The making of stuff.

Cookie Day is at my house on Friday, and I am…oh, what’s the phrase I’m looking for? Ah yes: mad with power.

It’s an entire day devoted to baked goods. An entire day. And I get minions assistance from Mom and Grandma. And so it feels, today, before I am actually neck-deep in butter and sugar, like the sky’s the limit. I am marshaling my recipes, inventorying the pantry, making one last shopping list, although nobody is fooled, if we run out of things, we will just go get more. Because Cookie Day is implacable. Cookie Day cannot be stopped by a mere insufficiency of jam. What kind of filling will the chocolate sandwich cookies have this year? What shapes will we make the fruit shortbreads? Anything might happen, people. And we’ve got to be ready for it. Dough chilled. Cutters poised. This is it, this is what we practice for with random brownies and loaves of banana bread all year. This is the big time.

Okay, so yes, I’m ridiculous. And yes, I try stunt-baking other times of the year. But other times of the year, I do it alone. I don’t have two even more experienced bakers saying things like, “We can try that if you want, honey,” or just making the Grandma eyebrow of skeptical amusement.

The secret I keep telling people, the secret they keep forgetting, is that I don’t actually like eating cookies all that much. Most baked goods receive from me a hearty and heartfelt meh. But making cookies! Making candy, making bread! I love making things. Making things is the best.

It’s a big, round number.

I just made my hundredth short story sale. Strange Horizons is buying “The Suitcase Aria.” The editors had asked for entirely reasonable edits last week–the sort of thing I would have done to begin with if I’d thought of them, fitting entirely well with my concept of the story–so I did those edits, and the way they were talking sounded like they had faith in my ability to execute these edits and were already telling me when they wanted to schedule the story. But I am a little paranoid about rewrite requests not counting as actual sales until they are actual sales, so…I said nothing definite to anyone. But then there was a lovely e-mail, so hurrah, sale, #100 sale, hurrah.

A big, round number. Really. Even I cannot argue that it is not.

So I know that I have said that I would have a party for #100, but now that we are there, the thought of putting together an actual party makes me feel fairly certain that I would end up sitting on the floor weeping in exhaustion, or else staring blankly at my friends thinking, “Why are you here? Why don’t you go home?” Which is not a good kind of party to have. On the other hand, a hundred stories! That is several! It wants observing! So here is what we will do.

On Thursday (this Thursday! November 21!) at 7:30 p.m., I will go to Cow Bella and eat gelato. And if you want to come to Cow Bella and eat gelato with me, hurrah! Please do! Cow Bella, as their website will tell you, is at 1700 Grand Ave. in St. Paul–it’s basically right on top of the Macalester campus. There is sorbetto for those who cannot have dairy. I believe there are also hot beverages such as coffee for people who for some reason do not want dessert, cold things, etc. This is a public place, so I could not possibly stop anyone who wanted to be there anyway, but if you’re wondering if I mean you: do you wish me well? Are you interested in being congenial to me and my household and random other persons in attendance? Then come! You are welcome to join us.

My theory is that even if zero of you are able to make it, hey, gelato; gelato is nothing to sneeze at, as far as celebrations go. And then if there are random friends with me, good deal! Hurrah! Gelato and friends!

I don’t know. I’ve always been aware that I write kind of a lot, but one hundred published short stories is a milestone I would not necessarily have predicted I’d hit at all, much less by now, if you’d asked me when I started. But now that we’re here, it feels entirely natural. Because this is what I do.

I like what I do.

Originally published at Novel Gazing Redux