The week between Christmas and New Year’s is usually one of my favorites. It feels like stolen time, time off the calendar, set aside for reflection and recharge. This year… not so much. The kids are off school, I’m exhausted, tight on my deadlines and I’m not finding the time to take proper care of myself, let alone time for luxuries like New Year’s Resolutions or whatnot. I’m fighting to keep my chin up and to keep from giving in to a certain amount of self-pity.

Well… as is perhaps obvious from this post, I’m losing that last battle. For the moment, anyway.

I feel like an ass for complaining. I have a very good life and a family I adore.

I’m just tired, I guess.

All right. Enough of that.

Hey, look–shiny things!

• The Fantastic Fangirls named both Matt and I in their year-end round-up and I couldn’t be more pleased. We get a lot of support from the FFs and I’m particularly grateful for it because I’ve learned so much from them over the last year. Bright, funny women, that bunch. It looks like Laurenn, Tallulah and I are going to see Sigrid (and possibly Caroline?) at Wiscon come spring, and I’m very much looking forward to it.
• Speaking of the FF, Jennifer is pulling double-duty as a correspondent for Newsarama, where I made her list of BEST OF 2010. Sweeeet!
• The Guerilla Geek podcast “Dept H” gave OSBORN big love in their ep labelled 7.1. (And hey! Something I planted just to amuse myself got caught. Nice. Gotta love a careful reader.)
• EDITED TO ADD: Hey, Multiversity Comics gave Osborn 2 (out yesterday at your local comic book shop or available online from Midtown Comics) a solid review as well.
• With the release of the trade paperback, Chuck BB and I are feeling another wave of love for the CBGB COUNT 5 OR 6 story, here from none other than Blair Butler… which pretty much rules.
• Oh! And The Comics Journal liked our piece too. Nice.

Oh, one more thing: today’s my mom’s birthday. Happy birthday, Mama.

Okay, then. I now return you to your regularly scheduled moping.

Two Sif-related items this morning!

1) Ryan tweeted a little teaser image here; and

2) The first Sif-related interview is up.  It’s at Newsarama, right here.

Here’s an excerpt:

Nrama: I have but one simple question for you as a writer: What makes you dig Sif?

DeConnick: I think it’s the same thing explains my fondness for women-of-vengeance movies and the Japanese pinky violence films of the 1970s.  I think… I mean, I’m a five foot tall short-tempered woman of Sicilian heritage and when someone or something pisses me off—which happens, I’m somewhat ashamed to admit, on a regular basis—it’s neither socially nor ethically acceptable for me to pick up a baseball bat and crack heads.  But boy… I entertain the notion about once a day.  So there’s that fantasy element to Sif.

And then—stepping away from my own character defects for a moment—there’s the age-old mythic appeal of the Hero.

Nrama: And of course: What is it that compels us mortals to partake in the epic tales of Asgard?

DeConnick: What makes us read fiction at all?  What’s the appeal of parable or fable?  It’s the same thing that made me a nut for Greek mythology when I was a kid—these over-sized tales push our power-fantasy buttons, sure, but they also help us order our understanding of each other and our world.

I mean, we’re getting into Joseph Campbell stuff here, but this is marrow, you know?  I think imagination and myth are as hard-wired into us as our appetites for sustenance and love.