Tag: Sparky

Something Like That

Monday and back to the spice mines for me today. It has been a glorious long weekend of sorts; and while I didn’t get nearly as much accomplished as I would have liked…it was kind of lovely coming downstairs this morning to a neat and orderly appointment. I woke up this morning with Paul on my right side and Sparky curled up around my feet, which was remarkably comfortable and cozy; I would have happily stayed there for hours. It certainly helped me sleep more deeply, methinks. I did spend a lot of time organizing and filing and cleaning yesterday, which was very nice. The twelve days of Christmas end tomorrow with the arrival of Twelfth Night, which officially kicks off Carnival season–which also means KING CAKE SEASON! Huzzah! I am going to pick one up on the way home tonight (since I have to stop anyway) but won’t be cutting into it until tomorrow morning which is TWELFTH NIGHT. And I won’t be using Christmas imagery any longer after tomorrow, either.

It’s dark outside my windows this morning, which feels a bit odd after getting up later for the last four days. The Saints also lost yesterday, but it didn’t bug me in the least; they seem to be gelling as a team behind this new quarterback, Tyler Slough and thus, hope springs eternal as ever for us Saints fans. I didn’t have the mental faculties to read very much yesterday, and I didn’t write a newsletter, as I had hoped to do. (It’s already started; I just need to finish it…) Part of this is Sparky’s fault; he was glued to me for the last two days–following me around, riding on my shoulder, wanting to sleep in my lap and cuddle.

It was also kind of interesting to just let the day happen, as I did yesterday. It was nice not being in a rush to do anything or feeling the ticking of the clock advancing as the day wore on and time passed. I didn’t do the living room floor–but I got the kitchen floor under control again. I also got a lot of filing and organizing of my work space done, too, which is terrific; I should be able to maintain the apartment easily from now on so long as I stay on top of it, or don’t let things slide for days or till the weekend. As I mentioned before, Sparky was glued to me yesterday and very needy, so I would do something and then have to sit so he could nap on me for a bit. Yes, I am Sparky’s bitch, but he’s such a dear little boy.

And of course, every time I think oh I can’t sit now, baby I’d remember all the times I’d said that to Skittle and Scooter and how I wish I could go back and love them even more than I did…and I am putty in Sparky’s hands. Skittle and Scooter did teach me how to love a cat. I doubt very much that it would work, but I wish I could have all three of my cats in the bed with me every morning. I suspect they were all meant to be only cats…but sometimes I think Sparky needs a buddy to play with…usually when he’s biting and clawing my arm in rough play. He does love to pounce…

I have to work in the clinic today, and we’re going to be extremely busy this week, so I sense I’ll be exhausted by the time the week ends. I know Paul wants to go to Costco this weekend, and since the house is clean, all I need to do is stay on top of things and then I don’t have to do anything major this weekend, and can start doing other things that need to be done. More books need to be pruned, more files need to be destroyed, and the attic needs to be thoroughly cleaned out.

And on that note, I best be going. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow in the morning.

If We Make It Through December

Sunday, as we slowly transition from Yule season into Carnival, and I have to go back to the office tomorrow. Paul is coming home sometime today–I can’t find his flight schedule, but he usually comes back late in the evening; I may even go to bed before he gets home. Some greeting, right? But I have to get up at six tomorrow morning, he knows that, so I won’t worry about that now. I’ll see him after work when I get home from the office. I didn’t do a whole lot yesterday; I did some chores and ran a couple of errands (it was gorgeous yesterday) and when I got home, wasn’t terribly motivated to do much of anything. I did keep doing some cleaning and organizing and filing at various intervals throughout the day, but there’s still a lot to get done this morning/today. I feel more awake and alive this morning than I did yesterday; perhaps the drinks on Friday night and the walking did wear me out a little bit, even though I wasn’t expressly fatigued. My batteries were a little low, is all. I also have to be careful not to overdo anything because I feel better, you know? I also partly blame it on Sparky, who wanted to sleep in my lap all day, the sweet boy.

I also need to make a new to-do list.

It was surreal yesterday to check in and do my morning blog post and then check the news to see that “Donald the dove” (right, Maureen Dowd? How do you show your face in public, you tragically evil and clearly shameless hateful piece of shit?) had started a war all by himself! And people want to forgive his voters for being conned? No thank you–I’ll carry those grudges to the fucking grave. I am completely incapable of feeling empathy (and I am very empathetic) for the people who joyfully and gladly voted for every last bit of this agenda. Oh no, miss me with your “I didn’t vote for this.” Yes, you fucking did, and you mocked everyone who tried warning you before hand. Where are all those people who told me I was overreacting in 2016? In 2024? You deserve to be reminded of your gleeful ignorance and hateful disrespect every fucking day for the rest of your fucking lives. I sure as fuck didn’t vote for any of this bullshit, yet have to deal with it because YOU wanted to “own the libs.”

NO ONE IS LAUGHING NOW. HAPPY? No? Ever heard the phrase “you reap what you sow”? Well, now you’re reaping what you sowed and you don’t seem very happy with it. Live with the shame and utter humiliation of your public ignorance and stupidity, and you get no sympathy or pity from me–and there will certainly be no forgiveness ever coming from me.

Hope you kept your diapers, ear tampons, and golden shoes! Hillary was only wrong in underestimating how many of you were deplorable pieces of shit. Although, there is something almost comically ironic about the fall of the United States’ experiment in democracy coming from the small hands of an uneducated bigoted pedophile rapist. Well done, white people, well done.

And yet I still have high hopes that this will, all evidence to the contrary, be a good year. I feel weird about that, to be honest; how can I feel positive about the future in the face of all evidence to the contrary? It feels weird to be feeling good about myself and my life, making plans (tentative, as so much is out of my control) and just in general being happy and pleased with myself? I think I have one more year to stay away from conferences and so forth, to continue working on myself and my work and shaping up everything in the directions I want to take, before I return again to the wild world of mystery conferences. I think Bouchercon is in DC for 2027, and so I will probably go to that.

I did watch a lot of videos on Youtube yesterday–some historical stuff (the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt; Cleopatra’s sister1; the Valois dynasty of France), some interviews and reviews of Heated Rivalry, and sports “commentators” on the collapse of Alabama in the play-offs, or the SEC “not being what it was.” I also don’t–and have never–understood the mentality of “my conference is better than yours” arguments; they are pointless beyond any metric beyond winning the championships. The Big Ten has won two in a row, and could be winning a third in a row this year, with three different schools. That’s impressive, indeed. Of course, the SEC did that from 2007-2010 with four different schools…but that’s also the past. One of the biggest problems I have always seen with college football is the polls–because being a brand name is the most important thing with the polls. Ohio State was number one for how long, and how long was Indiana ranked behind them, only for Indiana to beat them? Indiana isn’t a brand like Ohio State or Alabama–although that may be changing now. Preseason polls are meaningless now, just like any polls before the playoff rankings and any bowl game that isn’t a part of the playoffs–which is why you cannot look at bowl results as a metric of conference strength. Many players opt out of the bowl games now because they are meaningless, so bowl teams are often not the same team from the season. Toxic fandom is just another phase of toxic masculinity–and women can be as bad, if not worse, than men.

And on that note, I am going to get another cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich and see what all is going on in the world today, before I get back to work on cleaning.

  1. Arsinoë IV has always been of interest to me, as was Cleopatra’s older sister Berenice. ↩︎

Younger Me

Happy New Year, everyone! We made it all the way through 2025, and finally said farewell to yet another shitty year for the world in general. How long will we continue to be hopeful about the promise of this new year? A day? Two? A week? I am not wagering anything on this, mind you; too many times in the last ten years have I thought oh thank fucking God this annus horribilis has ended, only for the new year to be even worse. Definitely not making that mistake again!

Sparky has been a cuddle boy–waaaay more than usual–since Paul left. He sleeps in the bed next to me, curls up on my pillow and goes back to sleep once he lets me know he’s hungry and I need to get up soon. When I am in my easy chair, he either sleeps in my lap or on my chest. Last night when I got home, he was all about being needy, which was sweet. He was in my lap during the entire Miami-Ohio State game (well done, Miami! Woo-hoo! Looks like you deserved to be in the play-offs after all, doesn’t it?), and rode on my shoulders when I went up to bed (I did fall asleep in my chair once the game was over).

It was cold again yesterday and will be again today. I’m going to do chores, read, and have the television on for the football playoffs, but no guarantees here that I will pay attention to any of them. I want to get the downstairs all straightened up, maybe even the upstairs, too–there is, after all, another television in the bedroom–or…I may not do a damned thing. Who knows? It’s a holiday, after all, and why should I actually work on a holiday? I don’t have any deadlines, other than some submission calls I might try to get something ready for; I missed all the December 31 ones I was going to try for (what else is new?) but hopefully, this year I will be better about things like that and will make lists to remind me and get everything organized.

I also forgot to mention, in yesterday’s 2025 round up, probably the best thing I did all year and probably the best thing I’ve done in decades: I was one of the organizing committee members for a fundraising auction to benefit the Transgender Law Center. Not only did we pass our goal, we passed it significantly. I always forget about it because the actual auction was during the same weekend as TWFest/Saints and Sinners, and of course that was also when I started getting sick, so yeah, two years or so of work slips my mind because other things were happening at the same time. I also had a lovely time that same weekend, even as my heath started declining. Anyway, thanks very much to the driving forces on the whole thing from the very beginning (Susie Calkins, Cheryl Head, Ed Aymar, Sandra SG Wong, and Jen Dornan-Fish; I think that’s everyone and if I forgot you, sorry) for including me on this special project, everyone who donated items, and those who bid on things, even those who didn’t win. I also would be remiss in not mentioning those who came into the committee later and did yeoman’s work to make the auction succeed: Robyn Gigl, John Copenhaver, and Brenda Buchanan; if I am forgetting someone, my apologies) The response from the crime fiction community almost made my desiccated heart grow three sizes.

Almost. Let’s not get crazy.

Goals for the new year are the same as they are for every year: getting better organized; be better about my writing career; getting into better physical shape; staying on top of everything; and making a plan for the year and sticking to it. I also need to be more consistent with my newsletter; it was originally intended to be at least once a week, with no more than three per week during a productive one…only now I seem to go a long time without writing one. It grew really nicely this past year, and this was also the year where I separated out daily reports like this from the newsletter and made it about topics I want to do a deeper dive into–there are lots of drafts, of course–which has made things a little bit easier. I also want to work further on myself this year, too–not just the physical stuff; I really need to continue feeding my brain and re-educating myself on everything I am unlearning.

And on that note, I am taking my coffee and a purring kitty to my easy chair, where I will probably spend most of the day with my brain turned off. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I do hope your new year will be marvelous and full of joy.

She’s In Love With The Boy

Tuesday morning, New Year’s Eve Eve, as it were, and Paul is leaving today to visit his family. I don’t much care for it when he isn’t home; maybe the first day or two are kind of nice and quiet and peaceful, but it starts getting on my nerves after a couple of days. It’s also amazing how empty the house seems when he’s out of town. Although, I suppose one day it might be something I’ll have to get used to? I will cross that proverbial bridge when I get to it. So, I will come home to an empty house tonight, and Sparky will glue himself to me for the next six days. There are worse things, I suppose, than cat cuddles on cold nights, and having a little tortie shadow following me around and never letting me out of his sight. I’m glad I only have to work tomorrow–Friday is my work-at-home day still–because he will be very traumatized when I get home after work tomorrow. He’ll not be so bad tonight–he won’t miss Paul until he doesn’t come home tomorrow at all. He really is the sweetest boy, and I’ll have to give him a lot of attention.

Which I do not mind in the least.

I found out yesterday that one of my dearest friends (and biggest supporters) passed away a few weeks ago. She’d been ill for a long time, so I hadn’t seen her in quite some time, because she had low energy and heart issues, and I am a lot (I am). I had actually thought the other day about her and how we needed to get over there to catch up and say hello…too little too late. Heavy sigh. The worst part of getting older is losing loved ones to the angel of death. That was the part I never thought about; I guess I was assuming everyone I loved would outlive me.

Apparently, that’s not going to be the case and I’ll probably wind up living to a hundred. Which would be just my luck, you know? I just keep going on and on, shouting at clouds and forgetting what I went into the kitchen for. Hurray. But I will miss her terribly. Oh, how hard she could make me laugh! And so incredibly smart, too; I loved talking to her about books and movies and television shows we enjoyed. She was a huge mystery fan, as well as holding a PhD in History (I’d jokingly call her “Doc” every once in a while, which she hated–I don’t know why I enjoy teasing people so much; I should probably stop).

Sigh.

But with Paul gone, I can watch some things I’ve been pushing off but meaning to get around to–my re-watch of the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies comes to mind–and there’s no excuse for not being able to get back into reading extensively again. I’m enjoying the two books I’ve started, but am not making much progress. My Noirmas was a complete bust, but I did get to reread The Postman Always Rings Twice, and I have some essays to finish for the newsletter. Noirmas is technically not over until Twelfth Night, January 6th, so I have time to get some of these other choices read before starting my next reading project, whatever it might be. Maybe some non-fiction? I’ve got some awesome non-fiction books on hand; maybe I should dig into those? Nonfiction February? That could be a winner, and I can then extend Noirmas through January.

I also am not certain why I am so focused on projects, but it makes me happy, so there’s that.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely New Year’s Eve Eve, Constant Reader and I shall be back on the last day of 2025!

I really hate his bikini….but the rest is nice, isn’t it?

Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You

And it’s back to the office with me this morning. Bleargh. There are worse things, after all, and I don’t have to go in on Thursday, so that’s something. But it’s been a hot minute since I got up this early, so it feels weird to be sitting here, a bit groggy, with dark outside. But my coffee tastes good and the incoming cold weather doesn’t strike until tomorrow. Paul is leaving to see his mom tomorrow and won’t be back until sometime Sunday, so it’s just going to be me and a lonely, needy cat here for nearly a week. That’s okay; I don’t mind having Sparky glued to me at all times when I’m home. He really doesn’t like being left alone by himself, and he really doesn’t like it when only one of us is home. He’s a spoiled little baby, but he’s our spoiled little baby, isn’t he?

I feel surprisingly good this morning; it wasn’t a struggle to get out of bed and I was also able to resist hitting snooze repeatedly until I had to rush around the house like a madman, either. Today is my injection day, so I need to take it out of the refrigerator to thaw out for forty-five minutes before attaching it to myself. I also don’t know if today is an Admin Day or a clinic day; in either case, we aren’t busy at all this week so it’s not a very big deal, one way or the other. The rest of the week is very slow, too–we kick back into high gear next week, after the new year, as everyone’s insurance resets for a new calendar year. Woo-hoo! But my mood is good, I don’t feel tired, the coffee is going down well, and I am getting a bit hungry and may have to eat my breakfast sandwich here in a moment.

I was really hungry! But that sandwich hit the spot properly. I also have to do my every-eight-weeks-injection–and I can sort of tell it’s almost time. My digestive system hasn’t been painful or anything, but…I can tell when the injection is almost due. I’ve been very dehydrated lately, so need to focus on replenishing electrolytes this week, too; this is all related, of course, to the UC (bastard that it is). I am sure everything will be fine once I pump the medicine into my abdomen for five minutes. So exciting!

We watched Cover-Up, the documentary about Seymour Hersh, which was very interesting. I hadn’t thought of Sy Hersh in years, but have always appreciated his reporting work. He does kind of come across as a bit of a dick in the documentary, but they don’t make journalists like him anymore, which is a pity. My formative teen years (the 1970s) was a decade of spectacular journalism, which made me think that the bad old days of yellow journalism and if it bleeds it leads were a thing of the past and all journalists were ethical and did things the right way and protected the public interest all these years…Fox and our current embarrassment of legacy media is definitely something that needs to be fixed in the future, but our system has become so corrupted that they don’t even bother trying to hide it anymore.

Brigitte Bardot, the Nazi skank who couldn’t act, died. Hope she’s enjoying the flames of hell like the racist homophobic piece of shit deserved. You didn’t become famous for your intellect, madam. After Anthony Geary and Rob Reiner, it was nice to not feel a bit sad when a celebrity died.

The long holiday weekend was lovely, even if I accomplished very little. I did run the dishwasher before I went to bed last night, so I need to unload it tonight, and pick up a few things around the apartment. I also have to make a bit of groceries on my way home from work tonight–nothing major, nothing much, just a couple of things to get me through the week. Tomorrow night I’ll need to swing by the post office to pay the rental and pick up the mail for the last time in 2025…2026 might be worse than 2025, but at least for now there’s the promise of things getting better somehow. I usually do start the year with optimism…

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely last Monday of the year, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back here for New Year’s Eve Eve tomorrow.

Old Town Road

So this is Christmas! Hope everyone has the kind of day they desire; as for me, I am staying inside all day and being a lazy slug, which is exactly what I did yesterday, and it was absolutely marvelous. I didn’t even read anything; I wanted my brain turned off completely and didn’t even want to think about anything or everything. It was nice. I feel really rested and relaxed this morning…Sparky started demanding I get up about six, but he’s actually sweet about it. He’ll try for a bit, and when I don’t get up he’ll cuddle for a bit, but every time I move, he’ll try again for a little while before going back to being cuddly. I don’t have the heart to tell him that his being cuddly makes me want to stay in bed all the more…

Cats are marvelous pets, really.

We got very heavily into our binge of Down Cemetery Road, which we are really enjoying. I’m going to have to read the book it was based on, written by Mick Herron–someone I’ve not read yet but is really recommended by almost everyone I know who has read his work. Emma Thompson is terrific, and I hope this gets another season; there are four books in total about Zoë Boehm. She’s going to be a favorite at the Emmys, deservedly so. I also started watching the 1995 Canadian Hardy Boys series, but turned it off after five minutes because it was terrible; the Hardy Boys/juvenile series groups I belong to despise the show, but I wanted to give it a shot, as they tend to not like anything that is even slightly different from the books…but in this instance, they were absolutely correct. I then started a German/South African adaptation of another juvenile series I enjoyed, The Three Investigators and the Secret of Terror Castle, which has a very young Cameron Monaghan playing Bob Andrews, but I didn’t finish it, either–despite a very strong start, I was too fidgety yet to commit to watching anything other than Youtube videos until Paul got home from having his hair colored.

A most exciting Christmas Eve, was it not?

I also did some chores–laundry, dishes, the kitchen–but for the most part, it was exactly the kind of day I wanted and needed, and here’s hoping that today will be the same. I won’t start making the turkey in the slow cooker until noonish, so we can have it for dinner tonight as we finish watching Down Cemetery Road. I’ll probably start making notes for my end of 2025 recap soon, too.

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close. Have a wonderful day, no matter how you spend it or what you do with it, Constant Reader, and as always, thank you for stopping by!

At a glance this guy reminds me of Pete Buttigieg.

If I Had a Boat

Christmas Eve!

It’s a bit foggy this morning, with the bright sun’s rays desperately trying to pierce through to light up the day. It’s also warm again this morning–New Orleans winter bipolarity striking once more–but I slept late, feel great, and am very relaxed this morning. I don’t really have a lot of plans for today; I’m going to do some chores (because there’s always chores) and I really want to not do much of anything tomorrow on Christmas. We decided to get the pizza on Friday for the weekend (along with a trip to Costco to get a new television), and I got a turkey breast to put in the slow cooker tomorrow for pulled turkey, so it will be sort of festive. I have some dishes and laundry to do today, too–no rush, and I can do them whenever. Paul has things to do outside the house, so I am going to have the afternoon alone here to read and do those chores and just chill. It’s going to be rather pleasant and relaxing, methinks. Huzzah!

I did stop and make groceries on my way home last night, which wasn’t as terrible as one might have expected for the night before Christmas Eve. I had the malaise again yesterday at the office, but I got everything done that needed to be done, and now I am current again with everything, which is absolutely lovely. This is an improvement, I must add; before whenever I’d have the malaise it struck everything; including the day job with me pushing everything back because…I don’t wanna. This new version of malaise doesn’t halt me from working at the office; it just affects my writing and editing and creating. I did feel somewhat tired when I got home last night, which is why I didn’t do any chores or anything, just collapsing into my easy chair to catch up on the news, bond with a needy Sparky, and chill out. I found myself watching reaction videos of hockey fans watching Heated Rivalry (which is really having a moment, isn’t it?), which was very fun. We also started watching Down Cemetery Road with Emma Thompson, which is quite excellent. (Ruth Wilson is also terrific in it.)

It’s also weird this week because I keep thinking today is Friday, just as I kept thinking yesterday was Thursday all day. My days and dates are going to be all fucked up now, and I’ll soon have to check to see what day of the week it is. It’s a little bit disorienting here and there, of course, but I plan to use these five days to get sorted; I’ve kind of felt scattered and disorganized all year (well, this entire decade), and I want to use this free time to do some writing, yes, but also to try to get a stronger grip on things. I also have to prepare for my year-end wrap-up as well as set goals for the new year. I don’t remember what my goals were for 2025, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say I didn’t accomplish any of them. I only wrote one book this year, and I think I published two or three short stories? I’ve sold one that will be in anthology that comes out next year, but that’s it.

What I really need is a thorough to-do list, and I bought a specific notebook (with Things I Need to Get Done But Probably Won’t on the cover) for to-do lists for 2026, which is a nice start to getting organized for the year, methinks. In fact, I think I’ll make my initial to-do list (for the rest of the year) at some point today. I may even start my rewatch of the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies this morning; one never knows. I was also thinking it might be nice to rewatch Gods and Monsters again….hmmm. There’s also the new Frankenstein to watch, too.

And on that pleasant note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a marvelous Christmas Eve, Constant Reader, no matter how you choose to spend it.

And I’ll be back tomorrow morning like presents under a tree.

Snapped one night walking around my gorgeous neighborhood!

Guitars, Cadillacs

Merry Christmas Eve Eve! I just have to get through the day and then it’s holiday vacation time! I got a lot done at work yesterday, but was very low-energy. I wasn’t tired, or fatigued, or even sleepy (the three stages of tired for me), but just a little bit off. More of an “odd energy” day than anything else, I suppose. But I wasn’t in the mood to stop and make groceries on the way home as I had planned–and didn’t realize until just now how stupid it is to go to the grocery store the night before Christmas Eve…heavy heaving sigh, but it’ll have to do. I’ll just go uptown and get the mail when I leave the office today, swing by the store, and get gas. No worries, no problems, and no big deal. There was hardly any traffic yesterday morning when I drove to work, and not really much on the way home, either. Here’s hoping that will last through today, right? Sparky was needy when I got home last night, too, so I didn’t get much of anything done last night, either–which is perfectly fine. I did think some things through during the day and evening, so it counts.

It’s the malaise, I suppose. My mind is also unfocused right now, so my creativity energy is bouncing all over the place and so many different works that are in progress right now racing through my brain…it’s actually fun, if annoying. I think I will actually spend Christmas Eve and Christmas not doing much of anything other than mildly picking up and straightening the house, and reading. Then I have three full days to get things done before I return to the office on Monday for a mere three day work week before my next day off, then work at home Friday, and another weekend. I am getting terribly, terribly spoiled.

Hilariously, someone had put up a voodoo doll dressed up as an ICE agent and stuck full of pins here in New Orleans, and that (of all things) went viral over the weekend. The result? MORE of them popped up all over New Orleans, especially after our Attorney General Liz Murrill (aka Pam Bondi Lite) reacted publicly by threatening people with criminal charges for putting up–wait for it–voodoo dolls1. Apparently a significant portion of them have been calling in sick since the first one went up. Thoughts and prayers, guys, thoughts and prayers.

One thing you have to say about Heated Rivalry–it’s enormously popular and driving a lot of conversations. As always, the discourse on who can write who, who can make money writing about whom, and who gets their work adapted for the screen popped up again, as it inevitably does; and it is a conversation that does need to be had…but without hurt feelings, nastiness, and homophobia. As I always say, writers can write about whatever they want and for whatever reason they might have, whether writers should is a different and highly nuanced conversation that cannot be had on social media, for the record.

Let me say this, though: whatever anyone wants to say about them, at least m/m writers don’t write tragedy/trauma porn, and they don’t kill off their gay characters, which put them miles head of most straight authors, who choose to write gay characters as sad, tragic losers destined for unhappiness, misery, and early death.

The noble, tragic gay trope is very, very tired.

And I love that the show is opening eyes, hearts, and minds. What more could anyone ask for? (I do love seeing older straight white women explaining to Gen Z queers how hard it used to be to come out; isn’t it still?) It still burns my ass that Netflix canceled Boots like the craven cowards they are, but they have a history of this; see Dead Boy Detectives (but I think that was canceled because of Neil Gaiman predator blowback, other than having a gay main character). But there is already a second series of Heated Rivalry greenlighted; not sure how that will precisely work.

And on that cheery note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely pre-Christmas Eve, and I will be back on the morrow for more holiday cheer!

Ah, the things I would do to Mario Lopez…
  1. And I love that ICE is afraid of voodoo in New Orleans. Shouldn’t have come, Gestapo man, shouldn’t have come. And the curses laid upon you here will follow you for the rest of your life… ↩︎

Baby Now That I’ve Found You

Monday and back to the office with me this morning. I only have to go into the office today and tomorrow this week; the schedule is absurdly (almost ridiculously) light in the clinic for the next two days; somehow I’ll make it through to my lengthy holiday weekend. I feel good and rested this morning, too. It was a very lovely and peaceful weekend, and I managed to get a lot done (and I am not qualifying that anymore by decrying what I didn’t get done). Baby steps to a healthier me, which was one of the goals for 2025, wasn’t it? As a new year looms, it’s also time to start thinking about my goals for 2026…

Yesterday was rather nice and lovely. Sparky let me sleep in yesterday morning, and I did some chores throughout the course of the day. It was, as always, lovely to come down this morning to a mostly clean kitchen, with only a few things left to do tonight when I get home to reestablish order in the kitchen. Now that I’ve got the downstairs under control again, it should be a lot easier to maintain, which means I can spend time cleaning the stuff I never get around to–baseboards, windows, etc.–and I should probably take the car to the car wash at some point during the holiday weekend. I’ll have to still run errands, of course, but after I get Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve–we’re getting a deep dish pizza from That’s Amore out in Metairie–I should be able to spend Wednesday and Thursday without having to go anywhere. Huzzah, indeed! It was also gorgeous outside; it was in the high seventies when I ran yesterday morning’s errand. I think it’s going to be similar today, too.

The Saints won, which is three straight wins after a disastrous start to the season, which helped set the tone for a nice day. I also started reading yesterday, easing into reading Eli Cranor’s Mississippi Blue Forty-two and Bruce Campbell’s The Secret of Hangman’s Inn, the sixth Ken Holt mystery–both of which start very well. (The homoeroticism rampant I remember from the Ken Holt series is also on full display in the opening chapter, too.) I finally finished my newsletter about Laurie R. King’s O Jerusalem yesterday, too, and if you are so inclined, you can read it here. I have another one I want to do about General Hospital; I’d already started one months ago, but Anthony Geary’s death made it seem a bit more timely now than it was before (I hadn’t known they’d killed off Luke Spencer on the show, either, when he retired–in case he wanted to come back. Not that dying on camera on a soap means anything, of course.); I’d watched the show as a child with our babysitter, but got back into it when Mom started watching after we moved to Kansas–and I came back to the show when it was Number One rated and firing on all cylinders…which was before many people today were alive.

Another yikes, right?

Speaking of yikes, what the hell hath CBS wrought with the hiring of the ultimate mediocrity, Bari Weiss, to run their news department? That town hall with EriKa KirK was an absolute joke–and from everything I am seeing and hearing, their progress down the path to hell has no good intentions to pave their way. One thing that the last ten years has brought with it is the loss of any credibility that mainstream legacy media had; they’ve utterly abdicated and shat all over the legacy of good journalism and the First Amendment. They will never recover any credibility, and maybe that’s a good thing? I don’t know, but this all goes back to Reagan; today’s monster was conceived in his rotting brain, and that was where it began.

We did watch Murder in Monaco this weekend, which was quite interesting and fun; about the murder of Edouard Safra in Monaco in the late 1990s. I remember reading Dominick Dunne’s reporting on the case in Vanity Fair back in the day, and of course, Dunne suspected that the male nurse (arrested, tried, convicted) was being framed by the “black widow” Lily Safra, who had an earlier husband also die under very mysterious circumstances. This update on the case, with more revelations and more information on the aftermath that is very enlightening, is very interesting.

I also worked on some short stories yesterday, which was pretty awesome. I am trying to get some stories ready to submit by the end of the month, and so yesterday I worked on fleshing them out and making them stronger. The three I am working on, and hope to finish and submit, are “Even Katydids Dream,” “Come Sail Away,” and “No Security Provided.” I also have a historical story to polish for another anthology, and I think I am going to try to hit up both EQMM and AHMM in the new year with new stories. Very fun, indeed.

I also paged through Creole: The History and Legacy of Louisiana’s Free People of Color, from LSU Press, edited by Sybil Kein. There’s so much about Louisiana and New Orleans history and culture that I don’t know, and if I am going to write stories (and/or novels) set in New Orleans history, I need to understand it and have more knowledge of it; and this collection of historical essays about the Free People of Color, and how old Louisiana/New Orleans society was structured, will help me with that. (Although paging through it yesterday made me see some seriously archaic and racist language, which I suppose should be expected when reading about the past down here.)

I am looking forward to the holiday vacation, in all honesty; even if I don’t get as much done as I would like (which is very likely, since it always happens), but it’s also nice to have an easy time of it during the holiday season. And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the day. Enjoy your Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow, on Christmas Eve Eve.

Remind me again, MAGA and Fox News, how Christmas is “under attack.”

Crazy Arms

Sunday morning and all is calm in the house. I feel good, very well-rested and cheerful, which of course is lovely. The Sparkster let me sleep in till almost eight, and now I am finishing my first cup of coffee and have already had this morning’s slice of chocolate marble swirl coffee cake (can’t imagine why I can’t lose weight, can you?), and am about to get another cup of coffee. I did get some things done yesterday, which is cool, and have more things to do today as well. I have one errand to run later this morning, and I’m going to get that out of the way, come home and get cleaned up and get back into working for a bit. Yesterday was a lovely day. I worked some more on the apartment, and delved even more deeply into my renamed main character in the current work. I’m also going to try writing it in the first person present tense, which is going to be really hard for me. (I tend to always use first person past tense.)

The best part of writing a book is this part–even if a lot of this background work never makes it into the finished part.

I’ve been listening a lot to old Fleetwood Mac albums in the car lately, and while they’ve always been my favorite band of all time–every album is a gem, in its own way–when I go for a while without listening I sometimes forget why they are my favorite band of all time. This past week I was listening to their Christine McVie-less recording from the early aughts, Say You Will, which is really good, but kind of Buckingham Nicks 2.0, really. I also like watching Youtube videos of young people listening to their recordings for the first time, and appreciating the artistry, talent, sound, and production values. Rumours will always be my favorite album of all time, and my favorite album of theirs, but the others are also excellent and merit more listening.

We watched this week’s episode of Heated Rivalry, which was probably the best, and most engaging, episode of the show thus far (I loved episode 3, spoiler alert); the first time I cared whether the main characters were just fuck buddies or a couple slowly falling in love. I still have some thoughts about the show, some quibbles as it were, mostly about relationship roles and the feminization of bottoms, but that can wait till I’ve finished watching the show and review it for the newsletter. (I’m still bitter about the cancelation of Boots, but…they also could have seriously fucked up a second season, so I’m choosing to see this cancelation, evil as it was, as a good thing.)

I did have the college football games on yesterday, but the only one we watched was Miami-Texas A&M, which was the only good game of the day. We turned off the later games to watch other things once it was clear they were not going to be competitive. Despite their blowout losses, good for both Tulane and James Madison for having breakout seasons and making it to the playoffs before a lot of name brand schools did. I don’t know if I’ll watch the quarterfinals or not; I don’t care who wins but I am also not a big fan of any school still left in it–although I always pull for underdogs, so I kind of would like to see Indiana do well–so am not sure.

I did finally finish reading The Postman Always Rings Twice yesterday; it’s really a nasty little book, isn’t it? I now can see why it was controversial; for one, it’s told from the villain’s point of view, which may or may not have been shocking to readers in the 1930s. (This particular reread also made me realize I need to delve more deeply into Chlorine and my main character–who he is, what he wants–and very glad I did; this reread was crucial.) Postman also deserves its own newsletter (I need to get some of the others done and out of the way already, don’t I?), where I can talk about this vicious little novella that changed everything in the crime fiction genre (I”m talking out of my ass here, but I would imagine it did challenge the sensibilities of readers conditioned to Christie, Queen, and Sayers, among many others), and its impact on me, both as a writer and a reader. I also generally don’t revisit Postman often; usually I just revisit Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce, but am very glad I did. It made me see what was wrong with what I had already done on this book.

I also gave my main character a new stage name–because the old one really didn’t work. It was more modern than the weird names movie stars were given in the late 1940s and early 1950s (Tab Hunter, Rock Hudson, Troy Donahue), and so yesterday one of those dopey names came to me as I was cleaning the house; and realized it would work, plus would help define the amorality and narcissism in the character. I will reuse the working name for him in another book, certainly–it’s a good name–but this new one is even better.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. The sun is shining outside (it’s gorgeous out, just as it was yesterday), and I still have some things to do this morning. I’m going to start reading the new Eli Cranor. methinks, while also revisiting a classic juvenile series mystery from one of my favorite juvenile series. I also have some short stories I want to work on, too. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will be back in the morning before I head in for my last two work days before Christmas.

The gift where they meant well, but didn’t think about the cost-feeding, clothing, cleaning up after him, etc.