Tag: weather

Sweet Surrender

Well, we survived. I can’t speak for the rest of the city or state, but we managed to even maintain our Lower Garden District hurricane privilege and didn’t lose either power or cell service. I know there was a lot of flooding in the city, and a lot of power outages. Our office is closed this morning–no power and street flooding–so I have another day at home today (I will definitely be going into the office tomorrow), which is nice, even if I had to get up at my usual go-to-work alarm time to be sure.

I don’t know if our street flooded, but I didn’t want to go out and look last night once the eye wall had mostly passed. I went to bed and slept through the last three or four hours of the storm. But even before I went to bed, I couldn’t hear most of the wind gusts until right before I went to bed. I could see tree limbs and lots of leaves shining wetly in the light of the outside lamp, and chose not to brave going out into it; some things are best left unpacked once the tension is released the morning after. There were still some tropical pockets left to pass when I went to bed last night, but none of it had rain and it was mostly wind gusts that would peter out the more time passed. But…I did get a lot of impressions for the book, so that was a good thing. Everything is material, after all, and this storm reminded me exactly of how the hurricane timeline works–as well as the reminder that it’s never the same, so I don’t really need to worry so much about that part.

I wrote a lot in my head yesterday. I hope I remember it all.

I just hope my car is okay, which I will go check on once I finish this and am more awake.

So yesterday was one of those tense days where you wait, watching weather reports to see where the storm is now and wondering, hoping, that you don’t lose power or get wind damage or anything. We were lucky again–that Lower Garden District privilege working once more–so we were able to stay up-to-date all day while luxuriating in our climate controlled apartment while watching television and basically–outside of the tension and nerves–a free day to stay home (which is again today).

We binged The Perfect Couple on Hulu, which is quite interesting and kind of escapist rich people drama murder fun, like Big Little Lies. Nicole Kidman is terrific (although her fabulous life as a wealthy and successful crime novel “who keeps cranking them out because they need the money” is why people think all crime writers are rich, because that’s all you ever see in movies and television; no one wants to read about mid-list authors, other than Ben Mears in ‘salem’s Lot) and, frankly, so is everyone else in the cast. The plot is interesting, more so because of how it’s structured, going back and forth in time to before and after the murder. We have only one episode left, and we also got caught up on Bad Monkey, too.

I bit the bullet and just walked out to the car. Our path is covered in leaves and branches, and so is the street; it’s also in the sixties out there right now which felt marvelous. But the street didn’t flood (filled with branches and other assorted debris), and my car is also fine, so we made it through this with little more than inconvenience, really. I went ahead and checked the inside to be sure the mats weren’t either wet or damp, and the car started right up without a problem. Today does feel a bit anticlimactic. Francine wasn’t nearly as bad as Ida, but Ida was a bigger and more powerful storm. We lost power for Ida before she even made landfall, and that was a miserable experience. Ida was also terrifying. The wind gusts shook and rattled the entire house, the rain was torrential and the lightning and thunder were horrifying. I kind of decided after Ida that I’d never ride out anything more than a Category 2 going forward. We’ve been lucky since Ida, too.

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up, get some more coffee, and get to work on some chores around here while also doing some reading. I’ll probably be back later, of course, and until then, have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later on.

World of Make Believe

I woke up reluctantly this morning to rain, which will be off and on all day, and probably getting worse as the day progresses. Okay, pretty much the same as yesterday. We were on the edge of the cone yesterday, and today we are just outside of it, expecting tropical storm conditions at worst for the moment when she gets here, and it’s going to be relatively nasty both tomorrow and Thursday morning. The whole thing should be over and past by Thursday afternoon. The models kept shifting yesterday; first we were outside, then inside, then back outside again. The agency hasn’t made any announcements yet, but I think I don’t want to drive in tropical storm conditions so might just take tomorrow off and ride this out at home.

The irony that I am writing a book set during tropical weather has not escaped me. I really didn’t need a reminder of riding out a storm.

I am also seeing recommendations that everyone stay home Wednesday and Thursday, and little as I want to use my paid time off to not go into the office, I think my own personal safety and that of my car is more important than my job. Of course, we are completely unprepared–no bread, and probably won’t be able to get any at this point as people have probably already lost their minds about the storm. I still have a case of water from last year’s salt intrusion in the Mississippi, so we’re at least ahead on that score, and of course, we have a lot of candles. God, I hope we don’t lose power. We won’t lose much food, thank heavens, because I’ve been trying to use up everything in the house in order to combat my food anxiety (from being poor in my younger years) and not have a fully stocked house filled with food I never get around to eating.

Yesterday was a low energy day; I managed to get all my work done at the office but was dragging by the time I came home. I didn’t do any writing when I got home, but we watched The Deliverance last night, which was really interesting. It’s based on a true story, apparently, which makes it even more interesting, and the acting was phenomenal. I love urban horror–it’s so much more creepy when horror is set in an urban area, where the suspension of belief is even harder to pull off. A remote creepy big house in the middle of nowhere? Easy to go down that path than to think the house at the end of the block or across the street is haunted, you know? I’ve always wanted to write a great ghost story set in New Orleans.

Also, This Fresh Hell, an anthology I contributed a story to last year, has been short-listed for the Ditmer award for Best Collection! That’s exciting, and I am delighted for the editors. The story I contributed, “Solace in a Dying Hour,” is one of my personal favorites, and is one of my few Louisiana stories that isn’t set in New Orleans. That’s also a story I wrote post-pandemic, and so I guess I have been doing good work since the world shut down four years ago, but it was such a completely miserable time that it seems like I didn’t really write anything good. I also didn’t get as much work done as per my usual, which was a part of the entire self-recrimination thing. I’ve also realized, going through these old Scotty books, that I’ve always considered the ones after the first three as different from the first three. And they are, in many ways, but as always, rather than thinking it through I just thought I wasn’t doing as good of work on that series…but in thinking it through, I realized that mentally it’s like two different series; because there were the first three over four years, and changed publishers with it, starting it again about three or four years after the third came out. By the time I wrote another Scotty, things were different. Publishing had changed. There really weren’t ebooks when the first three came out. Working on the first three was a matter of getting corrected manuscripts in the mail, fixing everything, and then sending them another two copies of the corrected manuscript, and on and on. By the time I wrote Vieux Carre Voodoo, everything was being done electronically, and thus could move a lot faster than the olden days. It’s not that I worked harder on the earlier ones, but it was harder to publish and edit the old way, and time-consuming. And since that was the way I learned how to revise and rewrite and make corrections, in my mind I defaulted to this is the way it’s supposed to be done and I’ve never gotten comfortable with the new way, even if 90% of my books were done that way.

And the clinic is closed for the storm tomorrow. We don’t have bread, and it’s probably impossible to find any now…but we do have crackers. And protein shakes. And lots of soda.

I hope we don’t lose power.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, and everyone in the path, stay safe!

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What’s New Pussycat?

I can tell you what right now: Sparky wants treats! Nothing new there, of course, but to him it’s what he needs to start his day of being Apex Predator of the Lost Apartment, where no pen or bottle cap is safe, and he does his part to declutter by knocking everything to the floor. He really is a doll. I just wish he liked to cuddle more in the bed. He’ll sleep and cuddle with me in my easy chair–I think this imprinted on him after my surgery, when I slept in the chair for at least two weeks–but other than that? Nope. Even if you take him to the bed and curl up with him, he’ll wiggle out and go under the bed to protect us from whatever might come down the (blocked off) chimney. It was funny yesterday; I’d forgotten to reset the alarm (I’d set it to seven for Monday and forget to reset it back to six Monday night when I went to bed), but I woke up at five, knew what I’d done, and just kept waking up every twenty minutes or so. I finally got up without the alarm yesterday at six, and Sparky was so sound asleep he didn’t hear me get up! I was already downstairs, had cleaned my teeth and washed my face and was brewing coffee when he sleepily staggered into the kitchen with his eyes half-closed, and chirped half-heartedly.

Trust me, Sparky, I know the feeling well.

I was tired last night after work and making groceries, so I collapsed into my easy chair after writing over 900 words. It was a struggle to get those 900 words down, too, but it didn’t trigger one of those oh my God I can’t make the word count for the day and does this mean I am never going to be able to write again and I am going to be behind! You know what? It’s not the fucking end of the world. I wrote 2000 Monday and 900 yesterday. I’ve done over ten thousand since I started a week ago Sunday. Paul was also late getting home, so Sparky and I hung out in my easy chair and I watched the news before reading another magazine from the stack of them here at my desk. Once Paul was home, we watched the US Open for a while before I had to go to bed. It’s very exciting to have two US men in the semi-finals, which means an American in the finals for the first time in a very long time, which is kind of exciting.

We’re in a flash flood warning for the rest of the week (!) as we are supposed to get up to eight inches of rain or more over the next few days. The weekend is supposed to be neither super-hot or excessively humid and will “feel like” fall–so that could mean anything, really. 60s thru 80s, or somesuch. LSU plays Nicholls this weekend, which I am not wild about watching. They’ll either win by a lot and with ease, which is boring to watch (and I inevitably feel bad for the other team) or it’s disappointing because LSU played badly. I’ll probably give in and watch, but will read while I do. I feel pretty good this morning–it was a bit of a struggle to get up, frankly–but it should be a good day as the coffee is kicking in and I am feeling more awake with every moment.

I hope to finish the chapter I started yesterday today; I am having fun with the book even if it is more complicated and tricky than usual (I am trying something challenging); and I am hoping the more I am able to flex my writing muscles and write more and get more into the habit of it my productivity might go up as well. I have all these essays I’ve started over the last year or so that I need to finish, and I also need to write something for the Substack; I don’t think I posted anything last week and if I want to be a professional and grow it as a marketing tool for my writing, I need to be more…regular with it. I can’t blog and write a newsletter essay every damned day, but I can write a blog entry every day and write a newsletter essay every week, even while writing a book. I can feel that I am also starting, from time to time, to get a little anxious about being so far behind on all my writing. I would like to get all of these in-progress stories and essays finished by the end of the year, but am also aware that’s a very ambitious program. I mean, it is possible, of course; everything is, but it may not be realistic. Then again I seem to be past anxiety and stress (yay correct medications!) but I am also finding that I no longer need anxiety and stress to write, which is absolutely lovely. Yes, I did worry a bit about that when my creativity was fallow, and yes, I feel much better about everything in general. It’s amazing what a difference actually writing and creating does for my mind.

But it does, and that’s just a fact. Nothing makes me more aware that I am meant to be a writer than how much better writing makes me feel. It’s also nice to be enjoying it; it feels like I’ve not really had the opportunity in a very long time to savor and enjoy the entire process, and it’s really terrific to rediscover my joy at being a creative. After almost thirty years of being paid to write, I’m finally in a place where I can just kind of enjoy myself and appreciate it more and maybe, just maybe, I’ll even be able to do more promotion when the next one comes out than I’ve been doing for about a decade.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the day. Have a good Wednesday, Constant Reader, and remember that we’re on the downward slide into the weekend now!

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Forget That Girl

And another Wednesday Pay the Bills Day has dawned anew. It rained over night, and I suspect we’re going to be getting a lot more rain over the next few days; the weather forecast certainly believes it to be so. I do love rain, and outside of the constant fear of flooding out the car, I don’t even mind driving in it. There’s something about being warm and cozy and comfortable while everything outside is getting wet that just makes my entire body relax. I remember thinking about this when I was a kid once–I was in the car, we were heading for Alabama from up north, it was raining outside and I had a blanket wrapped around me while I was reading The Mystery of Cobbett’s Island, which opens with Trixie and her Bob-White friends in a station wagon in the rain heading for the ferry to the island. Ever since then, whenever it rains all I want to do is curl up with a book under a blanket. I it rains a lot this weekend, I should get a lot of reading handled.

I was a bit tired and drained when I got home from work last night. I did a load of laundry and hung out with Sparky for most of the evening while I scribbled in my journal while doing 1970’s research on Youtube for my next book. I also worked on the book some last night, and feel a lot better about what I am doing. The Imposter Syndrome has been finally chased away by the need to tell this story and develop these characters, and that’s always a good sign. I also thought about that Sherlock story a lot more, too, and may even start writing it this weekend, one never knows. I also figured out how to solve the problem of another short story that’s been bedeviling me for over ten years, and I want to include it in my collection. I still haven’t made a to-do list, so I seem to be floundering around looking for something to do every day but can’t remember what I need to do, and that’s always a problem. I also need to make sure I update the bills list before Monday, too–but that will have to wait until I pay the bills and wait for everything to update. I know Entergy is due today, which absolutely must be paid; the summer is the only time I really don’t care about my carbon footprint.

And football season is drawing closer with every passing day.

Sigh.

Politics and the news continue to be dumpster fires and I really need to avoid social media. I don’t know why I let people infuriate me on social media, but I do, and it’s dumb. What do I care about a total stranger’s beliefs and values? Sure, I hate racism and the phobias and misogyny and fascism as much as any sentient human being, but you’re never going to change someone’s mind on social media when most people are there to provoke anger and arguments and I keep falling for the bait. Social media hasn’t been fun in nearly a decade, and it continues to get worse with every passing day; but we’ve all become addicted to it and I need to step away from it. Publishing and publishers have been insisting for quite some time that we authors need to be there and build a following and so forth to market our books and sell copies, but is that really effective? I think maybe the next time I have a book coming out, I may invest in some ads on social media and see if that makes the needle move at all…it may also bring trolls and assholes in its wake, as well.

And I checked the weather and we are not only in a heat advisory but also rain through next week with thunderstorms every day through the weekend. Woo-hoo! Definitely a good stay inside and read forecast. I really need to get going on my reading…but it’s hard to read when you’re writing something new, at least for me, at least now. I don’t know if I stopped reading when I was writing before, but I don’t think that is the case. I think my abilities to do everything that I was able to do before has slowed down and I don’t have the brain function anymore to juggle many different projects the way that I used to, and it’s also nice to finally be in a place where I can primarily focus my brainpower entirely on the writing without it being diluted by other responsibilities. I like that idea an awful lot, quite frankly.

And on that note I am going to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines. I may be back later as there are some drafts I need to finish–they’re building up again, and I don’t like that one bit–but you never know. But have a lovely middle of the week, Constant Reader, and I always do appreciate it when you check in on me, so thank you again.

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Personality

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. Huzzah. I was tired after work yesterday–I made groceries and went to get the mail–but I did get some things donw last night around the house before collapsing into my easy chair. I watched another one of those “Staged Right” documentaries (this time about Evita), and then Paul came down and we watched another episode of True Detective: Night Country, which really took a turn last night! We’re enjoying the show tremendously, despite all the noise on-line about people hating it…and by people, I mean men. I don’t think I’ve seen a single post trashing the show that wasn’t by a (straight) man? Which sets off my “bullshit misogyny” alarm, frankly.

The weather had turned yesterday by the time I got off work; it had gotten a bit colder and the wind had dramatically picked up. It was also kind of gray, which reminded me of how it is before a flooding rain….borderline tornado weather. It feels cold in the apartment this morning, and the high for today is at about sixty. It may rain today, and there’s a 95% chance of it tomorrow. I have early PT tomorrow morning, and at some point I need to drive to Metairie to return something to the Apple store (I’d ordered a keyboard at long last for my iPad, but it’s the wrong size). Loathe as I am to do that–go out there–it was far too expensive for me to just slide and do nothing about. Heavy heaving sigh. But really, it’s not that big of a hassle, and in going out there, I can actually treat myself to Sonic or Atomic Burger as a treat for having to go to Metairie and deal with Lakeside Mall. Shudder.1

I feel good and rested this morning, which is very unusual for a Thursday. Last Thursday was like this, too–I ended the day feeling energized, and got a lot done when I got home. I hope that will be the case tonight. I have loads of laundry in both washer and dryer that need to be dealt with tonight; I need to empty and reload the dishwasher; the floors are looking horrific; and of course I need to assemble the shower caddy. I also need to redo my to-do list, and perhaps make one just for the weekend. I am going to have to go make groceries at some point this weekend, too. I need to go by Lowe’s at some point, too. We need more filters and I am going to splurge on a new barbecue grill, as the last one is well past its last legs, frankly. I also need to reorganize both the freezer and the refrigerator, as well as get rid of some more boxes of stuff that is no longer needed to be kept.

I love feeling reinvigorated in the mornings, frankly. I don’t know how long this will last, of course, and it’s possible I’ll get tired by the end of my shift, but that’s also okay. I don’t beat myself up over being tired anymore, and maybe the loss of anxiety is making me lean into my own stasis more than I ever have before, but I don’t think my creativity is gone–I’m having too many ideas and thoughts and making too many notes–but I need to refocus it on writing actual words down, rather than just thinking about them. I also need to start reading again. I hate how far behind I’ve fallen on my reading.

I did start listening to podcasts yesterday in the car, which was really cool. I found one called Bad Gays, which is hosted by the author of the book Bad Gays and someone who works at the Gay Museum in Berlin (which, if we ever go to Germany, is something I’d like to see); and I listed to the episode on James I of England (VI of Scotland) and his male favorites. I didn’t see an episode on two historical figures I am fascinated by, Henri III of France, and Louis XIV’s brother, Philippe d’Orleans; Philippe’s lover the Chevalier de Lorraine was the definitive bad gay of Versailles. I should fictionalize the Affair of the Poisons…which would give me an excuse to visit France for research. Plus it’ll give me the excuse to study up on the period more, too. I love seventeenth century France.

I think I am going to watch Christopher and His Kind this weekend, and I may even rewatch Cabaret for good measure. I also found some other gay movies on-line to watch that I’ve never seen, like Another Country and Maurice. I also want to rewatch Saltburn so I can finish my entry on it.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. May your Thursday be wonderful, cheery and bright, and I may be back later–one never knows.

  1. Hilariously, now that my anxiety is under control I’ve realized my hatred of driving and having to go places was always anxiety-based. Always. ↩︎

Da Ya Think I’m Sexy

Lundi Gras, aka Orpheus Monday, and I have taken the day off from work. I have to make groceries and lay in supplies since we’ll be trapped in the neighborhood except for a brief six or seven hour window after Orpheus and before Zulu tomorrow morning. I am up early because of PT at ten this morning, and here’s hoping I can get this done before it’s time for me to fly. It looks like a lovely day out there already, which means a hopefully lovely night for parades. Orpheus is my favorite night parade, mainly because I love Ole Smokey, the Orpheus train float, which is gorgeous. Orpheus also throws a shit ton. I did very well at Iris on Saturday morning, and while my endurance was sapped, I am glad I started going to parades again this year after missing last year. My moods this year are all over the place, since this is when Mom was in hospice last year. The anxiety medication works, of course, but even it isn’t strong enough to conquer grief, I guess.

I worked on the house yesterday a bit but my mind was too fatigued to read, which was a real bummer. I want to write this afternoon after I get home; time really slips through your fingers the older you get. I do need to work on the house some more today as well. We also streamed more of Abbott Elementary, keeping track of the Super Bowl on my phone. I did watch the boring first half, so gladly changed the channel when Paul came downstairs to take a break from working. Ironically, the second half turned out to be a lot more exciting, with the Chiefs winning in overtime 25-22. That sound we all heard last night was MAGA heads exploding. They are still exploding this morning–especially the MAGA christians (lower c deliberate, not a typo)–who’ve decided that the only Black woman in the Kelce suite (Ice Spice), who was wearing an upside down cross, is a Satanist because of it. The horrors! Satanism!

I’m sure it has nothing to do with her being Black. Might as well include a side of racism, right?

Fucking idiots. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Have fun in hell, apostates. I do love calling them on their sanctimony with a Bible verse. 1 Timothy 2:12 is my favorite when they’re women…

But then again, we’ve known they were dangerously stupid morons since 2015, and every day is a new lesson in their dangerous stupidity.

Heavy sigh.

I did do some good scribbling in my cool new journal yesterday as well. It’s always lovely when you’re starting a new journal, with all those fresh and clean pages to fill in, and there’s always a bit of sadness when I finish the old one. This last one was red, and one of the things I need to do either today or tomorrow is transcribe any notes on any story or book or essay that’s written in there that I haven’t already. I think I’ve managed somehow to get everything from the early part of the journal done, but you never know. If I don’t transcribe them, I need to at least put sticky notes on important pages so they are easier for me to find.

My memory continues to suck royally, but the lack of anxiety about it is nice (thank you, new medications!). I’m still trying to adapt to this new world for me; and of course I worry that my lack of anxiety is going to be a problem with motivating myself to write. I don’t think I’ve actually finished anything since the change in meds, but that was also correlated to my surgery and the recovery and the loss of stamina/endurance….which has me wondering how long I’ll be able to last at Orpheus, especially since I’ll be exhausted from PT this morning. I just checked the weather and it’s going to be windy and chilly tonight, in the low 50s, which is also unappealing.

Sigh.

Ah, well. It is what it is, I guess. So I am going to put on my PT clothes, finish my grocery list, and get a little more cleaned up before leaving for my appointment at PhysioFit. I will probably be back later. One never knows.

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

I did not want to get up this morning. PT was particularly exhausting yesterday after work, and I also made groceries right after. By the time I got into the apartment and had the car unloaded, I…don’t really remember much of the rest of the evening, other than I sat in my chair and watched documentaries about the Eastern Roman Empire on Youtube for most of the rest of the night before I retired to bed early. I feel very rested this morning but still a bit tired, and also like I am running a bit on accessory. I know once the fog in my mind clears I’ll be ready to get this show on the road, but right now all my body wants to do is go back to bed and climb back into the blanket cocoon. Today is going to bounce around between 48 and 55 degrees, with the potential for wind and rain all day. Sounds like the kind of day when you’re very grateful to get back into the house after work, doesn’t it? It’s hard to believe it’s only Tuesday.

I know I will be very grateful to go back to bed tonight and go back to sleep. Clearly, I need more coffee.

I ordered a toy for Sparky that comes on a stretchy string and you hang from the doorframe, and he’s been playing with it almost incessantly since I hung it up. Given he bored very quickly of every other toy we’ve gotten him, I now know the answer: a hanging toy. He’s been trying to get the mouse ever since we came downstairs, and he spent hours jumping at it last night (which was cute; he also finally got it down at one point and dragged it into the living room to show me, and then took it upstairs to show Paul; who brought it back down and rehung it for more hours of kitty entertainment). He was also cuddly last night when he wore himself out, and he was cuddly this morning in bed. Could it be all he needed was a hanging toy? He’s also getting so big! He still likes to ride on my shoulders, draped around my neck–I have to let him up there every time I get home from work, and then I have to walk him over to the dangling ceiling fan cords–and wants to go up there every morning, and he rides up there as I walk down the stairs, chirping happily. He still doesn’t meow; like I said, he still just chirps, or some variation of the chirp–he draws it out into a whine sometimes, but that’s really it for cat noises from him so far.

Ah, now the caffeine is starting to jumpstart my engine and I am beginning to feel more awake, more alive, more ready to face this Tuesday before Mardi Gras. Parades begin again tomorrow, and run every day from there till Fat Tuesday. I have to leave work earlier every night the rest of this week, so I can get home before they close the streets and (hopefully) find a place to park within a mile of the house. I did take Monday off, so once I am finished here Thursday I don’t have to go anywhere other than to PT Friday morning and one final grocery run before the car is parked for four days. (Oh, I take that back; I do have PT on Lundi Gras in the morning–hopefully I’ll be able to park coming home from that excursion) and then I only have a three day work-week next week, which will make for a nice break. I hope to get stuff done on all those days at home; I will probably skip Wednesday night parades, go to Muses on Thursday, do the Friday night parades and Iris and Tucks on Saturday before skipping all of Sunday and going out for Orpheus Monday night.

I also felt a little off yesterday, and this morning realized I hadn’t taken my medications yesterday, which is never a good thing. It does make a difference–the absence of a new does of blood pressure and acid reflux and anti-anxiety meds is always noticeable the first time I forget, and extremely noticeable if I miss two consecutive days. I do feel calmer today than I did yesterday, and I was anxious a few times (should have been the tip-off, really) and snapped at other drivers a few times while driving around town. I also grew irritated and impatient with the woman in front of me at the grocery store, who seemed to think the smart way to unload her entire cart onto the belt was one item at a time per hand while trying to decide how she wanted them bagged, I suppose; she was arranging things on the belt and then digging through everything to find the next item to go on the belt properly. It was a very slow process and had I been on my meds yesterday I wouldn’t have been annoyed or irritated–because I would have thought ah, she has anxiety or is OCD or somehow isn’t wired right either rather than letting my own faulty wiring default to impatience. (As I started writing that example is when I realized her brain probably isn’t wired right, either–which I would have thought instead of impatiently scrolling through my phone and resisting the urge to say something snarky. Meds make a difference, seriously.)

And on that note, I am getting another cup of coffee and heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later–you never know.

Cool Magic

Yesterday was a wild one here in New Orleans. We were expecting inclement weather–high winds, possible tornadoes, and heavy rain with a strong chance of flooding. I was already planning on leaving work early–PT was scheduled for 3 pm yesterday–so I was able to leave the office without worry as things started shutting down all over the city. It was raining when I got home and hunkered down inside, and it pretty steadily rained all night. I went to bed after watching three episodes of Fool Me Once on Netflix, which we are really enjoying, while checking the score of the national championship game periodically. I was awakened by loud thunder and pouring rain at some point in the middle of the night, but I was able to easily fall back asleep–it really is so comforting to be buried in blankets and warm and dry while it pours outside, isn’t it? Rain always makes me sleepy. But I wound up sleeping very well and waking up with the alarm this morning (Sparky always climbs up into the bed with me when he thinks it’s time for me to get up and feed him, so I know it’s going to be time to get up soon). We still are having high winds today, but no rain, which is great, and Michigan beat Washington last night for their first national title in 27 years.

Good for you, Michigan.

My PT wound up being rescheduled because of the weather, too, so I have to get up at 5 on Thursday, which isn’t great but I can live with it. I do have a department meeting on Friday morning as well, and I’ll probably go into the office for it. I can do it from home, but I think it would be best for me to head over there and be out of the house in the morning, which will get me going on work-at-home duties and errands and so forth before the three day weekend.

And huzzah for a three day weekend, might I add?

I also started working out the five stories I have on hand that may fit for an anthology call (or two or three) that are upcoming, and one–which is just an idea–actually started coming together in my head yesterday while I watched more episodes of War of the Worlds, which took an interesting and slightly insane turn during the later episodes of the second season while I sat doodling in my journal while relaxing in my chair while rain pattered down outside. It also occurred to me how to fix and finish another one that could easily work as well. I need to put my writer’s cap back on and really start getting things finished and cooking on my computer again, methinks. But I also did some more chores when I got home yesterday, which included dishes and laundry, and this morning I woke up to a relatively clean kitchen (we won’t discuss the floors just yet), which was super great. I also wasn’t sleepy, groggy, or tired, which was also awesome. I may actually make it through the day AND the errands I have to run after work today (mail, groceries). I am definitely going to spend some more time with the new Tara Laskowski tonight when I finally get home from everything, and do some touching up so I stay on top of the chores so I am not coming into the weekend needing to clean the house.

I think it’s about time I started feeling like myself again for the first time in a long time, and it does actually kind of feel good. Last year was a cloud, and I just felt like I was drifting through the year for the most part. 2023 started off terribly, beginning with my injury in January and losing Mom in February; it’s little wonder that I sleep=walked through the year, which I’d been doing pretty consistently for a number of years. The pandemic wore me out, with the changes to the world and the changes to my day job, and things had been kind of my control for quite a few years before that. I kind of feel (probably mistakenly) like I have so control over my life again and am looking at things a lot more clearly than I had in years–which probably has something to do with having the right medications. Up until about 2017 or so, I could deal with the anxiety and concomitant insomnia with just Xanax, but the anxiety was out of control from that point on and was when I should have changed my medications to deal with the real problem rather than the symptoms.

I cannot emphasize enough how important the right medications are for your health and mental well-being.

I really do feel like a new person, or the best Gregalicious I can be, which isn’t quite the same thing. I’ve always tried to be the best version of me that I can–because no one, including me, wants to ever see the worst version of me, take my word for that, okay?–which is all I think anyone can do. I do feel more engaged with my work, and my writing, more so than I have in a while, which kind of felt almost like I was writing on autopilot, which does happen sometimes. It’s also kind of ironic that I did my best work during a time period where I really was hating writing and not giving it my full attention, treating it as an odious chore that had to be done rather than trying to do the best work I could. Maybe not trying did the trick? I don’t know. But what I do know is I need to get back on the horse and start creating again, and perhaps don’t goof off as much going forward.

After all, there’s nothing I can’t do if I want to and set my mind to it.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later–one never knows with a Gregalicious, does one?

Goodbye to You

And just like that, the brace is gone! Hallelujah! Not wearing it is going to take some getting used to, but that is something I can live with. I also had my first piece of king cake yesterday, officially marking the opening of Carnival season–and am going to have another this morning, thank you very much. I can’t believe it’s Carnival again already; last year’s was all tied up with Mom going into hospice and dying; I missed the first weekend driving up to Kentucky, and the second driving to Alabama for the funeral. I used to associate Carbival with Whitney Houston dying; she died on Endymion Saturday that year, but I guess now Carnival–and especially Valentine’s Day, will now always have losing Mom as an association. It’ll be rough these first years, I suspect, but gradually it’ll become more of a nice, regular reminder.

My surgeon also moved up my strength therapy, from twelve weeks post to eight weeks post. I have one more dexterity therapy session tomorrow, and then I can sit out until around the 21st or so of this month before I get to start that again. So the recovery is going well, the surgeon is very pleased, and so, frankly, am I. Now that the webbing mesh is off (he removed it) the incisions are so small the scarring is actually going to be minimal, which was an unexpected delight, and the stitches themselves will gradually dissolve. It was so nice to go make groceries and drive without the damned brace, you have no idea, Constant Reader, and going to bed without it was even better. Managing to and from work in addition to the therapy is going to be a bit of a bitch during parade season, but I’ll figure it out somehow. But right now, today, I am going to enjoy the fact that I can type without the inconvenience of the brace–but I also have to pay attention to the arm, and when it gets tired and so forth.

I started reading Tara Laskowski’s The Weekend Retreat, which is quite good and sucks you right in, yesterday and will most likely spend some more time with it today. I worked on filing and organizing and getting the apartment back into shape again for the most part yesterday–dishes and floors and filing, oh my–and there’s a little touching up that needs to be done around here today while I write and read and get things done around here. We also started watching the new Harlan Coben show on Netflix, Fool Me Once, which is also quite engaging, and will probably finish it today. I also watched some more War of the Worlds and an episode of the original Jonny Quest show, which I had started rewatching a long time ago but they didn’t have all the original episodes available. Jonny Quest is one of the first cartoons I can remember watching, and I loved it–the Rick Brant science adventure series reminded me a lot of this show, and is part of the reason I enjoyed it so much. It doesn’t quite hold up in modern times and with modern sensibilities as it did when I was a child with a single digit age, but it was done very well–outside and around the rampant racism that was everywhere in entertainment in the 1960’s. I may rewatch the entire original series so I can review it and assess it here, but the show also pulled me into the world of mysteries and adventure, so there’s always that, too.

I still want to write a series for middle-grade before I die, too.

And this morning’s slice of king cake (and yes, you always leave the knife in the box, unless you’re a heathen) is delicious.

I feel good this morning, which is terrific, and hopefully will last through the morning and the early afternoon. I suppose we’ll watch the Golden Globes until it’s time for me to go to bed so I can get up early and start my work week, but next weekend we have another three day weekend, which is going to be amazing and lovely again. So far, 2024 has gone well, and let’s keep that mentality and energy going, shall we?

And on that note, I’m going to make a second cup of coffee and get going on my day. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; one never really knows with me, do we?

Stand or Fall

Twelfth Night, and I just added a king cake to my grocery list. Huzzah!

In a moment, I’ll be getting cleaned up and going to see my surgeon to get my stitches removed and hopefully losing the brace for good. After that, I am making a grocery run before returning to the safety of the Lost Apartment for the rest of the weekend. I didn’t ger as much done yesterday as I would have liked; after completing my work-at-home duties yesterday and the laundry I kind of repaired to the easy chair and just kind of sat there watching television until it was time for bed. I was tired from PT yesterday morning, and I kind of needed the rest. I did watch LSU Gymnastics triumph over Ohio State, which was a lovely opening to the season, and then was just kind of a cat bed for the rest of the evening before I finally went to bed. I slept well, too. Paul had an appointment yesterday afternoon in Uptown, and brought home a pizza from The Midway on Freret, and it was probably one of the best pizzas I’ve had in years. A very pleasant surprise treat, as it were. Plus, it’s really nice to be able to eat pizza again. I always forget about the plethora of good places to eat that has developed on Freret Street uptown, past Napoleon; and I really do need to be better about experiencing the city and writing about it. I’m already thinking about the next Scotty, with him and the boys temporarily housed in the Diderot carriage house in the Garden District.

I’m not sure what my plans are for after I get home this morning. I do have a to-do list that I need to work through as well as update, and if I do nothing other than organize and file, well, that will be a huge improvement. I know I’ll be able to start reading the new Tara Laskowski, which is exciting–big fan here–and maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to get some writing done as well. Stranger things have happened, after all.

It rained pretty hard yesterday, starting in the afternoon and continuing to just come down like a waterfall through the evening. It was a street flooding kind of rain, which is probably the best way to describe it, and of course, coupled with the cold it made me lethargic. It’s sunny but cold this morning, and soon I’ll have to start getting cleaned up and ready to head out for my appointment. I do feel good and rested this morning and awake, which is always a good sign. I do know I am going to make something in the slow cooker either today or tomorrow; it will depend I suppose on how I feel when I get home from everything and put the groceries away. But the kitchen/workspace definitely needs some work before I do anything this morning. There’s dishes to clean and a dishwasher to empty, and I need to clean out the refrigerator and maybe organize it a little better. Heavy sigh. I never have seemed able to get caught up on everything that needs catching up on, you know? Maybe this weekend will be the time…

You have no idea how badly I want to ditch this brace, Constant Reader.

And on that note, I should start getting ready for the appointment. I may be back later, one never knows, and if not, have a lovely Saturday.