That’s right! Scientists have analyzed data and determined that it’s extra cold.
Now I feel even less bad for never leaving my beanbag nest with fireplace view.
I gave up working-out and have adopted a restorative yoga practice. This particular pose is called Corpse.
Note the Winter coat. My character froze to death on the prairie.
ANYWAY. I can act like this now because I’m an eccentric writer with A LITERARY AGENT.
28 pages down, 12 to go…
I started getting acupuncture this week
because my qi [chee] is obviously messed up. And, everyone knows, it is impossible to write a book with messed-up qi [chee].
A BOOK?!
I’m writing A BOOK!! Remember??
It’s one of the four things I talk about, so it should be easy to remember.
But, what are the other three?
1) Bacon
2) Rat-kings
And 3) My new nephew
Here’s a card that explains everything:
Right??
Two important things happened this week:
1) It was so cold that I never left the house.
IT FELT LIKE -49°.
OKAY, cover your ears: THAT’S BULLSHIT.
All I could possibly do is sit in front of the fire with my companion, Tib The Cat.
Oh, yeah, and here’s number
2) I GOT A LITERARY AGENT.
You heard me.
The Steinberg Agency — they rep people like Tim Gunn and Cris Carter. NO BIG DEAL.
They want a 40-page picture book for adults…
*I* like pictures.
I can make that book.
Here’s a teaser/the cover OF MY BOOK.
I heard a story about a Minnesota fur trader.
Tromping through the snow in seasonably cold weather, sans Northface winter gear and, more importantly, SANS Smartwool socks — he found his feet to be frozen solid. Frozen like a forgotten chuck roast buried under the pile of pizzas and popsicles.
What did he do?
Simply dragged his body through the snow until warmish accommodations were reached, asked the hardy men in the room for an awl, punctured his feet, and had those same hardy men pour brandy over his numb tootsies.
There. Feet saved.
I didn’t write a card about that. (I’m sure I will.) Here’s something more lighthearted:
2013 was a doozy!
I daydreamed with such intensity!
Such intent!
Such fervor!
And I can’t speak for Jen (just kidding, I will. Right now.) but I’m pretty sure she has been on pins and needles JUST WAITING for cards from me in her inbox. (Between the printing, billing, and shipping.)
I also can’t speak for The First Intern, and now The Virtual Intern, but I will say that their lol’s have fueled my asbestos-covered furnace.
So, as I sit here, wearing layers of long underwear, under an Indian blanket (soaked in smallpox), staring out the window… I am beyond grateful for the ladies that make Zeichen Press more than just a daydream.
And now I’m all choked up!
But enough of that!
Christmas is SO two days ago and that leaves me wondering what to do with the rest of winter.
Should I:
A) Take up a winter sport, like: crying? Or swearing? Or punching the air?
B) Write/design cards about this wonder-filled season.
I choose both!
Farewell my Wintertime Prison… Springtime is the amnesty hors d’oeuvre and reminds all (in these Northern climates) of the duality of nature.
See the flattened squirrel on the bike path? (Why is it SO flat on a bike path? WHY??)
And see the lilacs in full bloom? (DO YOU??!! Face-meltingly beautiful…)
Hmm, people also think about baseball in the Spring? Right? How about a congratulations card for the bros?
(((flashback)))
My husband was on a business trip, and that meant it was time for one or more of the kids to get the stomach flu. Because we love tradition, the youngest barfed in her own bath water. While I was cleaning that up, and not to be outdone, the middle one inhaled and regurgitated his macaroni & cheese right back on the plate.
The older one slunk away.
While I was cleaning that up, and unbeknownst to me, the cat coughed up a slimy hair-ball. I stepped on it (barefoot).
While I stood on one foot, crying, the dog came over and licked it up.
The End
By age nine, I would delicately,
with my right hand, fold down the sharp fins of a Sunfish.
Why?
So I could use my left hand to insert the rusty pliars into the gasping mouth of my catch to retrieve the swallowed hook.
If I was lucky.
If I wasn’t lucky, I’d stare at my motionless bobber for hours.
*Some backstory: My older brother (third of eight) allowed me to fish with him if I did whatever he said, and didn’t cry. He was SERIOUS about fishing. I had glasses and greasy blonde hair.
**Some backstory about the backstory: My brother was born in September, and I was already a sprouted seed in our Mom’s belly by the next Summer.
I think I’ve used the bobber-watching metaphor before, but it is APT. Everyday, I wait for my agent to tell me to get the rusty pliars.
Why doesn’t he ever tell me to get the rusty pliars??
He just tells me to “hang in there.”
Oh, back to my Mom… She has 22 grandkids. This is her with the latest:
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!
I’ve heard that we are only prescribed challenges tailored to fit our deficiencies. I don’t really have any deficiencies so I’ve just been row-row-rowing my boat, gently down the stream.
But poor Jen spent the week hunting for bedbugs (that’s what she gets for going to Turkey) that turned out to be fleas. 
It took six flea-bombs and one hijab to properly fumigate.
Doesn’t Henry look ashamed?
Doesn’t Jen’s forehead look youthful?? I photoshop-botoxed it! AND saved her $200.
She’ll thank me later.
While she was busy meeting her prescribed challenge (I pray that she learned her lesson), *I* was busy nobly accepting rejections for The Book.
Eight rejections so far… twelve still unresponsive. But don’t worry about me, I LOVE waiting, and see rejection as an opportunity to grow as a person.
SPEAKING OF MOTHER’S DAY, here’s a new card:
Is that a true story??
They wouldn’t print it if it wasn’t true.
Sally Struthers says that for about four dollars, you can buy a Starbucks Caffé Latte Venti… In the Zeichen Press Shop, for just four dollars a day, you can bring laughter to someone who may or may not have been laughing.
The choice is yours.
NOW, visit the shop to see our new release for Spring! You can buy the rage-filled kitten, the generous old woman,
my kind of tea party,
Jen made me pull six cards from our line.
APPARENTLY, “they don’t sell” and don’t “make any money”.
But since when can you put a price tag on greeting cards??
Here are the cards, you can buy them from the shop until they are gone forever.
FOREVER.
This card was also on the list, but I refused to pull it because I’m not afraid of her.
I turned 42 (wtf?) yesterday, received 18 drinking glasses, a scallop taco from Sea Salt, and this:
BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, I sent 20 little book samples to my agent…
So now he can go pitch them to 20 publishers.
I imagine his conversations go something like this:
Peter: Here’s a new little adult picture book by Fran Shea, owner of Zeichen Press in Minneapolis, maker of cards for people that like laughing.
Publisher Person: Let me put my eyeballs back in my sockets and write you a check for $1,000,000.
Peter: Very good.
END SCENE.
Oh, I also made a new Easter card. Don’t send me hate email like you did for my zombie Easter card. Jesus loves me, this I know for the bible tells me so.
Jen’s back!
Thank God.
She said she “missed ZP soooo much!”
ZP missed her too! To show her just how much, this rabbit (mascot) sacrificed and froze himself to the ground right in front of the gate she walks through to enter the ZP Headquarters.
ALSO, I wrote/designed a new cover for my book… Kara is busily drawing pictures while I bark directions at her. I’m sure she’s already made a voodoo doll of me.
I don’t blame her a bit.
No, no… don’t worry about me — I’m fine! I actually enjoy imagining exotic travel. Who needs all of that packing and jet-lag… and those language barriers?… No thanks!
Jen is (still) in Turkey
(is she ever coming home??) and I am here.
See how I put my feet in the picture so that you can tell that I’m REALLY here?
My daydreams are broken only by Tib the Cat.
And the other inmates’ bickering.
But shouldn’t I embrace this opportunity during Lent for self-denial?
FINE.
Jen is in Istanbul (was Constantinople, now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople)
and I discuss cannibalism after a family dinner. “Apparently,” says Number One Son, “human meat tastes just like bison.”
And so on.
If this Winter ever ends (will it?? Did I just imagine warmer days??), students will graduate and I made a card for such an occasion: