Tag: Threads

I Like It Like That

I like it, I like it, I like it like that!

That was another song turned into a great gay dance remix back in my slutty single days. It made me laugh when it became a Burger King commercial; it’s weird to hear something you were dancing to and singing along with at three in the morning drenched in sweat and missing your shirt being used to sell Whoppers, but could there be anything more indicative of what our country is all about than art being used to sell products? There’s nothing in this country we won’t commodify, is there?

It’s cold again this morning–33 degrees outside, and I can certainly tell this morning from the cold seeping in through the windows. Our power went out overnight; Paul was up working on his laptop, and kept working on his laptop until the power came back on, two hours later. Paul isn’t very tech savvy, but he does know how to turn his phone into a hotspot and connect so he’s on-line. (I had all the Entergy alert emails in my inbox when I got up this morning.) Not sure what caused that–we rarely lose power outside of hurricanes–but wouldn’t be surprised if it was cold related, somehow. Tonight I have to run errands on the way home–I was tired when I got off work yesterday, but did manage to write for a bit; will try again tonight–and also have to deal with a jury duty summons, which is aggravating. It’s a pain to deal with; I can’t get coverage for my clinic shifts if I don’t know I am going to serve or not, you know. Ah, well, something else to deal with, I suppose. I don’t mind jury duty–I actually enjoyed serving the one time I was picked to sit on one, and even got a book out of it, so more power to jury duty, seriously–but the hassle of dealing with re: work isn’t that awful, either. Of course, it’s criminal court, so as a crime writer I doubt I’d get picked (I made sure to mention “award-winning crime writer” on the on-line registration this morning, as well as “sexual health counselor”; I can’t imagine either would be on any attorney’s “oh we need HIM for sure” criteria); but as I said, I don’t mind being picked, once I get the work situation sorted. I’ve also been called to serve in February, during Carnival, which is simply delightful–but then again, maybe Scotty could be called to serve on a jury during Carnival? That could be interesting.

So, all the social media sites connected through Fuckerberg’s Meta bullshit have done away with fact-checking, and quietly did away with protections for marginalized people (including queers) one can only assume that Zuck the Fuck has his head firmly implanted between some massive sagging orange butt cheeks. Have fun up there, oligarch. There was a reason you didn’t get laid until you were rich enough to attract women, and it wasn’t how weird and pasty you look, you sociopathic cretin. But will all the billionaires, oligarchs and tech-bros united behind this government, in order to better loot the country and burn the world to the ground, backpedal if and when this regime gets the Reign of Terror they plan to implement gets turned back on them? The last time we had robber barons it eventually led to the collapse of our economy, which then spread world wide and led to World War II. So glad nobody in the stupid country can be bothered to read history, or read it correctly. If your knowledge of US history is predicated on reading books by Bill O’Reilly, congratulations on joining the Manifest Destiny cult–but you know nothing, Jon Snow. I don’t know if I am ready to leave Facebook, but it’s not been fun to even be there much anymore, and I care a lot less about Threads. Maybe it’s time we all admit social media was a destructive force to our society and we can go back to direct messaging or text or whatever…although if social media continues to be throttled to death by greedy billionaires, what will publishers tell us to do to market books anymore? (Social media does not sell many books, no matter what anyone says; it was just another methodology for publishers to place the onus for marketing and promotion on authors while cutting marketing budgets.)

And every day that passes brings the country closer to the abyss of the looters being in charge again. We’re very close to a breaking point–and while I am all about class solidarity for sure, I am not so willing to overlook so many racists and homophobes and white supremacists, either. Sure, solidarity to bring back regulations and anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws, Medicaid (not Medicare) for all, and to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and educational systems are the most important battles right now, and I will fight with anyone shoulder-to-shoulder to save this country from the doom that came for every empire in history so far, but those social issues aren’t going to go away, either–and once we get the rid of the major enemy, than we can focus on societal ills like prejudice and bigotry and government-sourced religion.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, stay warm, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning.

How You Gonna See Me Now

I had something go a little viral (in a very small way) on Threads; New Year’s morning when I saw, after what happened here, that garbage “humans” were blaming “the border”1 for it (um, well actually it was an American military vet, bitch) and posted MTG needs to keep New Orleans out of her hellmouth and at last count, I was at well over a thousand likes and an equally insane amount of reposts–and no “libt@rd” replies for me to block, either. Now, imagine had I put that on Twitter (fuck you now and forever, Elmo, I will always deadname your shitty app). Would I have escaped being swarmed by right wing trolls? Probably not, which was one of the many reasons that helped me break the addiction to Twitter and delete my account. Sometimes I miss interacting with people there (Jericho Brown, for one, and other friends, too), but I do not miss the toxicity and the really bad takes from trashy trolls and bots.

The energy around town yesterday was very off. Of course we all talked about the incident all day at work–the clients, too–and the vibe that’s always there, even when you’re not paying attention, just didn’t feel right. I saw a lot of social media posts yesterday that were love notes to New Orleans, and the love notes far far outnumbered the disgusting bottom-feeding ones (see MTG reference above). And reading those, I started remembering back over the years. Not just the years I’ve been so blessed to live here, but the ones going back to the day when Bienville came up Bayou St. John from Lake Pontchartrain to the island surrounded by swamp alongside the Mississippi River. New Orleans has had this kind of horror before; the biggest mass death event for gay men until Pulse was the Upstairs Lounge Fire in the early 1970s. Hundreds and thousands died during fever season. There was bubonic plague during the Wilson administration, and a massive hurricane a few years later that wiped out entire communities. New Orleans has always understood that death is a part of life, and no one knows when Death will come for you–so live every day like it’s your last; squeeze every bit of joy and pleasure and happiness out of life you can because it can all go away tomorrow, chér. And I remembered back to that time I came here for my birthday in 1994, and an entire new world and life opened up in front of my eyes as I got out of the cab at the corner of Bourbon and St. Ann–and I’ve said before, the city whispered in my ear come live here and I will make your dreams come true.

I love my city, and it will do what it does best. It will mourn its dead and raise money for survivors and celebrate the lives of those lost in this horrific act, the way we always do. New Orleans will not stop being what it is or who we are. We held Carnival after Hurricane Katrina and it was marvelous, absolutely fucking marvelous, and exactly what we needed when we needed it the most. New Orleans will always celebrate being alive, and that’s really part of the charm of this city; not only do we welcome everyone we encourage and celebrate difference, and find joy in finding community all together. What will Carnival be like after this? Joyous but cautious, I would imagine; but as always, Carnival puts everyone into a great mood and we celebrate that we’re still here.

I was tired yesterday–didn’t rest enough I guess after returning to the gym, which I am hoping to do again later on today–so I didn’t get as much writing as I would have liked to get done; I did take Chapter One to over five thousand words from slightly more than three thousand; not bad for a working week. I am hoping to get through the rest of the original chapters this weekend (no college football, nor do I have as much to do as I usually do on a weekend, either, which is absolutely 1000% awesome. The drive home was an exercise in Security Theater; cops and police cars everywhere, and they’d closed off the CBD around the Superdome completely, which was a nightmare as the CBD is the area closest to the interstate–how many people get home from work–so maneuvering around stupid drivers and closed streets and blocked lanes was quite the adventure in irritation and frustration.

Sigh.

Also: I am sick and tired of white racists saying “it’s not safe!!!!” about New Orleans when what you really mean is “too many Blacks live there.” This usually goes along with some pious weeping about how much they used to love New Orleans back when it was safer…newsflash, K-K-Karen: New Orleans is as safe as it ever has been. When you were a child, your parents never talked to you about crime, but when precisely was New Orleans this paragon of safety? New Orleans was always a major port–and major ports aren’t exactly known for decorous behavior and peace and quiet. Was it safer when the Mafia ran the Quarter? When the Upstairs Lounge burned with over thirty people inside? When prostitution was legal in Storyville, or when New Orleans was the liquor capital of North America during Prohibition? Crime has always been rampant here, and this vile racist pretense that before desegregation New Orleans set the standard for law-abiding American cities? Hardly. Just admit your parents or grandparents didn’t want the kids in your family to go to school with Black kids and be done with it, okay?

I feel pretty confident that twink-in-barely-more-than-a-thong will trigger the puritans.

I wonder how long before this post gets flagged by social media puritans as “adult content?” Yesterday’s post was flagged as porn by the cosplaying Puritans at Threads–a man in his underwear is pornography; bare female breasts or some woman with an enormous ass in only a thong proliferate everywhere. Seriously–fuck all of the way off, censors–and think about the message you are actually sending women with your selective application of “oops, this is porn! Shame on you!” to shots of men in swimsuits or underwear, but okaying degrading and demeaning pictures of women every fucking day.

But…Facebook began as a way to rank and score girls who wouldn’t fuck Zuckerberg by a hotness scale, so here we are.

It’s a work at home Friday for me today, and we’re going to Costco later, after I finish my work at home duties. The house is in better shape than usual (thank you, day off on Wednesday and cleaning), so there isn’t as much housework to get done this weekend. My muscles are tight this morning, so I am going to have to do some stretching, and then head back to the gym tomorrow. I also learned something else about myself yesterday–I always rush through my workouts and get extremely frustrated if I have to wait on a machine. When I went the other day, I took my time. I moved through the exercises relatively quickly, but I did them all slowly, didn’t allow myself to get frustrated, and didn’t try to rush through it. And again, I realized I was so focused for so long on using my time effectively and efficiently and trying to do everything as quickly as I can that…it was much easier to get annoyed and frustrated and cut the workout short or something like that. This time, taking my time and actually feeling the muscles work instead of going through so fast that I don’t notice any burn until I am finished isn’t the best way to exercise. I also don’t have the anxiety anymore, so I also don’t feel like I need to get through everything as fast as I can because I don’t have as much to do as I used to. But the good news is my shoulder and arm do not feel any more sore or fatigued than anywhere else; in fact, it actually feels better than it has in a while.

Louder, for those in the back: clearly I should have continued exercising after I was done with Physical Therapy. But…I wasn’t in a good place for the most part last year, so it is what it is and I can’t change that now so move forward and remember. And also remember how good it felt to go to the gym and exercise in the first place.

I also started writing a synopsis of The Summer of Lost Boys last night, too–which felt good and was kind of fun to do. I also need to work on some short stories this weekend, run a few errands, and do some picking up around here. I want to write some today after work, and I think I’m pretty much done with the college football play-offs. There’s no one left that I care about watching; in fact, not a fan of any of the final four, to be honest. LSU already played their bowl game2 and so…who cares? It’s Gymnastics season now, and LSU is the defending national champions, so that’s very cool.

We’re watching Cross, which we’re enjoying; we also finished Hysteria! earlier this week, and it was a lot of fun.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a terrific Friday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later today; one can never be certain.

  1. They still are blaming illegal immigrants despite the fact the killer was born and raised here and was a veteran of our military! They are quite literally the fucking worst humans ever born. The next four years are just going to be a shit show. ↩︎
  2. They did win, by the way, beating Baylor 44-31. ↩︎

Love Song

Sparky let me sleep later this morning, which was greatly appreciated. I have work to do today, some errands to run, and I am just going to push through it all today. There’s no football on television today (or if there is, I don’t care about it) to distract me from working and reading a bit. I want to drop another box of books off at the library sale, and I’m planning on going to the gym later on and getting back into that habit. Yesterday was nice and relaxing, too. I got all my work-at-home duties done and we went to Costco, which is always a joy. I don’t know why I love going to Costco (probably because Paul always pays), but I do. We watched some more of Black Doves last night, which we are really enjoying, and finally went to bed a little later than I would have liked. I slept well and woke up to a sunny day in New Orleans; it’s going to be in the low seventies high sixties today–which means I should think about washing the car, too, or at least cleaning it out. I do have a hand vacuum, so I can just do that. Excellent plan, Gregalicious!

I also picked up and cleaned up around here both Thursday night and around work-at-home duties yesterday, so the Lost Apartment is actually in pretty good shape this morning. There are some dishes that need to be done, but the laundry is finished for sure and all that is left is the floors. Yay, me! I even did the filing yesterday, too, which is all kinds of awesome. I hate it when my desk is a mess and my inboxes are loaded down with paper and other shit. I also decided on the opening of the new Scotty; this time I am going to parody the opening of The Lords of Discipline, and it came to me yesterday how to make that work and be funny. So I even managed to get some “writing” done. No wonder I woke up in such a good mood; yesterday was truly a good day for me. Paul’s going to his office today, so I’ll be home by myself this afternoon, and so there’s no reason for me to not get everything done today that I want to get done. I also want to read some more today; that’s what I’ll most likely do this morning before I run the errands; probably do some picking up and book-pruning, too.

I’ve been doing that “twenty books that influenced or stayed with you” thing on one of the social media channels (I am on Bluesky and Threads; not sure how long I’ll stay on Threads, since Zuckerberg is a fascist collaborator) but I can never remember where I post things or reply to people since I left Twitter (whenever I do these things, the list is often different; some books make the list every time). Most of the people I enjoyed engaging with on Twitter (I will never fucking call it X; fuck you now and forever, Elmo Mush) have migrated over to one or the other, so people I was initially missing in the beginning have gradually turned up on one or the other. I have also taken the Bluesky/Threads methodology of just preemptively blocking annoying people to Facebook now–I told a friend I call it “reclaiming my time”–and thus far, it’s enormously freeing. I block early and I block often, and I wish I would have just done that everywhere from the beginning. Likewise, I’ve always required that anyone commenting here has to be approved by me before anyone else sees it–so there are any number of trolling commentary I’ve spared you all from. It’s the least I can do. Sometimes it’s a homophobic piece of garbage, or a MAGA troll, and I don’t owe you a fucking thing, let alone a forum for your ignorance and hate. However, I also keep those comments saved as unapproved, so I may eventually use them on here. Hey, you wanted it in a public forum; but I am not required to give that to you in the way you wanted. Instead, I can call you out on here while you gnash your teeth in impotent anger at my restricting your so-called freedom of speech (hey, it’s not my fault you don’t understand how the government or the Constitution works; you should have paid more attention at your free public education and taking advantage of the opportunity to be smarter and more intelligent–it was a free gift from the taxpayers. I already paid for your education once; I am not a teacher and therefore it is not my job to educate your stupid ass). Sucks to be you, doesn’t it? Better you than me.

The Luigi Mangione case continues to dominate social media and the news, as the news–ever in thrall to their corporate masters–tries to convince us we’re terrible people for being on Luigi’s side. The legacy media, of course, always do the bidding of the corporate masters (which is partly why we are in the situation we are in; they’ve been betraying the country for decades and doing the bidding of the right–we should have never forgiven them for helping perpetrate the lies that led to the Iraq and Afghanistan quagmires, or for patriot-washing Bush/Cheney for eight years), and the scolding from people who think “How can you support a murderer” isn’t landing the way they think it should–in fact, it actually makes me question your morality. Do I think killing CEO’s or executives who’ve made and implemented policies that put profit over people’s health care when they aren’t really medical professionals? Of course not, but I don’t have any sympathy for the dead man or his family or his evil company which isn’t going to change the way they operate.

That’s always the thing that has gotten me about health insurance; they operate under the assumption they know more about a person and their health and their needs than their actual doctors. Since the introduction of capitalism into medicine and health care–the profit motive–the quality of care and the quality of life for most Americans has declined. I have any number of my own horror stories with health insurance (no, he doesn’t need to have that precancerous lesion removed! It might be benign now, even if that might change, but we need to wait to be sure!) and the horror stories of my clients in the clinic that I have to listen to every day. I would shed no tears for any health insurance CEO, frankly; and I remember what it was like before the Affordable Care Act1, when my pre-existing conditions required me to be raped repeatedly by Blue Cross/Blue Shield. I was so happy when the ACA took effect and I was able to change to my job’s coverage. (Now, alas, we are back with BC/BS–and there’s a reason the acronym includes “bs.”) If my lack of sympathy for the health insurance CEO’s and their cronies makes me a bad person, well, I don’t care. I save my sympathy for the people denied care and their families.

And it’s very privileged to react so moralistically about people not being on Luigi’s side. It doesn’t hurt that he has pretty privilege, and the general reaction to a pretty young man shooting a health insurance CEO because of his shitty corporate policies (how can corporations have all the rights of an individual but no accountability for criminal behavior? If a corporation can’t go to jail, then it’s not a person.) is bound to get support from all the people who’ve had a shitty experience with health insurance coverage. It took me seven months of doing without before I could finally get BC/BS to pay for a necessary medication for me. Seven. Months. When I had BC/BS before, they declined to cover a medication to help me quit smoking; I paid out of pocket because I wanted to quit smoking, but it was infuriating. They would have rather I kept smoking and hoped I’d die before they had to pay too much for cancer care. Think about that–a health insurance company refusing to cover something that would make a customer healthier. The three months of the drug cost me $300 in total. They refused to pay $300 to save money in the long run.

Insurance is, and always has been, one of the greatest scams perpetrated on the American people. Don’t even get me started on auto insurance, which is even worse than health insurance. I will never be shamed into feeling sympathy for health insurance employees–and when people say “but it was his job!” do you have the same energy for the camp guards and workers in Auschwitz? They, too, were just doing their jobs. How many people suffered and died from policies set and approved by that CEO? How can someone who has the power of life or death who chooses death for higher profits be worthy of sympathy? How is denying life-saving treatment and care for people not calculated, premeditated murder? And that doesn’t even take into consideration how much we fucking have to pay for them to deny us care.

And if you’re okay with THAT, yeah, you don’t actually have any moral high ground to stand on. But congratulations on judging mine!

And on that note, I am going to go to my easy chair to read before I run my errands. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later. Stranger things have happened!

Screenshot
  1. Yet another example of the lack of memory in Americans: people can complain about the ACA all they want to (and yes, it’s the same thing as Obamacare, trash) but health insurance before the ACA was so much fucking worse, and the insured were completely at the mercy of the corporate bean counters and the CEO’s pushing them for more profits for the shareholders–and the shareholders who profit from these policies are just as evil as those working for the corporation. ↩︎

She’s Out of My Life

Sunday morning and it’s below sixty today in New Orleans, which is fine. I slept super-well last night, which was great, and feel pretty rested this morning. I have a lot of things to do today before I meet my friend Ellen at San Lorenzo (the restaurant in the Hotel St. Vincent, which used to be an orphanage and then a very inexpensive hostel in the Lower Garden District for a very long time but has been gentrified into a lovely boutique hotel with a café, fancy restaurant, and poolside bar) for dinner. And having left the house yesterday for a wedding last night…that’s two nights on a weekend where I’ve left the house. Peculiar, isn’t it?

Yesterday was a very good day. I woke up feeling rested, did some chores, finished reading Angel Luis Colón’s Infested, which I really enjoyed (more on that later) and then did a reread of Daphne du Maurier’s marvelous long story “Don’t Look Now” (more on that later) before watching some football games before it was time to summon my Lyft and head over the bridge to the wedding. Today I am going to start a reread of The Dead Zone–which might not be as thorough as it could be–and I need to get to work on some things. There are also some chores I never got around to yesterday that need to be addressed this morning and I really should write today since I didn’t anything yet this weekend. I worked on “The Blues Before Dawn” a bit on Friday after finishing my work-at-home chores; I’d like to work some more on that today. I also should work on the mess in the laundry room and should finish the organizing and filing, etc. I haven’t ever finished reorganizing the files at all; and I really need to get back on top of that. I need to finish the dishes and run the dishwasher too; and I am going to make potato leek soup in the slow cooker today–I can’t believe it’s never crossed my mind with this soft food diet to make a batch of that soup. It’s incredibly filling, for one thing; usually one bowl is all it takes, and it will last for a week at least. Same with my white bean chicken chili–all soft, will last a long time, and it’s both filling and delicious. Obviously, I didn’t think this soft food diet through beyond “oh, no burgers or pizza.”

The wedding was lovely. One of my co-workers (whom I absolutely adore) married his partner in their backyard on the West Bank last evening, which was marvelous. It was nice seeing my co-workers outside of work in their fancy clothes (they all looked fantastic) plus it was nice to spend time with them outside of the work environment. I had some nice conversations, and I realized that I’ve kind of isolated myself from them because of my age; I feel the age difference far more than they actually notice it. I do like them all, and find them all very interesting; it’s my loss more so than theirs. Anyway, it’s something to think about going forward anyway. I am glad I went for any number of reasons–I will only attend same-sex weddings pretty much now, as they are an act of defiance now more so than ever–but not the least of which is spending more time with my co-workers, or as I like to always call them, “the kids at work.”

Football was interesting yesterday; I’ve not really looked at the results from yesterday much. LSU was ahead of Army 14-0 when I got into my Lyft and checked my phone; by the time I got home it was 28-0 and still the first half. It wasn’t much fun–I only enjoy LSU games where they score 62 points if they are playing an SEC opponent–and so I didn’t feel guilty for switching over to Auburn-Mississippi (Auburn ended up losing), or for watching Skate America once Paul came back downstairs (he got bored with the game as well). Checking the scores and results, it looks like this could be another chaotic year like 2007–which will make the play-off decisions interesting once the season concludes. LSU can still win the West with a win over Alabama if Mississippi stumbles again–they have to play at Georgia, so chances are good that will happen–and winning out. I also realized this is the fourth year of LSU’s championship cycles: they won in 2003, 2007, and 2019; played for it and lost in 2011, with 2015 being the only four year cycle that didn’t end in them playing for the national title. Perhaps this will be the second time that cycle is broken.

Twitter continues its slow death spiral, and I am checking it less and less these days, and staying there very briefly. I do have some friends still there that I like to interact with, but of course the others are slowly becoming what Twitter became as well. Yesterday a straight white man came barging onto a thread of George Takei on Threads, in which George was talking about how difficult it is for queer people–for any minority–to deal with elections, when our rights hang in the balance every fucking time, and how sometimes as a queer person or a person of color, you have to grit your teeth and vote for the Democrat because no matter what or who, the Republican option isn’t an option for queer people or people of color—unless we really hate ourselves to the point that we hate other people like us, or only care about our money rather than our rights. The example George was using was campaigning and voting for Bill Clinton after he signed both DADT and DOMA into law during his first time despite his avowed belief in the rights and dignity of queer people in 1992 on the campaign trail. Fox News and the right used his support of queer rights–along with a ridiculous scandal with no evidence of wrong-doing by either Clinton (remember Whitewater? I sure the fuck do)–to take back the House in 1994 and handicap any attempts at being progressive. I also remember Bill Clinton trying to get a form of the Affordable Care Act passed–the right also used that battlecry of “socialism” to scare people into giving them that House majority with Newt Gingrich as speaker (I remember it all too well). The reason I remember this all too well is because HIV/AIDS was still killing people and there was no cure as of yet; a positive test meant a very good chance of death relatively soon. I fucking lived through the 80s and the 90s, thank you very much.

I also remember that Bill Clinton was the first presidential candidate to mention HIV/AIDS, and to notice that queer people actually exist–so you can fucking miss me with the Hillary hate, thank you.

Anyway “straight white man” (hereafter referred to a Mr. Mediocre) barged into George’s thread to lecture him about compromise voting and how if we would all just really get behind true progressives, change would be that much easier and how he could just never ever bring himself to the point where he could vote for someone who ever voted for a war.1 That told me everything I needed to know about Mr. Mediocre–the “ally” who couldn’t bring himself to vote for Hillary in 2016 because she voted for the war, believing the lies the Bush Administration and his fully supportive Congress were pushing on us all, calling those of us who didn’t want the war cowards and/or traitors, questioning our very patriotism. Blaming Hillary for believing the lie so you threw your vote away in 2016 so you could remain “pure” fucked over your so-called “allies,” you miserable piece of shit. And instead of ignoring and blocking, which is what I usually did, the audacity of Mr. Mediocre lecturing George fucking Takei, a gay Japanese-American who grew up in an American concentration camp for American citizens of Japanese descent on purity politics just didn’t go down with me, so I replied, Oh, look, another straight white man who will be okay no matter who is in power lecturing those whose rights are on the line with every election about his purity. Don’t hurt yourself patting yourself on the back while you screw over minorities over some purity test that we don’t have the privilege of applying to our votes. “Allies” like you gave us Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016. Thanks for that, by the way.

If you think Mr. Mediocre would let that go, let me introduce you to The Progressive Straight White Man. They can never let that shit go. You know he read my response and climbed back up on his High Horse–how dare a gay man call him out and speak to him that way! He told me “You should want better, but I’ll still keep working for women and minorities.2“

I replied, I do want better but am realistic as a minority in this country to know that no matter what I have to vote for the least damaging candidate because my rights are actually on the line with every election, so don’t condescend to me about your purity tests and progressive bonafides when a real ally will show up, hold his nose and vote for the Democrat. We warned you the Supreme Court was at risk, but her emails! That pesky vote for the war! So forgive us for not applauding you for your purity. Now the Supreme Court is poised to take us back to 1860 but hey, at least you can sleep at night for not voting for the warmonger.

Asshole. After all, Dobbs didn’t affect him–and when his daughter is forced to carry her rapist’s baby, I hope he remembers that purity vote in 2016 with pride.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I need to eat something and make another cup of coffee and get the potato leek soup started, no easy chore. Plus I want to write up what I read yesterday and the impressions they left with me. Have a great Sunday, COn

  1. which means he wouldn’t have voted for the two most progressive presidents we’ve ever had, I might add; FDR declared war, and LBJ voted for it, as well as intervention in Korea. Some progressive this dude is, right? ↩︎
  2. Love that pathetic attempt at progressive shaming, which again tells me everything I need to know about his politics–if he doesn’t get the perfect candidate that aligns with everything he believes (a pipe dream that will never happen), he won’t vote for them no matter what that means for women and minorities. Some ally. ↩︎

My Way

Work at home Friday! Huzzah! Huzzah!

I received an invitation code the other day from a friend for Blue Sky, one of the new upstarts looking to replace the dumpster fire hellhole that is Twitter, and so yesterday I set up the account. I am also on Threads. On Blue Sky I am @scottynola, just like I am on Twitter, but on Threads I am @gregh121. I probably should have been consistent across the three platforms, but why would I start making things easier for people to find me now, twenty years into my career? But I posted on both Facebook and Twitter that I was there–and Twitter locked my account. Yes, the Muskrat is all about free speech, isn’t he?

Honestly. But Twitter becomes more and more of a shit-show with every passing day, and it’s not like it was ever a great place to be for long, anyway. I’d go on there, scroll through, have some fun and/or funny interactions with friends and acquaintances…and then inevitably it would turn horrific and I could feel the bile rising within myself as I read more and started to reply angrily…before deleting and closing the app. I wonder what future historians (if there are any future historians) will write and think about this era? What will they debate about, what will they think the truth was and how will it all wind up being reported? How harshly will we all be judged?

That’s a rather chilling thought on Morning 4, 432, 172 of an excessive heat advisory day here in New Orleans. I had thought and planned to go to the OMV today and get my real ID at long last, but I cannot find one item that I need…which Paul keeps so I won’t lose it and yet I was able to put my hands rather easily on all of the other things I need. The irony of this is not lost on me. I also am kind of glad of an excuse to not go outside today, in all honesty. It’s going to “feel like” up to 120 every day over the weekend, and I’d really rather not. It was miserable coming home from work yesterday, and I had to run a couple of errands as well. Dreadful. Just leaving my backpack in the car during those brief intervals at the stops I made was enough for my laptop to be hot to the touch when I got it inside. I think I have to make at least one grocery run this weekend, but I don’t know when I want to attempt it and go out into that. Paul’s coming home sometime on Saturday, and it would probably make the most sense to wait until he’s home, maybe? I don’t know, really. My brain is sort of on the fritz these days from the heat (yes, Greg, it’s recent and it’s the heat, whatever helps you get through it) but I had a great breakthrough last night on the WIP, and realized what absolutely is missing from the manuscript. So, hopefully after completing today’s homework duties (seriously, why haven’t I been calling it that all along instead of work-at-home? Embarrassment because it sounds like being a kid again? It’s work I do at home that’s more easily and efficiently done here than at the office, so homework), I’ll be able to dig into the book and get this important piece of the voice into the book. I also know where it’s heading in this first act, and I kind of have an idea for the middle for a change. That’s always satisfying; those a-ha moments are always so satisfying that it’s almost like having an orgasm; I want a cigarette immediately after, LOL.

But the finishing touches on the apartment are being done today, and I have to say having the walls back together on the first floor is amazing. I always forget how lovely this apartment is when, well, things are the way they are supposed to be. It’s an old house, and things go wrong and leaks occur and so on, and we generally tend to not complain about things…so they tend to not get the attention they need when we would prefer that to occur. But with the walls taken care of, with new plaster where it had damaged and then being painted over to match at last, it looks lovely in the living room and kitchen (I’d forgotten about that patch of white paint up in the corner by the ceiling; but it now matches) and now I no longer have any excuse for not cleaning and keeping the apartment up, which primarily was the defeat of “oh because of the damaged walls it will always look slovenly in here no matter what else I do” which turned into a multi-year slide. Had the walls been redone just before the shut down, I could have really used that time at home to clean the fuck out of this place. But the shutdown came with a malaise–depression, undoubtedly–and so nothing ever really got done.

I slept really well last night–woke up at five, again at six, and stayed in bed until seven–and now am enjoying my coffee and finishing this up. Sam the handyman has already come by to check in; I told him I’d be moving upstairs with my laptop and he has free rein on the downstairs. I need to start the cleaning upstairs anyway, and so if I am up there working when I take a break I can go clean something. There’s a television with Apple TV as well, so there’s literally no reason why I can’t get things done with music playing through the television. I’ve already started redoing the upstairs in bits and pieces. Tonight when I am finished with everything I think I will start watching this new reboot of The Real Housewives of New York. I’m kind of burning out on reality television, which has fascinated me for almost two solid decades now, so it would be nice to see a new, interesting take on these shows. (Hell, I even wrote a book around them.) I still have to get caught up on this season of Superman and Lois, but I am experiencing quite a bit of super-hero burnout lately, which is why I am enjoying the animated My Adventures with Superman so much–it’s optimistic and the doom and gloom and darkness so endlessly in supply for the DC Universe movies (thanks to The Dark Knight series) isn’t fun to watch.

And on that note, I am going to get a cup of coffee and head upstairs. Happy Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow. Or later–one never can be sure.

Suckling the Mender

Work-at-home Friday! Woo-hoo! It’s almost the weekend! I felt funky yesterday; more than just my usual end-of-the-getting-up-at-six-every-day tireds. My stomach started bothering me on Wednesday night, and I chose to eat breakfast and lunch yesterday with soft foods–yogurt, cereal, mozzarella salad–as I had the day before and that didn’t seem to be much help, as my stomach ached all afternoon. This continued throughout the evening, and I also was terribly tired when I left the office. I felt so bad–the combination of the exhaustion and the stomach issue–that I did something I never do; I laid down on the couch. I floated for about three hours in the in-between sleep and awake state of consciousness, which was where I was when Paul came home. I ate a little bit and felt better, but it’s still odd. I think it’s not eating enough, maybe? This was how I felt on Sunday after getting home from the trip–so I must eat solids and more regularly. My bad eating habits catching up to me at long last, and I really need to focus on eating regularly and more healthy. (I lost twelve pounds in Kentucky.) It’s also achy and sore this morning, too, but not nearly as bad as it was yesterday. I’ll try to eat more today than I have the last few days.

I have some errands to run after work-at-home duties are completed today, which will probably suck the life right out of me. Running errands in New Orleans in the summertime is always a draining chore, but if I can get all of that done today I won’t have to leave the house at all until Monday morning when I go back to work. It doesn’t look too bad out there this morning, but a quick check of my phone tells me it’s 82, which is practically a cold spell for July down here.

We finished watching Red Rose last night, and what a ride that was. Intense suspense, wild out of nowhere plot twists, and all the young British actors were very appealing and good in their roles. I do recommend it; it’s a new trope for horror (maybe it’s already tired, I don’t know, but it’s my first experience of it) by using apps and your phone to terrorize you. It was also a terrifying commentary on how careless we all can be about our online security. Now, of course we have to start watching something new–often a challenge to decide–

I kept waking up a lot last night–pretty much every hour on the hour–and of course, was wide awake at six. I fed and watered Scooter, since he expects it at that time every day now, and went back to bed for a little while longer. I don’t know whether iI actually slept any more, but I don’t feel spacy-tired or loopy-tired this morning, so that’s something, I suppose. Hopefully it will turn out to be a most productive day for me. I do have laundry and lots of dishes and cleaning and straightening up around here to get done, too.

I joined Threads, the new Instagram version of Twitter, last night and I have to say, I like it so far. It was nice that your followers and who you follow from Instagram transferred over, and if any of those folks aren’t there, it will automatically follow them when they join and if they follow me, it will follow them automatically, too. That was kind of cool, and it was also kind of cool to go onto social media and not have bigotry and hatred shoved into my face every time I turn around. It also made me think about something else–Pride is more than just June, and why should I only write about my experiences as a gay male and as a gay male writer during that month? Firing off snarky tweets in response to bigotry is a nice little dopamine rush, but I also feel like I’m not doing enough to counter the rise of the Fascists; what better way for a writer to do that than write about it? There is an element of “preaching to the choir” to blogging about homophobia and bigotry, but if it changes one mind…then it was all worth it, was it not? I know there are people who think of me as one of the “good ones”–if you don’t know what that means, congratulations on your privilege–because I am, in person, usually very conciliatory and understanding (conflict-averse, and a trained counselor, remember) and because I generally don’t go on my old Julia Sugarbaker rants much anymore, if at all. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have them in my head anymore; barely a day passes without me seeing something, either on social media or in the news or both, that raises my blood pressure and makes me want to strangle someone. So, I am going to try to channel that anger and rage into something productive; blog posts. I don’t worry about offending potential readers of my books because all anyone ever has to do is look at my social media or even this blog to get a sense of my politics. I probably should have developed a public persona who is just charming and funny and apolitical, but that really just opens you up to more homophobia when you’re a gay man.

I can never decide if its worse for someone to be homophobic to me because it is so ingrained in them that they don’t ever realize it, or if it’s deliberate. I guess it depends on how you call out the homophobia and how they react to it. I do, however, generally always default to “doesn’t know any better” and correct them; I also don’t ever say someone is a homophobe unless I am 100% certain it was deliberate. I just say, “that’s a homophobic thing to say” or “that’s a homophobic comment” rather than saying “you’re a homophobe”–but if you continue to not do better, well, then you’re a homophobe. The thing that I never understand is how people react to things they don’t understand automatically with dislike bordering on hatred; it’s actually okay to not understand. I don’t completely understand every experience in the world, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be sympathetic, empathetic, and respectful. One of the wonderful side effects of my day job is that training and experience as a counselor, and recognizing that experiences should be met with respect and sympathy and empathy instead of judgment. Who am I to judge anyone? The only people I don’t respect and I will judge are racists, sexists, homophobes or transphobes; anyone who uses lies, deceptions, and stereotypes to categorize any one group as lesser and less worthy. I will judge you for judging others–and I will judge very harshly.

This weekend will be about tying up loose odds and ends, working on my page proofs, and trying to straighten up around here. I want to prune the books some more, and maybe even take another box down from the attic to go through. I also want to look through that box of clippings and other Greg memorabilia from my past career to see what can be kept, what can be scanned, and what can be tossed. I really want to get that attic cleaned out this year.

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