Happy Father’s Day to all who celebrate. As for me, I’m meeting Dad in Florida on Friday for a nice weekend in Panama City Beach, although I seriously doubt that I’ll be going outside very much. The older I get, the less I can stand to be in the heat–which is something younger Greg would have laughed at very hard. I no longer care about being tan, either, as yet another fragment of vanity disappears from my head. Today I have to go out into the heat to make groceries, but other than that I am staying happily indoors and trying to get some more work done. We also have Wednesday off, of course, for Juneteenth, which is going to make for an odd work week, methinks, which is also payday.
I am feeling a bit groggy this morning but I haven’t had my first cup of coffee, either. Ah, there’s that first sip, sending warmth and energy through my system. I plan to do some writing today; I had a really good time yesterday unpacking and deconstructing the 20k+ words I already have done for this project, and I do think expanding it out into a novel is a good idea; I think it will make for a very good book if it accomplishes what I am setting out to do with it–and of course, as soon as I have those ambitious thoughts good old Imposter Syndrome rears its ugly head. AH, well, but feeling like I’m back inside my writer’s skin inevitably was going to trigger that, wasn’t it? Sadly, it’s all part and parcel of being a writer, and I just need to shrug it off entirely and focus on the work. So, while I generally despise Imposter Syndrome, I welcome it now because it’s a signpost on the way to getting back to being a full time writer after several years of being swamped and stressed and everything else that went on since 2016, really. It’s been almost a decade since Mom’s first stroke and she started living, essentially, on borrowed time. I think that was the start of the cloud in my brain, and that odd sense that time is running out. It feels lovely to be out of that; I’ve not experienced it for quite some time now, and I think the rest of this year might actually turn out to be incredibly productive for me. Here’s hoping, anyway.
Yesterday was lovely. Sparky got me up before eight, which was fine (he let me sleep until eight this morning), and I got up and started working. I did some cleaning, and I also did some writing, and some planning. Last night I scribbled away merrily in my journal, listing characters and figuring out backstories for them, so that they can be fully realized when I write about them. I do think this one, and the one after, are going to be some of my best work, which feels great, you know? I was also looking over the prologue to The Summer of Lost Boys, and rewrote some of it in my head, which I will need to transcribe at some point today as well. I didn’t really leave the house yesterday, which was great. I spent some time reading the new Paul Tremblay, Horror Movie, which I am really enjoying. (I always enjoy reading Tremblay; he’s one of the best of the new crop of names in the horror community, and not a single book or story of his that I’ve read wasn’t an incredibly enjoyable experience.) We finished getting caught up on The Boys (it cracks me up that the right-wingers are suddenly realizing that the show actually makes fun of them, and the ‘heroes’ they were rooting for were actually the villains. Sucks to be MAGA), and then we dove back into After the Flood, which is absolutely terrific and interesting.
Oh! And House of the Dragon returns tonight. Huzzah!
I slept well again last night, so getting up to Sparky’s determination to get fed was fine with me this morning. The first cup of coffee is currently working its magic in my bloodstream and I am waking up, which is marvelous. I do have some things I need to do this morning–the kitchen is a bit of a wreck this morning, and the floors need to be done–but I am hoping to spend the day, outside of the grocery store, inside working on the book and getting my shit together for the week. Make a to-do list, try to remember all the things I want to submit to, and get organized. I never feel organized, and haven’t in a while, which is part of the off-balance thing that’s been going on since 2016 or so.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday/Father’s Day, and I may be back later with some other posts about being gay and Pride and other great moments from my gay life.
Saturday morning and I am off to Alabama later this morning. I still have to make a packing list, finish some chores around here, and get gas on my way out of town, but there’s no rush and no need to stress about getting there. I’ll probably stop somewhere to eat lunch after I cross the Mississippi state line, and then will have dinner with Dad up there. I’m excited to see Dad again, but I am a little worried about the drive and my stamina. I am planning to drive back to New Orleans on Friday so I can have two days to recover from the lengthy drive, which will be exhausting. I am going to listen to Carol Goodman’s The Drowning Tree–which I started listening to on the drive back from Panama City Beach last October, but never finished; I need to start over but that’s perfectly fine; I love Carol’s work, and I am probably going to listen to Lisa Unger on the way home. I really wish I had started listening to audiobooks in the car years ago, you know?
Yesterday was nice and relaxing. I like working at home on paperwork and stuff because outside of an attention-needing kitten with BIG energy, I don’t have any distractions. I can focus in a way that I can’t when I’m in the office. But once my work was done I went out and ran my errands–picking up things for Paul while I’m gone, mail, prescriptions, etc.–and then came home and relaxed. We finished Dead Boy Detectives, which we both absolutely loved, and then caught up on Abbott Elementary before moving on to the new season of Hacks, which has not declined in quality at all. I did some cleaning around here yesterday, too–got the laundry finally caught up, and almost caught up with the dishes, too (last load needs to go in this morning before I leave), so I can leave with a clear conscience knowing I am only going to come home to Paul’s mess, and he really doesn’t make much of one in the kitchen anymore. He generally just uses the microwave or makes scrambled eggs for the most part while I’m gone.
I also signed and uploaded my tax returns yesterday–another refund, thank you, baby Jesus–and so that’s out of my hair. It’s always nice to not have to worry about things and go on a trip with a fairly clear conscience. I’ll probably take some stuff with me to read and work on, knowing I may not have time to do much of anything while I am there. Dad will have been gone for almost two weeks by the time we get up there on Monday, so he is going to have lots of chores to do–and he never allows me to help, which drove Mom crazy. This time it’s a stamina issue for me, which is truly sad given I’m sixty-two and he’ll be eighty-two later this year, but I also had two major surgeries since Labor Day and damn it, I am old. Twenty years ago I’d probably already be back to normal and going to the gym three times a week trying to burn off the fat I would think I had gained during my long inactivity. I put on a shirt the other day for work and wondered for the first time in years “does this make me look good or do I look fat?”–so maybe the vanity is coming back, which may not be an entirely bad thing.
I just checked the weather for both Alabama and Kentucky and looks like a lot of rain, warm during the day and cold at night. Well, we won’t be going anywhere at night but I’ll need to take a jacket of some sort with me just in case; a zip hoodie should do the trick.
And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely weekend, and I am not sure when I will be back. Possibly tomorrow, or who knows?
Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and if you don’t–well, happy Monday off!
Yesterday was not a good day. I woke up feeling like crap, and it never really got much better until later in the day, when I realized it had started raining during the night. It rained all day, actually, and I was so tired and dragged out and felt so terrible that I didn’t put it together until late in the afternoon–oh, this is SINUS related, because of the rain–and took a Claritin-D, which made me feel somewhat better. I also slept super good and slept in, too. I did manage to get some things done yesterday too–I finished reading Buried in a Good Book (more on that later) and started reading another one. We also finished watching both Looking the series, and then watched the wrap-up film (more on that later as well). I am going to pick out my next read, spend some time with it this morning, and at some point today we are probably going to watch Saltburn. I also have to put the turkey breast in the slow cooker (pulled turkey is quite delicious) and put dishes away, but I also have tomorrow off, so am not overly concerned about getting things organized and cleaned up. I worked on the books some more and pruned some more out, and started learning how to use the microwave–which does make a difference.
Christmas is usually when I started looking back on the year, and 2023 was a bit of a rollercoaster for me (they usually are). My personal life really sucked balls this past year, but it was a very good year for me professionally. The year started with me behind on two deadlines, but I managed to getboth books finally finished and turned in, once I was able to turn MWA over to my successor, which was part of the delay on the books. In late January I injured my arm, and got misdiagnosed by my primary care physician. As we rolled into Mardi Gras, Mom had a massive stroke and I drove up to Kentucky to see her one last time in hospice. She didn’t really know me, she was pretty much unresponsive unless she was in pain, and it was rough. I drove home that Sunday, and she died on Valentine’s Day, so I had to drive up to Alabama that last weekend of Mardi Gras for the funeral. Not going to lie, it was tough losing my mother, and it’s been tough all year. I have sublimated most of my grief into worry about Dad, frankly. I went up and met him in Alabama for their anniversary, and we convoyed up to Kentucky, where I stayed for a week. I met Dad at my aunt and uncle’s place in Panama City Beach in October for their birthdays. When my primary care finally recognized what was wrong with my arm (torn biceps), I got referred to a orthopedic surgeon–but I needed a specialist. I had all my teeth removed finally in September, right after Labor Day, but didn’t get my new teeth until the week before the arm surgery, so was on a soft diet for two months which sucked….and then had to go back on it after the surgery because I couldn’t really cut up food. I also got hearing aids, which was great and has helped dramatically.
I also finally realized what the core mental issue was, thanks to a conversation with Dad–when I found out she suffered from generalized anxiety disorder and the light bulb went on over my head: that is exactly what is wrong with me, and all these years what I thought was “normal” because I didn’t know any different and I just always thought I was like Mom…yeah, I am like Mom, and all these years all I’ve been doing is treating symptoms and not the root cause. In consultation with my new primary care doctor, I weaned off the old medication and started treating the anxiety and the insomnia (anxiety related) properly, and it has made such an amazing difference in my life. I think more clearly, and I can analyze myself better. I’ve also started thinking about how most of my life I’ve tried to avoid confrontation (like Mom) and whenever something has happened that hurt me…well, I’ve tried to avoid those kind of situations again. My trust issues come from the anxiety and being hurt before, and I also realized that my socialization as a child was delayed and/or stunted because of being unable to control my brain. I had undiagnosed ADD as a child, and I feel pretty sure that’s carried over to my adulthood, as well. I couldn’t focus or concentrate because I didn’t know how to shut my brain off or keep it until control. The only time I could find peace, really, was reading or writing.
Professionally, I started off the year by getting nominated for a Lefty for Best Humorous for A Streetcar Named Murder, which was a very pleasant surprise. I debated going, but the timing was bad and with all the traveling I was having to do for family stuff, I had to conserve and preserve paid time off. This was followed up by an Agatha nomination for Best Children’s/Young Adult for #shedeservedit, and this time I did go. I lost to Enola Holmes, but I also became friends with Elizabeth Bunce (we’d been nominated together for an Anthony the year before) and Frances Schoonmaker, who was an absolute delight. I was nominated for three Anthonys at Bouchercon this year–Children’s/YA again; anthology for Land of 10000 Thrills, and Best Humorous for Streetcar again. None of those nominations ended with a win, but for me the nominations alone were the real win. I never ever thought I would be shortlisted for mainstream mystery awards, and what a delightful surprise.
I did publish two novels this year–a new series debuting with Death Drop, and the ninth Scotty, Mississippi River Mischief. I also got an (undeserved) editorial credit for School of Hard Knox, along with Donna Andrews and Art Taylor, for publisher Crippen and Landru–which meant working with my dear friend Jeffrey Marks. I have a story in the book, too–“The Ditch”–which was something I’d been working on forever. I also published two more short stories, “Solace in a Dying Hour” in This Fresh Hell, and “The Rosary of Broken Promises” for Dancing in the Shadows. I’m pleased with both stories, but I also need to get more. I have any number of incomplete projects that are nagging at me that I would like to finish in the new year. SO MANY PROJECTS.
But I feel good today, and very rested. I’d intended to take today as a do-nothing day, but I will probably do stuff because I am not really wired to not do anything all day.
And on that note, I will wish you happy holidays for the moment and head into the…well, not the spice mines, but perhaps a spice resort?
Up ungodly early on a Saturday because I have to cross the river to the West Bank to get my oil changed. One of the most interesting things about this surgery recovery is it seems to have wiped my memory banks or something–kind of like an Apple OS update. Yesterday on my way to PT I checked the car’s systems and was stunned to see that I was due for an oil change. It seemed like I’d just had it done, but now that I think about it, it may have been as far back as June, when I went to Alabama and Kentucky and back. I’ve done a lot of driving since then, including a weekend drive over to Panama City Beach in October, and so it’s not really surprising that it’s due again–and thank God I checked, right?
But I continue to sleep well, and I am really looking forward to sleeping late tomorrow and just lazing around until I feel like getting up. Monday morning I have PT early, and then have to head into the office for my paperwork day. It’ll be a great and interesting week of trying to get everything caught up so I can take my four day Christmas break with a clear conscience–at least as far as work is concerned. My PT visits continue to go well, and I like both therapists I’ve worked with so far. (If you’re local to New Orleans and need physical therapy, I highly recommend Physiofit in Uptown on Magazine Street.) I am hoping I won’t need the brace after I see my surgeon again next Friday, and what a lovely Christmas gift that would be, wouldn’t it? It’s just cumbersome and awkward now, and the greater dexterity I get with my hand the more annoying it is to have to type around having it on. I also have noticed how easily I tire now, too–but I also know my body had a major trauma that it hasn’t completely recovered from just yet, and three weeks of being sedentary wasn’t a huge help; I have to build my stamina back up.
We watched the final episode of Fellow Travelers last night and while it was terribly sad, there was a kind of release at the end as well. It’s an incredible show, and both Matt Bohmer and Jonathan Bailey deserve to be nominated for Emmys next time around. I doubt that it will get a lot of Emmy nods–It’s a Sin, which was also brilliantly done and brilliantly acted, was completely snubbed by the Emmys. Twenty years ago it would have not only gotten a lot of nominations, it would have probably run a clean sweep on award night, but sadly, the history of AIDS and gay suffering simply doesn’t have the cachet it did when everyone wore red ribbons to awards shows and red carpets. I do recommend the show, and I want to move the book up in my TBR pile. (I am taking Raquel’s Calypso, Corpses and Cooking with me this morning and I am hoping I’ll be able to finish it while I wait to get the car back.)
We also started watching the second season of Reacher, which is very fun. Alan Ritchson, who was already huge in the first season, used the time between filming to bulk up even more. He certainly embodies the character physically far better than Tom Cruise could ever hope to, with no offense to Cruise; he’s just not the right physical type, and since one of the best known facts about the character is his enormous size, well…he was never going to please fans of the books. I stopped reading the series about ten or so years ago–I have no grasp of the passage of time, so you’ll have to give me some grace on that, nor do I recall why I stopped reading it. Obviously, Lee Child isn’t missing my money, but I was a big fan of the series and still remember it fondly; there were some terrific books in that series, and The Killing Floor may be one of the best series-launch novels of all time.
I have to work today when I get home from the oil change and other errands this morning; I really need to spend some time with the book today and I also need to work on the house a lot more. The apartment has really slid, and allowing Sparky free range to do as he pleases has resulted in a lot of debris on the floor–and all of my good pens are missing. Paul’s cigarette lighters, highlighters, scissors, spoons, plastic wrap, plastic bags, dryer sheets, and a lot of other miscellaneous stuff is scattered all over the floors both up and downstairs…and he’s also wreaked havoc in the laundry room and the bathroom. The kitchen floor has never really been completely cleaned up since the ceiling collapse, either. I have decided, though, that this year’s Christmas present to myself is going to be a new microwave. My current one is well over ten years old, and it works fine…but I never read the manual and so am never sure how to use for anything than reheating something. Paul uses it more than I do, and he also never cleans it, so it’s always a filthy mess. Since I never really use it, I tend to not pay attention and then I always notice it when I don’t have time to clean it, and then forget. They had a great one on-line at Costco, so I think next weekend I’ll go pick it up, and then donate the old one (after a thorough cleaning) to work so we have one in our department.
And that’s how I know I am officially old: appliances are my preferred gift.
Yesterday was a little frustrating, I am not going to lie. The day went off the rails early and just never seemed to get back on track. Frustrating news, irritation, depression, and high anxiety all combined to make yesterday a challenge for me to stay on track and balanced, so much so that I just felt overwhelmed and didn’t even try to cope or stay centered because I felt tired all day on top of everything else that was going so irritatingly wrong yesterday.
I did sleep well Sunday night, but I was still worn out from the driving and so forth from the weekend.
So yeah, I was channeling some Major Bitch Energy yesterday, but managed to keep it all inside and not inflict it on anyone else. This was the big win of the day–because I used to just give rein to it and everyone else would just need to get out of my way or else. But I didn’t snap at anyone, I didn’t swear at anyone when I was driving home after work–but I did drive straight home after work, despite needing to run errands. I was smart enough to realize how close I was to snapping at someone or just being a dick in general, so I went home to spare the world and some unsuspecting person my foul mood.
Sigh.
And then I got home to find out that they’d started working on the house today–not really sure what they are doing but it’s an old house in New Orleans so it literally could be anything–and didn’t give any warning–as evidenced by the kitchen wall clock lying in pieces on the kitchen floor (it’s easy to put back together), and then I noticed a lot of the framed pictures in the laundry room were on the floor. The workers didn’t give any warning nor did our landlady; but Sam the handyman knew there were things on the walls so he called Paul. He got five minutes notice, but didn’t think about the clock in the kitchen–and why would he? It’s a whole different room, even if it is connected to the laundry room and one wall is also the back wall of the house.
I also slept wrong or something either Saturday or Sunday night so my neck was sore yesterday (still is this morning, in fact)–turning my head to the left hurt, which of course made driving an absolute joy. I do remember taking good health and not always hurting for granted for way too long. Sigh, I guess there is some truth to that saying you really don’t know how much you’ll miss something until it’s gone; it never even crossed my mind to be grateful I was in good physical condition. I didn’t even know how lucky I was; but I certainly am very well aware that I am a physical wreck at sixty two. Heavy heaving sigh. My neck is still sore this morning, but Ben-Gay has been doing the trick and it’s not quite as bad this morning as it was yesterday.
So, by the time I finally got the laundry started last night, I was already in a mood and said fuck it and repaired to the living room with Tug for some lap time. A purring sleeping kitten in your lap is the best thing for anxiety and stress after a bad day.
Hopefully today will be a good day. I am going to attempt to start eating more “not soft” foods this week at some point. I do still have a lot of that soft food stuff to get rid of anyway, so its just as well I was wrong about how long it would take to get my dentures (I don’t think I ever really told a timeline, which was why I got confused) because all this remaining soft food I’ve not gotten to yet will get used and it won’t just sit in the cabinet for months (years) waiting for me to get fed up at last and start pitching things, right? And I don’t need to have the expensive ice cream–it just has a high calorie count and is very filling and I like it, so I can probably start doing without that; maybe switch to something less expensive and with chunks of stuff in it. I don’t know that I can’t chew so much as I can’t bite into things, which is why I am going to start practicing with other foods. Most of this soft stuff is just carbohydrates, which my body is turning into sugar which is making me pre-diabetic which is also building up my uric acid which is manifesting as gout (everything is connected in your body–everything). I did make it into work, only had to use two hours of my sick time (I get to use two more on Wednesday when I get my sonogram), and managed to get some things done both there and on the home front.
As I was driving both to and back from Panama City Beach over the weekend, I also went down memory lane back to my childhood again. I hadn’t been back to Panama City Beach since the summer I graduated from high school, back in 1978; we went on a trip to visit the relatives and the beach and all for about three weeks that summer, right after I graduated. We never used I-10 back then–was there an I-10 then? Probably–but once I took the exit for 331 south, I knew exactly where I was; Defuniak Springs, and 331 was the road to my grandmother’s old place on Choctawhatchee Bay. And sure enough, 331 took me to the bridge over the bay–no longer a draw bridge or a two lane bridge; now it’s two separate bridges with two lanes crossing in either direction–and the gas station at the corner where you’d turn to go to my grandmother’s is now a park, which I didn’t catch until I was past it. I was going to turn and drive down there on the way home, just to take a look, but by the time I got across the bridge I was deep into The Only Good Indians and I was tired and just wanted to go home. But these old sites–and the incredible beauty of the beach at Panama City Beach–brought back a lot of memories and thoughts about me, my life, and my writing; as did spending time with my aunts and uncle on my father’s side of the family–none of whom I’d seen outside of weddings or funerals since that last trip down there before we moved to California in the the first months of 1981, and that made me go down that road. We spent most of Saturday after I arrived watching football games–Alabama-Texas A&M, and then Notre Dame-Louisville–which reminded me again of how deeply rooted football is as a family thing; we bond over watching football games, pretty much rooting for the same teams while hating the same ones. (They all overlook my LSU fandom, but they’re all Auburn fans who hate Alabama with a passion–my dad and mom and our little branch were the exceptions; rooting for Alabama unless they were playing Auburn. For me, the SEC is now LSU–with Auburn a distant second and Alabama just behind them in third. We all hate Tennessee and Florida–but they hate Georgia; I don’t. Even Dad hates Georgia.) But it made me think more about the panhandle books and the Alabama books I still want to write–and I was also laughing at myself for trying to make the books set there (like the ones in Kansas) so based in fictionalized reality that I feel tied to making the towns almost exactly the same; it’s fiction, lunkhead, so you can change things; it’s okay. (This also kind of dovetails with my “NOLier than Thou” post; because I realized I’ve always created fictional places in New Orleans while still trying to get the city right…it’s really about the mentality than the actual geography.)
But I would like to go back and explore; perhaps Paul and I can find a place over there to rent for a few days–a condo or something so we can eat at home and so forth; Paul would be more than happy to just be given beach access 24/7–and then I could think about the two or three books I want to set there. (I also want to set some books and more stories in the fictional town of Tuscadega, which I invented and based on Freeport, where my grandmother lived. “Cold Beer No Flies” was set there, for example. And driving through Mobile made me think of Dark Tide, too.) It was also interested because the Google Earth views I’d looked at made Panama City Beach look a lot different. It is a lot different than it used to be–more built up, no vacant lots, and yes, there are condos and massive resort hotels built on the beach side of Lower Beach Road (there was only a Beach Road back in the day–now there’s Lower, Middle, and Upper Beach Roads), but there are still public beaches where you can drive up and park right by the dunes and walk a very short distance to the beach, and those tourist-serving little shops that sell gimcracks and souvenirs and beach towels and inflatable rafts and suntan lotion are still there–not as many, but there are some, bearing names like Surfin’ Safari and so forth. I also took some pictures to help me remember things if and when I write about the area again. (It’s where I want to set my Where the Boys Are/slasher novel mash-up that I am calling Where the Boys Die. )
And another story–another one of the ones from back in the day when I was still in college and trying to figure out how to become a writer (which is what I thought those classes were for; they were not) I had written another one that I had turned in with “Whim of the Wind” (the first semester with a good teacher, I had started to feel like I could be a writer again, and by the second semester when I took the class a second time–you were allowed to take it twice–I decided to write a lot of stories to turn in….which was when I first started writing fast, I suppose. Anyway, when I turned in “Whim of the Wind” I turned in another story called “Thunder Island,” which was also set in the panhandle. It was also well received by the class, but not as well as the other, and so I’ve never really thought much about the second. I tried rewriting it once, but to no avail, and since then it’s just kind of been languishing in the files. Ironically, the story was about someone who was returning, after a long time, to the area after a funeral and was remembering a summer when he was a kid, staying on the bay with his grandmother…but while the story was good and worked, now it’s problematic. I’d have to update the story and change some things, and it’s not a crime story at all–although technically in its original problematic form it was an inadvertent crime story. Funny that I completely had forgotten writing a story set in the panhandle almost forty years ago that actually predicted the drive I just took. Maybe I should look it over again? May not be a bad idea.
But the most important thing for me to do today is assess my situations and figure out where I am at with everything, and what I need to get done. I am still in the midst of medical processes–part of yesterday’s problems stemmed from me either never being told or misunderstanding the denture process, which is much longer than I thought and I won’t be getting the final ones for another four to five weeks–and tomorrow morning I am having a sonogram on my heart and Friday an MRI on my shoulder. I need to get a handle on things because all the medical stuff keeps pushing everything else out of my brain; how do people prepare for surgery when they have a gazillion other things to do on top of that? I guess you just endure. I have no control over the situation–which is probably part of my problem with the whole thing–and just have to put my fate in the hands of others, which is something I never like doing and always chafe at; it’s part of the reason why flying is such an issue for me (one of the many reasons, all of which have to do with my faulty brain wiring)–I have no control over anything. You have to surrender control of your fate to the airline once you walk into the airport until you walk out of the airport at your destination and that really chafes at me. Anxiety, of course–on the one hand I know what the general disorder is and that everything else I thought was wrong with my brain’s wiring is just a symptom of the macro disorder, and I am better about controlling it now that I know what it is…but yesterday was one of those days where I felt no control at all over my life and situation and so that started the spiraling and it just got out of control.
But I am happy that I’m better and more balanced (and better rested ) this morning–the neck is still stiff and sore–and on that note, will head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will be back later, probably.
I know very little about the culture, history, values, and faith of the native American population of this continent. Most of what I do know isn’t reliable; being gleaned from books and histories and television shows and movies and other media, most of which were steeped in racism and white supremacy, and cannot really be depended upon for any kind of accuracy whatsoever.
If anything, it should be looked at with a highly jaundiced and very critical eye.
I’ve been trying to educate myself more about the indigenous natives of Alabama, for example; as I delve more deeply into writing about my fictional Corinth County, I need to learn more about the area and the natives who originally lived there–and what they believed and their spirituality. I do not want to write–or even imagine– anything rooted in white supremacy and racism. I never played “cowboys and Indians” when I was a child–I was never into little boy things, ever–and was never terribly interested in Westerns, but was aware that white people wore thick make-up to play Native-Americans on film and television…which even as a child made me wonder why they didn’t just find Native-Americans who wanted to be in show business (because I found it incredibly hard to believe there weren’t any). I always assumed Cher was at least part Native because of “Half-Breed,” so you can imagine my shock and surprised to find out she’s actually of Armenian descent. The Village People had a non-native in native garb as part of their nod to gay masculine archetypes (probably this came from the book and movie Song of the Loon, plus decades of Hollywood’s sexualization of the loin-clothed Native warrior).
And as you get older, and do more reading and studying on the subject, you begin to see things that were plainly obvious all along, but somehow you never really connected the dots.
The first time I ever read anything that treated the native population with dignity, respect and understanding was James Michener’s Centennial*, which remains my favorite of his works and one of my favorite books of all time. The hit movie Billy Jack, which came out while I was in junior high school, was also about mistreatment of modern-day Natives by bigoted white people and their government, but I think the social message of the movie got lost in white tween boys’ fascination with Billy Jack’s fighting skills, because that was all they talked about. I don’t think I ever heard anyone ever say “It’s terrible how we treat the natives.” The late 1960s and 1970s began to see a change in how we see the native population, as well as the history of the European conquest of the continent–not everyone, of course, but at least with those who were trying to be better about racism and racial issues and the long history of oppression of the native populations.
I had heard a lot of great things about Stephen Graham Jones, a native American horror writer who has taken the genre by storm. I’ve been wanting to read him for quite some time, and so I decided to listen to The Only Good Indians on my drive to Panama City Beach and back this past weekend.
And it did not disappoint.
The headline for Richard Boss Rivs would be INDIAN MAN KILLED IN DISPUTE OUTSIDE BAR.
That’s one way to say it.
Ricky had hired on with a drilling crew over in North Dakota. Because he was the only Indian, he was Chief. Because he was new and probably temporary, he was always the one being sent down to guide the chain. Each time he came back with all his fingers he would flash thumbs-up all around the platform to show how he was lucky, how none of this was ever going to touch him.
Ricky Boss Ribs.
He’d split from the reservation all at once, when his little brother Cheeto had overdosed in someone’s living room, the television, Ricky was told, tuned to that camera thay just looks down on the IGA parking lot all the time. That was the part Ricky couldn’t keep cycling through his head: that’s the channel only the serious-old of the elders watched. It was just a running reminder of how shit the reservation was, how boring, how nothing. And his little brother didn’t even watch normal television much, couldn’t sit still for it, would have been reading comic books if anything.
First of all, I want to address what a terrific writer Jones is–although this is hardly ground-breaking news. For me, the strongest part of the story was the authorial voice and the tone set by it. I can’t say whether something like this–like anything written by people outside of my own experience–is authentic or not, but it was completely believable. I truly got a sense of what it is like to be a Native-American living in North America in the present day; the mind-numbing poverty and dealing with the incessant racism from white people. His characters were three-dimensional and fully realized; the dialogue sounded right, the rhythm of the words he used to create a melody of syllables and sounds sang from the page. I felt like I was there in every scene, in the room with the characters and bearing mute witness to what they were experiencing, and what they were going through and experiencing, with the fully-realized life experiences coming into play with every word they said and every action, every thought, every movement. The deceptive simplicity of the prose was powerful and resonated; it sounded like poetry coming through my speakers.
I also found myself really interested in basketball–which is very unusual.
I also realized, as I was listening, spellbound behind the wheel of my car, that there was also commonality of human experience here; the poverty, the worries about money and the future and the bleakness of the helpless acceptance of despair–this is definitely a horror novel, but it’s also a stinging indictment of poverty and societal inaction in the face of it; their resigned acceptance of their fate mirrors the more callous resignation most people feel when thinking about poverty in these United States–“nothing I can do about it.”
While telling a strong story that is almost impossible to step away from, Jones also educates us cleverly with a sentence here and there–I’d never thought about where the term buck naked came from, and there are so many of these sprinkled throughout the book; terms and phrases that white people use without a second thought but come from a long history of racism and prejudice; the title itself is taken from the horrific saying “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.” I myself am always careful not to refer to the native population by the colonizing name assigned to them by the lost Spaniards looking for spices; it was jarring hearing it over and over again, and made me a bit uncomfortable–but I suspect that was the entire point. (I think the worst was when the junior high school basketball prodigy Denora was thinking about playing a game against white schools, and the horrible signs and things their students yelled at her and her teammates–the one that was particularly offensive was Massacre the Indians!, which reminded of the trash Chicago Bears fans holding up signs when playing the Saints in the NFC title game after the 2006 season: “FINISH WHAT KATRINA STARTED!”, which turned me from someone with a nostalgic affection for the NFL team in the city where I spent most of my childhood into someone who wants them to lose every fucking game they play.
Massacre the Indians.
There’s no doubt in my mind reservation kids have to deal with this kind of bullshit all the time, and its embarrassing and infuriating at the same time. The cruelty is always the point.
But I digress.
I really enjoyed this book. I felt like reading it somehow helped me reach a better understanding of a situation I was already aware of, while being incredibly entertaining at the same time. I cannot state that enough: what a great experience this book was from beginning to end. The tension and suspense were ratcheted up with every chapter and sentence; the monster was terrifying and horrifyingly relentless, and the characters were all strongly rendered in both their strengths and their flaws.
When I finished the book, I couldn’t help but wonder if this book, and others by Jones, were being pulled from library shelves because reading them might make white people feel bad. The book made me remember again why controlling access to what anyone can read is about control more than anything; we can’t let people read diverse points of view or see opposing opinion is the underlying message of the banners, and quite frankly, grow a fucking pair already! Seriously, who is calling who a snowflake?
Read this book! You can thank me later. And now I want to read more of Jones’ work.
*Centennial may not have been historically accurate in its depiction of the Arapahoe tribe, but I feel that it showed how the US government broke promise after promise to them, and the depiction of their systemic extermination was not done in a “manifest destiny” way. The ugliness of the US and its racism was right there on full display.
This morning I get to go pick up my temporary teeth before heading into the office. It’s no longer a clinic day; I’d be covering Mondays for a colleague who’d had major surgery and he’s back now. I am also a little tired this morning. I slept really well last night but could have slept much longer, the physical and mental hangover from having driven so much this weekend. I left for Panama City Beach during half-time of the LSU-Missouri game; and given how LSU had been playing, you can imagine my delight when I checked the score when I stopped for gas to see that the Tigers had rallied to beat the other Tigers 49-39. The Saints destroyed the Patriots 34-0 while I was driving back yesterday; again, imagine my delight when I checked the score when I stopped for gas past Mobile (I try not to ever spend money in Mississippi, for any number of reasons. The same with Tennessee). So my teams apparently do better when I’m not able to watch, which is something I’ve suspected for quite some time.
This is a week of medical stuff–the teeth this morning, a heart sonogram on Wednesday morning, and something else entirely on Friday that I can’t think of. The MRI of my shoulder, I think? There are so many appointments and things going on while I am getting ready for this surgery that I am not even entirely sure I can keep track of them all–the anxiety roiling up from the depths again–but I am pretty sure I put everything on my calendar and I am resisting the urge to give into the anxiety and better check compulsively numerous timesto be sure stage. I know I wrote everything down on my calendar; I will double-check that tonight when I get home from work, and that will be the end of it as far as that kind of anxiety and stress and pressure are concerned. I think I am doing a great job of controlling the anxiety by recognizing it and refusing to allow it to take control, but some days are definitely harder than others. I only got irritated several times on the drives this weekend–and I would say that those situations would have irritated any driver, even those without anxiety as a mental disorder.
I did get to listen to The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones, which I greatly enjoyed (more on that later) and Saturday before I left I read some more of Final Girls, which is starting to get rolling now–although it occurred to me in the car that I should have listened to the rest of Final Girls in the car and thus been able to move on to something else to read this week, but ah well, sometimes that’s how life goes. I was very tired when I got back to New Orleans last night–the drive was very smooth, with a few exceptions of stupidity along the way (I’m looking at you, Mobile tunnel) but I didn’t sleep great Saturday night after that drive, and so that’s why I’m dragging and a little the worse for lack of sleep. I also have a bit of a sore spot in my neck from sleeping wrong at some point over the last two nights, my guess being it was last night’s, combined with poor posture while driving. Tug also missed me; he spent most of last evening sleeping in my lap, but once he woke up he turned back into the terror Paul had described when I got home–knocking everything off every surface he climbed up onto; attacking my feet; chasing pens around the room–definitely some big kitten energy going on. Yeah, it’s a bit annoying, but at the same time it means he’s acclimated and knows he’s at home enough to feel safe to play and have fun and be a kitten, which is great. Maybe not when he’s walking all over my keyboard confidently like there’s nothing there, or when he’s trying to get whatever I am eating, but it’s great that he’s so comfortable in the house that he can be himself, and that’s always a good thing.
And now I get to spend the day trying to acclimate back to my every day existence, which isn’t always easy. Going away always is unsettling for me, and then I have to figure out how where I am at and what all else I have to get done and do and plan and so forth; which is another reason why having a to-do list is so vitally important; it helps me to re-acclimate to my reality after a break /interruption. I also can’t remember where I am with things at the office, either. Yay? But I need to get to the office and get some things done today–and as my coffee is kicking in and clearing the cobwebs out of my dusty brain, I am starting to feel more motivated than I was before I left; I think maybe knowing that the weekend was causing me some anxiety subconsciously which undermined (self-sabotaged) my attempts last week to get things handled and done and under control.
One of the lovely things about driving long trips like this weekend is that my mind wanders and I think about things; the ability to keep up with an audiobook while my mind sifts through problems and unties the Gordian knots of confusion and self-delusion in my mind has been truly wonderful. While in the car this weekend I was thinking back to what all I had gotten done and accomplished since the start of the pandemic disruption (and yes, I know I am not unique and it has happened to everyone), the general sense of “I am not getting anything done” and “when I am writing I’m not enjoying it” which has been unsettling me and keeping me off-balance since March 2020 (hard to believe it’s been almost four years, isn’t it?), but on the other hand, professionally the pandemic was actually very good to me. I got a substantial raise and promotion at my day job; I got nominated for a shit ton of awards over the last couple of years, and sure, I think there was a significant gap in publishing–from Royal Street Reveillon in the fall of 2018 until Bury Me in Shadows was about a three year gap now, wasn’t it? That in and of itself is the longest gap in my publishing career, but then I came on like gangbusters in 2022 with #shedeservedit, A Streetcar Named Murder, and Land of 10000 Thrills (Bouchercon anthology), and of course have two back-to-back releases this fall with Mississippi River Mischief and Death Drop. I was also publishing short stories during the 2018-2021 interregnum, and I was working on a multitude of other writing projects during that time in addition to the books that wound up being released in fits and spurts since 2021; I still find it hard to believe I went that long between books–maybe I’m forgetting something? But I don’t think I actually am; I am terrible about remembering everything I’ve written and published, and always forget things. But at first I was disappointed in myself to think I’d gone that long between books before silencing that negativity, and then I nipped that in the bud. There’s no disgrace in admitting that the pandemic knocked me for a loop and off-balance; I’m not the only person this happened to, and it takes a massive life disruption to slow down my writing–which is pretty impressive.
It’s hard to stay positive as it goes against my brain’s wiring, but I am getting better.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. May your Monday be just as lovely as you are, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later.
So, we brought this little fella home yesterday from the SPCA.
His name, already given to him when we picked him, is Rum-Tum-Tugger (I announced it incorrectly on social media yesterday with a typo calling him Tigger by mistake) and that will probably change as we get to know him better; he doesn’t know the name at all. He’s almost five months old, and is completely fearless. I wanted to take all the cats home (and the dogs, too; it’s always so sad to me to see their hopeful faces and their wagging tails, thinking you might be their rescuer. All the cats we met were sweet, some a little shy (Sing out Louise!) which made me sad because they seemed to put some effort into making friends, but are apparently used to not being picked they gave up trying to win us over once we walked away from them. Tug was having none of that, and let us know he was the only cat for us. He has the cutest little meow, and there was no shyness at all once we got him home; he fearlessly explored the entire apartment, made cuddle time as well as let us both know, with head butts and purrs and exposed belly and making biscuits, that he was happy to have his Forever Home. I woke up this morning to him purring and curled up next to me on my pillow, and last night he followed Paul up to bed–and then came back down looking for me the way Scooter used to–hey, it’s bed time! He’s a kitten so he’s very playful–he made toys out of wrappers and dust and whatever he could find on the floor–he chased my highlighter around on the floor for a good half an hour or so.
Obviously, he needs some toys. Scooter didn’t care about toys, but clearly our very playful house tiger kitten needs things to play with.
I slept really well last night, despite going to bed so late–we finished off Sex Education last night. I don’t know if that was the finale for the show or just for the season, but it seemed like the perfect way to end the show if that was the intent. The season was a bit uneven, but they all learned important lessons and fractured families and friendships began healing. I also was incredibly satisfied with how the Otis/Maeve relationship was wrapped up. It seems to me that another season would undo this season, if that makes sense, and another one would feel kind of forced. The actors are getting too old for their roles, if that makes sense (much the same as the original cast of Elité), and I liked the note the season ended on.
This morning I am trying cacao instead of coffee, and just brewed my first ever cup of it. Here’s hoping it tastes as good as it smells? It’s unsweetened chocolate, really; and by itself, it’s kind of bland. But adding vanilla and sweet-n-low makes it taste more like hot chocolate. I’m trying this out as a coffee alternative; it’s supposed to give you a coffee-like energy but without caffeine, and without the caffeine there’s no crash later. I kind of like it. I don’t know that it’ll replace coffee in my daily routine, but it’s good and we’ll see how the effects play out with me. I am going to drop beads off today for the disabled kids, and books to the library sale but don’t really feel like I need to make a grocery run. I think we have everything we need, so it can wait until one night after work on my way home. I also need to get gas and air up my car tires, now that the weather has gotten milder. I’ll be taking it in for an oil change and a tire rotation this coming Friday.
LSU plays at Mississippi tonight; it’s the Magnolia Bowl rivalry game so they always, like Arkansas, play like world-beaters when they play LSU. They can make their season by beating LSU, and after last week I am not so confident the Tigers will make it out of Oxford with a win–they also got beat by Alabama last week for the seventh or eighth year in a row, so they also need the win to stay relevant in the division and the conference; it would take a miracle for them to win the West with two losses. (I refuse to call the University of Mississippi by its commonly used nickname for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that it’s a callback to plantation days. That school has been problematic for decades, but at least they no longer wave Confederate treason flags at games; how must seeing that have felt to visiting Black players? Obviously, their fans didn’t give a shit, like how Alabama’s student section was chanting homophobic and racist slurs at the Texas players several weeks ago–nothing says welcome to the SEC like homophobia and racism.) I’m not sure what other games are on today, but I think for me today I am going to clean up around the house some and finish reading Shawn’s book so I can move on to Halloween Horror Month. I feel like I slept well but have low energy this morning, and I am just going to roll with the low energy and rest and relax for the majority of the day so I can get some writing done tomorrow. Next weekend I’ll be in Panama City Beach for the night visiting Dad and my aunts and uncles, so no writing will get done that weekend. I think I will try to work on Jackson Square Jazz during the games today, too.
So, on that note i am going to head into the spice mines. The kitchen is a disaster area, as always, and I should have spent some time on it last night, but that’s what Saturday morning is for; catching up on things. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back at some point.
I”m up earlier than usual on a Friday because I have to go to the dentist’s office this morning to get fitted for my new dentures. I don’t know when they’re going to be ready, and I know it’s too much to hope for that I would get temporary ones today so I can start eating normally again, but an old gay man can dream, can’t he? I left work yesterday to go meet with the cardiologist, to be cleared for my surgery as well as to check and see if i also have the same congenital heart issue that eventually killed Mom (her father died in his sleep in his forties; there’s a concern that it’s not only congenital but genetic); good news is my heart is strong and functioning completely the way it’s supposed to; no concerns there, with a sonogram scheduled to see if my arteries are normal or I have the same issue Mom had. He also changed my cholesterol medicine (giving me something stronger), and i need to have another blood draw done. Yay? My schedule between now and the surgery looks to be filled with appointments for tests and things. Heavy heaving sigh.
I slept really well last night. Paul was late getting home–we watched Only Murders in the Building–and I did some chores. I took the evening off from writing and tried to do chores mostly. I watched a documentary on Youtube about Charles VI of France–aka Charles the Mad, the king who lost France to Henry V of England–and the “glass delusion,” which the King suffered from as did many others during the time period; the belief that he was made of glass and would shatter. I had wanted at one point to write a story about the glass delusion (because it absolutely fascinates me), but am not sure how to do it or whether Iwant to write about the king himself or come up with someone new to have the delusion. He was an interesting person, had an interesting and tumultuous reign–whichof course indirectly led to the rise of Joan of Arc, which really is fascinating. St. Joan and her voices have always struck my curiosity–more on that at another time, anyway. So, yes, I went down a wormhole on Youtube on the Hundred Years’ War, the madness of King Charles, and the fifteenth century. The fifteenth was also a calamitous century, to use the language Barbara Tuchman used to describe the fourteenth in her book A Distant Mirror (which may be my favorite history book of all time). I don’t want to write about the fifteenth the same way I want to write about the sixteenth, because it would have to cover the Hundred Years’ War but also the Wars of the Roses, and those have been written about already endlessly so I have no desire to write about either of them.
But my sixteenth century and women ruling Europe book is something I would still like to do.
Okay, so now I am home again and irritated. I stopped to make a few groceries on the way home from the dentist, and apparently left one of my bags in the shopping cart, which is super annoying–especially since that was the bag that had the stuff I specifically stopped for; all the rest was just lagniappe I picked up because I was there already. Heavy sigh. Ah well, I can go back later on–probably will, because I do need those things–but still irritating to just throw money away like that. Ah, well. I’ll be getting my new temporaries in about a week or so; which is the best news, really, and I also have to get my checkbook register caught up and all my new follow-up appointments put onto my calendar.
And of course, this afternoon we’re going to the SPCA on the west bank to get a cat. YAY! (Maybe I can pick up the stuff I need on the West Bank before we go look at the kitties.) I am not going to stress about it, nor am I going to get anxious about it, either.
So I have some work-at-home duties to take care of this morning before we head across the river to adopt a cat (I’m a little excited but trying really hard to contain myself). I also have laundry and dishes and other tedious chores around here to get done over the weekend. Tomorrow I’m going to take the books to the library sale and see if I can get my vaccinations that I need at CVS; worst case scenario I can’t get it there and will have to wait some more. I’d like to have it before I see my elderly relative next weekend in Panama City Beach, for obvious reasons; I’d feel terrible if I gave any of them COVID at their ages. (Dad is the youngest at nearly eighty-two.) It’s just a quick trip, over on Saturday and back on Sunday, but since I won’t be able to head up north for the holidays I don’t want to miss a chance of seeing Dad when he’s that close, and I can finish Carol Goodman’s marvelous The Drowning Tree in the car.
And on that note, I should probably head into the spice mines and take care of my work-at-home duties before Paul gets up. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I am sure there will be a picture of my new kitty to post later on.
I spent a lot of time in beach resort towns when I was younger. My grandmother and her second husband retired to the panhandle of Florida when I was ten and about to start the seventh grade, and when they moved down there I actually rode along with them because it was summer. My aunt and uncle had a beach house that they would rent out for weeks and weekends to make money in a small beach town along the Emerald Coast (they called it the Miracle Strip back then; Panama City Beach) and until we moved away to California, we used to go down to visit my grandparents and time it around a visit to the beach house as well. In the years since, I’ve often thought about writing about the panhandle and those sleepy little beach towns (believe me, Panama City Beach has changed dramatically since the 1970s); my short story “Cold Beer No Flies” is one of those stories, and I have another one–book-length–that I am considering writing at some point in the near future.
But beach resorts and the townies have always been interesting to me; the difference between those who live there year round and those who simply vacation there; the drifters who come in for jobs during those summer months and then disappear–what do they leave in their wake?–and it just seemed rife with possibilities.
So, after greatly enjoyed her sophomore novel The Mother Next Door, I was really looking forward to her reading her debut novel, One Night Gone.
Constant Reader, it did not disappoint.
The girl tried not to look up into the hazy summer night, the seagulls circling overheard like giant paper airplanes. They made her dizzy. She focused on the horizon, the dark ocean churning, its vastness broken up by milky froths.
Thomas, the guy from the party, was pressed up against her, his thighs tight against hers. She could feel the heat in her cheeks, but at least it was cooler here at the end of the pier, away from the lights and sounds, from the constant pop pop pop bling bling of the arcade games and the deafening roar of the Zipper, a ride she’d thrown up on last year and then swore her friends to secrecy.
Thomas dipped her back over the railing–not too far, but enough that she felt the danger, felt that if he just shifted his large hand an inch or so off her back she’d fall, tumble like a tragic mistake. He laughed, pulling her back, his dewy breath catching in her hair.
“Stop it,” she said, batting at him, though she wasn’t sure she meant it.
She liked him. She liked the way he made her feel–important. Funny. Sexy. At the party, he’d said he was from the cornfields of Indiana, a state–she would never tell him–that she wouldn’t be able to point out on a map. He was tall like a cornstalk, she thought, and let that bubble up into a giggle on her lips as he swayed into her again and kissed it away.
One thing I absolutely love in crime novels is different timelines–one in the past and one in the present. I myself have never done this; and perhaps it’s about time I try (one of the ideas I have, ironically set in a Florida panhandle beach town, is a dual timeline novel); I’ve always admired writers who can do this and pull it off with aplomb because it looks really hard to me. Laura Lippman did this beautifully in After I’m Gone; Alison Gaylin in What Remains of Me; and Carol Goodman is a master of this. Add Tara Laskowski to this list–she also managed to pull it off with The Mother Next Door, her marvelous follow-up.
The story focuses on two women thirty years apart who come to Opal Beach for their own reasons. Allison, our modern heroine, is a former meteorologist who was fired for unprofessional conduct when going off on her cheating (now) ex-husband on air; she went viral and left her cheating husband, and her sister finds her this great housesitting gig in a mansion on the beach in the off-season and so Allison comes to a beautiful house on the Jersey shore in a resort full of secrets–going back to the disappearance of our 1980’s heroine, Maureen. Maureen comes from a bad background and she works for the carnival that comes to Opal Beach every summer; she finds herself becoming friends with locals and even getting romantically involved with one. Maureen is also desperate the way Allison is; desperate to escape a terrible past and start a new life with the cons and crimes of her past behind her. Maureen disappears that summer, never to be found again–and somehow Allison’s arrival at Opal Beach starts dredging up secrets and lies from that past so long ago…and Allison’s own life is put in jeopardy because there are any number of people who have their own reasons for wanting Maureen to stay buried in the past…
Laskowski is a terrific writer, with a knack for being highly efficient and proficient in her sentence and paragraph construction; she creates characters that are rounded and complete and multi-dimensional; and her ability to explore how little slights and personality clashes can grow into festering wounds is exceptional. Opal Beach felt very real to me–the bonfire parties on the beach, the gift shops and restaurants catering to the summer people, the climate and weather and the house itself. I really enjoyed this, and got caught up in the story quite easily.
Queer and Loathing in America 