I haven’t done a “5 Things” post in a while (small bits of stuff that don’t warrant a full blog post, but allow me to write something), but since I’ve been sporadic and feeling guilty about it, I decided to do one today.

1.  A very strange day.  Out of the blue, I got a Facebook message from an aunt on my father’s side.  I don’t recall ever speaking to her or meeting her, although it’s possible I did when I was very very young.  When my Dad died when I was 7, we pretty much lost all contact with his side of the family (and the majority of my mother’s side as well, long story).  One of his brothers, Phil, kept in occasional touch, mostly because he was executor of my grandparent’s estate, and when they died I received a small sum of money, along with all his other grandchildren.  In the space of a few hours, my aunt and I exchanged a few emails.  She’s a hospice nurse with lots of children and grandchildren.  It was nice to finally “meet” my father’s sister.

2.  One of the things I learned from my aunt was that my Uncle Phil self-published a novel this year through CreateSpace, just like I did.  He even chose the same cover template that I did, which amused me to no end.  It’s called The Leper Colony.  I guess writing is in the blood.

3.  So far, so good this football season.  I’ll take 4-3, quite happily, especially with the Cowboys at 1-5 and Romo knocked out for a while.  The Tears of Unfathomable Sadness from Cowboys fans help soothe away the agony that was last season.

4.  That said, I think the Skins will lose this week to the Lions.  Losing to the Lions is what they do in recent years.  At least the Lions are somewhat more respectable this year.

5.  I outed myself today to a co-worker as… a novelist.  The office is doing collections for a care package to Iraq, for one of our co-workers there.  I brought in a few copies of The Curse of Troius to send along, since I had a few left over from the book signing a couple weeks ago.  I don’t really talk about my life outside the office to co-workers, but now some of them know I’m a zombie fantasy writer.  Ah well.