Tag: Olivia Colman

Why Am I Like This?

So, Heartstopper, season two.

First, some preliminary discussion. Since the enormously popular first season dropped last year and turned the cast literally into worldwide stars, the almost constant speculation (and hounding he received) about the sexuality of adorable young Kit Connor, who plays Nick Nelson, forced him to come out publicly as bisexual earlier this year (He came out on Twitter, deleted his account, and hasn’t come back). Shortly after the second season dropped, Joe Locke, who plays Charlie Spring, the other lead and Nick’s love interest, voluntarily came out publicly; he’d been out to family and friends since he was twelve, but finally decided to go public with it. If we take away the sheer adorability factor of a young bisexual man playing a young bisexual male discovering his own sexuality, while playing against an openly gay man playing an openly gay male teenager discovering his own self-worth and value, this kind of visibility–as well as the visibility of the show, and its enormous popularity–is sorely needed and is probably changing lives as I type this. I didn’t know what to expect when I went into season one, and I have to admit the show turned me into an adoring, gushing teenaged girl….so obsessed that I also went ahead and bought the original ebooks of the story and read them all in one afternoon. So, as we go into my thoughts on Season Two and some thoughts about the show’s importance–as well as some of it’s failures (much as I love the show and the characters, I can also see why people would criticize it; I love the show but nothing is above critique.)–bear in mind there are spoilers for both the season and the books contained within.

And while I know Locke is over eighteen, posting sexy-style photos of him just feels kind of wrong. He looks like such a child…but then the entire cast does, which is why the sweetness of the show hits so strong…which brings up another point about queer young adult fiction–or any medium about queer teenagers for that matter: having queer characters in juvenile and young adult fiction is already seen as dangerous by the homophobes (“grooming! grooming!”), so how do you show queer teens wrestling with their sexuality and their identity without triggering the hypocritical pearl-clutching homophobes who want us all gone? Heartstopper danced around this by focusing on identity rather than sexuality; when season one opens everyone already knows Charlie is gay because he was outed the previous year and bullied mercilessly. The bullying has died down–which isn’t often the truth in reality, but will allow it for the sake of the show–and now Charlie, in season one, develops a crush on the school rugby star, Nick Nelson–who sits next to him in form (the UK version of homeroom), and Nick is actually a super sweet, nice guy. They begin to develop a very sweet friendship–Charlie of course develops a bit of a crush, which he knows is hopeless and his very protective friends think is a bad idea…but what nobody knows is that Nick is finding himself attracted to Charlie and drawn to him, which is confusing for him. This first season was all about Nick coming to terms with his attraction and feelings for Charlie–a constant refrain from both of them is “Why am I like this?” And the entire show was incredibly sweet and lovely and very teenaged; the cast were age appropriate as well; sexuality it a topic of discussion but it’s never seen. The boys are incredibly chaste for teenaged boys. There was also a delightful lesbian couple, a wonderful trans girl named Elle, and of course Tao, Charlie’s super-protective friend. (My personal favorite character of the entire cast is Charlie’s Goth sister Tori. I fucking love her.) The season ends with Nick and Charlie becoming “boyfriends” and Nick settling into his own bisexuality, coming out to his mother (the divine Olivia Colman) in the end.

I ain’t gonna lie, I loved season one to the extent that I watched it twice and then bought the books and read them all over the course of a day–graphic novels don’t take as long to read as novels–and loved them, and the characters, all the more.

If the first season serves to introduce us to the primary couple and cast of the show, and is very sweet (other than the homophobic rugby players and Charlie’s wretched ex, Ben), the darker issues that were merely hinted at–you had to pay attention to catch them–come more to the forefront in season two; just as the graphic novels got a bit more serious as they went on. I’m not seeing the same outpouring of love for the second season that the first got, but I may not be paying enough attention and let’s face it, both Facebook and Twitter have circled the drain since the first season aired. So I don’t know if the more serious tone of the second season played well with the audience or not; it’s not all cotton candy sweetness in the second season as we get to know the characters and their personal lives a bit more. Darcy, one of the lesbians, has a homophobic borderline abusive mother; the bullying Charlie dealt with that followed his accidental outing caused some mental health damage that hasn’t been dealt with or handled until Nick begins to notice and suspect something is wrong with the boy he loves; Tao and Elle deal with their feelings of attraction to each other (and he finally cuts off that wretched curly bang thing he had going); and Nick also has to deal with a homophobic older brother and an absent father–and discovers that coming out is actually a never-ending process. The charm and queer joy is still there, of course, but as everyone who has ever had to come out has learned, the joy and relief is all too frequently followed by having to deal with all the problems your concern about coming out pushed to the back of your mind. Coming out is just the start; your world has changed irrevocably and now you have to relearn how to navigate that world as your actual self, and that is hard.

And for me, one of the more interesting aspects of how Alice Oseman chose to tell the story is that we originally see everything from Charlie’s point of view, with some of Nick’s; the point of view shifts to be more from Nick’s point of view than Charlie’s as it moves on. Heartstopper is really Nick’s story, from his first bisexual stirrings to falling in love to coming out to learning more about himself and resolving issues he is facing while being strong and supportive for Charlie.

Spoiler alert for fans of the show who haven’t read the books: the stories will continue getting darker, but that hopeful optimism that underlies both the show and the novels is always there.

And if nothing else, the show’s depiction of queer joy is worth a watch.

Way Down

Saturday in the Lost Apartment, and I am feeling relaxed and good. I had a nice day yesterday, the apartment got more work done on it, and I managed to get everything done that needed doing yesterday. I didn’t really write much last night, but I did read some marvelously macabre short stories, which was lovely, and then watched a few episodes of a CNN documentary series, The History of Sitcoms, which is interesting enough, and feeds into that nostalgia thing we are so prone to as a society. I’ve witnessed any number of nostalgia booms throughout the course of my many years on this speck of dust under the fingernails of God we call earth, and while I am not entirely immune to the appeal of nostalgia, I also recognize that we inevitably remember those past times fondly and perhaps not as accurately as we may think. The 1950’s nostalgia boom of the 1970s, for example, spawned American Graffiti and Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley and eventually Grease; reignited interest in the music of the time (anyone remember Sha Na Na?); as well as sock hops and poodle skirts and “Ch**ese fire drills”* (which is probably racist, isn’t it?) and all that stuff; like Archie comics were documentaries rather than fictions. But the 1950s weren’t this idyllic time of peace and quiet and prosperity people seem to think it was, brainwashed by decades of sitcom reruns of shows that presented the United States back to itself as a fantasy, a fiction, and created an unrealistic vision and interpretation of what perfection and success were in a land of opportunity–an unrealistic vision that has somehow come to be taken as a reality when it was never anything more than a fantasy. That’s the danger of nostalgia.

It’s not that I oppose nostalgia, or don’t understand it–we always tend to idealize our childhoods, and the time period when we were children. It isn’t that it was actually an easier, simpler time, it’s just that when you’re a child you aren’t worried about or concerned with the things adults are contending with–so you don’t remember those parts. I do remember being a child, with rioting going on and protests and police violence; I remember the murders of RFK, Dr. King, and Malcolm X. I remember the struggle over the Vietnam War. I remember Watergate, and all the scandals of the Reagan administration modern Republicans have completely forgotten about (or if they do remember them, they remember them as “evil liberals conspiring to bring down St. Ronald–who they would calla RINO today. I can’t imagine Reagan being fond of DeSantis, Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio; but who knows? They remember the 1980s as their ‘golden age,’ so who knows what Reagan would be like today–although I can’t imagine him sucking up to Putin). For me, the 1980’s was about HIV/AIDS and the struggle to come to terms with myself and who I am. The 1980’s also showed me that homophobes literally wanted all queer people to die…and I do not believe the modern day iteration of them is any different than they were thirty or forty years ago. Their messaging is the same, after all–we must save our children from groomers and pedophiles while actually ignoring who the actual grooming pedophiles are–youth ministers, priests, and pastors of their religious faith.

Nostalgia can be incredibly dangerous. Here’s the question I’d like to ask everyone who longs to go back to that “simpler” time of the 1950’s/1960’s: where were all the black people in Mayberry, NORTH CAROLINA? Are we supposed to believe that a small town in the South was entirely white?

Bitch, please.

As I said earlier, I did spend some time last evening reading short stories from my Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies. “A Death in the Family” by Miriam Allen deFord was quite macabre and interesting, about a lonely mortician who grew up as a foster child with no family who creates his own, only to be tripped up in his macabre game when a dead kidnapping victim is dumped on the front steps of his mortuary. Very tightly written and composed, I also like the clever way deFord set the story up to deceive the reader until there’s a big reveal. This story was in Stories That Scared Even Me, and I enjoyed it. I also read some more stories in My Favorites in Suspense: “My Unfair Lady” by Guy Cullingford; “New Murders for Old” by Carter Dickson; and “Terrified” by C. B. Gilford. Carter Dickson was a pseudonym for John Dickson Carr, a very prolific and popular crime writer of the mid-twentieth century; I’d seen books by either name on the racks when I was a kid but I’d never read any of his work. I really liked “New Murders for Old,” a clever story about murder for gain with a complicated twist that I greatly enjoyed–but wouldn’t work in the modern day because it was dependent on someone traveling being out of touch with the rest of his world back home. “Terrified” is a chilling tale of the aftermath of a car accident, where the survivors in one car can’t decide whether or not to kill the dying victim who can counter their testimony about who was at fault, and “My Unfair Lady” is a chilling tale of a sociopathic child who witnesses a murder, and whether she will clear the name of the innocent man who found the body and is the leading suspect, a bit reminiscent of The Bad Seed, which of course is a suspense classic.

I didn’t do as much cleaning and organizing as I had hoped to do, but I did launder all the bed linens and finished the dishes. The kitchen still needs some work done on it, which I think I’ll most likely do this morning once I get this finished and posted. I plan on writing and reading and cleaning for most of the day, but I do have to run an errand later this morning–my copy of Angel Luis Colon’s new juvenile horror novel, Infested, was delivered yesterday, and I also need to determine whether or not I need to stop and make groceries as well. I am low on a couple of things, but I don’t think I actually need a whole lot of anything. I have been enjoying yellow-meat watermelons lately; a relic of my childhood summers in rural Alabama that I’ve never really seen out of that context or anywhere else. Rouse’s sells them now–personal sized and seedless–but it’s been my experience that the personal-sized seedless watermelons don’t taste as good as regular watermelons and have very little flavor of any kind. The last time we went to Costco (we need to go again once Paul gets home) we’d bought two of the personal-sized seedless red ones; they come in a net bag in pairs. Those watermelons were two of the best I’d had in I don’t know how long, so this week I took the plunge and bought one of the yellow ones this week. Constant Reader, it was delicious, if not the best watermelon I’ve had in years. I finished it off last night, but had bought another the other day. So, I think one of my chores for this morning is to clean out the kitchen cupboards, and throwing shit away so I can determine what exactly I need and if I do, in fact, need to stop at the grocery store when I go get the mail.

I also binged the second season of Heartstopper, which was absolutely delightful and charming, as I expected, even as it entered the darker territory the books dealt with. It’s still incredibly sweet, and it handles the darker turns much better than I could have hoped; the books certainly did, even as the darker material made you love and root for the characters more, it’s still a bit heartbreaking because I love those kids so much (Nick, Charlie, Tara, Darcy, Elle, Tao, and Isaac) that I want to wrap them up and protect them from the world. As I watch, I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to see a show like Heartstopper when I was a teenager…at what an incredible difference something like this could have made in my life, which is why shows like this are so fucking important. I just hate that they only give us eight short episodes per season–and yes, Olivia Colman is back as Nick’s mom. (One change from the books to the show I don’t like–while I understand it–was the elimination of Charlie and Tori’s younger brother. Sure, he’s not necessary, as the show proves, but I think the way he reacts to Charlie and Nick, and how much he loves them, would be kind of lovely, if not needed.)

I also thought about the book some, as well as reading all those short stories have helped give me some ideas about my own short stories in progress, and how to fix and finish some of them. I would love to get two chapters of the book written this weekend and to finish two short stories, but I don’t know. I’ll probably wind up feeling lazy and spending more time reading than I should, and of course, I have the new iteration of Real Housewives of New York to finish, as well as the third season of Superman and Lois, and My Adventures with Superman, but I am going to try to put off watching television until weeknights, when I am tired from being at work.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I need another cup of coffee, and I should put the clean dishes away. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back at some point!

**It is racist: I checked on wikipedia: “Public use of the phrase has been considered to be offensive and racist. In 2017 a candidate for office in Nova Scotia, Matt Whitman, apologized for using the term in a video and subsequently removed the video.[10] In 2020, Washington state Senator Patty Kuderer made an apology for using the term in a hearing; Linda Yang of Washington Asians for Equality stated that the term was racist and filed a complaint with the state.[11] Kuderer apologized before any formal complaint was filed.” There’s an entire history of how the term began and how it was used, but I have found if a term or a phrase that’s a part of the popular culture references a group of people or an ethnicity or a race, it’s usually not a good thing; in this case, it means something useless–and let’s face it, everyone getting out of the car and running around it while stopped at a red light is pretty stupid and useless.

Take a Bow

Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment and I slept well–I wanted to stay in bed for another few hours, but got up anyway and am now sitting in my kitchen remembering that there was a time change and it’s actually later than I thought. Sigh. So I didn’t get up early after all, did I? I hate Daylight Savings Time and wish we could do away with it once and for all; didn’t Congress take this up last year or something, and didn’t it look like this pointless time change was going to be a thing of the past, or was that merely a fever dream brought on by the pandemic or something?

Yesterday wound up being a wasted day for me. I had some things to do yesterday morning that had to be done–some emails I’d been putting off because I knew they would be triggering, and I was right. I’m still not certain the most important one was worded correctly or the right thing to say at all, but when I finally finished it–it took me several hours to compose it and myself–I was emotionally drained and in a grief spiral, so I decided to spend some time with Scooter sleeping in my lap to make me feel better. I wound up actually drained and exhausted and fatigued, so I simply stayed there. Paul didn’t go into the office yesterday (he is going today) and we finally spent some time together last night, getting caught up on Servant (which is really phenomenal; Lauren Ambrose doesn’t get near the credit as an actress that she should; there’s a scene in the second to last episode–the series finale is this Friday–that can be Ms. Ambrose’s Emmy reel; the scene where her husband and brother finally come clean with the secret they’ve been keeping from her since the first episode is a master class in acting, and it’s all done with her facial expressions, and it’s a tour-de-force), and then the first episode of Outer Banks. We were both getting sleepy, so we put on a true crime documentary series (Two Shallow Graves, which is quite interesting; we figured if we fell asleep it would be okay because we could rewatch it if necessary without necessarily spoiling anything) and finally repaired to bed (later) than I thought it was (stupid time change), which is already throwing me off this morning.

I am still digesting Cheryl A. Head’s marvelous Time’s Undoing, which I finished yesterday morning and greatly enjoyed. I was hoping to spend some time with my next read this morning….but I’ve already lost an hour. Maybe instead of reading this morning, I’ll finish this and get cleaned up and write for a few hours before curling up with a good book later on this afternoon. Paul is going to see his trainer this morning and then to the office, so he’ll be out of my hair for most of the day so I should be able to get a lot of editing and so forth done, as well as some planning for future writing. There’s also always cleaning and filing to get done; yesterday after the depression set in was pretty much a wasted day. But I’m not going to beat myself up over the lost day; it is what it is and nothing I can do now can ever change that, so I am going to be kind to myself and recognize that, while still disappointing, there’s a significant difference between deciding to be lazy and blow off the entire day as opposed to being so overwhelmed that you can’t do anything. (This being kind to myself thing I am trying this year is such an outlook change that it’s not reflexive and I always have to process myself into it; maybe at some point it will become reflexive and…yeah, I don’t see it becoming reflexive any time soon)

Oh, yes, and the Oscars are on tonight. My interest in awards shows has declined as I’ve gotten older; sometimes I wonder if my gradual growing antipathy for awards shows I used to look forward to when I was younger has anything to do with my own eligibility for awards since getting published? Don’t get me wrong; I don’t object to awards by any means, but they also aren’t why I do what I do. It’s always nice to be recognized, especially by your peers and especially when you’ve always felt like an outsider rather than a peer. But while winning an Oscar (or even being nominated) can change a film industry member’s career for the better, do book awards make a difference to someone’s career if they aren’t the National Book Award or the Pulitzer Prize? I do think it’s important to recognize excellence in the field, but awards are just as subjective as anything else, and when an award is decided by a panel of judges..well, a different panel of judges might not come up with the exact same shortlist and winner, either. It isn’t like you can campaign to win an Edgar–but there are awards for mystery novels that you can campaign for, and the campaigning always makes me uncomfortable. In the beginning, I hated asking people for votes and wouldn’t do it. Then I started adding my eligible stuff to Gabriel Valjan’s awards-eligibility lists, which he compiles every year for every award as their nominations period open up.

Last year was the first time I actually made a little announcement on social media that hey, Bury Me in Shadows is eligible for the Anthony for Best PBO because there wasn’t a children’s/young adult category on the ballot. A second ballot was sent out at the almost last-minute because they’d inadvertently left that category off the ballot, so…figuring I didn’t have a prayer at a Best PBO nomination, I asked people to write me in on their ballot for y/a. IMAGINE my shock to wind up nominated in both categories (I lost both, PBO to Jess Lourey and Y/A to Alan Orloff; it’s lovely to lose to friends because you can be happy for them rather than disappointed at losing–losing to someone you don’t like or respect is an entirely different situation); so this year I figured I had nothing to lose by asking for votes–and wound up nominated for a Lefty for A Streetcar Named Murder and an Agatha for #shedeservedit, so go figure, you know?

Another reason I stopped caring or watching the Oscars is because they’ve become so predictable in every category in every year that there are no fun surprises, or if there are any, they are so few and far-between that watching become tedious (although one delightful surprise was Olivia Colman’s win for The Favourite a few years ago); but there doesn’t seem to be a clear cut winner in every category this year, even though I will go out on a limb and predict Oscars for Brendan Fraser (everyone loves a comeback story), Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan (another comeback story), and Jamie Lee Curtis. The two actresses will not only be rewarded for their work in the film but also for lengthy, glorious careers that have never been recognized before; while the two men are feel-good comeback stories. I’ve not seen Everything Everywhere All At Once, but I do think it’s trending to win everything. (If I had to chose, Barry Keoghan probably deserves an award for The Banshees of Inisherin; to me his was the strongest performance in a film I really disliked.)

And on that note, I am going to get another cup of coffee and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you later.

If You Let Me Down Let Me Down Slow

One of my favorite lines from All About Eve is not, actually, one of the more popular or famous (infamous?) ones. It comes when Margo and Karen are stranded in the car on the way to the train station so Margo can make her curtain; they’ve run out of gas and Lloyd has gone for help (Margo doesn’t know Karen has drained the tank deliberately to punish Margo for–well, for being right about Eve all along), and they start talking. Margo turns on the car radio and music plays, and Bette Davis makes a patented Bette Davis sneer-face and turns it off, snapping, “I despise cheap sentiment.” I love that line, and use it whenever it feels appropriate.

I do feel it important to say that I don’t despise all sentiment, just the cheap, sappy kind. I used to love It’s a Wonderful Life, frankly, until I started really thinking about its message and how truly dark it actually is; now I love to fuck with people who still love it by called it the darkest Christmas noir ever put on film. But The Princess Bride and Disney’s Beauty and the Beast are still two of my favorite movies; and earned sentimentality, that arises from strong character development and a good story, still moves my heart and can make me cry a little bit.

Yes, I cry at movies and television shows; there are even songs that make me tear up a little bit, too. I know I project that I am deeply cynical–probably because, well, I am deeply cynical. People and systems have disappointed me far too many times for me to have a glowing opinion of humanity as a rule; my friend Victoria often accuses me of being a misanthrope–to which I always reply, “And I’m not wrong to be.” I do prefer to believe that most people are decent at heart, but there are just so many examples on the other side of the scales that it’s very hard to keep believing in the kindness of random strangers. (Just look at our current society and what is going on in the world even as I type this.)

So, I went into Heartstopper not expecting an awful lot. It looked cute from the brief previews I’d seen, and so I knew already it was about two teenaged boys falling in love and their friend group. I’ve often been disappointed by queer representation in films, television shows, and sometimes in books as well; I figured, despite the enormous popularity of the graphic novels this show was based on, that this would yet again be the case.

Boy, was I ever wrong.

I can honestly say I can’t remember the last time I was so completely charmed by a television series with gay characters–if ever. I have always been harshly critical of fictions targeted toward queer youth for any number of reasons; the primary one being a serious lack of authenticity in the ones I’ve read and/or watched. Some of them were so blatantly unrealistic I couldn’t even get past the third page, and even the ones I managed to hold my nose and get through were incredibly problematic and disappointing. I never got into Love, Victor because it seemed…well, phony to me. I can’t give any examples of why I reacted that way to the show, and believe me, I wish I could have watched more of it so I could (I may go back and do so at some point). So when I saw the first previews for Netflix’ Heartstopper, it looked adorable…but as I said, didn’t get my hopes up. I checked into it before watching and learned that it was based on a series of graphic novels that started as web cartoons, written by Alice Oseman, and I thought, well, be supportive and give it a chance. We were just coming off season 5 of Elite, which had thoroughly shocked and surprised me with the amazing storyline and arc they’d given the character of gay Patrick (who literally stole the entire season out from under the rest of the cast; it was a stunning performance by Manu Rios), and the thought that I might have another terrific show with gay characters and a romance was too much to pass up on. So, the Saturday before we went to New York, Paul and I queued up Heartstopper and…

We were both enchanted.

Heartstopper is just so sweet and lovely I felt my Grinch heart grow three sizes while watching it.

I even happy-cried several times per episode; so it’s like Ted Lasso and Schitt’s Creek in that way, but it also touched me deeply. I kept thinking, over and over again, how marvelous this show was; how beautifully written and acted and produced–and how lovely this would have been for fifteen year old me to have seen.

It’s like I don’t know who I am anymore.

It really is just so damned sweet and charming.

The queer rep I’ve seen in y/a novels–romance or not–has generally not been satisfying or engaging; I tend to raise my eyebrows and roll my eyes a lot–if I can even make it all the way through. But this….this was different somehow. Maybe because the actors playing the roles were the actual age they were playing? They just looked so young and innocent and sweet….which was perfect for this kind of show, really. It does make a difference when teenagers are played by teenagers, as opposed to actors in their twenties.

Charlie is the main character, who was accidentally outed by one of his friends the previous year and has suffered some bullying, which has left a few marks on his psyche. But it’s a new school year, some older boys put an end to the bullying, and he’s starting over in a way. On the first day of class he finds himself sharing a table in Form (what I guess we would call homeroom) with Nick, the big star of the school’s (Truham) rugby team. As they continue sitting next to each other, they slowly but surely start becoming more and more friendly with each other; enjoying each other’s company, etc. Charlie is also involved in a toxic relationship with Ben–who will meet him privately to make out, but only on his terms and when he wants it, and is also seeing a girl–that Charlie is trying to get out of. Ben tries to force himself on Charlie one day… Nick stops it, and then their friendship blossoms even more, with more texts and Nick proving himself to be a really good friend to Charlie, who is also developing a crush on Nick.

Nick is also starting to have feelings for Charlie that go deeper than “being mates”–so we see him looking stuff up on line about being gay.

Kit Conner, who plays Nick, plays the role so pitch-perfectly–the confusion of having feelings you’ve never had before, which upsets your entire worldview and everything you think you know about yourself (it wasn’t my experience, personally, but I’ve heard this from countless others) and being terrified to express it; afraid of what will happen when you admit it to yourself and start admitting it to others, and what it all means. He’s falling in love with Charlie, but what precisely does that mean?

His mother is brilliantly played by Olivia Colman, who is just such a treasure. One of the sweetest scenes in the entire show is after she’s met Charlie, and she comments on the friendship, “You’re more you when you’re around him. You’re different around your other friends. With Charlie, you’re you.”

Yes, it brought tears to my eyes–especially watching the emotions of what she means being processed in Nick’s mind and the lovely smile when he realizes that Charlie really sees him…and what THAT means.

It was also lovely seeing their relationship develop and blossom and grow–and that everyone is supportive and excited for them for the most part (yes, there’s some homophobic bullying, but not as much as one would expect, but it’s also dealt with strongly and doesn’t really hang over the show, either). There’s a young lesbian couple as well whose development and growth mirrors that of Nick and Charlie; a wonderful young trans character who has left the boys’ school and is now at the girls’ school, and a burgeoning romance for her as well–which I hope develops more in the next season.

But most importantly, the show is about acceptance and the sweetness of falling in love for the first time–and the usual obstacles that keep our adorable young couple apart aren’t heavy drama, and their suffering is more along the line of does he really like me? Am I his boyfriend?

It’s sweet, and adorable, and charming. As I said, I happy cried any number of times throughout the show…and the soundtrack is fantastic.

In fact, I am so obsessed with Heartstopper that the day after we watched I bought all four graphic novels and read them the following afternoon.

The show follows the books pretty closely, but they are just as adorable in the graphic novels as they are on the show. The graphic novels take a bit of a darker turn in the last couple of volumes than I would have liked, but the dark stuff is handled not only optimistically but in the same charming, loving, kind way the rest of the story is told.

The covers for the series so far

Highly recommended. I am probably going to rewatch, too. It made me all warm inside, and shows like that–Schitt’s Creek and Ted Lasso and now Heartstopper–are necessary, especially in these dark times in which we live. Thank you, Alice Oseman, for the books, the story, and the characters. Highly recommended.

I could write about this show and the books forever, and may write more later…but I am going to go ahead and post this now.

Amos Moses

Sunday morning and I slept in again, which was marvelous. I fell asleep in my chair last night while watching television, which makes me think that no matter what time I arise, ten is now my bedtime, and I am not really sure how I feel about that, to be completely honest. I welcome the good sleep, though, and the rested and refreshed feeling I’ve been experiencing in the mornings. Yesterday was a good day; I didn’t get nearly as much done as I wanted, but c’est la vie; such is life, and I did get things done. I worked on the kitchen, did some cleaning, working on my CV a bit more (more on that later), and laundered the bed linens (clean bed sheets and blankets always make sleep feel better for some reason I choose not to question). I did a load of dishes, cleaned some things out of the refrigerator that needed cleaning out, and organized some.

We rented Spider-Man: No Way Home yesterday and yes, I do think it was the best live action Spider-Man film (barring Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse, which was animated). The young cast (Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalan) are absolutely pitch-perfect; the concept of the story was actually good; and it was a sweeping epic that caught us up in the narrative. I hate to think this might be Tom Holland’s last go round as Spidey, frankly; I adore the kid, and have ever since his Lip-Sync Battle performance doing Rihanna’s “Umbrella” (that was what got me into the theater to see Spider-Man Homecoming, which I didn’t care much about seeing before that clip won me over, and these three Tom Holland outings as my friendly neighborhood Spider-Man are my favorite Spidey live-action movies), and I hope this isn’t the end of this cast in these roles. I don’t know how the franchise can go on now, given the events of the movie, but in some ways it’s very true to the original comic books–Peter being alone and friendless. Tom Holland is also one of our best young actors; I’ve loved him in everything I’ve seen him in, even if the film itself was flawed. I’m sure he’s destined for a long and successful career, and he certainly has the money and success to focus only on projects that interest him as an actor; kind of like Daniel Radcliffe and the other kids from Harry Potter.

It would be a lovely place to be in as an actor, I would think.

After that, we switched over to Netflix to watch Heartstopper, a young adult gay romance series from Britain (with Olivia Colman in a very small party) and coming on the heels of season 5 of Elité, it was marvelous to see a love story between gay teens actually played by teens who weren’t perfect looking and beautiful. We deeply enjoyed this show, which was just incredibly sweet and adorable; how can you not fall in love with main character Charlie? How can you not empathize with him being mocked and bullied, yet despite this remaining first and foremost an incredibly kind and caring young man who loves his friends and wants to protect the people he loves from suffering the way he has suffered? It was apparently a graphic novel first, which was a bit of a surprise (I may have to go looking for it now; I definitely would read the novel if there was one) but a very pleasant one. It didn’t have any of the falseness or inauthenticity of other queer young adult fictions I’ve read and/or seen before; there was also lesbian representation as well as a very well rounded and developed trans character. It was so remarkably well done…I cried a couple of times. Rugby star Nick’s struggle to understand what he was feeling, and how to express himself in ways he’d never learned or thought about was also remarkably touching to see. I defy anyone to watch Heartstopper and these wonderful teens and not want to do everything in their power to protect them from hate and bullies–of which there is far too fucking much in the world, and has roared back lately thanks to the right wing hate machine. (It’s also been horrific watching people who consider themselves “allies” betraying us at every opportunity and turn…I’d forgotten how that felt, and frankly, I’ve cut people out of my life for far less than this…more on that later; I have been trying to compose a Julia Sugarbaker entry for several weeks now about the vicious political attacks on my community lately, but it’s not easy to do so without swearing vociferously and shredding people–mind you, they deserve it with both fucking barrels, but reason and logic is the best way to battle bigotry and hatred and garbage human beings.

I reserve the right to experience righteous anger and express it, though, because sometimes it is absolutely fucking necessary.

It’s weird that we’ve spent the weekend with superhero films, watching The Batman on Friday night and Spider-Man last night; we also started watching Severance last night, which I was also enjoying–my falling asleep during the second episode was more a result of my being tired more than anything else; I am going to rewatch it this morning while Paul sleeps–and there are several other shows I want us to get watching. We leave for New York on Tuesday, though–tonight and tomorrow night will be more about me packing and getting ready to head for the airport on Tuesday more than anything else; our flight is around noonish, I think–I need to double check, especially since I have to check us both in tomorrow–so we have time to drop Scooter off at the kitty spa before we have to head for the airport. (One of the things I need to do today is make sure I have everything I need, paperwork wise, for the trip–the car service from LaGuardia, the discount parking coupon for USPark, the confirmation number for the flights and the hotel)

Today I need to work on my story some more, do some more things, and get everything together that I need to get together before we leave town.

I’ve been updating my CV lately (something I’ve not done since 2009, and it wasn’t even really complete then) because I am doing a favor for a colleague (whom I also consider to be, at the very least, a friendly acquaintance) which requires me having an updated CV. As I was adding short stories, essays, articles, books and anthologies to the list, I began to realize why precisely people refer to me as prolific (which I always just smile and shrug off). The damned thing is already seven pages long, and I’ve not included everything–old books reviews, author interviews, columns, etc.–and there are some things I wrote for websites that I am no longer able to locate or remember (if it’s not in print, the chances I won’t remember it expand exponentially) and really, it doesn’t need to be that exact for this purpose; but it does make me think I really do need to, at some point, make sure every single thing I’ve ever written is included in my CV. I mean, it already looks impressive; I can only imagine how long it will be once it is as complete as I can make it. I mean, I wrote a fitness column every two weeks for IMPACT News and later for Window Media, for at least four years. That’s well over a hundred columns right there…not to mention all the book reviews I used to do. I think I have produced millions of words over the course of when I first started writing professionally all the way back in 1996 in Minneapolis, which was really when my writing career began; so I’ve been at this now for over twenty-six years, which is kind of amazing, really.

And perhaps it’s best for me to head into the spice mines now, so I can get a jump on the day. Have a happy Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will chat with you again tomorrow.

Your Heart Belongs to Me

Sunday morning and reality again looms on the horizon. No more long weekends, no more extra days off from work for a while, and back to the regular grind of living this life, which is–you know, fine, as a general rule, but don’t mind me if I whine a bit about it, you know?

I mean, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t whine, would I?

I got some work done on the book yesterday, and I plan to do even more today. I also need to spend some time reading what’s already written and trying to figure out how to fix the mess that the manuscript has become–it’s really all over the place, but everything I want the book to say and do it does; it’s just going to need some serious editing. The deadline looms to get it all fixed and decent and publishable; which means I am going to be revising and editing my ass off next weekend. Which is fine, and do-able, just an enormous pain in the ass, but as long as I am sleeping well and getting rested, that’s really all that matters, isn’t it?

I spent yesterday afternoon writing my book, and then spent some time doing what I usually do; puttering around and trying to get organized, which will also encapsulate most of today as well. I also have an article to write, and a short story to revise/edit…it’s really endless, isn’t it? And of course this week is a work week, and I have other things on the agenda to get done as well. We also watched Landscapers on HBO MAX last night, which was interesting. Olivia Colman and her co-stars are amazing, as always, but at the same time the producers/directors made some interesting artistic choices that didn’t always, at least in my mind, pay off completely. We then moved on to the second season of Control Z, a Spanish language show whose first season we greatly enjoyed, and this second season is also pretty interesting, once you get the hang of what’s going on again; the problem with bingeing so many shows over the course of time is that it’s impossible to remember the plots and subplots when the show comes back around for another season….supporting actor Andres Baida is also incredibly good looking. But finishing Gossip Girl means needing to find new things to watch regularly, and this is quite the pain in the ass now…maybe we need to find another show from that same period that ran for years so there’s plenty for us to watch without having to think too hard or make a false start with watching something else. (I do want to watch the new John Cena super-hero show, if and when it finally premieres; also, there’s all those Marvel shows over on Disney to watch; we’ve never seen WandaVision, for one, and of course there are others now, too; I greatly enjoyed Loki, despite its slow start, and I think there are other shows coming back that we enjoyed as well.)

I also watched bits and pieces of some of the college football games that were on yesterday, many of which were highly entertaining.

Right now, of course, I feel a bit groggy from the sleep hangover; I slept late again this morning and so am a bit behind on the waking up thing. The coffee, as always, is helping enormously, which is a good thing–as a general rule–and as my brain slowly but certainly comes back to life again, and into consciousness, I am beginning to think I am going to be able to get a lot done today as long as I stay focused. I’ve been mostly ignoring my emails since this long weekend began; deleting spam and junk, of course, and noting bill reminders on my calendar. I am also kind of excited because Paul bought me a datebook–the first one I’ve had in an eternity–because using the digital calendar–while it works perfectly for paying the bills, it’s not so great for to-do lists and deadlines. (note to self: make notes on everything you’ve agreed to write and revise and put it in the date book for now) I know I have some stories to get done, and I’ve got to get this book done, and yes, I need to stop saying yes to things.

But the new book is dropping next week too–yeesh, how quickly this seems to happen!–and I’ve not been doing any Blatant Self-Promotion, have I? Seriously, it’s a wonder how I still manage to have a career; imagine were I to focus my inconsiderable energies directly on my career–then again I could do that and have it turn out to make not the slightest bit of difference whatsoever. That is this kind of life, where it is so incredibly easy to feel defeated and give up without trying very hard. I’ve been thinking about retirement–still five years into the future–and yes, well aware that I am late getting started on retirement planning (when a sprightly young girl, fresh out of college and doing one of those benefits fairs at the office said “well, you’ve certainly waited much too long to start this!”–and yes, I know it’s awful, and yes, I should NOT have said it–but I really couldn’t resist replying, “I didn’t think I’d live to see my retirement”) but I think writing was always intended to be a part of my retirement; I’ll keep writing as long as someone will keep publishing me, and as long as my brain continues to function properly in order for me to do so. My career has always been, from the very first, about writing the kind of books I want to write with no thought as to whether it would become a huge seller or not; I’ve always felt that’s kind of a fool’s game. No one really knows what will sell, no one knows what makes a book climb the bestseller lists or capture lightning in a bottle otherwise everyone would be doing it, you know? Who knows what will capture the imagination of the public? I’m always amazed when another writer will say something like, “So I looked at what was selling and decided, ‘okay I’ll write this’.” I like to think I’m not cantankerous when it comes to writing, but I know when I agree to write something for money, I always struggle more writing that than something I came up with on my own, that I wanted to write about.

#shdeservedit was written because I wanted to take a stand against societal misogyny and the notion that boys’ lives are of more value to society than girls’. Sexual assault and sexual harassment, while hand in glove with each other, aren’t the same thing–but they do accomplish the same thing; the devaluing of female lives, making women feel like they are less than; that they don’t enjoy the same rights and privileges that males do in our culture and our society. I’ve spent most of my writing career writing about homophobia–no real surprise, as it directly impacts me and my life on a daily basis and has for most of my life–but now that I am getting older, I am wanting to expand my writing out to address societal issues that may not directly affect me (although the argument can be made that toxic masculinity is the common denominator in all oppression in this country) but injustice for one is injustice for all, which is something I firmly believe.

And on that note, I have a kitchen to clean, floors to vacuum and some filing to do before I get to work on the short story, the chapter I need to write, and that pesky article I need to get written.

Have a lovely first Sunday of 2022, Constant Reader!

Come In With The Rain

So we survived Monday, did we not? And here we are,turning into Tuesday like nobody’s business and like there’s no tomorrow.

It’s 2020. Of course there’s going to be a tomorrow, most likely even worse than yesterday ever dared to be; I was joking with one of my clients yesterday about “remember back in December 2019 how much we were looking forward to that horrible year ending? Who knew 2020 would be even worse? I’m afraid to say I’m looking forward to 2021 now.”

The sad part is that it’s true–and that’s why it’s funny.

This is technically my “hump day,” since I am taking Thursday and Friday off, and I’m a little foggy this morning, ain’t gonna lie. I was, as I feared I would be, very drained when I got home from work yesterday; too physically and emotionally tired to do much of anything other than sit my in my car with Scooter sleeping in my lap while I watched videos on Youtube (there’s a great documentary on there, by the way, based on Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August) until Paul got home. Poor dear, he wanted to watch the next episode of Lovecraft Country, and I had to gently let him down with the news that it’s airing weekly, and we’ll have to wait until this weekend to watch a new episode. Instead, I clicked on Apple Plis and queued up The Morning Show….and can I just say wow? I’m not sure what I was expecting with it, but what I got wasn’t it–and it is amazing. A stellar cast, crisp writing, and engaging story; and Jennifer Aniston is perfectly cast and clearing enjoying every minute of playing morning talk show diva Alex Levy. Now, I’ll admit, I’ve always liked Aniston; she was the only reason I kept watching Friends, long after its expiration date (Rachel was literally the only character on the show who grew, developed, and evolved into a better, more whole person from the first episode through the last, and I’ve enjoyed her in the films of hers I’ve watched), but this performance in this role is a revelation, and she’s fantastic. So is Reese Witherspoon-in fact, the entire cast is quite literally perfect, as is Steven Carell. The Morning Show is about an eponymous network news show, similar to The Today Show and Good Morning America–light, fluffy entertainment with some (little) hard news to ease people into their days with their coffee; Steve Carell and Aniston play the long time anchor team (fifteen years!) and the show opens with the perfect premise: Carell and Aniston are kind of America’s “mom and dad”; and Dad just got fired because of sexual impropriety with people working on the show; and the chaos behind the scenes, from the staff to the network, that ensues. Aniston’s character is in the midst of contract negotiations with the network; the firing of her partner has given her, on the ropes because she’s getting older, a lot more power going forward with her negotiations, and the key now is ‘who’s getting the empty anchor chair’?

I had been avoiding the show, frankly, because I wasn’t sure what it was about and ‘behind the scenes’ shows like this, to me, have a very short shelf-life of being interesting; Paul and I were actually riveted and stayed up later than we should have in order to stream yet another episode. And much as I hate to say it, hats fucking off to Reese Witherspoon; her production company makes incredible television–Big Little Lies, Little Fires Everywhere, and now this. She has become one of the most consistently reliable television program commodities out there–and I will now probably watch anything her company comes up with, regardless of what it’s about or who is in it; but her company now has a pretty amazing track record of quality television with excellent and complex roles for women.

And I am here for it all.

I mean, I looked up the Emmy nominations for Best Actress in a Drama Series, and was like, wow, these are all Oscar caliber performances, and great roles for women–from Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer from Killing Eve to Laura Linney in Ozark to Jennifer Aniston in The Morning Show to Zendaya in Euphoria to Olivia Colman in The Crown–I mean, I don’t know that I could pick a winner from those without just pulling a name out of a hat.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Have a fabulous Tuesday.

 

Desire

It’s a lovely morning, with a blue sky and the sun shining, and it might be a bit chillier than it was yesterday–but the high is forecast for the seventies and there’s no rain in the forecast.

I slept deeply and well last night, partly from exhaustion. Paul, of course, is in the final weeks before the Festival so has been working late at the office and then staying up till the wee hours of the morning working at home, so yesterday he was catching up on sleep most of the day so I was, alas, without my trusted parade route partner as I wandered down to the corner for the Pontchartrain and Choctaw parades. I did well for myself with bead-and-throw catching, but it started sprinkling while I waited for the third parade, so I walked back home. As soon as I sat down in my easy chair, however, exhaustion set in. My legs and lower back were aching, so I decided it wouldn’t hurt to skip the next parade. As Sparta and Pygmalion were coming later, I started watching Versailles and actually got through three episodes. Paul got ready for the night parades…and it started raining. There was also thunder here–which also means lightning–and I decided that it simply didn’t make sense to stand in the rain and possibly catch a chill that would ruin the rest of the season, so I remained ensconced under my blanket in my easy chair and watched television: the CNN docuseries The 2000’s is very well done. This morning my back is still a bit sore and all the joints of my leg–hip, knee, ankle–ache a bit; but I have far too many friends riding in King Arthur to skip that one today.

And I also go on my little staycation on Wednesday, so there’s that, as well.

I do love parade season, I have to say. I may even have to write another Scotty-at-Mardi-Gras book at some point.

Or just some Mardi Gras set book. I could write a hundred books or stories about Mardi Gras and never really cover it all, you know.

How I do love New Orleans.

I also managed to revise a chapter of Scotty yesterday; I should be able to do another this morning as well. I read some more of Lori Roy’s superb Gone Too Long while I was grilling yesterday; it’s most excellent and you need to preorder it immediately. I also managed to get some emails cleaned out; hope to do some more this morning as well as reading the next story in Murder-a-Go-Go’s, and perhaps another Norah Lofts ghost story.

I suppose I’ll watch the Oscars tonight after the parades. It’s really not much fun anymore, as all the pre-awards kind of take all the suspense and excitement out of the Oscars. The acting winners will be Regina King (who deserves all the awards), Mahershala Ali, Glenn Close, and Rami Malek, barring the every-once-in-a-blue-moon surprise. I’ll probably read while it’s on…although I’d love to see Olivia Colman win; not only was she amazing in The Favourite but her acceptance speeches are pure gold. But Glenn Close is way overdue; she should have won for both (or either) Fatal Attraction and Dangerous Liaisons, which I’d actually like to watch again.

And now, I am waking up and needing some sustenance; perhaps some peanut butter toast or a bowl of honey-nut Cheerios?

And then it’s back to the spice mines.

Happy Carnival, all!

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Please Don’t Go

GEAUX SAINTS!

Later this afternoon the Saints play the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles in a play-off game in the Superdome. It’s going to be loud in there, and it’s going to be extremely tense here in the Lost Apartment. I may keep Pet Sematary in my lap so I can distract myself from the nail-biting tension of watching the Saints play.

Yesterday wound up being my day off of the weekend; I didn’t write anything or edit anything, so I am going to have to do that this morning before the game. It’s fine; the game is later today so I should be able to get all the things done this morning/early afternoon that I need to get done. I managed to run the errands yesterday, which was incredibly lovely to get out of the way, and so now today I don’t have to leave the house. Depending on how much I get done this morning, I might actually go to the gym to do some stretching and cardio before the game starts; we’ll see how I feel. I am very happy about the recent weight loss, and am hopeful that will become the stepping stone to a return to being fit that I had hoped to make the case last year…although I am very well aware of the fact that my body dysmorphia will kick in and I’ll never think I’m lean enough or in good enough shape.

Heavy heaving sigh.

So, we went to see The Favourite yesterday, and I really enjoyed it. Visually it was quite stunning; although the wigs and powder of that period really leave something to be desired. It was really an enjoyable film; I never felt like it was going on too long, and those performances! I’ve been a fan of Olivia Colman since the first time I became aware of her–I think in The Night Manager, and then again in Broadchurch–and as Queen Anne she is simply phenomenal. Her performance is so strong it could easily overshadow those of her two co-stars, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz, but it doesn’t; they are equally strong performances. I’ve always liked Emma Stone, and was really surprised by how strong her performance is in this film. The film is by turn funny and poignant; amusing and sad. It’s hard not to pity Queen Anne–those seventeen pregnancies!–and there are some anachronisms and historical inaccuracies in the movie, as there always are (one really can’t enjoy these films if one allows one’s self to be irritated or annoyed by those; I’ve managed to put those aside as these films are truly fictions based on actual events), but over all, I truly enjoyed it.

We also finished watching Homecoming last night; it’s a good show, and Julia Roberts is really terrific in it–and I am not a big fan of la Roberts. The final episode was kind of disappointing; we shouldn’t have put off watching it for so long. But there really wasn’t a good way that I can think of to end the show, but over all I give it high marks and would recommend it. I also started watching Titans on DC Universe after Paul went to bed (we also started watching season two of Futureman on Hulu; it doesn’t appear to be as good or as entertaining as the first; it also doesn’t help that I really don’t remember much of what happened in season one), and it’s premiere episode was a good one; the show is off to a good start. The young actor playing Dick Grayson is very attractive, and quite good in the role; more as I watch this first season play out.

So, I am going to spend the rest of this morning cleaning out my inbox, straightening up the kitchen a bit, and reading those fucking five chapters of Scotty I’ve been putting off all week. (I may even do the next five; depends on motivation and how quickly it goes.) I think Swedish meatballs are in the offing for dinner tonight; and I may even make teriyaki meatballs over night in the slow cooker.

And so, dear Constant Reader, I am about to put on my mining helmet and head back into the spice mines. Do wish me luck, won’t you?

Have a lovely Sunday.

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Lost in Love

Good morning, weekend.

I worked my usual half-day Friday yesterday and came home full of energy and ready to clean and straighten. I got the living room done and did a bit of a book purge. I did numerous loads of laundry, put clothes away, and worked on the kitchen a little bit, but didn’t finish. I’ll do that this morning before reading those pesky five chapters I’ve been avoiding all fucking week. Later on I am going to run errands, and then we’re going to go see The Favourite at the AMC Palace in Elmwood. I am looking forward to it; I love Olivia Colman, and I do like Emma Stone. I also enjoy seeing the sets and costumes and make-up from other periods, and this is a period I am not as familiar with as others in British history. I know about Queen Anne, of course; she was dull and lazy and indolent, the last Stuart to reign over the burgeoning British empire, and had seventeen pregnancies. She was never supposed to be queen; she was the second daughter of the second son of Charles I, and her mother was a commoner, Anne Hyde. But as the years passed and her uncle Charles II continued to have no legitimate heir, her importance–and that of her older sister, Mary, rose. After her mother died, her father the Duke of York married a Catholic princess, Mary-Beatrice of Modena, and converted himself. This, naturally, was not well-received by the very anti-Catholic English, and when his second wife gave him a son three years into his reign, Parliament said bitch please and invited his eldest daughter, Mary, and her husband to take the throne. James II went into exile, and William III and Mary II took the crown. Mary died about six years later, but William remained king until he died in 1702, when Anne took the throne. Anne actually wanted her half-brother to succeed her as James III; instead Parliament invited a very distant cousin to reign as George I. The current royals are his direct descendants, tracing their Stuart heritage back to James I. Anne was queen during the War of the Spanish Succession, pitting all Europe against France and Spain; it was called Queen Anne’s War in North America.

I’ve read no biographies of Queen Anne, and fiction about her is also relatively scarce. I know Jean Plaidy wrote a novel about her, but it’s one of the few Plaidy novels I’ve not read. So, I doubt I’ll know enough of the story to spot glaring historical inaccuracies, but those are to be expected in films of this sort. Her reign was pretty unremarkable other than the war; and her longest-running “favourite”, Sarah Churchill, was married to one of her most able generals and became Duke of Marlborough–Winston Churchill is one of their descendants.

Oh, that went on for quite a bit, did it not? My apologies, Constant Reader! But my initial awareness of Queen Anne was, of course, because of Queen Anne’s War.

I feel pretty good this morning; well-rested and all that. I’ve been sleeping pretty well these last few days, which gives me hope. Tomorrow of course is the Saints’ first play-off game, which will make things pretty tense around here; I am going to have to run to the grocery store in the morning, methinks, in order to get what I need for the week and be done with things. I was hoping to go to the gym to start over with exercise this year. I’ve lost another few pounds–the other morning I was shaving and noticed in the mirror that, without flexing, I could see the faint outline of my abs again–and when flexed they were very apparent. So another eleven pounds to my goal weight of 200 should do the trick, and regular exercise focused on weight-loss should do the trick. I also want to start stretching regularly; I did the other day and it felt so good…I also would like to get a massage at some point as well. I want the theme of this year to be self-care. This is more important the older I get, and let’s face it, exercise–while always a challenge and sometimes quite tedious–is the best way for me to stay strong and healthy and feel good.

I read some more of Pet Sematary yesterday, and will probably read more of it tonight after the movie. I am greatly enjoying this book this time around; I suppose maybe because I know what’s going to happen so it isn’t quite as disturbing this time around as it was the first. Now, I can instead focus on the marriage and the family dynamic/relationships, how well this is all crafted and constructed…it really is quite a marvelous gem of a novel.

And maybe, just maybe, if I get what I want to get done on the Scotty I can work on the WIP a little bit this weekend, too. Maybe.

And I am thinking it’s time to get back to the Short Story Project. I also think I am going to probably start the Diversity Project when I finish the King. I am most likely going to alternate–a diverse book, then a crime novel, etc. I also want to read outside the crime genre this year–more nonfiction, more of other genres–and in some cases they will overlap. I also want to reread some other Stephen Kings I’ve not reread in a while–The Dead Zone, Christine, Firestarter, The Eyes of the Dragon–as well as read the Kings I have on hand that I’ve not read. As I said before, I can’t just push for diversity in books and publishing and so forth if I myself aren’t diversifying my reading. I have always read and been supportive of women writers, and I am going to keep going with that as well this year–I really do think women are writing some of the best crime fiction of our time–but I need to read outside of my own experience and outside of my own genre more….and I need to expand my horror reading to include more authors than Stephen King. I’d like to reread Peter Straub’s Ghost Story (there’s actually a really good essay to write about frozen horror, since The Shining and Ghost Story were of a time) and Floating Dragon; maybe give some of my favorite Dean Koontz’ another twirl to see if they still hold up, and of course there are any number of horror novels in my TBR pile. I also need to read the next book in A Song of Fire and Ice, and there are any number of others books I would like to read and get out of the TBR pile.

Heavy heaving sigh. There’s so much to read, and so little time to read.

And on that note, back to the spice mines.

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