Tag: Oklahoma

Ballerina Girl

And now it’s Sunday. Just like that!

And LSU are the SEC champions in football, for the first time since 2011, and just like in 2011, the game was against Georgia. Also like in 2011, the game wasn’t even close. LSU won the title decisively, defeating the 4th team in the country (and 2nd in defense nationally) 37-10. No one had scored more than 20 points on Georgia all season; LSU had 17 by half-time. Joe Burrow played like an experienced NFL quarterback in the play-offs. Derek Stingley Jr. made two phenomenal interceptions–Georgia had only been intercepted three times all season; make that five now.

This entire season has been a dream, you know? In 2003, LSU was expected to be good–but not national champion good; and they had to fight their way into the national championship game (including a blowout of Georgia in the SEC title game) before beating Number One ranked Oklahoma in the title game. In 2007, they started the season ranked second and expected to be national champions; despite two losses, somehow they fought their way back into the national title game and blew out Ohio State. In 2011, they were supposed to be good and were–going 12-0, winning the SEC title game with a blowout of Georgia, before losing in the title game to Alabama. This year, we expected the Tigers to be good…but I don’t think I ever dreamed they would be this good. I hoped, of course, but…wow. Just wow.

There was much joy in Louisiana last night–and there was SO MUCH JOY in the Lost Apartment, I can’t even begin to tell you. In fact, I’m still floating on cloud nine this morning as I type this. GEAUX TIGERS!

And if the Saints beat the 49ers today in the Superdome…madness.

As I have said before, I’ve been writing an appreciation post of the LSU season since the Alabama game, and maybe at some point (today? this week? Who knows?) I’ll put the finishing touches on it and share it. I wanted to post it originally after the Alabama game, but then thought, but what if they don’t win out? And so I decided to wait until after the regular season ended–but after the A&M win last Sunday, as I added more to the post, I thought, what if they win the SEC title next week? And so I waited again; and even now, I’m not sure if I should go ahead and finish it; the season isn’t over yet, after all, and LSU is going to the national play-offs for the first time ever.

I did get some things done yesterday–I made groceries, and we had our last “tailgate”–but I turned on the television to the Oklahoma-Baylor Big 12 title game and got sucked in almost immediately–and then the rest of the day was pretty much a loss. This morning, I need to get the kitchen cleaned–the Saints make me so tense I usually clean during their games–because sitting still makes me too tense–and I did manage to print out a story I need to edit yesterday, so there’s that. I’m also going to try to find some time to spend with Laura Benedict’s The Stranger Inside, which opens fantastically and I’ve yet to have the time to spend on it that I would like. I also need to get back to work on the book–the work I did last week felt amazing, and I should ride that momentum as long as I can–and there’s a lot of mess and filing and sorting to be done in my office area here in the kitchen.

But I can’t help but bask in the glow of LSU being SEC champions yet again. GEAUX TIGERS!

I’m still also reading Richard Campanella’s Bourbon Street, which is absolutely fascinating. I have to write a Sherlock Holmes story set in New Orleans, if you will recall, and reading all this French Quarter/New Orleans history is proving to be enormously helpful, quite frankly. I’m only disappointed in myself for taking so long to get around to start studying the endlessly fascinating history of this city I love so much.

I really need to make a to-do list.

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

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You Decorated My Life

Friday, and the weekend looms. Alas, but this weekend is deceptive; it is the last weekend before the Weekend o’Festivals which means I won’t see Paul very much and I probably won’t be able to get a whole lot of relaxing done as I will be stressing about numerous things. I need to finish reading two books by next weekend, I need to get some work done on the WIP, and I need to clean this filthy apartment. I am behind on everything (like always) and really need to step up my game. I’ve been feeling slightly overwhelmed this week, but feeling overwhelmed only leads to paralysis and inaction and chaos, so…when I get home from work this afternoon I need to get to work. I need to stay off social media, close my Internet browsers, and just get on it. I need to get chapters revised; I need to clean thoroughly; I need to do all sorts of things, and this is the last chance I have to get any of this done before the Weekend O’Festivals.

And the house is being tented that weekend for termites; effective Friday, the termite tent is going up. So we also have to prepare the house for that.

I’ve got to get my reading done as well, so I also need to focus and try not to goof off as much. Scooter, of course, won’t mind me sitting in the easy chair all weekend reading, either–which should minimize the kitty whining I have to put up with over the weekend. (there’s always kitty whining)

Heavy heaving sigh.

What I need is to have a Type-A weekend. I haven’t had one of those in a while; not sure what that’s about, but as I said, I’ve felt disconnected from everything since the Great Data Disaster of 2018. The return of my allergies hasn’t helped much in that regard, either–it’s spring in New Orleans again! I guess the first step in getting my shit together is to make a pretty solid to-do list, and stick to checking things off on it. That’s always been the most effective way for me to deal with these things, and something I’ve been rather slipshod about for quite some time.

With the river so high and all the midwest flooding, I’ve also been thinking about, of course, Katrina and the flood that followed. It doesn’t help that the lead off and title story in my soon to be released collection, Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories, is an aftermath story, with the character on his roof in the heat waiting rescue. It’s a morbid, creepy story; one that I was reluctant to tell, if I’m going to be honest about it. I evacuated; Paul and I packed up as much as could fit in the car, put Skittle in his carrier and fled north. We left the Lost Apartment shortly after eleven a.m. that morning; we didn’t get to Slidell until nearly seven, and the outer bands of the storm were already coming in as we crossed the Twin Spans across the lake. It does now seem like that was an incredibly long time ago, and yet the memories, while faded with time, are still relatively vivid–even though the distance makes it seem as though it happened to someone else. There’s an unreality about the entire thing, looking back over the years. It’s hard to believe something like that could happen, yet it did, and it does, every year, to somewhere. Puerto Rico is still recovering, and suffering, from Maria.

The other day on Facebook there was a post from the New Orleans Tourism Board about signs they’ve created that businesses here can hang in their windows, to show queer tourists that they are welcome in the business and in the city. Quite naturally, some homophobic trash (from Oklahoma) had to show up on the thread and say shit like well, looks like I need to cancel my reservations for New Orleans this May–guess it’s time for another hurricane! 

You really can’t fix trash. Particularly from some asshole who smugly thinks Oklahoma is immune from natural disasters. This reminded me, of course, of the congressional trash serving at the time who didn’t think New Orleans (the fifth largest port in the United States) didn’t need to either rebuild or recover from this disaster; they were willing to just let the city sink in the swamp and disappear. Steve King, the Klansman without a mask, was one of them; yesterday he said something similar again about how everyone affected by Katrina sat around waiting for help while “in Iowa we help each other.”

Really? Fuck you, you racist faux Christian piece of shit, and I do hope you have a lovely time in hell when you get there.

And despite the fact that Iowans clearly continue to reelect this excrement to Congress because he is a racist bottom-feeding monster, they still deserve our sympathy and our support and our help in this time of disaster for them.

Sorry you don’t have a soul, Mr. Congressman.

And now back to the spice mines.

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