Ever make a comment so good you have to repost it as an entry? Here's my latest:
( cut for excess of cuss word )

Commenting on CuteOverload.com.

Really. How many times can you type, "OMG that is SO CUTE! My head has exploded from the cute! AAAAAHHHH!!!"? How many times does someone need to post that? And these comment threads, there are always dozens of comments.

Seriously, I think that site just needs the little thumbs up/thumbs down icons if only to save people from themselves

Tweets from @Rob_Thurman (probably of a useless and irrelevant nature. Beware.)

10:19 I couldn't figure out of that was an homage to Buffy's Rupert Giles or a rip-off. Homage? @Jensau Philip Glenister who played Rupert Galvin #

10:49 Ok, that was *massively* helpful. Thanks so much!! had another picture but not 1/2 as good or detailed @ashlihodge check out "Lady Deadpool" #

13:57 & pet food. when the snow comes, it's canned food or my ass will be eaten @marjoriemliu @shilohwalker Toilet paper is the gold standard #

14:01 Here too. Snowed for ten minutes and now it's all gone I thought 4 to 6 inches Was ready to hook up my senile husky to a sled @marjoriemliu #

14:54 SDCC cosplay is decided. Dark Phoenix is retired this year and Deadpool is up to bat. If we get a hotel as we lost our free housing. Damn! #

18:40 And this is all f*** Paris Hilton's fault. She started that whole thing @marjoriemliu California's Surplus Chihuahuas Airlifted To New York #

18:41 Oh, and global warming. She did that as well. Shave her head and I know there's a 666 somewhere @marjoriemliu #

19:10 #cosplay. It's on for sure. I will be Deadpool at SDCC. Now...can I get a Bob? Is there a Bob who's going to be there at SDCC anywhere? #

20:03 4"? I hope she surfs the net looking for some herbal supplements :> @Zombie_Joe: 4-8" tonight? Hope my wife decides to work from home #

20:20 Sheldon rocks! @deborahblake #TheBigBangTheory is one of the best shows on TV! If you're not watching it, you should be! #

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Thank you again-- so much-- to all of you who sent me donations for New Years so that I could spread around a little goodness. Thanks too to those of you who offered compassion and moral support.

I made at least the minimum donation to each of the following organizations. I've read that it's better to give a lump sum to one organization than to spread it around, but I can't bring myself not to show support for each of these causes, you know? Maybe some day I'll be organized enough to give a large donation to one group one year, to another the next, and so on. In the meantime, I want each of these groups to know that I feel their work to be important and worthy of support.

Here's what you helped out with:

Name	Charity Navigator	American Institute of Philanthropy	More About	Gift Matched?
Conservation International	****	A	Environmental	Y
Oceana	****	n/a	Environmental, specific focus on marine life	N
The Rainforest Alliance	****	A	Environmental, focus on saving rainforests	N
Center for Biological Diversity	****	A-	Environmental, focus on endangered species.	Y
Environmental Defense Fund	****	A-	Envir... well, I guess you know by now where my heart lies.	Y
CARE	****	A	International women's rights advocacy, humanitarian aid, and general world-building of the awesome kind with a particular focus on ending poverty for women and their communities.	Y
International Rescue Committee	****	A+	Also gets top ratings from the BBB, God, and Your Mama. Seriously, though, they seem to be just about the most highly acclaimed humanitarian aid group out there. Plus, I'll quote their letter asking for my donation below, because it got me all choked up. Usually I prefer to support long-term solutions rather than critical aid, but in this case I'll make an exception. Sometimes the good of the individual now outweighs my concerns for the good of the many in the future.	Y
ANERA	****	A	Humanitarian aid and education in the Middle East. They need it. And my country is not doing much in the way of helpfulness out there.	Y
UNICEF	****	n/a	An oldie but goodie.	Y
Feeding America	***	A	Sad that this is needed, but it is, so here's a little help for my own homeland. I like the way these people manage their funds, getting a lot of food out of a little donation.	Y
Harlem Children's Zone	****	n/a	A new group for me, suggested by the book "Give A Little." A comprehensive program for at-risk families, providing everything from prenatal care to family counseling to make sure that babies in Harlem get the best possible start in life and are happy, healthy, nurtured, and prepared by the time they enter school.	N
NARSAD	****	A+	Mental health and brain research. I'm always a little nervous about supporting things like this because there can be a fine line between trying to help with a disability and disrespecting those who suffer from it-- and there are some truly bad examples out there like "Autism Speaks." But I honestly believe NARSAD is 1) doing good solid research on the brain and 2) honestly trying to help people rather than simply being phobic of all things neuroatypical. And if anyone knows how important research on mental health is, I do.	Y

Missing is a donation to a family planning organization-- I'm still trying to decide between Planned Parenthood International (CN **** but not listed in AIP's top list) and Pathfinder International (A+ from AIP but only 3 stars from CN). Planned Parenthood has a laudable focus on speaking out against sexual violence, but I like Pathfinder's grassroots approach and their focus on changing cultures to empower women. Tough call. There's also PATH, which is more general health but does include an excellent section on women's reproductive rights.

Also still debating what to give to my beloved Clouded Leopard Project and whether to just donate or buy some of their merchandise for myself. More about them later.

OK, I'm out of brain, though I do want to talk more about who I support and why. I leave you with a message from the IRC:

( under cut to save space )

Alethea Kontis: You call yourself an “occasional musician.” How much do you play/sing anymore?

Peter S. Beagle: I don’t have any regular gigs now, as I used to when I lived in Santa Cruz. I haven’t really had one for well over 20 years. So I sing on occasion, when I’m asked. A couple of weeks ago in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at the annual Nimrod Journal gathering, there was a party, where a lady with a very nice voice and I passed a guitar back and forth. I sang my songs, she sang folk songs. It was nice. I’ve been missing that. My business manager, Connor Cochran, tells me that next spring in Chicago I’m going to get a chance to do a real gig as part of a big weekend art show/music show event based around The Last Unicorn. Going to have to do some practicing to get ready for that.

AK: Tell us about the 52/50 Project. How is it going?

PSB: I should probably take a moment here to explain. The 52/50 Project is basically a demanding birthday present I gave myself back in April, when I turned 70 and simultaneously celebrated the 50th anniversary of selling my first book. The idea was simple. I love writing both poetry and song lyrics, but I hadn’t done either in years, except for sneaking some fragmentary song lyrics into a few of my stories. So at Connor’s suggestion I made the crazy commitment to write a new piece every week for a year, with ten of them based on subscriber suggestions. Every Sunday or Monday I send Connor what I’ve written, then he polishes my “liner notes,” typesets everything, comes up with an illustration, and sends the result out via email to subscribers. Bit by bit we’re recording all of these, too. Subscribers will get free MP3s of those as they’re ready.

AK: Has it been a challenge to produce something fabulous and new once a week?

Lord, yes. No sooner is something online on Monday than I’m worrying about the next week. Usually it takes me until Wednesday or Thursday before I figure out what the hell I’m going to do. Then I have to write it, which is exciting, challenging, and of course scary, too. But we’re at week 30 and I haven’t missed one yet, so I think I’ll make it.

AK: Can people still subscribe? (I do, and I bought a subscription for a friend. I love it!)

PSB: People can still subscribe at http://www.conlanpress.com, all the way through to the end. It’s only $25, and whenever they join they’ll get everything that was done up until then, in one big burst of email attachments. After that they’ll get each week’s new song lyric or poem on the regular Monday schedule.

AK: You travel and do so many appearances–what do you like best about conventions?

PSB: I very much like seeing people I don’t usually see except at conventions–I’ve made some friends of surprisingly long standing that way–and each individual locale has its own peculiar charms. I love the fact, for example, that when we go to Baltimore we always stay with the same people, because April keeps lox in the refrigerator whenever I’m there, and her husband Travis brews beer. You couldn’t ask for more, or at least I couldn’t. And I have my own room there, which is a nice change from the usual run of Motel 6s or Super 8s that Connor and I stay in to save money. (Though even that has had some benefits, because I’ve learned to sleep with the light on while Connor stays up all night working.)

AK: How do you feel about the latest trends in the fantasy genre, such as paranormal romance and steampunk? What themes would you like to see make an appearance…or a comeback?

PSB: One thing I would like to see slack off is the endless factory-made Tolkienesque trilogies. I’m not usually in favor of the death penalty, but for these things I’ve thought about it: felony trilogy writing. But really, I don’t have a sense of trends in any particular field. I just read whatever jumps off the library shelves at me, without much of a particular pattern to it. Fact is, the overwhelming majority of what I read these days is in other fields: mysteries, poetry, biographies, and general nonfiction, especially history. When I read fantasy it tends to be for a project, or else because it’s something written by a friend, or is some old favorite I’m revisiting. I’m always glad–since he is long-gone–that I called Poul Anderson after I reread three or four of his fantasy novels in a row, just to tell him “I know you wrote these 40 and 50 years ago, but I just wanted to let you know that they hold up beautifully. I hope my stuff holds up that late in the game.” It was a joke between us that I loved his fantasy but couldn’t make heads or tails out of his science fiction.

AK: What were your favorite books/poets/musicians as a child?

PSB: Back then I did read more fantasy than I do now, and I’ve always told people that what turned me in that direction was being sent The Wind In the Willows by a favorite teacher while I was sick and staying home from school. For musicians, I loved blues, and my buddy Phil and I grew up particularly interested in Josh White. We were constantly sitting up at night trying to figure out how he did this or that on guitar. Phil got to where he could do an almost perfect vocal imitation of White, and I did pick up a few fingering and tuning things. And I’ve always known way too many Broadway musicals by heart. A couple of nights ago I was watching a program on one of my old favorites, Johnny Mercer, and found myself singing along with very nearly every song on the show. I also listened to classical music because that’s what my parents were always playing. They took me to see Segovia when I was about nine. And by pure chance I came into contact with a lot of ‘50s country music, because one of my friends took pity on me and built the crystal radio set that I was supposed to make for shop class. It would only bring in one station, which played nothing but country music. I was so grateful that I would come home, sit down to do my homework, hook up that crystal set, attach the ground wire to the radiator, put on my headphones, and listen to whatever it brought in. As a consequence I have to have been the only Jewish kid in the Bronx who knew about Hank Williams, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Little Jimmy Dickens, Patsy Cline, and all those folks. I was only 12 or 13 when Hank Williams died, but I understood the grieving in the country music world.

Originally published at AletheaKontis.com. You can comment here or there.

I’m still working like crazy, but still clinging to that New Year’s Resolution and writing every day. Sometimes it’s only a few hundred words, but I’m hanging in there. It’ll be a lot easier (and I’ll be a lot more prolific) when I’m out from under these Fort Freak edits. They are EPIC. And a little frightening. But they’re going to make for a huge improvement.

So! I think now’s the time to go ahead and debut the first word-metrics of the year, with regards to Hellbent — since that’s the only fiction project for which I’m composing new words at this time.* Ergo, voila. Here are this year’s stats on my second vampire adventure — this time with my sexy thief, her shady agent, a cigar box full of magical penis bones, a mentally ill former NASA engineer-turned-sorceress, and the continued fabulosity of a Cuban drag queen:

Project: Hellbent
Deadline: August 9, 2010
New Words Written: 5421
Present Total Word Count: 5421



Darling duJour: “The busker leaned into the lyrics of ‘Yellow’ like each word was a hook he was extracting from his eyelids.”

Things Accomplished in Fiction: Introduction; some recap from previous book; introduction of the weaselly but hilarious little agent; a rather alarming number of dick jokes.

Things Accomplished in Real Life: Wrapped up a day-job project and received another one to replace it; did my usual run/exercise — at which I am seriously no good whatsoever, but I’m working on it; spent all afternoon plowing through “Remember the Rathole” on which I wrote one full new section and seriously amended two others; regretfully declined my fifth invitation to blurb a book this year - which is mostly notable because I don’t think I even got five requests last year (and usually I try to say “yes,” but I’m totally swamped right now); that’s pretty much it.

And because every time I start posting these stats again, a dozen people pipe up wanting to know where I got my word-stat bar — here you go. Get one of your very own, and tally away.

In other news, I suppose I shall leave you with a links round-up before taking a few minutes to just sit on the couch and drink cheap red wine for an hour or two because I BELIEVE I DESERVE IT. Ahem.

• “Tanglefoot” reprint — Got word last night that Ann and Jeff VanderMeer are picking up my novelette “Tanglefoot” for their STEAMPUNK RELOADED anthology! I, for one, am tickled well beyond pink. I’m tickled … like … fuchsia or something. Excessively tickled, anyway. That’s for damn sure.

• Chiarascuro reviews Boneshaker - As a matter of full disclosure, I used to review for these very fine folks. But I don’t read for them anymore, and I had no idea they were going to review Boneshaker, much less that they would like it.

• Shiny Shelf also tackles Boneshaker - Poking it with a friendly stick.

• See also, AdamChristopher.co.uk - Where Boneshaker is declared one of the site’s top “awesome and radical” titles of the year … right next to Stephen King, like I’m gonna complain about that.

• This really did happen the other day - Though I wasn’t scared, just surprised. They shanghaied me in the midst of looking around for my missing husband; and frankly, I’m just not accustomed to being recognized, so it always throws me for a tiny loop when it happens. They were very cool, though!
  

---

* That’s not strictly true. I’ve written one new section for “Remember the Rathole,” (the Fort Freak contribution; and added about 2000 words here, there, and elsewhere in that manuscript. But I’m also removing a lot as I go, so it’s much harder to track.

[Crossposted to/from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so either here or there.]

karnythia is writing a fascinating series of mini stories about mythological monsters: from their own point of view. The first post is here and each has a link to the next part of the story. Please go take a read, and chip in if you like her work!

Mark your calendars now. In celebration of my natal anniversary, JayCon X, my 10th annual 37th birthday party, will be Saturday, July 3rd, from 2 to 5 pm at the Flying Pie in SE Portland. Come help me celebrate both my birthday and my successful completion of six months of chemotherapy in late June.

We're partying because I was born, and because I will have beat cancer. Again.

Flying Pie Pizzeria
7804 SE Stark Street
Portland, 97215
(503) 254-2016
http://www.flying-pie.com/
[ Google Maps ]

As is traditional for JayCon, Paul Carpentier is specifically not invited.

I've been doing well lately-- having enough good days, mentally, to stay (barely) ahead of the critical list of things that I need to do. Eating more-or-less regularly, and not letting myself sleep more than 10 hours a night because I think that may actually make some symptoms worse. My depression is sufficiently better than usual that I've actually been noticing, in the past few weeks, an increased interest in a number of things and a long-overdue resurgence of creative feelings, probably thanks to having some success with my crafts.

I'm having days where I'm so mentally better than usual that I'm starting to see what could be possible if I had more time like this. I almost want to start seeing a psych again and tweaking my medications, hoping to find a way to make this stay. I wonder if I could explain to a doctor how my depression had to get significantly better before I was able to contemplate seeking help for it....

Way behind on LJ, though. Both reading and writing. I may have enough brain to think interesting things, but I never seem to have the time to put them down. Maybe it's just that I'm doing more-- most of my day at home (ie, whenever I'm not at work) is now taken up with craft projects, usually concurrent with a movie or audiobook. Also, it's been nice out lately, and there's only so much time I can stand to spend in my dim chilly room letting my circulation die in front of the computer.

But I miss writing, and I miss keeping up with my friends. Some day, perhaps, I will get a laptop and be able to be online and outside /at the same time/. And the world as we know it will come to an end.

Part of the problem, too, is a huge backlog of stuff I've meant to write about. The past semester was exhausting-- I could barely get through everything I had to do in a day, much less anything extra for myself. Two and a half more years of that coming up... with luck, that is. *gulp*

Brain.... losing power. More later.


Edit: Still coping, though, with depression spikes/panic attacks, though I'm getting much better at riding them out. Also, the hated daily conundrum: don't eat enough, and risk collapse, or eat and risk being too groggy to function at all for the next hour or so?

I've got my list for 2009 together, and had a bit of fun putting together some numbers for you - actually, some are a bit scary. And I've given out some "awards" too, which are hard for me to do - about as hard as giving ratings in the first place. But first...

You've probably seen this before, but I came across this fairly recent edition of a book by C.S. Lewis in a secondhand bookshop today and naturally the cover caught my eye.

Look familiar?

The symbolism of the apple is tiresomely old isn't it. Ah the crispy, juicy temptation of truth, knowledge and self-awareness, all wrapped up in a shiny red or green skin ...


BOOKS READ IN 2009

It's so weird to look back and see the books you read at the beginning of the year - I would have sworn I'd read those the previous year! It feels so far away now.

Year End Statistics:

Total # of Books Read: 170
Most # of Books Read in a Month: 19 (June)
Least # of Books Read in a Month: 9 (December)
Total # of Books I own, end of 2009: 1595
Total # of Books I own, unread by end of 2009: 568
% of My Books That Are Unread: 35.6% (I am crap at maths, percentages especially, so please correct me if I'm wrong!)
# of Review Copies Read: 18 (many were ARCs, but not all of them arrived before the release date, so I just call them review copies)

"IT TAKES THE CAKE" Awards:

Best Dystopian World:
(I love the contradiction in those words!) This is a tough one. It's a toss-up between Janet McNaughton's The Secret Under My Skin, Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, and Yevgeny Zamyatin's We.

Best Book to Recommend to Your Mum:
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows. This was such a lovely, "afternoon tea" kind of read, a delightful post-war story told through letters. I highly enjoyed it.

Book I Wish I'd Read When Younger:
This is where we delve into the Young Adult "genre", such as it is (it's not, of course, an actual genre, but it's conveniently used as such). I often say in a review "I wish I'd read this when I was a teen, I probably would have really loved it." Doesn't help if they weren't published at the time though! Anyway, as much as I loved Lisa Mantchev's Eyes Like Stars, I do think I would have enjoyed it more had I been younger. There are a few others, but I can only pick one.

Best Vampire Book:
I have to give this award to The Society of S by Susan Hubbard - another book that took me by surprise. I was totally engrossed, and it's not your usual vampire story at all.

Most Fun Romance:
I loved Seducing Mr. Darcy by Gwyn Cready - it was an impulse buy and I thought I'd hate it, but it had me laughing and I still sometimes think of the characters, all these months later.

Classic that Surprised Me the Most:
I was very surprised by I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, actually - mostly because I was expecting something dry and dull and waffling. They were fun short stories that touched on some very interesting philosophical questions, without boring the pants off me.

Non-fiction to Write Home About:
I didn't read much non-fiction this year, but there were a couple of stand-outs, most notably Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine. If you read any non-fiction book this year, make it this one.

Most Enjoyed Book of the Year:
Why do I do this to myself? I hate putting books in competition with each other! However, I've set myself the task of picking one that especially blew me away, and it would have to be Lawrence Hills' The Book of Negroes (outside Canada, the title is Someone Knows My Name, if you're looking for it).

Another favourite from 2009 was Jessica Z. by Shawn Klomparens.

Crappiest Book of the Year:
This is of the books I read in 2009, that were published in 2009. It's an unfair award to give out, and you just know it's going to go to something in the Romance genre don't you. Well, you're not wrong.

The award goes to Rita Herron's Dark Hunger - I don't write narky reviews, as a rule, but I come close with this one. It was one of the worst written books I've read all year, which is saying a lot, because there were quite a few disappointing reads.

Another crappy read was Laura Whitcomb's The Fetch. What a yawn-fest!

Notable Mentions:
There was a lot of flotsam, but also some real gems that didn't get popular attention. I have to recommend Dust of 100 Dogs and The Undrowned Child, both new releases in YA this year.

Other loved books in '09 include:
Ten Thousand Lovers
Perfect Chemistry
Frenchman's Creek
Indiscretion
Carpe Diem
Speak
Sister Wife
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo


( THE LIST )

Ego-boosting meme nabbed from kittikattie :

Leave a testimonial for me to put on my userinfo page... a few short lines advertising why I'm a good LJ friend/RL friend/e-ternet buddy or what have you . Then repost this so your friends can do the same.

So someone made 100 cupcakes and then proceeded to decorate them to illustrate every major board and computer game ever. Some of these are just genius!

http://www.steelheadstudio.com/100cupcakes/

Hey halcyon_shift and doccy, check out number 40 :D

"Vessel," by the phenomenal Grouper, from a recent split EP (with Roy Montgomery). Grouper’s DRAGGING A DEAD DEER UP A HILL was one of my favourite records of 2008, and this EP has basically made my night.

(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)

I discovered Scott Tuma’s work a few years ago, with a record called THE RIVER. He’s usually filed under "Americana," but I find this reductive.

This is a piece from a collaboration with Mike Weis called TARADIDDLE, just because it’s what I’ve got to hand right now, but I find it preserves what’s important about Scott Tuma. His work is powerfully strange and estranging: it smacks of mutated ground, poisoned water, rust and death. The first track off 2008’s NOT FOR NOBODY is actually kind of harrowing, in the way that recent Elegi and Svarte Greine records have been — the sound of someone in extremis in an unforgiving environment. But I seem to have misplaced that. And TARADIDDLE is a fine record. So, from it, I play you "On Cox."

(mp3 provided for review purposes only, dies in seven days, contact me at warrenellis [at] gmail.com if you need it removed)

(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)

New reading material at the Red Room blog. And of course, should you have missed it, there was the obligatory SF Novelists post on the 5th, in a somewhat lighter vein (don't miss the comments...)

Back to today's regularly scheduled activities (which currently include persuading a VERY comfortable cat that he needs to get OFF MY LAP so I can go fetch an item that I need in order to proceed with the task at hand...)

The folks at Action Audio have a partnership going with Drollerie Press to do audio editions of our bigger-selling titles–and apparently it’s now Faerie Blood’s turn to go audio! I’ve been emailed by a gentleman asking me for pronunciations on various and sundry unusual names and phrases all over the book, and I’ve fired him back a list of notes that hopefully will be helpful!

It’s also super-helpful to be able to point at a nice audio snippet of Bob Hallett of Great Big Sea on a radio show about Newfoundland ghost stories, and say ‘this guy? My hero should have his accent’. (Of course, now I totally want to hear that entire radio show. I’ll have to see if I can find it.)

Anyway, so this is exciting and stuff; sometime soon there should be audio Faerie Blood goodness, and I shall be making inquiries as to whether I’ll be able to maybe set aside a copy to hand out in another little contest of some sort. Watch this space for updates as they happen.

Meanwhile, for the interested, the other Drollerie titles that exist in audio form are:

• joelysue’s The Rose of Shanhasson
• Rachael de Vienne’s Pixie Warrior
• John Rosenman’s Alien Dreams
• Gary Inbinder’s Confessions of the Creature

If audio books are your thing, you might consider checking these out!

Mirrored from angelakorrati.com.

At the Hugos Last, a Certain Troublemaker decided that I and Writer X were Worse Troublemakers, and so to keep us busy (and not cause Trouble) before the awards started, he set us to write a short story, using a certain person we had been observing as the starting point. Said stories to be written on the backs of our programs, with whatever writing implements we had to-hand. Old Skool. No revisions, no rewrites, just pure down-on-page.

Writer X and I have vaaaastly different styles, so our stories came out vaaaaastly different. But we typed 'em up and sent them to each other, after the fact, for a larf. And here's mine.

( Guardian at the Door )

ObFelineRef: the cat toys of note in the house this week seem to be an old boot-lace, and a Sharpie marker (capped, yes). Pandora has been killing the pen up and around the living room, while Boomer prefers to take down the deadly boot-lace in the foyer.

I begin to think that mizkit is right, and I have a mild but annoying case of OAC (OverAchievers Complex). Because today I:

went to the gym
finished entering the proof changes for HARD MAGIC and sent them back
cleaned the apartment
finally got the first batch of website updates to Fredlet
made a damnfine lunch from scratch
came up with material for the New Sekrit Projects and sent them off
proofread the short story that was due this week and sent it off
dealt with some agent-ish and freelancing e-mails that may lead to $$
updated financials

all before 5pm, and I have this feeling I completely frittered the day away.

*frowns*

I know that self-employed folk have to be self-directed, and I've had any number of days where I slacked off like a cat, but damn it, brain, could you let up on me when I've actually been productive? Because I'd like to kick back and maybe read a book tonight, not fret over the stuff that I haven't gotten done yet!

But no, instead I will sit down tonight and go through all the paperwork I haven't dealt with, and make it Dealt With, and maybe even start work on the Ur-bar story....

In the twenty-first century, it’s not uncommon to have several Thanksgivings and Christmasses. You’ve got your mom’s family, your dad’s family, your stepfamily, your work family, your own family, and seven other families I forgot (but you best not have). I’m luckier than most in that I only had one Thanksgiving and two Christmasses this year — one in SC and one in PA. But then…I quit my job and moved right before Thanksgiving so I’ve been able to actually TAKE PART in all the festivities, and see friends along my amazing road trip that I normally wouldn’t have been able to see. As a result, I’ve come away with so many pictures I don’t even know where to start.

So I’m going to start here.

Sometimes Seven had their Christmas last night. The Gypsy got me these awesome shoelaces that look even MORE awesome in my Doc Martens…the shoes I should have been wearing yesterday morning when I slipped and fell on the ice. This will encourage me to wear decent shoes when I leave the house and limit my sneaker wearing to the house only…until Spring, anyway.

So…how many holidays do YOU celebrate?

Originally published at AletheaKontis.com. You can comment here or there.

in lieu of a brainful post, I give you.... Disco Chicken!!!