Tag: reading

Turtles All The Way Down

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. I also only have to work Monday and Tuesday of next week, so I pretty much have a rather lengthy vacation with a two-day work break. Yay! It’ll be nice to relax and recharge and hang out with the boys and make progress on everything, sleep as late as Sparky will let me…woo-hoo!

Yesterday was a busy day in the clinic–the afternoon, at any rate–but I stayed on top of most everything somehow. Today should be somewhat easier, and I can get caught up on the few things I am behind on (mostly Admin work, processing paperwork from yesterday) before the stay-at-home day and my weekend. I feel pretty good this morning (more sleep would be lovely, but isn’t necessary) and am in a pretty decent mood. I didn’t do a lot yesterday when I got home from work; I went uptown to get the mail after work, which was an adventure because I left the office late. Got some Christmas cards (apologies again, everyone) in the mail, and my Anthropic settlement information. I watched The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City–which was a rather silly episode, but quite fun. I caught up on the news, refused to watch whatever speech that was that aired last night (and from what I am seeing this morning, I didn’t miss anything; so to me at least, it seems like it was nothing more than a distraction from the Vanity Fair disaster and all the other disasters rooted in this administration1), and then did some light picking up and filing before going to bed. I feel rested and good, miraculous for a Thursday, and cannot believe Christmas is a week from today. It was dark when I went uptown last night, and on my way home from Uptown last night I saw a lot of decorated houses, which kind of made me feel Christmasy. We’re getting a new television from Costco as a Christmas gift to ourselves. I don’t feel like we really need a new one, honestly, but the one we have is over ten years old, and Paul has been hankering for a new television, for reasons unknown to me, for several months now. I bought our current one at Target on the West Bank as a Christmas gift for the apartment all those long years ago. I don’t really care about gifts anymore, which has been a conundrum these last years because we don’t really need anything, so we’ve kind of abandoned birthday and Christmas presents. We usually, for example, get Chinese food for our birthdays as a treat, or a pizza from a place that’s inconvenient to go to.

I am hoping to get a couple of newsletters done over the weekend and set to post over a week or so; I need to finish my essays on Laurie R. King’s O Jerusalem, The Princess Bride, and General Hospital, and I have a new essay series I am planning, about my lifelong obsession with all things ancient Egyptian; which will be a lot of fun to write, methinks2. I also need to finish reading The Postman Always Rings Twice, and start my next read over this weekend as well (it’s looking like a toss-up between a Dorothy B. Hughes classic and the latest Eli Cranor). There’s absolutely no reason I can’t get a lot of reading and writing done over the holiday break, as well as cleaning and organizing with plenty of time to be lazy and relax. Staycations are kind of nice, actually. I also don’t think the clinic is busy next week, either; but after New Year’s, YIKES.

I didn’t watch this week’s new episode of Heated Rivalry, but I did see that Netflix canceled Boots, in what can only be seen as a capitulation of the company to the Pentagon, because the Secretary of Alcoholism didn’t think it “properly depicted the Warrior Ethos of the military.” I’d like to see that drunk rapist adulterous piece of shit make it through Boot Camp, and based on every piece of video evidence I’ve seen, that piece of shit can’t even do a pull-up properly. Such a masculine stud! Netflix also wants to acquire Warner Brothers, so they’re dancing around the Administration’s whining bitch-ass complaints. Leavenworth is too good for this piece of shit’s war crimes, and I also think he should be turned over to the Hague. Anyway, I digressed away from the point (because that piece of shit makes my blood boil), which was that a co-worker asked me in the elevator the other morning if I “wrote m/m romance under a different name.” I was a bit taken aback at first, but I just replied no, but kept thinking about it the rest of the day, and it’s popped back into my head any number of times since then.

I’ve not written anything that could be strictly considered romance other than a couple of short stories here and there over the years. I don’t read much romance–my supervisor loaned me an m/m romance novel last year that I still haven’t read, but writing gay romance (or “m/m”, whatever; but there are distinctions) is something that has occurred to me over the years. I do have several ideas for them, but they’re more romantic stories than actually romance. It would be a challenge, I think, but I love challenges and pushing myself to try to write new things I’ve not done before. I do need to read more romances, though, in order to really write a good one. Ever since Charles (shout out to Charles Click!) mentioned this to me the other morning, a sports one has kind of started taking shape in my head–partly because I already wrote an erotic short story about an athlete (who wasn’t a wrestler, LOL) that could easily be adapted to a novel.

Something to think about, anyway. Maybe after Chlorine.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you again tomorrow! From my workspace at home between the windows!

  1. At least we’re not invading Venezuela…yet. Happy with what you voted for, MAGAts? ↩︎
  2. And it gives me the opportunity and excuse to watch The Mummy movies with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz again. ↩︎

Strawberry Wine

Sunday morning and I do hope all is well with you, Constant Reader! It rained overnight, so it’s a bit chillier this morning than it was yesterday (yesterday was a beautiful day, sunny and in the low seventies); the cold weather comes in tonight around bedtime. How lovely! I slept late this morning, and Sparky let me, for the most part, cuddling rather than trying to get me up most of the time. Yesterday was, for its part, mostly quiet and restful. I didn’t push myself to get things done the way I had hoped, but Paul didn’t have his trainer yesterday and decided to hang out rather than go to the office, so I spent most of the dat in my chair watching television with Paul. I watched two more French history documentaries–this time, histories of the Capet and Bourbon dynasties. We also watched Caught Stealing with Austin Butler, which was different than what we were expecting. The previews made it seem like a black comedy, and yes, there were moments of black humor in the movie, but it was more of a thriller than anything else. My primary takeaway was that Austin Butler is incredibly beautiful (which I’ve known since The Shannara Chronicles), and has the kind of charisma that is very hard to stop watching. It was one of those ‘endless nightmare’ movies, where doing a punk neighbor a favor takes the main character down a path of violence and endless, deadly mess. It also has an insanely good cast, too–Regina King, Zoe Kravitz, Liev Shrieber, etc.–and of course, was directed by Darren Aronofsky.

I did finish scanning my notes from my journal yesterday, which felt like a win, and I did some cleaning and organizing, too. The house feels very snug this morning–warm and cozy–which is really nice, and means I will get to spend some more time in my chair this morning reading and watching another history documentary; I found one on Louis XIII yesterday–the King of The Three Musketeers–who has always been overshadowed in French history by his father and son, as well as his chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu, who remains one of my favorite people in history. (I never could have picked an era of history to concentrate on had I become an historian…) The reign of Louis XIII is a very interesting period in French history, and that could very well be because of The Three Musketeers and my fervent desire to write the story from Milady’s perspective. That’s probably a pipe dream because I’ll never have the time to research and write the story, but it’s always there in the corner of my mind, like an annoying splinter that nags at me from time to time.

Today is going to be only slightly less relaxing from yesterday. I do need to clean and organize some more, and I do need to both read and write today. I also finished my old journal and started a new one this morning (and I put the date in it this time; I had a sense of time in the old ones based on the notes on short stories and novels I was actively working on at the time I was recording things in the journals, but the date will be ever so much more helpful, you know?). I also found a safe, out of the way place to store them going forward. I will continue to have to periodically do this with them, as I move on to other projects I’ve taken voluminous notes on in them–as well as short story and essay ideas that never moved from there to the active files–but it’s kind of fun to scan the pages and label them and put them away in the computer files. (That OCD thing never has gone completely away, and probably never will. Yay for chemical imbalances that are useful!)

The new season of Percy Jackson has dropped, too, which I am also looking forward to watching. I loved the world of Percy Jackson, and those are the books you should be giving your kids, not that other unoriginal and entirely ripped off fantasy series for kids whose author is raw sewage on a good day and a fiend from hell on bad ones. I greatly enjoyed reading the Percy Jackson books, and Rick Riordan’s other mythology based juvenile series are really the best, most engaging books. I would have loved them when I was a kid, because I loved ancient history and mythology growing up (thanks to Time-Life’s Great Ages of Man series, which my parents got for me). I’ve been trying to unpack my childhood and my life-long interests, and where those interests came from. Egypt, of course, is my favorite ancient empire; I’ve always had an affinity for Egypt and have always been drawn to it. (I’ve recently started another essay series about my Egyptian interests…beginning with the Time/Life Ancient Egypt book, a juvenile book called Cleopatra of Egypt and another one that was a mystery, The Mystery of the Pharaoh’s Treasure–and others along the way, including Amelia Peabody and Robin Cook’s Sphinx.)

And well, on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines for the day. I have to run to the grocery store, which I am going to do this morning, methinks, before coming back here and getting cleaned up and get that all over with…but first I am going to watch that documentary on Louis XIII while drinking coffee, eating breakfast and waking up completely. Have a lovely Sunday, wherever you find yourself, Constant Reader.

These lights–from the former human trafficking site Houmas House–are gorgeous.

Pray to Jesus

Saturday in the Lost Apartment, although I suppose it’s Championship Saturday. I’ll have the games on for background noise but I don’t care about their outcomes. If they’re good games, I’ll watch; if not, I can just check in periodically while I do other things. I still need to put things away from yesterday’s Costco run, and some other touching up around here today, while organizing and pulling all my notes together for my new project, which I intend to commit to entirely tomorrow morning once I rise. Sparky let me sleep late this morning like the little darling he is, even cuddling with me the last few hours before I got up. I feel good and rested this morning. Paul is seeing his trainer today, and will inevitably (like always) spend a few more hours at the gym on the bike. I am looking to get back to the gym myself, probably after Mardi Gras. I feel terrific. My doctor agreed with me that I probably had been experiencing the colitis for several years before it finally got so bad this past spring, and was why I experienced so much fatigue. There’s also a possibility that I have “pernicious anemia” (I love the name. Pernicious–such a fun word!), an opportunistic autoimmune situation that sometimes tags along with colitis and causes Vitamin B-12 deficiency…which can affect memory and fatigue, and would require me to get a monthly shot. Yay.

I also have to get labs drawn again this coming Friday–the same day my next Skyrizi injection arrives in the mail.

We started watching Heated Rivalry last night, and I will have thoughts on it once we’ve finished. (And…it’s another one of those newsletter essays that will play into my series about masculinity.) I also caught up on the news last night after unloading the car and heating a pizza up for dinner. I am debating whether or not to watch The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, since I detest most of the cast and don’t enjoy watching it anymore. It’s not even a fun hate-watch anymore. I also started my reread of The Postman Always Rings Twice, which is so marvelous and nasty and, above all else, working class, that I see why it bothered people so much when it was originally published in the 1930s. It’s also hella racist, which I didn’t remember–which also explains the casting of Lana Turner in the film; no one would ever mistake her for Hispanic/Latino like Cora in the book. I am also very glad that I am rereading it, because it has that edge of nastiness that noir needs, and isn’t currently present in the first three chapters of Chlorine, and while roaming the aisles at Costco yesterday I was thinking about how to rewrite it. My main character is not a hero, and I have to remember that why I write him. That’s a significant mind shift for me when I write, really.

In football news, Tulane won their conference championship last night and are going to the play-offs for the first time in school history, but reports they were hiring LSU’s Brian Baker proved untrue as it was announced Baker would be staying on in Baton Rouge. LSU football is all over the news still down here, indicating a statewide level of excitement for the new coach that wasn’t there for Brian Kelly, ever, other than after that overtime win over Alabama his first year…but that excitement died down very quickly. Ironic that his best season was his first, rebuilding year, isn’t it? I think part of the excitement is joy at being rid of Kelly, frankly. I was willing to give him a chance, but he never really delivered.

At least he broke the streak of losing season openers that has plagued the Tigers this entire decade, and he did beat Alabama in a thriller in 2022. And he signed Jayden Daniels. Three good things out of almost four seasons.

And on that note, I am heading to my chair to read some more of Postman before getting cleaned up and getting to work on the apartment. I am also going to make chicken chili today, and some chicken salad for Paul. A very big day for me! It’s also gray and chilly and supposed to rain all day, too–an excellent day for reading under a blanket with the television on. I may watch an episode of The American Revolution, which I am really enjoying; it’s so nice to see our history without all the myths and legends that sprang up about it after the second world war.

So have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in on you again tomorrow morning, deal?

Six Days on the Road

Tuesday and I am going to be hitting the road to drive north in a little bit. Twelve hours in the car with a Laurie King audiobook will be absolutely delightful. I am so glad I finally took a chance on listening to audiobooks in the car for long trips! I slept really well, which is nice, but I do worry about getting tired on the way, most likely after the adrenaline rush from the horrific traffic in Chattanooga and trying to get on I-75. But it’s Tuesday, and I am assuming there won’t be heavy traffic anywhere the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and hope that I will not be proven wrong. I had a pretty good day at work yesterday, too. I wasn’t in the clinic yesterday and was able to have an Admin Day for the first time in about two months, which certainly made my life a bit easier for when I get back. I started listening to Laurie’s audiobook yesterday, and I am intrigued; although I am going to have to get used to the narrator’s voice, because in reading, Mary’s voice sounds in my head like Laurie, and I have had the privilege of many conversations with her. She’s an absolute delight.

I got off work early yesterday a bit and came home, feeling good, but rather than doing much of anything, I kind of just wanted to chill out and hang with Paul and Sparky, which is what I ended up doing. It was nice, as always; it really is my favorite thing to do. There wasn’t much of a news day–today seemed rather anti-climactic, other than the possibilities of a Republican congressional revolt…most everything was gossip and innuendoes and what if’s, which don’t interest me much, and then two more episodes of Devil in Disguise. As I said recently, this is so well done and so realistically–it really exposes Ryan Murphy’s serial killer shows as the beautiful but ultimately hollow creations they are. This is the anti-Murphy serial killer series, I suppose. There’s an essay in there somewhere, methinks. I still have to pack, but I have also made a list, and I need to do some chores before cleaning up this morning and hitting the road. I was originally thinking about leaving at seven or thereabouts; I can still try to make that happen, but if it doesn’t…oh well. There’s no rush, no hurry other than getting it over and done with; but I shouldn’t feel any anxiety or concern about how long it is taking me or what time I actually hit the road….or how long I dawdle when I stop. But again, no rush, no need to hurry, just relax and take my time and hit the road when I am ready to, you know?

It is a beautiful drive for the most part, too. I imagine my mind will wander a bit from the narrative of the book, of course; that happens sometimes because the book will get to a spot where the language is particularly lovely, or the plot will take a turn, and that will trigger my mind to start thinking and creating free form.

And on that note, I am going to start getting those chores done and my bags packed. I don’t know when I will be back here–I usually have breakfast with Dad when I wake up, and don’t have a free moment until I retire to my room preparatory to sleeping, but at the same time…you never know. So, I am going to bid you adieu; I will be definitely back for sure on Sunday morning, bleary-eyed and tired. Have a lovely holiday, Constant Reader, and see you soon.

Âaron Pierre is such a gorgeous man!

Maybe It Was Memphis

Maybe it wasn’t?

Sunday here in the Lost Apartment, and all is well. LSU won, 13-10, not a particularly impressive showing. (Tulane also won, GO WAVE!) The games yesterday weren’t exciting or interesting, so after Paul got up we alternated between games and other things (more on that later). It was a very nice relaxing day, over all. I did run some errands in the morning, but after I got home that was it; no more outside for me this weekend. It was actually in the 80s yesterday, too. I didn’t do much cleaning around here yesterday, either, and the kitchen is a total mess (because I made Shrimp Creole last night for dinner) which I will need to clean up at some point this morning. I also didn’t read much yesterday, either; something I need to rectify this morning. I mean, it is a real messy mess. Yikes.

I dropped off four boxes of books to the library sale yesterday morning, and yes, this pruning of the books had helped de-clutter the living room, and I also came across some books I’d forgotten that I had–juvenile mysteries, amongst other things–which was also kind of cool. I’m planning to do another round of pruning once I get back from the trip (but probably not next weekend; I’m going to spend Sunday recovering from the drive); progress! I also want to start working on the storage attic. I know, the non-stop rollercoaster thrill ride of my life is almost too much to read about, isn’t it?

But I came across copies from a juvenile series, Ken Holt, that I really loved when I was a kid (still one of my favorites; it’s a toss-up between this series and The Three Investigators) and while paging through one of the copies (The Secret of Hangman’s Inn) I remembered how incredibly homoerotic the series was, particularly the relationship between Ken and his best friend, Sandy Allen–they are often around each other in varying stages of undress, including nude, for one example–and often share rooms and beds. There’s definitely an essay for the newsletter about this series, its homoeroticism, and how well the books are actually written. They all have a hard-boiled, noir-ish aesthetic that I loved. They were shot at with real ammunition, had to outwit and out think criminals, and since they were journalists (despite being so young) Ken’s write-ups of their cases and Sandy’s photos often went into syndication. Not bad for a pair of eighteen-year-olds! I also think this series is why I kind of wanted to be a journalist when I first went to college–but that is also a story for another time.

I didn’t write anything on the computer yesterday, but I did spend a lot of time writing in my journal. I also went back and reread my current one from the start, picking up on notes and ideas and thoughts about several things I am working on. I came across some excellent notes for Chlorine, for example, and as I reread my notes (just from this journal) I recognized something–part of the problem I am having with writing further into the book is base premise that starts the book doesn’t really work or make sense; the stakes aren’t high enough for my main character to get involved to begin with, and so I have to amp them up, kill my darlings, and maybe start over. I get very stubborn about throwing stuff out that I’ve already written, but those chapters are salvageable, kind of; I may be able to use the bits and pieces, but I am going to dive into it, headfirst, in December with the goal of getting a first draft finished by the end of the year. Stubbornness about your work is not a good quality for an author to have.

I also got my contributor copy of Celluloid Crimes, which ironically has the short story I adapted from Chlorine’s first chapter, “The Last To See Him Alive,” which is still a good story and I do love that title an awful lot. It’s always nice to see your work in actual print in a book, you know?

Around the games we watched some of the skating from Cup of Finland, this week’s season finale of The Morning Show, and a lot of the news shows. I am still processing the Friday news; the bromance in the Oval with FOTUS basically rolling over on his back and showing Zohran Mamdani his belly, and it may take me a while longer to wrap my head around the devolution of the MAGA movement into fascism and Nazism with the embrace of Nick Fuentes, the gay Latino Nazi, which makes no sense to me but I’ve never understood people who lick the boots on their own throats.

I am also really enjoying Ken Burns’ The American Revolution, which at least is honest and doesn’t really get into any of the weird national mythology we’ve built up around our history–basically to erase any wrong-doing and eradicate any questioning of the endless justifications for stealing an entire continent from its inhabitants. The Americas weren’t discovered and colonized; they were actually conquered, in a mass genocide that lasted centuries. US History and the American Revolution were actually my gateways into my lifelong obsession and interest in history; watching this series is reminding me of how I went from US History to English history to European history, with some dabbling in the ancients (Egypt, Greece, Rome); I really should have majored in History, the primary problem being picking a particular period to specialize in. As I said the other day, I should have majored in History with a minor in creative writing, and I could have become a historian like Barbara Tuchman; her A Distant Mirror remains one of my favorite histories and served as an inspiration for my idea to write a popular history of the sixteenth by focusing on women holding power…that century remains an outlier in Europe when it comes to powerful women and queens. I am probably going to write an essay about my interest in US History, and one about my interest in ancient Egypt.

And on that note, I am going to take my coffee into the living room to see if any more news has broken since I went to bed last night, after which I am heading into the spice mines. Have a marvelous Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning.

The temple at Edfu, Egypt

Chiseled in Stone

And it’s Sunday morning again, and Sparky was rather insistent on being fed this morning, so I am up earlier than I have been the rest of the weekend. Which is fine, I feel rested and good this morning. I didn’t get nearly as much done yesterday as I would have liked, of course; but I did do some chores and read for a little bit, which was nice. It was a mellow day, really, and I ran my errand in the morning, cooked out for the afternoon, and so have some writing and reading and cleaning to do today. I hate when LSU plays a noon game, because the rest of the day afterwards seems so long…LSU did win, beating 2-8 Arkansas by one (!) point in Baton Rouge. The game seemed kind of dull to me, but I wasn’t ensconced in my chair during the game with my blood pressure elevating. I might rewatch it at some point this morning, or have it on while I read. Alabama lost a shocker to Oklahoma at home yesterday, and Georgia humiliated Texas last night–Mississippi depending on a lot of luck to beat Florida. It’s been a hot minute, too, since a team beat Alabama in back-to-back years. I imagine their coach is under fire this morning.

I downloaded another audiobook for the drive to Kentucky next week; I got the third Mary Russell novel by MWA Grand Master Laurie R. King, A Letter of Mary, and I am very excited to listen to it. Her Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series is magnificent, and an excellent replacement for one of my favorite series of all time, Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody1 series. Mary’s voice and character remind me of my beloved Peabody, it’s almost like getting another book by the late Ms. Peters. I’ve loved everything I’ve read that Laurie writes; again, just like Peters. I also have a shit ton of audiobooks on my phone I’ve not listened to (why do I hoard books in every form in which they appear? Why am I like this?); but I like the idea of listening to King on the way up and Donna Andrews (whose Meg also reminds me of Peabody2) on the way back. That sounds like an absolutely delightful plan to me, at any rate. I also need to get braced for the cold.

We also watched the rhythm dance competition for Skate America; we’ll probably watch the free dance and the men’s final this afternoon. I also would love to get back to Lazarus, and am thinking about watching this new Frankenstein. But I also need to get some reading and writing, and get caught up on the news. It’s interesting watching Fox and the White House and their allies turning on each other, isn’t it? Explaining why fifteen isn’t as bad as five or eight for child rape? So much evil and nastiness being exposed to the disinfecting power of sunlight at long last. Can we at least stop ceding the moral high ground to the child rapist party? When this menace and disaster are finally over, there needs to be some serious accountability…or the cycle will begin all over again. There should have been tribunals after the Civil War, and there should have been again after civil rights and integration. It does not speak well of our country that we never want to deal with accountability…and seriously, there should have been hearings after we dropped two atomic bombs on Japan.3

I really get angry when I think about how the public school system of the 1960s indoctrinated me into American exceptionalism, and how it’s taken up so much of my time as an adult unlearning that bullshit. But at least I recognized that I needed to rethink much of everything I was taught to believe growing up; which so many never, ever do.

And that’s another newsletter essay, isn’t it? Heavy sigh.

Sorry this is so brief, but there really isn’t much to report this morning. So I am going to go to my chair with my coffee and read for a bit while catching up on the news, and then I am going to clean and write. Have a lovely Sunday, everyone, and I’ll be back tomorrow.

Pharaoh Akhenaten, the heretic
  1. I really need to do a newsletter about Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels. ↩︎
  2. I really should also do a newsletter about those three women. ↩︎
  3. To this day, we remain the only nation to use weapons of mass destruction on another. We really cannot climb onto the moral high horse with anyone, can we? ↩︎

Heartbroke

Good morning to you, and how are we all feeling this lovely Saturday morning? Sparky let me sleep in a bit this morning, for which I am eternally grateful; it’s weird how he’ll try at first, but if the alarm doesn’t go off, he’ll just cuddle and wait. He really is a darling, isn’t he? I was thinking yesterday evening as he slept in my lap. Yesterday was a nice day, really. I got my meetings out of the way and did my work before my errands and some cleaning and reading. We started watching Harlan Coben’s Lazarus on Prime last night, and it’s very interesting and very different than Harlan’s other work. I like the idea of a psychiatrist losing his father and then starting to see ghosts of murder victims that his father saw as patients, and then sees his own father, who tells him he didn’t commit suicide but was murdered. Very enthralling and interesting, I must say.

LSU plays this morning; I believe the start time is 11:45. They’re playing Arkansas at home, and who knows how that will go? There are other interesting games to have on in the background (Alabama-Oklahoma could be interesting), but I also want to make progress on things today and at least finish cleaning the house. I have to run an errand this morning in a little bit, but other than that I’m not planning on leaving the house again until Monday. It was stunningly gorgeous yesterday, and is again today from the looks of things, which is marvelous.

I picked up three books I’d ordered: Without Consent by Sarah Weinman; More Adventures of the Mad Scientists’ Club by Bertrand R. Brinley, and The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey. Sarah Weinman is one of the finest writers in our genre, and her nonfiction works–which study, through the lens of crime and the judicial system, the gradual rise of women’s rights and equality in this country. This, about the Rideout case, and protecting women from spousal rape, is going to be a very intense read. The Brinley is a sequel to one of my favorite juvenile books from the Scholastic Book Club, The Mad Scientists’ Club, which I’ve never forgotten but didn’t know there was more than just the one book in the series, so it should be very fun to read. The Lindsey is something I remember reading as a kid that I kind of wanted to revisit, with all the missed raptures of the last few years as well as an example of End Times mythology; it may have been one of the first books about this that may have ever been published. As a suburban Chicago teenager I was very interested in the occult and unexplained mysteries, which there seem to have been a lot of back in the day. Was the 1970s the heyday of bizarre conspiracy theory? Between this and the “ancient aliens” bullshit (and we must never forget the Bermuda Triangle and Area 51, either) it seemed like that was an intense decade for conspiracy theorists. (I also found a copy of Stranger Than Science on ebay during the shutdown…)

The Lindsey is the basis for my first entry (or the second) on religion for my newsletter, and how there probably could be no The Omen without it. See, I am making progress on the newsletters! One thing I definitely want to get this weekend is the two ongoing essay series for the newsletter (religion and masculinity) organized, as well as working on the background for Chlorine and finishing the first draft of “A Holler Full of Kudzu,” which will undoubtably either turn into a novella and perhaps even a short novel (I am not pushing that, though).

And on that note, I need to get going on the day. Have a terrific Ides of November, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning.

Tumbling Tumbleweeds

Thursday, and my last day in the office for the week. There are, of course, meetings tomorrow morning, but after those have passed, I can do my data entry and quality assurance before relaxing and diving into Between a Flock and a Hard Place, which I am really looking forward to. I did get a little tired yesterday afternoon–more sleepy than fatigued, though, which is different and better. I made groceries on the way home–not much–and did some straightening once I got home, so the kitchen doesn’t look like a hurricane went through here and the counters are cleared. I have errands to run tonight after work, too–but it’s the last day for me in the office before the weekend, and the last day of the pay period, so I get to leave early thanks to accumulated time.

Paul didn’t get home last night until after I went to bed, so I spent the evening sitting in my easy chair with Sparky sleeping in my lap while I caught up on the news of the day–and I woke up this morning to even more fallout from yesterday’s news. This Epstein thing is going to be really bad, which is why the powerful and the rich have done their damnedest to bury every last bit of it. Ghislaine Maxwell lied to the DOJ to cover for the president and got moved to a country club prison, for one thing–we knew it before, but now there’s incontrovertible proof she lied, and only the MAGA-iest of his supporters could possibly believe anything the clown says about anything from now on…or how quickly MAGA loses interest in pursuing actual pedophiles now that their foul lord and master is so damnably implicated now (which we on the left always knew) that there’s no getting away from it–and the Supreme Court’s gift naming him the Very Special Boy who can commit crimes as long as he calls them official acts–doesn’t fucking apply here. Wompity wompity womp womp.

And we really need to make “but his emails” a thing now.

I didn’t have any trouble getting out of bed this morning–I even forgot to set the alarm, but Sparky woke me up anyway–and while I do feel a bit of fatigue in my legs, it’s bearable. I am sure I am going to hit the wall this afternoon before I leave to run my errands (groceries, mail, prescriptions) after work, but that’s fine. All I need to do is refluff the clothes in the dryer and fold them to put away, empty and reload the dishwasher, and maybe–maybe–do some other cleaning work before sitting in my chair with Sparky and Donna’s book and reading for a bit before Paul comes home and we try to get caught up on our shows. I also want to watch the new Frankenstein movie; I was never really a fan of any of those films (other than Young Frankenstein, which is still one of the funniest movies ever made), so I am not going into it with any bias. I originally read the book (along with Dracula) as a teenager and found them both to be a bit…boring. I reread them sometime around the turn of the century and found myself really enjoying them more, and Frankenstein1 the book? I preferred it to any of the films I’d seen as a child; perhaps I should revisit those old classics from the 1930s again. Funny how, when revisiting horror last month for Halloween, I primarily focused on slasher movies like Scream rather than going back to the original classics from Universal, isn’t it? I think I need to watch horror more broadly next October, and should make a list. The Uninvited would be a good choice, methinks—and I have a copy of the book, so I can read it and watch the movie!

Huzzah!

I’m also, due to the lack of fatigue, getting better organized and getting more things done. I am on my game at the day job for the first time since I had COVID in the summer of 2022, which is cool (I like being good at my job, you know). I’m hoping to get some more writing done before Monday, and to make some progress on getting ready to finish the first draft of Chlorine. It really sucked these last few years not being in the right mental space to write and enjoy it; it’s seemed like an odious chore since the COVID thing, and it’s really nice getting back into the swing of creativity again. I doubt I’ll ever write five to six books per year ever again, until I retire at the very least.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Thursday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back on the morrow.

  1. aka The New Prometheus, which is a big tell about the book’s themes. ↩︎

The Joke

And here we are on Sunday morning, rested and refreshed and ready to dive into my last day off for this weekend. I slept late again today, after not having much of a busy day; mostly, I watched football games while doing chores and reading. LSU lost, but it wasn’t as bad as I feared it would be. And who knew that Auburn-Vanderbilt would be the game of the day? It was the best I’ve seen Auburn play all season, and it was a shame they lost in overtime. Apparently, Kentucky shellacked Florida last night, too. Tulane played Friday night, and they also won, continuing to be the pride of Louisiana football. Roll Wave!

As I read deeper into The Hunting Wives, the book continues to deviate from the show (which was very fun) and the tone is very different. I will, of course, write about the book and the show once I’ve finished reading it. I had also pushed off writing about Boots until after Halloween, and now I am not sure I remember it well enough to write about it. Ah, well, I have some other newsletters that I need to get written, too. I had a crisis of confidence last night about Chlorine; which is normal for me, I think. (I was spending some time plotting the story and had one of those you’re going to blow this great idea moments; which is self-defeating and the entire point of those wretched kind of thoughts and spirals. Those are holdovers from untreated anxiety, and if I let them run their course without allowing them to take root, they always pass. I’m confident about it again this morning, so this methodology definitely seems to work.) I’ll probably read some more this morning before I hop into the shower and get cleaned up. I am making my own version of Swedish meatballs later on, too.

The cold apparently will descend upon us later today. It’s warm this morning, if cloudy; we’ll probably have thunderstorms in the evening and overnight as the temperature drops to a low of 37 (!!!) overnight. Yesterday was lovely when I ran my errands; I also spent some time pruning the books down again. You can actually see the dent I made in my book hoarder stacks! This is enormously pleasing, and while I did end up putting some books back into the stacks that I considered donating (they intrigued me again while looking at them), I did make the kind of progress I wanted. Maybe next weekend I can be even more ruthless…I mean, some of these I bought ten years or so ago and still haven’t read; maybe it’s time to set them free so someone else can enjoy them instead of collecting dust here in the Lost Apartment, right? And at least I paid for them.

I was also thinking yesterday about my newsletter/blog/personal essays, and how I am always so reluctant to talk deeply about my affinity for some authors and the books I love because I don’t have a degree in Literature and don’t read extensively academic explorations of literature, which makes me fear that anything I might have to say might have already been said (multiple times) by any number of Lit professors, and been dissected, deconstructed, and developed through vigorous debate and argument. It was more self-defeating talk; I may not have read as much of the classics as I maybe should have (most of which I didn’t enjoy in the least) or practiced such things on classics in the collegiate classroom (some day, I will discuss at great length my many failures at secondary education), but ultimately, it always boils down to opinion, doesn’t it? The newsletter essays also aren’t something I generally just write off the top of my head as I experience them; they marinate for a while in my head and I may take more than one run at the topic, too, before sharing them with my slowly growing subscription base. (This blog, on the other hand, is whatever comes to mind in the morning as I drink my coffee, and yawn and stretch and try to come alive.) That’s why I decided to separate opinion essays on movies, books, and television out from here to the newsletter, which eases the time burden on thinking about culture I consume. And the essays are supposed to be creative outlets for me to write about things that interest me, and I have soooo many varied interests.

And it also allows me to write personal essays about my life and past. I am writing one now that was inspired by going to my parents’ high school’s Homecoming game the last time I went up to Alabama. I also thought some yesterday, not just about Chlorine but several other things I am writing or have in progress that I’d love to get off my desk throughout the end of this year and next. I think maybe finishing all this work in progress might make me feel a little less harried and frenzied and behind on everything? Who knows?

And on that note, my book is calling to me, so I am going to head to my easy chair to do some reading. Have a great Sunday and I will be back in the morning.

Maidens supporting a roof on the Acropolis, Athens.

Pan-American Blues

Saturday morning and here we are with another golden and exciting day! Sparky let me sleep later this morning, and the bed was most comfortable. I had an excellent night’s sleep, thank you for asking, and feel pretty good this morning. Yesterday was a nice, relaxing day–hopefully today will be similar! There aren’t a lot of good games to watch today, so I am not even sure there’s much point to having the television on at all until the LSU game tonight, which I don’t have very high hopes for, to be honest. I do have some errands and chores to get done today, and I want to read more of The Hunting Wives with an eye to finishing it this weekend. But without any games to really watch…I should be able to get some reading done and write some while putting the finishing touches on the apartment.

As I said, yesterday was a good, relaxing day. After I got my work done for the day, I ensconced myself in the living room to watch some news of the world and read for a bit. I did do some excellent background work for some things I am working on as well, and the next Scotty–Halloween Party Hijinks–is slowly starting to take shape in my head. I also have figured out how to flesh out a young adult horror novel I started writing over a decade ago. Not to worry, I also did some work on Chlorine, and I need to really get that structured and outlined and pulled together. We’re almost to the halfway point of this month and I am no closer to being finished with a first draft than I have been for years. I think it’s more a sense of doubting myself, of not wanting to fail with this book. But the truth is, it’s just a book, and worrying about failing with the book is stupid, because the book’s success is out of my control and all I can concern myself with is writing the best book that I can.

Which is always the only thing I can control with anything I write. Get out of your head, Gregalicious, and out of your own way.

I watched Scream 3 again as a palate cleanser, and I must admit, as much as I have always loved this movie, it’s really not as good as the original. Sure, I love–and have always loved–the meta factor being amped up so much; what better way to do another Scream than having the murders all happen around the cast and filming of Stab 3? And this film has some absolutely brilliant moments–the Carrie Fisher cameo; watching Jenny McCarthy die a brutal death (I enjoyed that more than I have on past watchings for some reason); and Parker Posey’s absolute brilliance as an actress playing Gale Weathers; her scenes with Courtney Cox as Gale Weathers are classic–that make it worth watching.

We watched the ice dancing competition from Skate Japan last night, too–I keep forgetting that the Winter Olympics are next year–mainly to see the US teams competing, and it’s nice to see we have some young up-and-comers in the discipline. Ironically, ice dancing is the discipline the US has seen the most success in this century with–who would have ever thought such a thing was possible back in the 1990s? Certainly not me!

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close so I can get my day going. I have to run a couple of short errands this morning, and after that I am in for the weekend. Huzzah! Have a great Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back to talk to you again in the morning.

There should be a laws against Aaron Pierre being this beautiful. Those eyes!