Tribute to Mami

Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving in a pristine body, but rather to skid in sideways, Cuba Libre in one hand, slot machine lever in the other, body totally worn out, and screaming "Woo hoo what a ride!"

It’s been awhile since I’ve had a chance to catch up with everyone so I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and the New Year is treating you well. While I’ve been absent I haven’t been idle. In a few weeks Deal With The Devil is due out, I’m finishing up Calling The Dead, and the short story Romantic Devil will be included in the new Bold Strokes Books anthology Romantic Interludes 1: Discovery. I got that wonderful news today and I’m thrilled. It’s always an honor to be included when there’s such a wonderful lineup of talent in there making me look good.

Now that the new Devil book is finished I want thank all of you who have written and encouraged me to continue this series. A few years ago when I was sitting on the beach in Florida trying to finish the story I’d actually begun two years before that, I had no idea you all would like these characters as much as I do. Your emails and interest are truly humbling.

I’ll admit that when the second Devil book came out I thought the story was over. There was nothing else to write about, but whoo was I wrong. This one came slowly but in the end it was to date the most fun I’ve had writing anything. It came slowly since I’m still working on the house and ended up having surgery as we got to the editing stages. My brilliant editor Shelley lucked out and got none of the usual Vali lip since I was heavily medicated during most of that process.

Saying that, after I finished it my partner now thinks I need some sort of therapy, especially when she started reading Calling the Dead. She reads the new chapters as I finish them then shakes her head and asks, "What is wrong with you?" It seems I’ve gotten good at killing people on the written page. lol Trust me there’s no dark side lurking around in there. I’m a big teddy bear who takes out all aggression on the page.

On the home front my big new project for the year is painting the outside of the house. It sounded so easy as we started two months ago, but as all things in home ownership not so much. On the second board I realized that the hundred-year-old house had been painted a bunch of times but never scraped. After sanding down the entire thing, priming it, painting it, I’m on the second coat of paint. This project should be finished some time in 2011, but it’s when doing things like this that you find out how much people care about you. My nephew has started screening my calls, but he still shows up every Saturday paint brush in hand.

That’s the hard not so much fun stuff, but this I can’t wait for. In case you didn’t get the Bold Strokes Books newsletter, there will be a BSB event coming up in June in Baltimore. For more information on that please visit the newsletter site at www.boldstrokesbooks.com/newsletter.html. I’m really looking forward to being there and seeing everyone, so I hope you all can make it.

That’s a big overview of everything going on down south. It’s hot already, the trees have greened up, the alligators are back out and sunning themselves in places you don’t expect to see reptiles sunning themselves, and it’s crawfish season. That means cold beer, yard work, sightseeing on the highway and pinching tails. As my Cajun friends say, "Life don’t get no more better than that." Thank you all for the great messages and notes. I’m not sure where some of those graphics come from but they sure make the myspace experience more fun. lol I hope you all have a great spring.  

Hey everyone,

I wanted to say that I'm not being antisocial and not approving the friend requests I have pending, but myspace is having problems with my page apparently and not letting me access the new requests. So please be patient and I'm sure Tom and the gang are working on it. lol

Ali

Hey guys,

If anyone gets a ringtone add from me, please delete it. I got a message from Tom saying my account was phished so I had to go through the process of changing my password. Sorry if this caused any trouble, and please don't open the file. I did just trying to see where it led and it took me forever to get out of it. It's like one of those infinite loop kind of things.

Have a great weekend,

Ali

Hey Guys,

It's been awhile since I got to update but there's been plenty happening. The thing that's keeping me the busiest is trying to finish up the third installment of the Devil series, Deal With The Devil.

Since I can't really tell you about that yet, I thought I tell you what we did a couple of weekends ago that made me think why I love the city of New Orleans so much. We went to Sunday Brunch at Commander's Palace. If you're from here and have gone, you know what I'm talking about when I say the Commander's experience, and if you're planning a trip, all I can say is I highly recommend it. And if you own a pair of sear sucker pants, then wear them. If you do you'll fit right in since it's been awhile seen I've seen that much pale blue, green, and red stripes in one location. Mine are blue by the way.

We started with a mimosa and ended with the bread pudding souffle. When they were closed because of the damage they sustained in hurricane Katrina I had dreams about that souffle. It's one of the things the place is famous for and rightfully so, but back to our visit.

The jazz band that walks around to the various rooms stopped at our table and asked what song we'd like to hear. We asked for the song that had been put on a banner and hung on the side of the old home while the restaurant was closed. I Know What It Means was what the banner read, and the guys were glad to add the rest of the words To Miss New Orleans.

As we enjoyed lunch Ti Martin, her grandmother Ella Brennan is the owner, stopped by to chat, and took me for a tour of what they'd done to the place. Much of the woodwork was saved, they did a much needed rewiring, but the naked ladies on the second floor are back and look better than ever. She asked how we'd made out, and then we laughed at how we can now talk about such loss so matter-of-factly. The thing everyone agrees on is that we can  because the most important things, our families, are fine and safe. The rest is just stuff. Stuff that I still miss and in some cases can't replace mind you, but I'm lucky that I'm only mourning my old vacation photos. When you look at it like that it seems silly considering what others lost.

To some, you may not realize what a pleasure it was to sit there and enjoy a Sunday morning, but for those of us who've watched the city come back to life slowly you know it was more than a meal. It's getting back something that you maybe took for granted, but never again. Commander's has made it into some of my stories in the past, in the Devil series the Casey family crypt is in the Lafitte Cemetary directly across the street. It's just part of a place I call home.

As we brought our meal to a close I watched my waiter, everyone at the table gets their own, put my souffle down and break though the top with a spoon so he could pour in the warm whiskey cream sauce. I gave thanks that I wasn't dreaming, and for the fact that it really did taste as good as my memories of it.

It was raining when we walked out but that didn't matter. We were just happy that the city has a little bit of its soul back, that little something that makes New Orleans so unique. Now that's something to give thanks for.

Ali

I got this great email this morning that Carly's Sound, The Devil Inside and The Devil Unleashed had been voted into the top five in the first annual Lesbian Fiction Readers Choice Awards.  I wanted to thank the members for their votes and for their support.

Congratulations to the other winners and to everyone who was nominated.

To view all the other winners please visit the site at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LesbianFictionReadersChoiceAwards/

Hey guys,

I woke up late this morning and only after taking a shower in my rush to get ready for work did I realize what today is--June the first. If you live anywhere along the southern coastline of the US you'll know the significance of what I'm talking about. It's the beginning of hurricane season. The day you stop and think about if you're insurance is up to date, you have batteries and you memorized every possible route out of town.

It's a strange list we all check off every year around this time, but for as daunting a day June 1 is every year, a lot of us cannot seeing living anywhere else. South Louisiana is more than just Bourbon Street, and the street cars running along St. Charles Avenue uptown, but a community made of so many interesting characters, that as a writer, it makes finding new material rather easy.

A lot of people have asked me what it is about this place that makes me love it so much. That's a hard one to answer without making this so long you'll get bored reading it, so I'll try and be brief. 

Because of work, a few years ago I joined Rotary, and not just any Rotary Club but one that's mostly made up of guys who let's say aren't young. The table I sit at I'm the youngest one by about thirty-five years, but these old guys make me laugh with their nonstop antics for an hour every Wednesday. The only way I got a seat at the table is that one of the regulars died and the young age of 85. What they like about me and the reason they accepted me into the fold is that I can hold my own in the verbal sparring that begins as soon as you sit down. It's a definite hot seat. lol

I'll let you in on a little secret, Bob the crazy pilot from Carly's Sound was inspired by one of the more colorful characters who sits across from me. But in the south we don't go around saying people are crazy that would be rude, they're just eccentric. Anyway, for four years I sat to the right of one of my favorite people in the whole world, a man I'd known for years who ended up sponsoring me for the club.

Louis was from Oklahoma and after serving in the Air Force during the big one, WWII, he came to our fair city with his new bride and started selling adding machines. He didn't do that for long and soon started selling insurance and buying real estate. In the end he owned so much property that I think even Trump would've been impressed.

I asked him why settle here if he and his wife didn't grow up here. He told me that Louisiana had a way of intoxicating you so that you couldn't leave. It wasn't anything in the food or in the rich black soil, but in her people. He said they had a unique way of looking at life. Not too much riled them except maybe when someone says something negative about the LSU Tigers, and they found a reason for a party in even the smallest of things. After fifty years of living here he considered himself a native, since after fifty years he realized some of that craziness had rubbed off on him.

The last time I saw Louis was about four days before he passed away. His wife warned me that the pain meds they had him on for his cancer might make him not recognize me. Before then I talked to him on the phone almost every day, the meds making some of those calls an adventure. When I walked in he smiled, puckered up his lips and told me to lay one on him.

We visited for over two hours, since I think we both knew the time we had left together was short. We laughed the entire time and I held his hand when he napped in between. When I was leaving he asked me to come back next week and see him again, but not to forget the girlie magazines, a bottle of vodka if I could sneak it passed his wife, and maybe some brownies if my partner could find the time. Said he needed something to do while he was waiting besides look at the ceiling and wonder if St. Peter's first words to him would be "You've got to be kidding?"

The requests made me laugh because, well they were so Louis. He died before I could see  him again, and to honor his memory I planted a tree in our yard and named it after him.

I know that was a long answer but people like Louis are what I love about living here. Not too much upset him, he celebrated every day that was gifted to him, spent his life quietly helping people because it was the right thing to do and not for praise, and he had the biggest collection of jokes I'd ever heard but he was never offensive. The fact that I was lucky enough to be his friend is something I'll always treasure.

 He's gone but hell if I'll forget him. So it's June 1st and it's time to look to the Gulf to make sure there's nothing heading toward us, but instead of getting too riled up about it I thought I share Louis with you .

In his honor we added one thing to our hurricane preparedness list--a bottle of Grey Goose. My girl's willing to make brownies as well, but the girlie magazines didn't make the cut. Sorry buddy, but if you and St. Peter could tear yourselves away from the cup of coffee I'm sure you're having now, could you keep an eye on things and prove the weather forecasters wrong? I sure would appreciate it.

Ali