Tag: That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street

Five Ten Fiftyfold

Tuesday and back to the office with me today blog.

Yesterday was a bit of an off day for me; I didn’t feel good for most of the day. Paul’s been sick since Thursday–coughing, lots of congestion and post nasal drip–to how crappy I felt yesterday was at least not as bad as he was at his worst; and this morning I feel fine. Not sure if it was some twenty-four hour thing, but hope that feeling better lasts through the rest of the day. We had some amazing thunderstorms last night while I was sleeping; it’s kind of gray and icky looking outside right now. The forecast is the usual–hot, humid, chance of thunderstorm–so I’m hoping my sinuses remain under control for the rest of the day as well.

Yesterday morning I finished reading Chris Clarkson’s delightful That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street, which I really enjoyed, and have selected Megan Abbott’s Beware the Woman as my next read. I’m not sure when I’m going to have the time to actually spend reading it thoroughly and enjoying it–probably will go with me to Kentucky as my “before I go to sleep” read. LSU lost a heartbreaker to Wake Forest yesterday 3-2, so now have to fight their way back out of the losers’ bracket if they want to win the College World Series. Hope springs eternal for an LSU fan–we did break the Jello Shot Record at Rocco’s yesterday–but I’m just delighted they made it to the World Series this year. GEAUX TIGERS!

I have some more work to do on this manuscript before I turn it in. This is the revising/fixing phase of the edits; where I have to do the more macro things. I had hoped to get this done yesterday but I wasn’t feeling well, and as such couldn’t really focus the way I needed to–I did try, of course–so tonight after I run my errands on the way home from work (there’s always something, really) I hope to sit down and bang out the rest of this to get it finished and out of my hair and out of my way. We started watching a documentary series about the history of Warner Brothers last night, which is always fun; I always like learning more about Hollywood history. The documentary didn’t really provide me with anything new or insightful about the history of the studio, other than further confirmation that Jack Warner was an asshole. There are two more parts, so that takes care of our television watching needs for this evening, at the very least. I figure with show episodes dropping this week and me being gone next week will help our shows build up back episodes to watch.

It’s also weird that it’s Tuesday already. I feel like I am going to be off this entire week because of it, then I’m out of the office for a week, and then I come back to the abbreviated 4th of July holiday week. As much as I love having extra time off, it’s always a weird week when the work week is truncated this way; I always feel kind of somehow off my game no matter what. But it’s a short week, I’m off next, and I need to get organized. I need a to-do list, most importantly, and to figure out where I’m at with everything. I always have this tendency to be as laser-focused as someone with (undiagnosed) ADHD can be; which means the book is the biggest priority and everything else is an incredible inconvenience that I don’t pay much attention to other than the occasional yeah yeah I know I need to work on you, but give me a minute.

Despite not feeling well yesterday–I also was feverish most of the day–I was able to get chores done around the house so it looks a little neater and a little less fraternity dorm room. I do want to drop books off for the library sale this coming weekend before leaving town, and I also want to get the car washed and cleaned out–chores for Saturday! Huzzah! I think we’re doing an escape room team bonding thing on Friday morning and then having lunch, then I can go home and do data entry–woo-hoo! It doesn’t get much more exciting than that, does it? And then of course Sunday it’s up to Alabama to meet Dad. I had a bad day one day last week about Mom; when the grief came back and I wasn’t able to reason or breathe or mind-clear my way out of it, so I just gave in and had a nice, good cry for a few minutes, and then I was able to get moving again. It’s been four months since we lost Mom, and I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever get used to but rather something I will gradually just be able to live with. I don’t think any of us can expect more than that, really.

And on that note I am heading out in the thick heavy air of a hot summer day in June. I’ll catch you later, Constant Reader; hope you have a lovely day.

Southern Nights

I have a confession to make that is more than a little shameful. You see, I occasionally write books that are classified as “young adult fiction” because the protagonists are young; usually high school students, sometimes college. The shameful confession is that I write and publish young adult fiction without reading very much of it. Most of my reading time is devoted to crime novels for adults, the occasional horror novel, lots of history and non-fiction, and the occasional short story. My biggest influences on my y/a are Christopher Pike, R. L. Stine, and Jay Bennett (there will be much more on him at another time); and sometimes I do manage to slide a young adult crime novel into my TBR stack. But outside of crime and/or horror? I don’t read any y/a that can’t be classified as either of those genres.

I’ve also not had the pleasure of reading a great deal of young adult fiction set in New Orleans. The one thing I’ve not actually done–despite writing a lot about New Orleans and a lot of young adult novels–is write a young adult novel set in New Orleans. I read one about a decade ago that I simply loathed; it was a ghost story set around Lafayette #1 in the Garden District, and it just didn’t click with me. I kept thinking the whole time I was reading it, this could have been so much better. It’s not like I don’t have any ideas for young adult fiction set here; I’ve any number of those ideas sitting in my files–everything from Maid of New Orleans to Daughters of Bast, among others–but I think I am resistant to writing New Orleans-based y/a because I didn’t grow up here. It’s hard enough to have Scotty reminiscing about his days at Jesuit High School when I didn’t go there, let alone writing an entire book about a teenager in New Orleans.

So, imagine my delight this past year at Saints and Sinners when I discovered that one of my co-panelists on the y/a panel was a local named Chris Clarkson who’d just published his first young adult novel set in New Orleans. Naturally, I got a copy–I really liked him, and I owe him a text message–and have really looking forward to digging into it.

Constant Reader, it did not disappoint. And it’s neither crime nor horror.

I absolutely loved it.

Solange’s snakeskin pumps were abandoned by the door, one standing proud, and the other playing possum on its side. Beside her, crumpled in a heap of lavender and lace, was the dress we shopped for on Magazine Street last week. The dress she had been so thrilled to find.

“Excuse me, ma’am. You sashayed in here serving body and hair teased to the gods. Why did you change? I demand an encore! Body. Dress. Wig. Grace.” I pointed at the sad taupe button-down shirt she was wearing. “Put your high heels back on and act like you got some common sense.”

Solange wiped at her tears. “Jess, I’m not in the mood to fool with you.”

“Good, I’m not in the mood to fool with you either.” I sank down on the floor beside her. She sniffed and wiped at her nose. “Why’d you change?”

That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street is, of all things for me to read, a romance–on several different levels. Our two main point of view characters are Tennessee and Jessamine–great names for a couple, don’t you think–and they initially are in the same orbit because they are both having meals at Commander’s Palace when the book opens. Tennessee’s full name is Tennessee Rebel Williams, and he’s a child of wealth and privilege from Oxford, Mississippi. His dad is an alcoholic douchebag and his mother is a narcissistic author. The marriage is a non-stop battle royal, with Tennessee doing most of the suffering. His mother has decided she needs to move to New Orleans to finish her next book, and she brought Tennessee with her; they have a big house on St. Charles Avenue, and he’s enrolled in Magnolia Prep–the rich kids’ private school in the book. Tennessee also wants to be a writer but he’s also a bit adrift; getting ready for college but still not mature enough or strong enough to stand up to his awful parents.

Jessamine is a native New Orleanian with a twin brother and a deceased father. Jessamine also has some issues from her own past that are troubling her, making her behave in self-destructive patterns that could affect her future and college choices. She feels drawn to Tennessee–their developing relationship is one of the strongest parts of the book itself–but cannot commit. She cares about him but keeps him at arm’s length because she’s afraid she’ll just end up hurting him. As the story progresses, we slowly become aware that Jessamine suffered a horrific trauma as a child, one that she’s never really confronted or dealt with, and that trauma is the key to her self-destructive behavior. Her twin brother, Joel, is gay but not out yet; he’s not really sure who he is and what his sexuality is, which causes trouble for him and his love interest, a wealthy young Black kid named Saint Baptiste (who deserves a book of his own, really) goes to school with Tennessee and becomes one of his best friends–since they are falling for twins, how could they not?

There’s also a fantastic trans character, Joel and Jessamine’s cousin Solange–who also deserves her own book–that I couldn’t get enough of, either. Clarkson also does an excellent job of exploring–even if casually–the generational divide between the teens and their parents, through Solange’s tradition; the elders still dead name her, and the teens are always pleased whenever one of the older generation gets Solange’s gender and pronouns correct.

All the main characters, despite their faults and flaws and past traumas, are completely likable and people you can’t hope but root for; you want their love to conquer all, get their lives settled, and grow from their traumatic pasts. It was fun seeing New Orleans through teenaged eyes; I’ve always wondered what it would be like to grow up here, where New Orleans is your default to normality.

Highly recommended, and one of my favorite books set in New Orleans.

Glass Candle Grenades

Monday and a holiday; it’s lovely to have another day at home to work on these edits, which I am hoping against hope to complete today. Yesterday was lovely and relaxing; I worked on the micro edits–the lines/copy edit–which is always a long and tedious process. The macro edit, to me, is more fun if more creatively taxing. I’ll be digging into that a little later, when my mind is more awake and I have more caffeine in my system. It’ll be a weird and short work week for me, and then of course next week I am on vacation. I’ll be taking lots of books with me on that trip, although I’m not sure I’ll have much time to read. I’m not really sure what Dad and I will be doing in Kentucky. I know when I’ve been up there before he’s mentioned going sight-seeing; like to Cassius Clay’s home (the original, the one Muhammed Ali was named for at birth; he was Henry Clay’s brother and one of Kentucky’s leading abolitionists) or to the Kentucky Derby museum. Which is fine, I love history and while horse racing history isn’t something I’ve ever looked into much before, but you never know. I had thought about writing a mystery around the horse racing at the Fairgrounds…I knew a horse trainer back in the day–but never got around to it. I mean, Dick Francis kind of cornered the horse racing mystery market, did he not?

Of course, I’ll come home to another short week because of the 4th holiday, too–so it’s going to be three weeks before i do another full five day work-week. I slept decently last night–not great, but not bad, either–and so this morning feel a little bit dragging around, but that’s fine; coffee, a shower, and some time reading should get me over the hump. We abandoned City on Fire last night; we just had no enthusiasm for watching, and so moved on to The House of Hammer, which is about, of course, the twisted history of the Hammers through the lens of Armie Hammer, the actor, getting canceled for his abusive sexual preferences. It was interesting–I am always fascinated by twisted rich families that hate each other so passionately–but we need to find something meaty, like a good crime series, to dig into. It’s amazing how we can hve so many options yet can never find anything to watch, isn’t it?

I spent some time yesterday with Chris Clarkson’s adorable That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street, which is charming and fun and delightful to read, and may even be able to finish reading it today, with any luck and some strong motivation, at any rate. I think from that I will move on to either Megan Abbott or Eli Cranor; I can’t decide which of the plethora of great 2023 new releases to select from, to be honest. I know I’ll be listening to Carol Goodman in the car next weekend on the way up and I’m not sure who I’ll listen to on the way home.

A quick glance at Twitter has shown me that LSU fans have now surpassed eleven thousand shots in the Rocco’s College World Series Shot Competition, and are well on pace to break the record (just over eighteen thousand) set by Mississippi last year. Oh, how the bars and restaurants in Eauxmaha must love LSU fans! I mean, even if the shots are only a dollar, that’s over eleven grand in receipts on those shots alone, not counting everything else being sold there. LSU is playing Wake Forest tonight, and it will take a strong effort for the Tigers to pull off the win. If they do pull out a win, I’m thinking the shots record will fall tonight.

I also read an old short story yesterday that I remember from when I was a kid. Periodically, Mom let me join a book club. The first one I joined was the Mystery Guild, and those selections i received from the Mystery Guild really kind of shaped my future both as a reader and writer. I still remember the books–still have some of the original copies–and over the years, I’ve tried to replace the ones lost over time to cross-country moves. Recently I repurchased a copy of Alfred Hitchcock Presents a Month of Mystery on eBay, and there was a story in it I read as a kid that I never forgot; and I wanted to reread it. It was called “The Queen’s Jewel” and was written by Robert Golding (I’d forgotten the name of the author). I took the book down yesterday afternoon to reread the story, and it was amazing to me how much of it I still remembered, the details. The main character, Jane Farquhar, owns a small hotel of sorts with guest cabins in the brush in Africa. One of her ancestors was a server for the imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots, and before her execution she gave him the pendant of a ruby set in a heavy gold chain with four carat blue-white diamonds surrounding it. It is very valuable, and Jane’s father raised her to be prepared, always be prepared, because someone will eventually come to try to steal it from her in some way…and thus the story is about her defending herself against a criminal pretending to be an American cousin. The story holds up and works, but it opens with Jane discovering the body of her poisoned guard dog–which did make me wonder, would this story be published today? Opening with a dead dog?

I also didn’t know much about Robert Golding, so after reading the story I used the google to find out he was one of the many Ellery Queen ghostwriters (I only recently found out that many Ellery Queen novels were ghostwritten) and it turned out Golding wrote two of my favorite Ellery Queen novels, The Player on the Other Side and Calamity Town, which is one of my all-time favorite mystery novels; little wonder his short story connected so well with me. I don’t remember The Player on the Other Side other than that it was one of my favorites; but Calamity Town? I remember a lot of that novel, and it was primarily about the Wrights, the first family of Wrightsville–a location so popular that Queen kept returning there for more murder mysteries (The Murderer is a Fox was another great Wrightsville mystery). He also apparently wrote a lot of the juvenile Ellery Queen mysteries–published as Ellery Queen Jr.–which I also enjoyed as a kid; Ellery Queen Jr. and the Jim Hutton 1970’s television series Ellery Queen (which I loved) were what originally brought me to reading the adult Ellery Queens; the first I read was the one they actually filmed for the pilot, The Fourth Side of the Triangle, which was marvelous, and then I started buying his books or checking them out from the library. So thank you, Robert Golding, for being an influence on me and my writing without my knowing it. I’m really looking forward to reading some more of these old short stories. I got another Hitchcock (Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories to Be Read with the Door Locked) and an old MWA one, edited by Robert L. Fish, With Malice Toward All, which also looks rather fun.

And on that note, I think I am going to head into the spice mines and read for a bit while my brain continues to wake up before tackling the manuscript. Have a lovely holiday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you later.

The Hollow Men

Sunday and the midpoint of the holiday weekend, as New Orleans swelters in what is, even for here, an unusually potent June heat wave. I stayed inside as much as I could yesterday, in the marvelous cool of the Lost Apartment. I slept well Friday night, which was great, and while I wasn’t feeling especially motivated yesterday morning, I did get my daily blog entry done as well as a Pride post. I read more of That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street, which is just absolutely charming (you should get a copy, Constant Reader), and then I did some more cleaning chores around the house before digging into the edits of this manuscript. I got the macro edit along with the copy edit, so I can get it all worked through, hopefully this weekend; I would love to be able to get this to the editor on Monday. We shall see how it goes. I did get some progress made yesterday; we’ll see how things go today. Yesterday was kind of nice, actually. I got some rest, too–today I feel really rested–and we finished watching Butchers of the Bayou, got caught up on The Crowded Room, and started watching City on Fire, which…is interesting, but I guess we’re supposed to believe Manhattan is an incredibly small town? It’s based on an “it” book from a couple of years ago that I never read; I had a copy but eventually donated it in one of my many purges. I’m not sure we’ll continue watching, to be honest; it’s okay but not riveting. There was no disappointment last night when I called the evening after a couple of episodes.

LSU won their game yesterday at the College World Series (GEAUX TIGERS!). We watched part of the game before switching over to The Crowded Room once I was sure the Tigers had the game under control. I have to say, it’s very fun living in Louisiana and being a sports fan. I of course always will root for any team based in Louisiana, with the Saints and LSU having my deepest loyalties, but part of the fun is how different Louisiana sports fans are from fans in other parts of the country. Tiger Stadium and the Superdome can get loud enough that it hurts your ears, but the thing I love the most about Louisiana sports fans is that they are also fans when it’s not easy, if that makes sense? It’s why Saints players become so attached to New Orleans; we’ll turn out to welcome them home from away games at the airport even when they lose. When the Saints were in the Super Bowl, the city of New Orleans decided to have a Saints parade that Tuesday night before the second weekend of Carnival, where they won or lost; a celebration if they won and a thank you for a great season and making it to the Super Bowl if they lost. Maybe the turn out for that parade might not have been quite the mob scene it was had they not won, but I like to think that it would have been pretty close to the same thing. I also love all the stories about how Omaha (which we’re calling Eauxmaha the way we always Louisiana-ize everything) loves our fans and hope we make it to the College World Series every year. There’s a bar in Omaha that has a shots contest for all the fans of the teams there–LSU is of course way out in front of second place, and at one point you could combine the other seven schools and LSU still won. It also reminds me of how when LSU played Oklahoma in the 2019 college football play-offs in Atlanta, a lot of the bars around the hotels and stadium ran out of beer and bourbon the first night (this was NOT a problem when LSU played in New Orleans for the national championship; New Orleans never runs out because we’re Louisiana too). I also imagine that the servers and bartenders must make a ton of money in tips from LSU fans, who are also as generous as they are friendly. (I was also thinking the other day as I rewatched highlights of this past year’s LSU-Alabama game, what a night for recruiting that must have been! As a high school football player, visiting Tiger Stadium on a night like that, when the entire stadium was rocking (the stadium’s reactions to the over time touchdown and the two point conversion both registered on the campus Richter machine), how could you not sign with LSU? I’m trying not to get overly optimistic for football season, but LSU and the Saints (and Tulane, even) are poised to have great seasons.

Fingers crossed!

It looks kind of hazy outside the windows this morning. The heat advisory/heat wave is supposed to last until Tuesday; I’ve not checked the weather yet this morning to see how bad today is going to be. AH, yes, heat advisory, partly cloudy, and the potential for a severe thunderstorm later this afternoon. I was hoping to barbecue today, so here’s hoping the thunderstorm either holds off until I do or is over before I want to. I’m not going to run errands until after work on Tuesday, on my way home from the office. We have plenty of stuff on hand to eat without me having to go to the store, and I’m not going to be getting a lot when I do make a grocery run because I will be out of the house all next week. The reason I am coming back on the following Saturday is so that I can do a grocery run before heading to work on Monday.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday of your holiday weekend, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back before you know it.

Road, River and Rail

Work at home Friday, and all is well thus far in the Lost Apartment. I did make it through the day somehow–don’t ask me how–but I didn’t feel tired for most of the day and it wasn’t until I headed home that I hit a wall of sorts. I had to pick up the mail–yay for my copy of All The Sinners Bleed!–and then picked up a prescription during a massive thunderstorm, which was kind of fun. I actually love when it rains; I just don’t love that no one in New Orleans seems to know how to drive in rain. One would think that, given how much torrential rain we get here, that–I don’t know–that drivers here would have learned how at some point? (I also got some other buys from eBay in the mail; Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories to Be Read with the Door Locked, which looks fun, and Mary M. Luke’s A Crown for Elizabeth, which picks up the tale of the Tudor dynasty with the continuation of the story from Catherine the Queen, covering the years 1533 thru 1558. I am excited about both, to be honest.) Paul worked on a grant last night while I watched the last extended gay disco remix episode of the Vanderpump Rules reunion, which was remarkable. I do want to write about reality television, particularly the Bravo flavored kind, but I am also trying to do all these extra Pride entries about not just being a queer crime writer but being a queer American trying to navigate an increasingly hostile world. There’s also been so much coverage of the scandalous last season of this show–along with its mother show, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills–that I don’t really have anything new to add to the discourse, other than to make some observations from a cultural and societal perspective? I think it also might not hurt to unpack why I get so caught up in the (usually) manufactured drama of these shows.

But after I got home and watched, my brain was a bit too fried from the day and the week for the work to be able to make up for the lost time last night and get back on track. It’s getting very close, to the point where I am almost starting to get antsy and have to resist the urge to hurry and finish it as quickly as possible. I am always afraid the endings of my books are rushed because I am so heartily tired of it already and cannot wait to be finished and on to the next thing. I am looking forward to this weekend, primarily for the rest and also for getting things very caught up that have kind of slid this week. I have some chores that have to be done today around the work-at-home duties, and I’d like to finish reading Chris Clarkson’s That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street this weekend, since I now have the latest S. A. Cosby, Megan Abbott, and Christopher Bollen novels to get through. My reading has definitely slid a bid this year, too. I spent some time last night reading the introductions to the Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthology as well as an old MWA one, edited by Robert Fish, that came in Wednesday’s mail, With Malice for All (or something like that). I read the first story in the Fish MWA anthology, and it was very creepy and very short and quite the punch in the face to start off the book.

I really need to get back to the Short Story Project, too.

It was a pleasant week, for the most part. I got a lot of work done this week, which feels great, and I feel pretty confident about moving on and getting this all finished sooner rather than later. I’m looking forward to sleeping in both mornings this weekend, and while I am going to have to leave the house to run errands at some point, at least this morning I can sit here in my chair sipping coffee and thinking I may not have to leave the house all weekend. At one point this week during the office I wandered up to the front desk where some of my co-workers were sitting during the needle exchange (making it Wednesday afternoon, thank you, logic modules in my brain) and they were asking each other icebreaker type questions. When I walked up, the current question was what animal would you want to be so I replied, “My cat, because never leaving the house and sleeping 22 hours a day sounds really appealing.” Scooter has been super-cuddly and affectionate lately, more so than usual, which is saying something because he’s always been super-cuddly and affectionate. I worry about him because we’ve now had him for thirteen years this September, and he was supposedly already two years old when we got him. He’s a sweet boy. I think we’ll probably always have a ginger cat; I suspect when we lose Scooter we may even end up with two of them.

The Strand Critics’ Award nominations came out yesterday, and as always it’s a friend-studded list. Shout out to every finalist. The books nominated that I’ve read are superb, so the choice of a winner isn’t going to be easy–glad the choice didn’t fall into my hands. I am already glad I am not judging any awards this year–I’ve already read so many good books this year that I don’t know that I could chose just the one–and like I said, I’ve not gotten to this year’s releases by some of my favorite authors (and people) and there’s a new Laura Lippman dropping this summer. Woo-hoo! And of course, my TBR pile is already stacked with amazing reads I’d love to make a serious dent in this year.

And on that note, I think I’m going to grab another cup of coffee and put the dishes away and start making a dent in the mess that is the Lost Apartment before I start working for the day. May you have a fabulous Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll talk to you again later.

Heaven or Las Vegas

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. Huzzah? Huzzah. I do have to go into the office ungodly early for a department meeting, but that’s okay. I may just have to swing by Five Guys on my way home as a weekend treat. WHY NOT? Why not indeed.

Yesterday was similar to the day before; I didn’t feel tired but I also didn’t feel rested. We were busy at work all day, too, which was cool; the day always passes faster if we’re busy. I was very tired when I got home, worked on the book and knocked off another chapter, then we settled in to watch the finale of Ted Lasso, which was simply marvelous; I am going to watch it again (I cried a lot of the way through it, not ashamed to admit it) and was enormously satisfied with the ending. There will be another, more in depth conversation about the show to come at some point, when I’ve had more of a chance to digest it. I see that there are some people who aren’t happy with it–but it hit every note for me perfectly. Did I get everything I wanted in the end? Of course not, but that was never going to happen, and I am very grateful I found the show (thanks again to Alafair Burke, who told me I’d love it in the first place and she was right). I’ll miss AFC Richmond, but…am grateful that I got to know them all. It was simply magic.

We also watched a George Michael documentary–not the one Paul wanted to watch, alas; we’ll watch that one tonight–and then I had to catch up on the Vanderpump Rules reunion, which was hilarious and fun and reality gold. I also loved that almost every commercial break featured a commercial with Ariana Madix, who is having probably the best revenge tour in the history of reality television.

I slept well last night, and this morning I feel rested and awake and ready to go; first time this week, alas, but what can you do? The book is progressing nicely; I may even have time to revise it one more time before it’s due to be turned in. I have a big weekend coming; a weekend of writing and reading (I want to finish Chris Clarkson’s marvelous That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street so I can move on to the new Megan Abbott) and cleaning. I want to get the car washed this weekend and vacuumed out, I need to get moving on the scanning project, and I should get another box down from the attic to go through. I need to drop books off at the library sale on Saturday, too. Sounds like I am going to need a to-do list specific for the weekend, doesn’t it? I’m also going to have some things delivered, I think, on Saturday.

I feel good this morning, about everything, which is lovely. It’s amazing what a difference it makes when I sleep well, isn’t it? And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday Eve, everyone!

Pitch the Baby

Tuesday morning of a holiday-shortened work week, which could be much worse. This past holiday weekend seriously seemed to last forever.

The Internet went out again yesterday, and as always, dealing with Cox on-line was just a joy and an overall bundle of laughs, really. The problem now is clearly not the modem, but the line itself. Of course no one can come out until Wednesday between three and five, which is when I am at work. So yay for using some more of my personal time for something it wasn’t designed for. And yes, it’s time to start looking for another Internet provider. I’ve heard horrible things about all of the others, frankly, and while I am very annoyed at Cox right now–this is insane to not have working wifi on a holiday weekend (God forbid we want to, oh, I don’t know, stream something tonight or tomorrow) and I am rather worried about how my data plan is getting burned up on my phone (which I am using as a hotspot), but why would anything work the way it’s supposed to? That apparently is too much to ask for in the United States in the year of our Lord 2023. It was enormously frustrating, to say the least (I am really not pleased about having to leave work early on Wednesday)–and that’s assuming he’ll be able to fix the problem when he gets here that afternoon/evening (odds he won’t arrive until after I would have been home from work?).

I did manage to get some work done yesterday, despite the frustration and anger. I am not as caught up as I would have like to have been this week, but dealing with these Internet issues is so fucking frustrating I could barely stand it. The cable did come back on last night–not sure when, since I switched the Apple TV to run off my phone’s hotspot; I noticed that all the lights were on just before I went to bed. Talk about frustrating!

I wonder if next weekend I can walk by the AT&T store and see if that’s workable? But if it’s indeed the line, switching providers won’t change that. The Internet didn’t even work for twenty-four hours. How fucking irritating is that? Or do I really want to switch providers simply because I’ve had a couple of problems with my carrier over the last week? After over twenty years of nothing to complain about? I don’t know.

GAH. These things that are supposed to make life easier, right? Sheesh.

At least I slept well last night. I feel rested this morning, which is a lovely change from the way I usually feel when I get up at six. I think maybe my body is finally adjusting to this schedule, after three years of it? That’s not a bad thing, I suppose, and probably the reason it took so long is because of my own stubbornness.

I did start reading Chris Clarkson’s That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street, which is quite marvelous. It’s been a while since I’ve read a young adult novel that was a romance, or romance-based thematically, and it’s nice. I always forget how helpful it is for me as a writer to read outside the genre I usually write in. And I do have an idea for a romance bouncing around in my brain. I don’t know if I’ll ever write one, but I’ve been wondering about it lately. Why not try one? That was the mentality that led to me writing a cozy, and that turned out pretty well for me. I’m never going to have the time to write everything I want to write before I die, anyway. I did start weeding out files this weekend (one benefit of the Internet being down for most of the day yesterday), and realized it was time to start making decisions. There’s something about hoarding ideas for books and stories that I can’t ever seem to quite let go of; but the truth is I have so many interests and so many ideas I know I’ll never get around to writing most of them. It’s weird to start thinking in that way, but it’s also a reality. I continue having more and more ideas almost every day, so it’s not like the well is ever going to run dry. I could spend the rest of the time left to me on this planet writing the ideas I already have on hand and never get to finish them all, let alone all the new ideas I get all the time.

Sigh, depressing thoughts on a Tuesday morning. And on that note perhaps I should head out into the spice mines. You have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow.

Cherry-Colored Funk

Memorial Day Monday, and here we are. Ordinarily I would already be at the office and working, instead I find myself resting and at home and up later than usual swilling coffee. Ironically, after having such a terrible day on Saturday, I rallied for a marvelous Sunday. The Cox guy was much earlier than scheduled (and we now have a modern, working, full strength and much faster modem; our old one was the one we got when we moved back into this apartment in 2006, I think? We must have had wireless because there was no way to get a line up to Paul’s computer, right?), and even before he arrive I managed to get back on track with the book and tear through a significant section. I am feeling a bit more confident about the book as I go; it’s taking shape nicely and it’s super nice to be cutting out extraneous bits. It’s also interesting to see how often I repeat myself, or explain the same thing repeatedly in chapter after chapter. I also finished reading Lori Roy’s Let Me Die in His Footsteps, which was marvelous (more on that later) and I picked out my next read (more on that later). It was a nice day, really, over all, and I couldn’t have been more smug and self-satisfied as I took myself up to bed last night had I tried. I also managed to relax some. We finished watching a true crime documentary called How to Create a Sex Scandal, which was utterly horrifying, moved on to the new Shazam movie (which was terrible, really terrible) and then started watching this insanely funny animated series called Chicago Party Aunt, which is so much funnier than I ever could have dared to dream. I slept well and woke up earlier than expected this morning, but I decided to go ahead and get up anyway.

I am so relieved about the new modem, you have no idea. And because the cords are longer, it no longer has to sit on the end table; it can reach to sit on top of the bookcase behind my easy chair, so Scooter won’t be knocking it off the table anymore. (Yes, not only was our modem old as dirt, it was regularly knocked off the table by Scooter. That thing really took a beating, and it’s a miracle it lasted as long as it did). My computer and the Apple TV do seem to be much faster, which is also always a lovely plus. And being up this early means I can get this finished and spend some time in my easy chair reading That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street by Chris Clarkson, which I am really looking forward to enjoying before I start work for the day. There’s also a bit of a mess in the apartment from things having to get moved around and so forth, so I will need to do some touching up around here today while I work on the book. And of course, tomorrow it’s back to the spice mines for a shorter than normal work week, which is cool.

I also feel a slight bit out of sorts this morning. I’m not sure what it is; if it’s getting up early or what, but nothing a shower and a shave can’t take care of, I am sure. I also need to start archiving files to make more room for new files. I suppose a lot of stuff in the filing cabinet can be moved into an archive of sorts; I am beginning to wonder if I really do need to keep all this shit. Of course, I could just scan old contracts and so forth and dispose of the physical copies at some point. Do I really need to keep short story contracts from twenty years ago? Probably not, and likewise, I don’t think I need tax returns that are over seven years old, either. I’ve become such a pack rat, which is really not in my best interests or the best interests of the apartment, for that matter. Maybe the goal for the rest of the year is to slowly but surely get rid of all this paper. And of course I can always stand to shed more books.

Last night I was scrolling through my Kindle app on my iPad and realizing what a plethora of treasures are there in my app. I am a sucker for those ninety-nine cent or dollar ninety-nine sales on ebooks; I generally will buy the ebook copy of something I have in a print copy so I can happily donate the print copy once I’ve finished reading it (I still prefer to read in a physical form). There’s also all kinds of great research materials in there, too. At least ebooks don’t take up a lot of room in the Lost Apartment, you know? I also, through cleaning more thoroughly, have come across a lot of my COVID masks–I’d been wondering where they’d all gone; and I only found like five of them; I had many many more. I suppose I can throw the majority of them away, although I may take to wearing one again during cold/flu season in the clinic. I’ve only gotten a cold/flu once during the past three years, and it was kind of nice, you know? That was due to the masking and constant hand-washing, and I’ve allowed myself to go slack on that.

All right, on that note I am going to bring this to a close so I can head into the spice mines for today. Have a lovely Memorial Day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.

This Used To Be My Playground

Monday morning of Malice week. Ugh, all the little things one has to do to get ready for traveling. Make a list of what to pack, take inventory of the kitchen to make sure Paul has what he needs while I’m gone, and so on and so forth. Heavy heaving sigh. But my flight Thursday isn’t super early; eleven-ish, if I recall correctly, which means I don’t have to be at the airport until around nine, which isn’t bad. I’m going to take some books with me to read for pleasure at the airports and while in flight; I will be editing when I can in my room periodically trying to get this revision finished by the end of the month. The weekend wasn’t nearly as productive as it could have been–there was another wave of depression and grief to be gotten through this weekend, unfortunately–but I did make some progress, which I am taking as a win. I did also make a to-do list for the week; that should help in some ways.

We watched A Knock at the Cabin last night, which I enjoyed; a lot more than I usually enjoy an M. Night Shyamalan movie. I had also enjoyed the book on which it was based, The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay, who is one of our best horror writers today; I’ve enjoyed everything of his I’ve read thus far. The film follows the book very closely; it’s one of those claustrophobic horror stories where some city folk take a vacation in the country at a remote cabin–but remote and country are very much staples of horror; someone really should do a look at the trope of “city folk in the country” horror–and things of course go very south. The film is very well cast; Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge play Eric and Andrew, a gay couple who’ve adopted a young Asian girl they’ve named Wen and they make an adorable little family group. The location of the cabin is idyllic and tranquil and beautiful; the perfect spot for some city folk who want to get away from the every day and rest and relax. Wen collects grasshoppers in a jar because she wants to study them; the movie opens with her catching grasshoppers and then catching a glimpse of a very big man coming through the woods to talk to her. This is Leonard, played very well by Dave Bautista, who is the leader of a group of four people who have seen visions and have concluded that in order to stop the apocalyptic end of the world, they must come to this cabin and present the family with a horrible choice: they have to sacrifice one of their own in order to stop the end of the world. Are they crazy? They sound like it, as they try to reason with the family…but what if they aren’t? The movie’s ending is different than the book’s–there was no way they could film the book’s ending, really–but I do prefer the book’s ending than the film’s; it seemed like the inevitable outcome, and made the most sense. It’s a good movie, I do recommend it, but one thing I’ve always been curious about since reading the book and was only heightened by viewing the film: why a gay family? I gave Tremblay props when I read the book, because they were very real and didn’t seem forced or stereotypical at all; I thought it should stand as an excellent example of someone who is not gay writing gay characters. The politics of the representation–gays in peril–is one I am not going to give any time to; sure, the gay family was in danger almost from the minute the credits rolled, and it was nice having a gay couple to root for in a horror film. Horror by its very nature is disturbing and tragic; you cannot have gay representation in horror and then not expect the gay people to go through some things, you know? And having gay characters also adds another dimension to the home invasion situation–are they crazy, are they telling the truth, or did they target a gay family purposely? There’s an essay to be written about the book and the movie from a sociopolitical and sociocultural perspective, but I don’t know that I am the right person to write such a thing; I’m not an academic, after all, and have very little desire to ever be an academic.,.although that sometimes can explain my insecurities about thinking deep and heavy thoughts and wanting to write deep and heavy essays picking apart and deconstructing gay representation in modern fiction, with an emphasis on horror and crime.

I also read some academic treatises this weekend, one about being gay and the gay rights movement’s intersectionality and how it got away from that in the beginning only to circle back around to it in the present day, and the other about the television show Dark Shadows, which probably had more influence on me, my writing, and my preferences when it comes to reading, film, and television than anything else I’ve watched or read in my life. I know I used to watch classic black and white films with my grandmother (she was a big fan of the gay icons, ironically: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, and Katharine Hepburn; she also liked horror and noir, and she was a fan of Dark Shadows, as was our babysitter down the street, Mrs. Harris), so pretty much my course was set when I was a little boy–gay writer was my future. I should write more about Dark Shadows–I was actually thinking last night that I should write a memoir of being a writer; my influences and how they shaped my creativity and what I actually write–not that anyone would be interested in reading such a thing, of course; which is partly why I don’t write more personal essays. Just as I’ve never really been interested in writing a writing manual, or one of those Greg Herren teaches you how to write a novel things. I always feel like a fraud when I talk about writing; never does my Imposter Syndrome strike as hard as it does when I am talking about writing or teaching a workshop. I don’t know.

It’s back into the office with me today. It’s a light day for me; mostly busy work, like data entry, filing, resupplying testing rooms, that sort of thing. It’s always nice to ease back into the week with an easy day in the office. It’s also weird to know that I am leaving on Thursday morning; the trip doesn’t seem real to me yet even though I’ve already made plans to meet up with people while I am there. Looks like I’m going to have to take a Lyft or an Uber from the airport once there, which is fine. And then of course when I get home I have to make up for lost time with the manuscript. Heavy heaving sigh. It wasn’t a good weekend for working, really; I kept spiraling and had to finally, on both days, remind myself that my mental health was more important than a deadline and so focused on positivity and and worked when I was able to get things done. The house isn’t nearly in the kind of shape I would like for it to be in when I am leaving for a weekend (two in a row; the next weekend I am off to Alabama) but seriously–when is it ever? I just need to make sure everything is in order before I go away on Thursday morning. Heavy heaving sigh.

And my books that I’ll be taking to read with me are going to be That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street, Wined and Died in La,, Let Me Die in His Footsteps, and Monday’s Lie. I am not going to get through all of these, of course; I may even cut it down to two–like I won’t be buying books in the book room, please–and I will also be working on the revision while I am there, too. (I so wanted to be finished before I leave…)

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up and head into the office. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Justify My Love

It’s a bright and sunny morning in the Lost Apartment today and I feel rested. I slept deeply and well, only waking once to deal with a hungry caterwauling animal before going back to bed for some more sleep. It’s funny how eight can feel like sinfully slothful sleeping in when your body has gotten sort of used to being untimely ripped from the clutches of Morpheus at six.

Yesterday wasn’t a good day, which caught me by surprise but I rolled with it. Grief can sucker-punch you when you aren’t expecting it, and last night was one of those nights. Days, really; the sucker-punch came while I was working but managed to hold off on the emotional crash until I finished my day job duties. I managed to get the laundry and dishes done, but not much of anything else the rest of the day once my day went off the rails. We did finally watch this week’s Ted Lasso last night together, and it was even better the second time; I think that’s what had been missing the previous episodes–that sense of, to be corny and play into the episode some, “everything’s going be all right.” The Jamie-Roy scenes were particularly lovely, and I’m hoping that Rebecca’s encounter with the boat man has made her regain some of that sense of self she really needs to get back. And of course, the Trent-Colin scenes were particularly lovely. We then watched the season finale of The Mandalorian, which was the best episode of the season, and then started our way through P-Valley again before retiring for a good night’s rest. This morning I feel good and balanced; I am going to have to run errands today, which will make today’s working on the book interrupted and a bit messed up. I am way behind on this, and really can’t allow myself to get sidetracked and/or distracted at all, because I have other things I need to be working on that I am not working on and that cannot be allowed to continue. The ability to juggle and keep many plates spinning at the same time has kind of slipped these days; I don’t know if it’s a skill set I’ve lost for good or if it’s a temporary thing; I hope it’s a temporary thing, quite frankly.

If it is, I’m going to have to rethink a lot of things about how I get shit done. Yikes. Adaptability is always important…even if I am fucking sick and tired of having to adapt all the time. Heavy heaving sigh.

I still haven’t selected my next book to read. The choices are Ellen Byron’s Wined and Died in LA; Lori Roy’s Let Me Die in His Footsteps; Jamie Mason’s Monday’s Lie; and Chris Clarkson’s That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street. I am leaning toward the Clarkson simply because it’s not a crime novel, and I feel like I need to take a little break from crime fiction for awhile. That Summer Night is a young adult romance novel, and it’s probably the only one I know of set in New Orleans (I know that can’t be right, but right now on my second cup of coffee I simply can’t think of another one–I know there was a really bad one about a ghost from Lafayette Cemetery #1 that i read about a decade ago whose name I cannot recall, and it did make me think writing y/a set in New Orleans was probably not the best idea, even though I had an idea for one or two because of course I always do), and I really liked Chris when we were on the panel together at Saints and Sinners…plus it’s a New Orleans book. I am really making an effort to get through the TBR pile before adding more to it–although I will always be adding more to it–and I think 2023 is a good year to do that. Now if I can only stay motivated….

It’s weird to think that I’ll be leaving town on Thursday, too. I definitely need to make a to-do list and start working my way through it. At this time next Saturday I’ll be signing in the book room at Malice Domestic, dealing with exhaustion, and trying to find some downtime to get work on the book done. I am flying home on Sunday, so I also took Monday off so I can recalibrate and get caught up on things like groceries and so forth. It’s almost May, Christ. I need to get this fucking book revised and out of my hair so I can move on to writing something the fuck else.

I also saw this morning that Alex Segura won the LA Times Book Award for Best Mystery/Thriller for Secret Identity, an award which I whole-heartedly endorse. It was one of my favorite books of last year, and Alex also happens to be one of my favorite people in this business. Yay! I love when this sort of thing happens to wonderful people who write wonderful books. Yay!

And on that, I should probably head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later. If not, tomorrow.