I have to take a break.

Yeah, big surprise Amanda has to take a break, she’s writing less than ever before already and now she needs another break. Well yeah. My health’s taken another serious nose-dive. So, again, I’m going to do the smart thing and prioritise myself for a while. I need to get as better as I can.

When will I be back? Whenever this episode ends. So expect to see new stuff when you see it.

But for me right now it’s going to be dressing gowns, sleeping bags, and Ray Harryhausen movies for a while.

(Those of you on Facebook don’t expect me to be on much. I simply can’t cope with…more. Sorry.)

“What the hell did I just step in?!” A dog owners tale.

Well my holiday from writing is over, so it’s nose back to the grindstone. I went to bed last night full of enthusiasm for getting back to work. After all my webcomic goes live Friday week (January 25th). I finally have a really good laptop, capable of running all my various creative programs, on a pretty 17″ screen. I’ve, at long last, settled on my next novel to finish first drafting (that only took a full year to decide while I wrote the first ten chapters on three different ones.) I have some pretty interesting plans for my video blog, ideas which I think will make a lot of people very happy, and a lot more wish for my slow death over a hot fire. Yup, I have every possible reason for being excited about this year, this is gonna be a BIG year for me.

So it was with a serious hop in my step that I got out of bed this morning. I honestly have been looking forward to getting back to work in a way that’s hard to describe, it’s that intense. So get up, get dressed, wash teeth, dress the bed, and wander downstairs. My buoyant mood lasted right up until I walked in to my living room.

My two puppies sleep in the living room, Lulu in her cage, Winter on the couch. It’s only fair when the alternative is my bathroom, which frankly is so cold that I’m surprised when my pee doesn’t make the same sound as hail hitting a tin roof. At least in the living room there also lives my log burner, which is pretty much always toasty warm. Yeah, I’m just a big softy. Sometimes I forget to put on my slippers coming downstairs, I did this morning. So after walking in, I was almost instantly left wondering the most horrible though which most dog owners will probably have pass through their minds several times a year.

“What feels cold and wet on my foot?”

The second worst thought closely followed.

“Why is Winter hiding behind the couch?”

Then the third.

“Why does she have that guilty expression on her face?”

Well it turns out that the bigger of my furry children had been violently sick just inside the door. And on the power block for my 2 days old laptop. And on the kitchen door.

Still buoyant though. Yup. The alternative was to drown in dog vomit. So yeah…

So yeah, Happy New Year folks.

(And yes folks you read it first time right here, my long, LOOOOOOONG delayed comic goes live Friday the 25th. I can not wait.)

Okay, it’s official, I’m broken.

I slept precisely no hours last night. None, nadda, zip, zilch…not a lot. The reasons are varied, and disgusting. The end result though is that there will only be this very short post today. When this episode of infinitely worse than normal blurkness started I was able to keep ahead of myself where my writing output is concerned, but that was six weeks ago.

Well over the past two weeks I’ve been gradually falling behind because I simply can not concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time. Not to mention my creativity has decided to take a holiday. Be this a lesson to all you fellow bloggers, write ahead.

Anyway I’m going to get in to a sleeping bad, cuddle a puppy, and try to ignore how my body feels like it’s trying to fly apart at the seams. For those who get bored with their families I’ll be back with my regular Tuesday post, on Christmas Day.

Little Ruminations on having a cold – So much mucus!

This week has been a red-letter week. For the first time both my Partner in Crime, and myself have come down with coldish illnesses. She with a vicious chest infection, I on the other hand, have a sinus infection with a cough.

However what we both have are unending rivers of mucus flowing from our faces. Which leads to me ask the following question.

How in the hell does the human body create so much sticky mess?

No really, I’m asking. After three days of constant nose blowing, and cough I feel like I’ve brought up half my own body weight in slime. The worst being when I lie down to sleep. Sleep, HAH! What’s sleep?

Between my PiC being up, and down the whole night. My sore throat. And us both leaking liberally from our faces, we both only vaguely remember what sleep feels like.

So right now my regular readers are probably expecting me to come out with five, or six suggestions for how to cope with having a cold, or chest infection. Well I do have two good hints, which I share sincerely from the heart. And here it is.

1: Don’t catch one.

2: If you do, make sure you’re own PiC isn’t coughing, sneezing, snarling, splutering, and leaking at the same time.

A miserable girls thoughts on – the flu.

Yeah I have the flu. I’ve had it since Friday, it’s now 8am on Tuesday, and I still feel like hammered shit. So in the interests of spreading the misery I thought I’d share a few random thoughts which have flitted through my mind with the subtlety of a drunken elephant over the past few days. Enjoy.

10. Why is it that when you blow your nose you’re instantly drawn to look at what just came out? I mean really what do we expect to see staring back at us?

 9. Why do people think that chicken soup is good when you’re sick? I don’t ever want chicken soup. No strike that, I don’t ever want soup. When I have the flu what I want is a caring slavegirl, with a concerned expression on her face, getting me hot drinks, and finding episodes of The Big Bang Theory on telly for my amusement.

 8. No I don’t want fucking oranges either. That’s called locking the barn door, AFTER the horse has bolted.

7. When the room is spinning really quickly around your head, why doesn’t it make a “whooshing” noise? Or that “diddley-diddley-diddley” noise from scene changes in the Adam West Batman series? It kind of seems like it should.

6. Why is it that no-one wants to kiss you when blow snot-bubbles every time you breathe out? (Never mind I think I answered that for myself.)

5. How in the hell can you be so cold that not even a duvet, electric blanket, and hot water bottle can’t warm you up, but still sweat so much that the sheets try to peel off the bed with you as you get up?

4. How come while my sinuses are blocked with runny, sticky, gloopy stuff, as soon as I blow my nose my nostrils are as dry as a camel’s arsehole? So dry that they crack, and bleed a little. And is this what it’s like after you do coke? ‘Cause if so, why the hell does anyone want to?

3. It’s not funny when you blow your nose straight through the tissue, and onto your hands. It really isn’t.

2. It’s also not funny when you sneeze, and your body responds by letting just a little wee leak out. It’s even less funny when that wee is joined by a loud, foul-smelling fart. And infinitely less funny when they’re both joined by a little squirt of diarrhea. So, why does my body sometimes insist on sneezing from every orifice at once?

1. Why can’t I stay awake for more than twenty minutes at a time? Why do I keep falling asle…..plugh.

Sick again, this is the pits.

After two weeks of feeling at least a little better than usual my body has finally fallen over again, this time with a resounding crash. End result is that where I had intended to finish a post for today yesterday, I actually ended up sleeping most of the day, and did precisely no work.

So yup, that means no real post today. Enjoy your weekend folks, and catch you all on Tuesday.