Four years of Tropism, baby. I posted the first entry on April 20, 2000. A lot of rivers have swollen and sank in that time. I moved across the country, wrote a lot of fiction, fell in love a couple of times, had some affairs, met and moved in with Heather, proposed marriage, went to some conventions, saw some rock shows, went to the beach a lot, attended some workshops, made some new friends, lost some old friends, drank a lot of beer, got maudlin, felt joyful, got depressed, started eating sushi, edited a couple of magazines, and just generally lived a lot. And I'm going to keep on living, and keep on documenting that life here. Barring, as always, the unforeseen.

Gardner Dozois is stepping down as editor of Asimov's, and Sheila Williams is taking over. We got word about it at work today, and had to rearrange the May issue of the magazine as a result, to make room for a brief "breaking news" story about it (we "finished" the issue yesterday, but since it hadn't been printed yet, there was time to make a change). So that, ah, added some excitement to the afternoon.

I'm glad I had a chance to sell Gardner a story. The magazine, under his editorship, has been a part of my science fiction reading life for as long as I can remember. First David Pringle leaves Interzone, and now this... well, it'll shake up some of the award nominations, at least!

Not a lot to report, otherwise. I'm still plugging away at the Koontz essay. It's about 3,000 words so far, and I plan to do another chunk of it tomorrow, which is my once-fortnightly day off from the day job. Otherwise, I'm reading The Fourth Circle by Zivkovic, and I bought a few books today which I'm looking forward to reading. The Briar King by Keyes, The Light Ages by Ian MacLeod, and Broken Angels by Richard Morgan. The plan for tomorrow is to rise, take Heather to the train station, return home, drink vast quantities of coffee, work on the Koontz essay for a couple of hours, then go to Au Coquelet in Berkeley, where I'll read and/or write some fiction (I am absolutely bursting with short story ideas), meet the lovely Susan Marie for lunch, and then... who knows. My afternoon is open. I might go buy a couple of DVDs. I have an errand or two to run. I may even do some more work. Anything's possible.

If, miraculously, the weather turns nice, all bets are off -- I'm just as likely to spend all afternoon in the hammock as I am to do something useful.