Tag: social security

Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)

Saturday morning and I have a couple of errands to do this morning. I need to go by the bank (I haven’t made a deposit in person in eons) and I have to swing by the grocery store. Sigh. I really didn’t want to leave the house today, but here we are. It’s also a struggle these days to get through as we go through and experience the collapse of the American experiment in self-rule. I think another significant part of our history that isn’t taught the way it should be is we aren’t taught about how many Tories there were in the colonies during the lead up to and aftermath of the Revolution. We aren’t taught New England threatened to secede during the War of 1812, or that there were people on both sides of the Civil War1 that sympathized with the other side; North and South weren’t monoliths the way we are taught. We aren’t taught about how many Americans were Nazi sympathizers and isolationists before Pearl Harbor, using the slogan “America First”–so you see why I have always raised a cynical eyebrow whenever anyone uses that slogan; it was tied to Nazi sympathizers to me.

Watching the collapse of our country is challenging and more than a little bit depressing. It is terrible that just as I approach the age of retirement and the final chapter of my life…well, the retirement may turn out to be involuntary, as my clinic’s funding is definitely on the chopping block, Social Security is about to be looted and destroyed, and I don’t want to even look at the paltry 401k, which has also probably evaporated. No job and no retirement funds is going to be awesome when I turn 64. Paul got the notice from the NEH to not bother applying for grant funding, as it’s all been cut, so his job may not survive this, either–no more festivals in the spring. So, miss me with “we need to be nice to MAGA voters now finding out”–fuck them now and forever. I will never forgive them, and their suffering lightens mine. You want to embrace them, be my guess. Me? I will never stop laughing and pointing, let alone mocking them and enjoying their tears. My patience has worn out for ignorant haters, sorry not sorry– and as they so eloquently put it, “fuck your feelings.”

Yesterday was a nice day, overall. I got up, had a virtual meeting at work, and then did my Admin work before running some errands. I got that done, and then Paul and I made a Costco run and spent an insane amount of money. After getting home, lugging everything into the house and putting it all away, I was tired. I collapsed into my chair for a while as Paul went upstairs to work on the NEH grant–but got the email so didn’t have to bother for the rest of the evening and we dove further into The Residence, which I am greatly enjoying. Uzo Adoba is fantastic as Cordelia Copp, the world’s greatest detective, and it’s very well cast, high production values, and the writing is quite crisp. The chief usher at the White House (the divine Giancarlo Esposito) is murdered during a state dinner, and Cordelia is brought in to solve the murder. I think what’s most interesting is the divide between the White House domestic staff v. the White House political staff; the domestics work for the House, the political staff comes and goes. I’d never really thought much about the staff of the residence, so it’s an interesting look at how that all works, and it’s very cleverly structured. Highly recommend.

I do have some errands to do today, and a lot of straightening up to do as well. I want to get some reading and writing in this morning, so I can go to the gym tomorrow (I know, right?) and get some more done. I’ve been letting things slide a lot lately, which probably means I am depressed, which isn’t surprising, given the state of the world and everything else going on in my life. I think there’s an element of why bother with this book, to be honest, which is counter-productive and quite self-destructive, but it’s hard to be productive when your default is almost always pessimism. I always knew Republicans were working very hard to destroy everything decent about this country (unfettered capitalism is sociopathic in nature), but I never dreamed they might actually succeed. To paraphrase Game of Thrones: “Whenever I wonder why the Republicans would do something so counter-productive to democracy, I like to play a little game: what is the worst reason they would want to do this?”

Littlefinger was right, even if he did end up with his throat slit for his treachery.

Yesterday I also realized that one of the great American traditions, going back to colonial days, of evading paying duties and tariffs was smuggling. I used to love to read about Colonial smugglers (John Hancock was one), and some great fiction was built up around smuggling. I’ve always thought the years of Prohibition (and alcohol smuggling) in New Orleans would be an interesting time to write about. That decade saw the rise of Huey Long to power in Louisiana, and there are some fantastic stories about that post-Storyville time here. Jean Lafitte was a pirate, too–but he was also a very successful smuggler. But again, one of the great problems of New Orleans/Louisiana research is going down wormholes and sidebars–my ADHD does not matters at all in this regard; I do remember wanting to write about “Mrs. Officer,” the first woman cop in New Orleans, who was hired because they needed a woman to search and interrogate criminal women, which was a problem during Storyville days. I mean, what a great decade to research and write about! Imagine what “Mrs. Officer”2 endured in terms of misogyny as the only woman cop in an era where women couldn’t vote.

There’s also a protest today scheduled in New Orleans, as well as around the country. I’m hoping to make it, it just depends on how tired I am after getting things done this morning. I feel pretty good right now, but that also doesn’t mean I won’t flag later, either.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you most likely tomorrow morning.

  1. This is a classic example of why I say we don’t teach history properly (which will end up being a longer-form essay for my newsletter at some point). There were plenty of Tories during the American Revolution. There were Southern sympathizers in the North and Unionists in the South–I knew about the North, but whenever I’d come across that about the South I figured it was after-the-fact apologia, excusing Southern whites for their inhumanity. But over the least few years as I’ve done more deep dives into Alabama history, and hearing more old family stories, I’ve come to realize it was actually true. Erik Larson discusses this in more detail in his The Demons of Unrest, which I do recommend. ↩︎
  2. SHe was always referred to as “Mrs. Officer,” which also makes a great title. ↩︎

We Gotta Get Out of this Place

Thursday morning and there is STILL snow on the ground. I’ve yet to check the weather this morning, but I probably will before I finish this while drinking my coffee. We were told to work from home today, as opposed to having a snow day, mainly because the roads here are covered in ice and snow and it’s not very safe out there. It’s been nice, being snowed in and kind of isolated from the outside world pretty much this entire week; being distracted by the blizzard was also kind of lovely. It also reminded me why I love this city so much; the way everyone reacted to this marvelous surprise was simply adorable; everyone embraced it and had fun with it. Even I got past my distaste for snow and cold, which is kind of a miracle. It’s also nice having a functional HVAC system, so we stayed toasty and warm for the most part. Being closer to the floor, Sparky has obviously not enjoyed the cold quite as much, but it’s also turned him into more of a cuddly kitty too than he was before.

We finished watching White Lies, which had a few more surprising twists in the last few episodes, and really enjoyed it. I also did some writing–not much, of course–done, but I need to really get back on the ball with that. I also did a lot of file clean-up on my computer (the lengths I will go to not actually write anything is kind of amazing), which did, in fairness, need to be done. I am hoping that after I get my remote work done today I’ll be able to dive into the book again headfirst and get back on the writing horse that I kind of fell off of this past week. Blaming it on the blizzard works, of course. The news, of course, is as depressing and overwhelming, but the truth is I never really relaxed in the legal protections and the hint of equality we’ve had as queer people this century, and going back to being an legally oppressed minority doesn’t change a whole lot of things other than mental state for me. I’m also old, and have lived through these things before. But…there’s more than a little hint that this time might be different. The Republicans have gone full fascist (imagine explaining away a Heil Hitler salute done deliberately not once but twice. And don’t blame it on autism, thank you very much. Autism doesn’t make people Nazis, and Germany was not a nation of autistic people in the 1930s), but their vicious cruelty is countered by the utter incompetence. That’s the primary difference; MAGA aren’t competent) so nothing they would do, or try to do, would surprise me. They’re coming for Obergefell, and they are also targeting Medicare and Medicaid. Can Social Security be far behind? I mean, I hope everyone who voted for this is getting everything they hoped for out of this administration. But hey, eggs, right? And with the avian flu poised to reach pandemic status soon enough, I have no doubt in my mind this amazing leadership the country voted for will see us through it all safely. I wonder what the death toll will be? Will it be 1918-1919 Spanish flu levels? Remember, keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times!

It’s extremely funny to me that the people who have screamed and shouted the loudest about tyranny and freedom…elected a tyrant. Irony impaired much?

But today I got up early–which I’ve not done all week, really–and so it kind of feels like a return to normal after the wackiness of a New Orleans blizzard and snow on the ground for a few days. There’s still a lot of it out there that it still is a bit startling when I glance outside for a second the way I often do. I am awake and feel functional (I should, since I’ve not stepped inside the office since a week ago) and rested, so we’ll see how the day goes. I’m going to have to run errands at some point–but I also don’t know what’s open and what isn’t; if the grocery store is open, I could do that and check the post office since I was already out. But if it’s not, my postal service most likely isn’t, either, and I don’t think there’s a lot of mail to be had anyway; if the highways and airport are closed, there’s no way for mail to get in or out of New Orleans so that’s not much of a need in the first place. I wisely just checked the delivery estimate of a package that was supposed to arrive this week and yes, it’s delayed because of the weather–and the package is here in New Orleans at the distribution center. No one’s going to work at the post office, either. How long before we get back to what passes for normal around here?

I think the most important thing for me to do to survive the next few years (and being optimistic) is to write. Writing got me through the Bush years that kicked off the century, and writing will get me through this abhorrent one for as long as it can. I’m not a good German, though, so I have to remain dispassionate and not expend energy on outrage. The outrage is partly the point, really; and if we learned anything from the first go round that whatever outrage the legacy media is pushing, there’s something more important happening that they are deflecting from. None of the legacy media can be trusted as a source for information anymore, and it looks like I’ll be getting my news and opinion coverage from Rolling Stone, Teen Vogue, and ProPublica going forward. I have to protect my own sanity and mental health, and that is going to be my priority while I survive this horror that has descended upon us. I need to be able to focus, I need to be able to work, and I need to be able to stay energized. I cannot allow defeatism to take root in my head. Having a very fertile imagination, I can always go much further in imagining the worst, as my brain won’t filter itself for protection–I will always take things to their furthest extrapolations–if this than this and then this and then OMG. My imagination is both a blessing and a curse, it always has been.

I can always imagine the worst outcome.

And on that dreary note, I am heading into the spice mines. I should make use of this time productively, and get as much done as I can today before the reality of tomorrow–I’m assuming the office will be open tomorrow, and it seems strange to take my remote day tomorrow when I’ve been home already all week, but…we’ll see. My clinic doesn’t have hours tomorrow, but we do have services open on Fridays in my department, so we will have to see. They usually let us know before noon.

So I may be back today, one can never be certain. But I do need to get shit done today, and maybe even go outside for a minute to check on the car, which is probably still buried in snow. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in either tomorrow or later on today.

Jump

Well, I managed to survive not only getting up at five yesterday morning to be at Superior Honda (they simply ARE superior; I love my car dealership) but the almost six hundred dollars it cost me to visit. But I got my new tire, got new windshield wipers, and had the brakes flushed (it was one of this things marked “will need on next visit” the last time I had my car serviced) but overall, it could have been so much worse than it was. I’m grateful that I not only had the ability to absorb the cost, but without really having to plan it out or dip into savings. It was nice to authorize the work and not have to freak about the cost, or whether I had enough credit available, or needed to get cash out–all those things. It was kind of nice to have a financial situation that wasn’t a crisis of some sort (other than the flat tire, of course), and to just handle it. I guess that’s what other people do, I suppose. Is this what being an adult feels like? At almost sixty-two I finally know? I also got an email from Social Security yesterday, letting me know I’d completed all my requirements to qualify for both it and Medicare, along with a statement breaking down what I can expect from them monthly depending on what age I decide to retire.

Hmmm. That kind of just puts it right there in your face, doesn’t it?

But despite getting up early and despite the annoyance of the expense–both of which made the day kind of feel off-balance, slightly skewed on its axis– I wasn’t terribly tired after work. I made groceries, picked up the mail, came home and did a load of laundry and a load of dishes before sitting down to revise…and yes, doing it the way I usually do it does work better. Revisiting the openings of several of the later books helped as well–helped me plug into his voice, which is so crucial; Scotty’s voice is what makes these books work–and it went well. I feel confident again in my writing, which is a lovely feeling, and I feel like I am back in Scotty’s headspace, which is always a very pleasant and positive place to be. Life never gives you anything you can’t handle, it’s how you handle it that matters. I really wish I could be more like him in my real life as opposed to what I put onto the page. Ah, well.

We also watched the Donna Summer documentary on HBO; Love To Love You, Donna Summer, which was entertaining enough. The music was the most interesting thing about it, of course, and I don’t think it really had anything new to say about fame, or the public persona vs. the private person, but it was interesting enough. She was very intelligent, particularly when it came to what she was doing as opposed to who the real person actually was; the quote was something like “everything’s choices, not limitations” i.e. she was doing what she was doing musically because that was what she was choosing to do at that time, and she wasn’t limited to that type or style of music or singing. She certainly recorded some amazing dance music, and given what I have always thought were some of the stupidest lyrics ever written, she made “MacArthur Park” actually work. (“I Feel Love” is also one of the greatest recordings of all time, without question.) So, that was a fun and pleasant way to spend the evening as I wound down to go to bed.

I checked in on social media–the unpleasant doom scroll before bed–and saw that the Dodgers had apologized, and made amends with promises to learn and do better in the future. This brought out the usual ‘phobes everywhere, foaming at the mouth and swearing eternal hatred for the Dodgers, baseball, and of course, queer people–because our existence ruins everything for these people. I actually enjoy that aspect of homophobia, quite frankly. I don’t know these people, I’ve never met these people, and I don’t ever want to know these people. But the fact that they just hate me, want me outlawed if not outright publicly executed, for the crime of existing instead makes me relish the fact that my existence enrages them and spoils everything they in which they might find joy (Bud Lite, baseball) in their pitiful, meaningless, empty and sad little lives. I mean, imagine how miserable you have to be, in every aspect of your life, that you spend so much time and expend so much energy on hating people you don’t even know, letting them ruin the few pleasures you have (including, many times by now, your childhood), instead of focusing that energy on actually making your own life better for you and your family? I used to pity them, for their narrow-minded and heretical interpretation of Christianity and perversion of the actual teachings of the man they claim is their Lord and Savior. I am not a practicing Christian, but I was raised as one and I still remember what the message actually was. In fact, the reason I do not consider myself to be a Christian is because it is impossible to love Christ while having hate in your heart, and I carry hate in my heart.

For the people who laughed while my community suffered and died. For the people who think people like me don’t deserve a right to be happy, to work and live and embrace everything life and the world have to offer. Who think my relationship with Paul isn’t a real relationship, despite being together for going on twenty-eight years in July. Who don’t think I deserve equal rights under the law like every other American, simply because of who I love…which really isn’t anyone’s business but my own. For the people who don’t think I have a right to be happy and flourish. For the people who think they somehow have the right to say horrific, insulting shit to me, about me, and my community; vile despicable slanders that are nothing new but just the same recycled talking points and slurs and dehumanizations, lather rinse repeat, over and over and over again.

But thank you, Dodgers, for not bowing to the people with braces on their brains and blinders on their hearts, recognizing slander for what it was despite all of its hideous, pseudo-religious pearl-clutching dressing.

Overall, not a bad day yesterday. I hope that today follows suit. I am slowly but surely digging out from under the piles of everything around my desk here at home, the emails in my inbox, direct messages everywhere that are unreplied to, and of course I am so behind on my reading! But this is a three-day weekend coming up, which is a pleasant surprise I’d forgotten, and that should make book writing that much easier, which is a very lovely thing. I should also be able to get some good rest over the course of the weekend, and I am not going to beat myself up if my ambitions for said weekend aren’t met or matched by performance. I do want to finish reading my book this weekend–I’ve really got to get back into that reading for an hour to unwind after writing thing I was doing, that worked nicely–but in some ways I am still getting past everything. I feel good this morning, too–like my brain isn’t foggy, and I am alive and awake and rested and alert, which is a very pleasant change from the way things have been for months–so I feel like maybe, just maybe, I am going to have a good day today.

One can hope, at any rate. Hope you do the same, Constant Reader!

Reflections

Tuesday morning and feeling slightly a little bit off–I am unused as of yet to this entire shift in my work week, which now sees me heading into the office on Tuesdays thru Thursdays. I feel very well rested this morning; I had a lot to get done over the weekend and for the most part, I was finished with everything I needed to get done last night when it was time to repair to my chair for Archive 81, which is hypnotically addicting (more on that later). I slept very well last night–no doubt due to my emotional, physical and mental exhaustion after getting so much work done over the weekend–and feel very rested and awake and slightly a-rarin’ to go this morning. I still have come clean up work to do on A Streetcar Named Murder, and I suspect there will be voluminous editorial notes on it once it goes in, but that’s okay and fine. I am just mostly relieved that I will be able to get it turned in tomorrow the way I am supposed to–two weeks extended deadline–and I am quite sure the release of that particular pressure had a lot to do with the release of the stress valve in my brain last night and why I slept better than I have in weeks last night.

It’s always a stress relief when you finish a book, regardless of what condition it is when you turn it in (#shedeservedit was a total bloody mess; my editor on that one saved me from myself like you wouldn’t believe). And while it’s not finished–there’s still some clean-up on Aisle 10 that is required before I finally attach it to an email and send it off once and for all–it’s going to be, and knowing that I will be able to get it in tomorrow probably also has something to do with my mood this morning. I feel weirdly, oddly satisfied this morning; there’s really no other way to describe it, really. I also feel light, like a weight has been lifted from me. Of course, that doesn’t mean the entire world won’t blow up in my face between now and when I leave for Alabama on Friday; but for now I am just going to relax and enjoy the feeling for as long as it lasts (which probably won’t be that long, in all honesty). I also took some time and thought about my future over the weekend–what’s left of it, at any rate–and made some decisions about what, exactly, I want to do over the next few years. I need to come up with a five-year plan that will carry me through my retirement from the day job; I need to be in a position by then to have that loss of income replaced–Social Security sure as hell isn’t going to cut it, let’s be honest–and of course, Medicare will only do so much so the insurance issue also has to be resolved in five years as well. It’s a daunting through, and more than a little scary–but being afraid of it isn’t going to solve it or make the problem go away.

Although I suppose if I am not working forty hours a week and volunteering the way I have always done, I will have more than enough time to do a lot of writing.

Which of course means I would have to make myself do it–never an easy chore!

Of course, I still have a short story–“The Rosary of Broken Promises”–due on Monday, but I think I should be able to get that finished on time, now that the book is out of the way, and the only other writing commitment that I can think of is “Solace in a Dying Hour,” which I think is due in April, if I am not mistaken. I want to take February to do some finishing touches on things–some of the novellas, other short stories–and then I want to jump into Chlorine in March. If I stay focused I should be able to have a first draft finished by the end of that month, and then I can jump in the next Scotty in April. By June, the plan should be to have all the novellas finished as well as those first drafts; I’d like to spend the summer pulling together the next short story collection, and once that’s done, I want to start revising the manuscripts I finished in the early part of the year, and that should easily carry me into the next year. For 2023, I’d like to maybe write Voices in an Empty Room and possibly start a new series with a gay main character; my gay true crime writer from New Orleans–whom I’ve already introduced into the Scotty series–but the problem is ensuring he isn’t Chanse or Scotty; I tend to get very lazy with things like that. I have some other stand alone ideas, too.

It never really ends, does it?

It’s going to take some getting used to the idea that today is Tuesday and not Monday; it still is bitch slapping me and probably will continue to do so for the rest of the day. Ah, well, there is nothing to be done about that other than trying to get used to it, I suppose.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Guilty Partner

I slept better last night than I have the last two nights, but it still left something to be desired. I woke up regularly throughout the night, but managed to relax enough somehow to always feel like I was resting, which was lovely and nice and helped; I certainly hope I am not going to be as fucking tired today as I was all day yesterday–which was miserable. Tonight I should go to the gym after I get off work, but we’ll have to see how I am feeling. I can always, in a worst case scenario, push it off till Wednesday night if I am too tired this evening.

Heavy sigh.

But it’s Tuesday and the week is progressing; time and tide wait for no one, and especially not for me. It occurred to me last night as I sat in my chair watching another episode of The Capture (which is really well done and interesting; here’s hoping they don’t blow the great premise over the final four episodes) that I am turning sixty this year in August and what I really need to do, really should do, is come up with a five-year-plan that will carry me into retirement from the day job. I know I shouldn’t really retire that early because of the benefit increases to seniors if I wait until seventy; but I honestly don’t know that I can do another ten years, honestly. So, if I want to retire at sixty-five, I need a plan to increase my income to compensate for the loss of my salary. (And yes, I know retiring at 65 means I won’t get my full benefits, but I can’t see waiting another almost two years. I can barely handle it now, let alone almost another seven years.) So, I am going to try to figure out a five-year plan for me, both personally and professionally.

I have to say, rereading the manuscript on Sunday (it’s not a good sign that I fell asleep reading it; but I was tired from the gym and not sleeping well Saturday night) but I was kind of embarrassed by how bad some of my sentences were and how paragraphs were constructed, to the point I was beginning to question my ability to write anything; I’m not going to lie, since the pandemic struck I’ve been having a lot of issues writing, and what little confidence I may have had at one time (not entirely sure I ever had any, honestly) is completely gone now. That’s something I really need to work on. Several years ago, in another fallow/low-confidence period, I came up with some things to say every morning, going with the old theory that saying something out loud every day will make it come true because I will start believing in it. Needless to say, at some point I stopped saying the affirmations aloud every morning–not sure when that happened, or why it happened; but I just did, and I think I may need to start doing it again. I’ve never had much self-confidence about anything, to be completely honest, and it’s very easy for me to go down the dark path of self-doubt and self-castigation.

The joys of the mood swings, seriously.

But today is much better than yesterday–and Sunday for that matter; being tired clearly affects my moods–and so I am probably going to try to dive back into the manuscript tonight when I get home from work. Here’s hoping I have the energy to not only do so but to make dinner as well. Fingers crossed, right?

But I do need to snap the fuck out of whatever this whatever it is, is, and get back to work on everything.

Heavy sigh.

I also need to get back to reading for pleasure. I have so many amazing books on hand that I want to read, and yet somehow I just am always so worn out in the evenings I can’t focus on reading anything other than things I am reading for research, and I also need to jump back into writing new stuff–Chlorine is just sitting there, and there are any number of other stories I want and need to write or revise or finish. I’ve already allowed so much time to go past that I am going to miss a submission deadline for a story I wanted to get out there–partly the current computer nonsense, mostly; an annoyance I am not going to get into right here–but the older I get the more of a Luddite I appear to be.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader.