After a wonderful holiday with my folks and brother in a somewhat frigid Florida, I am waiting for my flight back to NYC with fingers crossed. Seeking comfort for my vigil, I’ve taken up residence in Delta’s Sky Priority lounge. Lot’s of munchies and an open bar. And people complain about waiting at airports 🙂

Happy Holidays to one and all and here’s to 2011 being the best year yet!

Chris

So I got the bright idea the other day to combine two of my favorite snacks into one. I’d already made a hot chocolate, and not just any hot chocolate either, but hot chocolate with peppermint for that extra holiday flare. But as I started to sip I realized I needed something to nibble on, and as I’m single I had to settle for a bowl of cereal. I poured myself a bowl of Shreddies (a Canadian breakfast cereal of little squares of woven whole wheat goodness) and then thinking one plus one equals a glorious hot snack on a cold, blustery day I poured my mug of peppermint hot chocolate into the bowl and voila, created glop. I somehow managed to turn two independently wonderful things into one unpalatable mess.

The upside to all this? I almost, but not quite, overflowed the toilet when I flushed it.

The other upside? No oven mitts were harmed in this kitchen disaster although several paper towels and one unfortunate dish towel weren’t so lucky.

At least it does in my case. My brother, Mike, visited over the holidays and while he was here he helped me organize my apartment. My soup is now arranged by type. There’s a chicken row (noodle, with rice, with wild rice, cream of, and possibly dumpling). Then there’s the vegetable row (hearty, hearty AND healthy which makes me wonder about the just hearty one, classic, with lean meat, with noodles, and with extra vegetables which makes it vegetable vegetable soup). I have a lot of soup. Cereal has a whole other shelf. What’s really amazing is that a lot of this used to be piled on top of the fridge, but my brother found a way to fit it all in my cupboards. Spatial reasoning is apparently not my forte.

Mike’s inspired work in the kitchen propelled me to tackle the living room and in the course of some serious tidying up I discovered that I had room for another bookcase.

Another.

Bookcase.

A place.

To store.

MORE BOOKS.

I think a beam of light illuminated my head and angels started singing. I had room for another bookcase! There is a santa! So, I went shopping and found myself a very sturdy, four shelf solid wood affair which is now already half full.

Naturally, now I’m wondering if I can find room to fit one more…

It’s a cold, gray, windy, day here in NYC with the first snowflakes whipping through the air for good measure. Days like this spike my imagination. I love going out for a walk in this weather and then coming home full of ideas. There’s something invigorating about freezing your butt off for an hour or so then coming back inside for a hot chocolate and sitting down at the computer and typing like mad.

Harry Markov of Temple Library Reviews asked me to talk about the kind of research I undertook in writing the Iron Elves. I said, um, lots. He asked me to expand on that which I eventually did. You can read it all here:

http://templelibraryreviews.blogspot.com/2010/11/beyond-wordcount-chris-evans-on.html

Cheers,

Chris