^{Illustration by Paul Hoppe}

I feel that this story, originally published about this time last year, is more than appropriate for this week’s “From Our Archives” given that a) it’s officially November and a cold, wet, dark winter is upon us and b) a man jumped from the Aurora Bridge this morning. “The Long Winter” is all about winter. And depression and suicide. And cookies.

Two short excerpts:

Suicide was the eighth cause of death in Washington State in 2005 according to the Department of Health’s website. That doesn’t sound impressive until you realize that means over 800 people killed themselves in 2005, which amounts to roughly 2.2 people killing themselves in this state every day. The Aurora Bridge, a bridge I drive across almost every day to avoid the traffic on Denny, is the second most popular suicide bridge in the nation. I probably don’t have to tell you how Kurt Cobain died. No one in the Pacific Northwest should ever be shocked that they’re depressed; they should be thankful they’re surviving it.

By the time I got home, I’d decided I was going to make every single cookie in that fucking magazine. I was going to wrap Chocolate Malt Sandwiches in cellophane bags and tie them off with candy-cane-striped string just like on page 15. Then I was going to ship carefully organized tins of crunchy Pecan Logs and Lime Meltaways to my friends in Oregon and California as shown on page 11. This was going to be the best holiday season ever. I wasn’t going to spend one more minute thinking about how un-fucking-happy I was. I was gonna make cookies.

Click here to read the whole piece (and get one of Martha Stewart’s recipes for some really delicious cookies, should you need a pick-me-up).