The holiday weekend was appropriately celebratory. We walked to the Farmer's Market and got some breakfast and generally had a lazy Saturday morning, and that night we went to a party at Susan Groppi's, where I drank much demon rum, along with the champagne Susan and Matt kindly provided. A very fun night, and being applauded when I walked in the door was also nice. I didn't get catastrophically drunk, but I was pleasantly lit. Heather kindly drove us home, where I collapsed immediately, and awoke with only a minimal hangover on Sunday. (Nothing some greasy bacon and eggs couldn't cure.) Sunday was a glorious stupor of laziness, and we roused ourselves only to get dinner at the new Indian place on Lakeshore and to finally go see the Simpsons movie (which was enjoyable enough). Afterward: Gelato! Monday we planned to do some work (writing and around the house), but then Holly invited us to go to Lake Anza with her and our nephew, so we opted to blow off responsibility. We had breakfast at Mama's Royal Cafe, then went to the lake for splashing around and hanging out on the beach and reading. In the evening Holly joined us for a barbecue -- buffalo steak! lamb sausages! -- along with our landlord. Very pleasant, much wine and beer consumed, good conversation, a really wonderful end to the long weekend.

Of course, I wound up staying awake until two a.m. last night doing the house chores and writing work I'd neglected. I did some freelance stuff and then wrote a story for Doug Lain's new 'zine Diet Soap, about surveillance and superheroes and brain lesions, which I had promised to give him by September first. He was kind enough to give me a few extra days to finish, so I sent it to him last night, and he likes the story, so "Observer Effects" should be in the premiere issue.

And, today, I'm back at work. (Where there are four people who have Hugo trophies coming in the mail -- me, my boss, my managing editor, and my executive editor. Do we have the highest concentration of Hugo winners in any one place today? Seems likely!)