Tuesday morning as I get back into the swing of my reality again. Yesterday was an easy way to slip back into the work grind, and I was tired most of the day. I was very tired by the time I got home from work and errands and things, collapsing into my chair and bingeing more of Boots, which we are really enjoying before retiring pretty early. I had hoped to get some more things done around the apartment, but I can only do what I am capable of doing, you know? It’s still going to take a bit longer for me to get reacclimated, and that’s perfectly fine. I can only do what I can, right? I also need to stop berating myself for being a little wobbly when I get back on the bicycle of my reality.
One of the goals for 2025 was to be kinder to myself–and I am constantly having to remind myself of that very thing. My default is to always take the blame, or to be self-critical, and that’s a cycle from childhood that I need to break. I also cannot believe how quickly this month has passed. What the hell? How is tomorrow the 15th already again? Heavy heaving sigh.
I’ve been thinking I might start trying to listen to audiobooks in the car while I run around doing errands and driving to and from work. I’m never in the car for very long, which is why I’m thinking it may not work–it could take weeks to completely listen to a book all the way through this way–but I could also listen while I take walks. I’d just need to get earphones with a connecting wire; I refuse to sell pints of blood so I can afford ear pods, which I would lose. And since the weather is now cooling down, going for walks in the evening and in the morning might not be a bad thing; and an easy way to start getting my endurance back after this hellish decade for me, health-wise. Although I suppose at my age, my health now is really about the time between illnesses and surgeries. Heavy sigh.
And yes, you can still get wired headphones for iPhones. I checked.
I’m also getting caught up on my day job stuff, and perhaps by the end of the day I can triumphantly shout from the rooftops that I am finally current on those duties. Huzzah! LSU plays at Vanderbilt this weekend, and the game is at 11. YIKES. I hate early games, and the Tigers also tend to not play as well early. Vanderbilt is a good team again this year, and we don’t know if LSU is actually a good team or not. I guess we’ll find out early Saturday morning, but at least the game will be out of the way early and the games the rest of the day won’t matter as much whether I pay attention or not, which means a good time for cleaning the apartment.
I also need to start going through the calls for submission that I’ve bookmarked as interesting ideas for me to try for. The entire time I was in Alabama, I was thinking about a novella-in-progress I have that I would like to get finished…yes, another Alabama story.
And I need to start cleaning out the storage attic. That shit’s not going to empty itself out, is it?
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back again tomorrow. I am off to make a to-do list!
It was supposed to rain this morning, but the sun is shining and the sky is bright blue. I slept well again last night until Sparky got me up this morning, wanting his breakfast. (He is such a sweet boy.) I had a lovely day yesterday, actually. I ran my errands in the morning, ordered groceries to be delivered last evening, and had a pretty nice day overall. I finished rereading my Jay Bennett and Barbara Michaels novels1, and hope to finish reading the Megan Abbott today. I also watched a lot of television while doing chores and reading before falling asleep in my chair last night after a nice, relaxing day. Here’s to having another today, right?
Netflix has a new show about the 2024 SEC football season called Any Given Saturday, and so I watched about four episodes of that while Paul slept on the couch. It’s very well done, and while I don’t feel it pays enough attention to LSU–and what there is focuses on games they lost (really? No coverage of the amazing upset of Top Ten-ranked Mississippi?)–it is nice to see the stories on the other teams and get a recap of the season. The show, of course, is hype for the upcoming season; the pro pre-season is already under way. I think LSU can be really good this year, but LSU always manages to find a way to LSU. There are only two episodes of the show left–we switched it off to watch Wednesday, which we also didn’t finish last night–that I may have on in the background this morning while I read.
I think I am going to go ahead and spend some time with the news and my coffee this morning before finishing this. I’ll be back momentarily, Constant Reader. (According to the weather, we should be having a thunderstorm in five minutes, which I don’t think is going to happen, given how it currently looks out there.)
It’s now noon, and it never rained here. It does look like the calm before a storm outside my windows at the moment, but I’ve already closed up my wagon and put it away (I’d left it out last night after the delivery) just in case. I got cleaned up–even shaving–and that woke me up and made me feel being productive for a while. I put Any Given Saturday back on to stream, getting through the last two episodes while reading more of El Dorado Drive and marveling at what a fucking MASTER Megan Abbott is; she may be the best writer publishing today, and is definitely in the top tier without question. I also picked out my next reads: the reread will be Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson2 and the juvenile/young adult will be The Secret of the Red Scarf, which belongs to a close-to-forgotten girls’ series featuring Nancy Drew rip-off Kay Tracey, and I won’t decide on the new new-to-me read until I finish the Abbott–I’m currently torn between Mia Manansala’s latest or Disco Witches of Fire Island or Lev AC Rosen’s Rough Pages; all queer authors, I might add.
But The Hunting Wives might win the race in a photo-finish.
As I finished off Any Given Saturday, I found myself very curious about the lack of coverage for Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Auburn, among others…and LSU and Alabama were only covered in reference to their games with South Carolina and Vanderbilt, period. Was it about getting some of these lesser-known programs more coverage? And it’s definitely difficult to cover 16 teams with any degree of depth and certainly every team had a story to tell this past year. But it definitely whetted my appetite for the return of college football, which was its intent, so mission accomplished, Netflix.
I’d forgotten we’d watched Towards Zero in between the SEC show and Wednesday; I’d seen bad reviews of it so was curious as to what we would think of it. I remembered the story as soon as I saw the geography of the setting, which is crucial to the crime, and yes, I was proven correct in the third episode. It was fine, if perhaps not really needing a third episode? It did feel like it was dragged out more than it needed to be, which is not a good sign for a murder mystery.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I need to do some picking up and organizing and cleaning, and I am also going to write for a while before probably returning to the Abbott. I doubt I will be back later; I may finish a newsletter today and I may not. If not, I will be here again in the morning before the infusion. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader!
I will write newsletters about both authors at some point. ↩︎
I’ve always wanted to write about this unique Jackson book; I usually reread The Haunting of Hill House every October. ↩︎
Well, yesterday was a good day for one Gregalicious. I didn’t get as much done around the house as I would have preferred, but c’est la vie. I did have football games on all day, mostly as a break from monotonous silence, but I did get to see the Florida upset of Mississippi, and surprisingly enough, LSU beat Vanderbilt last night to stop their three game losing streak…but have to play Oklahoma next, who managed to not only upset Alabama last night but beat them pretty soundly. After the LSU game I caught the end of Auburn-Texas A&M, which Auburn finally won in quadruple overtime. What a crazy year this has been in the SEC, has it not? Now the winner of Texas-Texas A&M will play Georgia for the SEC title. #madness.
But one thing I remembered finally is that I usually read during games I don’t necessarily care about, and so I finished The Reformatory by Tananarive Due at last yesterday, and what a read it was. I’d say it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time, and I read a lot of really good books, so that is really saying something. I’ve added Due to my list of “must-read” writers, and she has a substantial backlist I am looking forward to exploring. It took me a very long time to get through this book, because it was so powerful and the horror in it was so completely real, but more on that later. I am going to go out on a limb and call it a masterpiece for now, and encourage you to read it if you have not. Today I am going to start reading Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen, whom I’ve met and found delightful, and whose career I’ve been following avidly. I’ve yet to read one of his books, but I am very excited to read one of the most acclaimed queer mysteries of the last few years. I’m also kind of thrilled to be reading fiction again. Today I am also going to read a couple of short stories a friend sent me to read, and probably will do some writing, either short story, essay, or the book, today as well. I went to get the mail and made a grocery run yesterday, so I don’t have to do anything errand-like today, but I should probably make it to the gym later this morning. The weather has been wonderful, and one thing I am determined to do this year is drive around the city taking pictures of Christmas decorations. I definitely want to write a nice essay about Christmas this year, and the essay I worked on briefly yesterday, “Recovering Christian,” is one I started working on about twenty years ago. The lovely thing about Substack is I now have a place to post those essays, and share them with the world. I do have to make more of an effort to post content there at least once a week.
I do wonder if all the readers I picked up there during my ranting about homophobia post are expecting that kind of content all the time? I don’t know, but in some ways I am thinking that the Substack (also a place to publish short stories, too, if I so choose) is kind of a good place to write about my life, and explore issues of being a queer American writer, and my thoughts and opinions about systemic bigotry, and all the things I was miseducated about as a child. (American Mythology, hello?) That way it will live up to the name it shares with this blog, “Queer and Loathing in America.” I also want to write essays about my gay life, and the lessons I learned the hard way, as well as writing. I’ve been unpacking my past ever since Mom died–the first time I’ve ever allowed myself to look back–and while I am not sorry I never did this before, I am also learning a lot more about myself and why I do things and why I react the way I do and how much of my life was controlled/driven by anxiety. I was fine at the party the other night, but too many people in spaces still makes me uncomfortable and uneasy, but that’s okay. The claustrophobia might be anxiety related, or it may be entirely it’s own thing, but the primary difference was that there was no adrenaline spike or spiraling. I was able to relax, and kind of enjoy myself more.
And that is what I meant when I said I was pulling back from the crime community and centering myself. I want to focus on myself, on Paul, and our needs and what we need to do and handle and take care of, and I don’t want to do emotional labor for anyone else anymore. I’ve been watching a lot of Youtube and TikTok videos about cutting MAGA voters out of your life, or at the very least setting boundaries, and I saw one that really made a lot of sense to me: we don’t feel safe around them, but we don’t have to cut them out entirely, we just have to stop giving them emotional labor. Go get sympathy from another MAGA voter, since you’re all so empathetic and sympathetic to the concerns, fears and rights of other people. It’s why BlueSky has been flooded by Twitter trolls, now that the genius has killed that platform (but hey, let’s put him in charge of government!). They don’t enjoy talking to each other, so they have to “pwn the libs.” But they just get blocked, so they’re the ones who wind up in a echo chamber. Hell, I block people who annoy me. It’s my space, my experience, and if I don’t want the aggravation of annoying people or giving them time or energy, well…no one can make me engage with people who steal my peace.
I also don’t think people understand how casual homophobia, so easy for straight people to slip into with their excessive privilege, makes us feel when we hear it or hear about it or (in some cases) read about it in screen shots. Not only do we no longer feel safe around you, we can’t count on you to stand up for us when the chips are literally down. There’s been some slightly viral conversation about some Jewish lesbian who voted for Trump and has been cut off from her friends and kicked off a team. “I wouldn’t do this to someone who voted for Harris,” she cries her crocodile tears, as she sits down with right-wing podcasters and plays victim and martyr. She voted for Trump because of pro-Palestine lefties…or so she claims. So she aligned herself with someone who actually had dinner with a Nazi, and has been embraced by American Nazis. Who ally themselves with the Proud Boys and other ant-Semites (who precisely are the voters who chant “Jew will not replace us” again?), and now wants everyone to feel sorry for her and pretends ignorance. Sorry not sorry, bitch–your new buddies and the Karens posting on your instagram talking about how horrible it is that queers actually can see this quisling bitch for who she is? Those bitches will be the first ones to turn you into the SS, moron. It’s especially egregious because my education in feminism and social justice was at the hands of lesbians; I’ve always thought lesbians, of all people, would know better than this bullshit. And this bitch is talking about “how we all need to have these tough conversations”–no, we don’t, honey. The time for tough conversations was before the election, and trust me, there’s not a single tough conversation I could possibly have where I’d be willing to come to an agreement or compromise with people who cheered the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 80s and 90s. You don’t compromise with the Klan. You don’t compromise with Nazis. You don’t compromise with people who’s starting position is “you don’t deserve any rights, and you really shouldn’t exist.”
Feel free to pound your head into that wall until it’s pulp, Benedictine Arnold. Enjoy the lonely life of celibacy you’ve set up for yourself.
The funniest thing about her is she is a butch lesbian–short hair, masculine clothes, the whole ball of wax–and you know she is going to get challenged going into the ladies’ bathroom or changing room.
Good. Enjoy what you voted for. I have no patience with queer remoras attaching themselves to the sharks circling the rest of us. I certainly have no forgiveness in my heart for the future informers and camp guards. She showed us who she is, and we believe her.
And on that note, I am going to head over to my chair to read for a bit before I get to work around here. I slept really well again last night, and feel pretty good this morning. I also want to work on my review of The Reformatory, and get some other things done. Have a great Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later on.
Up far earlier than usual on a Sunday morning1, because of course, later on today I am driving to Kentucky. Twelve hours in the car, but I’ve figured out what to listen to on the drive, which is cool. I don’t know what traffic is going to be like, but that’s cool; I am also going to go a different way than I usually do–going thru Nashville instead of the nightmare that is always Chattanooga–so that will be interesting.
I was very tired yesterday morning, the way I always am on Saturday, but I got errands done and then came home to work on the house and get ready for today. We mostly watched football all day before going to bed; starting with Vanderbilt-Auburn (Auburn lost) and Mississippi-Arkansas, then Georgia-Florida, capping the night off with South Carolina’s big win over Texas A&M. The SEC is indeed crazy this season; it almost seems like no one wants to win it all this year. Now, all the one-loss and two-loss teams are going to continue knocking each other off the rest of the season, which is wild. LSU still has a chance, but they have to win out…and that won’t be easy (Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, and Vanderbilt remain on the schedule). Interesting season, this first year of super-conferences and paying players and a play-off, hasn’t it been? All in all, a very nice, relaxing day was had by everyone in the Lost Apartment, including demon kitty Sparky–who turned himself into a love bug for the entire day. I’ve not yet packed or loaded up the car–I got up early this morning to do that specifically, as well as to add to the “I’m really tired so will sleep well tonight” feeling when I get there tonight. I’ll also be on the road for the Saints game today, so GEAUX SAINTS and I hope they do well.
It’ll be nice spending some time with Dad, resting and relaxing and reading. I don’t know if he’ll want to go do things–like sight-see historical sites in the area (I am not going to the Ark, rest assured of that)–or if we’ll end up just sitting around chatting and watching television. The weather will be similar up there to what we’re having down here, which is great as I don’t want to take a coat with me, either. I decided to finish listening to Gabino’s book in the car on the way up, move on to The Reformatory, finish reading it over the week, and then listen to Shadowlands in the car on the way home, so I can finish reading it when I get home Friday. I have a lovely weekend when I get home before I have to go back to work, and then of course it’s only a few more weeks to Thanksgiving. Paul is probably going to visit his mom for the holiday, which will give me a long weekend alone at home with Sparky, which could be a lot of fun.
And of course, once I get home from this trip I need to really get back to work on the book and everything else around here that I want to get finished by the end of the year. I need to do some research on actual hurricanes (as well as the ones that have hit New Orleans over the centuries, including from before when they got names), and I hope to spend some time brainstorming on the book’s plot. I know I want it to shift direction several times, but I am still not sure of how everything comes together and why, which is part of the fun ohf writing these types of novels, isn’t it?
And on that note, I think I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely, lovely day, Constant Reader, and I don’t know how much I’ll be here posting this week, so hang in there without me, okay? MAKE SURE YOU VOTE.
But not as early as it usually feels, thank you for the extra hour this morning, Daylight Savings Time. ↩︎
Well, yesterday was a fun day for college football. LSU won at Arkansas 34-10, which was an enormous relief. While LSU has now won eight of the last nine against the Razorbacks, it’s a rivalry game (The Battle for the Golden Boot) and Arkansas always, somehow, manages to play LSU tough (there have been some real shockers and close calls over the years), and the game was pretty much in doubt until an amazing fumble recovery caused and recovered by the amazing Whit Weeks (who is quickly becoming one of my favorite LSU players of all time) allowed the Tigers to finally pull away and beat them. Alabama lost to Tennessee, and this is the first time since 2007 (the last time they had a new coach) they have multiple losses going into November. Georgia trounced Texas in Austin last night, too; if someone would have told me after the USC game this year that LSU would be tied for first in the SEC with Texas A&M at this point in the season and ranked in the Top Ten, I probably would have laughed pretty hard. And of course, next week LSU plays at Texas A&M, which will give the winner a pretty big boost to making it to the conference championship, as only one team will come out of the game undefeated in conference play (A&M and LSU’s only loss have come out of conference; there are no undefeated SEC teams left). We also watched some of Skate America yesterday, and will probably watch more today. I didn’t get as much done yesterday as I would have liked, but that’s simply the nature of the beast and it’s fine. I slept a little late this morning, too, but feel good. The kitchen is again a mess, and I am going to make white bean chicken chili today, which will make even more of a mess; sad that I have to clean it only to mess it up yet again…and Vanderbilt now has the same record as Alabama. When did we diverge off the main timeline again? And of course, South Carolina embarrassed Oklahoma (welcome to the SEC!). Even Mississippi State put a scare into A&M, too.
Seriously, what a crazy–and unpredictable and fun–season this has turned out to be for us fans.
I don’t have to leave the house today, either, which is another delightful occurrence. I made groceries yesterday, and after getting home from that expedition I chose to settle in for a day of football. Sparky was still calmed from his vet visit on Friday–Paul thinks he’s sulking because his nails were trimmed, but he hasn’t attacked me or tried to climb me since we got home. He also spends a lot more time cuddling and sleeping with me in the chair. He’s such a sweet little baby. We also have a lot of shows to get caught up on, too. I am definitely going to Kentucky next weekend, too, which will be very nice. I can drive up on Sunday and come back on Friday, which will be a very nice long visit and then I can get back home to watch the Alabama game (they haven’t been the same since they beat Georgia, which is weird). I can spend a lot of time sleeping and resting and relaxing and reading, which is always a lovely thing to have going on, and then I can start focusing on getting writing done and keeping up with the house. It’ll definitely be weird once football season is over, too. The play-offs are going to be strange, too; a gauntlet to determine the national champion. My suspicion is no one is going to make it through the season undefeated.
And then it’s Carnival again. Where oh where did this year go?
But today, I need to read and I need to write. Once I finish this, I’ll go read for a bit and then clean the kitchen, and start making the chicken chili, which is mostly for lunches this week. I also have to make Swedish meatballs, which I bought at Costco to see if it would be any good. That can also be lunches (and dinners) for the week around here. Payday is Wednesday, so I’ll be able to get groceries for Paul before I leave, so he can survive the week. It’ll also be kind of cool just reading horror while I am at Dad’s; Shadowland to listen to in the car and then finish reading once in Kentucky; Tananarive Due and Scott Carson and Nick Cutter to take with to read up there; and then it’ll be November when I drive home so I can go back to listening to something non-horror for the ride home. Possibly a Carol Goodman, or a Lisa Unger, perhaps. I really have a plethora of riches in my TBR stacks. I know I should read more broadly, and I should expand my horizons out of crime and horror–would it kill me to read science fiction or fantasy or romance or (gasp) literary fiction? Probably not, and I do have some really great books in all those categories in the stacks, too. I think I want to read something by Valerie Martin, Jami Attenburg, or Celeste Ng by the end of the year. (I also have some Ann Hood novels on hand; she’s fantastic.)
And on that note, none of this is getting done while I sit here and swill coffee and scroll unnecessarily online, will it? So perhaps it’s best to bring this to a close and head into the spice mines. I may be back later, but I wouldn’t hold my breath, Constant Reader, so have a lovely Sunday, okay?
Sunday morning, and all is well in the Lost Apartment.
I woke up early this morning and, remembering, thought it might have been a dream, but no, a quick glance at the Internet told me it really did happen–Alabama did lose to Vanderbilt yesterday, 40-35. Hell, Arkansas came back to upset Tennessee last night while we were were watching ‘salem’s Lot (more on that later). What in the world was going on in college football yesterday? Admittedly, insane days like yesterday (Washington even went to Michigan and won. What the holy hell is going on this year?) are what make college football so fun to watch and experience as a fan; and I think 2024 might just be one of those insane “reset” seasons where everything goes out the window. Vanderbilt beating Alabama1 just two weeks after losing to Georgia State–another Vandy embarrassment–and now the concept of hope has shown up for the hapless Commodores; if they can beat an Alabama team, on any given Saturday, the ‘dores could beat anyone. Absolutely wild. I was watching a different game–I don’t even remember which this morning–when I saw that the score was 13-7 in the second quarter, Vandy leading, and I thought, what the hell and switched over to that game, and both Paul and I watched in stunned bemusement, riveted until the clock ticked to zero and the Vandy fans rushed the field, tore down the goalposts, and carried them three miles to throw them into the Cumberland River. I can only imagine what it was like to be a Vandy fan watching all of this yesterday.2 I do pity the new Alabama coach; he’s got a hell of a week to get through before next weekend’s South Carolina game (LSU comes back from the bye week to play Mississippi next week at home; the Rebs trounced South Carolina yesterday), but still have to play Tennessee, LSU and Oklahoma. They can still make the play-offs if they run the table, but I am beginning to wonder about that. Missouri was also beaten badly by Texas A&M yesterday, so now Texas is the only unbeaten SEC team still standing and there’s no telling who might run the table, who is good and who isn’t, and so forth. It’s kind of exciting, actually. CHAOS.
I did sleep late yesterday, got up and ran all over town and even went out to Metairie for my eye appointment (which has to be rescheduled; it was an on-line booking error), but was thoroughly exhausted when I got home from everything. I immediately started cleaning while the A&M game was on–no need to watch that thrashing, so it was mostly background noise. I did manage to get all the dishes done, and launder the bed linens, and pick up around here. The Lost Apartment looks better this morning, but I also need to finish assembling my desk chair, do some more cleaning up around here (the floors, the floors!) and hopefully do some reading and writing today as well. The Saints play tomorrow night (Taylor Swift has been rumored to be attending; so I imagine all day tomorrow local networks will have someone stationed at the airport to see if her plane lands), and the weather has been lovely since that sopping wet mess of a Friday we had here. I am glad to be up early this morning–clearly I needed to sleep in yesterday, and I was still easily exhausted, so I know I am still not at 100% yet…patience, Gregalicious, patience. You’re older and it takes longer to bounce back than it used to, and you’ve never had a major surgery before; it hasn’t even been a full year yet since the surgery.
I do have one errand to run today, and I should get it done this morning.
So, we decided to watch ‘salem’s Lot instead of watching the Tennessee game (which we should have watched, apparently; I never tire of watching Tennessee lose), and going into it, I knew that most of the King fans amongst my horror writer/reader social media friends didn’t care for it. As I watched the movie–which is a fairly competent vampire horror movie–I immediately saw what the problem with this film adaptation was going to be, and even understood why even the cheesy two-part television version with David Soul failed. I have always thought of ‘salem’s Lot as “Peyton Place with vampires, and that strength of the novel–the townspeople themselves, their relationships with each other and all the long-simmering feuds and gossips and pettiness–was the primary strength of the novel, as is its pacing: it begins as a slow building burn, and the momentum just keeps building. Everyone knows the story is about vampires now; it’s even a bit of an homage, in its own way, to Dracula–there’s even a scene in the book where Matt Burke reminds Ben of Van Helsing–but when I first read the paperback from Signet back in the fall of 1976 in Kansas, I had no idea what it was about. I just knew it was scary, it was about evil in a small town, and the writer was the guy who wrote Carrie, which I had read in one sitting a year earlier. So, I was enjoying how the town is originally shown, a small town that’s like every other small town, that idyllic vision of America that the right keeps forcing on us all–small town America is the real America as this Norman Rockwell painting/Mayberry like life, and it’s anything but that. (Small town America is the real America, but not in the way they mean–small towns are composites of the society as a whole, with percentage wise just as much crime, adultery, incest and passive-aggression as the rest of the country, no matter how much better they believe they are than urban dwellers.) That slow build, as we settle into Jerusalem’s Lot as a town like any other, with likable people and unlikable people whose dirty secrets King allows us to see; in the first half of the book it’s almost like reading Peyton Place; Jerusalems Lot even has the Marsten House as Peyton Place had Samuel’s castle (which was also the name of Allison’s novel in the book). Something dark is going on in the town, and just getting started, which we get glimpses of from time to time–a dog killed and left on the cemetery fence spikes; the disappearance of Ralphie Glick and his brother’s strange sickness and death…but it isn’t until Danny Glick shows up at Mark Petrie’s window do we know that it’s actually vampires, and then the entire book flips and no longer lazily meanders along on its assigned path; it then becomes a thriller that moves with the speed of a locomotive.
This pacing is what most readers like me (and I suspect a lot of others) loved the most about the book; I always loved the town-stuff as much as the vampires, honestly, but that kind of pacing is impossible in a film or a two-part television movie–you can’t have the first half be meandering and slowly moving along the path of the story, folks who have no idea what’s happening in their town and still aren’t entirely sure as the depopulation moves faster and faster, because you risk losing your audience. This was the problem with the David Soul version–the pacing was the same throughout, which isn’t the way the story reads. In this film version they chose to abandon everything from the story that isn’t about vampires, and to just make a standard horror film about vampires. On that level, the movie works. It’s a standard vampire movie that moves very quickly, just as the second half of the book does, but by cutting out all the stuff that made us care about the characters, we aren’t as vested, and when they die, we don’t really feel it much or care–every death in the book was a fucking tragedy, and so the movie is actually kind of soulless. We aren’t given enough character development to care when characters die. I think the only true way to film ‘salem’s Lot successfully, it needs to be a six or eight episode series to be done truly properly. There was hardly anything about the Marsten House in the movie, and that’s a significant change from the book. It’s just there, and we have no idea what kind of research Ben is doing for his novel or why he even came back. The loss of all the supporting characters that really made the book so strong can be felt deeply in the film. It’s just a competent vampire movie, but it isn’t ‘salem’s Lot, but I did like the big scene at the drive-in movie theater.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I want to get a lot done today, and here’s hoping that shall come to pass.
No one ever worries about losing to Vanderbilt; it’s usually seen as a bye for most teams because Vanderbilt has always been terrible in football; they’ve never won the conference in all the years of belonging, haven’t beaten Alabama since 1984, and are always cellar-dwellers in the SEC (one of my favorite things to remind people is that Senator Tatertown the moron lost to Vanderbilt as a football coach; now Kalen DeBoer will also have that distinction. What a wake-up call for Tuscaloosa, and how wild that it happened one week after Alabama beat Georgia, handing them their first regular season loss in 42 games. I mean, good for Vanderbilt, but whoa, what the hell, Bama? ↩︎
Vanderbilt always has more visiting fans in their stadium than their own fans; at one point I was in the kitchen washing dishes and would hear the crowd cheer, so would come take a look–they were Alabama cheers, and they were louder than the smaller contingent of Vandy fans there. ↩︎
Sunday morning the Gregalicious slept late, and I feel good this morning. I stayed up late to watch Saturday Night Live return, and wasn’t terribly impressed. Our Internet also kept going in and out all day, which was annoying, especially during football games. The three games I primarily watched–Kentucky-Mississippi, Auburn-Oklahoma, and Georgia-Alabama, were all excellent games–and I also switched over to LSU-South Alabama periodically, but it was also a blow out so didn’t need to watch much. Still unsure how this season is going to shake out for everyone, which makes it interesting. I think there’s a lot more parity in the conference now, once you get past the clearly best teams this year (right now, I am going out on a limb and saying it’s Alabama and Texas, both teams LSU has to play in Baton Rouge this year) I think everyone is pretty equal for the most part, with the usual suspects (Mississippi State, Vanderbilt) in the basement. Kentucky almost beat Georgia last week and did beat Mississippi yesterday; Georgia almost beat Alabama, and that Auburn-Oklahoma game came down to the wire. The Saints play at noon today, which is cool, playing the Dirty Birds in Atlanta.
I did manage to get some things done during the games; I cleaned the downstairs bathroom thoroughly, I ran some errands in the morning (mail, Fresh Market, car wash) and then came home to start watching football. I also read, while in my chair, both We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson and The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin (more on both later), so hope to start the new Gabino Iglesias at some time today, most likely during the Saints game. Jackson and Levin are excellent writers whom I deeply admire, with completely different styles but evoking the same feelings when you read them. I also managed to get most of the dishes finished yesterday, with whatever I used yesterday as the only dirty dishes left in the sink–and that will take about two minutes, tops. I had thought about delaying my trip to make groceries until tomorrow, but now that I am up I think I’ll go ahead and do that this morning and get it out of the way.
I also want to work on the kitchen a bit today, and I also want to get the floors worked on again. Sparky tears up the rugs all the time when he’s running around like a demon to burn off some of his Big Energy, and the longer they are messed up the worse they get messed up. I also have some other posts I need to get done this morning before I leave to make groceries; and the longer I let them sit there unfinished, the more likely it is they’ll continue unfinished. I have a particularly spicy one about transphobia that I’d love to get done at some point so I can Substack it (and attract more of the bigots and Nazis there), and of course, there are any number of others unfinished as well. Heavy heaving sigh. I also have three book reviews/reports to write–I’ve now finished The Price by Armen Keteyian and John Talty; an arc of We Are Watching by Alison Gaylin, and Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper, and I need to get those done sooner rather than later as well. I also have some emails I need to answer as well as some to generate.
Sounds like a to-do list to me, doesn’t it? I also need to clean up the mess around my desk. But the key is not to get overwhelmed by the length of the to-do list, and just start marking things off. I also need to work on the Scotty Bible today, but I can also see that I am starting to think in the old bad anxiety/stress markers by overwhelming myself with so much to do already. Next weekend I have an eye appointment, so I can order new glasses, and my doctor’s appointment is coming up. I am probably going to meet Dad in Alabama weekend after next, and will probably go up to Kentucky later this month. How exciting!
And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and hope everyone in North Carolina and Tennessee are okay.
Well, I survived returning back to work yesterday. I really thought I’d have trouble getting up yesterday morning, but I was awake when the alarm went off the first time–and yes, Sparky was a kitty puddle at the foot of the bed who immediately woke and strolled up along the side of the bed for head butts and purring to get me up. I also made it through the day without ever getting tired, and I was sure I would; I woke up several times during the night, and it seemed to always take a while for me to go back to sleep. I did sleep more deeply last night, and I feel pretty good this morning. Which is weird, of course; I shouldn’t feel more rested and better later in the work week, but when have I ever been normal?
I haven’t wanted to be normal in decades. And this particular oddness is something I’ve noticed before.
But overall, yesterday was a pleasant day. I wasn’t terribly tired when I got off work, which I’d been concerned about, and ran my errand and came home to play with Sparky. Paul worked at home yesterday and went to Hoshun to get us dinner (a treat for my birthday, delayed a day) and we watched the convention again last night. The DNC is simply killing it this year, aren’t they? Whoever planned this convention deserves a huge raise. It’s also lovely getting reminders of how good and deep the bench of next generation party leaders actually is. Who do they have? Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Matt Gaetz? Give me Jasmine Crockett, Wes Moore, Josh Shapiro, Andy Beshear, Pete Buttigieg, and Eric Swalwell any day of the week over those fools. I stayed up to watch Governor Walz–and what a wonderful, amazing, normal family he has, and how much do they all love each other? I know Vance’s biracial children have been completely moved by how their dad has defended their mom–oops, never mind.
And tonight the Vice-President will accept the nomination, and I can’t wait to watch.
The humidity has broken here for a few days; we’re having an unusual cold spell which will result in lots of storms all week next week, and then…it’s Labor Day weekend and college football starts. LSU plays USC in Las Vegas that weekend on Sunday night, and I don’t know if I’m ready for another college football season this soon. I don’t think we’ll be going to any games this year, alas, but that’s okay. No one is really sure how good LSU will or won’t be this year, but most seem to be cautiously optimistic. The schedule is rough this year, too. Two of the non-conference games are USC and UCLA, and I think they play both Texas and Oklahoma this year in addition to the usual SEC meat grinder–although Auburn and Mississippi State have come off the schedule. (Note to self: print the schedule and put it on the fridge; same with the Saints. Sigh. I can’t believe it’s already football season! But I am ready for fall weather–or what passes for it around here, LOL.)
I managed to book an eye appointment for a Saturday in September, and yes, I booked it during the scheduled game that day, at South Carolina. Which is fine, actually; I don’t mind driving out to Metairie in the morning, and I can always get something to eat out there that I usually don’t have access to–which is even better. I probably should stop and make groceries tonight–we need a few things–and I also need to get gas as well. I keep forgetting I need to get gas every night this week on my way home, and if I’m not careful I’m going to wind up stranded on the side of the road somewhere. (Not the end of the world; my insurance has roadside service so I’d just have to wait for someone to bring me some gas so I can get to a station–but this is something I’d have had anxiety about before the new medications, and boy do I not miss the anxiety!) Note to self: get gas on the way home tonight.
I’m working at home tomorrow, so I get to sleep a little later than usual (if His Royal Highness Sparky will allow it–he will most likely not), and of course, I have some chores to get done this weekend. I ordered new kitchen towels for my birthday, which delights me to no end, and I am thinking about upgrading some other things around the house. I also need to clear out some more books and get the boxes down from on top of the cabinets, and maybe even start on the boxes in the attic. Whoa, Nelly, slow down; you’re feeling awfully ambitious this morning (it’s the coffee, no doubt) and by this afternoon you won’t feel like doing anything at all when you get home. There’s a load of dishes in the dishwasher to run, and there’s also some laundry to finish, too. It truly never ends!
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have an awesome Thursday, and I may be back later. I’m tricky that way.
Good morning and happy New Year’s Eve eve. It’s cold again in New Orleans this morning–a mere forty-one degrees–which will make today’s errands a challenge, or at least something I will want to get over with quickly. Mail, prescription, and groceries will be dealt with as quickly as possible so I can get back into the warmth of the apartment.
Yesterday I actually felt like myself for the first time since the surgery, which was an absolutely lovely thing. I slept a ridiculously long time Thursday night, and felt like I’d caught up on my sleep adequately. I woke up at seven this morning, laid around in bed for another quarter of an hour before rising and digging into coffee and breakfast pastries. I did do a lot of straightening and catching up on household chores yesterday after my work-at-home duties were completed. I started watching the Cotton Bowl last night, but Paul came downstairs at half-time, and we watched this week’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (Paul slept) and Reacher. I also started reading Glory Be by Danielle Arsenault yesterday and I am enjoying it so far. I am probably going to have bowl games on after I get home from the errands while I continue to read and do some clean-up around here.
I was also pretty pleased to check the final score of the Cotton Bowl to see that Missouri–who only lost to LSU and Georgia this year–had rallied to defeat Ohio State 14-3. GO MIZZOU!
Tomorrow is the last day of 2023, and there’s no telling what 2024 will bring. It’s an election year (groan)–which of course means my rights as an American are up for a vote again–and also means that it could be just as horrible as 2016 and 2020. But I am going to go into 2024 with my head up and my Wonder Woman bracelets on to deflect any and all negativity that comes my way. I want to have a good year this year, and I do believe if I keep focusing on positivity, and keeping a positive mindset, that I can have a positive outcome for the year. Overall, 2023 was difficult personally but excellent professionally; the excellent professional developments, both at my day job and as a writer, made dealing with the grief somewhat easier on me emotionally. I’m sure the new and proper medications are working their magic within the brain synapses that don’t fire properly, which has had a lot to do with my feeling more centered these last few weeks, and sleeping so well. I do have a lot of PT to get through yet–we haven’t even started trying to strengthen the left biceps again, and that’s going to be harder and more painful than the dexterity PY, but I am also hoping to ride that into going back to the gym regularly. Paul and I are also committed to eating better in the new year, which means more ground chicken and turkey and less red meat; and more fat-free products than not, including my creamer. (I also have a recipe for making my own, which would be healthier since less chemicals, but I also don’t know how long that will be good after making, either.) I’ve started making turkey sandwiches to take for lunch at the office this past week, and I am going to try to keep that going. I do have some unhealthy fare still that will need to be consumed, which I plan to start easing out throughout January.
I also feel pretty good this morning. I got some great books for research this week–a bio of 90’s porn star Joey Stefano, Creole: The History and Legacy of Louisiana’s Free People of Color, edited by Sybil Klein1, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism by Kevin M. Kruse, and some fiction as well–Hayley Scrivenor’s Dirt Town and Penny Mickelbury’s Two Wings to Fly Away, and having spent a lot of yesterday pruning and rearranging the books–I still need to work on the laundry room–I am very excited to start digging into my TBR pile. I think I am getting more books today, too–I think some stuff arrived yesterday at the post office–and I am looking forward to delving into those as well. I was also looking through the research books I’ve acquired over the years with book projects in mind, and there’s a lot. I also spent some time brainstorming free-form last night, and of course, came up with great titles for books or stories and some more ideas for both. Heavy sigh–the last thing I need is more ideas, really.
And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. I have those errands to run and some more clean-up around the house that needs to be done, and I do want to spend some time writing and catching up on emails. Have a terrific Saturday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later, you never know.
Despite being published by LSU Press, one always has to read anything about Louisiana history carefully, because so much of it is rumor, legend and made up. But the free people of color before the war have always interested me, and I want to know more about them. ↩︎
Up ungodly early for PT, and yikes, it is waaaay too early for Gregalicious to already be awake and starting my day–if six am is an unspeakably early time to get up, try five; I don’t think I’ll be complaining about six too much next week when I have to get up at five again on Tuesday. It’s only forty-five degrees this morning, which is horrifying; the high for the day is a mere fifty-three. Yikes. It was so cold at the office yesterday, I can’t even begin to tell you how miserable I was all day. The cold makes me sleepier, so I never really felt yesterday like I was present, you know? All day long I felt like I literally could just curl up and fall asleep again. But I made it through the day, which was great, and ran an errand on the way home–I love this week, because school is out and traffic is practically non-existent–and I also have errands to run after work tonight, too. Tomorrow is work-at-home Friday, which means I can sleep in a bit before rising and working, and I am really looking forward to not getting up until after the sun rises. And it’s also a lovely three-day weekend, with bowl games to watch and enjoy as I do things around the house. LSU plays on New Year’s, which will be a preview of next year’s starting quarterback, so we’ll get sort of a taste of what LSU will be like next fall, when they have that brutal schedule–USC, UCLA, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and Oklahoma–as a new era of college football begins.
I also need to start promoting the two books that were released right before my surgery–terrible timing, you know? But it’s never too late, which is the true (and perhaps only) beauty of the modern era of publishing. Once the season your new release has passed, you used to be finished. But with ebooks and e-everything these days, you can keep on doing promotion until people stop following you and start unfriending you everywhere, LOL.
We finished off the first season of War of the Worlds last night, and have two more seasons to get through. It’s that odd week between holidays where most shows go on hiatus, so no new episodes of a lot of things I watch (looking at you, Bravo), so we have to find things to watch. I think War of the Worlds will safely get us to next week, and everything returns next week anyway.
I was tired when I got home last night, and knowing I had to get up early this morning didn’t motivate me a whole lot to get things done. The kitchen is a mess still, and there will always be more laundry to do and dishes to wash and/or put away. Sigh. The life of a housewife, seriously…make that a working housewife, and seriously, I understand why all those suburban wives and mothers were taking pills in the 50s and 60s. The endless drudgery…I used to always get a bit of a thrill when I cleaned and the house was all neat and organized. It was satisfying. It still is, but it’s not a compulsion the way it used to be, where I didn’t feel comfortable or could relax in the house as long as it was messy. I also realized where this obsessive cleaning mentality came from, and yes, I was still trying to please my mother. I could hear her voice, with the shudder, saying “how can anyone live like that?”
Today I am swinging by to get the mail on my way home, and picking up a prescription and some Claritin-D, too. I doubt I’ll be in the mood to do any cleaning tonight, or have the energy to do so, but that’s fine. I can clean up around work-at-home duties tomorrow. I’ll also have to run some other errands–I really need to wash the car, seriously–and dig into Danielle Arsenault’s debut novel.
And maybe do some writing. It certainly can’t hurt.
And now I am heading to the spice mines. Have a good Thursday, Constant Reader.
Queer and Loathing in America 