Tag: Sparky

Wooly Bully

Friday and working at home. I have a team meeting at ten on-line this morning along with other various work-at-home duties; I also have errands to run later on when everything is finished. I feel rested this morning, despite getting up so damned early (Sparky was very insistent this morning), and so while I swill my coffee and wake up, I can hopefully do some things around here, too, before I get to work. The kitchen isn’t nearly as bad as it usually is on Friday mornings, so I don’t have to start there this weekend to straighten up the house, which is very exciting. I’m going to try very hard this weekend not to succumb to the temptations of doing little to nothing. The boil water advisory was lifted yesterday, and today’s heat index will max out at 109. I was able to come straight home after work yesterday, which was really nice, and I spent the evening getting caught up on the day’s news before switching over to the Olympics. I always hate when they come to an end, and they really are uplifting and fun to watch; inspiring. (I bet there will be a lot of Olympic romances published next year.)

I do have that figure skating short story…it’s kind of noirish. Maybe I should revisit it?

The next Olympics will be in Los Angeles, just like in 1984. I lived in California then, and to this day I regret not applying to work at the games. But…it was a different time and a different world, too.

I came to the conclusion last night that part of the problem I am/was having with writing Never Kiss a Stranger was that old one-two punch of writer’s brain: fear that I’d fuck up telling the story, and fear that it won’t be the book that I want it to be. Which is absurd on its face; and haven’t I felt that way about every book I’ve written more than once during the process of creating the story? Maybe it’s different for the big names, but I am never fearless when I am writing something. I’ve never heard any of my friends who are writers I deeply admire and respect ever feel a lack of confidence in their work, or in their ability to tell the story they want to tell. I think that is definitely something I need to work on, and I don’t feel afraid about writing the book now, so hopefully that is progress. I think taking this Olympic break from writing was perhaps one of the smartest things I’ve done as an adult. I am itching to get back to it, I let my mind rest and heal, and my body had settled into my routine at long last. Likewise, I have to get back to reading every day, so I can get caught up on my reading, at least from this year. I am so far behind on so many of my friends’ and favorite authors’ books; but at least I know that I have some great books to read through the end of the year. And yes, I think I am going to do some reading this weekend.

I kind of feel good about things. I like that I am establishing boundaries, and enforcing them. I like that I am digging out of the hole and rut and everything else of the last few years. I like my life now that I have time to kick back and enjoy it, and relax without guilt. I like my job, I love writing, I am finally getting the apartment into a nice, comfortable living space by clearing out the clutter so no one will have to after I depart this world. I am back learning how to cook new recipes, and having quite a good time doing so. The heat is tiring, of course, and that also affects how I get things done after I get home, but the summer will be ending fairly soon and then I can get back into the swing of some other things, like regular workouts and things of that nature. I am making progress on my debt, which is also pretty great.

So, on that cheerful and hopeful note, I am going to head into the spice mines. You go on and have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later on.

Don’t Stop Believin’

Thursday morning and last day in the office this week. I think I have a prescription to pick up; I neede to call and see if it’s ready or not during the day today. I was tired yesterday–I’ve been mentally weary all week for some reason–and was very happy to come straight home from work. I resisted Sparky and finished the dishes, which need to be put away tonight. It was very nice to come down to a clean kitchen with nothing on the counters and the sink empty. This kind of also puts me ahead on the weekend, too. Huzzah! I still have some filing and straightening and organizing to do around the house. The Olympics end this weekend, which means technically I can start writing again this weekend–I mean, ending a few days early on the embargo isn’t going to be the end of the world or anything, and I am kind of itching to get back to writing again. That, by the way, feels good.

I feel decent this morning, too. I’ll probably get tired at some point during the morning, and I am sure my butt will be dragging come this afternoon. I also need to get the mail today–maybe tomorrow; it depends on timing–and I do have some errands to run tomorrow. Maybe the mail can wait? Who knows? I do have a meeting tomorrow in the morning, and I made an appointment to get my labs drawn next Friday (fasting labs, and no way am I fasting all morning and not having coffee; there was nothing available for tomorrow until the time of my meeting). I feel very good about getting back on top of my health stuff, and my insurance issues are all ironed out. I have one more leftover issue from the surgery, and I hope to get that taken care of this weekend. Thank God.

In other big news, I deleted my Twitter account yesterday. I just bit the bullet, went in, and deactivated my account. I don’t care if someone else uses it because I don’t think I will ever go back there. I know, I know, I should have done it a long time ago. Being there only helps as another user to count towards advertising revenue, and I don’t want any part of that on my soul and conscience anymore. I went back and forth over the morality of being there still (friends who are only there, etc. v. being complicit with that vile company) and pondered the hypocrisy of that, while keeping my newsletter on Substack1 and actively working to build an audience there. It wound up not being that difficult of a decision, really; I realized that the only times this week I’ve been tense or irritated has been because of Twitter and morally bankrupt people there, so it’s clearly not good for my mental health. I deleted it for my own well-being in the end, but making it about ‘taking an ethical stand’ is verifiably false. I don’t like getting credit for something I don’t deserve, and there was nothing noble about deleting my account other than self-preservation. I don’t even know why I went there in the first place, to be honest. I’ve never really gotten much joy out of being there, and what joy I managed to find there didn’t make up for the absolute horror of being there. I was never targeted or swarmed, it was never anything like that…but what is allowed there under the guise of “free speech” (and they decide what is protected and what is not, with a heavy thumb down on the scale on the side of being fascist or enabling it) is horrific and shameful and disgusting.

I did enjoy removing the app from my phone, though. It was almost as satisfying as slamming down the phone receiver used to be.

We’re also still in a boil water advisory, and today’s “feels like” is going to be 110. Woo-hoo! But it’s August, what can I expect or what more can I want? This weekend is also the Red Dress Run (which is how Garden District Gothic opens, or was it a different Scotty? Sigh), and there are some other things going on around town as always–Dirty Linen in the Quarter (it’s the Quarter’s version of White Linen Night, and I really should write about both) and there’s a Drew Brees pickleball tournament (I’m not really sure what pickleball is, to be honest, and not sure that I want to, either), too. Sounds like a good weekend to stay home to me, doesn’t it? It’s going to also be horrifically and horribly hot, too.

And on that note, I am heading down into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I’ll most likely be back at some point later.

Greg Louganis, seen here in his Olympic debut in Montreal as a teenager, winning the silver medal. I was enchanted by his incredible physical beauty.
  1. Two people I really respect in this business are still at Substack, and since they have better ethics than me and are, in general, much better humans than I am, I will defer to their judgment in this case. ↩︎

As We Go Along

Tuesday morning and for whatever reason, I feel much more rested and awake this morning than I did yesterday. I felt off all day yesterday, partly because I was sleepy still for most of the morning, and never felt like I ever completely woke up. This morning I feel like a new person, which is very cool. I like when I feel rested.

So yeah, I felt off most of the day yesterday. I started getting my work done and got most of it done–I’m still behind–and ran my errands after work. It didn’t rain on me on the way home, which was a lovely change, and so I got the mail (and a copy of Jericho Brown’s The Tradition). I also started reading, of all things, The Iliad last night. I’ve never read it or the Aeneid or the Odyssey–lyric poetry–even though I was very aware of the story and everything about it. (I had a Trojan War/Greek mythology era in my childhood.) I was actually enjoying myself as I read it while glancing up at the Olympics (I am really going to miss the Olympics when they are over.) So I did manage to get some reading done last night, which was incredibly cool. Maybe this weekend I’ll spend some time reading poetry and trying to learn about it. I was thinking about that last night as I drove around town, that the extra time I have now can be spent either relaxing or studying poetry or teaching myself something. I am going to definitely schedule in some German on Duolingo; and of course I want to keep studying Louisiana and Alabama history.1

I should have cleaned the kitchen when I got home last night. Sigh. I’ll have to do it tonight, and get the house a bit under control. It won’t take long–wouldn’t have taken long yesterday, either, but I gave in to Sparky’s cuddle needs and so I came down to a dirty kitchen again this morning. And before I knew it, the Olympics were on and I was sucked into the excitement of sport again. It was great seeing Louisiana’s own Mondo Duplantis win the pole vault and set a new world record competing for Sweden, the floor exercise was amazing–I can’t believe they didn’t air the medal ceremony, well done, NBC. The pictures of Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles bowing to gold medalist Rebeca Andrade was epic, and went viral, so why would viewers want to see it? I love the Olympics, and getting Snoop to go as our official ambassador was genius, but so much of the coverage in prime time–when they’ve had all day to stitch together the show–isn’t good. (Although my favorite was the woman griping about ‘why do they have a quarterback commenting on gymnastics?’ to get the reply “John Roethlisberger was a four time all around US champion and Olympian. You’re thinking about Ben Roethlisberger who quarterbacks the Steelers.’ I laughed for a good few minutes there, because her post had actually confused me and I didn’t know what she was talking about…for good reason.)

It’s funny because yesterday I was talking about not getting more books, only to get up to notifications that the new Gabino Iglesias and the new Donna Andrews are on their way to me now, which is marvelous. Maybe spending some time with The Iliad last night has reopened the flood gates to reading again….I guess we’ll find out this weekend, or maybe even tonight.

You know what’s really funny? This forced “Olympics break” from writing was the smartest thing I could have ever done. Sometimes you just need to trick your brain. By going from I should write every day and then feeling like a loser who can’t take part in his passion anymore, to I am not going to write for two weeks has absolutely worked. All I’ve really wanted to do these last ten days or so (however long it’s been) is actually write. I allow myself to hand write in my journal, but actually typing out fiction or non-fiction, and immersing myself in it? Not allowed. Maybe, just maybe, this means when the Olympics are over I’ll be eager to get back into the swing of writing every day.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, and I may be back later; stranger things have happened.

Tear Drop City

Monday! A new week, full of options and possibilities. Isn’t that the best way to look at Monday, rather than groaning about having to go back to work after the weekend? I suppose it’s easy for me to say that because Monday is my administrative day at the office, so I ease back into my job and don’t see clients until Tuesday. It was a nice weekend, to be honest. I didn’t get as much done as I had planned–I never do–but I got what needed doing done. It was a weekend of watching the Olympics, which I always enjoy, and relaxing and hanging out with Paul and Sparky, which is always my favorite thing to do. I need to shave this morning, both my head and face, but overall, it should be a relatively easy and stress-free day for the most part. Huzzah!

I can’t believe it will be August soon, too. I did not work on that short story this weekend whose deadline is Wednesday, but I may be able to get some of it done this week. I forgot all about it, to be honest, and that’s why I need a to-do list to reference. (Note to self: do that today, or else you’ll be floundering all week.) I guess the first thing on the list is to actually make one? Smart, because that way I can cross something off the list to begin with and feel like I’ve accomplished something already. Now that I think about it some more, that’s what I always used to do, too. It’s weird not remembering things like that, and then having it pop back into my head. That’s been happening with my writing lately, too–I’ll remember something that I used to do, or always do and have forgotten about. I remember that with Murder in the Rue St. Ann I started using Tennessee Williams quotes to open my books with, and that I gradually moved away from that over the years to using other quotes to kind of coyly suggest what the theme of the book might be to readers who are paying attention, or are simply marvelous quotes about either being gay, or New Orleans. I have a quote or two for the opening of the next Scotty–I changed the name of it yesterday, not wanting to play with fire–and yesterday I was thinking about the book, and what it was going to be about going forward, and I found another way to involve Scotty’s family, which will be interesting to play out, since he and the boys are staying at his Diderot grandparents while the renovations are being done on their Decatur Street home–so I can also riff on how different it is to live in the Garden District as opposed to the Quarter, where he’s lived most of his life. (I am calling it Hurricane Season Hustle now; which doesn’t seem to tempt fate quite as much as the previous title did, plus I was going to use that title for the fourth Scotty that fateful summer of 2005….)

Pretty cool.

I think this is going to be a good week, or at least this morning feels like it’s going to be one. I think I should probably keep getting up early on my weekends so I can get more done; the sleeping late always seems to give me a more lackadaisical approach to my weekends, and I inevitably end up losing track of time and suddenly it’s after twelve and I haven’t gotten anything done that I wanted to get done, which is never a good thing. And while I don’t like the idea of getting up every morning at the same time–I guess on weekends I could push it back from six to seven, so it’ll feel like sleeping late but really isn’t that much–if I want to get things done on the weekends efficiently I’ll need to get up early. Maybe I’ll let myself sleep late on Saturdays? I don’t know. But I need to shake things up in my life and get back on my regular horses again–writing and the gym. Both will make a difference in my life, won’t they?

I also need to read more. It’s weird that I have reader’s block, which I didn’t even know was a thing. But if I get up early on weekends, I can get the blog done early and can repair to my chair to read for a few hours over my coffee in the mornings. Perhaps if I look at sleeping late as cutting into my reading time, that will get me out of bed on the weekends…or I could continue using my weekends as down time where I mostly futz around the house. And the books continue to pile up around here while I let them go and don’t read. Heavy sigh. And I have so many marvelous books to read around here, and more coming in on the regular, too. And maybe there’s a connection between my not reading and not writing, too. Hmmm. They do kind of go hand in hand, don’t they?

Something else to unpack.

Story of my life, really.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday; I’ll most likely be back later, and if not, I’ll be here again tomorrow morning!

World and Olympic gymnastics champion Daiki Hashimoto

Star Collector

And now it’s Tuesday. It’s a bit gloomy outside, and we’ll be getting rain again today (it’s been a very hot wet summer thus far), but I am awake and ready to go while I am sipping my coffee this morning. It also tastes quite good, I might add. I slept decently last night, and feel pretty good this morning. We have a light clinic schedule today, so I hope to be able to get caught up on paperwork and things today around said schedule. Woo-hoo!

Yesterday was a pretty good day, over all. I had a nice day at work in which I got a lot done, and then came home to chill out and relax with Sparky. I went through the manuscript, and didn’t have to do anything to chapters one and two (they need a revision, of course, but that can wait until the whole draft is finished and I start working my way back through it again) after all; it was chapters three and four that needed restructuring and pulling apart. I did the pulling apart and slapping back together last night; I need to reread the two chapters and revise them and make them flow more smoothly before I move on to chapter 5, I think. We’ll take care of that tonight, methinks. I am excited to be writing again, which is always a lovely thing.

We did watch another episode of Those About to Die, which I am not loving, but it’s a light entertainment, and it has a pretty good cast. Like Spartacus and all its iterations, there’s a lot of muscular men and some homoeroticism with some gay characters–not loving the way they are depicted for sure, but my internal jury is still out on that. I am still having trouble focusing on reading, but am hopeful I can make a breakthrough on that this weekend. I just keep getting more and more books that I am dying to read, so having “reader’s block” isn’t helpful as far as that is concerned. The new Ellen Byron is out today, starting a new series set in the California mountains that I knew so well from living there in the Big Valley1 and being close to all the major mountain parks like Kings Canyon, Sierra, and Yosemite. In fact, both Sorceress and Sleeping Angel are set in those mountains, in a town I loosely based on both Oakhurst and Sonora, so in some ways I am going back to my roots by reading her new release. I’ve not written about living in California very much here; I am currently writing a very long entry about my love/hate relationship with Kansas, which briefly flared up over the last weekend. The thing about me is that, despite being crazy and unbalanced and all those lovely things that come with my chemical imbalances, that no matter how miserable I was in the macro sense, in the micro sense I always wanted to have fun so I wouldn’t have to think about how miserable I was until I got to the point where it was overwhelming and miserable, and the thought that that was how I was going to have to live for the rest of my life was unimaginable.

The closet is a horrible, strangling thing.

And yes, I will probably write about living in California at some point, unless I run out of time, which is always possible. I could get hit by a bus on my way home from work tonight–oh, last week, traffic driving home was absolutely miserable; it took me forty-five minutes to travel what is usually a fifteen minute drive last week, but last night I got home in slightly over ten minutes and there was no congestion anywhere, which was peculiar. Hoping that holds true for tonight.

I also have to say I am feeling a lot better about the world in general these last few days. I am actually feeling hopeful for the first time in a long time, and think we might be able to save this ship from sinking into fascism. I also am delighted the media has exposed itself for the craven opportunists they really are–the mask dropped forever–and it will be a long time before any of them will be forgiven by me. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later.

  1. Yes, the San Joaquin Valley is The Big Valley of Barbara Stanwyck television fame. ↩︎

Goin’ Down

Monday and back to the office this morning, woo-hoo! Yesterday was an interesting one. I got up later than expected, did some chores, got cleaned up, and had a book breakthrough, so huzzah for all that. It rained most of the day, heavy downpours around thunder and lightning. The power even flickered once. Sparky and I spent most of the day cleaning and doing bits and pieces and odds and ends while I was thinking about the book and coming up with some answers. I love rainy days when I can stay in the house, you know? Paul went to get a tattoo, and that was when I worked on some essays and picked apart my book, and then he brought a pizza home from Midway on Freret (they are most excellent) before we started watching Those About to Die, which is interesting but…a bit disappointing at the same time. But there’s queer rep, and we’ve already seen some male nudity. The CGI isn’t terribly good and is kind of obvious, which pulls me out of it when it happens, but overall, not bad at all.

Yesterday the mega donors and the news media, along with rich old white men like George Clooney, David Axelrod, and Rob Reiner got their wish (along with the party donors and the news media) and President Biden announced he would not seek the nomination of his party at the convention. My spirits sank immediately, particularly since the racist old fucks never said “step aside for KAMALA HARRIS the vice president” but made it plain that not only did they want the President gone, they wanted to pass her over. Within an hour, though, the endorsements started coming in as the rank-and-file of the party (you know, the voters) started getting inspired and money started flowing and by the time Paul got home, I was excited again1 and ready to get out the vote and donated…to her campaign, not the DNC. From now on, only the candidates I am supporting will get a donation from me directly, no more party donations or PAC donations or anything like that for me. Y’all blew it, as far as I am concerned.2 I also love that Beyoncé has already endorsed the Vice President, and can Taylor Swift be far behind? There’s going to be a lot of racism and misogynistic bullshit being flung from the right for the next three months, and the conduct of the news media during that time will have to be monitored to see if they are on a redemptive path. If not, I never have to watch or read them again and will go with either the Philly paper or the Los Angeles Times.

I feel inspired now, and hopeful. We can do this and save the country, expand the Supreme Court to mitigate the Trumpian/Heritage Foundation damage to the judicial branch, and pass some goddamned laws. We also need both chambers–and there will be, undoubtedly, Manchin 2.0 and Sinema 2.0, and the Pass the Torchers certainly cannot be trusted to act like Democrats. And I will say, as much as I have always liked Joe Biden, I love Kamala Harris. She was my candidate in 2020, and was bummed when she dropped out, and thrilled again when President Biden selected her. I love that we now have the dichotomy of a convicted felon running against a former prosecutor. The right is scrambling now–all of their anti-Biden plans and ads and everything now have to be scrapped while they try to come up with attacks on her. It’ll start with her not being a citizen, of course–alas, we still have birthright citizenship in this country regardless of Project 2025 (which is already being test-driven in Louisiana)–and then the law and order party will no doubt attack her as a cop, which is far too easy to counter–so it’s all going to boil down to her being a biracial woman. You know who else’s parents weren’t citizens? The first nine presidents. There will be all kinds of legal fuckery coming, too–since they can be certain of a favorable rubber stamp from their operatives on SCOTUS, but for some reason I feel much better this morning. I still don’t trust the media at all, but…there are other and better sources that didn’t spend the last four years dragging down the man who saved the country.

As for the book, as you may have noticed, I’ve been having trouble moving on with the fourth chapter because I am at a stopping place for the chapter but it’s not nearly long enough as it is, which means restructuring the first four chapters again. This chapter, for example, can begin in the previous one–where the chapter ran further than I should have allowed it–and it won’t kill me to pull these first chapters apart and put them back together in a better order than I already had them in and perhaps then I can move on. This is a good idea, and it’s been so long since I’ve written a book where I had the time to sit and think and realize I have to go back now in order to move forward–usually I just have to bulldoze through it and hope it all plays out in the wash–which is probably another reason I feel like my work could be better. More time doesn’t mean better, of course, but the stress and anxiety I usually feel from writing a book on deadline feels pretty fucking marvelous, to be honest.

And on that note, I think I am going to get cleaned up and head into the office. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will be back later.

  1. But make no mistake, the Pass the Torch people are on my permanent shitlist and I will never forgive them. I’m still carrying a grudge against Susan Sarandon from 2000. I will carry a grudge to the fucking grave. ↩︎
  2. I, for one, will never forget that it was Biden who got President Obama to change his mind about marriage equality. ↩︎

It’s Nice to Be With You

Here we are on a Sunday morning, wide awake and feeling pretty fine, if I do say so myself. I slept later than I intended–the past two nights I’ve slept for over nine hours, if not ten–which will be a problem for me tomorrow morning, but that’s every Monday morning, isn’t it? Heavy sigh. Our anniversary was nice and low-key. We ran all the errands I didn’t run on Friday because of the weather–we also got rained on yesterday–but I also noticed when I got home from all the errands and had everything put away, I wasn’t exhausted like I have been every time I do a big errand like Costco–and I made groceries, too! I realized once I had the groceries all put away that I wasn’t tired or worn out. This is a great development on my return to normalcy (or what passes for it around here) with recovery and exhaustion and stamina. It also rained overnight–thunder and lighting and downpours–which woke me up around two or three, but the bed was so comfy and warm and cozy, and the sound so comforting that I was able to go back to sleep almost immediately. Sparky also was cuddling with me after I fed him and went back to bed. No wonder I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning.

Paul’s getting a tattoo this afternoon and is going to bring a pizza home, so that’s today sorted. I am going to do some chores this morning, get cleaned up, and want to write this afternoon. I am also going to try to get some reading done–maybe a short story, since for whatever reason I don’t seem to have the bandwidth to read anything longer–and I do want to get chapter four of the new book finished. I’d like to dive into one of my short stories, too, now that I know how to revise them and make them work better. I may even start writing another Sherlock story–crazy talk, right? But my coffee is kicking into gear and my head is clearing, which is always nice, and I should be able to have a productive day. I think I’ll just put Spotify on the television and listen to music while I do things around here. It certainly works for me.

We watched A Family Affair, a romantic comedy that actually worked, mostly thanks to it’s incredible cast of Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, Joey King and Kathy Bates. It was cute, and funny, and really well done; which I generally don’t say about this film genre because they are generally goofy and kind of fluffy and predictable. It was like a big budget Lifetime movie, but they put the money into the cast, script and director–and it was also beautifully shot…though I’d kind of like to know how an author can afford a house in southern California right on the ocean, but…fantasy, Gregalicious, it’s a fantasy.

I think today, after Paul gets home, we’re going to start watching Lady in the Lake on Apple, based on a book I loved by an author I loved, Laura Lippman, and after that, we’ll dive into the new gladiator show, Those About to Die, which looks to have lots of gratuitous male skin and homoeroticism. Woo-hoo! I do want to watch some other films that have come out this summer, but not enough to rent them, like Civil War, which was controversial and might be fun to watch from a ‘the world IS burning to the ground’ perspective, and could spark an interesting (to me anyway) entry about dystopian art and/or whether art used for propaganda is still art. I generally have a lot of Imposter Syndrome when it comes to writing essays and so forth, because I have this feeling that any arguments or interpretations i might made during the course of said essay had already been made or debunked–especially when it comes to commentary on any kind of literary art. I like to think I am smart and intelligent and have interesting perspectives, but I always suspect that I’m not as smart as I think I am (no one is as smart as they think they are) and that trying to sound intelligent and discuss something artistic will simply expose my ignorance and lack of education to the world.

Like that’s ever stopped me before.1

And on that note, I am going to finish this, get some more coffee and have some breakfast before getting cleaned up and getting to work. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later.

I never tire of pictures of Finn Balor. That body! That face! Superstar!
  1. It actually has, to be honest. I often decide not to write things because I fear I am not educated enough on the subject to even try. ↩︎

I Wanna Be Free

Saturday morning and here we are, looking forward to another good day at the Lost Apartment, huzzah! Sparky got me up for food at six thirty, but joined me when I returned to bed (after licking his bowls clean) and cuddled with me another hour or so. He really is a dear, even if he turns into a vicious apex predator terror every once in a while. I’ve not seen any bugs or vermin in the house since we acquired him and brought him home either, so I can deal with the vicious apex predator terror for the short while that mood lasts.

I was thinking yesterday as I cleaned up around the kitchen and waited for Paul to get up (I never wake him up unless I know he has to be somewhere), and as a marvelous thunderstorm moved in, that my Substack hasn’t grown much but I also am not actively trying to grow it, to be honest. It’s free, just like the blog, but what I really want to do with the Substack is make it more essays about stuff that no one will ever ask me to write (or not for pay, at any rate), and leave the more personal stuff here and here only. That way, if you just want essays about queer life, history, culture, books, movies and television shows etc. you can subscribe to the Substack and skip the every day here. If you can’t get enough of me, you can do both or you can just stay here. I may eventually get to the point where those essays no longer get posted here…but that will have to wait until the subscribers make complete separation of self worthwhile. I was also thinking yesterday as the sky darkened and the winds picked up, that all of this new free time I am enjoying so much can also be used for productivity–if I can get back to the point where I’m writing 500-5000 words per day again, then this extra time can be utilized for marketing and teaching myself how to work my website and get it all finished and updated. I also am going to start learning how to do more promotion and format ebooks, too, so I can eventually get to the point where I can do my own ebooks. It would be cool to put up a short story or a novella here and there whenever I feel like it, for free–yes, I know my work has value and worth, but every so often it would be fun to gift readers who like my writing with something free every once and a while, you know, as a thank you for sticking with me all these lengthy years.

I also wrote for a whole yesterday, which felt great. I got about a thousand or so words done, which felt great, and I was most pleased with myself for doing so. I also came up with an idea for yet another book that sounds rather interesting and might be fun to explore thematically; I certainly wrote down a shit ton of notes and ideas and riffs in my journal last night, and I have to say I am really enjoying my journal these days. I also managed to get my review essay of Liebestraße finished yesterday, which felt great, and I hope to get some more of those done over the course of the weekend. Yesterday was, overall, a very good day that I got through without much irritation or aggravation, so I will take that. I do have more errands to run today–we ended up skipping Costco, so we have to do that today–and I hope to have some time to read and write later on after I finish everything.

Today is also our anniversary; twenty-nine years today we’ve been together. Almost thirty years, and almost half of my life. We’re going to watch some movies tonight, and we’re going to have a nice little dinner here at home to celebrate. Next year will be thirty years, and in ten days we’ll have lived here in New Orleans twenty-eight years, too. New Orleans was the key to all of my dreams coming true. I wish I would have been less anxious and more confident when I was a teenager, and if I knew then what I know now, I would have gone to college at LSU and moved to New Orleans after graduation, and maybe gotten a master’s in creative writing at the University of New Orleans. My life would be completely different now–I probably would have left New Orleans at some point rather than staying here my entire life, but there’s no use in speculating over that sort of thing–especially since I am settled and extremely happy.

We finished the seasons of The Acolyte and The Boys (which is coming hard for MAGA and I am so here for it; the season finale especially was rather pointed) last night and also watched this week’s The Serpent Queen, which is very well done, but most of the drama for the rest of her life now was political; and I don’t know how the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre is going to play out in the show. There are already inaccuracies in the speeded up timeline; Princess Elisabeth was long married to the King of Spain by the time Charles IX was old enough to be depicted as an adult. I try not to get heavily involved in complaining about inaccuracies in historical shows–they are always rotten with them, but I love watching historicals far too much to stop watching them now because they twist history to fit their storytelling purposes…and this is a period of history I am very interested in. Thank you, cable channels, for committing to doing shows set in historical times I love (like Mary and George). I know there’s a television series based on The Three Musketeers, but it’s very hard for me to watch any adaptation of that after loving the 1970s film versions with (sigh) Michael York (who is an incredibly nice man).

There was a lot of open homosexuality at the royal courts of England and France during this time period, even more so in France rather than England. I’ve always wanted to write about Louis XIV’s brother, Monsieur le duc d’Orléans, who often donned women’s clothing to attend court functions and had a long time lover the Chevalier de Lorraine1 (both were depicted beautifully in the series Versailles, which I also loved). Maybe when I’ve retired I can delve into writing more historicals. I also have an idea for a short story that is a historical; another Sherlock story from 1916, which I am hoping to get started this weekend as well. This morning I am going to do some clean-up around the kitchen before doing some writing and cleaning myself up to go run my errands. I also really still want to write my book about the women in power of the 16th century, too. I suppose it could be called The Monstrous Regiment of Women, but I suppose it could also be called When Women Ruled the World.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for now. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.

  1. The Chevalier started a society of homosexuals at the court of Louis XIV, which I would also like to research some more. ↩︎

Words

I am off today, as I have a lot of appointments to get me and Paul too (we always try to schedule our appointments on the same day to get them out of the way) and we are going to go to Costco later. I need to pick up prescriptions and go to the mail, too, and I also need to get some writing done, some cleaning and organizing, and reading done this weekend. Sparky got me up early this morning, but I’ll take the extra hour or so of sleep he afforded me this morning. Now that he’s been fed, he is nowhere to be seen. This morning before we start off on our long day out in the heat, I am going to finally make that damned to-do list I never got around to this weekend as well as figure out what I need to get from the grocery store this weekend and plan our meals. I think we’ll skip cooking out this weekend and I’ll try some new recipes that I’m interested in. I also need to clean out the refrigerator and get things out of there that need to be trashed. What a big, exciting day I have in front of me, don’t I? But it could be a lot worse.

We had a flooding storm again yesterday afternoon, which had me nervous for my drive home. Traffic in the evenings has been particularly horrible this week, and I’m not sure what that is all about, either, but it’s been highly annoying. It took me almost forty minutes to get home Wednesday night, and last night wasn’t much better–and I left early! But I got home, played with Sparky for a while, and then went down some Youtube video wormholes as I did so more research on 1994. It was only thirty years ago (!) but it was such a different world, and of course my memory is only so good, you know? It was actually a lovely, relaxing, and informative evening that I almost had lost track of time until Paul got home (late, grants again). I also have some electronic files to sort, too (always).

And it’s Friday, so the bed linens need laundering.

Such an exciting life I lead, right?

But it’s kind of nice to be in a period where everything in my life has kind of slowed down and settled. The first half of this year has sped by–at the start of the year I was still going to Physical Therapy twice a week for my arm, and I was tired all the time–and it’s almost August. Our anniversary is tomorrow–twenty-nine long years–and that just kind of snuck up on me. Twenty-nine years! Had someone told me thirty years ago that I was a year away from finding my life partner I would have laughed in their face. I do need to get back into the gym regularly–I’ll do that later on today–and maybe I’ll take tomorrow off from things? My birthday is also a month from tomorrow, too–I’ll be sixty-three, yikes–but I don’t feel sixty-three, but I suppose no one does. My sixties are certainly not what I thought they would be; with all the cruelty of youth I assumed that was Old Age, and it’s kind of not? My body isn’t breaking down at all. The biceps thing was an accident and could have happened at any age, really. My lower back was starting to bother me, and so were my hips, which was worrisome…and then I changed out my everyday shoes for a new pair and voilà! My lower back and hips no longer hurt. Sigh. I really can be stupid sometimes. No, that’s not fair to me, the word I should use is oblivious. I’ve always been oblivious, and when I was younger, I had serious trouble reading a room.

Not that I am much better now, but without the anxiety (thank you meds!) I am not terrified of that happening now.

That, I think, is the greatest life change I made this year: the new meds and getting rid of anxiety. I still have some, to be sure, but I don’t spiral the way I used to and it doesn’t affect me physically anymore, and what more can I ask for? I had no idea how much of my life was controlled by anxiety, and how much of my behavior was either a reaction to the anxiety or a workaround to try to get past anxiety. It’s also nice to not waste time on it anymore, too. (Had I been a medieval king, they would have called me Gregory the Anxious.)

And so, on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I’ll be back later, of course, as there are a few blog drafts I want to finish and get out of the drafts folder, but I hope you have a day that is as marvelous as you are, Constant Reader, and see you soon!

Forget That Girl

And another Wednesday Pay the Bills Day has dawned anew. It rained over night, and I suspect we’re going to be getting a lot more rain over the next few days; the weather forecast certainly believes it to be so. I do love rain, and outside of the constant fear of flooding out the car, I don’t even mind driving in it. There’s something about being warm and cozy and comfortable while everything outside is getting wet that just makes my entire body relax. I remember thinking about this when I was a kid once–I was in the car, we were heading for Alabama from up north, it was raining outside and I had a blanket wrapped around me while I was reading The Mystery of Cobbett’s Island, which opens with Trixie and her Bob-White friends in a station wagon in the rain heading for the ferry to the island. Ever since then, whenever it rains all I want to do is curl up with a book under a blanket. I it rains a lot this weekend, I should get a lot of reading handled.

I was a bit tired and drained when I got home from work last night. I did a load of laundry and hung out with Sparky for most of the evening while I scribbled in my journal while doing 1970’s research on Youtube for my next book. I also worked on the book some last night, and feel a lot better about what I am doing. The Imposter Syndrome has been finally chased away by the need to tell this story and develop these characters, and that’s always a good sign. I also thought about that Sherlock story a lot more, too, and may even start writing it this weekend, one never knows. I also figured out how to solve the problem of another short story that’s been bedeviling me for over ten years, and I want to include it in my collection. I still haven’t made a to-do list, so I seem to be floundering around looking for something to do every day but can’t remember what I need to do, and that’s always a problem. I also need to make sure I update the bills list before Monday, too–but that will have to wait until I pay the bills and wait for everything to update. I know Entergy is due today, which absolutely must be paid; the summer is the only time I really don’t care about my carbon footprint.

And football season is drawing closer with every passing day.

Sigh.

Politics and the news continue to be dumpster fires and I really need to avoid social media. I don’t know why I let people infuriate me on social media, but I do, and it’s dumb. What do I care about a total stranger’s beliefs and values? Sure, I hate racism and the phobias and misogyny and fascism as much as any sentient human being, but you’re never going to change someone’s mind on social media when most people are there to provoke anger and arguments and I keep falling for the bait. Social media hasn’t been fun in nearly a decade, and it continues to get worse with every passing day; but we’ve all become addicted to it and I need to step away from it. Publishing and publishers have been insisting for quite some time that we authors need to be there and build a following and so forth to market our books and sell copies, but is that really effective? I think maybe the next time I have a book coming out, I may invest in some ads on social media and see if that makes the needle move at all…it may also bring trolls and assholes in its wake, as well.

And I checked the weather and we are not only in a heat advisory but also rain through next week with thunderstorms every day through the weekend. Woo-hoo! Definitely a good stay inside and read forecast. I really need to get going on my reading…but it’s hard to read when you’re writing something new, at least for me, at least now. I don’t know if I stopped reading when I was writing before, but I don’t think that is the case. I think my abilities to do everything that I was able to do before has slowed down and I don’t have the brain function anymore to juggle many different projects the way that I used to, and it’s also nice to finally be in a place where I can primarily focus my brainpower entirely on the writing without it being diluted by other responsibilities. I like that idea an awful lot, quite frankly.

And on that note I am going to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines. I may be back later as there are some drafts I need to finish–they’re building up again, and I don’t like that one bit–but you never know. But have a lovely middle of the week, Constant Reader, and I always do appreciate it when you check in on me, so thank you again.

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