Tag: stinging caterpillars

Hard to Say I’m Sorry

Saturday morning and I slept late blog, which is perfectly okay and not a cause for panic anymore over the “lost hours” I “wasted” this morning sleeping longer. I feel good this morning, actually, rested and alert and clear-headed, too. I had planned to not leave the house this weekend, but I may have to make a slight grocery run today to pick up a few things. I did spend some time in bed this morning awake and cuddling with Sparky while wondering if I do indeed need to go out into the rain or if it can wait until tomorrow or even Monday. There are a few things I do need, and if I go out of the house I can maybe get a burger somewhere, like Five Guys or Sonic. Decisions, decisions, you know? I’ve not had a burger in weeks, either, or red meat of any kind. This hasn’t been a conscious choice, of course, just how things have worked out. I weighed myself at work the other day and was still at around 203-204 (with my shoes, belt, wallet and keys on my person) so I am much closer to the 2024 goal weight I wanted to achieve.

And yes while it would be nice to go back under 200 again, I don’t really think that’s going to happen. And I don’t care if I do! At some point, I made progress on that score, too, which is really nice. Maybe it’s being over sixty and being seriously out of fucks to give? Whatever, it does feel lovely not to be worried about people thinking I look out of shape or gross or something. (I also haven’t set foot in a gay bar in practically a decade, if not longer. Coincidence? Probably not.)

Yesterday was a nice, quiet day around here. I spent the day doing chores around work duties. Sparky was his usual Big Energy Kitten self, galloping around and leaping at me and climbing me to ride my shoulders (his favorite place, I swear), but I managed to get dishes done and laundry finished and some picking up around here done before the LSU Gymnastics meet last night at Missouri; they didn’t win the meet and they had a below-par performance, especially after logging one of the highest scores of the year the week before against Kentucky. But it’s a long season and you can never count them out, as we discovered last year when they made the Final Four at the end of the year. After that we watched the figure skating, which wasn’t great, frankly. But I am happy for Amber Glenn to finally win the national title, even if she kind of backed into it, and it’ll be fun to watch the ice dance and the men this weekend. It was also a nice day because Paul worked at home, so he was here all day too, which I liked. I hate being a Festival widow, seriously. But it’ll be past soon, and then we’ll be heading into the summer with all that entails–stinging caterpillars, swarming termites, and high Entergy bills.

I’m hoping to get some good writing work done this weekend and not to be lazy, which is always a struggle for me. I want to get this first draft of “When I Die” finished, and I really want to finish the first draft of “Parlor Tricks” this weekend, as well as some other writing as well. I also have a stack of mail to get through, and some filing and other mess to straighten up here in the office space, which is all too often a victim of Big Kitten Energy, and it is again this morning as well. I also want to do the floors on the first floor again, and we also need to change the vent filter for the HVAC system, which is undoubtedly seriously overdue. (I need to order more filters, too, since the one I have is the last one, and there are some other things I could use from Lowe’s I could have delivered as well. Yay, delivery! I also need some things from Office Depot, but I don’t mind walking over there in the rain to get it, either. Maybe I can order a pizza for lunch from U Pizza as well as some things from Office Depot, which I can pick up in one fell swoop? I’m really getting back into pizza again, if you hadn’t noticed, but it had been years since I had a real pizza before Paul brought that one home from Midway on Freret–which is what I really want, actually–but I suppose the smart thing to do is finish this, do some email and cleaning around here while eating breakfast, then figuring out what I need to get from places and making an errand plan for either today or tomorrow. Of course, I could save the groceries until tomorrow as well….hmmm. Decisions, decisions.

Choices, said in Tatianna’s voice.

Looks like someone’s Big Kitten Energy has awakened as well, as I hear things crashing to the floor from the counters behind me. Sparky sure is lucky he is so darned cute and sweet, you know? LOL. He actually is, and he is definitely the boss around here too, with both of us wrapped around his monstrously sized paw.

All right, I think it’s time to bring this to a close and get on with the day. I need to empty the dishwasher and do some filing and cleaning, and I also need to make something to eat because I woke up very hungry this morning. So have a lovely Saturday wherever you are, Constant Reader, and who knows? I may be back later; I may not be back until tomorrow; it’s a mystery!

Dark Lady

The fortune queen of New Orleans, stroking her cat in her black limousine…

Ah, Cher’s 1970’s musical career. This one was always a big hit at Tea Dance at both Cafe Lafitte in Exile and the Pub on Sundays; there’s really nothing like a gay sing-along, is there?

I suppose being a fan of Cher as a child was kind of a sign? What is it about performers like Cher and Bette Midler and Liza Minnelli that draws young boys into their fandom who are going to wind up gay? Why was I drawn to actresses like Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Katherine Hepburn, and Doris Day before I knew I was gay? It’s something I’ve often wondered about–what is it about those women that draw us in like Formosan termites to a lit chandelier on a Monday night after Mother’s Day?

Ah, Formosan termites. That brings me around to today’s blatant self-promotional post for Mississippi River Mischief.

Isn’t this a cool, spooky looking shot? I took this out one of my kitchen windows one Sunday afternoon during a mighty New Orleans-style thunderstorm, and love how spectral and haunted-looking it turned out.

I still can’t believe that it took me this long to write about the swarming termites.

No one warned Paul and I about them, for the record. We had no idea that first May we lived here on Camp Street that the city was infested with swarming Formosan termites whose breeding season was the few weeks past Mother’s Day every May, and they are a scourge. We were swarmed, and had no idea what to do with them or how to handle the situation, or anything. We were running around the apartment spraying Raid everywhere, swinging at them with brooms, and they were everywhere. When the swarm finally passed, the apartment was filled with wings and corpses. It was horrible. We talked to the property manager, who apologized for forgetting to warn us–and the primary problem with the apartment on Camp Street (which was where Chanse also lived) was we had a very bright security light mounted on the front corner of the building–which drew them, and our apartment was right there. We learned to turn off everything that gave off light–including the television–when the first scout flew into the apartment, the mad dash around turning off everything, and then sitting there in the dark with maybe a couple of candles lit, waiting for the fury of the swarms to die down.

But that damned outside security light…ugh.

They are quite literally like one of the Biblical plagues of Egypt, and you see why the Egyptians constantly cried to Pharaoh to let the Israelites go.

But now that we live in the back of the house, we’ve been pretty insulated from dealing with them. Sometimes when I walk the garbage out in May, I can see a small swarm around one of the street lamps, but all the lights in the front of the house are off. We usually turn everything off if and when a scout flies into the television screen and immediately light candles and sit in the dark until we feel the coast is clear.

So when I started writing Mississippi River Mischief, I thought the best way to open the book was with the line It was the Monday after Mother’s Day and the termites were swarming. I posted this on Twitter, and local meteorological icon Margaret Orr replied “what a great opening line!” which kind of made my week (I am a big Margaret Orr fanboy) and helped me realize I was on the right track in writing something about New Orleans that rarely makes it into fiction. (Author’s note: That isn’t the opening line anymore; I added Scotty asking the guys a question about the renovation, and then after he talks, that’s where the line is. I just couldn’t get the prose to work with that as the first sentence; it read awkwardly, so I moved Scotty speaking up.)

Nature, and the natural world, is all around us here in New Orleans; the occasional alligator will sometimes lumber into the city limits; snakes and nutria and squirrels are all over the place, and of course there are the insects–the flying cockroaches (aka palmetto bugs), the swarming Formosan termites, the stinging caterpillars–peculiar to here. The tropical climate makes everything over-bloom and grow and expand and try to reclaim the natural balance of the region before it was settled. This is NOT the place for you if you have pollen allergies or have sinuses sensitive to the air pressure (I do); and I swear by Claritin-D for allergy and/or sinus relief (not the over-the -counter kind, but the kind you have to ask for at the pharmacy because you can make meth with it). OH–and the gecko lizards, always darting around and running up the side of buildings or fences or trees.

So, yes, since Scotty had finally bought the building he’s lived in all these years, I thought it was time to talk about termite swarms, as they would be an enormous headache for a property owner, and what better way to start a book where Scotty is now a landowner than with swarming termites?

And I remembered the buy link! Maybe I’m getting better at this.

Yo-Yo

A little bleary this Monday work at home morning–another good night’s sleep in the books–and my morning coffee should do the trick–and thus I will be reacclimated back to my normal life and some sort of what passes for my normal reality and real life again. I had a very relaxing day yesterday trying to unwind from the trip and get my land legs, as it were, back; I got some things done yet not enough, which is par for the course. Paul and I also finished Ozark–I imagine its ending is controversial; I wasn’t really surprised by it, to be honest–and dove back into Severance, which is truly bizarre and a very slow, unemotional burn–and then we both went to bed early. I have to work at home today and run a couple of errands at some point (Scooter needs to be retrieved from the kitty spa and I need to get the mail and groceries), as well as my work-at-home duties (data to enter, condoms to pack) and all kinds of others things. There never seems to be enough time in the day to get to everything i need to go to, but sometimes you just need to keep your head down and work your way through your to-do list.

The trip last week was invigorating and definitely raised my spirits; it was a needed and necessary reconnection with my crime community, which was marvelous. It is terrible and sad that I haven’t seen some of my friends in nearly (if not more than) four years; my last pre-pandemic appearance out of town was Bouchercon in St. Petersburg, so 2018. That’s a very long time to be away from connecting with the community and could be a significant part of the strange distance I’ve been feeling from…well, everywhere, to be honest. It was lovely dressing up (even if the pants I wore two weeks earlier in Albuquerque were suddenly strangely tighter in the waist) and putting on nice clothes; I also survived my brief stint at the podium on Edgar night. (The temptation to drink was very strong, but I declined all alcohol until I was off-stage.)

But now, it’s Monday morning after and the afterglow has somewhat faded and we are back to the cold harsh light of reality this morning. I have writing to do and chores and all kinds of other tasks and things to do. I am speaking as a guest at Spirit of Ink on Saturday; being interviewed by Jaden Terrell, whom I’ve known for years since we were both on the MWA board together. That’ll be nice, and I think at some point this week that Ira Levin ZOOM thing I did from my room in New York will be up and available somewhere on-line (I’ll share the link should I ever get one; it was a bit fun talking about Ira Levin and surprise twists). I am not feeling terribly overwhelmed this morning, or daunted; that will come soon enough, no doubt–it always does–but I am feeling a lot better about the non-stop Imposter Syndrome that is pretty much my entire life these days. It’s also gorgeous outside; it’s May so the heat is back and the humidity won’t be far behind; nor will the stinging caterpillars and the swarms of Formosan termites that generally return with Mother’s Day like the swallows of Capistrano.

And soon it will be summer, with the sweating and the misery and the high Entergy bills. But I want to also start working out again more regularly (it’s been a hot minute since I’ve set foot in the gym, so I am going to have to slowly start working my way back into it again, Jesus) and should probably start eating more healthy; the tightness of the waist of my pants at the Edgars was yet another signal that it’s only going to get harder to lose weight the older I get (which is sadly true for everyone–so don’t keep putting off your fitness regimen, people–don’t be Gregalicious) but I think discipline and dedication will do the trick.

And on that note, I think I am going to get another cup of coffee and try to dive into my emails before I have to start working. Have a splendid Monday, Constant Reader–I will be back here at the crack of dawn tomorrow as I ease back into my day job at the office.

Forever and Ever Amen

Yesterday afternoon I got sucker-punched; there I was, having a good day and getting things done and then–WHAM! Right between the eyes–Southwest sent me a reminder email about my scheduled and ticketed trip to New York for the Edgars at the end of April. The 30th, to be exact, but because of the symposium and other duties, I was going to be flying up there on the 28th, hence the reminder email. It didn’t help that the email reminded me that today would have been the closing for TWFest/S&S, and I got teary-eyed and sad and overwhelmed and had to get off the computer and away from the world for a little while.

It was out of the blue–I’ve said this before and it’s my own advice to other people (“remember something unexpected will happen–a tweet, a Facebook post, an email–that will catch you off guard and trigger something internal”) but it’s still rough when it happens, and it did, in fact, derail the rest of my day; there was no writing accomplished yesterday, and I didn’t really do much of anything afterwards, other than binge a few more episodes of Ozark (greatly enjoying this third season; the performances are stellar, particularly Laura Linney and Julia Garner) and then went to bed early. I slept fairly well, and this morning I feel even, but man–was that ever rough yesterday or what?

This week I have to go to work at 8:15 at our other building (campus?) every morning before leaving around noon to head to our other building (campus?) on Elysian Fields for the afternoon shift. Adapting to what is essential a 9-to-5 life isn’t going to be easy for me; it’s something I’ve managed to avoid my entire life until age fifty-eight, although I have to confess (as I said the other day) there really is something to eight hours five days a week. I like getting home earlier than I usually do (around eight), and I just have to  adjust to having those early evenings free. Hurricane season is coming, and so is termite swarm season and the time when stinging caterpillars rain down from the live oak trees like something out of C-level horror film from the 1950’s–usually the second bill on a drive-in double feature; you know the kind of film I mean–and then comes the heat and humidity of the summer. It’s already hotter this year than it usually is at this time of the year; I can only imagine how truly unbearable July and August are going to be this summer. There are but two days left in this hellish March, and then it’s April. (And I do hope nobody is foolish enough to play pranks on April Fool’s Day…)

I’ve decided since my attention span is so limited that it’s time to go back to both the Short Story Project (which I’ve been doing these last few weeks, really) as well as the Reread Project. I had considered rereading Mary Stewart’s This Rough Magic next, since I don’t really remember much of it at all, but have decided to reread one of my all time favorites, and definitely my favorite ghost story of all time, Ammie Come Home by Barbara Michaels. It’s been awhile since I read it, and it was, of course, the first novel by Michaels I read. I had originally watched the Made for TV movie that was based on it (The House That Wouldn’t Die, starring none other than the magnificent Miss Barbara Stanwyck), and then later found it in a volume of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books (remember those?) about a year or so later at my grandmother’s. I eventually bought a used paperback copy when I was either fifteen or sixteen and read the full novel, and it’s been a favorite of mine ever since. (In those days, I preferred her work as Barbara Michaels–it wasn’t until years later that I really got into her novels under the name Elizabeth Peters, and there was no turning back from that moment.)

I have a lot of emails in my inbox to answer–remember, I was in a flurry of responding to emails when I got the reminder from Southwest that derailed my entire day yesterday–as well as to sort and file. I’ve absolutely got to get back on that horse and dive into my emails headfirst today, and I’ve got to generate some others and consolidate all my notes and create an overall to-do list. My primary concern with so many seemingly endless tasks is that I am going to forget something important; I need to get my equilibrium back–hopefully getting used to my next work schedule will be helpful in that regard–and I need to get better organized.

I always seem to be saying that, don’t I?

Hmmmmm.

But the sun is rising and the world is gray outside my windows, and it’s about time for me to head into the spice mines. Stay safe, everyone, and have a lovely day.

Diego_Instore