Tag: red scare

Red

Lovin’ him was red…

My favorite Taylor Swift jam is “Red,” by the way.

Remote Friday and all is quiet and well in the Lost Apartment this morning, other than Sparky complaining ( as always) that his breakfast wasn’t enough food. (He always insists he is starving to death, the little beast. And his plaintive cries are so convincing, too–until I ignore him and he goes back to sleep.) I had a good day yesterday; I had another marvelous night’s sleep on Wednesday and felt really good yesterday. I did some writing–not much, mostly some prep work and editing

Yesterday at work I decided I didn’t want the lunch I brought with me after all, and decided to use one of the food delivery apps to get Five Guys. This was a brand new experience for me, one I had been wanting to try since I was housebound and sick, and yesterday I just decided fuck it, I want Five Guys and DoorDashed it. It went swimmingly, I might add, and I am going to have to be careful now–this was so easy it will be very tempting to do this a lot more often–like Saturday for lunch. Stop it, Greg, keep it under control. I know, I am a late adapter, but I always have been. And the temptation to get food delivered all the time is going to be a struggle for me. All I do since the illness is think about food, and what would be good. There are all kinds of places on those delivery apps that look interesting and I want to try–maybe I’ll splurge again this weekend. See how easy it is to give into temptation.

The combination of Canadian wildfire smoke and the Saharan dust has made things weird here in New Orleans. It smells like burning rubber outside, and the dust has made for some terrific sunrise/sunset photos by the intrepid local photographers I follow on social media, who always manage to come up with these incredibly beautiful shots of the city. But it’s murder on my eyes and my sinuses–neither of which need much assistance in making me miserable.

I was a bit on the tired side when I got home. I went to get the mail and pick up a library book (about the Red Scare of the 1950’s, so it’s research), and by the time I got home and fed Sparky I needed to sit down for a bit, and I even dozed off. Paul came home later and we watched another Department Q and the most recent Murderbot, and then I tried to do some chores before going to bed later than I usually do. I didn’t read anything, either. Gotta get back on that horse soon. I did work on the writing a bit last night, reviewing some things for revision and making notes. Maybe I’ll actually write-write this weekend. I do want to get some short stories written, and I don’t have many errands to do–but I do need to clean this house for sure. Sheesh. And of course LSU plays in the super regional this weekend, so I’ll have that on while I do things (read, most likely).

But yesterday was another good and efficient day for me at work, which was nice. I got all my Admin work caught up that I have to do at the office, and here’s hoping I can get caught up on all my Remote Admin work today; we do have meetings this morning, and I also have some on-line trainings to do that are required to be done every year. I know all the answers because I’ve done them now every year for ten years, but the refresher is not a bad thing at all, and it also works as a test of my memory–which has not been the greatest in quite some time. Heavy heaving sigh. It’s a bitch getting older, even if I am feeling better every day. The getting up early, thanks to the Sparky-alarm, isn’t my favorite thing, either, but I am not groggy and sleepy in the mornings since I have time to eat breakfast and drink more coffee before I leave the house; and yes, I am very glad that my coffee tastes good to me again. I do enjoy my little breakfast at home, and other than my being sleepy earlier in the evening (I was asleep in my chair when Paul got home tonight), it’s not the worst development in my life by a long shot.

And on that note, my toast has popped up in the toaster, one piece crying out for peanut butter, the other for strawberry jelly (what is the difference between jelly and jam? They didn’t have preserves, which is what I actually wanted), and so I am going to bring this to a close, take a breakfast break, and then head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back in the morning with a full report. (I think we’re going to Costco later on this afternoon, too.)

I’ve never been sure why I’ve always been interested in abandoned places, but they’ve always stirred my imagination.

The Tracks of My Tears

Friday morning in the Lost Apartment. It’s going to rain all day today–including torrential flooding-type rains later on and that’s fine. It’s not as cold in the house this morning as I was expecting it to be (thank you, H-VAC system), but I also didn’t get up ridiculously early this morning, either. Sparky let me sleep late, bless his little heart, and I feel very rested and relaxed this morning. Ah, it’s sixty outside right now; that explains the lack of chill in the air. I’d thought it was going to stay cold, but the rain is giving us some respite and it will drop into the forties later–after the rain stops. I have some errands to run today–including the gym later–and I don’t have to work at home for terribly long today. Yay! I am hoping for a productive day. I wasn’t as tired as I thought I might be when I got off work yesterday, and despite the cold was able to come home and get some good work done on the book. Huzzah! I am starting to feel better about my abilities again–the writing I’ve been doing lately has been rather satisfying, and I don’t hate what I am writing. Progress?

Someone posted on-line yesterday–I wish I could remember who it was–that President Carter’s funeral was very hard to watch because “it also felt like a funeral for the United States1“, which was very aptly put. President Carter–a truly good and decent and caring human being, the acme of a true Christian with a very real faith–being laid to rest does seem to end the time of decency and kindness, and all we have to look forward to is the dismantling of our rights, the end of the rule of law, and the looting of the entire country to make billionaires even richer as the world burns as a result of their bottomless greed; the world is on fire already, thanks to those monsters. I keep hoping for a French-style Revolution, complete with tumbrils and guillotines, but it’s probably already too late for the world. I’m probably not the only person who is feeling a bit of existential dread about 1/20 this month? But I continue to monitor my news intake, and ignoring the legacy media has been marvelous. I am not willing to give up my own sanity to give them clicks and ratings this time around, and I need to save my energy and my mental capacity to fight the stuff that really matters. Everyone always forgets he likes to say insanely stupid things for the sake of outrage and attention, while diverting everyone’s attention from what his foul party is actually doing. Of course, knowing the Supreme Court has given him the authority to do anything he pleases, even violate the Constitution at will, is terrifying. How bad are things going to get here? I no longer have faith in the basic overall decency of other Americans; these are the same types of people who cheered the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of a dictator/emperor.

Freedom is often too much responsibility for people, seriously. Most prefer to be told what to do, rather than think and reason things out for themselves. I grew up in a country that valued education and science; the war on poverty declared by LBJ in the 1960s pushed for adult literacy and for everyone to get their high school diploma, which was sold as the key to a prosperous life. We also lined up as a nation to get every new vaccination that came along in an effort to end deadly disease outbreaks. There was more of a “we’re in this together so let’s work together” mentality, that started going away under the twisted, paranoid and criminal mind of Richard Nixon. (The unconstitutional tend toward fascism has always been there in that party–Red or Lavender Scare, anyone?) I still cling to that childhood memory of a nation that was trying to do better by its citizens for the betterment of all, but it’s one of the many myths I was raised to believe in as a child. It probably wasn’t as true then as I think it was; the 60s were a very turbulent and violent time. My childish brain wasn’t developed enough to cope with a lot of the cognitive dissonance my early miseducation into American mythology created, but as I got older I began to understand “if this is true, then this must be true, and if that is true than this is very wrong.” The only thing I am intolerant of is intolerance, which was also troubling until I read about the paradox of tolerance.

Well I have high hopes for this weekend, and I hope everyone has a lovely weekend too–in whatever way you want. The horror in Los Angeles continues unabated, as does the horror of the heartless smug trash who hate California. I do not hate California, for the record. I lived there for eight years, and while that might not have been the best years of my life by a long shot, that wasn’t California’s fault. California is majestic and beautiful; there’s no more scenic highway than Highway One up the coast from LA through Big Sur to San Francisco. The natural parks and the mountains are gorgeous. The major cities are all so vastly different from each other they might as well be in different states. The last time I was in California was for San Diego Bouchercon, and I had a lovely time. I used to do events in West Hollywood and San Francisco when A Different Light bookstores were still open. I wouldn’t mind living in California, if I could afford it; I’d certainly feel a lot safer there than I would in most of the country.

Anita Bryant is dead, and here’s hoping it was slow and excruciatingly painful. There will be a newsletter about her death, what she did, and why I will not shed a tear for her or her loved ones. There’s nothing like seeing a celebrity on television when you’re a teenager telling you you’re a pervert and a pedophile and a deviant. Back at you, bitch, tenfold. Hope you’re enjoying your backstroke in the lake of eternal fire in hell for all eternity. There will never be forgiveness in my heart for you.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I hope to be back at some point with something else later on today, whether it’s an essay for my newsletter or another post here; we’ll just have to see.

  1. They actually said “america”, but we are NOT America; America is the entire continent, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, and this default is an insult to every other other person born and raised on this giant land mass. Chileans and Canadians and Ecuadorians are just as much America as we are. We need to stop doing this. ↩︎

Used to Be

Up earlier than I’ve been since the surgery to go to physical therapy at nine this morning. I don’t mind getting up earlier, to be honest; I’ve been sleeping so much since coming home from the hospital I was actually getting worried that I may not ever want to get up early again. Six next week for work is definitely going to be an adjustment, but in some ways I am really looking forward to going back to the office and getting back into that routine. I slept well last night–Sparky of course was looking to be fed around five, but I went right back to bed. I think Sparky will work as my first alarm, before the actual alarm starts blaring at six. It feels a bit chilly this morning in the apartment, and I do need to shower before I head uptown for my appointment.

They finished the ceiling yesterday, thank heavens. All that is left to be done is rehanging the ceiling fan and painting, and I think that’s not going to happen until I am back to work. The roofing guys (I think they are construction of all types, actually) are super nice and helpful–you never know what you’re going to get with blue collar workers, but they didn’t seem to have any issue with Obviously Homosexual Greg; they even rigged a temporary fix for the soft spot in the living room floor–and shared with me that eventually they will be getting around to reinforcing the floor with steel so we never have to be worried about falling through the floor (one of the great and many joys of old homes in New Orleans), which is kind of a relief…although we had gotten used to that soft spot in the floor, I sure as fuck won’t miss it if and when it’s gone.

While they were working, there was naught for me to do except sit in my chair and read, so I finished Donna Andrews’ Let It Crow! Let It Crow! Let It Crow! yesterday, and greatly enjoyed it. (It really doesn’t feel like Christmas until I’ve read Donna’s annual Christmas murder mystery.) Paul also worked from home yesterday, so we got all caught up on Fellow Travelers last night, which is really quite excellent, if horrifically sad and tragic–but as I said to a friend in an email yesterday, these stories still need to be told–if for no other reason than to remind people that what conservatives and right-wingers call “the good old days” weren’t so good for anyone who wasn’t white or straight. The story is built around the Lavender Scare of the 1950s–we all know about the Red Scare, but not about the full throttle purging of queer people from government employ–and it was, indeed, a horrible time of lives being ruined and people committing suicide. A lot of the things that happen in the show (and probably in the book) really happened; I think they fictionalized some people so they could easily maneuver around their story without having to stick to facts or create a potentially false narrative.

And as someone who spent longer in the closet than he needed to, and spent so much time completely terrified that someone would find out and my life would be ruined–I can understand and relate to these characters completely. The closet punished everyone–and it certainly punished the wives and children of these closeted, terrified men. I actually wrote a story set in that time period called “The Weight of a Feather”–my first ever historical fiction–about a State department employee targeted by someone working for McCarthy for blackmail, and how he handles the situation. John Copenhaver also writes marvelous novels set in the DC of the fifties with queer characters, Constant Reader, so if you haven’t checked out his work you really should, especially if you are interested in the period and even if you aren’t; these stories are important and need to be known. He’s also a marvelous writer; I do envy and admire the way he bends and twists language to create images and story.

After PT today I have errands to run–prescriptions to pick up, groceries to make, the mail–but it’s all going to depend on timing. The postal service doesn’t open until ten, but I suppose I could swing over to Midcity and get my prescriptions and groceries and swing by the mail on the way back home; after all, other than the PT appointment I don’t have to be anywhere by a certain time. And since there’s not going to be anyone doing construction work in my workspace today, I should be able to get some writing done, too. I’m behind, as always, but I feel like a strong push over the course of the next few days before I return to work can get me right back on schedule. And I haven’t yet picked out my next read–turns out my Christmas reading isn’t going to work because I don’t have a lot of Christmas books in the TBR pile; Donna’s was the only other one I had on hand. I’m thinking I should read cozies, to keep my mind in that world since that’s what I am writing–but my word, I have so many great books to get to! A delightful problem to have indeed, right?

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines. I need to make a grocery list, and I need to list everything I am going to do today, too, so I don’t forget anything. I paid the bills yesterday, so everything is caught up at least that I am aware of, and so that was quite a relief. Enjoy your Thursday, Constant Reader–I’ll be back later to write up my thoughts about Donna’s latest two mysteries at some point.

Cathouse Blues

Monday morning and I am off to the office to cover for a co-worker rather than work at home. This works because my work-at-home day this week will be Friday, and then the next week it will be Monday again, so I’ll have four days of not going into the office around my birthday, which is kind of nice. I didn’t have any trouble getting up this morning–I woke up actually at 5:58 and stayed in bed through another two snooze cycles starting at 6, as usual–and now I sit, swilling coffee and feeling awake, as the clock inevitably makes its way to the time when I have to start getting ready to leave for work.

Costco was delivered yesterday, and it really is a remarkable convenience. I still need to run past their actual store one night after work this week–some things can’t be delivered, or they don’t offer them for delivery; it’s also entirely possible they do have the stuff in stock just don’t deliver it and that’s why I want to run by just to make sure. It’ll be an easy in-and-out, and after work one day should do the trick, I would think.

It’s weird going in on Monday morning and getting up so early an extra morning this week–I don’t have to stay the entire shift today, so will most likely leave earlier than I usually do on my day shifts in the office. I suspect we’re going to go back to our old way of doing things in September at last, and I am hoping that means I can swing back around to evening shifts once again–which would be super lovely. An adjustment again, to be sure, but one that should be much easier than adjusting to getting up early every morning, which goes against every grain and fiber of my being.

Heavy sigh.

I didn’t get a lot of writing done this past weekend–not really a surprise, to be honest–but I was pretty worn down by the time the weekend rolled around again, and so I am not terribly surprised I didn’t get a lot of work done this weekend. By the time I got home on Friday I was feeling fatigued already, and of course, I didn’t have much energy the entire weekend, either. Which is fine–I was able to do things that didn’t require much thinking, like cleaning and so forth–and while my mind couldn’t really wrap around reading over the weekend, I did start rereading my Sandman graphic novels, which help make the show even more enjoyable, to be honest; seeing how well the books were adapted into the show–well, I may need to watch the show again because I can’t stop thinking about it and the concepts it explored. It really is an exceptional television experience. We also got caught up on Five Days at Memorial, which I didn’t realize was still airing, so we are caught up on everything available, and we also caught up on American Horror Stories–the last two episodes were vastly superior to the first two, but still, not the greatest–and I also watched The Manchurian Candidate (the original, with Sinatra and Angela Lansbury) for the first time; it was a bit dated, and I also couldn’t help but think how much better it would have been if someone like Montgomery Clift or Paul Newman had played the male lead rather than Sinatra (I’ve never been much of a fan of his acting, really). It was interesting, and of course Paul didn’t see the big twist coming–the Angela Lansbury thing–and she was fantastic. It was also very much of its time–Communist scare, evil Soviet and Chinese Communists, brainwashing–but I’d also like to go back and read the novel on which it was based at some point.

I have an errand to run today after work–picking up a prescription–which is why I am wondering if it would be smart to swing by Costco on my way home; I can catch I-10 right here outside the office and be there in like five minutes, give or take, plus it’s much easier to get uptown from Costco. Decisions, decisions–but why not get it all over with tonight, then go home and shave my head and face for the week? It does make the most sense. Ah, well, no need to decide now.

And on that note, this is my birthday week–I will be sixty-one on Saturday, ee-yikes!–which only bears mentioning (it’s not something I care about excessively, to be honest) because all of my social media will announce it eventually this week at any rate. So I am heading in to the spice mines; y’all have a marvelous Monday!

Long Live

Good morning, Sunday!

I did the windows yesterday, and it is literally amazing how I can forget between window cleanings what a difference it makes. It had been so long since I’d done it I need to do them again–it’s never easy getting all that caked on dirt and dust and debris off the glass, even when you do it weekly, as I used to do–but it’s a start.

I woke up early and feeling rested yesterday, which was absolutely lovely–and it was an absolutely lovely day in New Orleans, if a bit warm for mid-November. Did I get as much done as I needed and/or wanted to? Of course not. I did some other cleaning and straightening around the Lost Apartment; made some notes on some projects I am working on, and reread “The Snow Globe” to get a better idea of what I am dealing with on the revision, which I am going to get done today before I go to the gym. I’m also making the week’s to-do list, doing some other chores around the house, and feeling a lot better about things. Yes, I am behind on everything, but a little bit of focus and a little bit of desperation never hurt me, or anything I’ve worked on.

Rereading the story was, actually, something i’d been dreading doing; I always hate to reread something I’ve written, as I always tend to be highly critical and negative, and this story was no exception. I do love the story a lot–it was written to be submitted to a war on Christmas anthology and wasn’t accepted (the anthology never happened, either; long ugly story)–but it definitely needs some work. I originally came up with the story for a Halloween anthology, to be completely honest; there was a call for submissions, I think maybe from the Horror Writers’ Association, for stories with a Halloween theme. I distinctly remember reading the call and then an image popped into my head–me standing on the balcony at the Pub, looking down on Bourbon Street and the front doors of Oz, as a man in a devil costume came out; and he was hot as fuck; perfect body, body paint to make his skin red, and a skimpy red bikini, and thought Satan has a great six-pack, which I then made the opening line of the story. I believe at the time the story was called “All Hallow’s Eve” or something along those lines; but the story never made it past the opening paragraph. When the chance to write a story for the Christmas anthology came along, I remembered that opening and I remembered the joke I made on the Facebook post and thread about Christmas horror stories–I wanted to write about a Satanic snow globe–and immediately saw how to turn my unfinished Halloween story into a Christmas horror story called “The Snow Globe” merely by changing a single letter in the opening line: Santa had a great six-pack.

Voila! And the story began to flow. As I said, it was rejected from the anthology I wrote it for–and in the notes I got from the editors, which was lovely (one rarely gets notes on a rejected story) they basically told me I should have made it more than it was–which I had also thought about doing, but was afraid to–and so naturally, with that confirmation that the initial instincts I’d ignored from lack of confidence were, in fact, correct, I went back to the drawing board and revised it. And clearly, it needed one more revision. I have editorial notes on this story already, which I completely agree with, and I don’t know why–other than utter and sheer laziness–that I have not gone ahead and worked on this story to get it finished and out of the way. That is my goal for this morning–get the damne thing finished and be done with it–and then I can move back on to the book that has been stalled for weeks now.

Last night we watched a few more episodes of Mr. Mercedes, which finally introduced the character of Holly Gibney, who quickly became one of my favorite King characters–which was why I was so delighted she showed up in The Outsider–and so far the character is being played as she was written in the book, which is quite lovely. I think the show has padded/built up some things that I don’t remember from the book–but since I don’t remember them from the book, I am not entirely sure there were changes made. I just know I am deeply enjoying the show–it’s really a shame it hasn’t gotten as much success as it should have. (Maybe it did, I don’t know; but I rarely, if ever, heard anything about the show and there are three seasons…so there wasn’t a lot of social media buzz about it.)

The Saints play this afternoon–I think the game starts around three-ish, if I am not mistaken–and then of course there will be a new episode of The Undoing tonight. That should give me more than enough time to get this story finished, some chores done, and a trip to the gym for a workout. This is my fourth week since we rejoined the gym, and I am eminently proud that I have gone three days a week ever since. I can’t get over how much better I feel physically–the stretching really helps, too–and that correlates with how much better I’ve been sleeping. Who knew that exhaustion would help one sleep? (Sarcasm, don’t @ me)

I also read a few more chapters of The Hot Rock yesterday, which I am enjoying. Westlake’s style in this book is very reminiscent of Rob Byrnes’ brilliant caper novels (Straight Lies, Holy Rollers, Strange Bedfellows)–although since Westlake is the influence here, I should probably say I can see his influence on that unappreciated trilogy; it still kind of amazing to me that I’ve not read more Westlake (or Lawrence Block, for that matter), which is something I am going to need to rectify. (I’ve also never read Ed McBain, but I read some of his Evan Hunter novels.)

As I have often said, my education in crime fiction is a little lacking when it comes to the classics; I’ve not read all of Ross MacDonald or Raymond Chandler, for example, and I’ve also never read a Dick Francis novel either, for that matter. I think I’ve read a Nero Wolfe or two, but not many–although I have thought about using the trope of that series for a book of my own–the brilliant investigative mind who never leaves his/her house so needs a legman, from whose point of view the story is told–and there are any number of other classic crime fiction writers I’ve not cracked a spine on. But with new books I want to read being released all the time and being unable to even keep up with the canon of current writers whose work I love–not to mention all the new-to-me writers I keep discovering–there’s just simply no way I can ever read everything I want to read.

I’ve been doing some more research on Chlorine, recently reading Confidential Confidential, about the scandal rag of the 1950’s, and Montgomery Clift Queer Star, an academic treatise of multiple essays about reading Clift performances and films as queer, which was very interesting. Reading these two books also reminded me of something else that was going on in the time period which I wish to cover–red-baiting and the House Un-American Committee hearings; another period of America not living up to her ideals. It’s probably hard to explain to people who didn’t grow up, or were old enough, to remember the existential threat of the Soviet Union that had Americans seeing Communist spies and Communist infiltration everywhere; without an understanding of the highly paranoid state created by politicians and news outlets, neither the Korean nor Vietnam Wars would have most likely happened. That fear of Communism was also used by conservatives to gin up racial hatred as well as systemic discrimination against people of color and queer people–the queers were considered a national security threat because if you were queer and worked for the government in any capacity, you were thus opened up to blackmail by Communist agents. This was an actual thing, and I all too often see that key element left out of writings about the time, both fiction and non-fiction.

It would thus be wrong to leave Red-baiting out of Chlorine, which will mean more research. Heavy heaving sigh.

And on that note, the dryer just clicked off, so I should fold the clothes and get ready to get back to to work on the story. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader.