Tag: Orville Peck

Thanksgiving Prayer

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Or, if you prefer (I do), Happy Native Genocide Eve!

I am spending this one alone, here in the Lost Apartment by myself, and that’s fine. Yesterday was nice. I didn’t feel as bad when I woke, after a good night’s sleep, and by early afternoon my stomach stopped aching even a little bit. It embarrasses me to admit this, but I think I was actually malnourished! I’ve not eaten dinner once this week, and I didn’t really eat much on Sunday, either–so I went into calorie deficit, and whatever I ate wasn’t enough calories to keep my body functioning properly.1My blood sugar drops, I get all post-nasal drippy, the drip makes me feverish and cough, and I feel, overall, like crap. I caught up on my eating yesterday morning and lunch finally made the ache go away. Seriously, not very smart. But it’s fine this morning and I feel like myself again, thank the Lord. So, with my unexpected extra day off, I wound up having a very nice and relaxing day around the house by myself. I’m rarely ever home alone for an entire day, let alone a week, so the novelty is still kind of nice and fun and oh, yes, I can do whatever I want whenever I want, can’t I? I did listen to Orville Peck yesterday while I did some cleaning. The downstairs is pretty much done; I just need to do the floors and move some furniture. I also worked on an essay2 and did some reading yesterday, which was nice. I am taking today off from anything and everything–it is a holiday, after all–and the days when I used to feel guilty for doing nothing all day are in the past. I’d also completely forgotten it was Rivalry Weekend in college football, when anything can happen in a football season that has already been wild and wacky and full of crazy upsets. LSU plays Oklahoma for the first time in the regular season this Saturday night in Baton Rouge, so that should be interesting; Oklahoma just trounced Alabama, who trounced LSU a few weeks ago. Obviously, you can’t tell anything by common opponents (LSU beat Vanderbilt, who beat Alabama. Go figure).

So, Thanksgiving. I’ll have a fancy turkey sandwich later–probably open-faced, with turkey gravy poured over it–and when I finish this, I’ll probably go read some more of Lavender House, which is phenomenal and I am loving. I’m seeing the influence of the masters–Chandler and Hammett–in this, and it is absolutely amazing. I am not going to pressure myself to do anything today or feel guilty about not doing things. Besides, I am not capable of doing nothing all day–I’ll do something, at any rate; whether it’s cleaning or pruning the books or organizing a cabinet; I’m like Mom that way. I still have to edit a manuscript this weekend, and I’d also like to reread what I have done on Scotty, maybe even get back into writing that manuscript. I puzzled out how to finish and revise a novella and another one of my short stories–both need to be harder, colder, more hard-boiled and sly and mean-spirited, frankly. I’ve enjoyed this novella because it’s about a dysfunctional relationship that has a truly sad ending. The problem with both, I realized, is that they are from the point of view of someone who ends up committing a crime, and it’s really about how everything leads up to that moment, so I had the voice completely wrong in both, which is the missing piece I’ve been looking for now for quite some time. So, while I am not actually writing anything fictional at the moment, I am doing some brain work on my fiction, and sorry not sorry, THAT COUNTS.

But the whole point of this day–the “wholesome” America rah-rah-rah version, at any rate–is to remember and be thankful for your blessings in this life, and not focus on the hardships you’ve faced. There’s definitely a bit of Christianity and white supremacy baked into that particular American mythology, which is why some (me) half-jokingly call it Native Genocide Eve, because it was the last time European colonizers were grateful for indigenous help, and before they started slaughtering them–whether it was through out-and-out gunfire or disease. The truth left out of the US creation myth is that it was all about conquest and colonizing. I don’t think learning about that is nearly as disillusioning as being taught one thing as a child and then learning as you get older that it’s all justification and lies. Europeans had no right to the Americas, and they took the two continents with violence, prejudice, and genocide. The foundation of our country was built upon white Christian supremacy.

Why is that so hard for people to accept or admit? The truth is, we have been dealing with “alternative facts” most of our lives. Talk about miseducation!

But back to my thankfulness. Obviously, first and foremost, is that I am grateful every day for Paul. What a remarkable person he is, and how lucky was I, with all the people in the world, that somehow I wound up finding the perfect person for me, like I’d ordered from a menu? I miss him when he’s not here–I’ve kind of been thinking about Dad, living alone after losing Mom, up there in the house they shared together for the last twenty-five years of their lives together, and can really understand and relate. I usually can handle the first few days whenever he goes on a trip anywhere, luxuriating in the novelty of living alone (which I’ve never done). Usually by the third day alone (technically tomorrow) I start feeling the loneliness and realize ah, this is what it’ll be like if he goes first 3, which is “I can do this when I’ll have to (again, no choice).”

I am very thankful to be living in New Orleans, the only place in this country that has ever felt like home to me. I love this city even when I complain about it. It’s a bit hard to explain, but I think it has something to do with having the same mentality about life and death that I’ve always had: enjoy today because you could be gone tomorrow. One thing that always bugs me on a molecular level is putting off joy till later. Um, there are more than enough things in life to make you forget about joy, so why inflict it upon yourself? Katrina emphasized that even further–you could lose everything you have in a day and have to start completely over. I’ve moved around the country enough, starting over, that having to start over again at my current age isn’t desirable, but I’ve done it enough times over the course of sixty-three years that I know if I have to, I can. I am also very thankful for that hard core of resiliency baked into who I am.

I am very thankful for my writing career. It’s what I always wanted to do, for as long as I can remember, and even when I get frustrated with it, or wish I had done something differently…well, there are any number of people who wish they had my career, and despite the fact that my writing career happened because so many things that needed to happen for it to happen, happened. I think part of the reason I never took my career as seriously as I should have from the very beginning is because luck and good fortune made it happen, which also makes me very aware of how it can happen. But…that doesn’t, and shouldn’t undermine, the story of my career trajectory. I’ve been nominated for awards almost thirty times, and have even won on occasion. Some writers never get nominated for anything. Some writers never progress past the dream stage. I’ve gotten incredible reviews, and I have some absolutely devoted readers that I am thankful for every damned day. I also think part of the depressive state of the last year or so has everything to do with me not writing much during that time–I am always happier when I am writing fiction, no matter how much stress and anxiety is involved with the writing of said fiction. I’ve pretty much been able to write whatever I want to write most of my life, too.

I’ve also been blessed to be able to know some amazing people, and to call them friends. They are an amazing support system, and they believe in me as a person, as a friend, and as a writer. It’s kind of sad that I didn’t learn what it was like to be or have a good friend until I met Paul. I always have this deep down feeling that no one actually does like me–the PTSD of growing up in a very homophobic society–but I am getting so much better about that.

I am thankful that I have the life I never knew I truly wanted, or could have imagined, during the rough times.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Enjoy your holiday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later, one never can be sure, can one?

One can never go wrong with a shirtless photo of Nyle DeMarco, can one?
  1. Believe it or not, it’s a thing for me; it has a lot to do with fear of gaining weight and the nagging sense that I always need to lose at least ten pounds. I’ll write about that at some point. ↩︎
  2. On the “bury your gays” trope, for the record. ↩︎
  3. Not really the first time; there have been any number of times over our almost thirty years (!!!) together (next summer) where I’ve had to face the possibility of losing him and spending the rest of my life alone (I don’t need a companion, and no one will ever be like Paul to me, just like no one could ever replace Mom for Dad) multiple times already. ↩︎

Strange Things Happen

Remember that stomach thing I had going on yesterday morning? And it had resulted in my not sleeping well? Yeah, well, I was very miserable and tired all day at work, and my stomach just felt worse and worse and worse. I finally left work early, came home, and just chilled out. I also took today off as a cautionary measure. So far so good, and here’s hoping I am rested and can do something with this extra free day that so unexpectedly dropped into my week. I think it means some time with Lavender House, and I do need to clean this messy kitchen up, beginning with the laundry room. Maybe I can put on some Orville Peck while cleaning. I’m really enjoying his music.

Last night I watched the first half of the Ken Burns documentary Leonardo da Vinci, and I quite enjoyed the fact they didn’t try to shy away from his sexuality or try to straight-wash him, like Da Vinci’s Demons did (still enjoyed the hell out of the show, anyway) and so many other shows and movies have, but actually talked about his male relationships quite openly. That was rather refreshing. I’ve always been interested in the Renaissance, and with Leonardo and the great Michelangelo as well. I was thinking about this while watching last night, ferreting out of my brain’s fading memory banks where my interest in Italy came from, and I was able to peg it properly: when I was ten I spent five weeks in the South, including about three at my paternal grandmother’s on a bay in the panhandle. Her second husband loved nothing more than a good flea market, so we often went to them, and I got to buy books for pretty cheap. I remember one time I got two books: one, a lovely but crumbling old edition of a biography of Francois I, King of France; and the other a book called Italy in the Golden Centuries. I think maybe I also got a turn of the twentieth century translation of a history of France; it may have been on that same flea market visit or another, but it was the same summer. I was in my Tudor/Stuart phase at that time, but that July I started learning about France and Italy…both of which were way more interesting than English history. There was a hammock strung between two massive live oak trees in her backyard, dripping with Spanish moss, and I would lay there in the shade with the cool salty breeze from the bay and the steady lapping of water, and just read. It was wonderful. I could have spent the rest of my life in that hammock, reading. The connection between Italy and the French kings, the great artists…since we went to Florence I’ve had this idea for a book I want to write about a lost piece of Michelangelo’s art, going back and forth through the movements of the piece through time and the present day thriller of trying to find it in the present day while others (BAD GUYS) are trying to beat them to it. (I love that kind of shit.) I may even take a stab at this sooner rather than later. I mean, it sounds fun–but my word, the research! And of course I would need to return to Italy for research purposes, wouldn’t I?

I also have been doing the weirdest research for a future book project you can imagine: I’m watching Youtube compilations of television ads from the late 1960’s through the early 1980’s, and it is fascinating how many of them I remember–and can sing the jingle along with. I may have hated the ads–still do–so I guess they were effective? I don’t know if they ever shaped my buying choices and decisions (price is always the most important factor, and store brands are no different from name brands; Costco’s brand is better than most competitors), but I sure do remember them. That’s kind of the grounding in the period that I need to write about it, to trigger memories of what I watched and what was going on and what kinds of bikes did kids ride and music did they listen to and games did they play. Going down this memory hole has been interesting, because I am also having to revisit those periods of my life from the perspective of a much older and very much more tired gay man who really hasn’t developed a whole lot of wisdom about either myself or life in general, but I can see things I couldn’t then. Perspective? A little amusement about how things that didn’t “exist” then that we know about now and I could have been medicated for all those years? Yeah, I can’t be bitter or mourn something that never could have been. And despite how much I grouse and bitch and moan and complain like the old man I am now, I am very pleased with my life and where I am with it. My mom always said (some of her stuff was wise, some of it was kind of horrible, but it was always absolutely real) you can’t have regrets if you’re happy, and I think that is very true. And examining my own history is kind of not painful anymore in that context, if that makes sense? I always never wanted to look back because it seemed like I always got angry when I did–but I wasn’t really being angry; because I am not angry about it anymore. I do remember the anger, the pain, and all the emotional rollercoaster ride that came with it. When I tell the stories, whether face to face or write them on here, I do channel that emotion again into the telling to make it clear just how horrible it all was and how horrific it felt. I guess I can write passionately, and I do not think that’s a bad thing at all.

I am having fun writing the essays, too. I am having fun writing again. That is very pleasing in my eyes. And I am hoping all this free time (five days off in a row) will get my butt in this chair and writing. Sparky hasn’t quite figured out Paul hasn’t come home yet, so he’s not super needy yet–but I am pretty sure that moment is nigh. I slept so good last night, y’all, and it’s nice to wake up feeling so good this morning. This kitchen/office is an utter and complete disaster area, and I definitely must do something about it sooner rather than later. I think I’m going to finish this, start straightening up, and then repairing to my chair to spend some time with Lavender House (it really is quite superb), and I think I’ll finish watching the Leonardo documentary today, too. Heavy sigh. I may even try to write later on too. #madness

And maybe I’ll even finish assembling my desk chair. It’s been about a month since I bought it and started putting it together only to get frustrated and walk away from it before I took a sledgehammer to it. I may even put that on the top of my to-do list.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving Eve, and I may be back later. One never can be sure, and I have a lot of free time to myself over the next five days–except, of course, for my darling Sparky.

It Ain’t Me Babe

Ah, it’s Monday and I am up early, swilling coffee and getting ready to face down a very short, and most likely slow, week in the office. Paul is leaving tomorrow for a week, so tomorrow I’ll come home to a quiet, empty house. It’ll be weird, of course,1 but I am going to try to keep busy. I do have a lot of homework2 to get done this week, and hopefully Sparky won’t be near as needy as he always is when it’s just the two of us. Sparky has, at long last, starting sleeping in the bed with us, always in a kitty donut down by my feet, which is very relaxing. He’s been there the last several mornings when I wake up, which is nice. He’s also started cuddling and sleeping with Paul on the couch–like Scooter, Sparky takes turns with our laps when we’re watching television; unlike Scooter, Sparky starts with Paul for a while before curling up in mine for the rest of the evening. It only took just over a year, but we finally have the cuddle bug we wanted. He still only purrs when he’s riding my shoulders, draped around my neck–but he’s getting cuddlier, and there’s more head-butting by the day.

I had a very relaxing day yesterday, but didn’t get nearly as much done as I wanted to–like always. Still reeling from the power of The Reformatory3, I started reading Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen. I am absolutely loving it. I love the voice, I love the main character, I love the writing, and so I know I am going to really love this book–and once I get going, it will be unputdownable. Yay! And there’s two more in this series, too, which is very exciting–not to mention all his other works, in y/a and romance. Paul spent most of the day working upstairs, and leaving me on my own with Sparky for most of the day. I finished my entry on The Reformatory, and worked on some writing, mostly thinking and taking notes. I’m glad this is a short work week, and am looking forward to some lovely down time here by myself. I made progress on the apartment this past weekend, and will probably get some more progress made over this coming long weekend4.

I need to make a to-do list, and to get better organized, but I made progress. I have a manuscript to edit, some short stories to read and judge for Saints and Sinners, and my own writing to work on around here. Sparky will be needy the whole time, and I am going to watch the new season of Heartstopper, before diving into Sex and the City. I’ve also found some movies to watch over the weekend, too–or in the evenings when I get home from work tomorrow and Wednesday. I’ve also got my Housewives shows, and there’s always some cleaning to be done somewhere–not to mention more pruning of the books and the storage attic.

While I was driving around doing my errands Saturday I started listening to Orville Peck’s music on Spotify, and I love it! I have yet to hear a song of his that isn’t a bop, so I saved several of his albums to my library and am going to start listening to him more regularly in the car. I’ve always liked all kinds of genres of music; there just really hasn’t been any country outside of Dolly in a while that I’ve been interested in. I also kind of hate how country music has been taken over by the Right and MAGA–I’ve never forgiven country music for what it did to the Chicks, and they were RIGHT–so I try not to listen to much of the newer stuff. Country music used to be about outlaws and fighting the man holding down the working class, instead of being a bunch of appeasers and collaborators.

They’d shun and cancel Johnny Cash today for being woke. How fucking sad is that?

They must really hate Orville Peck for being openly gay–even though they really embraced Li’l Nas X when he was doing country music back in the day…until he came out and switched genres.

I don’t know what to think about what’s coming, but it’s pretty sad that the only thing standing between us and authoritarianism are the courts, Senate Republicans, and the administration’s utter incompetence. Paul and I have made up our minds to enjoy ourselves as much as possible between now and the transfer of power; who knows what’s coming after that? These are dark times indeed, and a lot of damage can be done by utter incompetence and a program of complete and utter unfettered cruelty. I think the biggest shock for me of the election is that self-absorption and unbridled hatred of anything not straight, white and cishet was actually embraced by the country.

Then again, this is a country that wasn’t able to legislate or vote slavery out of existence, and it took a war. The appeasement of slave-owning Americans from 1787 through 1865 will always be a stain on this nation’s history, and by not dealing with any of it, or systemic racial oppression, by not facing the truth in all its brutal ugliness, we’ve never been able to progress as a racially diverse nation or move on from it. (I always love when Americans take the moral high road when talking to or about other countries; like we have any room to talk about oppressing citizens and human rights violations? Bitch, please.)

Sigh. And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I may be back later. One never knows!

  1. I’ll never understand how someone can take up so much space, and how much bigger and emptier it seems when he isn’t there. ↩︎
  2. Writing and reading and editing, oh my! ↩︎
  3. Which might be one of my favorite novels of all time, period, regardless of genre. ↩︎
  4. I am planning on simply cleaning the bathrooms on Thursday morning, and having a very lazy day doing little to nothing other than reading and binge-watching television series; I’ll push myself the other three days. I can also do things at night this week once Paul departs tomorrow morning. ↩︎