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Mark McNease’s Fearsome Fiction Podcast 83: Night Flight to Murder Town – A Marshall James Thriller (Chapters 16 through 18)
Welcome to Mark McNease’s Fearsome Fiction Podcast and another three chapters of Night Flight to Murder Town: A Marshall James Thriller.
Marshall James arrives in New York and gets his first look at Muscles, the gym where he’ll be working, courtesy of Trent. He’s told the previous manager had to go away and has not been seen since. The new one, Leland, can’t quite hide his interest in Marshall. And Trent makes it clear, without raising his voice, that everyone in the room knows exactly where the lines are.
New York is a city that demands a verdict, and Marshall’s is immediate. He loves it, against his better judgment. But love doesn’t mean safety. Trapped in Trent’s luxury apartment with a man whose pager never stops buzzing and whose overseas calls carry the unmistakable sound of crime, Marshall knows he needs to run. He just needs money first, and a map.
Meanwhile, back in the future, Marshall and his husband Boo arrive at a bed and breakfast in Lambertville. Their host Kyle Callahan jokes that their room is the “murder suite” and it’s been been good for business. Marshall will soon learn the truth of it, as they explore the river town they just might move to.
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LGBT Senior’s Weekly Fun Facts: Your Garden is Listening
Did you know …
Earthworms are gardening gold. A single acre of healthy soil can contain more than a million earthworms, each one aerating the ground and turning organic matter into nutrients as it moves.
Plants can hear themselves being eaten. Research has shown that plants respond to the sound of caterpillars chewing on their leaves by producing more defensive chemicals — even when the chewing sound is just a recording.
The oldest potted plant in the world is over 240 years old. A Eastern Cape cycad has been living in a pot at Kew Gardens in London since 1775.
Talking to your plants actually helps. The Royal Horticultural Society ran a study and found that plants grow faster when spoken to — and that women’s voices produced slightly better results than men’s. No one is entirely sure why.
Carrots were originally purple. The orange carrot we know today was developed by Dutch growers in the 17th century, reportedly as a tribute to the Dutch Royal House of Orange. Before that, carrots came in purple, white, and yellow.
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The Twist Podcast 322: Annual Spring Issue, New Letters from Jo, and Rick Interviews Courtney Bryan (Part 1)
Welcome to The Twist Podcast, Episode 322. Spring has officially arrived, and Mark and Rick are celebrating the season with a jam-packed episode. We kick things off with some springtime conversation — what’s blooming, what’s buzzing, and what’s got us looking forward to warmer days ahead.
Then it’s time for the Twist Hit List, our own humble ‘must’ list, covering TV, films, books, food, and culture. Listener favorite Jo is back with a new Letter from Jo, with her trademark wisdom and humor. And in this week’s featured interview Rick talks with Courtney Bryan for Part One of a wide-ranging conversation about artificial intelligence.
All that and more on this week’s The Twist. Subscribe, share, and join the conversation.
THIS WEEK’S SURVEY
Another spring is here. What to you want to do first?
Get more active without the sweaters and thermals
Garden, plant, walk in the grass, open the windows
Clean out and start fresh (figuratively if not literally)
Nothing — I like my routine as it is
Wait impatiently for summer
Something else (please say what in the comments) -
This Week’s Savvy Senior: What Causes Dizziness and How to Fix It
By Jim Miller
Dear Savvy Senior,
What can cause dizziness in older adults? I have dizzy spells from time to time but I’m not sure what causes it or what I should do about it.
–Dizzy Donna
Dear Donna,
Whether it’s a moment of lightheadedness or the room-whirling sensation of vertigo, dizziness can be very unsettling. As many as 30 percent of people older than 60 experience dizziness at some point, about 50 percent after age 85.
This unpleasant sensation only rarely signifies a serious medical condition. But it can knock you off balance, leading to falls and injuries. That’s why anytime you feel dizzy, you should lower yourself to a safe, seated position. Here’s a brief rundown of what typically causes dizziness and what you can do to fix it.
What Causes Dizziness
One of the most common causes of dizziness and vertigo in older adults is benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV). This occurs when tiny crystals in the inner ear, which play a role in balance, become dislodged. BPPV is more likely as we get older because wear and tear can cause the crystals to shift out of place.
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LGBT Senior’s Weekly Journaling Prompt: A Room with a View
A Room That Stays With You
Close your eyes for a few moments and let your memory wander back through the places you’ve lived, visited, or passed through. Somewhere in that wandering, a room will surface — not necessarily the most important room among the many of your life, but one that stays. Maybe it’s a childhood bedroom, a grandparent’s kitchen, a first apartment, a hospital waiting room, or somewhere you were briefly but intensely alive.
Let yourself stand in that room again. What does it smell like? What’s the light doing? What sounds belong to it? Who is there? What are the feelings you associate with it?
Now write about it. Describe the room as you remember it. Not as it necessarily was, but as it lives in your memory. Then ask yourself: what was happening in my life when this room mattered? What did I feel safe enough to do there, or what did I wish I could escape? If that room could speak, what would it say about who you were then, and what does returning to it now tell you about who you’ve become?
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LGBT Senior’s Weekly Survey: Smells Like Spring Spirit
Another spring is here (March 20). What do you want to do first?
Get more active without the sweaters and thermals
Garden, plant, walk in the grass, open the windows
Clean out and start fresh (figuratively if not literally)
Nothing — I like my routine as it is
Wait impatiently for summer
Something else (please say what in the comments) -
LGBT Senior’s Weekly Humorcope: ‘P’ is for Pisces
Because the universe clearly has a sense of humor.
♈ Aries 🔥
This week you will feel a sudden urge to reorganize something. It may be your closet. It may be your entire life. Start with the closet.♉ Taurus 🌿
Someone will tell you that you’re stubborn. You will calmly explain that you are consistent. Then you will continue doing exactly what you were doing.♊ Gemini 🌀
You’ll have three ideas at once this week. Two will be brilliant. One will involve ordering something online at 2 a.m.♋ Cancer 🌙
Your nurturing instincts kick in this week. Just remember: feeding people is generous, but feeding them again because they “look thin” may cause concern.♌ Leo 🦁
You will receive attention this week. You will pretend to be humble about it for approximately twelve seconds. -
LGBT Senior’s Tech Talk: Photos, Files and the Cloud (Where Did My Stuff Go?)
By Mark McNease
I can remember when ‘the cloud’ was a new thing, and most people didn’t know what it was or what it meant. Now it’s an inescapable part of our technology landscape. Everything, it seems, is in the cloud, and the cloud itself is spoken of as a singular, godlike place – maybe even heaven – where everything resides and nothing is forgotten.
I still don’t trust it completely, and it requires an internet connection. Its name fits it: the cloud does not exist on our computers, smartphones, or laptops. It seemingly lives ‘up there’ somewhere (keep reading for more on that), and it’s apparently limitless.
I keep my files and photos on my desktop, laptop and phone. Some of them are backed up, which is especially helpful with all the Word and Excel documents I create. Photos? Not so much. They take up a lot of space, and space isn’t free. I don’t really need six pictures of the same thing, the way we tend to take them now with our phones, or even most of the ones I accumulate by the thousands.
So what, exactly, is this cloud? And where did it come from? Can it rain on me? Can it make my life difficult? (Sometimes the answer to that depends on a reliable WiFi connection.) Let’s dive in …
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Mark McNease’s Fearsome Fiction Podcast Bonus: Fatal Mistake – A Harry Hell Novella (Chapters 21 – END)
In addition to my weekly 3-chapter installments of ‘Night Flight to Murder Town: A Marshall James Thriller,’ I’m offering up three extra-long listens of ‘Fatal Mistake: A Harry Hell Novella.’ It’s the first of three novellas planned that take us on the wild journey that is Harry Hell’s life. Queer, dystopian, fearsome.
Fatal Mistake opens in a dying, collapsed world — a ruined island city divided between the fortified enclave of Eastward, where the privileged few cling to order, and the brutal wastelands outside its walls: the Ruins and the Slopes, where survival is the only law.
Two storylines run in parallel. In the present, we meet Harry Hell — a former elite assassin who has spent five years hunting the most dangerous woman alive: a killer known only as Nectar. The story begins with her turning the tables on two of his men sent to find her, slitting one’s throat and sending the other back with a message. Harry is cold, purposeful, and consumed by a single obsession — avenging the death of Raul, his partner and the only person he ever loved, who Nectar killed.
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Mark McNease’s Fearsome Fiction Podcast Extra: Fatal Mistake – A Harry Hell Novella (Chapters 11 – 20)
In addition to my weekly 3-chapter installments of ‘Night Flight to Murder Town: A Marshall James Thriller,’ I’m offering up three extra-long listens of ‘Fatal Mistake: A Harry Hell Novella.’ It’s the first of three novellas planned that take us on the wild journey that is Harry Hell’s life. Queer, dystopian, fearsome.
Fatal Mistake opens in a dying, collapsed world — a ruined island city divided between the fortified enclave of Eastward, where the privileged few cling to order, and the brutal wastelands outside its walls: the Ruins and the Slopes, where survival is the only law.
Two storylines run in parallel. In the present, we meet Harry Hell — a former elite assassin who has spent five years hunting the most dangerous woman alive: a killer known only as Nectar. The story begins with her turning the tables on two of his men sent to find her, slitting one’s throat and sending the other back with a message. Harry is cold, purposeful, and consumed by a single obsession — avenging the death of Raul, his partner and the only person he ever loved, who Nectar killed.
