Tag: Tropical Storm Beryl

Last Train to Clarksville

Well, we made it to Wednesday, didn’t we? This is my first full week of work in over three weeks, thanks to holidays and a canceled trip, and I am rather surprised at how well I am doing. Monday was a drag, but yesterday? I was wide awake and energized when I left the house yesterday morning, and listened to Berlin’s Pleasure Victim–which is still a bop, forty years (!) later–and got to work early. I also got to leave early, which was delightful, despite the remnants of Beryl dumping rain on us off and on all day.

The concept of the art vs the artist has reared its ugly head again this past week or so, and yeah, I don’t have any answers to this question. I’m not particularly vested in this most recent pair of artists being exposed as bad people outside of their craft; I don’t have a dog in either fight. I have enjoyed one’s work in the past, and admired their craft, but…but the other I’ve never read. It’s easy for me to say the credible accusations are enough for me and to never read them again, but it’s not painful. I think the message from all of this is to be very careful who you make into a hero? I myself have been disappointed by celebrities and authors who’ve turned out to be terrible people in the real world; but actors aren’t their roles and authors aren’t their books, either. Performances and writing are necessarily of the person, of course, but…just because you love a character doesn’t mean the creator or the actor is a good person; the character is. Someone I’ve been reading for years and was probably my biggest favorite writer of my life has been disappointing on social media lately, and yes, I’ve allowed my politics and values to impact how I feel about him as both a person and as a writer…and if I cut other people off for being TERFs or homophobes, it’s hypocrisy to not cut off someone I admire for the same things. It helped me clear out some room in my bookshelves, and relieved me of the need to catch up on his work, which I was years behind on anyway, and you know what? I’m not sad about it, either. The books I loved I still love, I just don’t need to spend any more of my money buying new ones. Does it make me sad? It’s more disappointing than sad. They don’t care if I don’t buy another one of their books; one amongst millions is beneath even being noticed. But I blocked them on social media, which I didn’t have on my 2024 bingo card (didn’t have the media trying to pick the Democratic presidential candidate this late in the game either–and I will never forgive legacy media for this 2016-like “but her emails” reaction to ONE bad debate after three years of extraordinary leadership, either. I also didn’t have “legacy media not learning anything after 2016 and 2020” on my bingo card, either. I will not watch anyone ever again on television who are doing Project 2025’s dirty work for them (bye bye Rachel, we had a very good long run) and I will certainly never subscribe to or click on a link from a newspaper whose editorial board has gone all-in on Fascism under the arrogant guise of “we know better than Democratic voters who turned out for President Biden and have never once questioned his ability to do the job so best do what WE say”….um, excuse me? Who fucking died and made the opinions of arrogant political writers and pundits who think they know better than the voters? I trust the people around the President to help him run the country the right way, as opposed to the other candidate’s people; we’ve already seen the grifters and criminals he’ll surround himself with so they can loot the country. He doesn’t even have to be impaired for this to happen.

I certainly never thought I’d see the day when a third of the country and the media would be all-in on Fascism. Do the people at CNN, MSNBC, and the New York Times actually think they’d survive a Fascist government in this country? Or are they prepping for their collaborationism by collaborating now, so they can say see, we helped your rise to power?

And that cadaver James Carville, who’s been out of touch for at least twenty years, needs to crawl back into his coffin. Don’t forget what he married; the fact that he could happily marry a reich-winger, and stay married to her after 2016, tells me all I need to know about how craven and shallow his beliefs and values are.

God, the world has changed so much since I was a kid, hasn’t it? And I cannot say for certain it’s for the better in many instances. I do think trying to end bigotry of all kinds is an improvement, for sure, and while schools aren’t 100% safe for queer kids today, at least they may not feel as isolated as they did when I was a kid–even if they live in a red state.

Even in trying to look back to the world as it was in 1994 for my WIP shows such incredible changes in the country and the world in that thirty years (half my life at this point) that it almost seems like a different world, like that Earth was in a parallel dimension. But that’s the thing about the past–it was a different time and things that are problematic now were just normal and every-day things back then. And let’s not forget it wasn’t that long ago that marriages between tweens was an acceptable practice–and still is in some parts of the country.

Some deep thoughts on this damp Wednesday morning. We’re going to continue having thunderstorms on and off through the weekend–the tail end of Beryl moving through–which is fine with me; as long as I don’t caught in a flash flood or something. We were in a heat advisory all day yesterday, and then a flash flood warning from about seven p.m. on. Just another typical summer in New Orleans. We got caught up on House of the Dragon last night, and watched two more episodes of Outer Range, which is very bizarre but really interesting. It’s reminiscent of shows like Lost or Fringe, where there’s some kind of strangeness going on that no one is really sure what it is; it’s fascinating but I have literally no idea what is going on in the show. But it’s very well done, the acting is terrific, and visually it’s very stunning to watch. We’ll probably finish it this week and then will have to find something else.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, and I’ll probably be back later.

Sexy pro wrestler Finn Balor is a favorite of mine for obvious reasons–and he’s a great wrestler, too.

Daydream Believer

Ah, Saturday morning. I have to make a brief errand run today, nothing major or horribly annoying, but it still means going outside. Tomorrow….tomorrow I am not leaving the house. We did all our errands last night, including a Costco run (we made it out for less than $300! It’s been years), and then we just hung out and watched television–the gymnastics Olympic team trials–and called it a night relatively early. I also managed to get some things done around the house, too–the bed linens laundered, the dishes put away and another load washed, cleaning up the kitchen–and was in a pretty good mood almost the entire day. I realized something else, too; I also bought the new car and took on all that additional monthly expense right around when Mom had her first stroke, too–so there was the Mom subconscious worry on top of monetary stress; something I hadn’t experienced in a very long time and I. Did. Not. Like. That. One. Bit. I am finally beginning to see a distant light at the end of a very long dark tunnel in that regard, but still. I don’t regret the car purchase; I am very pleased with the car and intend to hopefully keep it until I die. It’s hard to believe that I’ve had it now for almost eight years. That’s INSANE.

It was strangely cool and beautiful yesterday–granted, it was 86 degrees, but after the last few weeks it felt heavenly, and the damp in the air was cool not hot. I imagine that was the aftermath of Thursday night’s downpour, but regardless the reason it was lovely. The sun wasn’t out as much, either–there were a lot of clouds, so no endless punishing direct sunlight was also a pleasure to experience this close to the 4th. I am also going to have to keep watching Tropical Storm Beryl. Ah, hurricane season is already revving up for a long and busy summer.

I was also exhausted after we did the errands. I fell asleep in my chair for over an hour after getting back home, and the place is a mess. I was too tired when I got home from Costco (the last errand) to put everything away properly, and I’d also intended to do some work on the workspace, but…tired. I slept later this morning and feel better now that I am up and swilling coffee, but whew, it was hard to get up this morning and my joints all ached. The joys of being an elder, I suppose, but sheesh. I literally thought when I woke up (when Sparky woke me up) that I was too tired physically to get out of bed, but I got there eventually. I do have some errands to run today, but it shouldn’t take very long and then I can come back home and work on the house more. I also want to write this morning (and maybe this afternoon) and hopefully today I won’t get sidetracked or distracted.

The gymnastic trials were fun to watch; I always forget how fun it is to watch athletes trying to reach their dream goal of the Olympics–but of course the thrill of victory also carries with it the agony of defeat or worse, injury. It’s also hard for me to conceive that it’s an Olympic year and I’ve heard so very little about the Olympics (other than Parisians treating it all as a horror and inconvenience; I do sometimes think the Olympics will eventually die because they are too expensive to host) because naturally the election and the horrors that the Christofascists’ puppet SCOTUS are inflicting on our country are sucking all the energy and air out of the room.

I was too tired to make a Pride post yesterday, so I will definitely have to make up for it today by doing perhaps two? I am going to continue Pride through Independence Day, haters be damned, because Pride is about freedom and so is the 4th and therefore Pride should lead into a celebration of everyone’s freedom. And if straight people don’t like it, they can literally just fuck right off. I am so tired of being told how to behave and how to be an adult and how to “not upset the heteros” and you know what? Fuck the heteros and their delicate sensibilities. They’ve been tiptoed around and catered to more than enough, thank you very much. You know what offends me? Abused children, adultery, deadbeat dads, racism, transphobia, homophobia, and misogyny. Clean up your own fucking house before you come for queers, thank you very much. But it’s easier to blame us than take any responsibility for the messy world you’ve created, isn’t it?

And may no one else ever have to fear about their rights every election cycle–although SCOTUS has already delegitimized itself and we know they are coming for marriage equality at some point, too–and sooner than we think. And just remember–there is no divine right of Republicans to rule. How are they any different from the Jacobean Stuart kings of England? Claiming a God-given right, or a “divine mandate”, to be in power is hardly a Christian thought; Jesus said very clearly (if you believe the Bible) that his kingdom was not of this world, and coerced religious conversion isn’t what the Jesus I read about and studied would have wanted for anyone. (I still don’t believe that, if Jesus were real, that he was sent here to start a new religion, but rather to teach by example what a life devoted to good works and godliness looked like.

Funny how all they care about is the Word and not the Deeds.

Well, that got feisty for a bit, didn’t it? I guess I am more awake than I gave myself credit for! I also managed to finish reading Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay, which I really enjoyed (he is a masterful writer, and the language is superb). I am still digesting that book today, because it was a lot of ideas and intense creativity, which is why he’s one of my favorite writers and I am saddened to realize I am running out of his backlist to read, which means postponing reading more of him because I never want to be out of things to read by authors I really enjoy. I am planning on starting the new John Copenhaver today as well, which is exciting. I have quite a recent-release TBR pile–Kellye Garrett, Amina Akhtar, Angela Crook, Angie Kim, and Scott Carson, to name a few glittering names from the stack–and more just keep getting released every month. Sigh. I also need to do a book purge this weekend, too. Heavy heaving sigh. It never ends, does it?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday wherever you are, Constant Reader, and I’ll definitely be checking back in with you later.