I would feel bad if I didn't take this opportunity to sincerely thank everyone who reads, comments on, and votes for my entries. Your support means a great deal to me, and I'm sorry that I rarely have enough time to respond fully in kind. I do try to read everything every week, and I'm totally voting for things even if there's no corresponding comment! I am invisible stealth supporting, which I realize is not nearly as meaningful as overt supporting.
A big thanks to Gary for running this whole thing, and another thanks for the break week. It was beautifully timed. The previous few weeks have been difficult for me due to some personal stuff, and while trying to write funny things during that time was hard, trying to write pretty much anything this week would have been nigh impossible as I suffered from the Killer Death Plague. I've been hovering on the threshold of death since about Tuesday . Well, that's an exaggeration - I've been far too sick to actually hover, and have mostly been keeled over trying desperately to sleep for more than an hour at a time. I finally improved today, and hope by tomorrow to be at least almost alive.
I was too sick to attend either segment of Thanksgiving - afternoon turkey with my favorite person, or the evening homemade pizza gathering with more extended family. I'm very sad to have missed both of those. For the pizza gathering, it's usually a mix of exotic shapes and/or exotic toppings, depending on the crafter. I am all about the exotic shapes, and I had this crazy plan for making tiny rectangular pizza segments and then hastily assembling them into a sort of pizza gingerbread house before being brought to the table. Maybe next year.
Anyway, thanks again for being such an awesome community, and I hope to be back shortly with the usual variety of dark, whimsical madness that you so kindly encourage me to produce.
Well, this is it. Shortly we will be having a blizzard with below-zero wind chill, followed by wind chill that will feel like -20F. Yes, it's going to feel as cold as the surface of Mars. Delightful.
I commemorated my impending doom by finally assembling that shelf I've had kicking around for a couple of months. When they find my frozen corpse it will be in a room that's SLIGHTLY BETTER ORGANIZED, damn it. I always figured I'd be killed by Cthulhu, and am mildly disappointed that Ithaqua is going to get me first.
Ordinarily this sort of thing would leave me concerned but not alarmed, but things have sucked lately*, so it feels slightly more likely that we'll lose power and fall victim to Ithaqua's horde of twisted cannibals, and so I'm worried about my plants...I mean, I'm not worried that cannibals will eat my plants, but that they'll be killed by the cold if we lose power for an extended period of time. I've had some of them for a looooong time. I'm pretty sure I've had Zeb for over 15 years (Zeb is a stapeliad that I brought home from Colorado in my carry on luggage. I don't ordinarly name my plants, but I bought it from a shop near the base of Pike's Peak, and thought I'd name it after Zebulon Pike.). I think my brain cactus is even older. Plus a bunch of other plants that I just think are cool, but don't have as much personal signifigance. I mean, I remember how sad I was when a bunch of my plants got eaten by some mysterious critters - it will be much worse if I lose my favorites.
* not limited to but including the demise of my computer (farewell, ancient copy of Photoshop. You are irreplaceable, and I'm not signing up for the monthly fee version), the demise of my graphics tablet (I mean, sure, it was almost 20 years old, but it still sucks that it died), the abandonment of almost every single Christmas tradition that I cared about (which contributed to the Most Disappointing Christmas Ever), and...just...pretty much everything lately.
I wrote a choose-your-adventure type branching story this week, but I realize that might not be everyone's cup of tea. Which is to say, someone may hate them with a fiery passion.
As an alternative, I have placed here my personal favorite path, which you may read without having to worry about making decisions. Enjoy!
Hello, readers! This week, I have descended utterly into madness, and crafted a branching choose-your-adventure type thing (if you don't like/don't have time for that, please skip to the bottom of this post where I present an alternative, less time-consuming way to enjoy my entry for this week). In order for this not to clutter up my journal with posts than make no sense on their own, I have constructed this story in another journal. The beginning can be found here:
Feel free to comment here or anywhere in the story.
Each ending should have a link back to the beginning in case you wish to try another path. Most branches only go three or four steps deep, and there are about fifteen possible endings if my weary brain has done the math right.
Enjoy!
Also - please by sure to check out (and vote for, hopefully) my intersection partner furzicle's entry here:
On further reflection, I realized that a choose-your-adventure branching story might not be everyone's cup of tea. Which is to say, someone may hate them with a fiery passion.
As an alternative, I have assembled my personal favorite path, which you may read without having to worry about making decisions. If you would prefer that, you can find it here:
