Tag: The Get Off

So It Goes…

Tuesday and back to the daily grind of up early and back to the office. It’s a short work week, after all, and the weekend will be here before I know it, right? I feel good and rested and centered, which was what I really needed from this long weekend, and that’s a good thing. We’re also supposed to have stormy weather all week, which is kind of fun; I’ve been wanting some rain and thunderstorms, so I can curl up under a blanket and read. I managed to get the kitchen cleaned and organized, and made some progress on the living room, which I’ll gladly take. There’s some laundry to finish and dishes to do and put away that I left for today (I was really sleepy last night and went to bed early), but that’s okay. I have to run some quick errands after work–mail, library, and of course I have to stop at the grocery store because the primary reason I made groceries yesterday? Was the one thing I forgot to get. Typical Gregalicious. I forgot my list, of course.

And moisturizing has been amazing. I’m no longer ashy, and I love how my skin feels. I may never stop! I am also getting stronger, slowly but surely, every day, which is also kind of nice, you know? The stairs are still a challenge, but getting to be less of one every time I go upstairs.

This weekend also gave me the time to think and reflect about my life.

I’ve been really lucky in my life, you know?

As I wrote my remembrances of my friends Felice and Victoria this weekend, I couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that I knew, and was close to, two of the most important queer voices of the last fifty years, and that I was able to learn from them. I know so many amazingly talented people, and can call some of them friends–the kind of life I dreamed of having all those years ago when I was miserable closeted teen in that hellhole known as small town Kansas–that I wish sometimes I could go back and tell that sad unhappy child that his dreams would, indeed, someday all come true for him.

I finished reading Christa Faust’s fantastic The Get Off yesterday morning (you can read my thoughts on it here) and started reading Laura Lippman’s Murder Takes a Vacation–what a lucky reader am I, right? Yesterday was a pretty good day, overall. I rested, did some cleaning, and of course did a lot of reading (I also read some more into Moonraker), which was really nice. I also tried a quick and easy chicken and dumplings recipe I found on-line (knowing it wasn’t going to be as good as Mom’s, and I really need to find her recipe) for dinner. It turned out pretty good, actually, and as always, I followed the recipe the first time to see how it was, and am thinking already of ways to improve it and make it my own. There was no milk or flour in it, for example–the dumplings were quartered biscuits from a roll can–so that could also make a difference, but who knew boiled and simmered biscuits could be so damned tasty? I was also kind of pleased with myself for trying something new, too–it’s been a hot minute–and now that I seem to be settling into a new, post illness phase of my life, I want to do more of that.

I wrote three newsletters this weekend, didn’t I? One per day. I am actually finding that I enjoy writing the newsletters, because I can take my time and think about them, putting a little more thought and effort into them than I do the blog, which I just dash off every morning over my coffee.

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

El Castillo at Chichén Itzá. I visited here in 1993 and was blown away by the Mayan ruins.

End Game

Ah, Monday of Memorial Day and all is well in the Lost Apartment. I finished cleaning up the kitchen yesterday, which was amazing to walk down into this morning, and I swear I will never allow it to get that bad ever again–do it every weekend, Gregalicious, and it will get easier as it goes. I am trying to keep up with my chores throughout the week rather than pushing them to the weekend–always a recipe for disaster–and if I can keep up, life will be better and I can get other, deeper cleaning that needs to be done taken care of.

Yesterday I started getting creative again. I got up early, around six–don’t ask me why, it’s apparently a thing for me now, which is great since that’s when I have to get up for work–and had breakfast, wrote my blog and a newsletter about Victoria’s death (which reminded me I’d never eulogized Felice Picano, so I started working on that), and then read The Get Off for a while (it’s so excellent) and also more of Moonraker. I worked on the kitchen and get it taken care of–just some minor touches for my workspace tomorrow, and then I can slowly get the living room into order as well. I gathered everything I need to have handy when working on the Scotty book (the older volumes with post-its stuck throughout the pages, and yes, they are color-coded; the notebook with everything written thus far in its most recent draft; the cast list; and my thick folder of notes and research, most of which won’t be used); I should have done this months ago. I started writing the prologue, with a very short homage to Valley of the Dolls, and even started putting the tarot reading together. Not bad for a rest day where I also got the kitchen floors under control and barbecued, don’t you think? After dinner, we watched Fountain of Youth on Apple–John Krasinski and Natalie Portman and a treasure hunt, which was just a little too silly to be enjoyable–and the season finale of The Last of Us. This morning, I have to do the dishes and run the dishwasher, and then start picking up the living room while I swill coffee and listen to Taylor Swift while also taking reading breaks. I also started reading something new for non-fiction, Old Man River: The Mississippi River in North American History by Paul Schneider, which I am already loving. As you can see, my creative ADHD is exploding off the charts again so I am going to need to start writing more than just the blog and the newsletter soon, else I’ll explode.

I’m also up before seven today, with a good night’s sleep behind me and facing the last day of this holiday weekend. I do have to make a little groceries today; so I am going to try to do some things around here before I head over there. Dishes and the living room, mostly, as well as some self-care and reading. I feel pretty good this morning, only slightly physically weak, and I actually made it all the way upstairs last night without having to stop and rest on the way up. I’m eating more and more every day–and trust me, after worrying about gaining weight for 2/3rds of my life, it’s nice to eat whatever I want whenever I want without fear or self-loathing about it.

And it’s a short work week, which will be nice. I don’t think we’re booked heavily in the clinic this week, but I am pretty much caught up on everything at the office so the week should be a fairly simple and easy one to ease back into the regular routine. I’ve gotten up early every day of this holiday weekend, so getting up early to go to work isn’t going to be an issue tomorrow morning. Huzzah!

And I’m enjoying my morning coffee again. I don’t drink nearly as much as I used to before the illness, because I get shaky and jittery, but at least it is tasting good to me again. Normality seems to be slowly returning to one Gregalicious, but it is slowly happening, and I am very relieved on that score. I am also feeling ambitious again, which hasn’t happened in a long time, and I feel pretty good about that as well.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the day. Those books aren’t going to read themselves, nor are those dishes going to wash themselves (self-cleaning dishes would be amazing), and Sparky is acting like he wants my desk chair or my lap or both, so I may as well repair to the easy chair. Have a lovely Memorial Day, and remember to toast those we lost in service to our country.

You know, the suckers and losers.

What can I say? I was hungry!

ABC

Saturday in the Lost Apartment, and a three day weekend, at that. Memorial Day weekend has some rough memories for me–this was the weekend of Paul’s attack and the loss of his eye–but it’s been over twenty years now at this point and that seems like that all happened to other people at this point, unless I dig too deeply into my memory banks. So, I just don’t dive too deeply into those memory banks and I am fine. But alas and alack, the Memorial Day curse has struck again; one of my oldest and dearest friends in the world, Victoria A. Brownworth, died and I found out yesterday evening. I am bereft and bereaved; I can’t believe I’m never going to get another email or phone call from her. Hell, I still haven’t written about Felice Picano’s death and what he meant to me yet, and now I have to do Victoria too? We were friends for nearly three decades; Victoria was one of the few people left who knew me when I was unpublished.

The worst part of getting old is losing people.

Dorothy, Felice, Victoria. What a horrible stretch of time since the election. So many early supporters of me and my career, now gone forever.

I think I need to wrap Jean Redmann in bubble wrap and protect her at all costs.

Yesterday was a decent day before I found out about Victoria. I did my work at home duties, ran an errand, and did some cleaning and organizing around here. I also ate a lot, more than I usually do, and was even snacking throughout the evening. We watched Fear Street: Prom Queen, which was sillier than scary, frankly, and then moved on to Overcompensating, which is cute and relatable and kind of funny; I’m sure it will get even funnier and relatable as the main character keeps burrowing deeper into the college closet. I also spent some time reading the three books I am currently reading: The Silver Ring Mystery by Helen Wells, The Get Off by Christa Faust, and Moonraker by Ian Fleming. I am going to do some straightening up around here, and definitely get the kitchen floor taken care of, but today I am mostly going to chill out and relax and read some more and get rest so my body can get past the trauma of this illness. (My blood work came back good; the specialist’s office called me yesterday to let me know that we’re all systems go for the treatment plan for after the steroid taper off–and I’ll be glad to be done with the steroids; I do not like the sudden anger and aggression they trigger.)

And maybe this weekend I can get back to writing. The blog has been helping, and I need to do a newsletter, but am not sure which one to finish. The one about Christianity needs a lot of work, as does the one about the Lost Cause Mythology. But maybe there’s something else in there in draft form I can finish up in the meantime? I have a lot of drafts….as always with everything, you know? SO many ideas, so little time…and I do need to rest.

We’ll see.

Have a lovely Saturday, everyone, and I’ll check in with you again, possibly later today–one never knows.

If You Could Read My Mind, Love

Work at home Friday, with a Costco trip after I get my work done! I also have to get some blood work done today (yay! my arms will continue looking hideous before all these bruises heal at long last; good thing I am far too old to be vain anymore), but c’est la vie. Que sera sera, and all of that. I also have to run by the office–I forgot some paperwork I need to work on, and I can’t find my wallet. It’s not in the house and it’s not in the car, so the only place it can be is at the office; although I looked for it there yesterday and couldn’t find it. Sigh.

You may have noticed lately that the images I’ve been adding to my blog so there’s a thumbnail image on social media have not been muscular men. Honestly? I’m kind of bored of them, to be honest. There’s a gradual sameness after a while, and I also recognize that sharing images of impossibly built young men whose entire lives revolve around maintaining that look (that most people can never achieve) may be contributing to some toxic body image issues for some men; I know I spent years trying to be physically perfect and always coming up short because of my own body image issues (there are some pictures of me from when I was really lean that I originally saw and thought, maybe another ten pounds? but now I look at them and scream eat something bitch!). So I thought I’d take a break and start using other images that I find interesting–and I have tons of pictures I’ve taken around New Orleans over the years. Maybe I’ll go back to hot guys again, but right now I’m just not feeling that.

In other exciting news, I’ve been looking for Chapter Ten of the new Scotty and not been finding it anywhere…to the point I was beginning to think maybe I hadn’t written it after all. I FOUND IT YESTERDAY MORNING! Huzzah! I was worried, since I’ve blown the deadline and the extended deadline…which is why I am having a ZOOM meeting with my editor on Sunday. I really need to get back on the writing horse sooner rather than later. But the enforced break caused by my illness again gave me lots of time to think about things, especially my writing career, and also allowed the stirrings of ambition to start rising again. Not a bad thing, really. I have to finish this Scotty and there are two others that I want to finish drafts of by the end of the year–possible, always possible–and I also want to get back into writing short stories.

And reading. I need to get back to reading, and the sooner the better. Saturday I am planning on reading my own manuscript while working on the house, and hopefully I can also dig further into Christa Faust’s The Get Off, which is superb. Some people very kindly sent me books while I was in the hospital and they all look good: Vertigo by Boileau-Jercerac (yes, the basis for the Hitchcock film); They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran; People of Means by Nancy Johnson; On Spine of Death by Tamera Berry; The Lilac People by Milo Todd; and Disco Witches of Fire Island by Blair Fell; all of which look interesting…so I must get back to reading very intensely!

I made myself a cappuccino this morning and it is very good; the taste for coffee clearly coming back–and if not, hey, I can just make a cappuccino every morning, can’t I? Yum! I feel a bit more rested this morning–Sparky let me sleep an extra hour before becoming obnoxious. But he’s also sleeping with me now, which he didn’t used to do–mainly, I think, to track my movements in case I get up to feed him–but hey, I’ll take it.

If you enjoyed Andor, I highly recommend watching Rogue One again; the series enhances the movie significantly, and makes it even more powerful. Paul and I both agreed, and I love how the TV show flows into the movie and then into Star Wars (I will never call the original anything else). When Star Wars clicks, it’s excellent; unfortunately, it doesn’t always click, alas.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, and I’ll be back on the morrow.

Statue of Pharaoh Khafre, Egyptian Museum

Lean on Me

Wednesday! Wasn’t sure I was going to make it this far, to be honest. But I’ve put in two full days at the office, have started pulling the house back together and making my life orderly again. I need to be orderly in order to feel settled enough to write, for one thing, and when my house is out of order I get antsy and uncomfortable and anxious. The house is filthy, so I am going to spend some time on Saturday cleaning and getting everything back into the kind of order it needs to be in, you know? It makes me feel more content somehow, and trust me, my workspace is an utter disaster area. Sigh. Sparky, of course, is no help.

I was going through my short story files last night, and I really do want to write another New Orleans Sherlock story–“The Adventure of the Voodoo Queen’s Necklace”–about the great hurricane of 1916. That will predate the one I’ve already published (“The Affair of the Purloined Rentboy”), so some things that come out in that story will still be unknown in the new one. I’m getting excited about writing again, which is a very good thing, methinks. I think maybe the illness was kind of the enforced slow down I needed? I was getting pretty burnt out as it was, and sometimes I just need to chill out and let the batteries recharge. I did manage to make it through another full day at work yesterday, but the fatigue level was plenty high by the time I got home from work. But I managed to get things done, which was lovely (again, Sparky was no help at all) and we then settled in to watch Andor–which is amazing. I wanted all of Kyril’s clothes. I’ll probably talk more about that sometime, how much I loved the show, that is.

I was very tired when I got home last night–so tired. I did manage to work on the kitchen and make dinner–always a plus–and yes, I’m fidgety and unable to keep still (I guess I had enough of that in the hospital), so am always getting up to do something. I wasn’t able to read last night, unfortunately, because I am getting back into Christa Faust’s amazing The Get Off (there really is no other creative force and voice in the world than hers), so maybe tonight when I get home. I have to get the mail, too, and was thinking about stopping at Yogurtland, which is near the post office; I love soft serve frozen yogurt and should stop there more often. My appetite is back (with a vengeance) so I don’t think I’ll have too much trouble getting the thirty pounds back on. My skin has also dehydrated and become ashy and flakey, so I am going to have to start using a moisturizer.

This morning’s coffee is tasting better–I was worried I had lost my taste for it this week as it’s been tasting terrible–but I also changed the filter in the Keurig and that probably has helped some on that score. I am feeling a lot better, if still weak and fatigued, which is a relief. I am eating normally again (although as I said, hungry all the time), which is great. I need to eat more healthily, but I’ll worry about that when I start gaining weight again. I’m still under 190, which feels weird and yes, I look very gaunt and skeletal. But there are worse things, and at least I am on the mend at last, right?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning.

David Florentine is a local photographer who takes incredible images of New Orleans. Follow him on social media!

Knock on Wood

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. I can go in a little later than usual this morning, so I am sipping my coffee and eating my morning slice of marble coffee cake (from Rouses, and I love it) and slowly trying to get it together this morning before I hit the road for the office. I did some work last night, and some chores when I got home, but feel a little tired this morning–moving kind of slow here at the junction–but I can come straight home from the office tonight and I am going to get some work done tonight. Tomorrow is my work-at-home, and I have a department meeting to get through also. I can live with it. I think we’re also going to Costco this weekend (got to stock up before prices start rising uncontrollably, thanks again, MAGA trash voters), and I really need to pull it together for myself. The auction is still making money (the auction is closed but the donate button is still active), which is super-awesome, and very uplifting. Obviously, it doesn’t mean everyone who donated and everyone who bid are actually allies through and through, but it’s something, and I am not going to be cynical about raising over 300% of our goal. Woo-hoo, way to go, everyone! A bright light shining through these steadily darkening times.

It was very windy yesterday and we are having high winds again today, which is odd. It’s also much warmer than it usually is around this time of year, which is also odd, and definitely problematic for the looming summer. Sigh, and everything is going to be more expensive, including power (thanks again, MAGA!). The two grocery runs I made this week came out to over $140 combined, and I didn’t really get all that much, which completely sucks. I was tired when I got home from work yesterday, and wrote for a little while until I got stuck. I still got in over a thousand words, so I am calling that a win.

This week, a recovery from the festivals week, also involved the auction–not to mention the easy to see it coming second Great Depression–so it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster and now that all the adrenaline has died off, I am a bit worn down, which is why I think I am physically tired and a little mentally fatigued. The day is going to be relatively easy, overall; we’re not busy in the clinic today and I should be able to get a lot of paperwork and admin stuff taken care of, and I get to go home an hour early, which is terrific. Sparky will certainly appreciate it, and I want to get some chores done tonight. I need to do another load of laundry, and the dishes, pick up around the apartment, and take out garbage and so forth. Sigh. We also have a department meeting tomorrow morning that I can join remotely. Sigh.

I also have to get back to reading my current reads. I was enjoying both The Get Off and Moonraker, so I want to get them done soon. Moonraker is more interesting in the juxtaposition between the tone and tenor of the books vs the silliness of the movies. It is very much of its time, and the whole “gentlemenly” approach to the spy genre is snobbish. classist, and yet still interesting in a weird, classist elitist kind of way; the whole gentility thing they still have across the pond is something we’ve never quite adapted completely, which isn’t a bad thing. It’s been tried before, obviously, and some are still trying; the Boston Club and other organizations like it dot New Orleans–because of Carnival krewes. Carnival krewes were, from the very beginning, nothing more than an extension/adaptation of the men’s clubs in London, which I will definitely need to talk about when I write my essay about revisiting the novel.

And on that groggy note, I am heading into the spice mines. May your Thursday be free of drama and full of joy, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back on the morrow.

Heaven Knows

Sunday morning and I am up early again after another lovely night’s sleep. Sparky is feeling feisty this morning after his breakfast–I noticed yesterday how clawed up my right knee is, since that’s the leg he always attacks and tries to climb while I am working on my desktop–so I have a lap blanket to cushion the claws a little bit. It’s my desk chair; he feels very territorial about sleeping in my desk chair after I go to work in the mornings during the week day and I am actually messing with his normal daily routine. Sigh. But I have work to get done today, around reading and cleaning, so he’s going to have to go sleep on the couch.

Yesterday was pleasant. I felt good in the morning after I got up, and did some cleaning. I read some more of Moonraker (astonishing how different the books are from the films) and started The Get Off, which has one of the best openings I’ve come across in books for quite some time–which is saying a lot, because I’ve read some pretty fantastic books lately–and am looking forward to reading some more of it today. I do need to get some writing done today. I wrote a lot yesterday, which was kind of fun, getting back into the swing of things. I wrote a very lengthy letter yesterday, which I will mail tomorrow, and then I worked in my journal for hours, brainstorming and figuring out how to fix things I am working on and what needs to be done. This morning, after reading and getting cleaned up, I’m going to get a story revised and then dive back into the book some more. Deadlines are looming, and the festivals are next weekend (AIEEEE!!!) and I still haven’t figured out a lot of that stuff out yet. Heavy sigh. I hope it’s a calm day at the office this week that doesn’t wear me out too much so I can get all this heavy lifting done.

We also watched the LSU Gymnastics team power to a second consecutive SEC championship meet in a row, which was very exciting. It was a close meet, but LSU broke 198.00 yet again, and the top three teams (Oklahoma and Florida being the other two) didn’t really have their best meet, either. And now it’s on to regionals and nationals. It’s funny how ever since that bitch on the Oklahoma team flooded social media last year with clips of LSU’s gymnasts and claiming they were being over-scored…Oklahoma hasn’t beaten LSU once. Karma is absolutely a bitch, and frankly, I’ve hated their team for its poor sportsmanship ever since–and their bitch of a coach could have stopped that skank from publicly being a piece of shit any time she wanted to, but she didn’t, and she’s theoretically the grown adult in the room, so the Oklahoma athletic department put their stamp of approval on that gymnast’s trashiness. So, fuck you now and forever, Oklahoma.

We’ve been watching Paradise on Hulu, which is nothing like I was expecting it to be. All I knew going in was that it starred Sterling K. Brown playing an agent on the President’s security detail…but the show is very clever and has lots of twists and surprises…as well as Julianne Nicholson, who is becoming one of my favorite actresses, in a stunning performance as a tech billionaire with delusions of grandeur (sound familiar?); we have two more episodes to go, and we’re really enjoying it a lot. Highly recommended, and a lovely distraction from the country’s acquiescence to authoritarianism.

I hate to break it to everyone, but it’s already here. Undesirables are being shipped to prison camps in another country. Companies and universities are giving up their freedoms and bending the knee to an illegal presidency and an even more illegal regime. We were doomed when Merrick Garland slow-walked everything, the Supreme Court colluded on immunity1, and it was very clear that it was the intent of the Biden administration to not go after the criminal syndicate that preceded him in office, which also belied their own claims on the 2024 campaign trail–and they wonder why the Democratic Milquetoast Party’s approval ratings are in the toilet? They rolled over and let this happen to us all. And after spending an entire election season warning us about the rise of fascism, suddenly it’s here and their position is “oh, well, we have to work with them”–don’t ever ask me for a fucking dime again. From now on, I only am donating to specific candidates, after being betrayed by so many once they were in office (looking at you, Schumer and the Asinine Nine); why is it important to elect rollovers like John Fetterman or Schumer or Gillibrand? If they’re going to vote with Republicans against the best interests of their own constituents and country, why not just let the Republicans just have the seat in the first place? And the complacency of the Democratic base has a lot to do with that. I’d still like to see an audit of Kyrsten Sinema’s professional and personal accounts.

But by all means, let’s just surrender the country. Fuck off now and forever, Chuck Schumer. We already live in a dystopia, can we at least count on you to not make it worse? Oh, silly me, your rich donors mean more to you than your base, how could I forget? I certainly never thought I’d see the day when NEW YORK’s senators would fuck over the entire party.

And on that cheery note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll shout at you later, okay?

  1. I suspect there were things discussed privately, or that the Supreme Court had decided in the past out of the public eye, about immunity that we are not privy because STATE SECRETS. This ruling also ensured Bush II would never be charged for his administration’s war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. I also believe that when we targeted and assassinated Yamamoto during World War II crossed a line.Yes, it was war…but a targeted assassination approved by the White House? I’m sure it was not either the first or the last crime authorized by the executive branch. ↩︎

Love You Inside Out

Remote Friday! I slept decently last night, which was a lovely thing. Sparky cuddled with me this morning when he got hungry, which was very sweet–I’d rather wake up to a cuddling, purring kitty than to an alarm any day. I’ve always believed alarms were unnatural, forcing you to wake from sleep before you’re ready or you’ve had enough. But that’s all part and parcel of the tyranny of capitalism we’re all subjected to most of our lives, and we’re all about to be (or already been) sacrificed on the altar of Ayn Rand acolytes who only read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged, and not her actual philosophy. (Whenever someone mentions her admiringly, I always ask if they’ve read her essay collection The Virtue of Selfishness and the answer is always no…so I stop listening to anything they say and see no point in arguing with them from a place of better knowledge;1 and the true believers are just another branch of the MAGA family tree of cruelty and bigotry.) Must get up, must make money to spend money to keep the economy going…and round and round it goes.

I was very tired when I got home from work last night and sadly, didn’t get much of anything done. I came home, fed and played with Sparky, and then collapsed into my easy chair with a tired body and worn out brain. Thursdays really are my least favorite day at the office. Paul got home later than I would have liked, but I have to say this year I’ve seen more of him than I usually do during my Festival widowhood, so in a way I’m kind of glad the building collapsed? He’s going to be gone most of today, too, once he gets up, and I am going to be doing my remote work and writing and doing chores and getting the house as in order as I can manage. That always makes me feel better; I always find a messy apartment to be kind of…unsettling and oppressive, which has everything to do with fears of being a hoarder. I’m letting go of my need to never get rid of a book under any circumstance, but that comes from the reality of limited space options. I’ve also cut back on my buying books all the time, and limiting myself to new books from friends, or their recommendations. That has definitely helped financially, too. (But I will never donate my kids’ series books, ever.)

I also want to get some reading done this weekend. I want to get further into my revisit of Moonraker, and I have already moved Christa Faust’s The Get Off to the on-deck position of the TBR list. I’ve been waiting for this book for fourteen years! I love Christa’s voice and her style of writing, as well as how fierce she is, and boy, does that ever come across in the Angel Dare trilogy. Angel is an unusual heroine, and I do think the series will become noir classics to shelve alongside James M. Cain, Patricia Highsmith, and Cornell Woolrich2. I’d love to see them filmed, to be honest, and what a great role she’d be for an ambitious actress.

I did try to write some last night to little or no avail. I really need to get back into that saddle again and get things going. Deadlines loom overhead, and the Festivals are next weekend, and I am going to be super busy during both–I have several things I have to do, and I have all kinds of friends coming into town to speak at one or both. It’s going to be so exhausting, I am already kind of dreading how tired I’ll be. Not to mention commuting to the Quarter and back so we don’t have to board Sparky…and all that walking. Yes, I am going to be completely exhausted…but at least nothing I am doing is in the morning, thank you God, so I can at least sleep in some.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you either later today or tomorrow morning. We shall see, shan’t we?

  1. I read Ayn Rand in my twenties–I read her short novel Anthem in high school–and studied her philosophy, which required reading her non-fiction. I saw the fallacy in her “objectivism”, the flaw that unspools the entire thing, almost immediately, which gave me the knowledge to know she–and everything she believed, was patently predicated on a lack of understanding of human nature and behavior, and most of her acolytes embraced only the parts that confirmed their own biases while ignoring the rest. Check out her writings on religion sometime, and ask yourself how Paul Ryan and others–anyone, really–could be a “devout Christian” and an objectivist, when she wrote and believed that religion was ignorant superstition and unworthy of an intellectual. ↩︎
  2. Note to self: revisit Cain, and read more in the Woolrich and Highsmith canons. ↩︎

I Want You to Want Me

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. Huzzah!

I am a bit tired this morning, but not from the week. I woke up around three in the morning and couldn’t fall completely back asleep…so when Sparky started trying to get me up before the alarm, I was able to have some fun with him. Usually I bury my face, hands and feet under the blankets so he can’t claw or bite them (swipes and nips, designed to wake me up–but the claw in the face is a bit much); this morning instead I’d grab him and cuddle him and hold on to him until he squirmed away and tried again….so I grabbed him and made him cuddle again. He really is such a sweet boy. When I start putting on my sweats he’ll run to the stairs…and then come back wondering what is taking me so long, and then runs ahead of me down the stairs. Every morning when I leave, he walks down along the back of the couch to the living room window and watches me go…and he’s always right there at the door when I get home to greet me (and beg for food and attention). I’m so glad we got another cat.

I did some writing last night, but was very tired both physically and mentally. I did get the laundry finished, so tonight I need to empty the dishwasher and refill it. I may have to stop on the way home tonight to get some things, but I can do the Rouses in the CBD as opposed to going all the way uptown, which can wait until Saturday. I have some things that need to get done between now and Monday–short story revision, more work on the book, reading The Get Off, which I’ve moved to the top of the TBR pile–as well as cleaning up the house some. Working on the book last night was difficult, primarily because I realized how shitty the work on the current chapter was, and I also realized I have ten characters to keep track of in the Diderot House during the hurricane–not very easy, and means I need to pay a lot closer attention. I am enjoying the writing, though yesterday’s being tired meant it was more of a slog than anything else. I am physically tired this morning but not mentally fatigued, which is a lovely thing. My synapses aren’t all firing properly this morning–I got confused about something I should know like the back of my hand, which was a little alarming, but once the coffee kicks in I should be able to make it through the day.

And the SEC Gymnastics championship meet is this weekend, too, which will be fun to watch. GEAUX TIGERS!!!

The world is continuing to burn to the ground as I type, and every day it seems to be a bit worse. That slippery slope they always warned us about when it came to the Second Amendment? Turns out the entire Constitution and all of the institutions and systems put into place to preserve liberty and freedom was also a slippery slope, and now we’re at the bottom of the slope, having slid all the way down into authoritarianism. It has always amazed me that racists would rather lose all their freedoms and liberties instead of sharing that with everyone else.

And the rebranding of the new party from the left that will rise from the ashes of the once great Democratic party? It should be called the Liberty Party. Go ahead and call us libs, racist garbage, just know that from now on I will be hearing that as “pro-liberty” instead of “liberal.” Fuck off all the way, Cons. I’ve never understood why we never called them cons, in all honesty. They are the party of con artists and convicts, after all–and in the instance of “pros and cons”, again, a negative connotation for those three letters. At some point I will write about the decline of the American Right–but did it really decline? Weren’t they always the pro-Fascist party? And moderates can also go fuck all the way off. They’ve been surrendering to the Fascist Right for so long it’s their second nature.

Sigh.

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

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Mama Can’t Buy You Love

Ah, Wednesday and it’s all downhill for the rest of the week, isn’t it? Huzzah! I feel good this morning, too, more rested and alert than I have been for most of the week. So, this week feels back to normal in that weird way of feeling better later in the week as my body again resets to getting up early every day. I was fatigued again last night when I got home from work, but I wrote for a little while once I was home, and did some chores (the kitchen looks presentable again) before zoning out with The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and the news last night. I also ran an errand after work, picking up my copy of Christa Faust’s The Get Off, the third and probably final book of the Angel Dare series. I loved the first two (Money Shot and Choke Hold), and nobody writes like Christa. If you’ve not read Christa, and love noir, you really can’t go wrong with reading this trilogy. It really is fantastic.

As a general rule, I simply watch the antics of “”book social media” from a removed, slightly bemused distance and don’t get involved, other than a comment about how jaw-droppingly insane the latest controversy on those sites are, and these controversies usually involve the actions of a problematic author and/or publisher. I have my thoughts and opinions about each and every topic in those hashtags and posts that grow heated (remember the fun days of American Dirt? Good times!) but I don’t contribute to them because I don’t see any point. Are there authors that write bigoted, uninformed work that is questionable at best and horrifying at its worst? Are there readers who will embrace those works because said stories confirm their prejudices and values? 100%. Are they all, authors and readers, awful people? Certainly. Will arguing with them on social media do anything other than raise my blood pressure and wreck my day? Not likely. Personally? I don’t want to ever unintentionally offend anyone (unless you’re MAGA, in which case you shouldn’t be reading my work in the first place because you are not my intended audience but if you are reading it, suck it up snowflakes, and fuck your feelings); and I constantly question my choices in my work. My go-to is always if I question it, best to remove it. (Sidebar: I bet the American Dirt author–Jeanine Cummins?– was really happy about the pandemic because it made everyone forget about her and her shitty racist book.) There have been some tempests in this week’s (and last’s) social media teapots1, haven’t there? Sheesh. There was an explosion (again) of homophobia in the m/m writing community, which got people riled up (I love when cishet straight white women inform gay men that books with two men falling in love aren’t for us.) There was another kerfuffle where a romance writer gave her main male character an HEA–just not with the female lead, but another man. Horrors! Needless to say, that also triggered an on-line meltdown, and I am reminded again why I never want to write romance…just like I eschew the y/a publishing community, which is also a snake pit.

I’d rather jump into a piranha-infested river, to be honest. Or be forced to be on a Kardashian television show.2

And yesterday, the “Tori Woods” groomer romance situation blew up on the Internet–and her book, about a “romance” that begins when an adult male is attracted to a three-year-old “but waits for her to grow-up so it’s not child sexual abuse”, is from the same publisher as the last author who wrote racist books and was “canceled” (whatever the fuck that means) deservedly for being a racist piece of shit. Sounds like a publisher issue to me, doesn’t it? I think the publisher has also published problematically racist books before, too. There was some historical romance writer who also outed herself as a racist pos–apparently, people of color only existed in the past to be enslaved or rescued by noble white people–and seriously, how did RWA take so long to burn to the ground in the first place?3

Don’t get me wrong; I still want to write a gay romance novel at some point–and maybe even more than one, honestly. But I’d really rather not get dragged into that on-line community, if I can. (I saw yesterday that someone is publishing a grooming romance–and the grooming started when the girl was THREE. Um…yeah, no thanks.) Did not trying to be a part of the on-line y/a community probably, possibly have cost me some sales? For sure, but at the same time I am really grateful to have my peace of mind.

Peace of mind is priceless.

I also got my assignments for Saints and Sinners/Tennessee Williams Fests, and I am going to be hopping all weekend, it looks like–panels, a tribute reading, the anthology launch–and I will have LOTS of friends in town, too. But this year I took Monday off, too, so I can recover from the weekend and get things done around the house. I’ll also be commuting back and forth so Sparky’s not alone for the whole weekend, and someone needs to feed him, anyway. He is not going to be happy. Paul went to the office yesterday and wasn’t home when I arrived, so Sparky was especially cuddly and needy. I don’t mind, but clearly he doesn’t like being left alone–or puts on a good show after he has been.

My Youtube algorithms, always an interesting mystery, have recently started showing me videos about the classic scifi television program V. I loved V when it originally aired, but when it became a regular weekly series in the 1980s, I stopped watching because I lost interest. I did love the rebooted series, which was fantastic and again ended on a great cliff-hanger. And of course, once I watched one video, it started showing me more. This of course is because I’ve been watching videos about the rise of fascism in Europe between 1918-1939, World War II, and the “America First” movement of that period (newsflash: conservatives were Nazi-adjacent until Pearl Harbor)…and that’s the allegory at play in the series–the Visitors are stand-ins for Nazis, etc. I had grown up believing that it could never happen here…but watching this show made me realize how incredibly easy it is for people to side with their oppressors. It’s something, sadly, that is very human. I also remember a school did a social experiment with fascism, which was made into a TV movie called The Wave, which was again the same thing–the way we can so easily slide into being “good Germans.” I read Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here during the reign of Bush II: Electric Boogaloo, which cemented it even further into my head. I’ve talked before about writing a book that I originally got the idea for in the 1990s, where the queers fill in for the scapegoated minority…interesting, though, that my video research into fascism triggered the algorithm to remind me of V, which was also probably, along with Red Dawn, the biggest influences on that idea.

And on that grim note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a wonderful midweek Wednesday, and I’ll probably be back later or tomorrow.

  1. Although I am really hoping the move to cancel Kim Kardashian and her odious family really takes this time. ↩︎
  2. Please, God, let this be the end of all things Kardashian. Haven’t we suffered enough? ↩︎
  3. Racists working with a gay white man (racist) brought RWA down, remember? ↩︎