Our dear and talented Jenn has a series of short-shorts on Strange Horizons this year based on the Chinese zodiac, starting with Monkey! Plus, she illustrated the stories, so it's double the wonderful.

I got invited to Rio Hondo again this year. The week I spent there in 2003 was indescribably awesome. I so, so, so very much want to go, but I had to say no, because I'm saving all my vacation time for a honeymoon in the fall. I suppose I could beg for unpaid time off from work, but I can't really afford it, since I'm saving for the wedding. Besides, the workshop is right in the busiest part of the production schedule at A Certain Magazine that month, so I'd be making everybody else's life really difficult. I'm especially bummed because Howard Waldrop is going to be there. I'm missing out on a week of mountain scenery, incredibly great food, and the company of Howard Waldrop, among other wonderful writers. Sigh. Maybe next year.

I'm sure I'll feel like I made the right decision when I'm on my honeymoon in Hawaii drinking tropical beverages and snorkeling and observing lava flows from a prudent distance, but it depresses me tonight.

Night Shade is having a sale on eBay to keep the wolves from the door, since their distributors are shafting them with late payment. A DVD of Léon the Professional is up there with no bids, and I know you want that. Other good stuff, too.

I think I kind of like writing obituaries. It's weird, but I think it's teaching me economy of language or something, and doing the research is often very interesting. Plus, I've gotten a couple of independent compliments on the obituaries in A Certain Magazine lately, that they're complete and well-written and whatnot. I write them, mostly, so that's nice to hear.

Still clip-clopping away on the Bridge novel, writing a couple of pages a day. I think I'll get to write a fistfight (or at least a tense altercation) tomorrow. I've been looking forward to that scene.