Since I fly to Seattle tomorrow -- because, of course, every good California girl who gets cold when someone says the words 'wind-chill factor' should absolutely fly from her nice, temperate state into an ongoing blizzard for the holidays -- I've been spending a great deal of my time and attention getting ready for this exciting holiday adventure. It's always a holiday adventure when you combine me, Vixy, Tony, access to art supplies, access to Rock Band, and a lot of free time. And that doesn't even go into our actual plans for the ten days that I'm going to be up in their neck of the woods. Highlights include...

* A trip to Powell's, the City of Books! Where I will once again demonstrate that I have absolutely no common sense when it comes to judging the number of books I actually need vs. the number of books my house can actually hold. I swear, I need a dedicated library. Which means I need to move out of earthquake country, since otherwise, there's a tragic Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction-related death in my future.

* A trip to Voodoo Doughnut, the pastry shop of doom, destruction, and a nice vanilla glaze! Seriously, I've never been to this place, but the descriptions (and photographs) on their website are scaaaaaary. They have Captain Crunch doughnuts. They have literal voodoo doll doughnuts. They do not currently have the NyQuil doughnuts, and that's probably a good thing, because I would totally feel compelled to eat one, and then I'd sleep until New Years.

* Musical rehearsal with the Garcias! Alisa and Luis Garcia are two of the sweetest, most incredibly awesome people I know. They're also crazy-good musicians with three fantastic kids and a really cute dog. Honestly, only their lack of broadband Internet keeps their lives from resembling a glimpse into Geek Heaven. Tony, Vixy, and I are going to pile into their guest house and get our musical badassitude on. (I have, once again, designed a concert set of almost entirely new material. My friends will kill me one of these days.)

* A meet-up with Team Seattle! I have no real clue what this means, beyond 'I finally get to meet Mark 'oh, what's this, I seem to have written a supernatural romance starring a zombie before you could, how did that happen, ha ha' Henry in the presumably living flesh,' but I'm anticipating a lot of wacky antics, and maybe a repeatable anecdote or two. (Given that I can find repeatable anecdotes in making toast, my odds are good.)

...and, of course, the house concert on January 3rd, wherein Vixy, Tony, and I will be bringing down the house and raising the roof at the same time. We're like magicians. Magicians of rock. There may also be a little roll in there. Rock, roll, all that good stuff. I may even be able to convince Tony that he wants to perform 'Sycamore Tree' in public.

So anyway, preparations have been ongoing for the past few weeks, gathering speed like a snowball running down a hill in a Warner Brothers cartoon. I've managed to mostly finish packing, assuming Lilly didn't slaughter my suitcase last night while I was at Kate's, and the total cleansing of my room* has helped to confirm the divide between 'what I need' vs. 'what I have.' Today's to-do list is all little things, like 'buy Luna bars,' 'pick up comics,' and 'print your tickets.' This is in contrast to last week's to-do lists, which still included items like 'where the hell is the bedroom floor?' and 'enslave the Martians.'

The inclusion of a house concert in the holiday plans meant the inclusion of dress-up clothes in my traveling wardrobe, since Vixy and I both tend to wear pretty dresses when we perform. The inclusion of dress-up clothes meant a sudden up-tick in my personal grooming. And that's why last night, prior to having tasty Indian food and watching The Usual Suspects with Kate, I went to the Harmony Beauty Salon -- our torture chamber of choice -- and had my legs waxed. Ever had your legs waxed? It's exciting new adventure in the realms of pain and exfoliation, since the wax also removes several layers of dead skin from whatever it touches. Also, the wax is green, and looks suspiciously like the mutagent from the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. Mutation could be just around the corner! Which makes me feel better about the whole process.

Pain. Because without it, how would we really know that it's the holiday season?

(*Seriously. It's totally clean. I took pictures as soon as I was finished, because otherwise, nobody would ever believe me that I had managed to get it to that state. A photo tour of my bedroom, coming soon to a theater near you.)

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through my head
Were hitchhiking ghost-girls and hungry undead,
And dinosaurs dancing and pandemic flu --
My friends hope my holiday dreams won't come true --

And Chris in his wisdom has finished the notes
Containing Bill's art and the songs that I wrote
To go with the album we're printing with care
(Red Roses and Dead Things, a spooky affair).

My tickets are purchased, my plans are all set,
I'm wracking my brain to guess what I'll forget,
And Vixy and Tony are waiting with glee
For the holiday gift that I'm giving them -- me.

Two thousand and eight is a year nearly done,
But we spent it quite well, and we had lots of fun.
I signed with an agent who knows that I'm mad,
And isn't disturbed -- no, I think that she's glad

For madness compells me to write constantly,
And I didn't sell one book this year -- I sold three!
Rosemary and Rue is the first of the lot,
And is the third book where it ends? I think not!

Next Newsflesh! Then Clady! On Velma and Corey!
Then on to InCryptid, where Price girls get gory!
At seanan_mcguire the updates are steady --
I'm keeping you posted. You'd better get ready.

The year yet to come will bring wonders galore,
And I can't start to guess at the great things in store,
So whatever you celebrate when the world's cold,
Be it secular, modern, or something quite old,

I hope that you're happy, I hope that you're warm,
I hope that you're ready to weather the storm,
And I wish you the joys that a winter provides,
All you Kings of the Summer and sweet Snow Queen brides,

And I can't wait to see what the next year will bring,
The stories we'll tell, and the songs that we'll sing.
Perhaps the pandemic will find us at last!
(If that happens, I'll see you all up in Grants Pass.)

The journey's been fun, and there's much more to see,
So grab your machete and come now with me,
And they'll hear us exclaim as we dash out of sight,
"Scary Christmas to all, and to all a good fright!"