done yesterday. I usually don’t count the blog and the newsletter as writing work, but they really are so I really should, shouldn’t I? It’s sometimes hard to believe I’ve been blogging since December of 2004–so blogging will be turning twenty-two later this year. Since I will also be 64 shortly, that’s about a third of my life. And now I’ve been a published author longer than I was not, if that makes sense? I’ve been a published author over half of my life now.

A definite milestone.

It’s also nice to feel reconnected to writing again, which is something I just realized that I am feeling again after a very lengthy period of not feeling connected to it, if that makes sense? I barely remember the beginning of this year. anything before I got sick is just kind of a blur nowadays, but I do know the writing of the new book wasn’t going well–and I was really exhausted going into getting sick, which made writing even harder. I don’t remember last year a lot, either. My memory is rather pathetic these days, and I am having trouble remembering things I should know. (While watching Wicked the other afternoon I could not remember Michelle Yeoh’s name to save my life; I wound up looking it up on my phone.) But this morning I feel like of course I can get all this stuff done, which is a lovely feeling and one I’ve not had for a considerable time.

We started watching The Hunting Wives last night on Netflix, based on the recommendation of a co-worker, and while we only watched the opening, pilot episode, it seems like the kind of soap operatic melodrama I often can’t get enough of (see past addictions to All My Children, General Hospital, Dynasty, and Melrose Place) and I am really looking forward to the rest of this first season. I went straight home after work last night, no stops anywhere, and while I may not have gotten any chores done (I need to empty and reload the dishwasher, and there’s clothes in the dryer) but the straightening I did this weekend is still holding firm. I may go straight home tonight, too–I need to have some things either picked up at the grocery, or delivered–and I can wait to go by the postal service tomorrow on the way home.

So, once I make it through my day job, I can get straight home and get to work on the chores before settling in to do some writing. I’ve promised a short story to an anthology–I already have two that with a bit of revising would be perfect–so I need to get back on those revisions, and I still have some other writing to get done that I really need to get done by Friday as a preference, Monday as a last ditch effort.

So, on that optimistic note, I am going to head into the spice mines this fine hot Tuesday morning. Stay cool wherever you are, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back later or tomorrow morning to check in with you again!

Avalon

Many years ago, Anya Seton published a terrific historical novel set in pre-1066 England and titled Avalon. The title was a throwback to the female lead character’s bloodline; she was descended from King Arthur and thus part of the English royal family. I loved Anya Seton (Green Darkness remains one of my favorite books to this day)–it’s been a while since I’ve revisited her work, but maybe I should…her books are soooo long, though! Anyway, Avalon is an island from the Arthur mythology…I suppose this is where I admit I’ve never read anything about King Arthur other than the Mary Stewart novels, but I enjoyed those so much I never really felt much of a need to read anything else Arthurian1. For those of you who missed the 1980s, Roxy Music recorded an album titled Avalon, and the title song was gorgeous…as is the entire album, which I’ve been listening to lately. It still, for the record, holds up.

The tropical system turned out to be not much of anything here in New Orleans, but it was rough where it did rain and flood. Yesterday–which was supposed to be the worst of it–was gorgeous for most of the day. After work, we did go to Costco and then I had dinner with a good friend at Saba, which was lovely. My Lyft drivers in both directions were pretty great, too–which was very lovely. The meal was terrific, and I allowed myself a single cocktail–A Dionysus Revival, which was an interesting mix of tequila, cucumber, and mild ancho chili; it was delicious. I also did chores yesterday around working, and the kitchen–which still needs some work–looks so much better this morning than it did yesterday morning, and that makes me very happy this morning. NO DISHES!

I hope to have a good day today, I have some errands to run around noon (mail, make a little groceries), but other than that I am home for the day. We’ll probably watch some more of America’s Sweethearts later, too. I’m not entirely sure why this show fascinates us both so much–there’s definitely a camp quality to it–but it just sucks us in every time we start watching. We, of course, are old school–we used to watch this on TNN when it was called Making the Team, and you can tell Netflix spends more money on the show than TNN ever did. My coffee is tasting marvelous this morning, Sparky let me sleep a little later than usual, and I feel very good this morning. My sinuses are behaving and I don’t have the headache that’s plagued me for the last couple of weeks. I’m also going to spend some time with the new Megan Abbott and my other current reads. Tomorrow we are going to go see Superman, which I am absolutely looking forward to seeing. Reader, there will be a newsletter about my almost life-long love of the character.

I am also hoping to get some writing done today as well. It’s about time for me to get back in the saddle again–and every day that passes when I don’t climb up on that horse again is time slipping through my fingers. It’s creeping up on football season, too–which is going to make it harder to be productive on the weekends, like it always does. I need to clean off my desk and do the floors here in the kitchen, which will be my housework for the day; and I’ll pick up in the living room later on.

Such an exciting life I lead, right?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning.

  1. I did watch Camelot–we saw it in the theater when I was really young. I tried rewatching it during the pandemic, but couldn’t get through it. I’ll never understand why they didn’t cast Julie Andrews as Guinevere, since she’d played it on stage. ↩︎

No Way Out

Work at home Friday, and I’ve already gotten my bloodwork done and my X-rays taken. It was amazingly easy and took very little time. I drove over to Touro this morning and was out of Quest Labs by 8:10, after which I took the pedestrian bridge across the street to Touro Hospital, and was all X-rayed and back in my car by 8:30 and home by 8:35! It all went so easily and quickly I never had a chance to open the book I brought with me–Megan Abbott’s El Dorado Drive–so that will have to wait until I take a break at some point today. I am very excited to have a new Megan Abbott to read; I’ve been a huge fan since I read Bury Me Deep for an award over fifteen years ago, I think? I have now read all of her works, and so always anxiously await the arrival of a new one. I think we’re going to Costco when I finish my work today, and this weekend we’ll be seeing Superman–the MAGA outrage only serving to whet my appetite for the film all the more. The apartment is, of course, it’s usual disaster area this morning, but the dishwasher is running and I’m about to start the laundry. Getting there!

I also need to get back on my writing horse. The headache (which I still have) this week has been highly annoying and has interfered with most of my intellectual pursuits this week, which truly sucks. I still get new ideas all the time–that curse will carry me to the grave, methinks–but I’m struggling to actually get writing done. This is what happens when you fall off the wagon and don’t write for a while; you get out of practice–at least I do, and it’s hard to get back into that groove again, which kind of sucks. I am hoping that this weekend will do the trick for me. I don’t feel tired this morning (just the damned headache), and actually feel pretty awake, so maybe today will be a good day.

I was groggy most of yesterday at work–that Thursday malaise–and made groceries on my way home from the office AND picked up the mail. Sparky was pretty needy and I was tired by the time I got home, so I just sat in my chair getting caught up on the news–always a depressing slog–until Paul got home. We finished MurderBot last night, and was sorry to see it end, frankly. Would I find Alexander Skarsgard as charming and likable if he wasn’t gorgeous? But the actor and character are certainly perfectly matched, and when I looked it up last night the show has been renewed for a second season, which could be difficult to pull off–given the finale of the first season. We’ll give it a go, of course–the one thing I prefer about Apple+ to Prime and Netflix is they give shows more than one season.

I wish they’d bring The Morning Show back for another season.

And football season looms just over the horizon, too.

And the demon cat has grown bored with attacking me and has disappeared. *Whew*, now I can get some things done without getting bitten and clawed. (He’s just playing, I know, but that doesn’t make the teeth or claws any less sharp and skin-piercing!) I feel pretty good–the coffee is hitting the spot and my breakfast is going down well. I’m not as hungry as I was since getting out of the hospital, so maybe my body is settling back into being what it normally was. I’ve not had dinner–or had any desire for it–since Monday night; which was also the last day I was on the steroid. Maybe the headache is steroid withdrawal? It could be.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, and I’ll be back either tonight or tomorrow morning.

Scorpio

Saturday in the Lost Apartment and all is well. It’s hot and humid, with chance of rain (the New Orleans weather forecast for almost every day between May and October). We did have a thunderstorm yesterday, which was lovely. I got chores done, my work at home duties completed, and while I didn’t write much, I made lots of notes on what I am working on so that I can actually get to writing today. LSU baseball plays Arkansas tonight (and Tiger fans are winning the Jello Shot competition yet again in Omaha), so I should be able to get things done today while I wait for the game. We started watching Harlan Coben’s Caught on Netflix last night, which I think is an Argentinian production, but we are really enjoying it. I slept really well last night, too, and Sparky the alarm cat allowed me another hour’s sleep this morning, which was lovely.

I also did some reading yesterday, which was nice, too. I hope to do more reading today, as well, which should be pretty awesome. I need to do some more chores this morning, too–the dishwasher needs to be emptied, for one, and the floors, like always, need to be done as well. I also need to get the mail and stop to make groceries, and perhaps to have some others delivered, too. I am feeling better these days, which is nice, and it’s even nicer to sleep through the night every night, which I suspect is part of the feeling better thing. I get to drive out to Metairie Monday morning for my first infusion, and yes, the pharmacy bill hit my insurance for the hospital stay and it’s over twenty thousand dollars. I mean, yikes–but yes, the pesky deductible is paid off, so everything health-related for me for the rest of the year should be free, which is lovely–especially since I think my primary care doctor is going to order blood-work again when I see him again a week from Monday. And the Monday after that I am seeing an ophthalmologist to check to see if I have Stargartz, a macular degeneration disease that is apparently genetic as well and which my sister has already been diagnosed with.

I also realized, while making notes and free-associating in my journal about this story I am working on–“The Lake Must Be Fed”–that the last thousand words or so that I’ve written on it have to go, because I bogged it down, by deciding to have my characters go inside one of their houses and talk about what’s happening rather than have some action–which turned it into a snooze. Glad I realized it before I continued writing it as it is, which would have been an utter waste of time, and I am also glad I realized it rather than taking it to its logical conclusion from what I had done, only to have it rejected and for me to spend the next three years wondering what is wrong with the story, which happens a lot, and in some cases it’s decades. I have forty year old first drafts I don’t know what to do with, but since they’re written I always feel they can be fixed at some point, you know–and yes, it is kind of embarrassing to review old work and see how much my writing has improved since back then, you know? And the real problem is actually that I was writing queer stories about straight people, so they were inauthentic at their base level. But yes, the conversation in this story needs to be deleted, and I need to write a terrifying action scene in a boat on a lake in the major thunderstorm1, so might as well do that today, right? I also have some research to do today or tomorrow; one for an essay/newsletter, and the other is for Chlorine, so I can return the library books.

I also have a four day holiday from going into the office this week; Juneteenth on Thursday is a holiday, and of course Friday is my remote day, so that will be kind of nice, methinks, and very restful. And then that next week I am off to meet Dad in Alabama, and that will be nice. I’ve not seen Dad since February, so it’ll be nice to spend some time with him as well as reaffirm my deeply rooted connection to Alabama, which I continue to reexamine all the time. I’m also writing a short story set in Alabama, so the visit will help a lot.

I also need to make a to-do list, and get some other things figured out this weekend.

I imagine this blog is very often the very same thing almost every day, only worded differently (or so I hope): writing, reading, cleaning, errands. I did publish a new newsletter yesterday, about how I didn’t get the gay fashion gene, to go along with this one from earlier this week, about body image issues, including my own. Click on the links to read them, if you are so inclined. I am working on a few more for Pride Month that I want to get posted before July, after which it will most likely go back to reviewing art that interests me, and/or talking about writing and publishing, or things that influenced me. I also have some already finished, that are going to be posted in July. July is also going to be my “get back to work on your book” month, so hopefully this lengthy break in which I got healthy and rested, as well as strengthening my writing muscles, will pay dividends when I get back to it.

And on that note, I’m going to get cleaned up and make that to-do list, as well as start doing chores and working on that short story. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow. Have a lovely day, and if you’re out protesting, stay safe.

  1. See? Writing about rain again. ↩︎

A Horse with No Name

I wrote yesterday!!!

I know, right? It was only about a thousand words or so, but it was a thousand words or so more than I had when I got up yesterday morning! What a lovely Sunday it was, too. We were in another heat advisory (I have yet to check this morning to see if we’re in another one today; there’s nothing in my inbox, so that’s a good thing I suppose); and even inside with the air conditioning, I could tell it was miserable outside. I read some more of my current reads (Summerhouse, The Dark on the Other Side, Incident at Loring Groves), and did some cleaning around the house whilst also writing, which was amazing and felt even better. I also cleared up an issue with something else I am working on while I was in creative think mode, which is very awesome and cool.

I was reading Summerhouse, actually, which is setting itself up nicely for the next part of the book–I really like the voice; and was wondering if it was because the music of the words comes from the original Turkish, it’s this wonderful rhythm that just pulls you along–when I remembered the French Open Men’s final was yesterday morning, so I checked my phone to see who won–only to see that Carlos Alcaraz was up 5-4 and serving for the match! I immediately switched the television over to watch, and so got to see the thrilling end as Alcaraz was broken back to win in a tie-break that was very exciting.

LSU is going to the College World Series again, sweeping West Virginia in the super regionals. The game last night didn’t start until eight our time, because of rain delays, so I had to go to bed not knowing if there would be a third and deciding game tonight. They were up 6-4 when I went to bed (later than I should have because of the game, but I was also nervously doing some chores while it was on, so the house looked nicer this morning when I came down for breakfast) but they did end up winning 12-5, and made it back to Omaha again! Huzzah! And now on to the Jell-o Shot record set in 2023, which seems like more than two years ago, doesn’t it?

While we were waiting for the rain-delayed LSU game, we watched the Pee-Wee Herman documentary on MAX (or whatever the fuck they call it now), which was interesting and also sad (more on that later) and when we finished that, moved on to the Netflix adaptation of Jane Harper’s The Survivors, which is quite good. I’ve not read Jane Harper, but I know of her, and if this is any indication of how good her books are, I may have to give her a whirl. Just what I need, right, more to read? Sigh. But this triangular reading thing I am doing (a new novel, a reread, and a kids’ book simultaneously) seems to be working, as I am getting more reading done. (It’s also entirely possible it’s all in my mind, but…I don’t mind the occasional self-delusion…)

So, it was a good recovery weekend. I really enjoy being creative again, and getting some writing and reading and housekeeping done. I feel good for a Monday morning, and feel like this could be an amazing week for me, as long as I keep getting rest and moving forward. I need to make a new to-do list (I finished almost everything on the last one, even if it took a little longer than I’d hoped). I also started going through my recipe binder, throwing out things I’ll never make as well as duplicates; I was looking for Mom’s chicken-and-dumpling recipe, which is clearly now lost forever, which means going back to that recipe I tried the other day (and liked) and punching it up to be more like Mom’s–milk and flour, for one, to thicken the sauce–which isn’t a bad thing; Mom’s recipe was an adaptation of her mother’s, after all.

The Buc-ee’s in Pass Christian opened this weekend, too–I may have to take an expedition out there one morning on a weekend to check it out and get Paul one of their sandwiches; it would be nice to stop at a Buc-ees when I’m not on my way somewhere. Pass Christian is about an hour from New Orleans, so I could listen to an audiobook on my way over to check it out. (I always have big plans of exploring on the weekends, and then I never do anything about it…but going to Buc-ee’s, I could take highway 90 east and cross the Rigolets to Slidell, and I could take some pictures out that way, too…hmmm. I also need to cross the river and head down to the bayou parishes for something else I am writing…sure, it’s summer now here and I am recovering still, but like I said, my mind’s creative ADHD has been working overdrive lately.)

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back to check on you tomorrow morning, most likely.

We Are Family

I got all my sisters with me!

“We Are Family” is one of those songs from the disco era–the ones that still get played on oldies nights in queer bars and continues to live on. Obviously, it’s an iconic gay anthem–about our found families rather than the blood ones that so often want nothing to do with us–and it’s also really popular with sororities…at least it was back then. It’s a very joyful and uplifting song, lyrically, so it’s also fun to belt out at the top of your lungs. Disco was a really fun time for a gay boy in sparsely populated Kansas…it’s where my love of dancing really took off. The dance floor was, for many years, the only place where I felt free.

Yesterday was a decent day. We were very fortunate to not have any of that bad weather that was forecast, at least not here in the Lost Apartment. I’ve not checked on the storm toll throughout the rest of the South yet, primarily because I’ve not even finished my first cup of coffee yet. But I did see yesterday some horrific weather was happening throughout the South as the result of that storm cell yesterday, so I hope everyone got through it okay and is doing well this morning. Weather events are both terrible and terrifying. It’s kind of ironic that my current book I am writing is set during a weather event. But I feel rested this morning and I got up early (Sparky wasn’t quite as kind about letting me sleep later), and am about to start my second cup. I did okay yesterday. I was still mentally fatigued yesterday so wasn’t able to get a lot of creative work done, but managed some. I also did some chores and picked up around here, and walked to Walgreens in the morning to get butter, which I’d forgotten at the store on Friday (and I need a stick of butter for today’s dinner). Aside–Walgreens actually had stock. The one-two punch of Hurricane Ida and the pandemic dealt it a blow I didn’t think it was going to ever recover from; there were empty shelves everywhere, empty refrigeration cases, and you could never be sure they’d the one thing you needed–which happened more than once over the years since then. But I was very pleasantly surprised to see they had finally restocked, and they had things….not just the butter I needed but some other things I also needed and didn’t think they would have. NARRATOR VOICE: They did have those things, which was most pleasing to mine eyes.

This is delightful news–not quite “oh they opened a new Rouse’s in the CBD that’s actually on my way home” delightful, but it’s nice to know that I don’t have to get in the car to go get things necessarily anymore. I love when my life becomes more convenient.

I spent some more time with Moonraker yesterday, and it’s…something. There’s an unemotional distance in Fleming’s voice (he also uses the distant third person omniscient narrator style of writing, which I was trained so long ago not to use–I always use first or close third person, and it always surprises me when I read a legendary author’s work to find they use it), and there’s no sentimentality to it, either. The casual misogyny of the time is an eyeful, as well as the way Bond (and by extension, the secret service and the culture/society as whole) doesn’t really view women as people, but rather as almost ignorant children who need the guiding of a man). It’s also a good reminder that the Bond novels weren’t as over-the-top and tongue-in-cheek as the films1. The original novels definitely have a completely different feel from the movies, that is for damned sure. Fleming died around the time the first film was being made, so he never saw what Hollywood did to his characters and stories. I suspect he wouldn’t have cared much for them; the books are very cold. But it’s interesting to revisit it, and the similarities/prescience of Hugo Drax to Elmo Dusk are definitely eerie and make the book more compelling to read than it would have been a year ago.

Three out of four of the Lefty Awards last night went to friends–James L’etoile won Best Novel; Rob Osler won Best Humorous; and John Copenhaver won Best Historical–and two were openly queer writers writing about openly queer characters! Woo-hoo! The times, they are a-changing! There were also a number of other friends also nominated, so shout out to one and all the nominees and winners! Huzzah!

We did finish watching Running Point, which was a lot of fun and we greatly enjoyed it. We then watched the first three episodes of Adolescence on Netflix, which is disturbingly real. It opens with a 13 year old boy being arrested for the murder of a classmate, and the child is very definitely disturbed. We’ll finish that today probably, but I also have a lot of writing to do. We’ll see how everything goes.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, all, and I’ll be back at some point.

  1. Ayn Rand, in writing about “heroes” in film and novels, wrote about the early Bond films in an essay about art. I remember how much she loved Dr. No–really one of the only Bonds to be done as a serious film–and how much she hated Goldfinger. ↩︎

Hold the Line

Ash Wednesday and the city is somber. We did have that horrible weather that was predicted, that messed with the parade schedule, but we stayed inside and rested and relaxed. I mean, that was a hell of a storm last night, and the wind was wild too. We even had a tornado warning! But we made it through it all, all that rain and wind made for a good night of sleep (and super-easy to fall asleep, too), and I feel pretty good this morning. I don’t feel like I am still sick, but I am also barely awake and my body hasn’t completely clocked in yet, either. Will there be a ticklish throat and a post-nasal drip this morning, or is that finally a thing of the past? Ah, there it is. I knew it was just a matter of time. Back to the DayQuil bottle. Sigh. Not feeling well over the past week or so certainly hasn’t helped matters much, has it? But we must endure and persevere, mustn’t we? And we can’t let the outside world burning to the ground interrupt our lives, no matter how pointless it all can seem from time to time. Staying positive isn’t easy when the forces of evil and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Trump, Musk, RFK Jr, and Putin) burn the world to the ground around us. But positivity in the face of evil is important. It is far too easy to give into despair in times like these.

It’s incredibly hard to get motivated to do anything, really, when reality becomes the latest uncertainty and you never know what you are going to wake up to. I’ve given into it a lot more than I should–the greatest trick about depression is it fools you into not realizing that’s what’s going on until it’s over. I fucking hate that, and it happens to me a lot more than I am even aware of, which is frightening. (My biggest self-delusion is that I am intensely self-aware; when the reality is I am intensely self-critical. They are NOT the same thing.) Depression always goes hand-in-glove with not writing for me; that’s why I never say I have writer’s block–because it’s actually depression. (I do not speak for all writers on this; this is how it works on/for me. But it’s also easier to say “writer’s block” than admit to “depression”–which turns it into a creative issue non-writers don’t understand or can experience, rather than a mental one everyone can relate to. Stigma about depression, I guess.) Not writing also makes me depressed, so it’s a very vicious cycle. It’s either “I can’t write so I get depressed so I get even more depressed” or “I’m too depressed to write which will make me more depressed” and I’m never aware of the cycle until it’s over or almost over–and why I always tell myself to write some fiction every day, even if it’s very little or even if it’s garbage; garbage can always be fixed, and even writing a few hundred words is an accomplishment, not matter how small it seems to my fevered, depressed mind.

I do sometimes wonder why people like me want to be writers, since we often create our own hells.

But I did work on my short story yesterday and it’s really taking shape. I started revising the words I already had written, so there was a lot of deletion, so I cannot even tell you how many words I actually did write yesterday, but the opening of the story is now shorter and also better, more involving, and works better. I am looking forward to working on it some more tonight. The mood and voice are coming together, and so is the setting–and my main character. I am excited, and want to get back to work on it again tonight when i get home from work. I also want to do some work on the book, which is falling behind again. I also have some emails to answer, bills to pay, finances to get under control, and numerous other things that I need to do–so yes, I am making a to-do list once I finish this and post it–and separate ones for personal and day job.

I also read some more of The Bell in the Fog, which I am loving, and we started watching The Madness on Netflix–more on both to come relatively soon.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Ash Wednesday, everyone, and I will talk to you relatively soon, I am sure.

The Devil Went Down to Georgia

God, how I hate that fucking song. Maybe it was okay the first two or three hundred times I heard it, but now? It sets my teeth on edge and I kind of root for the devil now.

Sparky got me up early this morning, which is fine. I feel a little tired and sore from standing out on the parade route for a couple of hours yesterday (three or so, to be exact) for the Iris parade. Iris is my favorite of all the parades, and always has been. I fell in love with the ladies of Iris that first time I came here for Carnival back in 1995, and that has never changed. It was a beautiful day for parades, too. It was sunny, not a cloud in the sky, and the temperature hovering the mid 70s. I also forget how much fun the parades are from year to year. It is fun out there. Everyone is in a good, festive mood; everyone is friendly; and you meet lots of people out there on the route. The parades always create this incredible feeling of community that’s kind of hard to describe. No one is completely wasted, everyone is just buzzed and vibing and having fun. We got buried in beads like we always do at Iris, and then we came inside and skipped Tucks. My legs feel fatigued this morning, so I don’t know if I’ll be going out today (there are four: Okeanos, Mid-city, Thoth, and Bacchus. Bacchus and Thoth are extremely popular, so it will be madness down at the corner too. I may wander out there, I may not, it depends on how I feel. I took tomorrow off so as not to have to deal with traffic and parking (I’d have to leave the office at two anyway, at the very least), and we’ll be going out for Orpheus tomorrow night. Today I really need to be more active–I need to clean and I need to write and I need to get my act together.

A running theme on this blog, methinks. Some things never change.

I did get a chance to speak to my sister yesterday as well, and found out that I was correct–we had both had the measles when we were kids (“freedom freckles,” as someone said on Threads yesterday), which confers immunity so I don’t need to get a booster. I thought we had, but wasn’t sure. (She currently has shingles, despite the vaccine, but it’s a much milder case than had she not.) We had the mumps and the measles at the same time (and I just realized how terrified our parents must have been back then, since measles could kill or do even worse damage; I can’t even fathom 1/10th of how much worry they had when we were small kids), and chicken pox by itself at a later date (hence immunity from all poxes). I also remember getting the polio vaccine and rubella; I remember lining up in second grade to get them. So, fuck you, anti-vaxxers, your kids aren’t going to give me anything that could potentially kill me. Can’t say the same for your kids, though. The recent rubella outbreak in Texas? Hey anti-vaxxer trash: why don’t you go ahead and google what happens when a pregnant woman gets rubella, you fucking self-absorbed bitches? Isn’t it bad enough that you’re entire thesis is “I’d rather have a dead child than an autistic one”? All those tombstones for children in those old Alabama cemeteries…interesting how few recent graves there are for children. So, just go ahead and miss me with your Dr. Google research on vaccines, trash. If you want your kids to die, have at it. But why should other people’s children have to die to satisfy your egocentric narcissism?

And miss me with your “pro-life” stance and your Christianity. Suffer the little children wasn’t a directive.

Honestly.

We got caught up on our shows last night, and started watching this new Robert De Niro show on Netflix called Zero Day. It was entertaining enough and has an incredible cast–Joan Allen, Angela Bassett, Connie Britton, De Niro himself–and the writing seems pretty top notch. It’s a political thriller about the aftermath of a massive cyber attack on the United States, and De Niro is a retired president (Bassett is the current), asked to head up a new agency to find out who did it and how to stop them from doing it again. It’s not an action show–De Niro isn’t getting into fistfights and gun battles with bad guys–but more cerebral with twists and turns. (Seriously, the fistfights and gun battles all start to seem the same after awhile, and some of the shows–The Recruit, The Night Agent, Prime Target–also start running together, too. Reacher remains fantastic, though.) Political thrillers are kind of hard to watch now for me–the insanity running the country currently kind of makes them quaint in a way–but here we are, you know? I also saw that Fletcher Knebel’s old thriller about an insane president–Night of Camp David–is making the rounds again (I read it the first time around with this bullshit), but not even Knebel, who wrote a lot of political thrillers, could have imagined a United States where a political party would rally around a sociopathic narcissist, with the media working hand in glove with them to present this as normal and sane. Not even John LeCarré or Robert Ludlum could have come up with this kind of story. (Stephen King foresaw it also with The Dead Zone–a book that I don’t think gets enough appreciation for its brilliance– but even he couldn’t see it winning in the end.)

We’ve taken our country for granted for so long that none of us could ever believe it could come to an end…kind of like the Trojans and the Carthaginians and Rome itself. Everything ends. I had hoped it would last until I no longer had to worry about it, but I guess I lived longer than I should have.

And on that grim note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will talk to you later.

Little Things

Thirty-three degrees in New Orleans this morning, and it’s very cold here at my desk. I slept deeply and well, forgot to set the alarm last night, but woke up on time anyway–and it felt much better getting up this morning, too. I don’t feel groggy. It was also so cold last night (we had the heat on, but still) that Sparky actually slept in the bed last night, down around my feet! (Paul said after I left for work yesterday morning Sparky got into bed with him and cuddled for a while, too–we may wind up with a cuddle kitty after all!) Yesterday was exhausting at work, in all honesty. We were busy, and I was trying to get caught up on some of my Admin work around the clients, and my ass was dragging by the time I got home from work. We did finish watching Missing You, Harlan Coben’s new show on Netflix, and we enjoyed it. It’s always so nice when really lovely people find a great deal of success, isn’t it? But today is my last morning the office this week, and I look forward to my remote day and my weekend, huzzah! I’m also going to try to make it to the gym tomorrow and Sunday for my two days this week, and I think that’s something that is helping me sleep better.

These wildfires in Los Angeles are terrifying, aren’t they? I have so many friends who live in LA, and of course the last thing any of them need right now is me checking on them to see if they’re okay or out of harm’s way; I remember how awful it was when the mountains around Fresno would catch fire in the summer time. I got up one morning to go to work and it was so hazy from the smoke that the sun was red and it looked like there had been some kind of apocalypse overnight; there were no signs of life, either, and I didn’t see another car until I drove out of the neighborhood, which was creepy as all hell. I’m not sure what the solution to the California wildfire problem might be, but I know it doesn’t involve “turning on a giant faucet up in Canada.” (Jesus, how did this cretinous moron get elected? Oh yes, systemic racism and misogyny–that always works in this shithole country.) It’s always so awkward when friends are going through something horrific like this; I care, obviously, but dealing with well-meaning, concerned friends somewhere else while you’re in crisis–well, they aren’t a priority nor should they be. I never want to be one of those odious chores for someone in crisis, you know? Maybe I overthink it, which I suspect I do a lot more than is completely necessary–which is part of the whole “I never really know what to do when someone I care about is going through something awful.”

That’s where thoughts and prayers comes from, I suppose; the frustration of feeling helpless in the face of something other people are going through. It’s horrible, I know, having felt it myself on more than one occasion–an abbreviation of “thinking about you and sending you good thoughts”–but it’s constant invocation around the latest school shooting massacre (can we start calling them school massacres rather than school shootings, which softens it somewhat? “Shooting” after all, can also mean woundings, but it’s a goddamned massacre AND a terrorist attack, I might add.

And of course, the morons who hate California are out in droves, laughing at this and mocking Californians. What’s especially egregious are the people from Lousi-fucking-ana doing this and being smug about not having wildfires here “because we don’t hug trees down here” and “you get what you vote for”. Can you believe anyone from a state that is in the path of hurricanes and tropical storms every year, and floods on a regular basis without storm surge and hurricanes, would be fucking smug about us not having wildfires? Yet another example of the sorry state of Louisiana education. MAGA cultists really are the absolute worst people to ever live. I wonder what it’s like inside their brains? I always wonder how the cognitive dissonance necessary to keep them from going insane is even possible. I question myself all the time; and try to keep an open mind, so I can adapt and change my values, morals and beliefs based on new information. I can’t imagine freezing my brain in amber and defiantly refusing to learn and grow.

Although–preserving my brain in amber could give way to Jurassic Greg…

Better not, for the sake of humanity.

Okay, on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a marvelous day, Constant Reader, and I will check in either later or tomorrow. Stay warm and stay safe!

Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough

Tuesday and here we are moving on into the dead zone of the week. Sigh. It’s okay, I just have to reacclimate to normal four-day-in-the-office weeks again, and I’d forgotten (that short term memory loss cropping up again) how long a week can seem on a Tuesday morning–stretching out endlessly into the future. It’s also very cold in my kitchen this morning; yikes indeed. The heater does an excellent job in every part of the house, except for the kitchen/laundry room and the upstairs bathroom are a bit (much) colder than the other rooms. Currently 33 outside, which is going to be extremely fun to run out to the car in. Layers again today; the high is only in the forties. At least we’re not dealing with the extremes and all the snow that everyone else has to; no shoveling snow or scraping ice off the windshield for one Gregalicious; which is why I won’t live north of I-10 anymore.

Yesterday was a pretty good day, despite the frigid cold (warmer than this morning, though!). I got up, went to the office, worked, ran some errands on the way home, and once I was here, settled in. We started watching the new Harlan Coben show on Netflix, Missing You, and we’re enjoying it so far. I didn’t write anything yesterday, but did do some more work on the book (not much) before mental fatigue set in. We’re going to be busy at the office today, too–but tonight I get to come straight home, which is awesome. Hopefully I’ll be able to do more work tonight when I get home. But cold weather makes me want to do nothing more than curl up under a blanket with a book. But today I have to push through the lazy need for warmth and comfort and get some work done. (Apparently tonight is a “freeze watch,” so we’ll have to leave the taps slightly on tonight when we go to bed; and since the high will only be in the low forties, it will be unpleasant getting home, too. One of my top priorities today is to make a to-do list–a thorough one–so I can make sure I get everything done that I need to be getting done. I’ve really fallen off on my organizing, and I need to get back on top of everything. I have to do some things to send back to my publisher so they can start designing the new cover, which is always very fun and exciting to do. I need to clean out my email inbox, and I need to stop avoiding things I don’t want to deal with. This was always a problem when I was younger, and I’ve kind of slid back into those habits again over the last two years. Meh, I’ll deal with this tomorrow is rarely, if ever, the right answer.

Bad Greg, bad Greg!

Get it over and done with is the proper reaction to unpleasant things I have to do.

More time never makes anything awful more palatable.

But I feel more rested today than I did yesterday. My shoulder is tight and sore this morning, but I just need to do some stretching when I get home tonight and that’ll feel better. My next trip to the gym will either be tomorrow night or Thursday (tomorrow more likely; then I can go on Friday and again on Sunday), and I am getting a bit excited about getting into better physical condition, while also bearing in mind that I will never get back into the shape I was in my forties (when I peaked)–and not really sure that’s something I would want, anyway. I just want to lose some weight and get more toned and firm. Everything currently is sagging, and there’s really no need for that, is there? My ego and vanity no longer care about how I look to other people; I’ve always been a much tougher judge and critic of myself than anyone else–and I am definitely trying to be a lot kinder to myself. Despair is pointless and defeating, albeit very easy to collapse into. The removal of stress and anxiety has been marvelous, but the depression/despair genes aren’t as easily impacted by the new meds as the stress and anxiety–but that is something I can live with. I still have a lot of things to get worked out personally, but I am much healthier mentally than I have ever been in my life, I think, and some of that comes from the long, hard look I’ve taken at my life and career and other people, and my decision to not put up with anything from anyone ever again.

One thing that is really funny hit me yesterday, which was when I also realized how my “don’t want to deal with this now” bit me in the ass, kind of. I had gotten a letter from my bank between Christmas and New Year’s, and figuring it was probably a notice about new fees or higher interest rates on my credit card, I just tossed it into my inbox with a I’ll look at it later. Yesterday I was trying to order something from a website that had my debit card saved there as the form of payment, and was shocked to see my debit card had expired on 12/31/24. Goddamn it, I thought, irritated, I’m going to have to call them to get them to send me a new one. But as I sat in my easy chair last night, Sparky purring in my lap, it hit me–didn’t you get a letter from the bank you didn’t want to deal with? So, I put Sparky up on my shoulders (he loves it up there) and went into the kitchen, found the letter, and sure enough, I could feel there was a card inside–and sure enough, it was my new debit card.

This is why you should always deal with things right away.

Point taken, universe.

And on that note, I am going to bundle up and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and by all means, STAY WARM!

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