Tag: Veda

Can’t Stop the World

Monday morning has rolled around again and I am up before the sun rises yet again. Neither brain nor body wanted me to get up and heed the siren song of the alarm, but there was no escaping the inevitably of getting up and heading into the office yet again. Yesterday was a mixture of days; I got things done in the morning but after making groceries, I was oddly tired and physically exhausted. I did manage to read a few more chapters of Cheryl Head’s marvelous Time’s Undoing, which is very good and I’m enjoying it a lot, even as I wince at the past sections set in 1929, at its unerring and accurate depiction of the Jim Crow South. I honestly, as a Southern man, see no problem with reading about Southern history accurately; and certainly, seeing Jim Crow through the eyes of people of Color is a reminder than no matter how bad I may have thought things were, it still wasn’t a reality I would have had to either face or deal with, and it was so much worse than I can ever imagine it–and I have a very vivid imagination. Yesterday’s exhaustion was unexpected and out of nowhere, particularly coming in the wake of two pretty good days and a good morning as well. But grief is sneaky like that, is never linear, and can literally come from nowhere. There’s also the issues involved with my bout of long COVID from last summer and how my energy levels have never really recovered from that, either.

And don’t even get me started on the memory issues.

I am hopeful for a good week; I know I’ll eventually start experiencing being tired from exerting myself at work; it’s interesting that someone with shyness issues like me has wound up working as a counselor–but one-on-one and with a purpose to the conversation makes it much easier than having a conversation with someone I’ve just met at a party. Small talk is literally my Kryptonite, and of course, being socially awkward is my lifelong jam.

I did rewatch Mildred Pierce last night on TCM after Paul went to the office, and once again I marvel at what a terrific film it was–melodramatic and over-the-top, for sure, but the addition of the murder rescued the movie from not working. I need to reread the book–it’s been a hot minute–but the one thing I’ve never really gotten from either is a sense of who Veda is and why she is the way she is; spoiled and rotten and manipulative. In order for Cain to get his point across about Mildred and her own obsession with mothering, Veda turns out to be horrible and one-dimensional; everyone sees that Veda is horrible except Mildred–obsessed with being the perfect mother and giving Veda everything, it’s also a smothering, all-encompassing kind of love that most teens would rebel against and struggle to get away from. I remember about ten years ago I wanted to write Veda’s point of view; either a retelling of the story from her point of view or a sequel to the novel (no murder, remember?) which picks up with Veda some years later, having parlayed her singing and musical talents into a film career. That’s one of the things I love the most about Cain’s work, really; so much can be read into it, and so many great ideas can be inspired by rereading his work. I’ve not read the entire Cain canon–that “never want to run out of books to read by any author” thing I struggle with–but I’ve read quite a bit. Chlorine is really my first real attempt to write a noir; I cannot wait to get back to work on that. It’s already been delayed for far too long, and once i get through these contracted books, Chlorine is going to be my focus.

Finally, right? LOL. But I do eventually get around to the projects I talk about writing for years, don’t I? I talked about the Kansas book for well over a decade before #shedeservedit saw print.

I think today is going to be a good day. I feel rested this morning, and I slept really well. The toe is still twinging; I am beginning to suspect it really is gout. I went to WebMD (which I always tell my clients not to do) and the list of foods to avoid? Everything I eat, basically. So, I am going to have to bite the bullet, schedule an appointment with my doctor, and get on with things, you know? I don’t why I’ve dithered and dicked around about this for so long, either. Just another thing I didn’t want to have to deal with so I kept kicking the can down the street, which isn’t wise. Nothing ever fixes itself, you know; a lesson I keep having to relearn over and over again. I also need to schedule an appointment with the hearing specialist, a dentist, and make an eye appointment while I am at it. Yay. But I need to start and keep up with all this routine maintenance, especially if I want to start going back to the gym in April. I also need to start doing push-ups, crunches, and stretch every day too. Maybe I will climb back on that horse this evening when I get home from the office; stranger things have happened in the past and will probably continue into the future as well. The kitchen is a mess, too; I made dinner last night, so when I get home tonight I’ll have to clean the kitchen again and maybe even get the rest of the straightening up taken care of as well. I am definitely going to be taking books to the library sale this coming Saturday, and I also want to wash the car this weekend and vacuum it all out. I also want to spend some more time with Cheryl’s book this evening. So, so much to do and work on and get done. I also have to start preparing for moderating panels for the two Festivals coming up in a couple of weeks…yikes.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Hope you have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later.

That’s My Impression

Wednesday morning and we’ve somehow survived to the midpoint of yet another week; another hellaciously hot week in July, for those of us here in New Orleans.

I rewatched Mildred Pierce the other night for the first time in years (how much do I love the TCM app on HBO MAX? A LOT) and as I watched–Crawford really was terrific in the part, and the movie is so well done it actually is an enjoyable experience (although I really wish, at the end, as Bert and Mildred walk out of the police station, he would have said to her,”Let’s get stinko!” the way he did in the book; it would have made for a better ending) and it could have easily lapsed into melodrama; in the hands of a lesser writer and director, it undoubtedly would have. But it also struck me, as I watched the film, how markedly different it is from its source material, James M. Cain’s masterful novel, and that most people remember the film more so than the book. Also, it’s incredibly rare for the film version of a novel to veer so drastically from the source material, while both book and film are considered classics (perhaps the other, and best, example of this is Dorothy B. Hughes’ In a Lonely Place, and the marvelous film version directed by Nicholas Ray and starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame; again, enormous changes but both are excellent in and of themselves.)

The most interesting thing to me, at least in recent years, about Mildred Pierce is the character of Veda. Veda is fascinating; the daughter as noir femme fatale, which is a fascinating turn on noir. Ann Blythe does a great job playing her in the film, and it’s been a hot minute since I’ve read the book (in the To Be Reread pile), so I don’t know or remember if in the book there are any explanations as to why Veda was so awful; and I worry that in my mind I’m conflating the film with the book. When I do get around to rereading the book, I am going to pay more attention to Veda. In the movie Bert comments in the beginning, that Mildred puts the children ahead of him as well as complains that Veda is spoiled…the younger daughter, Kay–soon to die tragically from pneumonia–is “worth more than Veda will ever be.” As I have pondered about Veda, I’ve wondered if in the book Mildred favored Kay and Bert favored Veda–which would of course cause resentment in Veda, towards both Mildred and Kay.

I really need to reread that book.

I went to the doctor yesterday–actually, I saw a nurse practitioner, as the new doctor I was assigned to when my old doctor moved to Utah didn’t stay with the practice when it was recently sold (it’s very complicated; I supposedly was sent a letter alerting me to these changes, but I never received it) and when I finally called them last week to try to get the mess straightened out (one of my 2020 goals was to get all my medical stuff handled and under control and to continue, moving forward, staying on top of this and my health–ha ha ha ha, as the old saying goes; man plans and God laughs)–but I was able to see a nurse practitioner yesterday and can I just say, damn? It was the most thorough examination I’ve ever had, she was asked lots of questions, and we talked about a lot of things. Usually, they’d take my vitals, “how you doing” and then boom, out the door. The nurse practitioner actually discussed things–my lengthy illness that came and went, starting at Carnival and ending recently–she had X-rays of my lungs and chest done; got the process started for both my colonoscopy and a mammogram (I have a lump in both pecs; they’ve been there for a long time and have never grown at all–the doctors always just said, “it’s a fatty cyst” and left alone; she was the first to say “well, why don’t we make sure that’s all it is”); I had an EKG done to make sure my heart is operating properly: she felt everywhere for lumps–underarms, groin, throat; checked out ears and nose–I mean, I actually felt like I got my money’s worth out of an exam for once. But my blood pressure was good for once, which was lovely, and after the lengthy discussion about my lengthy illness, she added a different test to my regular bloodwork, to check for septicemia; as some of the symptoms I experienced could have been from an infection of some sort that could still be lurking around.

Hey, I’m all for it. Like I said, my main goal for this year it to take better care of myself and take my health more seriously.

Last night we lost the wifi with eight minutes left of the season two finale of Dark, which, as you can imagine, was enormously frustrating. I cannot rave about this show enough; but the primary problem with talking about it is that it is hard to explain how intricately clever it is without giving away spoilers–and believe me, going in blind and knowing very little about the story is WAY fun. The writing is pinpoint, and as I said, I cannot imagine how much work it is keeping the relationships, the characters, and the storylines all straight because it’s very hard as a viewer. The one thing I can say–without spoiling anything–is there’s a cycle of disappearances of children; every thirty-three years–and so while the show begins primarily set in the present, like Stephen King’s It, eventually it begins to also show what happened thirty-three years before….and you have to remember, everything is always connected. It’s brilliant, absolutely brilliant, and smart. We’re really enjoying it.

I also took Cottonmouths with me to read while I was waiting at the doctor’s–you inevitably always have to wait, and I prefer to read rather than play on my phone–and it really is quite a wonderfully written novel. Kelly. J. Ford is an excellent writer with a very strong sense of place; and place is always important to me as a reader.

And now back to the spice mines.