Tag: Pride Month

Bongo Rock

Today is two things–the start of hurricane season and the start of Pride Month. I have a Pride post that I definitely want to finish and post at some point, and I’ve not really decided what kind of entries I want to do–social media and here–to mark the month. I still think the thirty-four convictions of Greg Stillson was the best gift for Pride American queers have ever been given, to be honest, and I still am a little in shock that it happened–trial and verdict. And of course the traitors have all lost their treasonous little minds, too–my personal favorite is “if they can do this to him they can do it to anyone!”

Um yes, that’s precisely how laws and the judicial system work–no one is above the law in the United States.

Period.

I way overslept this morning, but we stayed up super late last night watching Bodkin (we only have two episodes left to go, and it’s really interesting; much more complex and clever than I’d originally given it credit for) but I wound up not getting into bed until midnight, and I didn’t get up until about nine thirty this morning. While I wanted to sleep in, I didn’t want to sleep in that late; I feel discombobulated and like I won’t be able to get the things done this morning I wanted to get done–but that’s just loser talk, methinks, and a way to give myself excuses for not taking the books to the library sale or washing the car or picking up the mail and dry cleaning or go to the gym. But now that my coffee is kicking in, I’m feeling more alive and awake and like fuck yeah I can get that shit done, get out of my way.

Always nice.

Yesterday was a good day. I worked at home, got all that done while laundering the bed linens, and ran my errands, did some cleaning around the house and later in the day we had a massive and marvelous thunderstorm. I grabbed The Rival Queens (my current nonfiction read) and spent some marvelous time with it in my easy chair. I do love that period of time, and I’ve always wanted to write about an adventurous fictional woman who was a member of Catherine de Medici’s Flying Squadron; an accomplished seductress spy, navigating the complicated politics of France during the Wars of Religion and the decline of the Valois dynasty. It was truly a fascinating period, not only in France, but throughout Europe. My next non-fiction read will probably be The King’s Assassin, the book on which Mary & George was based, and that’s another fun period I would like to write about. Someday. There really was nothing like the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for upheaval and Game of Thrones-like cutthroat politics.

I also watched LSU’s thrilling baseball win over Wofford in the regionals yesterday, and they play again today at 4. GEAUX TIGERS!

I also looked at the submissions call for the story I am working on–thinking the deadline was May 31 only to discover it was actually June 1, which means I can let the story sit a while longer before revising it one more time to see if I can make it stronger. I am very pleased with how it’s going so far, and looking forward to getting some more writing done today. I am a little behind on my schedule thus far (the one I made earlier this week, remember?), but the deadline being later certainly has made that a bit simpler and easier to navigate without feeling pressure.

And on that note, I am going to get another cup of coffee and head into the spice mines. I’ll most likely be back later–that pride entry I want to write–and I also need to think about what kind of entries to do for Pride Month. Anyway, have a lovely Saturday, and I’ll check in with you again later, okay?

I’ll Do It All Over Again

Well, it’s Thursday and my week at the office–a very shortened one–will be over this afternoon. Yesterday getting back to work was a challenge. I didn’t have a problem getting up in the morning–I didn’t sleep well the night before–but late in the afternoon I started feeling tired; the low energy from not eating real food is also a thing (I’ve literally lost nine pounds since last Thursday, and nine pounds in five days is not good. If I continue to lose weight at this rate, within two more weeks I’d be down to a weight I’ve not seen since the aughts… I do not recommend this diet to anyone), and I think I may go to bed a little earlier than usual tonight. We were busy at work yesterday and I also had to catch up all my work from the days I was out, but I managed to get it all done and it was indeed a lovely thing. I mailed some things at the post office, stopped and made groceries (more ice cream and yogurt), and then came home to a protein shake for dinner. Yay, more soft food.

I cannot wait to go to Five Guys when this is all over. And pizza. Mmmmm.

I slept well last night, certainly more deeply than the night before, so I feel better this morning. Tomorrow is the visit to the Tulane Institute of Sports Medicine (more on this later), and I also have my hearing aids follow-up appointment. We’re going to be busy at the office today, and I have to stay later than I usually do, which will be interesting. I’ve got a to-do list I need to finish, and hopefully I won’t be so tired when I get home from the office tonight; I’m coming straight home after work for a rare change in the routine. I’m still way behind on the housework and I really need to start writing again; outside of the blog (which counts; I no longer pretend it doesn’t count as writing–which is what I always do when I am not writing fiction: “count the blog!”) and emails I’ve not really written much of anything since getting back from Bouchercon. SO much for all that inspiration I had from attending and being in the company of writers! But I think I will be able to get to work on some stories that need finishing this weekend, and some need revision and polishing. I also need to get back to work on Muscles, and writing those proposals that need writing. I don’t have to make a grocery run this weekend, and I am probably going to have to have some things delivered over the weekend, but that’s fine. I paid all the bills yesterday, too. So, it may not have seemed as productive as perhaps I would have preferred yesterday to be, but I did get some things done that needed to be done.

And it would be so lovely to get some more of these short stories done, you know, and out on submission? I only have one story out on sub, and it’s been almost a year since I sent it in to them. I don’t know why it’s taking so long, but that’s also publishing for you. While I do appreciate the convenience of using Submittable, at the same time it makes me wonder how it works on the other side. I was thinking last night, and have been ever since the Anthonys, about writing a post about editing anthologies. I have done over twenty of them at this point–there aren’t many people who can say they’ve done more in the genre, frankly, although they weren’t all crime; most were erotica, and I ain’t apologizing for that. I think only a few were actually crime and/or horror, which is kind of surprising. You’d think I’d have edited more crime anthologies than I have, but that is not the actual case. I think I’ve only done five crime anthologies–the three Bouchercon ones, and the queer noir ones I did with J. M. Redmann (Jean). I also want to do some more self-interviews; I have the questions from two of the other Anthony nominee panels I was on–best children’s/young adult. and the marvelous questions Leslie Karst came up with for the best humorous category–and I can use them to do self-interviews like I did with the queer crime panel John Copenhaver moderated for Outwrite back in August.

I was a little surprised by the positive response to my post about conference homophobia endured and how things have gotten better since the bad old days when I first started going to the mainstream mystery events. I generally don’t bother with paying much attention to response to blog posts, in all honesty; I try not to think about people reading it because I worry that will trigger anxiety and make me think about what I can and cannot say because of worries about giving offense (I never really want to offend anyone accidentally; I do not care about homophobes, misogynists, and racists being offended by my blog because that’s a bonus for writing it. But one core tenet of my life is to never hurt anyone’s feelings through carelessness; I know what that feels like and frankly, carelessness is worse than deliberate offense, I think, because the person puts no thought into being careless, which means you’re not even worth thinking about or your feelings simply are irrelevant; I prefer planned hatefulness because as least thought and effort went into it, if that makes any sense at all. It does in my fevered brain). But it did get a rousing response. Why was it time to write it now? I’d been considering writing that post for a long time. It’s been sitting in my drafts since Pride Month, which was when I wanted to post it, to strike another blow against homophobia and homophobes, but got sidetracked by all the boycott bullshit. Then I was going to post it before Bouchercon–the morning of the trip actually, but couldn’t get it finished before i had to leave the house. Being at Bouchercon–and being around my Queer Crime Writers–made it seem even more important than it was before I left because I do not want my Queer Crime Writers to ever be made to feel the way I felt when I encountered the homophobia at Bouchercon. I do feel very protective and paternal of the group, which I know is infantilizing them; they are adults who’ve faced it before and will face it again, but I want to spare them the ignominy of being belittled and demeaned by colleagues and bigoted programmers. That was what I meant by my presence making a difference at these things over the years–if I was the lightning rod that drew the homophobia out so it made things easier for this new generation of queer writers, I can actually live with that. If some good comes out of my hard times for other people, that’s something I can get on board with, really. I’ve never considered myself a ground breaker; while I think I’ve accomplished some terrific things with my writing over the years, I don’t think future generations will be studying my work for insights into the time in which I lived and what it meant to be queer in the late twentieth/early twenty-first century. You never know, but I think it’s highly unlikely.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again soon.

Fotzepolitic

Sunday morning and things went about as well as could be expected yesterday. Friday evening I had some items delivered from Sam’s Club, but hadn’t noticed that one of the items ordered actually had to be shipped; it arrived this morning here at the Lost Apartment. And while I was waiting for my Cox cable technician to arrive (I rearranged the entire morning to accommodate their 10-12 am window), I got a text message at 11:30 informing me that my appointment was cancelled; then came the email stating we know things happen! Reach out and reschedule! I reached out, only to be told that the technician arrived, called, got voicemail, and departed DESPITE MY HAVING GIVEN THE SAME INSTRUCTIONS I ALWAYS GIVE: OUR BUZZER DOESN’T WORK SO YOU HAVE TO CALL OR TEXT WHEN YOU ARRIVE.

Also, I had my phone with me all morning, so I wouldn’t miss the call. No one called, I have no recents, and I have no voicemails.

This obviously threw me off my game yesterday for writing, but I did get some done. I am a bit behind on the schedule I’d given myself, but I think it’s going to go relatively easily from now on. I ran some errands, came home, got cleaned up, and dove into the writing. I wasn’t really able to shake off the mood, so after struggling for a few hours to get the chapter done, I called it a day and repaired to my easy chair. Needing to cleanse my soul, I did a rewatch binge of the first episodes of Ted Lasso, which are even more charming on rewatch because you get to see all the callbacks you might have forgotten about later in the run of the show, like Keeley acknowledging that she “dated a 23 year old footballer when she was seventeen, only now I’m thirty and I’m still dating 23 year old footballers” while talking to Rebecca. You can almost see the light come on in her eyes–what the hell am I doing–which kind of opens the door for her breaking up with Jamie later. Even though they don’t know each other well, she recognizes that it’s time for her to grow-up and start thinking about her own future, while talking to Rebecca–which is the first building block in their close friendship. Then later, when Paul was finished working for the day we watched Bama Rush, which was kind of disappointing. Originally focusing on four girls about to go through sorority rush at the University of Alabama–which I guess is this viral thing on TikTok–it got a bit derailed with the director started seeing similarities in behavior of the girls planning to go through rush as she went through being a lifelong alopecia sufferer…which could have been made a lot more interesting, but I always thought the point of a documentary was the director didn’t make themselves a part of the story? I think the point she was trying to make was valid, but the way the documentary was a edited together simply didn’t work. The focus shifted, and it derailed after that.

But Jesus God in heaven, those sorority houses in Tuscaloosa! The fraternity houses! They’re enormous. I had kind of figured Greek life at universities would be declining, given how old-fashioned and restrictive they can be, especially sororities–and this newer younger generation doesn’t seem as interested as preserving traditions and institutions as previous ones were, but Bama Rush showed me things I didn’t know…that “Rush Consultant” is actually a career, for one thing…and the documentary only briefly touched on the Machine, a supposedly secret society made up of representatives from every fraternity and sorority that controls everything at the University. (I kind of love that shit; I’ve long been an admirer of Pat Conroy’s The Lords of Discipline, which kind of touched on that kind of thing.)

Today I am going to get shit done. Later this morning I am going to make a very brief and short grocery run to the Rouse’s in the CBD, and then I am coming home to spend the rest of the day writing and reading. I didn’t read yesterday, which was a bit disappointing; I’d hoped to finish reading my current book this weekend so I could move along to Megan Abbott’s new one; but anticipation is always lovely, and perhaps I can get along to that next week. One can always hope, can’t one?

But I feel rested and awake this morning. My back and legs are a bit tight and sore, so I think I’m to use that massage roller thing for my back and maybe do some stretching (which I should do every day) to see how it feels. I am planning on getting a chapter finished, maybe doing some reading, and then making my grocery run so I can come back and do more writing. I need to write most of the day, to make up for the last couple of days of irritation and aggravation that kept me out of the proper mindset.

My mind has been all over the place this week, which is weird, but also kind of normal for me. Whenever I am in the weeds with a book my mind goes off in all kinds of directions and produces all manner of thoughts and ideas. I started writing several other entries yesterday, specifically for Pride Month and specifically about being gay–sometimes about being a gay author and what that’s like; I always forget that people never really quite grasp or understand what it’s like to be a queer writer in an intolerant country, of what it feels like to be othered by every community in which you try to find a place where you belong. I’ve never wanted to be THAT gay; the one constantly having to remind people of what is and isn’t homophobia, and is always having to point it out and teach straight people about what it’s like. It’s exhausting, frankly, and sometimes the well-meaning ignorance is highly offensive, but you know they don’t mean it that way so you push down the offense and ignore it while calmly trying to explain to the person why they can’t say or do that…while also not trying to hurt their feelings (although had they put even the tiniest bit of thought into it, would have never said anything offensive in the first place). It’s exhausting having to see trash equate your sexuality with pedophilia and grooming on a daily basis. It’s exhausting having to constantly have to defend your right to exist, having to constantly prove you’re a human being worthy of being treated the same as everyone else…

The mental health of queer people is always under constant assault.

And on that note, I am going to get some more coffee and start working. Either on the book, or on one of these Pride entries. I can’t decide which. We’ll see. Anyway, enjoy your Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.

I Will Survive

First I was afraid, I was petrified…

Every gay man of a certain age knows all the lyrics to that song–and can (and will) belt it out while on the dance floor. The minute that piano intro begins coming through the speakers is one of those moments when everyone in the bar pauses and makes the “wooooo” sound as the dance floor fills. One year during Southern Decadence we stopped into the Louisiana Pizza Kitchen for lunch. Every table had a rainbow flag on it, which was cool. One of my friends picked up the flag and started raising it while singing “I Will Survive” because it was, in his words, “the gay national anthem.” I laughed really hard–we all did–but it also stuck in my head. That was in 1995, and almost thirty years later I always hear the opening piano riff and think ah, the gay national anthem! All rise!

I also always smile when I remember it.

Being queer in America means surviving, adapting a protective coloring, as it were, so that you could pass without question during your work life (or people might question it, but not to your face). The one nice thing about being a gay man is the fact that, in theory, we can navigate through the world and “pass”; there are very few of us that someone can look at and think, definitively and definitely, without question oh he’s a homo. I have never thought i presented as particularly masculine; certainly when I was a child other kids sniffed it out about me. I don’t know if that means they had some sort of “bullying gaydar” operating at a high level, or if I was so obviously gay that it was noticeable. (I’ve always wondered.) The way we think other people see us is so vastly different from how they actually do see us; none of my friends were either surprised or shocked when I came out to them at long last. I think that’s part of the reason “I Will Survive” is a gay anthem; for one thing it’s extremely adaptable, for another it’s defiant–oh no, bitch, YOU’RE not bringing me and my life down–(has anyone ever done a study about why gay men are drawn to Black women singers with powerful voices?) and that’s a message all gay men can easily identify with: survival. Back in the day we used to have to develop powerful camouflage (no, I never did) and keep the gay personal life and the non-gay professional life divided by a clear line of demarcation.

That’s why going to gay bars was so important for so many of us; the ability to have a place where you could unabashedly be yourself amongst other people like you was so freeing, so life affirming. After I left the travel industry, I was tired of working for straight businesses and having to play down who I was. I was tired of two separate lives, so after I made the decision to leave that job, start working as a personal trainer and focus my energies on writing, I also made the conscious choice to not ever work in a straight office environment ever again. The gyms I worked at were different, despite being owned and operated by straight people, because I never spent a lot of time there. I came in, trained my clients or did my own workout, and then bailed to come home to write. I have not really had a job in the straight world ever since, managing to work in queer spaces most of my life since.

With the community so hatefully under attack again, it takes me back to those olden days before Lawrence v. Texas was decided; when our sex lives made us criminals. I cannot emphasize this enough–before Lawrence, any time any member of my community indulged in sexual relations, they were breaking the law. Our very existence was outlawed. Legally, it was okay to be gay so long as you never acted on it. Which was very similar to the “don’t ask don’t tell” thing, or the strictures passed along by religious hierarchies to their memberships about being queer–it’s okay, as long as you never act on it. Hate the sin, love the sinner–that whole nonsensical thing that automatically relegates all queer people to a lower level existence in society.

Last night we watched the Amazon Prime documentary series on the Duggar family and their entire religious cult (not based in anything scriptural or Christian, really), Shiny Happy People, and it’s actually very chilling. I never watched their show, but it was during the time that TLC went from The Learning Channel to Touching Little Children; the Duggars anchored the channel’s reality program about abusive religious cults that demeaned women and celebrated over-fertility; it was around this same time TLC began promoting and broadcasting shows about beauty pageants for little girls–essentially, the sexualization of little girls for trophies and checks and tiaras. So, on the one hand they had shows with the Duggars and other families like them–abusive cults where children are often molested and it’s covered up–while also promoting and publicizing the sexualization of little girls in shows like Toddlers and Tiaras. Add in the fact that Josh Duggar–the predator groomed by his parents to be a predator–was going to work for the religious zealots known as the American Family Association (long known for it’s homophobia and misogyny) and pursuing a career in politics as a right-wing zealot and homophobe with direct ties to the Huckabee family, including Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. (An unholy alliance forged in hell that no one talks about at all anymore. I’d ask that bitch at every press conference if she and her father condoned the Duggars covering up their son’s molestation of children, including his sisters, and why they never spoke out against the Duggars, and just how close were the two families?)

The sheer misogyny of their beliefs and values–women have no value outside of the home and bearing children; if a male molests girls he is to be protected and the girls sacrificed–and women must obey their husband who is also their Lord and Master.

And they call queers perverts?

Take the sty from thy own eye, evangelicals. Seriously. But thank you, Amazon Prime, for releasing this documentary during Pride Month; let’s remind everyone of how foul homophobes are on every level.

The Internet saga continues. It was out when I got home from the office yesterday, and so Cox is coming out again this morning. If this continues to be an issue, we are definitely going to switch providers. There’s a local company our landlady uses that works well, and of course, since they’re local they are a lot easier to deal with–no text or on-line conversations with “support staff” needed. It eventually came back on after a couple of hours, but I am really getting terribly sick of this shit, you know? I have things to do today and messing with Cox isn’t helpful. Ah, well, there are worse things. I want to work on the book today, I need to run some errands, and I want to get some reading done–I want to finish the book I am reading and enjoying so I can move on to the new Megan Abbott, which I cannot wait to read.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday and I’ll check back in with you later.

Get Together

Saturday morning of a three day weekend and how lovely is that? Thank you, whoever made the effort to give us Memorial Day as a national holiday; this lowly worker is eternally grateful for any extra paid time off. I intend to work this entire weekend; nose firmly affixed to grindstone and butt glued to shabby and disheveled desk chair whilst fingers move rapidly over the keyboard. Yesterday after work I was too tired–more on that later–to do much of anything other than mindless chores, and while doing those mindless chores another integral part of how to improve the book came to me; shortly thereafter, while putting away clean dishes another tumbril fell into place; so my entire weekend’s worth of writing just popped into my head. How incredibly lucky am I? Terribly, shockingly so.

Paul and I watched the Being Mary Tyler Moore documentary on MAX (which always makes me think of Carol Burnett doing Nora Desmond on her old variety show) last night and it was quite interesting. We forget how recently it was that The Mary Tyler Moore Show was breaking new ground; it was during my lifetime. Saturday night television on CBS when I was a kid was the ultimate must-see television; a three hour block of comedy of such high quality it may never have been equaled since. I loved her show; I loved the cast, and it still holds up today, despite how much things have changed, culturally and socially, in the decades since it went off the air after seven glorious seasons. There was a time when Paul was between jobs here in New Orleans when he became addicted to reruns of both it and Rhoda (when I was a kid I didn’t much care for Rhoda, despite having loved her character on the original show. As an adult, I found it much funnier than I ever had as a kid; not sure why that made a difference other than that it did), and I was amazed at how well the show held up.

It’s also interesting thinking about that period of my life (the 1970s) again–because it’s been on my mind. There’s an idea formulating in the back of my head; a crime novel told from a twelve year old’s perspective set in the suburbs in 1975. I’ve thought about it a lot lately. I had the original idea sometime back early in the pandemic, when I was going through my true crime documentary phase of condom-packing back in the day. It comes back to me now and again, and lately it’s been coming to me with more and more regularity, which means it will probably be the next book after the ones already in progress are completed and out of my hair. I have no idea when that might actually be, but I have a great title for it, and images keep dancing in and out of my head. I know the crime and how my POV character becomes involved in it, but I am not sure of much else of the rest–the flashes are bits and pieces of story and scene that I start filling in, in a journal or in a notebook. I already have the file for it made, too.

I have so many files. I am swimming in files. Buried in files, to the point where between the computer files and the physical files I may never ever be able to organize or get rid of any of them. It seems like I am constantly having to find room for more files in places. Heavy heaving sigh.

But I slept deeply and well and even later than yesterday morning, so that’s a very good thing. I have to run a couple of errands today and I have all kinds of writing to get done today, which should go easier this morning because of all the thinking I did last night. We’ll see, I suppose, is the best way to look at it. But as I mentioned, I have to get the mail and stop at the grocery store for a few things (so irritating, really), and so I am hoping after that to be able to dive headfirst into the book so I can reach my daily goal for the weekend. Paul will probably be out most of the afternoon, as usual on Saturdays (he meets his trainer at noon, and then either goes to the office or rides the bike for another few hours) so I have no excuse for not being productive today. Once I finish this I am going to go sit in my chair for a little while and read (I want to finish Lori Roy’s marvelous Let Me Die in His Footsteps at long last this weekend; I cannot believe how long it’s taken me to finish something that I really am enjoying and have been itching to get back to. Lori is one of my favorite writers of the last ten years; not one of her novels have ever disappointed me…but more on that when I finish the book and talk about it on here), and then will head out to the errands around noonish. I want to read for about an hour or so before writing, and then running the errands in order to come back home and write for a while. I may even pick up grocery store sushi (don’t judge me) so I don’t have to be concerned about lunch, either. I may make shrimp creole for dinner, too; I need to do something with that leftover celery. I also cleaned out the refrigerator a bit yesterday as well–should finish that over the weekend, too.

The reason I was so fatigued and drained yesterday was because I got to do that ZOOM interview with Margot Douaihy yesterday, and so I spent a good hour researching her on-line, digging through the book for references, and of course trying to come up with good questions for her. I don’t know that I actually managed to come up with good questions, but when you’re working with someone as smart and talented and layered as Margot, it’s very easy for forty-five minutes to shoot by. I didn’t even get to all the questions I had for her; I looked at the time on my computer and realized we’d been going for three quarters of an hour, and had i continued asking questions we could have been there for the rest of the afternoon. That has always been my issue with interviews, really; whether ZOOM recordings or written ones, you can never get everything in that you want and there’s never enough space to be as thorough. I would love to do in-depth pieces on people like in Vanity Fair or Rolling Stone; I remember Ann Patchett telling Paul and I about having to fly to London on GQ’s dime to interview Liam Neeson or someone like that, and thinking man I would love to have that kind of opportunity. But it exhausted me mentally and physically, so I was very glad I had gotten all my work-at-home chores completed before it started because I was unable to do much of anything when it was finished. I did some chores–the dishes, finished laundering the bed linens, but other than that I was just in my chair letting my mind wander as I watched documentaries about history on Youtube.

And on that note, I think I’m going to make another cup of coffee and repair to the living room to read while my mind continues waking up. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll talk to you again tomorrow or maybe even later today; one can never be certain.

Rock a Little

Well, here we are on Saturday after a rage-infested Friday during which my anger burned with the white hot heat of a dozen burning suns. I somehow managed to get things done–the world keeps turning, no matter how shitty whatever is going on that day might be–and yet succumbed to the need to rage-tweet and retweet; Twitter is such a horrible place and it just feeds on itself.

The other day I was talking about #shedeservedit and why I wasn’t entirely comfortable promoting the book–but the abomination of the ‘supreme court’ and its rulings of this past week have completely changed my position about that entirely. I am very glad that I wrote that book, because part of its story also addresses the need for legal abortion. YES I AM PRO-CHOICE AND I ALWAYS HAVE BEEN, even when I was a child. I remember when the Roe decision originally came down; I was twelve years old, and everyone was talking about it. My sister wrote an anti-abortion piece for our high school newspaper, so I knew where she came down on the issue; my parents never really talked about it but I felt pretty safe in assuming, based on their upbringing and their faith, where they came down on the issue. It seemed kind of wrong to me, but the more I read about it and the more I understood the position of those who argued in favor of it, the more I came around to the pro-choice side. No one should have to carry a child to term against their will, period. I don’t know why that is so difficult for so many men to understand or grasp; if men could get pregnant Planned Parenthood would have drive-thru service. And the right to privacy these judicial activists just struck down? The ripples of government intervention into personal life choices that are none of the government’s or anybody else’s decisions is the epitome of government intervention and overreach that conservatives are always screaming about. The abominable sexual predator Clarence Thomas* even specifically named other decisions regarding privacy and government overreach he felt were ‘wrongly decided.’ Hey, if I was married to one of the biggest traitors in American history this side of Benedict Arnold I’d probably have all the seats and keep my mouth shut, but you do you, predator.

Sigh. I’ll probably never stop being angry about this.

I did manage to get some things done yesterday. I did my day job duties. I also took a short break to go wash and vacuum out my car (I finally found a do-it-yourself car wash that is easy to get to); I also got my brake tag renewed, which was marvelous. (It expired during the shutdown of 2020, and there were no places open to have it done. Naturally, I forgot all about it until a conversation at the office the other day.) I don’t have to worry about that again until 2024. I also picked up the mail and came back home to do more work. After my work duties were finished, I made three binders for working projects–yes, this is something that I do. I print out every draft, three hole punch it, and put into a three-ring binder used specifically for that purpose. I had recently emptied out the binder for A Streetcar Named Murder, and so I am reusing that one of Mississippi River Mischief. I also made a new one for Chlorine, one for “Never Kiss a Stranger ” (and the other novellas), and one for another project I am slowly but surely working on for some reason that doesn’t really make sense to me; someone has shown an interest in it and so I am writing it when I can’t make any progress on what I am currently focused on working on. Today I have an eye appointment in Metairie at noon; I’m debating as to whether to donate books to the library today to get the boxes out of the living room before heading out there. I am probably going to treat myself to Atomic Burger on the way home–I was thinking Sonic, but I’ve not had Atomic Burger since pre-pandemic times so that sounds like more of a treat for me than going to Sonic. (it’s also been a hot minute since I’ve had Five Guys…)

We watched this week’s episode of The Boys last night (thoroughly enjoyed the season finale of Obi-wan Kenobi the night before) before catching another episode of Loot (seriously, Maya Rudolph is killing it on this show; one of the best female comedy performances since Veep–she and Jean Smart will be definitely fighting it out for the Emmy this year, and the entire cast is actually quite good. Very sharp comedic writing, as well, and then once we were caught with that we moved on to First Kill, which we are still enjoying, weird as it is. I also want to spend some time today with The Savage Kind by John Copenhaver–it’s quite wonderful–before I head out to the burbs. (I also laundered the bed linens and got caught up on the dishes as well.) I do want to finish reading it this weekend, so I can find out where it’s going and enjoy every page as well as to move on to my next read before Pride Month runs out. I have all these marvelous books just collecting dust here in the Lost Apartment, and just begging to be read.

On that note, I am going to make myself another cup of coffee and head over to the easy chair with my book before I have to start getting ready to head out to the eye appointment. Have a great Saturday, and remember–channel your rage into action. To quote Game of Thrones, “there is no justice in this world unless we make it.” I intend to spend the rest of my life, as I have spent so much of it already, fighting for justice. I’d kind of hoped that I wouldn’t have to anymore, but letting your guard down just gives the Fascists an opportunity to regroup.

“Henceforth I shall only refer to him in this manner, just as Kavanaugh will always be “the rapist Brett Kavanaugh.”

Right on the Tip of My Tongue

Tuesday and it’s back into the office with me today. Huzzah.

Yesterday I entered data until my eyes crossed, but I got everything caught up. I also, once I was finished with my work for the day, walked over to Office Depot and got some more organizational items to try to make the kitchen workspace–and the kitchen overall–better organized and pulled together. It’s better now–looking around at the space this morning it certainly looks better than the hot mess it’s been for quite some time–so that’s something, I think. I slept fairly well last night, so as I am slowly waking up this morning over my coffee I am thinking this looks pretty good around here this morning. I also decided that since it’s still Pride Month my reading should continue to be queer books, at least for this month, so I plucked John Copenhaver’s The Savage Kind out of the TBR pile (it did win the Lambda Award for Best Mystery this past weekend after all) and hope to start reading it this evening when I get home from work. I made a binder for “Never Kiss a Stranger” as well as ones for Chlorine and Mississippi River Mischief–which definitely helped getting loose piles of paper and file folders off the counter tops, and at the same time felt strangely like I actually was making some kind of progress, which is always enormously helpful with feeling like you’ve gotten some place, accomplished something.

I just feel like I’m not getting anywhere with anything these days, but my mind has really worked strangely over the past few years. My concept of time is completely altered–not that it was ever really strong to begin with, honestly–and I struggle with memory lapses; my memory doesn’t really work the way it used to, which is incredibly concerning, or used to be; it seems like everyone is having the same kind of problems, and it probably is pandemic/interesting times causing it for everyone that seems to be affected (of course, if this was a suspense thriller, some mad genius would have done something to trigger this in people around the world for their own nefarious purposes–you can tell I watched a James Bond film last night), but it still is distressing to say the least.

I am also glad I took the weekend off. I feel like it was absolutely necessary, and there’s a three day weekend coming up this weekend, which is really nice as well. I don’t think I’ll be able to take the entire weekend off again this weekend–certainly not all three days–but it’s a very pleasant thought, I must say, and I am looking forward to getting through the rest of this week so I can rest up this weekend.

Whine, whine, whine.

And yes, we did watch the final Daniel Craig as James Bond thriller No Time to Die last night. It was gorgeously shot, and Craig is much closer to the Bond Ian Fleming wrote about in the books so many decades ago (I was very young when Fleming died), and while watching last night I thought about the original thirteen Bond books that Fleming wrote all those years ago and how badly those stories have aged–and how little the movies based on them resemble the books. The book Live and Let Die was horrifically racist (I read it again a few years ago, since it’s been decades since I read them) and then watched the movie again, which is also bad in that respect. Live and Let Die was also the first Bond movie I saw in the theater–and parts of it were filmed/set in and around New Orleans, so that part of it has always been sentimental for me in some ways…but yikes. The stereotypes! And the Bond books themselves celebrated imperialistic colonialism–many of the books are set in Jamaica or other possessions of the British empire, and that oh-so-British sense of superiority is very present in the books. But No Time to Die was a perfectly adequate Bond thriller film; Daniel Craig is a commanding presence on the screen, even if the villain, played by Oscar winner Rami Malek (which prompted me to say, “Freddie Mercury would have made a great Bond villain”) wasn’t really developed enough to really hit hard as the bad guy.

Then again, are any of the Bond villains ever really developed?

But watching a James Bond movie, coupled with me reading The Great Betrayal about the 4th Crusade, has me in mind of writing a Colin thriller again–I could of course set it at any time, so it doesn’t necessarily have to be current; the lovely thing about a Colin series is I could literally go back and set them in and around Scotty books, which would/could be very fun to do–but I am just not so great about writing action, I suppose–and thrillers are a lot of action, from beginning to end. I also don’t know enough about guns, really–how can I write about a gunfight or being shot at, or shooting back–but it could be fun….I already know the opening scene (set in 1204, as the city is on the brink of falling; the Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church calls in a couple of warrior priests to smuggle something to safety, and that something is the MacGuffin the entire story turns on: the Pope/Rome wants whatever it is, and the Patriarch would rather burn in hell than let what he considers the Roman heretics have it) and I also know what the first chapter would be–Colin rescuing a politician’s daughter from the terrorists who kidnapped her–and then we would get into the MacGuffin/treasure hunt, with of course the Vatican being the bad guys (seriously, only Nazis make better bad guys than the Vatican) and all kinds of fun stuff.

Someday, perhaps.

And on that note, tis time for me to get back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader.

Woodstock

June first, and the start of Pride Month. I should probably wax poetic about the long struggle for civil rights for queer people–one that I pretty much spent my entire life witnessing (I was eight at the time of Stonewall; I don’t remember seeing any news coverage of it, but it gradually seeped into my consciousness through osmosis or something) and a lot of years participating in at some level. I sometimes wonder if I could have done more, or fought harder, or been better about it in some ways; if I could have done something more that could have caused a greater impact or advanced the cause more quickly in some way. I imagine that’s probably my own issue more than anything else; I always feel like ai should do more.

I slept pretty well last night, and I think I am starting to get caught up on that. I felt better yesterday, but got tired relatively early in the day and of course, had errands to run after work (I cannot be the only person stunned at how much the cost of groceries has gone up, can I?), and then came home to make dinner (I was very hungry, which was unusual but cool as I am usually not hungry after work), and then Paul and I watched another episode of The Little Drummer Girl, a John LeCarré adaptation we’re enjoying, if not completely certain we are following the story completely. I’ve not read much LeCarré; only The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, which was amazing and yes, I am well aware I need to read more. (I also would like to read more Eric Ambler, for that matter, and there’s some Robert Ludlum I’d like to revisit as well.) I’ve not decided what to read next, to be honest; probably something older is most likely; I have a couple of old suspense novels from the 1960’s I’d like to read, and they are short, which makes them even more appealing. I also downloaded another book to listen to on my phone; I am hoping that I can listen to it while doing chores around the house and/or walking to the gym (which I hope to start doing again). I have an eye appointment on Saturday in Metairie (yay) but maybe after I am finished with that and after running a couple of errands, can walk over to the gym Saturday afternoon and start working out and stretching again. I can feel that my muscles need to be stretched (badly) because it’s been so long…

But I do feel better today, like I am finally over the trip.

I am behind on everything, but that undertone of being tired never helps in that regard; when I am tired (exhausted) I always look at everything I have to do from a perspective of oh I will never be able to get caught up and feel defeated. The trip of course was a disruption, and now I have to piece together the many things I was doing and working on before I drove north. But with some clarity–sleeping well helps–I should be able to get that taken care of this morning as well as starting the incredible chore of clearing out my inbox, which has been out of control for quite some time. (Hell, everything has been out of control for quite some time.)

I’ve been reflecting about my gay life a lot lately–primarily because one of my many many projects are set in the past, which requires me to remember things from my life from way back when (“Never Kiss a Stranger” is set in 1994 New Orleans; another project is set in the mid 1970’s in the Chicago suburbs) and while I certainly wouldn’t ever want to go back in time–no matter how awful things seem to be in the present day, they were definitely worse in the past–it’s kind of nice to think back to what many people consider to be “simpler” times. The fact is the times weren’t actually simpler, we were just simpler and certainly more naïve. Maybe that’s just me projecting–always a possibility–and the cynic in me, when people talk about “simpler times”, always wants to say, “what you really mean is you want to go back to a time when you didn’t have to think about social issues because they didn’t really intrude into your life.” It’s very easy to not care about, or notice, things that don’t affect you–which is where the term “woke” came from, if you were wondering or have complained about it before–but (at the risk of making you think of campfires and “Kum-Ba-Ya”) we kind of are all in this together, and is it really so terrible to care about other people and how they are treated?

Apparently, a lot of people think the answer to that question is yes.

Anyway. I don’t think people will ever stop disappointing me. (For that matter, I don’t think I will ever stop disappointing myself.)

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely June 1st, Constant Reader.

Funky Nassau

Ah, I’ve always wanted to visit the Bahamas; today’s title reminds me of Black Sails and Nassau in the islands. (I wonder if I should revisit/rewatch that show? Yes, Greg, because you have so much free time.) Heavy heaving sigh. Tomorrow is the day I drive north, so today will be a frantic day of packing and getting ready for tomorrow’s journey. I’ll have to stop at the store on the way home to pick up a few things (today is also Pay the Bills Day) and then make a list of what to pack and try to get that all taken care of as quickly as possible so I can relax before going to bed. I am still making progress on the edits–Lord, it’s taking forever–so I want to be able to work on that some more tonight too, so I have less to work on while I am up there. The more I get done, the less I have to do.

And the less I have to do, the better.

I feel rested this morning but somewhat tired–kind of a drained feeling, really–but I am hoping the coffee and this morning’s shower will take care of that. It might not–you never know–but I am ever hopeful. I am sure I have a busy schedule of clients this morning and all day, which helps the day go by faster, frankly, and I am trying to get things taken care of before I leave, since I have no idea how much time I’ll be able to spend doing anything. It’s shitty to go visit my parents and then hole up in my room working the whole time I am there, especially since it’s only two full days before I have to drive back home again. I am also glad Monday is a holiday so I can spend the day getting ready for the work-week; getting groceries and so forth to prepare, etc.–and of course, I can spend Monday finishing the edits if need be (hopefully that won’t be the case, but….). My preference would be to spend Monday getting groceries and relaxing around the apartment, while getting things done–like laundry and so forth–while I rest and relax and read in my easy chair. I am also going to have to go to WWL’s studio on TUesday morning to tape an interview for Great Day Louisiana–this came about because I am teaching a workshop on writing sex scenes at the West Jefferson Parish Library next month and they got in touch with the library to see if I wanted to go on their show. As I hate the way I look on film and really hate the sound of my own voice, I doubt I’ll watch once it airs (I’d probably be at work anyway when it airs) but this is kind of a good promotional opportunity for me and it’s kind of cool. I’m enormously flattered to be asked.

I also had to spend some time yesterday answering interview questions to be the featured author on the Three Rooms Press website for June (Pride month); of course I went on at great length about everything and will inevitably not be surprised to see it edited it down because my answers were so damned long–please, ask me to talk about myself and my career and my writing! It’s very weird because I feel like for some reason I am in demand lately, after months of feeling like a loser here at my desk in the Lost Apartment that no one cared about, LOL. I did also get some editorial suggestions for my story “Solace in a Dying Hour” that will make the story stronger and better, so I of course am going to agree to them so they will accept the story, which is also kind of cool–I really liked that story, so am glad the editors did as well. Who knows, maybe I will actually start to develop some confidence in my writing–ha ha ha, just kidding, but I think you all knew that already. I will never have confidence in my writing–not so long as that little voice is there in the back of my head whispering poison.

I hate that little voice. I probably should get back into therapy.

The world continues to go insane a bit more every day. Yesterday’s massacre of children in Texas–along with the hypocritical “oh my heart breaks thoughts and prayers” tweets from the trash who make this sort of thing possible is, quite frankly, enraging. Gotta keep that Russian oligarch cash flowing through the NRA to our politicians, don’t we? I am so glad I chose never to be a parent. I don’t think I could face sending my kids to school every day knowing there was a possibility they’d got shot in their classroom. The true religion in this country isn’t Christianity–it’s the worship of guns and ammunition. There is nothing more holy in this country than the 11th Commandment, aka as the Second Amendment. Every other right enshrined in the Constitution has been defined, limited, questioned, you name it–but not the holiest of holies–which wasn’t important enough to be included in the first amendment, was it?

And on that angry note, I am heading into the spice mines.

The Tide is High

So, I was interviewed recently by Sumiko Saulson for the Horror Writers’ Association’s Pride Month celebration. You can click here to read it, should you so choose:

A Point of Pride: Interview with Greg Herren

Pretty cool, huh? Sumiko is awesome–we met on a diversity panel a million years ago at the Stokercon that was in Las Vegas–and I’ve been following her career ever since. She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s talented, and she’s also pretty cool.

The sun is out this morning, for a change, and today I am going to head back to the gym at some point. I’m going to do as much on my to-do list (yes, I actually went ahead and made one yesterday, finally) as I can this morning and in the early afternoon before heading over there, and I am going to light the charcoal and make dinner later on as well. I want to spend some time reading this morning–by morning, I mean the extended period before I go to the gym–and I do still have some filing to do–there’s a big stack of paper sitting on my desk this morning to my right that has to go–and I actually did some writing yesterday as well. I am starting to feel like I am fitting back into my life again, and that the world is also starting to get a bit more normalized, too.

Well, that’s what I’m hoping, at any rate.

The writing I actually did yesterday wasn’t really very much of anything, and wasn’t what I actually put on my to-do list to work on (rationalizing and justifying to myself that the to-do list was for next week, which didn’t start until this morning or until tomorrow, whichever I decide upon), but something I’ve been toying with for a while. I’ve been wanting to set something in Venice for quite some time–ever since my all-too-short twenty-four hours there seven (!) years ago–and I fixated on an event they have there every summer, the “Festival of the Redeemer,” which is nearly, if not as, popular as their Carnival celebrations. The idea was to send a gay couple, whose relationship is rotting and falling apart, there together as it was a rather expensive birthday trip scheduled by the wealthier, prettier partner for the less attractive, less financially stable one; the wealthier one now sees it as a farewell gift as the relationship is, in his opinion, now completely over–and he plans on never seeing or communicating with his soon-to-be-ex once they return to the states. The visit is scheduled during the Festival; and they are staying at the glamorous Gritti Palace, right on the Grand Canal and near the Piazza San Marco; with their own balcony so they will have a spectacular view of the fireworks and the celebrations. The story is, of course, told through the point-of-view of the soon-to-be-ex; who is beginning to suspect that his beloved partner is planning to dump him–and when they are shown to their rooms and they each have their own bedroom, his suspicions are confirmed–and then he meets a beautiful young Italian, and the intrigue and suspense begin. I do have about 3558 words of this finished, but the novella isn’t anywhere near to being finished; I opened the document yesterday and started making my way through it, editing and revising to get back into the head of the main character, flight attendant Grant…and I really do like the story, to be honest. I’m not entirely sure where it’s going to go–I do know how I want it to end–and so I also found myself looking through my pictures from the trip there and looking at others on-line for further inspiration. And while I wasn’t actually creating anything new–I hadn’t reached the part quite yet where I would have to start putting new words on the page–it felt really good to be writing again.

This is also why, I realized, I haven’t read Christopher Bollen’s A Beautiful Crime yet; I didn’t want to read another gay crime story set in Venice until I had at least finished a first draft of my own–which is further incentive to get this first draft finished.

So, once I finish this and get it posted, get some other things done–like getting all this crap off my desk–I am going to dive back into this novella and try to get through the rest of this first 3558 words, maybe add another thousand or so to it, and then start scratching things off my to-do list. I want to try to get my inbox cleared out as much as humanly possible; put the dishes in the dishwasher put away, and I really like starting off the week with the Lost Apartment as cleaned up as humanly possible so…well, so as I get more tired and lazier during the work week, it’s not as much of a disaster to deal with next weekend.

I’m also, while working on Chlorine (I want to get a first draft finished by the first of July) going to go ahead and try to make some progress on my next short story collection, This Town and Other Stories. I’ve also been thinking about the next Scotty book, believe it or not, and while I do want to eventually write about the cursed Carnival of 2019 and the pandemic, I have been thinking that perhaps the most recent Scotty, Royal Street Reveillon, might have taken place over Christmas of 2018 and I now have all of 2019 to play with before I have to deal with those other stories; and I could easily write another Scotty adventure set in the spring of 2019 before having to deal with any of those other real world times. I know a lot of writers are saying they don’t want to write about the pandemic, which is perfectly understandable, but I also can’t wrap my mind around NOT dealing with it–it’s like Hurricane Katrina for me; it happened and how do we not talk about it? I suppose I could deal with it by writing about it after it happened; but that kind of feels like cheating to me. I don’t know, maybe the further we get away from the shutdown, the less likely I will feel that I need to write about it. Maybe I could simply write about the Spanish Flu epidemic in a Sherlock story, back in the day? I’ve been reading about the Spanish Flu pandemic (I love that I keep making typos and writing Spanish Fly epidemic instead)–which reminds me, I need to check John Barry’s The Great Influenza out of the library–and maybe writing about that pandemic as a symbol of this most recent one will help me with that?

Who knows?

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