On my way to a week in the northeast corner of Florida tonight, land of sailboats, daiquiris, grilled prawns, and mosquitoes. Taking a big old stack of books with titles like Documents on the French Revolution of 1848 and Strikebreaking and Intimidation: Mercenaries and Masculinity in 20th-Century America and Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. They’ve been piling up for four or five years, research for the Planetary Romance, and I figure if I buckle down and treat this like an academic project I can (1) get rid of the books and (2) eliminate my last actual excuse not to write it.

Then I can go ahead and not write it, but with a clear conscience.

I’m going to try to stay off the interweb as much as possible while I’m there, but those of you who know me know I’ve never been Mr. Self Control, so I’m sure I’ll line on and update my web-station here at some point.

I had a big rant planned about why I think conteporary short SF sucks and why listening to me would be a dumb thing for magazine editors and publishers to do, but, y’know, screw it, I’m lazy. I’m just going to kick back and wait for Eggers and Chabon to save the genre in their spare time.

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Update (5 July): Apparently shrimp are deep-fried here, not grilled. I stand corrected.

Also, note to self: Insisting on starting your piña colada with an actual coconut and an actual pineapple is pretentious and will just lead to trouble.