You're Doing It Wrong

(Aside: for those of you following along at home, this isn’t intended to be the final blog layout but it’s as far as I got given my slow learning curve and the time I could scrape together for this project.)

Usually I have a bad attitude at the beginning of the holiday season and gradually warm up to it. This year it’s the other way around. I’m hoping after I get my last 300 tasks crossed off my list I can be more filled with cheer again.

I decided to ditch the annual newsletter this year and just do a quick wrap-up post. Next year I’ll do a holiday tweet and the following year I’ll text “MC” to everyone and forever after that just send holiday greetings telepathically.

Hiking with Mom and Dad in the Salmon Mountain area.

There’s not a whole lot to wrap-up. If you’re a regular reader there is nothing here you haven’t seen 1000 times. In January we went to bluegrass. Bluegrass is good food.

I’m trying to bring my pie making to a new level so I made lots of pies. I finally found a pie crust recipe I could master and by master I mean, I can make it consistently without crying and hurling pie plates across the room.

First game for Timbers in Major League Soccer.

My biggest development is that I fell in love with the Portland Timbers like I’ve never fallen in love in my life. (Well, except for that one thing. {If you think you know what I’m talking about you’re probably right.}) I’m wearing a Timbers jersey right now. I never take it off. I got the world’s worst fan picture taken which I couldn’t escape. I went to Vancouver BC for the day to see my team. I loved every minute of last season and can’t wait to do it again next year.

Dahlias

I celebrated 15 years with my sweetie and 20 years in the PAC NW. I drank Tab and ate Twinkies for lunch when I was a teenager and everything still turned out okay.

San Diego reunion with my beloved Clarion West 08 class.

I am still writing fiction and here’s the pimptastic part of my post.

I sold another story this year.

The story is called “Lottie versus the Moon Hopper” and it’s in an actual book that you can buy called Future Lovecraft published by Innsmouth Free Press. It’s has a cool cover and lots of great stories. You should check it out.

If you’ve got a dollar and an ereader you can download this ginormous sci fi collection called The Second Science Fiction Megapack published by Wildside Press that includes a reprint of my story “The Battle of Little Big Science.”

Finally, I’m continuing my tradition of putting up a story for the holidays. This year’s story is called Freezing. I wrote it for the Machine of Death 2 anthology but they didn’t take it. It was just sitting around in the basement so I dragged it out, dusted it off, and offer it to you here. Nothing says Happy Holidays more than a story about how people die. Enjoy.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Hope you have fun, whatever you’re doing.

xo P.

Fremont Troll photo courtesy of Alexabboud.

I told my sister I found a photo where we looked like little trolls. Those drop waists aren’t doing anything for us. You’d be sad to hear how much time I spent trying to find a troll photo and trying to make this. I screwed something up and then went back to fix it and screwed it up more and then kept trying to fix it instead of doing the sensible thing and giving up.

There you go. Enjoy.

I am going to be doing some behind the scenes tweaking on both my website and my email and if history serves as any kind of warning I’m going to get it just to the point where it exceeds my technical skills and then completely fark it up and then get frustrated and make mulled wine and go sit on the couch and watch Firefly and avoid the computer for several days.

If I disappear from here and you can’t find me on email, you should just assume I quit the Internet.

It was nice knowing you.

When I worked at the law firm there was a parking lot on the adjacent block that was developed into an office building. (Dec 2007.)

I’ve never been able to understand people who get sick all the time and say things like, “this is my fourth cold this winter.” How can you get 4 colds in one winter?

It took forever for them to pound those beams into the ground. (May 2008)

I’m the kind of person who gets sick about once a year. Sometimes I go an entire year without getting sick and every once in awhile I might get sick twice in one year. Once I get sick I know I’m done with it for awhile which is why my entire world was turned upside down when I woke up a couple of nights ago coughing my face off and discharging quarts of goop into tissues that piled in a heap by the bed.

I haven’t been back over there in awhile and walked over there last week.

Remember I just did this? I was sick for most of the month of November. Never in my life have I been sick for 3 1/2 weeks and then healthy for 2 weeks and then gone back down again. There I was, back on the couch, nostrils returned to their chapped state. I huddled under my blanket, whining and complaining, and drinking peppermint tea.

And it’s not like I’m engaging in high risk activities. I don’t run around outside in the middle of the night in my bare feet, eating Doritos and drinking beer. I don’t let small children put their fingers in my mouth. I don’t suck on the door handles of public places.

Building is finished and there are people in there. They’ve got a Starbucks which is a huge relief because it means that in a 5 block strip of that street, there are 3.

I do not understand how this happened. I’ve been going over it in my head and trying to figure out what’s different. Aging? Well, maybe. But you know what else?

I quit taking vitamins.