Tag: writing

The Boss

Work at home Friday! I didn’t have to go into the office today after all; the person I was covering for didn’t need me to cover for them after all, so I get to drink my own coffee and do some of my work-at-home chores in my pajamas–including my team meeting. Yay! Yesterday was a gray, rainy day, the kind that is also cold so you get that lovely cold dampness that goes right through you to the bone. I ran my errands on the way home, and I don’t have to leave the house at all today unless I so choose–and I am rather leaning towards choosing no definitively already. I woke up the remnants of a thunderstorm; everything outside my windows is wet and dripping. Yeah, definitely not leaving the house today if I don’t absolutely have to–I can run errands and make groceries tomorrow. I am going to do some chores this morning when I need a break from the computer–dishes, laundry, picking up, etc.–but thanks to the midweek weekend we enjoyed because of the holiday, I am not as far behind on housework as I usually am. Sparky let me sleep late this morning, and was a little cuddlebug before I did get up. It’s not even about getting more sleep anymore, it’s more along the lines of way too comfortable for me to get up. Paul was at the gym when I got home from doing some minor errands after work last night, and then after he came home he went upstairs to work for the evening, leaving me and Sparky to entertain ourselves downstairs, which is why I did some picking up and cleaning last night. Looking around this morning, I can honestly wonder why I didn’t do more last night. Hmmm.

I worked a bit on a Substack essay last night, too; the one I worked the most on is about outing and speculating about celebrity sexuality. Many of the essay drafts I have saved on Substack were triggered initially by something that happened in the world; this one “”Johnny Are You Queer?” was inspired by Shawn Mendes having to address all the rumors and speculation about his sexuality, and how that made me feel. It was the second time a celebrity had to do this recently, the other being Kit Conner from Heartstopper. Both instances made me look at the subject in an entirely new (and more empathetic) light, which was frighteningly staggering; I thought how could I ever speculate about a celebrity’s sexuality, when I personally know what it feels like to have people speculate about you that way–and I was never a good-looking hot young celebrity, either, which would be exponentially worse. This led me to how “outing” originally started; it was a political act of protest from a community that was dying and no one cared, and a way to strike at closet cases who were actively harming the queer community (remember anti-gay Aaron Schock and his Downtown Abbey congressional office? He’s now an A-Gay living on the party circuit, and much happier than when he was a closeted anti-gay politician. I’d say that worked out pretty well for him in the long run, wouldn’t you?). Outing eventually got out of control and more of a tabloid monster, far from its original intent, but I’m also thinking about privacy rights now a lot more than I ever did when I was younger–which I am trying to explore in more detail in the essay. I am also writing one about organized Christianity, but it keeps getting longer with more examples because cosplay Christians are always going to cosplay with their full chests while denying Christ with every breath they take.

I generally don’t pay too much attention to celebrity drama, mainly because I don’t care that much about celebrities; as I’ve gotten older, I care less about entertainment news and the celebrity gossip machine. I remember the Blake Lively thing from last summer when that movie was released, and how she was getting a lot of press for being, well, a difficult bitch on set. I did think it was strange–I generally can’t avoid celebrity gossip, despite trying very hard because it’s fucking everywhere–that if she was that awful, why were all her co-stars and everyone else involved with the movie backing her? Now, I’ve thought Justin Baldoni was hot since his days on Jane the Virgin, and I even bought his book about being a male feminist; because I’ve really been thinking about masculinity and what it means to be a man, which is what the book is about. I’ve not read the book–I still might, just to see what it says; even if he’s a hypocrite, that doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t have a point about some things–but of course the story exploded everywhere again on Christmas Eve when Lively sued Baldoni, claiming he hired a PR team to destroy Lively’s reputation so her concerns about inappropriate behavior on set by Baldoni wouldn’t be taken seriously–and she has receipts. Celebrity fan culture in this country really is something, and it really is out of control; I don’t know why so many people think being a fan of an artist entitles them to know everything about that artist (see above paragraph about speculating about celebrity sexuality), not to mention the horrors of being a celebrity on social media. Yikes, indeed. All I will say is that Hollywood has always had fixers; the only difference is that now they are guns for hire rather than salaried studio employees. Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows explores the horrible world of Hollywood PR and what they cover up, and how they spin damage away from their client to someone else, even if that someone else’s life or career is destroyed by the spin. (Read Jordan’s book, seriously.) There’s a decent show on Prime starring Anna Paquin in which she plays a spin-doctor-for-hire, Flacks.

It’s also why no one can ever completely trust celebrity news; it’s literally the prime example of fake news.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader. I may be back later, one never knows. If not, though, I will definitely be back in the morning tomorrow.

Yea, he’s handsome and has an exceptional build, but Zac Efron is more talented than he gets credit for.

Silver Bells

So this is Christmas.

It’s very still and quiet this morning. Paul is asleep, Sparky has been fed and has curled up to sleep again somewhere, and I am finishing my first cup of coffee. It’s hitting the spot, too, I might add. My coffee addiction really is something, isn’t it? I had thought about getting out the Espresso machine and making myself cappuccinos this morning, but went to bed last night without thinking about anything and thus didn’t. The kitchen is also kind of a mess this morning. Maybe I’ll do something about it, maybe I won’t. It’s Christmas, after all. We had a lovely day yesterday; I spent the morning rereading some old Scotty books with the intent of rereading/editing that I have done on Hurricane Season Hustle, but after I ordered the pizza and drove out to Metairie to get it–it was fucking fantastic, too, I might add, with leftovers for today–I just kind of zoned out for the day. We watched La Palma, a truly terrible disaster mini-series, on Netflix (cheesily enjoyable in that over-the-top and rather dumb disaster move way), and then watched Kings of Tupelo, which was insane…but again, Jake, it’s Tupelo. I went to bed late and slept late, and feel good today, if weird that I have to go back to work again tomorrow. We’re driving out to Elmwood to see the afternoon show of Babygirl today, and that’s really about all I care about for today. Maybe we’ll stream some movies tonight, or start a new show to watch or something. It was also sunny and warm yesterday–today looks gray, maybe rain–and once I finish this, I will probably do some straightening up in here before repairing to my easy chair to read for a bit.

What do I want for Christmas? World peace would be nice–hell, single-payer health insurance would be terrific, too–but neither of those are possible as long as this country remains enthralled to billionaires and corporations. That’s been the case for most of my adult life, and as far back as the 1990’s I was noticing how the direction we were heading into as a country economically, both at home and abroad, was firmly setting us on the same paths that led to the French and Russian revolutions and the Great Depression. I wrote about this a lot in my journals from back then; I’d even thought about writing a novel based on those observations, but after the fall/collapse. Do I have any answers? No, not really. People will always vote against their own self-interests because they have been convinced by the mythology of the American Dream that they, too, will someday be rich if they work hard (or smart) enough. I was told repeatedly as a child that if I worked hard, I too could become wealthy. Stories of people who went from rags-to-riches proliferated in the fiction stacks (and movies, too, for that matter); almost every “epic saga” was the story of some impoverished immigrant who seized opportunities–sometimes lied, cheated and stealing–that would make them rich. We’re essentially groomed by our art and culture to aspire to wealth and that the richer you are the better of a person you clearly must be, because you accumulated wealth. The great irony of that, of course, is that Christmas (and Christianity, too, for that matter) teaches us to take care of the sick and the elderly and the poor, and to always be empathetic to those less fortunate. Christianity and Capitalism are antithetical to each other, and the influence of capitalism on Christianity has not been a good thing. The prosperity gospel is a heresy, and the worst kind of heresy because it goes against everything Jesus taught in the pages of the New Testament. Everyone celebrating Christmas today–and the “birth” of Jesus–by spending a lot of money and a lot of excess?

Hardly “the reason for the season.” Put Christ back into Christianity, for your own sakes.

I’ve always loved the messaging of Christmas above what it actually is in reality, to be honest. I can remember watching A Charlie Brown Christmas as a kid and seeing that I was looking past what Christmas was supposedly about and approaching it from a greed perspective. (It’s still my favorite Christmas story.) That was filmed in the 1960s, and was about how the season was being exploited by an orgy of spending and excess, which was never the point of the holiday. I am as sentimental about Christmas and what it stands for as a child; Christmas decorations and trees make me smile and feel warm inside. I even like most Christmas music, even if I am heartily sick of some of them (looking at you, Wham!). I love driving down St. Charles Avenue or Prytania Street at night to see all the houses decorated and lit up. I love seeing how much kids enjoy it all. I even watched a couple of Christmas-themed rom-coms this season. I tend to not write about Christmas, because it is so easy to fall into the cheesy Christmas-miracle and all’s right with the world clichéd trope so many stories of that type inevitably fall into. I did have fun with Royal Street Reveillon, which was simply set during Christmas season but that was all–and even then I found myself trying to take the story in that direction a few times.

Sigh.

And on that note, I’m going to get some more coffee and go sit in my easy chair and see what’s going on in the world while doing some reading. Have a merry Christmas today, everyone, even if you do not celebrate; at least enjoy your day off at any rate.

Sail On

And another Sunday fun day has rolled around. It was cold in New Orleans yesterday, but I did drop books off at the library sale, picked up the mail, and made groceries. Irony of ironies, when I got home I realized I didn’t have one of my bags–containing the things I went to the store for in the first place. Sigh. So I will have to go out in the cold this morning to rectify that error, but that’s all right. I got some things done yesterday around here, and worked a bit on my editing of my own stuff (which is going slowly because it’s horribly depressing to see how shitty the writing is, despite reminding myself first drafts are always shitty first drafts are always shitty– it still wears me down).

Okay, I bit the bullet and went to the store to get the things I paid for yet didn’t have when I got home from the store yesterday It was actually pleasant; mayhap in the future I should go early in the morning to make groceries. It’s only forty degrees but sunny here this morning, that always odd combination where it looks like it’s hot and steamy outside but it’s not! Now that I have that out of the way–which is also part of it, the putting it off and putting it off until such time as my day is interrupted and never quite recovers. Now I have that out of the way and don’t have to worry about it, and because it wasn’t a crowded shitshow the grocery usually is right before a holiday, I feel neither tired or burned out from the experience. I know it sounds weird, but a crowded grocery store overstimulates me and wears me out.

I did sleep a little later than usual this morning, and the bed was warm and comfortable and inviting and I didn’t really want to get out from underneath the blankets. But Sparky was hungry and would not rest until I was up, which is just as well. He’s fed and if I’d lounged in bed even longer this morning I would have not gone to make groceries, so everything was a “win-win”. I did have the games on yesterday, for what it was worth. Talk about snooze-fests. Is this what we have to look forward to with this new system? Blowouts in the first round? I also don’t like the home field advantage half the teams get in the first round. It makes a difference. I was at least hoping, despite my antipathy toward everyone playing this weekend, for some good, fun games to watch.

It was a good thought.

Was anyone surprised that disgusting grifting POS Krysten Sinema is going out the way she has chosen to? What a despicably corrupt narcissistic bitch. May we never hear her name again except for her obituary and the outpouring of contempt sure to follow. She betrayed her constituency, she betrayed queer people, and she betrayed her party to cozy up to Fascists and block progressive legislation while taking bribes and enriching herself. One of the problems with our current situation is that anyone can run against a horrible MAGA candidate and look good, rally votes and win an election as a viable alternative to something worse–but there’s nothing stopping said person from selling out for personal enrichment once they are serving. I’d like to see an IRS investigation as well as a DOJ one to find out who’s been paying her to be Mitch McConnell’s little beta bitch since she took office. She was so hated in Arizona that Kari Lake would have beaten her in the general1. I hope she spends the rest of her life getting drinks thrown on her and pies in her fucking face, like the clown she actually is. Good riddance to some serious raw sewage.

I was thinking yesterday (fleeting thoughts I’ve had a lot over the last few months) about James A. Michener and how no one today would read any book as long as his were, back in the day. I enjoyed Michener–Hawaii was a bit much–but I’ve been thinking how amazing it would have been for books in that style to have been written about Kansas, Louisiana, or Alabama. I certainly would never write such a thing–I don’t have the patience to do that much research, let alone turning it into a million words or so of a novel. (Although Michener would have written about three hundred pages about the forming of the Mississippi River delta, let alone the lakes and the swamps.) I was revisiting one of my favorite New Orleans histories, Frenchmen Desire Goodchildren, and I was also remembering that Gallatin Street, one of the worst sections of the old French Quarter, no longer exists. It was a vile place of bordellos and sleazy, dangerous bars; murders and rapes and muggings happened there with a stark regularity until it was demolished to extend the French Market. I’ve been wanting to write another Sherlock story in the 1910’s Quarter, and having either him or Watson visit a nasty dangerous gay bar on Gallatin would be a fun scene to write…if Gallatin was still around by that time; I think it’s badness was over by the time Storyville was set up, but who knows? I’ve resisted writing about Storyville, because it’s already been done so many times…but I also think it would be fun to write about New Orleans during Prohibition, too, when New Orleans became known as the Liquor Capital of the United States. That…could be a lot of fun. Maybe even an ATF agent coming to the city to root out liquor sales, only to hang their head in utter and complete defeat?

Thinking of Michener also reminded me of how much I used to read when I was a kid. Granted, the distractions of a gazillion streaming services didn’t exist back then; there were only three real channels, and we didn’t spend most of our times looking at our phones because there were no images on it. It also has made me think about how my primarily formative years–the 1970s–were awash in cynicism and mistrust of everything and how huge conspiracy theories, or all kinds of other “unexplained phenomena” struck people’s fancies. There was, of course, the JFK assassination conspiracy theories–but there were so many others. The Amityville Horror (on which I called bullshit at the time and still do), the Bermuda Triangle, UFO’s…you name it, people were interesting in it. I read Erich von Däniken’s books about “ancient aliens”, and of course there was all kinds of deconstruction of religion and the Bible, which was also interesting–The Late Great Planet Earth was a huge bestseller, detailing how the prophecies of Revelations and the end times were coming true right before our very unseeing eyes! End times Christian theology took hold–and never really let go, either. The X-Files could have been made in the 1970s (although it would have never been greenlit) but there was a lot of media, especially film, that tried to cash in on all of this. During the shutdown I did my “Cynical 70s Film Festival”, and it’s really amazing how a thread of paranoia runs through so many films of that decade. It was a strange decade, that saw the further inward collapse of the social engineering that took place after the second world war–that excluded everyone outside of the straight white cisgender male. The center wasn’t holding, and now? We’re living in the midst of the backlash towards social progressivism in this country.

And on that note, I am going to make another cup of coffee and head into the morning spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later–one never truly knows, does one?

  1. That’s pretty fucking hated. ↩︎

Wrong Ideas

Well, hello there, Constant Reader! It’s another Friday work-at-home morning, and it’s very chilly in the Lost Apartment this morning. It’s only fifty here this morning currently; the temperature dropped significantly over night here in New Orleans. I don’t have any meetings this morning, which is also lovely.. I do have some trainings to get done and some data entry to do as well as some quality assurance, which is one of those things you can do with the television on while sort of watching something. The weekend is looming large before me, and I would like to get to the gym twice–tonight, and possibly Sunday morning. Yesterday’s Secret Santa at the office was nice; I got a lot of candy and one of those single-serving portable blenders, which is super nice–and will come in very handy for my post-workout protein shakes. I also want to get a lot of reading and writing done over the course of this weekend, and I want to get some rest, too. I have some errands to run for sure, and…and…and…all this stuff to do (I also made a to-do list yesterday) but it’s not overwhelming to me the way it was recently (which is why I think I was avoiding making said list for so long); now I look at it and think get to work, bitch.

I really need to stop swearing at myself. I should add that to the list.

But I had a nice evening at home last night. I worked on the book (MY book!) a little bit, made groceries on the way home after work AND picked up the mail, and did my reading last night. It was for the Publishing Triangle, and was quite lovely. I read my story “Moist Money,” completely forgetting that maybe something seasonal might have been more appropriate than a dark tale of gay rage, but ah, well. Things happen. But the response to it was quite nice, and it’s always nice to do a reading, you know? It’s also nice to do them without anxiety or stress, which was super-lovely. Before the change in my medications last year, I would have spent the entire day with the reading hanging over my head, nerves and pressure from the anxiety building all day until I was a sweaty-palmed, butterflied stomach, trembling mess–so it was lovely to know that public appearances no longer will do this to me. I wish I’d been on the right medications all along. Ah, well–live and learn, as they say.

I slept about an hour later than usual this morning, but I feel pretty good and rested. The kitchen is cleaned up already–still need to do the floors–so I’m starting out ahead of the curve for this weekend. I guess there is college football this weekend, the first round of the play-offs, but I don’t really care about watching when I can just check scores and highlights Sunday morning. Christmas is in a few days–I have to go into the office on Monday and then am free again until Thursday. These next few weeks are going to be disorienting, and I don’t think I’m going to be able to do an end-of-the-year review of highlights and lowlights because I can’t fucking remember anything anymore. That’s fine, although I wish I could remember all the amazing books I read this past year. I know I read two Scott Carson novels that were fantastic, Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory was one of the best things I’ve ever read…but beyond that I don’t remember much of anything I read, which is more about my brain than anything else. I’ve also forgotten television shows and movies we’ve watched, too, so I can’t do a round-up of that, either–but I am leaning toward picking Agatha All Along as my favorite television show of the year. (The cast alone was fantastic.) I’ve also fallen down on the job as far as writing a Substack essay every week, too–does the twenty-two different essay drafts count?

Yeah, I didn’t think so, but it didn’t hurt to ask, did it?

I saw the insane pictures of the security escort Luigi Mangione1 had for moving jurisdictions yesterday and cannot believe the insanity of this political theater we’re seeing. Granted, he planned and committed a brutal crime, but how is he any more dangerous than say, I don’t know, a mass shooter like Dylan Roof? Why was he charged with terrorism, as opposed to someone like Dylan Roof or the Oklahoma City bomber, or even the Unibomber? School shooters? He can be escorted from place to place by basically a military unit, but the cops won’t enter an active shooter situation while children are being slaughtered. It’s nice to know that the “children” the Right and their cosplay Christianity are always so concerned about–always less important than gun rights–are even less important than CEO’s.

But sure, yes, by all means, Reich-wingers, call me a child-killer for supporting women’s right to healthcare.

Even the Democratic governor of New York is offering CEOs state police fucking protection.

So the taxpayers are paying for security for corporate CEO’s who make a shit ton of money and whose heartless, soulless companies are rolling in cash.

Priorities, right? And Congress is already melting down and the new “administration” hasn’t even been sworn in yet. They are already eating each other’s faces, which means the next four years are going to be even more horrific as I’d assumed this Hogan’s Heroes American version of fascism would be in fact…although it is going to be interesting to see one narcissistic sociopath being a beta soy boy to an unelected billionaire. Tell me the Republican Party in this country isn’t bought and paid for by foreign interests.

And on that note, I have an on-line training to do. Have a great Friday, Constant Reader!

  1. And to me it looks like the Right has decided Italians aren’t white anymore. The leopards are already eating their faces. GOOD. ↩︎

Help Me

Wednesday Pay-the-Bills day, and feel good this morning as I swill my first cup of coffee. I have to run errands again tonight when I get off work; so even if I can’t come straight home, I’ll still get home early enough to hopefully finish Priority Project One tonight and get some good rest. The weekend looms large as it draws ever nearer, and I’m kind of looking forward to getting back to work on writing fiction this weekend. I have another box of books to take to the library sale, and I may even start working on the storage attic. I had a goal this year of cleaning that out completely, and I never even got started on it. But the year isn’t quite over yet, either, is it? There’s still time!

I wasn’t sure how yesterday was going to go when I was writing my post yesterday morning, but Tuesday actually turned out to be not just an okay day, but actually a very good day. I got all my work caught up at the office, and had a pretty good day there (I’m so lucky I enjoy my job!). I wasn’t tired when I left, So I drove uptown and picked up the mail, and worked quite a bit when I got home. I made a lot of progress on Priority Project One, and I should be able to finish that tonight. I even cleaned the house. I know, right? Who am I and WHAT have I done with Gregalicious? I don’t know, to be honest. But last night I felt marvelous, and I really felt great when I went to bed, sleepy, around ten. And I slept well, too, and so this morning I feel a bit groggy but good; nothing my coffee won’t take care of, at any rate.

Christmas is a week from today, too. Yikes! I’m not going to say this year has flown by–January 2024 seems like it happened during the Pleistocene Era–but I kind of feel like I didn’t really accomplish a lot of anything this year other than survival, you know? I don’t think I even completed a short story in 2024. I did start working on another Scotty book, which is something. But it was a fallow year for me, writing and publishing wise, and I need to do something about that in 2025 (if we don’t slide into a dystopian nightmare after January 20). I am pretty much healed from everything physical, and the personal blows of the last few years, well, it’s getting easier to live with those losses. Depression/malaise isn’t a constant anymore; it comes and goes now, and so I don’t think I am completely better yet–I know there are going to still be spells–but conserving my mental and creative energy by not letting either be stolen anymore.

If ABC’s capitulation wasn’t bad enough already, Disney capitulated to tyranny yesterday as well, removing a trans character from a kid’s show, and yeah–I’m done with Disney. Much as I want to see season two of Andor and other Star Wars content, I’ll be looking at dumping Disney and its affiliated brands going into the new year. I finally was able to find the list of all streaming services I was paying for, and found that there were quite a few I was paying for that I never use. I canceled all the extras (to the tune of about eighty dollars per month), so next year I am beginning fresh. The only thing I’m still hanging onto is ESPN, and that’s mostly for LSU sports. Hulu and Disney, on the other hand, can go fuck themselves with a razor-blade studded dildo. I’m really delighted to see how much of the country is going to drain into the sewer over the next four years. I am mostly concerned with mine and Paul’s survival ahead of anything else, quite frankly. I wish I could stockpile my medications before the Affordable Care Act is repealed, and of course the gutting of social security and Medicare will end any hopes I ever might have harbored of ever retiring. Yay!

And on that rather somber note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later–stranger things and all that.

I’ll Try A Little Bit Harder

Well, it’s Tuesday and we survived Monday, did we not? I finally got all my work computer issues worked out yesterday (thank you, baby Jesus) so hurray for that and huzzah and thank heavens things are back to normal around the office and I could get my Admin work done–which was marvelous. I always feel so unsettled when I can’t function the way I usually do, and it felt weird yesterday morning to be using the borrower laptop again. Was Mercury in retrograde, or has it been? My work computer blew up on Thursday, Paul’s office building partially collapsed, and there’ve been other issues around over the course of the end of last week and the weekend. Heavy heaving sigh. Most were just annoying–like the work computer situation–and just had to be gotten through.

I was very tired when I got home last night but hung out with Sparky a bit and just had a bit of a relaxing evening. We watched more of The Diplomat, which is fantastic on every level–writing, acting, casting–and I went to bed a bit early. I did have some trouble falling asleep, though, and had one of those toss-and-turn nights. Getting through today is going to be a bit of a struggle for me, methinks; I am feeling a bit zoned-out this morning. I even worked on the Scotty a little bit yesterday, too, which felt like progress of a sort. I’m still a bit worried about my lack of desire to write anything, which isn’t a very good thing. I’m still getting ideas and thinking about writing all the time, scribbling notes in my journal and so forth, but when you’re not actually putting words down to make progress on fiction–any kind, really–always makes me feel like I’m not really writing. I was also realizing that 2024 was one of the few years since 2000 that I didn’t publish anything; not even a short story anywhere, nor did I write much of anything. On that scale, 2024 was an utter failure of a year, but I don’t want to be terribly hard on myself, either. 2023 was a very rough year, and 2024 was rough in dealing with all of the fallout from 2023’s happenings.

And it’s not like I’m not old. (No need to rush to assure me that “no, Gregalicious, you’re not old! You’re only as old as you feel!” Well, there are days when I feel like I’m a hundred, okay? Sixty-three is fairly old; only two years left to go before what used to be retirement age, until the Republicans decided that was too young to not work anymore.) My body creaks and groans, it’s harder to get out of bed in the morning (although it was never easy for me, ever), and I tire a lot easier than I used to. And every time I look in the mirror, I see an old man–and yes, I am aware that my own issues with myself probably make me see myself in said mirror as a lot older than I think I am; I forget that I’m in my sixties until the morning mirror reminds me. It is a grim way to start the day every morning.

Ah, there’s the morning kick from the caffeine and sugar from my morning coffee cake slice (one of the few sweet treats I allow myself). Hopefully it will be enough to see me through this entire day. I don’t think we’re going to be busy in the clinic today, so I can get caught up on paperwork that I couldn’t get to yesterday due to the work laptop kerfuffle, and I had some trouble getting it to work on some of my paperwork duties, so I am going to have to see if I can get that worked out for this morning. Yay!

The rest of the week stretches endless before me, but tomorrow is pay day, next week is Christmas (Jesus H. Christ!), and I have a lot of things I need to be getting done. But it will be nice to have two days off in the middle of the week next week. We’re going to go see Babygirl on Christmas, which will be nice. I’m thinking about getting us a pizza from That’s Amore out in Metairie for the holiday (and so I won’t have to cook anything and make any mess in the kitchen); Paul mentioned last night that he was sorry the one on St. Charles closed during the shutdown…which got a “um, it’s not that long of a drive out to Clearview Parkway” from me and I tucked that little nugget of information away. I can get up on the morning of Christmas Eve, order the pizza, and then drive out there to pick it up before Paul even wakes up.

That would be a nice Christmas surprise, wouldn’t it?

And on that note I have to get my day going. Have a lovely Tuesday, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.

I’ll Think of Something

Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment, and a very nice day was had here in the Lost Apartment. I worked and ran my errands and cleaned and had a rather nice, productive day. It was also a pretty day to run errands, despite the hordes of tourists on foot in the Garden District who somehow think it’s a pedestrian mall and will literally step out into the street without looking.1 Heavy heaving sigh. I will also never understand tour buses that want to make the left turn off Prytania onto Washington (by the cemetery); Washington is a very narrow two-lane street with cars parked on both sides. Probably heading to Commander’s Palace, but a bus will block the entire street. Ah, the trials and tribulations of driving in uptown New Orleans!

But I got up at a pretty decent hour (this morning as well) yesterday so I could get things done in the morning before I had to venture out into the errands. I was most pleased with what I was able to get done in the morning–the apartment still needs to have the floors cleaned, but at least it’s not nearly as horrifying around here as it was on Thursday night when I got home from work. This morning I am going to do the floors and the weekend’s dishes, so I can head into the work week with a sparking and shining home. I made major progress on a project, and hope to get it finished today. I also did some mental writing of my own on the Scotty book–I am not sure why I always struggle and then remember oh yeah, the plots are supposed to be over-the-top and ridiculous, the more ridiculous the better. So I would really like to get back to work on it, so I need to get this other project finished. When I get this finished I am going to read for a bit before I get cleaned up and get back to work.

I read manage to read some more of Winter Counts, and it’s really exceptionally well written. I am having a good time reading it, and seeing how the standard hard-boiled noir style can be interpreted and developed in an entirely new way and perspective is pretty awesome, too. (Seriously, people: broaden your minds and read diverse books.) I also spent some time with White Too Long, which thus far isn’t really telling me anything new–it opens with an explanation of how the Southern Baptists came into being in the first place, and how it has evolved from those racist roots (without losing the white supremacy) ever since. That may help me with the essay I am writing about religion and why I am so antipathetic to it; unpacking my miseducation on both it and American exceptionalism has been very revelatory–and it also makes me more than a little angry. This is what happens when you confront the truth about this country’s actual history, rather than the American mythology my childhood education groomed me into believing–which is why I guess people are so afraid of the truth and what their children might think of them? You cannot be both a good person and a racist at the same time; because if you harbor bigotry and racism inside of your personality it will spill over into other aspects of your life, and color your decisions and your votes and how you conduct yourself as you navigate through the world.

Paul was at the office for most of the day, and he got home rather late. I bought one of those Costco ready for the oven fresh pizzas Friday, and made it for dinner last night. It was quite good–what isn’t good from Costco, really–but when he got home, he had a tale to tell. As he was leaving his office from the rear of the building he was stopped by firemen (they were hot and young) and he eventually spoke to both the fire chief and the chief of police. Apparently, his building started to collapse while he was at his office. He didn’t even know anything had happened! Ah, New Orleans is always going to New Orleans. Never a dull moment in this city, is there? We’re almost to the anniversary of the Hard Rock Hotel collapse, too.

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up and read for a while before I get to work for the day. Have a great Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later on, if Sparky will allow it.

Screenshot
  1. In fact, this made me think about Chanse’s computer guy, Jephtha, and his video game, “Tourist Season.” ↩︎

Sweet Magnolia Blossom

Work at home Friday and was Mercury in retrograde yesterday? Is it still? My work laptop died yesterday morning when I tried signing into it after I got to work and it took most of the morning for me to get a new replacement one. So, I spent the morning without a computer–which meant outside of seeing my clients, I didn’t really have the ability to do much of anything. I finally got the new one around lunch time, but my day was already off and so was my energy, and since my routine had been disrupted, I had trouble getting back on track. Finally, I just made a list while I was eating lunch and that seemed to work, even though I still felt off all day. The replacement laptop (which is just temporary until they fix the old one) also had some issues with staying connected to my scanner, which was incredibly frustrating and resulted in my admin work taking far longer than it usually does, and I had a lot of documents to scan into patient files. The frustration was real, and I was exhausted when I got home. My brain was basically non-functional by the time I got home, and I actually fell sound asleep in my easy chair around nine-thirty. I didn’t get anything done once I was home–worn out from the endless frustration of the day–and didn’t even remember to charge my phone when I went to bed. I did manage to watch Real Housewives of Salt Lake City (which is lit this season and definitely my favorite of these shows at the moment), though, since that required little to no energy on my part. I hope to get a lot done today, both day job and Gregalicious wise; and we’re going to Costco later after I am done with work duties. (Need to make a list!)

But I slept very well last night, and woke up feeling pretty rested this morning, which is a good thing. The entire place is a disaster area, and I never managed to do anything about the dishes accumulating in the sink and now it’s of course out of control. Heavy heaving sigh. Even my desk is piled high with things that need to be put away. It feels chilly, and per the weather the high will only reach sixty degrees here today. I think I am going to walk to the gym tomorrow morning and get started back up with that again, and hopefully today will be a great clean and organize day for the house. Christmas is coming, and I am really not feeling it very much this year, to be honest, and haven’t for a few years. Paul and I decided to not do gifts again this year–we are divorcing ourselves from the capitalist holiday by refusing to spend much money observing it (we’re going to go see Babygirl in the theater on Christmas day), and I have to say I am gradually growing more radical and anti-capitalist by the day (so much for that you get conservative as you get older bullshit; I grew up as a conservative and my adult hood has been mostly about shedding that foul and utterly inhuman methodology. Profits over people, corporations are people but living breathing humans are not–I could go on and on talking about the class war in this country. I am a radicalized Paw Paw, I guess? I did have a client this week whose birth year was 2006–which was highly traumatizing, and would have been worse if I cared about being old. It was more of a shock to me that kids born after Katrina are eighteen (and older) now. Kids born the year of Katrina will be twenty next year. Twenty years, a third of my life, has passed since that time.

I am also looking forward to some good reading time. Both of my current reads (Winter Counts and White Too Long) are fascinating and well-written, and it’s quite easy to get caught up in the narrative. I’d love to finish both this weekend so I can move on to my next reads (leaning towards Alter Ego by Alex Segura or Missing White Woman by Kellye Garrett and The Exvangelicals for my non-fiction). I do want to get caught up on Donna Andrews’ two latest over the holidays, which are rapidly approaching. Soon it will be 2025 and even more insane chaos once the new “administration” is sworn in. The next four years are going to be bad, I think–signs point to yes–but I also survived the 80s and the 90s, so maybe I am a Cher/cockroach.

We started watching Black Doves the other night, and I really enjoyed the first episode. I love Ben Whishaw, and Sara Lancashire is a treasure. I am hoping we’ll be able to spend some more time with it over the course of the weekend. We also should go back to Slow Horses, which we never went back to for some reason; I think we got interrupted by something (a surgery? A funeral? Who knows?) and just never went back to it. I do also want to read the books by Mick Herron (got to love that last name), too. Ah yes, so many books to read. Heavy sigh. I have so many treasures in my TBR pile, as well as treasures from the distant past (I would love to read Anatomy of a Murder and A Summer Place and Summer of ’42 again, plus more of Margaret Millar, Daphne du Maurier, Charlotte Armstrong, and Dorothy B. Hughes) that I will probably never get through them all.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I hope that I have a really productive one. I’ll be back either in the morning or later today, it’s a mystery!

Gorgeous retired Olympic and world champion ice dancer Guillaume Cizeron, who also is a model.

I’m Not Through Loving You Yet

Sunday morning here in the Lost Apartment, and how are you doing , Constant Reader? I feel good this morning, actually; a good night’s sleep and a rest day always seem to have this effect on me. I guess the new reality for me is being worn out by the end of the work week and needing a brain-dead day of rest. I feel good this morning and my coffee is hitting the spot this morning. Yay! I hope this means a productive day around the house. I have work to do that I do need to get done, after all.

I was tired yesterday, both mentally and physically. I managed to get the errands run; made groceries at two different stores (!), dropped a box of books off at the library sale, and picked up my copy of Alter Ego by Alex Segura, which I am very excited about. I loved Secret Identity, and there’s no reason to think Alter Ego won’t be better; reviewers are loving it all over the country, and I’m probably going to move it up on the TBR list to the on-deck position behind my current read. So many good books! Which is, as always, a delightful problem to have. Whee! I am very excited about this. I am going to get back into reading fiction, now that I’ve finished The Demon of Unrest–my. new non-fiction read is probably not going to be as smoothly flowing a narrative (White Too Long). I have so many great fiction reads to get to! A plethora of riches to be sure. I am going to work today on some things, and I am going to work on the house some, too. It always seems to be a mess for some reason which is beyond me, but go figure, right?

We watched some of the Grand Prix of Figure Skating finals, which saw US skaters win gold medals in three disciplines–men’s, women’s, ice dance–which I don’t think has ever happened before? This bodes well for the World Championships in March, and it’s been awhile since anyone could say that, really.

I also wound up watching some football games idly, while I read short stories for a contest I am judging. I guess if you were pulling for either team, the games were exciting; Georgia beat Texas in overtime; Clemson needed a desperation field goal in the closing seconds to beat SMU; and even Penn State-Oregon was dramatic. Now on to the bowls and play-offs, which is going to seem very weird. I’m not really sure how I feel about this entirely new, semi-pro look college football is going for, and how it really has always been about greed. Which is a shame–but it always was a farce when it came to all that “amateur athlete” bullshit anyway. Players always got paid, and colleges always looked for ways to justify it or cover it up or exploit loopholes in the rules. It was also interesting seeing SMU in the ACC title game, too–SMU was the only school under the old rules to ever get the death penalty for too much cheating, and it killed the program for decades…so the NCAA became reluctant to use it again. (Ironically, the next college that would have–should have–gotten the death penalty was ALABAMA in the 90’s–and they weren’t ever going to do anything to Alabama that might kill that program.)

When I took the box of books to the library sale yesterday, they asked me if there were any mass-market paperbacks in the box because they aren’t taking those now. They’ve told me that before–and I’ve had to take books out of the boxes before. I still put some in there, just to see if they’ll say no to them, and if they don’t, it does get them out of the house. When did mass-market paperbacks become so anathema to American readers? I loved them when I was younger; they used to be as cheap as seventy-five cents when I was a kid, and I remember their prices gradually increasing until it was silly to not pay the dollar or so mor to get it in trade paperback, which were usually sturdier and more solid editions. Now it’s more along the lines of “the print isn’t big enough” for me, and I suppose ebooks have replaced the mass market editions. I always wanted to write something with my name on the spine in mass market, but never succeeded in getting there–and now they are being phased out completely. That’s a shame.

I was thinking about mass market paperbacks because I was moving books around in the laundry room and came across two editions that are two important books to my younger self; two that I’ve always wanted to revisit as companion pieces to each other: The Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy, and Dress Gray by Lucien Truscott IV. The former is set at Carolina Military Institute in South Carolina (aka The Citadel), the latter at West Point. I read Dress Gray first, living in Kansas and picked it up at the grocery store, I think. It was a murder mystery set at the military academy, and the victim was a closeted gay cadet. I remember really loving the book, and I don’t remember why I picked up The Lords of Discipline, other than I know we’d already moved to California before I read it. I think I’d watched The Great Santini and wanted to read the book, but the Waldenbooks at the mall only had Lords in stock, so I got it instead, and became a huge Pat Conroy fan. I do want to revisit both books; I’ve been wanting to write a crime novel set at an Alabama military high school–that all-male environment I’ve always found so interesting–but that won’t happen for awhile, at least.

The manhunt for the man who killed the UnitedHealthcare CEO continues, and with every new bit of information released he becomes even more of a folk-hero. Some have started calling him the Adjuster, which is funny, but I saw someone call him Robin Hoody yesterday and that, I think, is my absolute favorite thus far. He’s almost taking on a Batman-like lore amongst the American people; few things this century have united the country as much as approval of this murder has. That says something about the mood of the country, and if I were a politician or a corporate executive whose business model is fucking over the working class, I’d be pretty fucking nervous right now. There’s a bit of a sense of 1789 Paris and 1917 St. Petersburg in the air, and now that corporations and the uber-rich have been screwing us all over for decades with no relief anywhere in sight–if anything, a sense they are going to make it worse for all of us–and no, it wouldn’t surprise me if revolts started up, or more murders of the exploitive class.

It doesn’t hurt if the uber-rich begin to understand that it’s actually not in their own best interest to fuck around with the working class, either.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; stranger things have happened.

The Door

Work-at-home, with meetings on the computer Friday, and woo-hoo, we made it almost all the way through another week. Christmas is nigh–Lord–but the end of the year always seems to come in a rush, doesn’t it? I mean, college football’s regular season is already over (although, given how LSU did this year, it seemed to last a really long time), and basketball started up again last month. It’s also almost collegiate gymnastics time, too. The SEC will be really interesting with perennial power Oklahoma added to the conference this year. The Grand Prix of Figure Skating final is this weekend, so we’ll probably spend some time with that, too. I think I want to watch whatever that new Alien1 movie is, too. I’ve not seen all the movies, but Alien and Aliens remain favorites of mine, so I am always interested whenever they release a new one. The shoddy state of my memory, however, has made reading or watching series (movies, television, books) a tad more challenging.2 But I shall persevere.

It is cold this morning; right now it’s thirty-eight degrees outside. I slept really well last night, so it was most likely pretty cold last night, too. I was exhausted when I left work early yesterday, and so when I got home, my brain wasn’t functional enough to even read, let alone do anything more creative or enjoyable. I am probably not going to leave the house today other than run to get the mail and to get something to make for dinner tonight (no clues on that score, so will have to figure something out). Paul’s going to be gone for most of the day once he gets up. I’m going to try to get my chores done while working (I can go do laundry when taking breaks from data entry and on-line trainings) today, before I dash out to run those two errands and then come home to edit and write and read and clean. Sounds like a good plan. I am hopeful to get some things done while also getting some good rest.

So, the CEO of the absolute worst health insurance company in the country, United Healthcare, was assassinated on the street in New York the other day, which led to some interesting reactions. Some–the vast majority–people celebrated his death; his shitty insurance company successfully denied 32% of claims last year. I’ve never had the pleasure of being covered through that insurer, but working in a clinic and talking to clients about their health insurance–I get to see (and hear) firsthand how bad their coverage is. Some have astronomical deductibles; still others can’t get their (expensive) PrEP labs3 covered by it4, etc. When I saw the news break, I was only surprised that it’s taken this long for an health insurance “profit above people” company executive to be murdered. A few people on social media (you know the ones–the tireless morally superior assholes who love to try to shame everyone else for their very valid feelings) were very quick to excoriate people for celebrating the murder of an asshole who was definitely the last rung on the ladder of responsibility for a lot of people’s pain, financial ruin, and death, wagging a finger in everyone’s face and letting them know that they are the horrible people in this instance. I block tiresome scolds. You’re not my mom, you’re not my priest, you’re not my employer and you’re a total stranger. Maybe you’re lovely in your every day life, but pulling moral superiority in this case? Will you scold people for being happy when odious garbage like Kim Davis or Mitch McConnell die, too? Go fuck yourself, and get the fuck out of my world. As for their mourning loved ones, why is their pain more valid than that of United Healthcare’s victims? They certainly didn’t mourn or feel bad when United’s cruel profit policies killed, ruined, or bankrupted their clients, did they? No, they spent that money and lived high on that ten million dollars a year (plus bonuses) salary, so miss me with their pain, okay?

And in other, predictable news about the murder, apparently they have images of the killer’s face from security cameras, and people swooned and thought he was handsome and hot. Just like the Boston Marathon bomber and Ted Bundy and so many other “hot” criminals. It’s weird. He is handsome, at least the guy whose face was shared from those images–which also made me think he’s a professional assassin; I mean, who else could flirt with someone on their way to killing someone else? Although it does make for an interesting idea–the hot sexy hit man. Maybe a gay one? (See how my mind is?) Anyway, the assassin is kind of becoming a folk hero, which should give all insurance executives pause. In the wake of the murder, Blue Cross Blue Shield–which has just announced a horrific, draconian new policy about anesthesia, quickly reversed itself and removed all the executive and board of directors’ names on its website.

Read the fucking room. The people are not happy. It’s astonishing how these company monsters don’t realize how hated and despised they are…or at least, didn’t. They do now.

It also occurred to me last week–and not just me; someone posted on social media about it yesterday, which made me think about it again–that what we are actually lurching toward is Ayn Rand’s capitalist heaven of no government regulation, no taxes, and completely unfettered capitalism; the billionaires taking the place of her ridiculous notion of “the men of the mind” who, by virtue of their ambition, intelligence, creativity, and drive5, deserve to be in charge of everything because being good to their employees and their customers is “in their best interest.” Hmm, how has that been working out in the last few decades, Ayn? Atlas Shrugged was such complete and total bullshit, as was everything she wrote and the philosophy she embraced, the virtue of selfishness. I was interested in her because I read Anthem in high school, and it reminded me of another, similar type book (I can’t recall the name of it); that interested me enough to read the other novels and her essay collections. I was intrigued, as so many young white men are, by this interesting way of looking at the world–but at the same time, I also quickly saw right through it as utter and total bullshit; what she described as selfishness was actually self-interest, which are not the same things. I’ve long wanted to write about Ayn Rand and her damaging theories, and how the Right embraced her (except for her atheistic hatred of religion), which is part of the reason why we are where we are now as a country. in thrall to billionaires who don’t care a fig for the rest of us. I also wanted to do a compare/contrast essay about Atlas Shrugged and another conservative author’s railroad book, Taylor Caldwell’s Never Victorious, Never Defeated–which came from the completely opposite direction of Rand’s tome…but writing about Rand means rereading her, and shudder, who has time for that?6

Seriously, I don’t need to write about it that badly. Once was enough. Although what I really want to do is totally deconstruct and destroy her essay about literary arts (like anyone who’s ever read any of her work would think she had the right to theorize anything about art). She has a collection of essays about art called The Romantic Manifesto, which, like everything she wrote, is overwritten, pretentious, and more than a little condescending–not to mention completely wrong about everything. That actually might be fun–I do remember how in the essay about literature she raved about Mickey Spillane…if that tells you anything.

And on that note, I have to get ready for my first meeting. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later.

  1. Alien Romulus, to be exact. ↩︎
  2. As well as editing, as I mentioned yesterday. ↩︎
  3. Since the ACA requires insurance companies to cover PrEP, this is their way around the rule–the labs are incredibly expensive. So, they will cover the medication but not the labs required for the prescription to be written. Never forget, health insurance is the biggest legal scam in American history. Almost like flood/hurricane insurance: “oh, sorry, that damage was caused by a hurricane” which then becomes “Oh, sorry, that was caused by a flood, not a hurricane.” ↩︎
  4. This is nothing more than anecdotal information; I’m just always surprised that my shitty insurance is actually one of the better ones, which is frightening. And inevitably, whenever I ask my clients who their shitty insurer is, it tends to be United–which was one of the options my day job considered for this year. ↩︎
  5. Amongst all the insanities and idiocies in her pseudo-philosophy, her definition of “men of the mind” are people who built companies and wealth by creating a product that revolutionized whatever industry–people like Henry Ford (blech), Andrew Carnegie, etc. Since she worshipped money, I imagine she’d be on board the Musk/billionaire worship train–but they aren’t really “creators” and “men of the mind” as she saw it. Her brains had myopia, alas. ↩︎
  6. A very dear friend of mine once said of Ayn Rand, “Her writing was the least of her crimes.” Succinct and to the point.
    ↩︎