Tag: Netflix

Baby I’m Burnin’

Monday and a lovely vacation day, which meant not getting up at six and dragging for the earlier portion of my day. Instead, I stayed in bed until nine again–a streak that’s been going for several days now–and I suspect tomorrow morning’s alarm is going to be an incredibly rude return to reality. But I only have to get up early two days this week, and I only have one work-at-home day on Thursday because I decided to take the splurge and take my birthday off as well. Next week I only have to work two days before the Bouchercon vacation week kicks in, and then I don’t have to return to work until the following Tuesday.

I am rather glad I decided to keep that vacation week, in all honesty.

I am doing an event this evening on Zoom for the Anne Arundel County library; it’s a Sisters in Crime Chesapeake Chapter panel on writing diversity, or diversity in your writing, or something like that. It seems like it will be a great and interesting time–I’ve been wrong before, but I have no worries on that score here–and if you have any interest in watching/listening, you can register here. They are obviously cutting off registration at the starting time of 7pm EDT. Join us! It’s an interesting group: Cathy Wiley, Sherry Harris, Cheryl Head, Paula Mays and Kristopher Zgorski–me, too, of course. I am looking forward to it.

I finished watching Loki last night, which was great fun–cannot wait for the second season–although I do wish they’d allow Tom Hiddleston to let him use his real hair and get rid of the wig. That long dark wig detracts from how pretty he is–at least in my opinion–and he has such gorgeous eyes. But I am digressing, and I do think it was a great fun show–very clever and interesting–with a great season-ending cliffhanger it will be interesting to see them write their way out of, in all honesty; I always am interested in major cliffhangers from a writer’s point of view; I always like to see how they write their way out of the corner they’ve painted themselves into. We then watched the most recent Titans episode, and then binged our way through the latest Harlan Coben Netflix show, Gone for Good, which was chock full of twists and turns and surprises–and the main story, as is often the case with Harlan’s work, isn’t what it appears to be in the very beginning, or even through the first episode or two. It was. French production, which meant listening in French and reading the English subtitles; it’s hard for me to imagine that there was a time when I wouldn’t watch shows because they were in foreign languages and subtitled. Ah well, we do continue to learn as we get older.

I didn’t get as much done yesterday as I would have liked; I did finish a revision of “The Sound of Snow Falling,” but not much beyond that–other than some note-taking in my journal, as well as going through the last four or five of them and marking the pages containing notes on the Kansas book AND Chlorine; today I have errands to run, and I do have to go to the gym at some point, but I plan on getting the kitchen finished (ZOOM tonight, after all) and those notes on the Kansas Book typed up; the final revision of that book has to get started this week so I can buckle down next week whilst on vacation and get it completely redone the way it needs to be redone, so its readable. I am looking forward to this challenge, if not the actual work that has to be done.

So, was this long weekend a waste for me? Old Gregalicious would certainly think so; Chapter Four of Chlorine remains unwritten; just as the notes for the revision of #shedeservedit remain scribbles on several sheets of notebook paper and three boxes still repose under my desk. I haven’t gone anywhere near the attic to try to prune down the boxes up there; and I have yet to clean out the vacuum cleaner and run it over the floors of the downstairs. But I feel rested, relaxed, and remarkably stress-free; perhaps the bromide be kinder to yourself is actually working its magic on my psyche and my soul and my fevered brain.

Or I’ve simply gotten too old to care about that stuff anymore. It could be either, really.

My errands should be relatively simple and easy to get through (the post office, the bank, groceries, gas for the car) and then of course I need to walk to the gym in the middle of the heat-soaked humidity-laden afternoon. And of course then it’s time to get some stuff done around the house and maybe do some writing and reading before getting ready for tonight’s event. I am over half-way finished with The Other Black Girl, and it’s pretty amazing, really–more on it, of course, when I am ready to discuss the book on its completion. I think the next book I’m going to read is either Yes Daddy or A Beautiful Crime; it’s fun to be reading gay books again, and maybe I should stop shying away from them. I really don’t care anymore if people think I’m jealous of other people’s careers–I’m not, and I can’t control what other people think of me even if I was, and I’ve long since stopped caring what other people think of me at any rate; just as they can’t control what I think about anything or anyone.

So, I probably should get a-move on for this morning. I generally run errands around noon; which gives me about an hour of email answering and cleaning up to do around here before i leave the house. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader!

I Wanna Be Your Lover

Thursday and working at home.

New Orleans Bouchercon was canceled (well, postponed until 2025, at least) yesterday; it was inevitable, I suppose, but it was still a let down. I kind of feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the field goal with Lucy holding the football–so so close–but it was the right decision, if a difficult one. As someone who has worked on more than his fair share of events, I am very well aware of how hard it is to keep all the plates spinning and how much work it is and even as someone who occasionally derives a perverted, sick sense of pleasure from organizing events from time to time…canceling an event is always a hard call, always heartbreaking, and always an enormous disappointment. Watching all that work circle the drain is overwhelming…as I well know. I watched it happen with the Tennessee Williams Festival and the Edgars in 2020; for 2021 both were planned as virtual from the very beginning–which wasn’t the same, but was still lovely. I have also decided to keep the requested time off–it’s not quite a week, one day short, really–yet I think it will be absolutely lovely to have that time to get things done, get caught up, read, clean and rest and relax, really.

I was exhausted last night when I got home from the office–although I was able to pick up my copies of Megan Abbott’s The Turnout and Stephen King’s Billy Summers on my way home. (God, I am so far behind on my King reading it’s not even funny; like I said the other day, I may have to simply devote October to trying to catch up on King) We finished watching the second season of Outer Banks, which continued its bonkers ways right up to the very end, setting up season three–which I can only assume will be even more bonkers than the first two–and it really is quite fun. (Although Paul periodically would say, at a particularly bonkers part, they’re just high school students!) But…it’s because the show is so completely bonkers that makes it fun; it’s like a teen version of Dirk Pitt or Indiana Jones; that sort of thing. Just great fun to watch and experience.

Although now we have binged through the entire thing and will have to wait another year for season three… DAMN IT!

Today I am working from home (hello condom packs!) and so got to sleep a little later this morning. Emotionally and physically I feel a bit drained; the rollercoaster of the Bouchercon stuff all over social media and the eventually cancellation absolutely wore me out. It’s weird to realize that it’s actually August already, and the last days of my fifties are slipping through my fingers like quicksilver. Today is the 5th, I believe; which means two weeks from tomorrow is the BIG DAY. I am not overly concerned–although it may seem that way, given how often I bring it up–about turning sixty; the real truth here is that I am more amazed than anything else. I certainly never thought I’d make it this far (and to be fair, there’s still a chance I won’t make it to sixty); when I was a kid I was certain I would die young–and even knew how; I had a recurring nightmare that I would die in a car accident, which is why I loathe driving, try to avoid getting into cars as much as possible, and am always terrified when I am the passenger and someone else is driving. I’ve taught myself coping mechanisms over the years to deal with being in cars (whether driving or riding), amongst which are listening to music I like (the last big drive I took I discovered that books on tape work just as well), and when I am a passenger I very definitely have trained myself not to watch the road or other cars, but to look mostly out the passenger window–and if there are people in the back seat, I always turn and face them when I talk to them. I know it’s irrational–and for fuck’s sake, I’ve made it this far without being killed in a car accident, haven’t I–but it’s one of those weird quirks I have.

There’s also a part of me that thinks that if i ever get over that fear–that’s when it will happen.

It’s probably also why I write so many car accidents into my work.

I am pretty strange, aren’t I? I know I find myself to be fascinating, with all of my weird little quirks and beliefs and fears and superstitions. Stephen King writes about his fears and obsessions and quirks–became a best seller and an icon in the process–so maybe I should have begun my career exploring my fears and obsessions and quirks. I don’t know, sometimes I sit and think about how I probably could have done my career differently, but in all honesty, I am pretty pleased with where I am with it right now. Sure, more money and more acclaim would have been lovely to experience, but those are all surface things; side-effects, really; I’m pretty happy to be able to just write what I want to write and not ever worry about those sorts of things. I’ve seen other writers literally make themselves unhinged worrying about their “legacies” or the lack of success they think they deserve; being gay and writing gay, I guess, eliminated that concern for me, as I knew it was highly unlikely that I would ever achieve either. Sometimes I wonder if holding on to all my papers–correspondences, drafts both corrected and uncorrected–is a vestige of vanity; the whole I need to preserve my papers and find a place to donate them to mentality is one of those things that, when I stop to think about it further and in more depth, turns into what the fuck do I care? No one is going to study my little career in the future anyway.

On the other hand, as was pointed out to me once, my papers and books document gay life in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina and after; and could prove to be a valuable source of material for future queer scholars studying the gay history of New Orleans. Would simply destroying my papers rather than donating and archiving them be a loss of source material, just as I wonder about all the source material about queer lives in the past being destroyed and not surviving?

And then I laugh at myself for taking me and my career so ridiculously seriously.

After all, thanks to ebooks, my books will live on forever. Are my personal papers really that valuable to any future scholar? Probably not.

And on that note, my condom packs are calling me. Check in with you tomorrow, Constant Reader.

Tell It To My Heart

Monday morning, and I am not so certain that my weekend was nearly as productive as it needed to be. Sure, I finished going over the line/copy edits of Bury Me in Shadows, and I did manage to get caught up on some other things, but as always, as I Monday morning quarterback my weekend over my first cup of coffee–I find myself thinking I should have gotten more done, should have spent more time with some things, and am trying not to allow the inevitable desire to get down on myself take deeper hold. Part of my goals for this year is to be easier on myself, and beating myself up over not being as productive as I would like to be–which is often unattainable for even the most Type A facet of one Gregalicious–is definitely not the road or path I need to be taking this Monday morning. This is my last full week of this month–after this week is completed, next weekend (the one after this coming one) is when we have our lovely four day long weekend where the agency is closing (but still paying us), and then after that week will be Bouchercon here in New Orleans–although very little is left of what was going to be my first in-person event with my mystery peeps since I went to New York for the annual board meeting for Mystery Writers of America in January of 2020(!). People are canceling and I can’t blame them for not wanting to come to a hot spot of COVID variant strains.

This coming weekend is earmarked for the revisions/edits/clean up of #shedeservedit, which will be so lovely to finally be almost completely finished with. I wrote the first draft in July of 2015; ninety-seven thousand words in thirty-one days, and now it’s going to finally see print. It is (the town, the characters) been in progress of some sort or another since I was in high school, really, and…when it finally comes out, it’s kind of the end of an era for me. Oh, I’ll probably write more about that county and town; that region in general, for that matter–but along with Sara, it finally closes the publication door on the things I’ve been working on or thinking about for the last forty years or more.

And when you put it that way….

And here it is Monday evening already. I never finished writing this before leaving for the office this morning; I didn’t sleep well and of all mornings that needed cappuccinos, it was clearly this one, and yet I was too tired to get everything out and make one, so I just had regular coffee instead. Not ideal, perhaps, but I managed to make it through the day somehow. I even picked up the mail and made groceries on the way home, how’s about that? Shocking, I know–but I am probably going to pour myself into bed relatively early tonight. Tomorrow is a big “after work” day; I am switching to doing legs as my second workout of the week. Not a real leg day, mind you–just a focused workout with my legs with a few intense and difficult exercises.

I also finished the third chapter of Chlorine yesterday; taking it from the 1300 I had to a robust 3500 or so. Is it probably a sloppy sloppy mess? Probably. But it was also kind of fun to write once the hole in the page opened and I fell into it. This is enormously pleasing to me still–I am not as pleased as I was last night, to be clear, but am still pretty darned pleased–and when I finish writing this, I am probably going to go over to my easy chair and reread what I wrote yesterday, and probably will spend some time with The Other Black Girl, which I am also really enjoying.

And of course, we spent some time last night with the great cheesy fun that is Outer Banks’ second season. I love that they aren’t reeling any of it in this season, either; batshit nuts and over the top and WAY WAY fun.

You know, everything I love in a television show.

Man, I am tired. We had a weird day today; my program coordinator is on vacation so everything was silence back in the cubicle area, and I had no one to talk to all day. We also had a lot of clients no-show or cancel today–not sure if that was COVID-surge-related, or the thunderstorm (it’s been raining all day), or just the first Monday in a new month blues or something, I don’t know. But I would have rather had clients–I’d rather be busy than sitting at my desk twiddling my thumbs waiting for something, anything, to do (I have other things to do, but it’s all tedious make-work sort of stuff, like printing forms, stocking rooms, and so forth–and yes, I did all that but it’s tedious; I’d rather be interacting with clients and getting them tested).

Ah, well, at least I have a job that I love doing and don’t mind getting out of bed for. It’s one of the many blessings I’ve been gifted with in this life–a great day job that I enjoy and where I feel like I’m accomplishing something every day I go into the office. A lot of people don’t even have that, so…would it be great if my salary were twice its size? Of course, but if that increase were to come with a decrease in working with clients face to face on risk reduction strategies for STI infections and testing them for same (as well as connecting them to treatment) I don’t know that I would take it, frankly.

And now, without further ado, I am going to read for a bit before Paul gets home. Have a lovely Monday evening, Constant Reader!

Heart to Break

The first Sunday in August. I think we’re in the midst of yet another excessive heat warning today–I’d swear I’d heard that last night on a newsbreak during the Olympics, but haven’t bothered to check yet again this morning. I slept in yet again–again–and am only now getting to my morning coffee, which tastes marvelous. Yesterday wound up being one of those days; the ones where I get very little done and just kind of gave in to the mental and physical exhaustion, turning it into essentially a “rest and recover” day. Finishing Shawn’s book had a lot to do with it; I kind of just sat around for a couple of hours, thinking about it and figuring out what I wanted to say about it when I sat down to write my blog piece about it. I’m still thinking about the book a bit this morning, to be honest; it’s really thought-provoking and very well done. I also spent some time reading the first few chapters of The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris, which is also quite remarkable–definitely off to a good start, and made me feel much better about selecting it as my next read after finishing Shawn’s–and I think I’m going to have a lot of really great reading ahead of me, which is, as always, incredibly exciting. There’s also a new Stephen King and a new Megan Abbott dropping this week, too–life simply doesn’t get better than that, methinks.

All I know is yesterday I overslept, read for a while, wrote a second blog entry and before I knew it was already after four–shocking, to say the least–with the end result that yesterday wound up being an off-day, and you know what else? I think I must have needed an off-day, which is the only proper response. I am trying not to beat myself up over having a lot to do and yet still taking a day off–because most people get to occasionally take a day off, and it’s not the end of the world when and if I myself chose to take one. Today I have things to do to get caught up on, of course–my email inbox is completely out of control, as always, and the Lost Apartment could stand another cleaning, and there’s always writing to do, and I also have to go to the gym this afternoon–but all of those things will inevitably get done, as they always inevitably do. I shall have to consult the to-do list, of course; and perhaps make another one with additional things, like I want to get my various state “bibles” made eventually, starting with Alabama (in this instance, a ‘bible’ means recording names, places, geography, etc. so it’s all in one place and easily consulted when writing something new set there; I want to do one for Alabama, Louisiana, Kansas, and California, as well as one for both the Chanse and Scotty series; it’s way overdue in each instance, which is why there are so many continuity errors–but mostly in the state stories more than anything else). I guess this is what one calls “world-building”? All of my books are inevitably, in some roundabout way, connected; even the main character in Chlorine is from Kahola County (he’s from the tiny, population 63, town of Furlong, a whistle stop on the Missouri Pacific railroad line) and thus it is connected with the others, too. (I really need to finish Chapter Three today if it kills me; it’s a transitional chapter and as we know, I always have trouble with transitional chapters). I also need to type up my notes from my editorial call as a guideline to the final polish on #shedeservedit; which I need to focus on this month–which will not be easy to do with an unfinished Chapter 3 hanging over my head, you know?

But I think I am going to try to keep the burner on beneath Chlorine; it’s just on a slow cook rather than being brought to a boil at the moment. It would be great to be able to get these revisions done and then be able to get the first draft of Chlorine finished this month as well; almost too much to hope for, really. I also need to get some other things further under control, and much as I would like to take yet another day off from everything and just spend the day reading, I don’t think that’s either wise or in the cards. I am going to try to get this finished, spend an hour with The Other Black Girl, and then get to work on other things that need to be worked on before heading to the gym. I generally am exhausted when I get home from the gym–inevitable, particularly with us in a excess heat warning–and while drinking my protein shake I’ll probably spend some more time with The Other Black Girl. This is the last full week of work I have for a while; the following two weeks we are being given a long holiday type weekend with the agency closing on the 13th and the 16th; and then the following week after that second short week Im on vacation for most of it because of Bouchercon–and no matter what happens (or doesn’t, for that matter) with Bouchercon I am still going to take that time off, and then it’s Labor Day, and you know…it’s August, and August, from all indicators, is going to be miserably hot this year anyway, so I need to take what I can get from all of this.

And once the Olympics are over, and our moratorium on watching outside television ends, we are going to have a lot to watch–Ted Lasso, Outer Banks, and several others as well, which is quite interesting and exciting, methinks.

I also saw a wonderful looking Spanish series, set in the 1720’s, on Netflix that looks like it could be quite entertaining, The Cook of Castamar–and you know Paul and I are crazy about some Spanish language shows.

I am also kind of pleased to have Bury Me in Shadows all finished except for the proofing. That’s always a lovely feeling, really.

So–let’s tally everything, shall we? I am in the midst of writing a new novel, the midst of revisions of another, and planning yet a third; I am pulling together a short story collection AND an essay collection; and a collection of novellas. That’s six books right there that are in some sort of progress for me; and of course I am also co-editing the Bouchercon anthology for Minneapolis. So, seven books in some sort of progress–no wonder I am so fucking scattered and on edge all the time, always certain I am forgetting something!

And on that note, I should probably get another cup of coffee and take a look around and see what I need to get to first–after an hour of reading the Harris novel, of course.

Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader!

I Am What I Am

Saturday!!

My GOD, it was hot yesterday. I walked to the gym after work and by the time I got there was drenched in sweat and felt exhausted. I wound up cutting my workout short–I didn’t have the energy to make it through the whole workout; just the partial I was so tired and sweaty and hot that the walk home was absolute misery. I’m glad I went; I just wish the heat hadn’t been so damned extreme. The heat and humidity just suck your energy right out of your body sometimes–and it absolutely felt like 115 degrees as I walked. The ground felt hot, even when I cut through Coliseum Square. Yesterday morning it was cool in the house but I could tell it was hot outside, and as the day passed I had to turn on the ceiling fans and at one point considered getting out the portable air conditioners–but finally decided I was being ridiculous on that score and left them alone. I took a long hot shower once I got home and had my protein shake, and just then luxuriated in that clean, not hot and not sweaty (or that sticky feeling when sweat has dried on your skin–yuck) feeling the shower left me feeling rejuvenated and relaxed. I sat down and read through the edits on the next two parts of Bury Me in Shadows–there’s only one small 30 page section left to get through–and I am feeling content with the book. It’s good work. I like my main character and his instabilities; the weird mystery of what is going on there at the old Donelson place in the country is interesting and intriguing, and it’s also kind of nice to see that some of the points I wanted to make worked and didn’t sound overly preachy (which worried me).

So, yay! I feel much better about the book now, and am kind of interested in getting back to #shedeservedit this weekend. I think I am going to probably do some filing when I am finished here–it never hurts to get better organized–and spend some time with Shawn’s Razorblade Tears this morning, and then do some writing on Chlorine and possibly, just possibly, start rereading #shedeservedit–but I also need to type up the notes from our call the other day.

Huzzah!

I overslept again this morning, but fully intended to when I went to bed last night so I don’t feel any guilt this morning about being a lag-a-bed until nine. I do have things to do today but right now I am enjoying feeling rested and my coffee tastes remarkably delicious this morning. I am feeling good–particularly about not having to go outside today as we move into yet another excessive heat warning day. Paul is working out with his trainer this morning (later this morning, I should clarify) and then will probably head to the office, so I have the Lost Apartment to myself for most of the day–so i should be able to finish reading Shawn’s book, get some writing and cleaning and so forth taken care of, before heading back into the Olympics tonight. The second season of Outer Banks also dropped on Netflix yesterday, which is terribly exciting; Paul and i had kind of made up our minds to not watch anything other than the Olympics until they were over, so we’d have a vast variety of things to watch for the rest of the month of August…but damn me, if Outer Banks isn’t tempting. (Paul even mentioned it was dropping yesterday last night as we watched the swimming –Caeleb Dressel is incredibly pretty)

I was also, of all things (because I don’t have enough writing to do on my plate already) about my next Scotty book, Mississippi River Mischief–this was a direct result of finishing going over the copy edits/line edits of Bury Me in Shadows, I should add–and how complicated that story is going to be; I think maybe part of the reason I’ve been avoiding it for so long is because I know how hard plotting that story is going to be; I left the Boys in an incredible personal dilemma or two that needs to be resolved, and I don’t really know how to resolve those issues quite yet. I know what the case is going to be, and it, too, is going to be complex and difficult to plot out and make work. Don’t get me wrong–I know I can do it, but that’s when the lazies kick in.

And on that note, I am going to go finish my coffee with Shawn. Talk to you later, Constant Reader!

Got to Be Real

Here it is, Wednesday and Pay the Bills Day yet again–MADNESS.

I wrote about twelve hundred words or so last night–not bad but not great–but it was also a transitional section of the novella, as we get ready to launch into the third and final act, and I’ve always struggled with transitions.But that’s cool–I did get twelve hundred words out before giving up the ghost for the evening–and while the night was not as productive as recent writing sessions, I’ll take whatever I can these days; especially on a work-at-the-office day, which tend to be more wearing than work-at-home days. Tonight, for example, after work I need to run errands before getting home and going to the gym, so not only do I have a very short window for writing, but I will also most likely be very worn out from the work out (even though it is likely to be a half-assed weeknight workout). But since this is a short week, I will be home for the next two days…

I am making a lot of progress on my efforts to get the apartment under control; I was expecting to be further along by now than I am, but Monday for whatever reason I was so exhausted I couldn’t get anything really done–cleaning or writing. I am also beginning to get the sense that July is starting to slip through my fingers again–never a good thing; I hate that time is beginning to feel like quicksilver in my hands, before I know it, it will be my birthday and I will be sixty–but the right amount of focus should be able to get me back into gear. Last night wasn’t a good night for sleeping, alas; but perhaps tonight will give me the rest I need. I am seeing my new doctor next week at long last; I am going to talk to him about upping the prescription refills and possibly prescribing something non-narcotic to help me sleep. I think Ambien is not a narcotic, but isn’t that the medication where people do things–like sleep-walk or sleep-drive? That makes me nervous…I get into enough trouble without having to add the worry of getting in trouble while I am asleep.

It looks to be a gloomy, rainy day today; which is never helpful when I am already feeling sleepy. But I shall make it through, and I will go to the gym, and I will pay these pesky bastard bills, and I will get some writing done. So let it be written, so let it be done.

I think we’re going to start watching a Swedish show on Netflix, Young Royals, which appears to be an angsty teen soap at an exclusive school with some queer content, which makes it all the more fun. I also need to get back to reading Bath Haus. My copy of S. A. Cosby’s Razorblade Tears should be arriving today; I am itching to sink my teeth into that one, and of course I’ve got some other Diversity Project books piled up on my end table–there’s Christopher Bollen’s A Beautiful Crime–which I’ve been putting off reading because it’s set in Venice, and I wanted to get the first draft of “Festival of the Redeemer” finished before I read another gay crime story set in Venice. And since that draft is now finished–and now that I know how it ends, and I do think the ending is perfect; I just have to go through it and clean it up significantly, including rewriting some of the passages–I can move on to the Bollen after I finish the Cosby. I also have David Heska Wanbli Weiden’s Winter Counts on the table, and I really want to get to that one, too.

Not to mention everything I have on the iPad. I was thinking on my drive to work this morning that I really would like to go back and reread Mary Stewart’s Madam Will You Talk?–I really enjoyed the Reread Project when I was having difficulty reading during the pandemic; and I am overdue on my reread of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, which may be my favorite book of all time; I also want to read some more of the du Mauriers that I have not already read, like The House on the Strand, Rule Britannia, and The Parasites.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader!

Rhythm of the Night

And now it’s Thursday, and a work at home day–the first of my two of the week, followed by a three day weekend HUZZAH!

I didn’t write last night–I wanted to get phô and a spring roll from Lilly’s Cafe, and a chicken banh mih for Paul, but alas, they are closed until July 9th for summer break, so it will have to wait until next weekend. It was a bummer, of course, but it was also a remarkably cool early evening for June/almost July in New Orleans, so I walked around Magazine Street in my neighborhood to look at how things have changed since the last time I walked around Magazine Street in the Lower Garden District–taking pictures for Instagram, natch–and by the time I got home (not sweaty, I might add), I decided to take the evening off from writing. I’ve been on a roll lately, and while there is something to be said for maintaining momentum when it’s going, there’s also something to be said for letting your batteries recharge for a day or so. I want to get a lot of writing done over this holiday weekend, and I thought it would be best to take an evening off. I was also in a remarkably good mood, so I also had a martini last night while watching television before bed, and slept really well. Coincidence? Perhaps, but I also like martinis so I may have another one tonight.

We continue to watch High Seas, whose second season got off to a rather interesting start–apparently now the ship is haunted, and they picked up survivors from another ship that sank, one of whom is apparently a psychic unironically named Casandra–but it’s so entertaining I kind of hope the Barbara de Braganza never docks in Rio, frankly. The kids at work were watching a show on Netflix this week in their community space called Happy Endings, which looked rather funny, and so we gave it a whirl last night and it was funny. It apparently ran for three seasons on network television in the early part of the last decade, but I’d never heard of it, and as Paul pointed out, even as early as when this aired (2012) we had already moved on to bingeing shows–we may have been watching DVD’s from Netflix (remember that?), but we weren’t really watching anything regularly from week to week, except on Sundays, when we would watch The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones (I still miss that show, and really need to get back to reading the books at some point…maybe when he publishes the next one? Ha ha ha ha! I’ll probably be dead before that happens.)

Looking around at the office/kitchen this morning, it really is amazing at how big of a mess I can let this place become during my three-days-at-the-office; how awful did it get when I went to work five days a week? The mind reels…but I also used to work two half-days and one day I didn’t go in until eleven thirty; so I had late afternoons and mornings most of the week to repair it gradually to order for the two twelve-hour days I used to work (which seems completely unbelievable to me now; how the hell did I ever have the energy and wherewithal to get up at six and work twelve hours two days in a row? JFC, where did that energy go?). I certainly don’t think I’ll be able to go back to that work schedule again, frankly. While I am not overly fond of the three get up before dawn work days, I do like getting home in the late afternoon/early evening; and that has proven to be a good time for me to get to the gym as well as write. I was thinking yesterday–part of the reason I decided to take the night off from writing last night–that I’ve actually written in excess of thirty-five thousand words in slightly less than three weeks, which is actually kind of impressive, and if I am able to keep going at that pace, think of everything I can get done the rest of this year…

But I am also smart enough to know that’s probably not very likely. There will be fallow days when words won’t come no matter how much I try to write them; days when I’ll be too tired; days when I will just be flat out too lazy to do any work of any kind. Again: be kinder to yourself and don’t push too hard.

And on that note, tis off to the spice mines I go! Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader!

The Winner Takes It All

All is calm outside my windows this morning. Claudette’s eye has passed–to the east of my neighborhood, leaving us on the dry side–and while there are reports of heavy rainfall and flooding on the north shore and along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, we remained here pretty unscathed. The flash flood warning for New Orleans has been cancelled, but we remain under a tropical storm warning, with the possibilities of high winds and heavy rainfall still there. Inevitably, it’s always a relief when we are merely struck a glancing blow, but there’s something untoward, for me at least, about being grateful somewhere else got hit instead. But that’s the nature of hurricane season–wishing to be spared means wishing disaster on someone, somewhere, else.

I didn’t get much writing done yesterday after all; perhaps about two or three hundred words on “Festival of the Redeemer”–after I finished my work yesterday I was feeling tired again, both mentally and physically, and was actually rather pleased with that minuscule output, honestly. I slept extremely deeply and well last night–the occasional odd dream was there, but this morning I don’t really remember much of them other than some weird communal living situation Paul and I found ourself in, trying to insist on our privacy as others came in and out of our living space while at the same time allowing their cats access to it, thereby traumatizing poor Scooter. This led me to wake up around six in the morning–I always seem to wake up around that time, thanks to my three-days-per week early mornings–but had no problems whatsoever falling back asleep again for another two hours, which was lovely. Today I intend to make more headway on the Lost Apartment and perhaps make a final push to get this novella’s first draft completed and out of the way; I’d also like to make another strong push to get my story “The Sound of Snow Falling” completed, but I’m not entirely certain what the possibilities of managing both, while getting that web copy written, are.

I also need to get my inbox cleared at some point this weekend as well.

Work, work, work. And perhaps make some time to read; we’ll see how that goes.

Last night I also made a second attempt at making a dirty vodka martini, and was much more successful this time around. I took a co-worker’s advice (she also bartends) and simply swished the dry vermouth around in the glass before dumping it; adding the vodka, shaken with ice and then the olives and juice. I can certainly see why excellent vodka is called for; since the drink is almost entirely vodka (it’s really just a big chilled vodka shot, with garnishes), and I had found an old bottle of Rain, leftover from the days of the Iris parties, and I was quite pleased with how it turned out. I had one in honor of Season 4 of Elité dropping on Netflix, and we binged six episodes last night. There are only two left, and I have to give the show props–they lost nearly half the cast, so had to introduce new characters as well as terminate relationships between characters who remained and those who left; and it would be incredibly easy to simply make the new characters carbons of the old. They didn’t do this, and while these new characters are mostly unlikable, the old characters had three seasons, for the most part, to make us care about them. There is a crime–the show is following the former pattern of the previous seasons–flashing back between the present and the past to show the build up to the crime; but as Paul said, “some of these relationships feel a bit forced.” He’s not wrong–but as I said, this is the most new characters they’ve ever had to add into a season before, and weaving them into what is basically a reboot season isn’t as easy as adding in new characters, scattered amongst the established cast, was in previous seasons. I am enjoying it, and it’s still everything I loved about the previous seasons–sexy, lots of queer representation, high production values, interesting twists and turns; but sadly, characters like Lucrezia and Carla (played brilliantly by Danna Paola and Ester Exposito) are incredibly hard to replace. But, all things considered, they are doing a great job with season four.

I feel, of all things, oddly settled this morning, and calm–like it is outside. I’ve been feeling off-balance for quite some time now; something I hadn’t really noticed until this morning, since I seem to have stopped rocking back-and-forth for now and feel rested. (I think rested is truly the key word in that sentence; I am not feeling tired this morning–physically or emotionally or intellectually–which is quite a marvelous feeling, frankly. I have things to do, as is always the case, but I also feel no stress about any of them; today I feel like I can conquer the world, which is a pleasant feeling and one I’ve not had in quite some time. But really, it’s lovely to be in a good place. I am writing an being very productive at it; I’ve sorted out some issues in my head that have not been easy to get through; and while this year has been a bit tough–writing two books at the beginning; dealing with burnout and some other issues I won’t bore you with–I feel pretty good right now. That may vary– I could wake up tomorrow feeling like something the cat dragged in–but for now, I am doing great and that’s all that really matters right now.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me.

96 Tears

I thought today’s title was rather appropriate for a Monday morning, don’t you?

Yesterday I got my desktop iMac functional again, which is absolutely lovely. I really need the big screen–laptops work as a last resort–but it feels nice to have it working again, frankly. It still gives me the spinning wheel every once in a while, and at some point I may invest in more RAM (or whatever it is) to make that stop happening. But again–very lovely to have my desktop back, and even lovelier to not have to buy a new one. HUZZAH!

It takes so little to make me happy, really.

Yesterday was nice and relaxing. I got the computer functioning again (I did have to make a call to Apple Support with one question, which resulted in a twenty minute phone call; why is it so hard to simply say “Yes, Greg, you can stop the migration without worry and do it manually”?) and did some cleaning up around here. Paul and I tried to watch a documentary series and gave up during the first episode, then moved on to Hacks (Jean Smart is incredible in this, just as she is in Mare of Easttown, and it’s laugh out loud funny on top of that), and then watched the first episode of Shadow and Bone on Netflix. It didn’t really suck me in, but I am willing to keep going with it; fantasy shows have to get more than one episode in before you can really decide whether or not it’s worthwhile to continue. I do find the Russian influence on it–at least many character names are Russian-sounding, and one of the countries has a Russian-sounding name to it–kind of interesting. Pretty good production values, as well. We also watched a movie which was entertaining enough, but over-all not very good (I won’t name it, because I try not to call out anything as bad unless it’s unwatchably bad), and it was disappointing because it could have been so much better than it was.

The trip to visit my family is in a few days, and it will be the first time I’ve flown since January 2020 and my trip to New York for the MWA Board retreat. While traveling is something I have done less and less over the years–looking back to some heavy travel years, it stuns me that I did so much and went so many places over the course of a few years, given how I have grown to hate traveling–it is still unusual that I’ve traveled so little in the last year and a half. I had planned on going to Bouchercon in Sacramento last year, and various other conferences, and of course there was no board retreat in New York this year nor were there Edgar banquets this year or last to go up there for. I do miss New York; one of the perks of serving on the national board was the several times per year trips to my second favorite city in the United States, and I have so many friends there! Well, perhaps if this pandemic is indeed coming to an end–I personally don’t believe it is, but that’s just my natural cynicism and negativity coming into play, but I do hope that it’s coming to a close–I want to make several trips during the rest of this year and during the next. I have, for example, never been to Left Coast Crime, and I want to rectify this next year–which means needing to save vacation time and fewer three day mental health weekends.

There’s also some more things I need to do before I leave on Thursday morning; I can’t really leave the apartment in the condition it’s currently in–although the shedding of books and beads this past weekend has helped dramatically with cutting back on the living room clutter–but it shouldn’t be terribly difficult to take care of that before Thursday morning. I slept decently last night, which was lovely, and tonight when I get home from work I should be able to get some of this mess around my desk cleaned up, organized, and put away. We’ll probably continue with Shadow and Bone tonight, as well as this week’s Mare of Easttown, and of course I need to get to bed early this evening because tomorrow is another get up before the sunrise morning (every day this week, in fact, until I get to my parents’). I’m getting used to getting up this early–I should be by now, right? It’s been going on since last June or July, and now even on my days off I am opening my eyes around six-ish in the morning, but staying in bed. It’s really more about going to bed early than getting up early, to be honest; I hate cutting my evening short at ten pm.

Whine whine whine.

But it’s supposed to be yet another rainy week here in New Orleans–which is why the dawn light is so gray this morning, I suppose–and I really don’t mind. It’s May, and this is usually when the termites are swarming, but I’ve seen nothing about that anywhere this month and I’ve not seen any–knock on wood–so far this year. This could mean any number of things–there aren’t any swarms this year; there are, but not as bad as usual; or everyone is so used to them now they don’t bother commenting on their appearance. I suspect it’s the latter two, frankly; I can’t believe the scourge of the Formosan termite swarms are a thing of the past, especially given how wet it has been this year.

I still want to write a story that opens with this line: “The termites were swarming.”

And on that note, it’s off to the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, all.

True Faith

Saturday morning and I am about to head back out to Metairie; I just got an email that my computer is repaired and ready for pick-up! This is very exciting, obviously–I am terribly relieved to not have to buy a new one–and I am excited to have a desktop computer again. Hurray for a big screen to make up for my failing eyes! I am also going to be dropping off books later today at the library sale, and donating beads to ARC of New Orleans; the living room is slowly being dragged back from hoarder’s hell and starting to look functional and bearable and usable again, which is incredibly lovely. I managed to hang one of the laundry room doors by myself yesterday; this morning I’ll also be rehanging the other door, clearing up more space and opening up the living room even further.

We finished watching The Crime of the Century last night–quelle surprise, disgusting piece of shit Marsha Blackburn helped pass a bill gutting the DEA’s ability to investigate and punish drug companies for lying to the public, reminding viewers again she’s always been trash and a cosplay Christian without a soul–and the documentary is further evidence that our country and our system has been corrupted and is broken. It’s more than a little infuriating to know that so many people have died and/or become addicted thanks to the complicity of our elected officials, and there is never any accountability for corporations or the rich. Back in the 1990’s I used to simply shake my head and thin we are becoming very similar, as a nation, to 1780′ France and the last days of Czarist Russia and when it comes the second American revolution will be far worse than either of those revolutions, which were widespread and incredibly bloody…I hope I don’t live long enough to see it or experience it, quite frankly. I had an idea–when don’t I have one?–back then for a book about a dystopian future after the collapse of our government and society; dystopias aren’t so much in vogue anymore, but it’s still a valid idea and concept, but it’s been foremost in my brain lately.

We also started watching Halston on Netflix last night, and it’s quite fun; definitely worth watching for the acting, and Ewan MacGregor is fantastic in the title role. I’ve actually been thinking about the 1970’s a lot lately; not sure why I’ve been going down this nostalgic trip down memory lane, but I have been and so Halston kind of plays into that for me. It has everything to do, no doubt, with my idea to write a book about a suburban serial killer, a la the Candyman/Gacy, called Where the Boys Die; I’ve been looking up things (classmates.com has copies of my high school yearbooks even; mine were lost years ago) all over the place when I get bored and when I don’t feel like reading or writing. What will eventually happen with that, I don’t know–if anything–but I realize this morning that I haven’t been writing much this month–I’ve definitely been off, if not my rocker, but my game. I kind of have been ever since my desktop computer ceased functioning properly; I don’t think getting my computer back is going to be some kind of magic cure-all, but it should be a start.

After I dropped off the computer at the Apple Store and while I was waiting for my next appointment, I stopped at the Barnes and Noble on Veterans’ to kill time. I can’t remember the last time I set foot in a B&N; obviously it was pre-pandemic, but it was much longer ago than that, obviously. It was a bit strange to be in such a public space (the Apple Store opens two hours before the rest of the mall, so walking through the almost-deserted halls and past all the closed stores had a sort of Night of the Living Dead feel to it–I know that’s probably not the right zombie/Romero film, but I’ve actually never seen any of those so sue me) but B&N was more confined and had more people–it was still pretty empty, but it was a strange experience. But it was lovely being in a bookstore–I resisted the urge to spend hundreds of dollars and limited myself to a lovely, inexpensive B&N edition of The Iliad and The Odyssey–and it was also interesting to walk around looking at books and seeing so many friends on the shelves, tables, and end-caps. The MWA handbook, How to Write a Mystery, was prominently displayed on the NEW RELEASES shelves, and I found myself examining books and just enjoying being around books.

Speaking of which, I started reading Robyn Gigl’s By Way of Sorrow, and am enjoying it. I need to get it finished, though, so I can read From Here to Eternity on my trip next week (yikes, I leave on Thursday).

So, my plan for today is to get my computer set up again, rehang the other door, run those errands and swing by the grocery store as well. With all of these other things taken care of, I also intend to clean today so tomorrow I will have the day free to answer emails, do some writing, and go to the gym….then it’s three days of work and the trip to Kentucky, and then before I know it, May will be ending and it will be June. #madness.

And on that note, I need to get cleaned up so I can head out to the Lakeside mall. Happy Saturday, Constant Reader!