After coughing the web of mucus from my throat, it was time to choose paper and envelope colors for the Spring Release.
Dinah told me later that she was plotting my murder while I took this photo.
Oh, Dinah! What will make you snap?!
Wait, tell us more about the web of mucus!
No! No more. Onto more important things.
Like frogs im Deutschland.
Who needs pants when you have legs like that? Amiright??
Miss Sherman was our 5th grade music teacher and aside from corporeal punishment and unruly hair, she was perfect. Every week, students were encouraged to bring in their favorite record album. And because lessons are best learned through repeated humiliation (read about First Picture Day at my new school), I brought in my favorite album.
…I wonder what the other kids brought! This is SO much fun!
…Wait…
Michael Jackson, Off The Wall…
The Cars, Panorama??…
Oh, Kermit! Nobody understands us/Miss Sherman forgot to call on me/oh look, this record barely sticks out between my stack of books/these darn Fall allergies make my eyes water!
I wouldn’t tell my mom about this while I stood by the piano as she played folk songs and I sang my little heart out. I WOULDN’T.
What I’m trying to say is that Jen and I picked cards for our Spring Release.
Here’s a teaser:
One of our many cats had chronic diarrhea. We kept her around because she produced litter after litter of adorable white kittens.
And because coming home was always a surprise – where would we find her poop today?? In the mitten-bin… in the laundry basket… under my daughter’s pillow??
Life is so full of surprises!
Like, when the vet called to say she died after he removed her ovaries. SURPRISE! Oh, but now she doesn’t send us on poop-hunts, because she’s buried in a shallow grave in the backyard.
First life zigs, and then it zags!
Nothing could come between a girl and her Etch A Sketch in 1981.
NOTHING.
Just look at that tight-lipped concentration… LOOK AT IT.
Maybe I was creating a message for my mom? Or a beautiful design? Or a note to my brother begging him to stop slowly poisoning my parakeet and calling me Oot Head.
WHO KNOWS?
My Etch A Sketch has been replaced with 10,000 pounds of letterpress equipment, a laptop, and Jen. (Sorry, Jen.)
Here’s a new Valentine’s Day card… Lead type and an antique cut can barely compare to the magic of my childhood.
When I was 18 years old, a friend and I drove her crappy car to the Superior National Forest for an event. I didn’t have my driver’s license so I only drove half way. The event was called The Rainbow Gathering and was full of fascinating (high and naked) people. 
Highlights of the trip: Sitting in a tent all night with a group of strangers and not getting raped. And I think some other things happened but I’m not sure if they were real.
Aren’t subcultures fascinating??
Brandon Mise studied Letterpress Printers Around The World and made a book: Adventures In Letterpress:
AND he put a Zeichen Press project in it! It was that 4-color halftone/impossible feat of letterpress printing that we made for the Tanek Christmas card one year:
Remember that? Little Nat and Ken sitting on scary Santa’s lap?? Did that event really happen?? Shhhhhhh, don’t speak or everyone will know how simple-minded you are.
It’s true!
Our site was down for most of the week and the pirates wouldn’t restore it until serious demands were met. Jen had to “marry” the pirates and I had to write more birthday cards for our Spring Release.
I’ve had 120 fires, watched everything (worth watching) on Netflix, eaten BONE-BROTH soup (like a caveman), changed my Smartwool socks 4 times…
Oh, and WROTE A BOOK.
Here’s the new cover with working title. (Isn’t that what people say??)
But I always try to find the deeper meaning behind hardship, and 45 sub-zero days equals hardship. AM I RIGHT??
Maybe I’m supposed to let the Winter inspire more cards?
Sheila and Franz Ferdinand begged me to write a Zeichen Press card about their love because they’ve been together for over five years. I thought for sure she would have left him when his hair-plugs were rejected by his fussy scalp, but the toupée looked so lifelike!
You still have time to order a card for Valentine’s Day! Or two, if you are having an affair.
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!
Broken femur?
SERIOUSLY???
and new designs for 
