Tag: parades

Dancing with Myself

We interrupt your regular Gregalicious morning blog post, but your host would like to pull a title out of the air and sermonize on why he loves parade season–especially after bitching about it for the last month or so endlessly.

It’s gloomy out there this morning, and I believe there’s rain in the forecast for later today. I saw some posts yesterday on social media about contingency plans for Bacchus tonight, let me check. Okay, pleasant temps all day, rain for the next hour, and then rain again tonight around ten…when Bacchus would still be rolling. Let me check my parade app. Hmm, they show Bacchus rolling at the usual time, post Thoth. I am not going out there today–yesterday’s Iris excursion, while absolutely delightful, exhausted me to the point where I rested in my chair for the rest of the day, fatigued and aching. My stamina is down, of course, and the PT is tough and exhausting. I have PT again tomorrow morning, so I am resting today because tomorrow night is the last of my favorite parades: Orpheus. After which I will spend Fat Tuesday resting and recovering and healing from the one-two punch of parade and PT. Laissez le bon temps rouler!

Yesterday was yet another reminder of why I love Carnival, why I love parade season, and why it never gets old (though I have). It was stunningly beautiful out there at the corner, and even though I was out by myself–which almost tempted me to not go–I wasn’t really by myself. It was in the low seventies with a low cool breeze, which was lovely. I wound up being absorbed into a group of friendly young people by proximity and throw catching, and I had a lovely time. At first I primarily people-watched, and then as dance groups and marching bands started passing, I started dancing by myself…and I realized that was the cool thing about Carnival. You can dance by yourself. You can put on a costume that might reveal another layer of your true self that you usually hide from others, or one that you wear to make everyone else smile and to be fun and silly and goofy. There’s no judgement during Carnival–or there shouldn’t be, anyway–and where else in the country can you drink (I didn’t) and get a nice buzz and dance in the streets by yourself…but you’re never really by yourself because everyone else is dancing and there are no strangers during Carnival.

My first beads caught at Iris were definitely a good augury of the parade. I caught the krewe’s signature medallion beads!

My first catch were the krewe medallion beads, which was a very good omen.

It was right about this time that I started talking to a lovely older African-American couple and their differently abled son, who was very sweet. There were also some couples with small children around, which brings me to a very important rule about catching throws as a grown man out on the parade route who doesn’t have kids: if you catch anything plushie or toy-like, you always should give it to a kid. (Plus, I don’t need more of that in the house.) Also, if you and someone else catch beads at the same time, you always yield them to the person standing more forward, and if you’re standing side-by-side, I always yield to the right. If the other person yields before you attempt, then you can keep them.

Another casual observation from the route? Mom jeans, and Daisy Duke cut-off Mom jeans. are definitely back.

I had also forgotten how nice it is to just be outside during the day, dancing in the street and having fun with total strangers, while drinking and maintaining a slight buzz. I didn’t drink yesterday because it’s too rough on me now.

Another casual observation from the route: there were an awful lot of women out there in full “glam”. Many of them were young and pretty, some were older and pretty, and some had made interesting choices in clothing and make-up and hair options. I finally realized, to my delight, that they were simply costuming as The Real Housewives of Metairie.1

Despite how fatigued everything in my body feels this morning, and how late I slept, I am definitely glad I went to Iris. Scotty’s sister is in Iris, and I remembered while I was out there how Mardi Gras Mambo originally had to do with Iris, which was why the parade opens the book. Maybe the next one will be built around Iris? You never know.

And now back to our originally scheduled blog post.

  1. Society women, or even those on the edges of New Orleans society, would never stoop to a reality show. The ones in Metairie definitely would. ↩︎

Hurting Each Other

Friday morning after Muses, and I am a little tired–physically. Mentally I am alert as ever and feel great, but I am not used to standing on the sidewalk for so long anymore. Chaos last night was my first parade (the floats were hilariously inappropriate; all I will say is the theme of the parade was “balls” and leave it at that), and we came home to rest before Muses arrived. We didn’t stay out for long, I was tired and sleepy and it got here around ten; we lasted out there for about an hour before I started flagging and came back inside. However, I realized I should have gone to parades to warm up for this weekend; I forgot that it takes a parade day to warm you up and get you in the proper spirit; I should be good to go tonight if my PT this morning isn’t too vicious.

And yes, we got a really cool shoe.

I had a good day at work yesterday, got a lot of things done and caught up and feel confident not being in the office again until Ash Wednesday will not be disastrous for me or put me really behind on things. I came home early (it took me an hour), and I came inside and watched this week’s episode of Capote v. the Swans, which was done in documentary style, which was an interesting take. I’m not quite as obsessed as I was about Capote when I first started watching, but I do want to read the Gerald Clarke bio of him, and maybe even George Plimpton’s Capote. It’s taken me awhile to get interested in Capote, and while I wouldn’t say it’s an obsession anymore, I am still very much interested in this incredibly famous openly gay man in the middle of the twentieth century. I have added Deliberate Cruelty, a true crime narrative about Ann Woodward’s feud with him by Roseanne Mantillo, to the books I am reading and I finished it last night.

And yes, I am beginning to understand precisely why he wrote “La Côte Basque 1965” and why he published it, but more on that when the show is finished and I give it, and Capote, an entry of their own.

As for me and the weekend, I have taken Monday off and so I am hoping that I’ll be able to get some reading and writing done today, Sunday and Monday (I will always take Saturday off from everything to go to Iris). I want to finish editing this one short story and finish writing another, and perhaps get them submitted somewhere. I have laundry going already and a dishwasher to unload and reload. I have PT this morning, a prescription and the mail to pick up, and then the car won’t move again until Monday at the earliest, as I will need to probably make a grocery run. I also should be able to finish reading Deliberate Cruelty so I can focus on Lina Chern’s Playing the Fool, which I am greatly enjoying. I also have some blistering blog entries to write, so this weekend should be fun on that score.

And hopefully I’ll be able to get this place ship-shape and get myself caught up on everything that needs catching up on.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have yourself a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later.

Most People I Know Think I’m Crazy

Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment and the sun is shining. It actually looks like a stunningly gorgeous day out there for parades, and of course King Arthur, the last of the day, is one of my favorites (a lot of gays ride in King Arthur). Yesterday was a slow day. I woke up after sleeping for ten hours feeling a little inside out, and the weather wasn’t a help. It rained off and on all day; the parades were all moved up because of the threat of weather (which was accurate; we had a flash flooding thunderstorm later on in the day), and since I was so tired and wrung out, I didn’t feel like attending any of them. I’ll probably go out for King Arthur, maybe for some of the earlier ones, and we’ll see how it goes.

As I said, I was extremely tired all day yesterday and decided to let my body and brain rest for most of it. I did do the dishes and I did get some things done early on, but I soon repaired to my easy chair, where I spent the rest of the afternoon reading–more on that later–but one of the things I wanted to reread was “La Cote Basque” by Truman Capote. I knew it was the story that turned his “swans” against him; I read it many years ago when I went through a Capote phase, when I was able to get past my distaste1 for him personally to start reading his work–which I quickly became a fan of; I love his writing, especially In Cold Blood, and I’ve always preferred the novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s to the film. I always thought he wasted his incredible talents, like so many did, and I am starting to appreciate him more as a person than I ever did before2 and now am curious about reading biographies of him. I never watched any of the films made about him, but now…now I am thinking I should watch them. Capote, Tennessee Williams, and Gore Vidal all knew each other and were contemporaries; openly gay men who didn’t give a fuck about morés and ignored the rule of “don’t ask don’t tell” that pretty much was the only way gay men or other queers could really survive the reality of the deeply homophobic world they existed in. I cannot imagine, but that was also the reality of the world I was also born into, creating internal conflicts that I am still trying to unravel to this day–like why I held Capote in so much distaste, which was really internalized homophobia, which I’ve been confronting since I first watched Capote v. The Swans, and trying to process my way through it.3

Ironically, I wound up rewatching those first two episodes again, because Paul wanted to watch–he also feels the same as me about Capote, which is partly why we never saw any of the earlier films about him–and it’s well done enough for me to easily sit through it again, and it surprised me because I never became bored, even though I’d already seen those episodes. We watched two more episodes of Lupin yesterday, despite my falling asleep during the second, after which we retired to bed.

And here I am this morning, feeling rested and not at all as tired and drug out as I was yesterday, which is a very good thing. I don’t know how much of anything I am going to get done today–I do know I want to spend some time reading and editing, if not writing–and of course there’s always picking up to do around here, and maybe I could vacuum.

I also spent some time yesterday finishing reading the novelization of one of my favorite movies of all time, The Last of Sheila, which I really enjoyed almost as much as I did the film,4 which will be covered in its own entry. I’ve been entranced by this film since I first saw it as a child one Sunday after church, and it still holds up; I’ve never once rewatched, knowing the surprise ending, and been bored or not entertained. (It’s also weird because there are scenes in Capote v the Swans showing Capote shooting Murder by Death, which was one of my earliest memories of seeing Capote, written by Neil Simon, one of the most popular playwrights of the middle part of the century that no one talks about anymore either but he was everywhere back then; I doubt Murder by Death holds up–and I didn’t really like it that much when I saw it in the theater back then, either.)

I’m also thinking it might be fun to revisit In Cold Blood and some other Capote works while I watch the show. I’ve always liked his short stories and his writing style…

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely King Arthur Sunday, everyone, and I’ll catch you maybe later.

  1. Definitely will be more on this later, probably once I’ve finished watching. Capote v. the Swans. ↩︎
  2. Again, more on this later. ↩︎
  3. Hence the “more on this later” in the earlier footnotes. ↩︎
  4. Again, more on this later. ↩︎

Tainted Love

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment and there are six parades today (I was wrong yesterday; I substituted Alla in for Druids for last night’s parades. I told you I don’t have the schedule memorized!), which can make for a long day and of course means I can’t really go anywhere at all today as I am trapped inside the parade route. They did move them all up so they roll during the morning and afternoon (threat of heavy rains in the evening) and if I am not mistaken they have done the same tomorrow? I was too tired and was almost asleep by the time the parades got to the neighborhood last night–and slept for just over ten hours, so clearly–Gregalicious was exhausted yesterday, and then some.

I had a doctor’s appointment that went swimmingly well yesterday morning (establishing primary care with a new doctor, whom I really liked on first meeting; he had a good manner, didn’t seem distracted, and asked probing follow-up questions to things I talked about–genetic predispositions to things and so forth, and genuinely seemed interested and had suggestions and answers for me about other things. His office building also has free parking, with is also lovely. That appointment took a very long time, so I didn’t have to wait terribly long before yesterday morning’s PT…in which my therapist Jacob introduced a weight bar to the therapy, so yes, we’ve moved on from dumbbells to that, and he even found a way to make planks more painful and tiring. So after making a quick grocery run (and still forgot a few things) I managed to come home for work-at-home duties. After that was completed, I tried reading for a little while to no avail, and finally watched the LSU-Arkansas Gymnastics meet, in which LSU got back to business and scored the highest team score in LSU Gymnastics History, which was pretty awesome. After that we tried to watch an episode of Lupin but we both fell asleep, which was a shame because it looked like a really good episode.

Today I am going to do more chores and try to get some more writing and reading done. There are six (!!!) parades, all starting at about a half-hour or so of each other (9, 9:30, 10, etc.) so they should all be past by the early evening –so if I want to run an errand or we needed something, I could easily (in theory) get out of the box tonight. I don’t think we will, really–we are low on crunchy salty snacks but that’s not a tragedy or anything to really be worried or concerned about. I do want to get the dishes and kitchen done, and establish some kind of order to the house (not easy with Mr. Wants To Get In Everything running around looking for play). Yesterday afternoon Sparky managed to get to the sink counter, from there to the top of the refrigerator, and then climbed up on top of the cabinets. In my imagination I saw everything stored up there some crashing down (and there were dishes soaking in the sink, so yes, it could have proved catastrophic) but it only took about ten minutes for him to get bored up there and realize it’s a long way down and start whimpering, so I had to get the little ladder out and climb up on the counter myself so I could reach and grab him so I could get hime down. He didn’t like that, either–he was clawing and terrified until I was able to put him down on the counter so he could jump to the floor and scramble off to safety, Sigh, the adventures of Big Kitten Energy are certainly something to experience.

I don’t think I’ll skip parades entirely today–I might go out every now and then just to take some pictures, watch the marching bands, and get a sense of the crowd and the energy of this Carnival. I don’t really remember the last Carnival I attended, which was actually the 2022 one (I was gone for 2023, 2021 was cancelled and was the year of the house floats, which was so amazing and so New Orleans); but I’ve no recollection of that year’s festivities at all. Maybe I should go back and look at my blog entries for then? Maybe I don’t need to really remember it much, either. Most of my Carnival memories are those of long ago, when we also used to go out all the time and truly celebrate the season before we got too old to walk to the Quarter and come home in the cold gray foggy mornings to rest up for a while before starting all over again. Carnival really is a magical time, and all it takes it to walk down to the corner on a beautiful day and once I catch that first throw I am right back into the spirit of things.

But still too old to walk to the Quarter.

I did finally take a walk around the neighborhood last night once I was finished with work for the day. I walked for about forty minutes, just around the neighborhood and down streets I rarely, if ever, venture down. It was indeed a beautiful day, in the low seventies and sunny, and that was still the case when I went on my walk as the cops were putting up barricades and closing streets, parking spaces disappearing throughout the neighborhood as people parked and walked over to the Avenue in their festive garb with coolers and rolling carts filled with food and ice and alcohol, boas were everywhere and goofy hats and those rugby striped shirts in the Carnival colors of purple, gold and green. But the end result of that unexpected exercise is tired legs and a sore lower back this morning (which could also have been from the PT as well) so I am going to just relax for a bit this morning and do some reading as I finish my coffee. There’s always FOMO involved in skipping parades–and the neighborhood did smell like grease and peppers and onions last night; that particular Carnival smell that becomes hardly noticeable by the second weekend, as the trees along the Avenue become festooned with sparking strings of beads in every color imaginable. Fences, porches and railings spring beads like crepe myrtles erupt with blossoms every spring.

There’s a winsome magic about Carnival, so that as it progresses you grow less frustrated with the parade traffic and the difficulty finding a place to park at home and the crowds of people and the trash growing exponentially on your street. Even just now typing all of this I’ve started thinking oh you can spend the afternoon out there which is, in and itself, the mentality that leads to pure exhaustion.

And on that note, I am going to my easy chair to read and swill coffee for a moment or two. Have a lovely Saturday wherever you are, and remember–it’s Carnival in New Orleans, so celebrate a bit for us. You’re allowed.

Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)

Another good night’s sleep here in the Lost Apartment, which was lovely. I woke up before six again this morning, but stayed in bed a while longer. It’s cold in New Orleans this morning; currently it’s thirty nine degrees with a predicted high in the low fifties, probably later this afternoon. It is also the day of the St. Patrick’s Day parade in uptown, so I am not leaving the house. Errands would be impossible with streets closed and blocked off anyway. I guess a horrible snowstorm is heading to the northeast, so I hope everyone up there is prepared and ready and stays safe. I have to say I do not miss living in that kind of weather. It may be cold here but at least the sun is out and we have a clear azure sky overhead.

Today I have a lot to do (surprise, right?). I didn’t get nearly as much done yesterday as I needed to as the day kind of blew up around me–it happens sometimes and can’t be helped–with the end result that I didn’t get everything finished, or worked on at least, the way I had planned. Which is fine–no sense crying over spilt milk, the only thing to do is clean it up and get on with it. We had a massive thunderstorm last night (poor Paul had to walk home through it) and then we watched the LSU Gymnastics meet against Utah (LSU triumphed, despite some absurd high-scoring of the Ute gymnasts), and then I kind of relaxed for a bit before going to bed. The latest Scream movie is now available to stream, so I am kind of hoping Paul comes home tonight early enough so we can watch it (yes, I know I could watch it without him and then watch it again, but…) I also managed to get a lot of my chores done last night while I waited for Paul to come home, so I don’t have as many to do today, which means hopefully I can do some new chores that I never get around to (those shutter doors to the laundry room! Those ceiling fan blades!) usually.

The mystery of the banning of The Postman Always Rings Twice continues. I reached out to another friend with a lot of knowledge of the history of crime fiction, with an emphasis on both hard-boiled and noir, and she didn’t think it had been banned in Boston; although it was banned in Canada. And yet, right there on it’s Amazon sales page is this:

“First published in 1934 and banned in Boston for its explosive mixture of violence and eroticism, The Postman Always Rings Twice is a classic of the roman noir. It established James M. Cain as a major novelist with an unsparing vision of America’s bleak underside, and was acknowledged by Albert Camus as the model for The Stranger.”

It really would be interesting if that turned out to simply be a marketing gimmick with absolutely no basis in fact, wouldn’t it? I spend some more time skimming through the Hoopes biography and still have found nothing about the banning or an obscenity trial for the book; it does make me wonder somewhat if the banning of Serenade somehow became conflated with Postman over the years; Cain was banned in Boston, just for a different book. A bold claim, to be sure, but it’s beginning to look that way…and I do think it’s an interesting perspective for an article or an essay. As I become more and more obsessed with finding out about this, I also realize I bet this is how a lot of non-fiction writing gets started, isn’t it?

And anything I find on-line listing “books banned in Boston” does not include Postman. Like I said, interesting.

My heel feels better this morning, but I think it’s best to keep letting it rest before over-exerting it again. I am going to try to return to the gym on Monday, depending on how my foot feels, but I’m not even aware of it this morning as I walk back and forth between my desk and the coffee maker. (Okay I was paying attention just now as I got another cup, and there’s still a bit of discomfort but unnoticeable unless I am paying attention, so that means it’s getting better and I probably shouldn’t push my luck.)

And I think on that note I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and stay safe from inclement weather.

Family Tradition

Normal is an interesting concept–particularly when you live in New Orleans.

It’s hard to explain to people who don’t live here (or, as we say, Not From Here) to understand just how disruptive Carnival is, and how much harder it makes getting anything done, or accomplished. I live inside the parade box (in local parlance, “inside the box”) which means anything requiring the usage of my car has to be accomplished and the car has to be back “inside the box” no later than three-thirty on any parade day. This means, if you have to go to work you have to leave early, and try to schedule whatever errands you need to do accordingly–bearing in mind that you will also have heavier traffic to deal with. (Case in point: on Muses Thursday–a day when the parades were cancelled because of the weather) my five to ten minute drive home took almost forty minutes. It’s exhausting. When our office was on Frenchmen Street I used to have to walk to the office and back home on parade days–if I was able to walk straight there without detours, 2.3 miles going and 2.3 miles home (and there were always detours walking home during parades). And on the nights when I had to do condom outreach…yeah, was walking anywhere from six to ten miles per day; and then going out to the parades….why, you may be asking yourself, why on earth would you also go to the parades on top of that? Because you’re too exhausted and stressed about everything to do anything else–plus, enjoying the parades makes the work of living here around them sort of worth it.

I can’t imagine how miserable it would be to not go to the parades on top of everything else–especially when you can hear them.

But when it’s all over, readjusting to normalcy and getting your body back in sync is no easy task.

Plus, no more King cake. Womp womp.

I literally have no idea where I am at and what I should be doing with any and everything. Pre-Carnival life seems like it was a million years ago…it always takes the rest of the week of Mardi Gras to re-acclimate back to New Orleans normal.

It’s incredibly disorienting.

But Carnival–whatever you may think of it, no matter how much it may inconvenience you, no matter what–is wonderful. I absolutely positively love Carnival season, and I love the parades. I love seeing the families and kids having a ball along the parade route–and it crosses generations and ages. I love seeing grandparents dancing to  marching bands. I love our public school marching bands–every last one of them from Orleans Parish. I also love the Marching 100 of St. Augustine. I love the specialty throws and the stuffed animals and the bracelets and the medallion throws and the cups and all of that. I love that feeling of neighborhood and community that comes with hanging out on the parade route. I love getting an enormous corn dog, slathered with mustard and ketchup. I love funnel cakes, which are really just twisty beignets and are also covered in powdered sugar.

You can never go wrong with deep fried dough covered in powdered sugar, for the record.

Today I woke up early and feel great. I slept deeply and well–probably could have gladly stayed in bed another hour or two, but as I’ve been saying–Carnival has put me very behind, as it is wont to do, and as I am often paddling madly beneath the surface while treading water, a shake-up to the daily routine makes things ever so much worse. As much as I would like to spend the weekend relaxing and reading and writing, I’m afraid I’m going to have to spend some of it actually working on non-writing related things, which is terribly unfortunate; but it’s not like this was a normal week in the first place. I hated missing the gym yesterday morning, but I can go tomorrow and get back on track with my usual Sunday-Wednesday-Friday gym schedule. I did write for a while yesterday–not on the Secret Project, of course, which is what I need to be doing, but rather I wrote a bit on “Festival of the Redeemer” and a little bit on “He Didn’t Kill Her” and also a little bit on “You Won’t See Me.” Progress, of course, is progress and I am always happy to get any writing done at all these days, of course; I think my decision to simply go ahead with some of the short stories until this weekend, when I can spend some serious time with the Secret Project–which has been worked on very haphazardly, and you simply can’t be that scattered with something and expect it to be good–and make the decisions that need to be made with it. I think that I am probably very guilty of overthinking things with this; rather than going with my instincts and trusting myself. It’s something that’s completely outside my comfort zone, which is actually a good thing.

One should step outside their comfort zone from time to time, I think. It makes you a better writer–even if the project isn’t good, frankly; sometimes you need to do something like that to shake things up inside your head, clear the cobwebs and dust, and get a fresh perspective on what you write, your career thus far, and where you want it to go. (I also remember those glorious days when I actually used to plan ahead for my career. Man plans and God laughs.)

We are also slowly but surely watching the final season of Schitt’s Creek, and enjoying it, even if we know with each episode we watch that the end is nigh.

And on that note, I am going to head back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader!

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Kiss An Angel Good Morning

Ash Wednesday and solemnity has descended upon New Orleans, after two weeks of fun and frivolity. Carnival season actually begins on January 6th, on Twelfth Night–but it truly only kicks into major gear during parade season, which mercifully ended yesterday. Now I can drive my car without fearing I’m gone too late to get home or worrying about finding a place to park (the Carnival parking gods were definitely on my side this year; I was able to get groceries and park on my block AND made a Costco run and was able to park near the Lost Apartment, neither of which is a small accomplishment), and having to adjust my work schedule accordingly.

It’s gray outside the Lost Apartment windows this morning, and all is quiet on the Lower Garden District front. I haven’t checked the weather yet, but I am sure rain is part of the forecast; that’s usually what gray skies in the morning mean. I’m not as tired this morning as I thought I would be, and I’m also a little bummed I have to miss my workout today–the gym doesn’t open until noon, and there’s no way I could get home in time and make it to the gym before it closes after work tonight. But two workouts in one week is better than one workout, and so I guess missing the once isn’t really going to kill me. But I’ve gotten into such a great routine of following the regimen…again, I guess we’ll see on Friday morning if I don’t want to get up and go.

And yes, I started writing yet another short story yesterday evening, “You Won’t See Me.” It’s a similar tale, I suppose, to “Festival of the Redeemer”; unreliable gay male narrator who’s madly in love with someone who doesn’t return that affection–but at least that’s how they both start, at any rate. I have to get back to work on the Secret Project this week as well; so that’s at least five or six short story fragments I am working on in addition to the Secret Project. And yes, I am well aware that is complete madness.

We managed to watch McMillions over the past few days; we’d thought the entire series had finished airing so we were, needless to say, completely shocked to reach the end of episode 4 and realize we couldn’t watch anymore. I remember the scandal, vaguely, when the story broke; but I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it–and am amazed at how far-reaching and complicated it became–not to mention all the unfortunate people who got suckered into the con and played along, for various reasons. One of the FBI agents discussed how he was constantly amazed at how people didn’t think they had done anything wrong, and how they could justify and explain committing fraud to themselves–the bottom line was whatever the circumstance or the reason, they committed a crime.

True crime–you really can’t beat it for real drama.

I also got some incredible book mail on Monday–Blanche Among the Talented Tenth by Barbara Neely; an old children’s book about the Nazi invasion of Norway and the resistance, Snow Treasure, that I read when I was a kid; Alabama Noir, which I am really interested in reading; and the new Ivy Pochoda, These Women. I somehow managed to finish rereading Mary Stewart’s The Moon-spinners around the insanity (there will be more to come on that front), and got a little further into Ali Brandon’s Double Booked for Death, which I am really enjoying. I’m also still reading Jason Berry’s City of a Million Dreams, which is also quite good.

It doesn’t feel like Wednesday, which means this short work week is going to be weird, and feel weird, the entire time. I do have to put in longer days today and tomorrow than I usually do, because of the holiday yesterday and taking Monday off, but Friday will be my usual half-day and after that, we’re back to normal again. Huzzah? But February is on its way out and March is on its way in, which means the one-two punch of Saints & Sinners/ Tennessee Williams Festival is on its way as well. Kind of hard to believe that’s just right around the corner, but here we are, you know? And then at the end of April I’m off to New York and Maryland for the one-two punch of the Edgars and Malice Domestic. But after that, I’ll be done with travel until it’s time to head to Sacramento for Bouchercon, and then I won’t be doing much traveling unless I go visit my parents this year–which I kind of should. It’s just that the drive is so exhausting, but flying is equally awful, takes nearly as long, and is much more expensive. I suppose I could use Southwest points and fly into Louisville, but there’s no longer a non-stop flight from New Orleans to Louisville, and the things about connections is there’s always, always, a screw-up somewhere at that time of year that delays the return.

I also have an obscene amount of emails to read and reply to, which will engender more emails, of course–the endless cycle of cyber-communication–but I will eventually get dug out, slowly get caught up on everything, and somehow manage. I always somehow manage to do so, at any rate.

And now, back to the spice mines, Have a lovely Ash Wednesday, everyone.

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Lovesick Blues

Everywhere else it’s just Tuesday. Happy Mardi Gras, everyone!

It’ll be nice to be back to some sort of normalcy around here tomorrow–or whatever passes as normalcy in non-Carnival season New Orleans. It’s seems like the parades have been going on forever–a normal thing to feel on Fat Tuesday morning–and tomorrow’s collective, city-wide hangover is always an interesting thing to experience firsthand. Ash Wednesday is very subdued in New Orleans, as one can imagine–everyone’s tired, worn to a nub, and most likely hungover as all hell.

The switch from insanity back to reality is never an easy one, but one that will take place as always, at midnight tonight, when the bells of St. Louis will toll and the mounted cops will clear Bourbon Street, followed by the cleaners sweeping up the mess. I’ve only made it to midnight a few times on Fat Tuesday in the Quarter–it’s a long day; everything gets started around seven in the morning, and people drink all day–but I would always go up on the balcony at Oz or the Parade to watch the solemn processional officially ending the Carnival season.

I am very pleased to have survived another Carnival, and while there were times when it seemed touch-and-go–I was so tired yesterday–it looks like we’ve made it. I do think I need to write another Carnival novel, and maybe a short story or two; I had an idea a while back about someone having an open house for Fat Tuesday on St. Charles Avenue for Zulu and Rex, with people in and out of the house all day, only to find a dead body in one of the bedrooms later–a dead body no one in the family knows. I don’t know how that could possibly work as a short story, frankly; but on the other hand I don’t see how to make a novel out of it. Maybe I’ll make some notes, brainstorm in my journal, or something; but I’ve had that idea for quite some time now and maybe it’s time to do something about it. I also, the more I think about it, like the idea of the Carnival parade thrill killer–I’ll make some notes on that as well. I want to use that for a short story, but again–how do you compress an investigation stretching over two weeks of parade deaths, with all those interviews of witnesses, some of whom aren’t certain that someone was actually committing these crimes and they weren’t all horrible accidents?

But if someone dies every night at a parade…yeah, they wouldn’t be convinced they were all accidents….especially if the Advocate was getting open letters, a la the Axeman, making threats about someone dying that night on the parade route. Hmmm.

I’ve been feeling particularly creative lately, which has been nice. It’s always nice to have my creativity flourishing; I always worry during the down spells that it’s not going to come back. I have several word documents open on my computer screen even as I type this; two new stories I started this past weekend, and of course one that I was already working on. I need to get back to work on the Secret Project; I’d like to be finished with it by the end of the month but since that’s this weekend, it’s probably not going to happen. But on the other hand…you never know.

I feel like I’ve not completed anything since turning in Royal Street Reveillon last year, and I kind of…haven’t, other than my story for The Faking of the President (available for pre-order, right now!), which is kind of a sad, unsettling thing. The one lovely thing about deadlines is they require you to focus on one thing, and my creativity is all over the map when I am not forced by a deadline to focus on something. I do have a short story due for the end of March that I am still piecing together in my head; I need to get this secret thing finished so I can focus on writing that story and making it the best story I can make it.

And on that note, it’s on with Fat Tuesday. Have a lovely day, everyone!

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Don’t Rock the Jukebox

Monday, and after Orpheus finishes passing tonight, Paul and I are finished with Carnival. While we miss participating in the festivities of Fat Tuesday/actual Mardi Gras–it was always the best day–we both have to work on Wednesday and one last fling is too much for us–the penalty of growing older I suppose. But we both decided over this weekend that next year we’ll also take off Wednesday, and head down there for Fat Tuesday, walking up the Zulu and Rex route and enjoying the costumes and the sights and the fun and–DAMN I DO MISS GOING TO THE QUARTER FOR FAT TUESDAY.

But, as I was forced to admit to my neighbor CLM at the parades the other night–I only know how to do slutty costumes, and I haven’t had the body to do that for nearly a decade.

Maybe now that I am working out regularly again…maybe next year I can get away with Ole Man Slut? We shall see.

I tend to doubt it, but stranger things have happened. I could also up my costume game and do something that doesn’t require a lot of bare skin…

I felt enormously well rested yesterday; sleeping in was definitely the smart thing to do yesterday (after retiring relatively early the night before). But I have to say, despite it being a beautiful day for parades yesterday, the energy at the parades I attended seemed off; weird and not festive. To be sure, there were a lot of people out there, but given there was an another parade-related death on Saturday night at Endymion (causing the cancellation of the parade beyond float 12); that two riders fell off Thoth parade floats and had to be rushed to the hospital; and two people watching the parades from a balcony on a house on St. Charles managed to fall off the balcony (the railing gave way)–it’s not surprising the energy seemed off last night. Naturally, there are now stories circulating on social media and around town that this Carnival is cursed–and it’s because the city never recovered two of the bodies from the ruins of the Hard Rock Hotel construction site. I’m not normally superstitious, and I tend to scoff at things like curses and so forth–but then again, it’s very easy to believe in those sorts of things here in New Orleans. For some reason, the supernatural seems very natural here, and it’s always been that way. Reading all the New Orleans history, as I have been doing lately, has shown me plenty of evidence of the darkness and brutality that has always existed here; the history of the city is, indeed, written in blood and human suffering.

And of course, having a crime writer’s mind, the second death at a parade of someone being run over by a float made me think of a spree-thrill killer, going from parade to parade and shoving people under floats. It would be next to impossible to catch someone doing that very thing–and imagine trying to chase a criminal (any criminal, really) through the massive crowds on the parade route, with all the people in costume and bedecked in sequins and glitter and fright wigs and the Mardi Gras colors–and the still, many others, who are wearing actual costumes. A story I’ve got in some sort of progress already seemed perfect to graft this onto; I emailed myself notes I typed up between floats during Bacchus last night. I also, the other night, started writing two new stories that popped into my mind; “He Didn’t Kill Her” and “Gossip”. “He Didn’t Kill Her” is an entirely new story, that just suddenly took shape in my mind–I’m not sure how to finish it; all that occurred to me was the opening sequence and the title–but “Gossip” is one that’s been rolling around in my brain and subconscious for about thirty or so years. The opening popped into my head on Saturday, and so I started writing, as I am wont to do. (I’ve put off working on anything else until Ash Wednesday–but my mind never takes time off.)

I also spent some time yesterday bouncing back and forth between my reread of Mary Stewart’s The Moon-spinners, which is absolutely delightful, and Ali Brandon’s Double Booked for Death, which is equally delightful. It would be enormously fun to write a crime series with a bookstore as the anchor; the ability to make fun of trends in publishing, authors who are assholes, customers that are jerks, etc. would be enormously fun, I would think. The premise behind the book is that an enormously popular author of a series of supernatural books for kids, Haunted High, is doing a booksigning at main character Darla’s inherited bookstore in Brooklyn–and I’ve laughed aloud several times–and I just got to the part where the author in question–Valerie Baylor–was killed. I’m enjoying both books; I will confess I didn’t enjoy The Moon-spinners quite as much on first read as I am on the second read. I think I was expecting the plot to be more like the Hayley Mills film, which in retrospect is terrible. The main character, Nicola, is very headstrong and determined, and very determined to not be pushed aside because she’s a young woman. She’s intelligent and capable and quite clever, with the ability to think on her feet quite brilliantly; in other words, she is a typical Stewart heroine and not a shrinking violet in need of being rescued all the time. There’s a dash of romance in this book, tossed in, I think, to appease her publisher, who saw Stewart as a romantic suspense author when she actually wrote quite excellent suspense novels; but it’s completely unnecessary–if to be expected.

I have errands to run and emails to sort through today; I am getting the mail, making a Costco run, and going to the gym. I also have a business call this afternoon; all of which must be taken care of long before Orpheus begins winding its way through the streets of New Orleans. I do hope the energy is more Carnival-esque tonight; yesterday wasn’t nearly as much fun as it usually is, or could be, during a more normal Carnival.

Tomorrow is a day to rest and relax and get organized as life begins to return to what passes as normal around here; try to do some writing, read some more, get the house back under control after the chaos of the last two weeks.

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

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Tennessee Waltz

Another major parade, another tragic death. Endymion was cancelled beyond float 12 last night, after yet another parade goer went under a tandem float and was killed. Remember how I said, after the Nyx tragedy Wednesday night, that it was a wonder it didn’t happen more often? Yeesh. The city has cancelled tandem floats for the rest of Carnival–what does that mean for the big ones, like the Bacchasaur or the Bacchagator, or the Orpheus train? Remains to be seen, I suppose, and I would imagine next year they are probably going to look at barricading the entire parade route–but I also wouldn’t think that would be practical or even possible. The routes are far too long, for one, and in many places there’s just sidewalk along the route, like in my neighborhood. How awful, how simply awful. I see in this morning’s news both Bacchus and Orpheus are complying with the city’s request…but ugh, how sad and what a pall over this year’s Mardi Gras.I can’t imagine what the families of the two victims are going through, nor how horrible it would be to have such a terrible, terrible Carnival tragedy happen to your family.

And of course, being me and being a crime writer, I did wonder if perhaps a serial killer is going to parades and shoving people under floats. There have been a couple of times, I will admit, during parades where I got so close to the floats and with the crowd pushing forward behind me, worried about going under one. It would definitely be a new twist on serial killers–although I suppose this would be more a thrill killer, wouldn’t it?

I definitely need to write another novel set during Carnival–and not just because of these awful tragedies. I said when I wrote Mardi Gras Mambo that I could write twenty novels about Mardi Gras and never run out of material and would barely scratch the surface. I’ve been thinking more about that ever since the first parades this year–about how the parades bring about a sense of community for New Orleanians that I’ve never experienced anywhere else, and the sense of community persists throughout the year. I even thought about opening another Scotty Carnival book with The Carnival parades used to come through the Quarter on Royal Street back before it became a major tourist event. The route was changed when the crowds got too big for the narrow streets–too much of a fire hazard, too impossible to get medical help in for anyone injured or taken ill during a parade–and so now they all turn onto Canal Street when they get there from St. Charles, and bypass the Quarter, which becomes a deserted wasteland during the parades with only the die hard drinkers not pushing and shoving their way onto the sidewalks and neutral grounds of the city’s major street.

That’s actually not a bad opening, to be honest. *makes note*

While I was doing condom outreach on Friday afternoon (in the bitter cold) I remembered an idea I had about a multi-person point of view novel set during Southern Decadence called No Morals Weekend, but I don’t really experience Southern Decadence very much anymore, other than the occasional sweat-soaked condom outreach experience. I guess I could always write it as a historical; which I am more and more leaning towards doing with some of my work. I almost inevitably and always set my books in an amorphous, cloudy now; but “Never Kiss a Stranger” is set in 1994, and I keep wondering if “Festival of the Redeemer” should be set in the past as well. The early days of the Internet but pre-smart phones seems like a lovely time to write about, quite frankly..although for “Festival”, it’s more about Venice being too overcrowded with tourists than smart phones. Then again it’s set during one of Venice’s biggest events, so of course the streets would be filled with people–which again ties in with my thinking about another Carnival novel: imagine how difficult it would be to follow a suspect along the parade route, through the crowds, trying to not lose sight of someone in a sea of humanity with beads and things flying through the air. I’d wanted to do such a think in Mardi Gras Mambo, and while it’s been so long since I wrote it, or paged through it with a quick reread, I am wondering if I talked about limited availability to get around town because of the parades, etc.

When I had a moment of downtime yesterday, I intended to curl back up with Ali Brandon’s Double Booked for Death, but couldn’t find it, so started rereading Mary Stewart’s The Moon-spinners, which I’ve only read once and not again. I couldn’t remember anything of the plot–as I’ve said before, I primarily revisit and reread her Airs Above the Ground and The Ivy Tree when I do revisit her work–but I did remember two things: it was set in Greece (Crete, actually) and it was made into a Disney film starring Hayley Mills, but the only resemblance the film bore to the book were the Greek setting and a female main character. As I was reading–and the opening is quite spectacular, and Stewart’s writing is Mystery Writers of America Grand Master level amazing and literate; the way she is able to make the setting absolutely real and her main character relatable, likable, and someone you want to root for–I kept thinking about how she is so frequently described or remembered as a romantic suspense author, and how not accurate I believe that to be. Sure, I may not remember all the plots as well as I perhaps should (stupid old brain), and it’s pretty apparent that our ballsy young heroine Nicola Farris is undoubtedly going to fall for the wounded young man she stumbled over in the mountains of Crete and is now helping; but with Stewart, any romance involved is definitely secondary to the suspense element of her novels…like she tacked it on because her publisher or agent or readers expected it. I’ll probably read some more of it today–although I did find my Ali Brandon novel buried in beads on the kitchen counter.

I also remembered, out on the parade route yesterday, that I had an idea for a book or short story about a murder on Fat Tuesday; when a family throws open their house on St. Charles Avenue for an all day open house type party, with people coming in and out all day, and then finding a murdered body in one of the bedrooms upstairs as the party winds down. I also started writing another short story, “He Didn’t Kill Her,” whose opening came to me fully formed last night and so I had to sit down at the computer and write the opening paragraphs.

Carnival definitely makes me feel reconnected to New Orleans and inspired again.

There are five parades today–the final one cancelled on Thursday is rolling today after Thoth and before Bacchus: so today’s order is: Okeanos, Mid-City, Thoth, Chaos, and finally Bacchus tonight. I don’t know how much time I can spend out there, to be honest…but it’s a jam-packed parade day, and then tomorrow is going to be another one of those hideously busy days, as I try to get caught up on the emails that have been languishing, run errands (including Costco, the madness indeed!), go to the gym, and prepare for the evening’s Proteus and Orpheus parades.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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