Tag: The Three Musketeers

Strawberry Wine

Sunday morning and I do hope all is well with you, Constant Reader! It rained overnight, so it’s a bit chillier this morning than it was yesterday (yesterday was a beautiful day, sunny and in the low seventies); the cold weather comes in tonight around bedtime. How lovely! I slept late this morning, and Sparky let me, for the most part, cuddling rather than trying to get me up most of the time. Yesterday was, for its part, mostly quiet and restful. I didn’t push myself to get things done the way I had hoped, but Paul didn’t have his trainer yesterday and decided to hang out rather than go to the office, so I spent most of the dat in my chair watching television with Paul. I watched two more French history documentaries–this time, histories of the Capet and Bourbon dynasties. We also watched Caught Stealing with Austin Butler, which was different than what we were expecting. The previews made it seem like a black comedy, and yes, there were moments of black humor in the movie, but it was more of a thriller than anything else. My primary takeaway was that Austin Butler is incredibly beautiful (which I’ve known since The Shannara Chronicles), and has the kind of charisma that is very hard to stop watching. It was one of those ‘endless nightmare’ movies, where doing a punk neighbor a favor takes the main character down a path of violence and endless, deadly mess. It also has an insanely good cast, too–Regina King, Zoe Kravitz, Liev Shrieber, etc.–and of course, was directed by Darren Aronofsky.

I did finish scanning my notes from my journal yesterday, which felt like a win, and I did some cleaning and organizing, too. The house feels very snug this morning–warm and cozy–which is really nice, and means I will get to spend some more time in my chair this morning reading and watching another history documentary; I found one on Louis XIII yesterday–the King of The Three Musketeers–who has always been overshadowed in French history by his father and son, as well as his chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu, who remains one of my favorite people in history. (I never could have picked an era of history to concentrate on had I become an historian…) The reign of Louis XIII is a very interesting period in French history, and that could very well be because of The Three Musketeers and my fervent desire to write the story from Milady’s perspective. That’s probably a pipe dream because I’ll never have the time to research and write the story, but it’s always there in the corner of my mind, like an annoying splinter that nags at me from time to time.

Today is going to be only slightly less relaxing from yesterday. I do need to clean and organize some more, and I do need to both read and write today. I also finished my old journal and started a new one this morning (and I put the date in it this time; I had a sense of time in the old ones based on the notes on short stories and novels I was actively working on at the time I was recording things in the journals, but the date will be ever so much more helpful, you know?). I also found a safe, out of the way place to store them going forward. I will continue to have to periodically do this with them, as I move on to other projects I’ve taken voluminous notes on in them–as well as short story and essay ideas that never moved from there to the active files–but it’s kind of fun to scan the pages and label them and put them away in the computer files. (That OCD thing never has gone completely away, and probably never will. Yay for chemical imbalances that are useful!)

The new season of Percy Jackson has dropped, too, which I am also looking forward to watching. I loved the world of Percy Jackson, and those are the books you should be giving your kids, not that other unoriginal and entirely ripped off fantasy series for kids whose author is raw sewage on a good day and a fiend from hell on bad ones. I greatly enjoyed reading the Percy Jackson books, and Rick Riordan’s other mythology based juvenile series are really the best, most engaging books. I would have loved them when I was a kid, because I loved ancient history and mythology growing up (thanks to Time-Life’s Great Ages of Man series, which my parents got for me). I’ve been trying to unpack my childhood and my life-long interests, and where those interests came from. Egypt, of course, is my favorite ancient empire; I’ve always had an affinity for Egypt and have always been drawn to it. (I’ve recently started another essay series about my Egyptian interests…beginning with the Time/Life Ancient Egypt book, a juvenile book called Cleopatra of Egypt and another one that was a mystery, The Mystery of the Pharaoh’s Treasure–and others along the way, including Amelia Peabody and Robin Cook’s Sphinx.)

And well, on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines for the day. I have to run to the grocery store, which I am going to do this morning, methinks, before coming back here and getting cleaned up and get that all over with…but first I am going to watch that documentary on Louis XIII while drinking coffee, eating breakfast and waking up completely. Have a lovely Sunday, wherever you find yourself, Constant Reader.

These lights–from the former human trafficking site Houmas House–are gorgeous.

I Wanna Be Free

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Killer Queen

Ah, my lord the Duke of Buckingham; probably one of the most successful fuckboys in history.

Contemporaries wrote of his physical beauty constantly when he was a young man, and first coming to the attention of his King; and while I’ve certainly never read any biographies of George Villiers, I have always been vaguely aware of him–primarily because of his role in The Three Musketeers, which is, of course, a marvelous fiction. While I have no doubt that George may have become enamored of the French Queen (the Hapsburg Spanish princess Anne of Austria) while in France arranging the marriage of Charles I to the French Bourbon princess Henrietta Maria (which, despite the success of the marriage, was a big mistake in the macro sense; the Stuart penchant in the seventeenth century of marrying Catholic princesses eventually led to their fall and the extinction of their direct line); without reading more into the history of the period, it’s hard to say whether that fiction of Dumas’ was based in rumor or was simply his own creation–but George was definitely a fuckboy, so anything is possible.

It took me until I was a bit older to realize the relationship between my lord Buckingham and his king was a bit more than just “best buddies.”

And even then, it took me a little while longer to recognize that the Buckingham of The Three Musketeers was also the same favorite of King James’. It was his son that was the bosom buddy of Charles II; he also was the cousin of Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine, one of that king’s longest running and most notorious mistresses (I named Chanse’s landlady after her, actually), so there were a lot of noble Villiers entwined with the destiny of the royal house of Stuart during the seventeenth century. Of course, given how language was blurred about Kings and their favorites in the histories I read, it never crossed my mind to read more into them until I was in my thirties (also, reading Cashelmara by Susan Howatch made me realize Edward II’s favorites also shared his bed…and then all the other pieces, about James I and Henri III of France began falling into place, even if their sexuality was determinedly erased from history.

So, when I saw the first preview for Mary and George, I was very excited. A series that actually isn’t afraid to address James Stuart’s actual sexuality, and that of his fuckboy, my lord George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham? Starring Julianne Moore and Nicholas Galitzine? Julianne Moore was clearly relishing playing the hell out of the ambitious let-nothing-get-in-her-way mother?

I was so in.

And in all honesty, I knew Galitzine was becoming a heartthrob/sex symbol, but with blond hair he reminded me too much of Macauley Culkin and I just didn’t really see it.

But as a brunette? Beautiful, and perfectly cast.

See what I mean? Sex on a stick, just like Buckingham’s contemporaries said.

I can see why historians tried so hard to erase the truth about the rise of the Villiers family, from lower nobility to a dukedom; the fact that Mary groomed her gorgeous son to seduce the king as a way to riches and power is not something you encounter frequently in the pages of history; especially in the modern age…but this was very common throughout history with beautiful girls…they were groomed and educated with an eye to seducing a powerful man for money, prestige, and power, and if the man was a king, even better.

Mary and George is pretty historically accurate, too–more so than many of these kinds of series, where things are changed for the sake of story, but the rise of George Villiers is dramatic enough, as well as all the court intrigue behind the scenes, but…the final episode to me was the only failure in the series. Even though I knew how it would all end, I kept thinking they’d come up with some way to make the end more dramatic, but that last episode felt rushed to me, didn’t have enough set-up to work as a finale and it just then kind of….ended. But the show is gorgeously produced; the costumes, the sets, and the acting is all excellent…until the last episode. In that episode, George has already been raised to duke…yet his clothes are the most drab of the entire season other than the first episode, when his preparations to be a fuckboy get underway. George was very famous for his splendid, ornate and opulent style of dress; he was always covered in jewels from head to toe, but for some reason they tried to make him look as drab and unattractive as possible. That certainly wouldn’t have been the case when he visited the Spanish court with the Prince of Wales (excellent casting; he looked just like the paintings of Charles I); it would have undermined English prestige to show up at the court of Philip IV so underdressed.

There’s also frontal male nudity, and lots of gay sex scenes. Buckingham was undoubtedly, at best, in modern terms a bisexual; the best quote of the show about sex partners was “bodies are just bodies”–which both mother and son say any number of times as they bed both genders happily.

I highly recommend it, and would love to see more of these shows.

Put It In A Magazine

Wednesday morning in the Lost Apartment, where it is a staggering 39 degrees outside. Brrr! But I slept pretty well (even if I didn’t want to get up), and my mind is slowly but surely coming back to life. Yesterday wasn’t a bad day at all, but I was out of sorts and off-track for pretty much the entire day, because my routine was disrupted when I got to work and so…yeah. I did run my errands on the way home from work last night and got home to a needy Sparky, so I had to spend some time playing with him and then transformed my lap into a cat bed for a little while. Tomorrow morning I have to get up super-early for PT–which I am not looking forward to, and of course there’s a department meeting on Friday morning, that I think I’ll go into the office for despite it being my at-home day and having the ability to call in for it. I have some on-line events Saturday for the January Bold Strokes bookathon, which I should post more about, and then the rest of the weekend is mine.

I did some more research into a story I am writing last night, and yes, I actually started writing the story. I’m writing about Julia Brown, the “witch” of Manchac Swamp who worked as the healer in a small town inside the swamp and along the lake shore, which was only accessible by railroad. Frenier was a small community, and it was completely destroyed by the 1915 hurricane; all that is left of it is the cemetery and it’s only accessible by boat now. I’ve always wanted to write about the 1915 hurricane since I first learned of it–it came up when I was down a rabbit-hole about the Filipino settlements on Lake Borgne, which were also destroyed in the 1915 hurricane, which led me to reading about Frenier, and the so-called curse of Aunt Julia Brown. (I do wish I’d known about all this before I wrote a Sherlock story set in 1916; no mention of the previous year’s destruction in that story is odd but maybe unnecessary; it didn’t impact the plot of the story at all, but…if I set another Sherlock story in that same time period I need to address that elephant in the room.)

I also went down another research wormhole last night, too–inspired by Mary & George–about George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham and his close relationship not only with James I but with his son, Charles I…although the relationship between Villiers and Charles I wasn’t quite the same kind of erotic friendship as Villiers enjoyed with the senior Stuart. Buckingham was also one of the real historical figures that appeared in Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, which I still want to retell one day from the point of view of Milady deWinter. It’s such a fascinating period, really, and the clothes! Mon Dieu, the clothes! I’ve always been fascinated by Cardinal Richelieu, and really need to get over my fear of writing about a historical period and just buckle down and write that damned book, don’t I? Sigh. I also need to get back to both Chlorine and Muscles, too.

Heavy heaving sigh.

But I am also starting to feel like I am settling back into my normal, every day life, and I feel better than I have in years. That cloudy feeling in my brain seems to be gone, and I am adapting to getting back up early in the morning without much hassle; I suspect the sleeping pills are working their magic and sending me into a deep healthy sleep every night, which pays off in being both awake and lucid in the morning. I’ve also got some blog entries to finish writing–my thoughts on Saltburn, because I know everyone is just waiting to hear what I have to say about it, and some analysis of the most recent chapter of the graphic novel Heartstopper, both of which are destined to be queer cultural artifacts.

And I hope to finish reading Tara Laskowski’s The Weekend Retreat before the weekend, too. I should have spent some time with it last night, but it was after six when I got home and by the time I was finished with putting stuff away and quality Sparky time and writing, it was later and so I just went down the Villiers wormhole. I also watched the final episode of season 2 of War of the Worlds, and am officially tapping out now. Not only was the shark jumped, the story became preposterous. I thought it might be a bit more interesting and intriguing once I realized the direction they were going in, but no. I also forgot part one of the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City was airing last night, so I’ll be catching up on that tonight after reading. I get to go straight home from the office tonight, so fingers crossed that I’ll get some good reading time in before I shut my mind off and dig into some reality television.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and who knows? I may be back later.

The Message

Monday morning and back to the office blog. I have my final PT for dexterity today, before I take a couple of weeks off before starting the strength PT, which will be the final step of getting recovered from the surgery. It seems like it’s been forever, but the truth is I injured the arm initially almost a year ago–so I have been dealing with this for almost a year, and it will be well over a year by the time I finally get through the recovery. It’s taking me a moment to get used to not wearing a brace, frankly–but god DAMN I am so glad to not have to wear that fucking thing anymore. The weather is supposed to be horrific today–heavy winds and flooding rains–which I am not terribly excited about, in all honesty, since I’ll be out and around in it. But I slept really well last night, and am feeling awake and good this morning so far, so we’ll see how the rest of the day goes, shall we?

I read more of Tara Laskowski’s The Weekend Retreat yesterday morning over my coffee, and it is truly addictive and mesmerizing. I am having the best time reading it, and shouldn’t have an issue spending about an hour or so with it again today. I also did some more filing and organizing and cleaning yesterday, as well as made dinner and some other things for the week. There’s another load of dishes that needs doing tonight when I get home from work and PT and everything else, but if I manage to stay caught up on these things, maybe the three day weekend won’t be as disrupted by needing to clean. I’ve narrowed down the stories I have on hand for the possible anthology submissions, so they’ll require reviewing again in addition to revising and editing. I watched some more War of the Worlds, which is interesting, and then I watched a bit of the Golden Globes before I went to bed–you can tell how much I cared about them by the fact that I couldn’t tell you who won any of them, really. I used to care about awards shows, but I don’t anymore. There are rarely any surprises, and there are so many of them now…by the time the Oscars roll around, it’s relatively easy to figure out who’s going to win most everything.

I can’t believe it’s already Carnival, too (but am loving that it’s also king cake season). Parades will be starting in a few weeks, and the Australian Open, and the figure skating championships, and the Festivals are on deck…Lord. I do get tired just thinking about it, in all honesty. But at least the brace is gone. It’s taking some getting used to–not having it on–and periodically I’ll experience some new sensation in the arm, but that’s also the nerves getting used to not having the brace support anymore. Thank God for the new meds, because I’d be a ball of anxiety by now otherwise.

I also saw the previews for a new show I am rather excited about–Mary & George, which is about George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and his ambitious mother, who essentially groomed her handsome son to charm and seduce King James I (he of the King James Version of the Bible, no less), who preferred the company of men and had male favorites at his court. I’ve been meaning to track down a copy of Antonia Fraser’s biography of him, just to see how she handles the questionable sexuality of England’s first Stuart king, or if she erases or elides it. There were several queer kings of England–Richard I, Edward II, James I, Queen Anne–and I’ve also seen things questioning the sexuality of William III, too. (James was also the son of Mary Queen of Scots.) I can’t think of as many French kings that were queer; of the top of my head I can only think of Henri III and Louis XIV’s brother Phillippe duc d’Orléans, Monsieur. It’s also early and I’m not caffeinated enough, frankly, to face the day or put any more thought into gay French royalty. Anyway, one of the guys from Red White and Royal Blue (Nicholas Galitzine) is playing George Villiers, the handsomest man of his age, and if you remember your Three Musketeers, the British minister who was in love with Anne of Austria, Queen of France.

George got around, apparently.

The seventeenth is also one of my favorite centuries.

And on that note, I should head into the spice mines. We’re going to have some bad weather today–potential hail and tornadoes–as well as heavy rains. Hopefully I’ll be able to get to PT this afternoon and then home safely. Have a great Monday, CR, and I may see you again later.

Love Me Tomorrow

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment, and all is well. I went into the office for a meeting and stayed there to get my Monday work done, since I have appointments that morning. It was weird, like the world had tilted on its axis or something; it felt very odd being in the office (and it also freaked out co-workers, too) and while it’s the kind of thing that generally undermines my equilibrium, it was all fine. Today I am going to run to the library sale, pick up the mail, and wash the car before coming home and settling in for some reading and writing with college football on in the background. I also have to run Paul over to Costco to pick up his new glasses, so I need to figure out if there’s anything else we need from there since we will actually be there. (I can always use more K-cups for my Keurig, and since in a couple of weeks my driving will be severely restricted for three weeks, yeah, it’s better to prepare now.)

In a surprising turn of events, yesterday morning I was digging through the closet looking for a shirt I hadn’t worn in years (there are many, and it’s been a few years) when I stumbled across a pair of pants that I used to love. They were so comfortable, but they stopped fitting about twelve years ago–they were transitional pants, a pair I had bought when I realized I needed to go up a size to 32’s, which was concerning at the time, and then they became too small within a couple of years, so I thought, well, if they don’t fit I’ll take them to work to the clothing closet and showered. Lo and behold, they fit comfortably! So I guess I’ve dropped down to that size again, which is delightful, and probably a side effect to the soft food diet. But it’s delightful to be able to comfortably fit into size 32 waist pants again–I didn’t think that would ever happen, and the fact that it did while I still am above my goal weight by eight or nine pounds is very cool.

I got home from work in the mid-afternoon and the construction guys were here again, working on the deck, which meant they were right outside my windows, so there was no way with all that pounding, drilling and other miscellaneous construction noises that I could focus and do some either reading or writing, so instead I focused on chores. I got the laundry done, did some picking up around here, and also did another load of dishes. It’s really quite remarkable how much garbage and dirty laundry and dirty dishes can accumulate around here during a week. But I eventually made it to the chair so Tug could be a purring kitty donut sound asleep in my lap while I doom-scrolled social media and watched history documentaries on Youtube–more about the Byzantine Empire (which really was the Roman Empire; the West made sure they rebranded the Roman Empire while talking about it and erasing it from history–Western Europe saw themselves as the true heirs to the Romans and their civilization, even as it went on in Constantinople for another thousand years after Rome fell. The West even went so far as considering eastern Europeans uncivilized barbarians, hence the Hapsburg hegemony), and some more stuff about the Crusades. There was also an interesting documentary about what city and culture is truly the “third Rome”–was it the Ottomans with Istanbul, the Russians with Moscow, or the Holy Roman Empire with the Pope’s endorsement? (Interestingly enough, the Nazis and their Third Reich was predicated on them being the heirs of Rome and the Holy Roman Empire, with Berlin as the third Rome, so yes, that Roman influence continues on up through the twentieth century.)

I also read some more of The Rival Queens by Nancy Goldstone, the dual biography of the mother-daughter team of Catherine de Medici and her daughter Marguerite de Valois; I’ve always known and have studied up on the French wars of religion before, but I never really understood how it really all came about under Charles IX and his mother’s regency (I always focused more on the reign of Henri III, his younger brother and the end of the Valois dynasty; Henri III was also openly gay, so of course I’ve always been interested in writing about him even though he was hardly a heroic king or a good role model for future gay kings), so it’s interesting to see how Catherine, who had little to no popular support, played the two opposing parties of the Huguenots (led by her son-in-law Henri de Bourbon and his mother, Jeanne d’Albret Queen of Navarre) and the Guises (ostensibly the more popular Catholic leaders) off against each other to maintain her own power and control of the government–which in trying to keep the peace and herself in power and her son on the throne, generally tended to make things worse. She was smart, though–very smart, and she played a very dangerous game but died in power and in her bed. The French, of course, hated her because she wasn’t of Royal blood and felt their royal family had demeaned themselves by allowing her to marry into them. They called her “The Italian Woman” or “Madame Serpent” or “Queen Jezebel”–all of which were used as titles for Jean Plaidy’s romantic biographical trilogy about her life. The general French distaste for Italians also played a part in her demonization by the people, and of course her having truck with the Huguenots didn’t sit well with her Catholic subjects, despite her being the niece of a Pope and cousin to two more. As I have said before, 1559-1594 was a very interesting period in French history, and the religious question/problem also continued through the next century–leading to the fascinating period of the 1620’s, when Dumas set his The Three Musketeers.

Ah, maybe someday. Reading The Rival Queens is certainly whetting my appetite to write some French historical fiction.

We also watched another episode of Karen Pirie last night, which we are both really enjoying, but alas, I was tired and sleepy and fell asleep a couple of times during the episode. (I also had Tug sleeping either next to me or on me, so of course I kept dozing off; if they could somehow get sleeping cat/purring energy into a sleeping pill form, it would sell like crazy. Nothing puts me to sleep like that, nothing. (I also continued my rewatch of Moonlighting, with an episode that featured and centered Miss DiPesto, “North by North DiPesto”–which was cute and sweet and fun, but ultimately a subpar episode. This was when the filming and writing of the show had started falling behind, and they would give the writers a chance to catch up by doing an episode without much David and Maddie–which meant a lot less dialogue and no talking over each other. I’d forgotten they did things like this to try to catch up on their schedule, and it’s also why there were never twenty-two episodes in a season, which was standard back then; I’d also forgotten that the filming of the show–and all its behind-the-scenes trouble–only spurred on more interest in the show; I don’t think backstage drama and production issues on a television program had ever been news before Moonlighting, which tells you how important the show was culturally.)

So I am hoping to get a lot finished today before it’s time for errands and things. I will probably pay more attention to football today than I need to–LSU plays Florida tonight at home, trying for a fifth consecutive win against the Gators; Mississippi is at Georgia in a clash of Top Ten teams; and Tennessee plays Missouri in another top 25 showdown. Alabama is also at Kentucky, Auburn at Arkansas, and Texas A&M at Mississippi State, so yeah, there are some interesting games on today, so it will probably be more than background noise I have on, alas.

And after I get some things done around here in the kitchen this morning, I am going to curl up with Lou Berney’s Dark Ride and give it all my attention.

Have a great Saturday, Constant Reader!

Born Naked

RuPaul likes to say we’re all born naked–everything else is just drag, and she isn’t wrong here.

Everything we wear is a form of drag. We always try to dress properly for whatever occasion, but yes–there’s work drag and formal drag and casual drag and gym drag and sports drag and around-the-house drag and pretty much any way you want to look at clothing…it’s all kind of a costume, really. And those costumes also depend on the time period.

I used to always think that I had no fashion sense–straight women and other gay men have often been astounded at how little I care about clothes or fashion or style. I have slight color-blindness, too–it’s hard for me to differentiate between darker shades; the darkest shades of blue and purple and brown and gray and green all look black to me. I also have some difficulty determining whether colors actually go together or not–which is why when it comes to formal/dressier clothing I tend to stick to black, white and red; I have so many red dress shirts, Constant Reader, you have no idea–so as I got older, I tend to go with what is easiest and less anxiety-inducing for me.

Of course, I also worked at an airport and had to wear a uniform for over two years: airline work drag. And after years of being a personal trainer, where all I wore was workout clothes or sweats, so yeah–my fashion sense has always been untrained and severely lacking for the most part.

Louis XIV, the Sun King–but those tights! That wig! Those shoes! More like La Reine Soleil, am I right?

I also always used to deplore the fact that men’s clothes gradually became so incredibly boring from the heydays of Beau Brummel-type male fashion icons. Look at the above painting of Louis XIV. Now imagine a man wearing that outfit to an awards show or a film premiere. Even our own Founding Fathers wore tights, powder, wigs, and heeled shoes.

But somehow, those clothing items became feminized and gender swapped–of course, women in the past also wore heeled shoes, wigs, powder and tights beneath their skirts and bustles and hoops. But even in the 1930’s and 1940’s, men’s clothes were far more stylish–trench-coats and linen pants, fedoras and other hats, spats and Oxford shoes, argyle socks. I hated the “traditional” styles of dress for men that developed in the post-war period. and the utter rejection of those same styles in the 60s and 70s. Men’s clothing began to evolve a bit more during this period–and some serious fashion faux-pas were prevalent during the last decades of the century.

As I said the other day (and as so many others have pointed out), men have always dressed as women for one reason or another that had nothing to do with gender expression or identity for years. The Sun King’s gay younger brother (he also had a gay bastard son by Louise de la Valliere; homosexuality was rampant at the Sun King’s court) Philippe duc d’Orleans (whose son was the namesake for New Orleans) had many male lovers and often dressed as a woman for appearances at court. I’ve always wanted to write about Philippe, who has always fascinated me–the young gay bastard son of Louis XIV, who died young, was Louis duc de Valentinois; I’ve also had some minor interest in writing about him as well, or just gay life at Versailles in general.

There is a long-standing drag tradition in New Orleans as well. The Red Dress Run, for example, may not be full drag as we know it, but it’s essentially all about men in red dresses for charity.

One of the things I really enjoy about the modern young generation is they don’t subscribe to the antiquated rules of fashion for men and women. I love seeing young actors and celebrities showing up at red carpet events in daring outfits instead of that tired old tux look. Yes, men look dashing in tuxedos; I’ve always wanted to go full tuxedo with hat, cane, tails and gloves–but again, not the ordinary or expected.

I wore a kilt twice when I went to the Edgars, and wore it again at Bouchercon in Albany for our Real Housewives of Bouchercon panel. I loved wearing it–skirts are sooooo much more comfortable than pants–and it was definitely a fashion risk; people who didn’t know me but saw me wearing it undoubtedly thought ah, that one must be gay. I love the way the Musketeers dressed in The Three Musketeers–I think the seventeenth century was probably my favorite era for men’s clothes; I also love a pirate look from the early eighteenth as well.

One thing I definitely need to explore more with Jem is not only his sense of fashion for his clients, but for himself–both in and out of drag. Those are critical decisions for a queen–because while a particular look or style for a queen can evolve over the years, it’s very unusual for them to do something radically different than their usual; again, it probably has to do with ease more than anything else; it’s much easier to fall back on a regular look and color palette than to reinvent yourself every time or to come up with something new every time. I do think I am going to have Jem do the Madonna constant reinvention thing–mainly because it’s more interesting that way for me–because it is part of who he is as a person; Jem thinks he’s boring but he’s actually quite adventurous. Jem has very little confidence in Death Drop, which is easy for me to write because I know how that feels. One of the goals of the series is to show him develop self-confidence and self-assurance and becoming more comfortable with himself, and part of that is going to come from performing in drag and another part from actually solving crimes…which makes him start believing in himself more.

And that is always fun to write–character growth and development.

Angel

The eerie thing about Hurricane Ian is it has given us gorgeous weather in New Orleans–no humidity, warm but with a cool breeze; as though this monstrous storm is blessing those of us not under threat with this amazing fall-like weather (well, for New Orleans; this probably feels like summer to most People Not From Here). It was gorgeous yesterday morning when I left for the office; stunning, in fact. I was a little taken aback when I opened the front door to leave yesterday morning and didn’t get slapped in the face with a wall of wet hot heavy air, and as I walked out to the car couldn’t help but think well this weather is simply gorgeous. And when I came home from work–gorgeous, if a little too windy or my preferences. It’s a Category 4 this morning, looking to come ashore somewhere between Tampa and Fort Myers; the storm surge is worrisome and you can’t help but Youtubewonder if the three main causeway bridges from Tampa to the Clearwater/St. Petersburg peninsula will get damaged. I’ll keep monitoring the storm during the day, and hoping for the best possible outcomes for everyone in the path.

After getting stuck having to ride out Ida last year, I really wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

And our house is sheltered on three sides.

Today is Pay the Bills Day, and I’ll dive into that later on this morning. It’s always disappointing to watch your bank balance dwindle, but at the same time–as I remind myself every other Wednesday–at least I can pay them without worry; something that was frequently not true throughout my life. But still, it would be nice to have an entire paycheck that could just sit there in my bank account, wouldn’t it? Indeed, it would.

I was tired when I got home from work yesterday, and last night’s sleep wasn’t nearly as deep as I would have preferred; I had trouble actually falling asleep (thank goodness for Scooter’s Magical Put You To Sleep powers; he climbed up into the bed, curled up next to me, and went to sleep with his purr engine fully activated; and as it always does in my easy chair, it put me to sleep in no time) and kept waking up throughout the night; I woke up at three and four and five, thank you very much, and was awake before the alarm went off. I think I have a much busier work schedule today at the office than I’ve had in a few days, which means I will most likely be very tired when I get off work tonight; fortunately I don’t have any errands to run after work this evening and can come straight home. Hopefully I will have the energy to not only sit at my computer and write for a while, but also the inner strength of character to ignore Scooter’s wailing demands that I sit in my chair and provide a lap for him to sleep in, which inevitably leads to me dozing off in the chair and going down a lot of Youtube wormholes.

I found a lovely video last night, for example, about Catherine de Medici’s Flying Squadron; beautiful women trained in the seductive arts that she used as spies. I have always wanted to write a book based in this historical truth; just as I have always wanted to write about Catherine herself. The French wars of Religion, and the regency of “that Italian woman” is a fascinating period of history (let’s face it, I just love the sixteenth century), with all kinds of Games of Thrones-like conspiracies, betrayals, spying, murder, and so on and so forth as the Catholics and the Huguenots and the nobility jockeyed back and forth for power and control of the kingdom, with Catherine grimly hanging on to the crown for her sons and doing what she had to do. (When I have my flights of fancy of writing historical suspense novels, this is one of the four I think about wanting to do, the others being a retelling of The Three Musketeers; the murder of AMy Robsart; and the Babington Plot which resulted in the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. And of course, I always want to write a Barbara Tuchman-like history of the century focusing on the women who held power, The Monstrous Regiment of Women, in that most unusual century.)

Not to mention how much fun I would have reading all that history…

But I am behind on everything current and need to start getting caught up. I’ve not been able to adjust to this schedule of work and having to get up so damned early every morning; you’d think by now I would have and would have energy when I get home at night, but I don’t. I’m also older (less that four years to go before retirement!) than I was and my energy reserves aren’t quite what they used to be…but it’s always a matter of priorities, isn’t it? Determining what they are and what they should be, and then working my way down the list, and trying not to get distracted by shiny objects along the path.

And on that note, i am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, and y’all who are in the Ian path, stay safe.

Silver Springs

My back still hurts today, and while at the moment it’s better than it was yesterday…it’s always best when I get up in the morning, so I don’t know how the rest of today is going to go. I have to go pick-up the groceries I ordered yesterday–which has me nervous–and I’ve even decided to wait on ordering Costco until tomorrow or Work-At-Home Monday. I was hoping it would be okay enough for me to be able to at least spend a few hours at the computer this morning writing; but taking yesterday off to just lie flat while alternating heat and cold (thank you, Eric Andrews-Katz, for reminding me to do that yesterday and not just use heating pads and generic Ben-Gay; I will be doing that today as well)was enormously helpful in the healing process. I was also taking pain killers yesterday to make myself more comfortable, and by the end of the day yesterday I felt–I really don’t know how to describe it, but I felt like all of my muscles and joints needed to be stretched, so I started doing that in my chair and it felt ever so much better before I went to bed last night. I didn’t read much of anything because the pain killers were fogging up my brain something terrible; but I did get my three-ring binders containing everything I am currently working on out to reread where I am at on everything. Scotty’s Chapter Three needs a revision (or a re-ordering of its scenes) to match up to the changes I made on the first two chapters; I know where this story is going now and I really like the decisions I made before Bouchercon to turn this into something worthy of a Scotty novel. Today, other than the making of the grocieries, is going to be mostly me doing the same as I did yesterday–lying prone in my easy chair unfolded out, alternating between heat and cold, while hopefully reading the new Donna Andrews while managing my pain with Aleve while college football plays on the screen. LSU plays Mississippi State tonight in Death Valley, so we’ll get some sort of idea of how well the Tigers have regrouped since that opening loss (last week’s blowout of Southern doesn’t really count–no offense, Southern). And tomorrow is Saints-Buccaneers, so I can swear at Tom Brady some more, which is always an enjoyable experience.

So, looks like today–other than the groceries, getting the mail, and getting as–is going to be another enforced day off. I am afraid of doing my usual “oh it feels better so I can do more things only to make it worse and last longer” thing, so much as I am loathe to fall even further behind on everything, I really don’t have much choice. Your back is not something you want to fuck with a whole lot, and the last thing I need at my age–at any age–is to continue having chronic issues with my back. I hurt it at the gym years and years ago, always assumed it was safe to go back before it actually was, and then consistently made things worse. This was when my serious 3 to 4 times per week workout routine was finally and completely disrupted, and I’ve never really been able to consistently attend the gym to workout ever since.

The Lost Apartment is also a disaster area, but…don’t push it, Gregalicious. Just relax and allow yourself the time to let whatever-the-fuck-it-is you did to your back to heal. You’ve got college football games to watch and a Donna Andrews novel to read, and in a worst case scenario you can lay back in your easy chair and use the laptop to do things like write or something…until of course Scooter wants to go to sleep in my lap.

I also overslept a bit this morning, but the benefit of that is I no longer feel exhausted, which is yet another step on the needed path for me to feel like Gregalicious again. I got the Bouchercon email this morning in which sixteen (!!!!) attendees have tested positive this far, but so far I’ve dodged that bullet again. I have wondered, with the exhaustion, but that second line keeps on not showing up on my tests so as far as I can tell, everything else is fine. (Excuse me for a moment while I stick a swab up my nose; seriously, at this point I’d rather stick my finger and use blood to run the test. Why can’t this be an oral swab like the HIV tests used to be like?)

We did get caught up on Bad Sisters last night, and then moved on to the series premiere of The Serpent Queen, with Samantha Morton as Catherine de Medici. The show is actually–at least so far–seems historically accurate (other than she married Henri duc d’Orleans in 1533 rather than 1536; that year is fixed in my head because that is also the year Henry VIII married Anne Boleyn and had her crowned), and of course, Catherine is one of my favorite historical characters of all time. She is often depicted in history as evil and cruel and malignant–but imagine loving your husband so much and enduring the humiliation of his disinterest in you while being utterly devoted to a woman twenty years older…and this goes on for 26 years before he dies. Wouldn’t you be a little warped? Ignored, dismissed, laughed at…and then with her husband’s death she becomes one of the most powerful women in Europe, trying to preserve the crown and an intact France for her sons during a time of almost constant religious and political strife. She fascinates me, much as Eleanor of Aquitaine, Anne Boleyn, Blanche of Castile, and several other great queens of history do…which again leads me to my idea of writing a history of the sixteenth century in Europe through the tales of the great and powerful women of that century, A Monstrous Regiment of Women. There was also a time when I wanted to write historical novels of political intrigue, and what better place to set such a series than during the second half of the sixteenth century in France, which was a time more akin to Game of Thrones than most periods (the Wars of the Roses is another; the dying out of the Capetian dynasty in France in the early fourteenth is another).

Yes, a series centered around one of Catherine’s Flying Squadron (beautiful women trained in the arts of seduction and eroticism, who took lovers strategically so they could spy on them for the Crown) during the period of 1570-1589 would be a lot of fun to write, and the research! What fun would all that reading be? Perhaps someday when I have more time and energy…ha ha ha, I somehow managed to type that with a straight face.

I’ve also always wanted to write a sixteenth century murder mystery where Robert Cecil hires someone to investigate the death of Amy Robsart in 1560–which jeopardized Queen Elizabeth’s throne within the first two years of her reign.

And that’s not even taking into consideration my retelling of The Three Musketeers from Milady de Winter’s point of view.

Yeah, I will probably never write anything more historical any further back than my lifetime.

And on that note, I am retiring to my easy chair with Donna Andrews and some ice packs. Have a happy Saturday, Constant Reader.

Lay It On The Line

I woke up this morning and knew immediately it was Thursday, which is progress of a sort, isn’t it? I may not know the actual DATE, but I know the day of the week, which is a step in the right direction.

I made it to the gym yesterday after work for a very brief, one 15 rep set of everything upper body related–it had been well over a week since my last workout, so I was worried about overdoing it and straining the muscles too much, but it felt so amazing, and I felt so good afterwards–I woke up this morning feeling good, too–that I think a lot of the stress, tension and tightness I was feeling in my neck, shoulders and back could have been from not working out in addition to being stressed on top of everything else. I also slept incredibly well last night without taking anything chemical–I was sleepy when I went to bed, and decided to see if I was tired enough to sleep without medical assistance, and apparently I was. I may try to sleep without assistance tonight again myself, just to see–I do worry about becoming chemically dependent; the last thing I need at my age is rehab–so we will see how it all goes this evening.

I feel normal this morning for the first time since the power went out. I can’t really say why–I honestly don’t know–unless going to the gym yesterday kicked my brain back into some sort of normality or present reality or something. It’s nice to feel normal again, though–the trouble with these paradigm shifting disruptions is you’re never sure what normal feels like in the new reality, but this morning I kind of feel normal, which is really lovely. I have more work at home duties to get through today–more on the horizon tomorrow–and am curious to see what is in store for work for next week. Will we be seeing clients again? Will the building be open? There’s an all-staff call on Tuesday again–which makes me tend to think the office may or may not be open by then, but then again, I used to always miss these calls because they were during the time I was seeing clients, so I don’t really remember if this was a weekly thing or not. I am hopeful–always–that somehow, getting through this as another off-week and through the weekend will continue with this feeling of normality. We shall see–I guess the next test is to see whether I can write or not.

I spent some time yesterday evening watching documentaries on Youtube–there was a particularly good one on Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of my all time favorite historical women. I’ve also discovered a channel on Youtube that focuses primarily on biographies, short for the most part, no longer than fifteen minutes at the longest, that focuses on the French House of Bourbon. I love seventeenth century France (always have, hence my obsession with The Three Musketeers), have always wanted to write about it, and maybe someday I will. (To be fair, I am also obsessed with the sixteenth century history of all Europe, not just France…and perhaps someday I will write my history about the powerful women of the sixteenth century. Catherine de Medici and her life remain absolutely fascinating to me; I’ve always wanted to write about that turbulent period of French history–the Religious Wars of the latter part of the century–and de Medici’s Flying Squadron–women trained in the art of seduction in order to spy on potential enemies of the throne. Maybe someday, when I’ve retired.)

And since we returned, I find myself unable to read. I am probably going to get caught up on my Real Housewives watching while stripping condom packs today–yes, it’s a big and exciting day of work-at-home duties for Gregalicious today, but I don’t know if I can face the tedium of the data entry; maybe I can get my shows watched and perhaps a movie, and then move back into the data entry, I don’t know; I will play it all by ear today methinks. And I need to make a new to-do list….

And on that note, tis time to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.