Lonesome Loser

Thursday and I have the day off blog because I am having dinner at 5 with a friend and after that I am hosting Noir at the Bar: Morally Grey. Tomorrow is a work-at-home day around my doctor’s appointment, and I was thinking about going to the Crooked Lane party Friday night but…not so sure about that. I was terribly tired when I got home from work yesterday evening, and just collapsed into my easy chair. Sparky joined me post-haste, and I basically watched the USOpen with Paul all night before I fell asleep in my chair before nine (the match we’d been watching concluded, and I couldn’t even tell you who played? Naomi Osaka?) but I slept deeply and well last night. I got up at my usual time to feed Sparky and went back to bed and slept for another two hours…but Sparky came up and cuddled with me when he was finished eating AND he was purring. Coincidence I feel refreshed and rested this morning?

I think not.

Today I want to get some things taken care of around the house before I head to the Quarter to have dinner, including some writing and reading, and I also have to get prepared for tonight as well. I have to work tomorrow so I am not going to be doing anything after the reading besides coming home and going to bed. Pretty nice, if I do say so myself. I actually feel good this morning, which is a lovely feeling. (Never underestimate how well the soothing relaxation from the purr of a cuddling cat works.) I also have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning after my department and team meetings. The Crooked Lane party is tomorrow night, and I may head down for that; never hurts to stay in the good graces of a publisher, am I right?

Yesterday, our shitstain of a governor applauded the mention of the military being sent to New Orleans (and other Louisiana cities) to clean up the “crime” problem by the demented president. That presence here won’t affect our already struggling tourist economy at ALL, will it? And how will such a thing fly in Moses Mike Johnson’s district of Shreveport/Bossier City? Yeah, no government overreach here at all. Imagine had Biden sent the military in to Dallas or Kansas City or Nashville to help with crime? I will say this–a city known for its hospitality and welcoming attitude will make those soldiers sorry they were ever deployed. Don’t fuck with New Orleans. And seriously, fuck our failure of a governor, who is doing nothing about the wetlands (other than making everything worse), and he also ran on cleaning up crime…so he’s admitting, straight up, he’s an utter failure and so is his administration. We already knew that, of course; our state government makes Florida’s look like California’s.

If the federal government really wanted to clean up crime in Louisiana, they’d start at the Governor’s Mansion in Baton Rouge before making their way to the capitol. Louisiana has more oil than Kuwait, but we’re in the bottom five of everything. This is your Republican governance example as to why you should never vote for one of them; DeSantis is another great example of shit stain governance. You’d have thought we learned our lesson from Bobby Jindal’s corrupt incompetence, and how a Democratic governor basically cleaned up that mess…all so Landry could drive Louisiana into the sewer with little chance of getting out.

I know I’ll do my best to make the troops uncomfortable here. Landry also announced that ICE prisoners will have their own special section in the inhumane hell of Angola. (Reminder that immigrants have always rebuilt Louisiana after disastrous hurricanes. New Orleans would have been in ruins for years without them.)

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, and I hope to see you tonight at the Crescent City Brewhouse for Noir at the Bar: Morally Grey.

Ramses II statues with drifting sand at the Abu Simbel temple

A Little More Love

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment and I am very tired. It was a lovely first day of the Festivals yesterday, in which I saw and hung out with some friends, met some new-to-me writers (Ashley Elston, who lives in Shreveport! Who knew?1), and went to the opening parties for both Festivals, then had dinner with friends. I also walked home from the Quarter last night, and as always, it was humid and about two blocks from home the delayed-sweat of night time humidity struck and I was drenched and sticky when I got home. Sparky was terribly needy, too, and I collapsed into my chair to see what fresh hells I had missed in the news yesterday (I do love being in a Festival bubble, I have to admit) and dozed off. I managed to wake up around midnight and go up to bed, and this morning…I am feeling very tired and worn out (not used to socializing, either), but once I am fully conscious and awake, I am going to have a great day. There’s a panel at eleven thirty that I’d like to see–Laura Lippman, Gillian Flynn, Megan Abbott and Alafair Burke (talk about a power panel)–and I need to do some research before the panel I am moderating this afternoon. I also have to speak at the anthology launch tonight, and after that I’m having dinner with some queer crime writers. Tomorrow I am on a panel and doing the Dorothy Allison Tribute Reading, and then the closing.

Thank God I took Monday off, because I will be completely drained and an empty husk.

I made my word count yesterday, but am not sure I can get it done today. Maybe after getting that research done on my panelists? The book’s end is getting tantalizingly close, but I know I am not going to be done when I need to be done, which is Tuesday. Why am I so unprofessional and difficult? Why can’t I ever make a deadline? That is a mystery for the ages, methinks. Oop, there’s the coffee kicking in at last…

In other exciting news, our auction raising funds for the Transgender Law Center continues to cook along, and today I am pleased to say that as of this morning, two signed Stephen King hardcovers are up for bid. The auction is open through Tuesday, so check it out, see what looks good to you, and bid on some excellent items! We’re almost to $30k in bids; which is fifty percent more than our goal, which is also amazing. Well done, community!

And on that note, I need to get moving. Sorry to be so brief, and won’t be back until tomorrow.

  1. Apparently a lot of people, since her debut hit Number One on the New York Times bestseller list! She’s lovely, by the way, and I am looking forward to reading her. ↩︎