Ch-ch-ch-changes!

Hello everyone! I hope your weeks have been more fantastic than the thought of a thousand free-range lemmings synchronized diving to Queen's Don't Stop Me Now!

Sadly, that could accurately describe my life right now, which is why this post is so late. My bad. But maybe you'll cut me a little slack. You see in the past two weeks I have accepted a position at a graduate school in Arizona, sold my truck, bought a car, quit my job, had to find a new place to live, begun the packing process and basically am about three seconds away from going utterly and completely insane.

The picture to the right is what my apartment currently looks like.

Yes indeed, that mass of boxes and a nearly buried bookcase basically sums up my earthly possessions. At this point I am truly sad that there is no incredible transporter room like on the Enterprise that can beam my belongings directly to Arizona. Nerd sigh.

I promise that when I move and get settled in, I will begin posting again with more regularity. I also swear I will get back to posting on Case (Un)Managed, but with life currently in it's unmanageable state, I'm afraid I have had to temporarily let that one sit for a second as well.

So the next time I post, if everything goes according to plan, I will be posting from Arizona. Of course for that to happen I need to get everything I own into the back of a truck and then somehow convince my two agoraphobic cats that spending a couple days cooped up in a vehicle listening to me belt 80's music isn't so bad.

Wish me luck.

In other news, Free the Shorts! has had a successful run so far! As I write this post it is sitting at #1 on Amazon Kindle's Humor and Entertainment Essays list! Here are what the reader reviews are saying thus far:

"...it's worth a Five-Star rating, hands down."

"It's hard to be grumpy or continue to have a bad day if you read anything Allison writes- she is an absolute laugh riot"

"Hahahahaha. So good I went right out and bought the next book."

"Hilarious! I loved the HULK SMASH chapter and the part about the raccoon. Allison Hawn is very funny." 

Thank you to everyone who has read a copy so far! If you haven't yet, go grab your free copy and give it a read! If you enjoy it, post a review! 

As always I can be found on Facebook and Twitter and my books can be found here!

The Short List

Hello all! I hope everyone is having a more fantastic Sunday than the thought of a thousand lemmings synchronized swimming to "Bittersweet Symphony."

Well, to start out "Life is a Circus Run by a Platypus" has been getting some pretty sweet reviews!

Amazon user Annie_Larlee writes, "Allison is able to write so descriptively that you feel like you are right there beside her as she experiences each story! This is a must-read if you want to have a good laugh and see a snap shot of the life Allison lives!!! I would recommend it to all of my friends, family and acquaintances!"

The book has also been making it all around the country!

Here it is in Georgia (thanks to B.S. Johnson for the picture):

Here it is with the contest winner Jill JP Palmquist in Washington:

And here it is in California (thanks to Marty M. for the picture):

Well, it has been a crazy (about two steps away from psychotic crazy) week for me. In one week I got a new job, moved to a new apartment and was called "darling" by no less than four different people.

If I have seemed oddly silent, it's not because I'm dead, though, with how my life tends to progress, that is a fair assumption to make. 

I am currently sitting in a coffee shop scalping internet, as my home internet will not be hooked up for a bit yet, as I very slowly drink a mocha that I am relatively sure has enough sugar in it to give a weasel an aneurysm.  Good thing I'm slightly bigger than a weasel, huh?

One of the things that moving has made abundantly clear is that I am short. This point was especially exemplified when I went to hang my shower curtain in my new bathroom, stepped up into the tub (which is about 6 inches off the ground) and my friend Sarah said, "Wow, even with you standing in a tub I'm still taller than you."

I was about to protest, until I looked over and realized I was making eye contact with her for the first time ever without having to crane my neck upwards, and yes, she was still a good inch or two taller than me.

Being 5'3" (on a good day and sometimes only if I stand on my tippy-toes) means that a lot of my conversations feel like this:

O.k., so I'm short, which has its admitted downsides (no pun intended). I can't reach the top cabinets without imitating a spider monkey, I would need a pogo stick to ever compete in a hurdle race and it is much easier for people to condescendingly pat me on the head than most.

Despite these issues, I think that being short has some clear advantages. So if you are short, like me, I encourage you to bring up these points next time someone mocks your vertically challenged state.

1. Short people tend to have mad hide and seek skills. Remember that box that you never thought anyone would ever curl up in?

Yeah, we've been in that box for 45 minutes and are perfectly comfortable.

2. We are built lower to the ground, meaning that when we fall it's a shorter distance to the ground. It's also a lot less effort to get back up again.

3. We tend not to have this problem:

4. These guys are short, and they are awesome!

5. Our lives spent as short people have improved our ability to climb things.

6. We have a lower center of gravity and are built low to the ground for speed an accuracy.

See, being short isn't terrible. So we occasionally need help reaching things out of our own kitchen cabinets and spend a lot of time examining peoples' nostrils, but at least we're harder to find, thwart or push over!

Well, I had best go before the coffee shop people begin to suspect me of plotting a caffeine fueled revolt. Remember you can always follow my exploits on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads!