It’s been almost five awesome years, but the time has come to end TNS. The site will still be here for all your recipe reference needs, but there will be no new posts. Please, pop over to King of States! and say hello, and thanks for everything.

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If you’re an avid TNS reader, you might have noticed my complete lack of being here. Truth be told, I’m no longer sure I want or need to keep TNS alive.

I realize that I may still be in the honeymoon period of having a job that engages my creativity and that I love, so for now, I’m just gonna say that TNS is on hiatus through the end of 2012.  I miss all you crazy kids, but my heart doesn’t seem to be in TNS right now. It’s not you, it’s me. Unlike every other time you’ve ever heard that, it is NOT A LIE.

I’m posting pretty frequently over at my new site, King of States! – short posts about whatever. If you need a fix, please, come join me there for now.

Hugs and kisses, you awesome nutjobs.

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I know that for the past month or two I’ve posted sporadically, or posted things that really made no sense to anyone but me, so thanks for hanging around. It’s time to come clean, and that’s a story that can only be told, as is the case with so many stories, through dance.

First, some underlying premises:

1. I spent a really long time being really unhappy at my job.
2. When I was 9, I wanted to be a choreographer when I grew up.

When I have the time and remember when it’s on, I watch So You Think You Can Dance. It’s relatively free of manufactured drama, and all the contestants are good at what they do and supportive of one another.

Typically, I get a little weepy when I watch it, and have to pretend I have something stuck in my eye so that no one (read: the dogs) will notice. You might think that tears are a natural reaction to listening to Mary Murphy’s speaking voice or realizing that people like Cat Deeley actually do exist in nature, but that’s not why I cried.

No, I cried because it hurt to watch these excited people getting a chance to do the exact thing they love, knowing that the next day I would have to drag myself back to a pretty thankless job that provided little satisfaction. A job I stayed at for EIGHT YEARS.

Tonight, I watched So You Think You Can Dance and didn’t cry. Okay, fine, I cried once because one of the routines was incredibly lovely, but that doesn’t count. Why didn’t I cry? Because I am now an excited person getting paid to do the exact thing that I love.

Remember when this happened, and then this? I am thrilled to report that in the battle of Remarkably Better vs. Stunningly Fantastic, Stunningly Fantastic has won the day: I can now proudly say that I’m a Story Wrangler at WordPress. Here’s a bit of what this means:

• I get to write. A lot. All kinds of stuff. And I get to be myself when I do it.
• I get to work with a bunch of talented, funny, scary-smart people.
• I get to work from wherever I’d like, during the hours I choose.
• I get to help other bloggers reach their blogging goals.
• I get to be part of a highly collaborative, totally non-bureaucratic work environment.
• I get to travel around the world.
• I get to wake up every morning excited about what I’m going to be a part of that day. Every. Single. Morning.
• I get to have a real influence on the blogosphere, and the internet in general.
• I get a super fun job title.
• I get paid for all of the above.
• Did I mention the writing? And the awesome people? And that I work for WordPress?

Basically, my job is to help you blog: to provide tools and tips, to inspire, and to shine a light on your great work. Which means I can potentially help someone else find fulfillment or meet a life goal through their blog the way I have with mine, which: bingo! And my yoga pants and Birkenstocks are now totally work-appropriate. In fact, the yoga pants covered in the lesser quantity of dog hair are now my fancy-dress yoga pants.

I’m going to ease back into being here over the next week or two. And while I will still deploy salty language, I have a feeling I’ll be noticeably less angry. (Well, except about conservative Republicans, because there’s really nothing to be done for that.) I’ll also be posting random snippets and photos over at my new site, King of States!.

By the way: all that stuff I said in those other posts about being grateful to you all for helping get me to this place? Still totally true. I might actually let each of you get to home base.

PS: We’re hiring!

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I’ve been at a beach resort in San Diego since the 8th, hanging out with awesome people, eating good food and drinking good beer, karaokeing, going to the spa… you know, working. In particular, I spent a lot of time working from my 10th floor balcony, where I was forced to look up and see this every few minutes:

As a blogger might say: “Work is HARD, y’all!”

I’m going to drag myself back into the blogging saddle this week. I miss you guys! Well, that, and I really have to stop ordering take-out yellow curry from the Thai place down the street every night. But I can’t wait to tell you what I’m up to these days, even though I feel a little bad knowing that it will probably make you hate your own life. Them’s the breaks!

(By the way, I work here now. So, y’know: awesomesauce.)

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This link will take you to a live camera trained 24/7 on an enclosure containing six Golden Retriever puppies who are being trained as service dogs. As far as I’m concerned, it justifies the entire existence of the internet and I would like to personally send Al Gore a crisp new dollar bill. Any time you wish you were reading TNS, go and look at the puppies.

Or you could just come back and browse the archives. Some of that shit’s almost five years old, and you know you don’t remember it. The really old stuff is pretty awful, so proceed at your own peril.

For those of you who are concerned:

• No, I am not experiencing a bout of crazy.
• Yes, I still am gainfully employed.
• No, I am not suffering amnesia after falling off a boat, nor am I now trying to figure out when I married Kurt Russell and bore four children.
• Yes, I am still happily married.
• No, no one is sick, dead, or injured. Other than having Olympic fever, obviously.
• Yes, I am aware that I’m being a cryptic asshole. I can refer you to this post, which might flesh things out not at all.

If I know you personally or virtually, feel free to contact me in an attempt to pry out details. Everyone else, I apologize, but you’re just going to have to look at the puppies.

But don’t worry. As one of the great thespians of our age once said: I’ll be back.

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So I am some kind of loft-dwelling hipster-type person now, which means that I have open shelving in my kitchen. As we all know, cabinets are for squares who do not ride single-speed bicycles or have unorthodox facial hair.

(That would be Brian, not me; although actually, his facial hair is pretty Orthodox with a capital “O.”)

Anyway, having open shelving is a great reason to buy new and more attractive kitchenware, like these slightly fluted, stripey serving bowls; not only would they look nice on my shelves, but I don’t have to become an egg donor to afford them.

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I kid because I love! And even though this photo is exactly what it looks like, I will still miss all of you. You made coming in to work fun. And also kinda gross and occasionally sticky. But mostly fun.

Thus, I’m taking advantage of my position as a blogger read by more than seven people to make public all the things I will miss about you. (Folks here to read about food: indulge me, please.)

In no particular order:

Clayton, I regret that I will not be here for the day your budding mustache crosses the line between “hipster chic” and “Olde-Timey Villain About to Tie A Damsel to the Train Tracks.”

Kiesrten, I’m sorry I won’t be there to untie you from the tracks in time.

Mark, I’m sad that I will now play only a peripheral role in your plans for world domination, and hope that you remember me down the line and give me a plum position in your regime. I think I’d make an excellent Grand Vizier.

Cara, I’ll miss waiting every day with bated breath to hear what the hell will come out of your mouth next.

Joyce, I’m not sure if there’s anything to regret, because your exclamations of joy and/or horror carry quite a distance, making it easy to stay in the loop.

Guirlaine, I rue that I will not be present the day the floral arrangements are delivered to the wrong venue and the release of decades of pent-up frustration causes a rift in the space-time continuum that selectively sucks in event consultants.

Rachel, I now have no one to make me feel better about not being the only one to eat ice cream for lunch.

Luke, I will miss your puns and japes – they always raised my spirits, because at least I knew I was funnier than someone.

Mike, I’m sorry to be taking home the secret stash of Valium in my desk drawer. Try deep breathing, or consider a crack addiction.

Scottie, my life will now be almost entirely devoid of procedures, most likely causing me to publicly embarrass myself on a regular basis.

Susan, Bruce and Sarita, we didn’t get to work together long, which makes me uncomfortable picking on you in a public forum. You are all lovely people with very nice hair and winning smiles. If I have the chance to get to know you better, I will edit this post to include inappropriately personal foibles I’ve observed at that time.

Nick, it’s unfortunate that I won’t be able to watch your transformation into My Cousin Vinny.

Lynn, I will miss the delicious chocolates you bring back from Switzerland, and the many diverting stories about cat vomit that made the walk to the subway seem like only a step or two.

Annie, I will not miss the way being around you is fun, yet also makes me feel impossibly old. Grow up already.

Mihai, I don’t know if I’ll miss you, because I’m fairly sure you’re a Cold War-era robot from Eastern Europe deployed here to confound the enemy and then forgotten by time. I can only pray that you never develop human emotions.

Finally, Judy: I want to be you when I grow up.

Adieu.

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Here’s the thing: I made some green chile posole from the The Homesick Texan Cookbook, and it was fantastic. In addition, TNS was featured on the Saveur site today, and now the unwashed throngs are clamoring for my “searing honesty,” “punchy sarcasm,” and “delightfully dark humor.” I mean, I assume there’s clamoring going on; I’m not really paying attention.

Problem: I am tired. Bone tired. It is 1:30AM, and I have been going non-stop since this morning. I’m certainly punchy right now, but not in a good way. And so the dilemma: stay up late and vomit out some words to sate the barbarians at the gate, or get some sleep and hit reset in the morning? Such are the quandaries that plague the more well-known among us; schlubs like you should count yourselves lucky that you don’t have these kinds of high-level problems.

If you know me at all, you know there’s only one right answer in the epic battle of sleep vs. hard work. If you don’t know me I’ll give you two guesses, but I bet you’ll only need one.

I may decide to sit down and write when I get up at 4AM to take a bright green shit but I may not, so I’ve inserted some placeholder haiku. Yes, I know that’s a massive cop-out and no, I don’t really care right now.

I invite you to share your best haiku celebrating Mexican food in the comments. Bonus points if it’s written in Spanish.

Hot chile peppers,
you should come with a warning:
Don’t touch your membranes.

Chile blasphemer,
burnt then eviscerated.
No freedom for you.

Small splotch of hot pink
is from our new kitchen chairs.
I totally win!

Hominy kernels.
Lye-soaked maize, why not? That’s how
I’d treat extra corn.

The weather forecast
calls for flames from the heavens.
Soup was a bad choice.

Might as well add cheese
to counteract the chiles;
equalize the crap.

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I would recommend either Mountain Dew Live Wire or, if you still have a can in your Dew Cellar, a 2008 Voltage. Also yes, that is sausage wrapped in bacon (courtesy of Flickr member alaczek).

Here’s the thing: time for weeknight posting is likely going to be severely curtailed for the next couple of weeks, except for the Smackdown. I WANT to tell you why, but I can’t. Yet. Just know this: at the end of this period of trial and travail, life will either be Remarkably Better or Stunningly Fantastic. Either outcome is fine with me.

I know well the fertile imaginations of the TNS commentariat. To give you something to mull, here are some of the things I MIGHT try to do over the next two or three weeks:

• Take the plunge and start a family traveling band. Of course, as this is my family, we would be a heavy, melodic stoner-doom outfit; none of this Edelweiss bullshit. Our name will be “Pyrotechnic Flock Disruption” and our low-end will be so powerful it will loosen your bowels at 50 meters, so wear dark trousers to our shows.

• Fulfill a lifelong dream of living abroad and getting to spend more time with my family by moving to Italy and opening a school to teach idiomatic English to future exchange students. Intensive sessions will include “Intermediate Sarcasm Deployment” and “Carlin’s Big Seven: Making Them Your Own.”

• Study my ass off to re-take the New York bar exam – I let my 2004 results expire, because I am a genius – so I can sell my soul to a big firm for long enough to sock away a pile of gold bullion, at which point I will move to a small beach house and spend my days taste-testing every variant of Celestial Seasonings tea and writing crackpot letters to local weekly newspapers.

I’ll even give you a hint, because I like you so much: it’s not actually any of these things, so get to gossiping amongst yourselves like the biddies you are; I look forward to monitoring the speculation in the comments.

A final PSA: if you’ve arrived here via Saveur, allow me to answer your questions:

1. Yes, I pretty much am that much of a jerk.
2. Yes, I do actually write about food from time to time.
3. No, I don’t think I’m all that and a bag of chips, although my response to this question might vary based on the brand and flavor of the chips in question.
4. No, I don’t think that cursing on my blog makes me a less creative writer.
5. Yes, I am silently judging you right now. So are all my readers, because that is How We Roll.

Welcome!

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Right? I mean, that bottle of wine you picked? Not only does it NOT complement the jellied chicken and tarragon terrine at all, but a 1989? I give 1989 reds to the dog, and even he doesn’t drink them. All you’re doing here is embarrassing yourself and frankly, it’s a little painful.

Instead, give your gracious host or hostess something useful in the kitchen. To wit: salt made from tears of sorrow. You could opt for salt made from tears of anger or laughter, but I find that nothing adds the tantalizing but unidentifiable complexity that really makes a dish hum like tears of sorrow.

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