Baby:

Yesterday I took River to the baby coffee shop in Temescal (that is, it's a coffee shop designed for parents with babies/toddlers/young kids, with tons of baby toys, a playhouse, climbing stuff, etc. -- it is not a place where coffee is served to babies, because that is the worst idea ever). It's only a ten minute drive from our place (though amusingly it's walking distance from the first place I lived in Oakland), and may become a regular hangout -- at least, insofar as possible with its ridiculous hours. (It closes at 3:30 p.m. most days, though it's open later on Fridays). River had a fantastic time, though, and met many other babies. I was the only dad there. I chatted with many moms. I learned the names of many children, and the names of zero adults. My mocha was pretty good. All in all, a successful outing, and much more fun than hanging out in the apartment all day.

Food:

We've been good about cooking this week. (After all the money we spent on restaurants in Maui, we have little choice but to cook for ourselves now!) Heather made a really tasty crab salad, and I made some cornmeal-encrusted chicken with peach/tomato salsa, and grilled chicken with chipotle-lime cream sauce (made with light sour cream, yet inexplicably still compulsively delicious), and last night a (vaguely) Greek stew with lots of olives and artichoke hearts. Reasonably healthy food, even!

Words:

I finished up the edits to Spell Games last weekend, and sent it off to my editor on Monday morning. I caught up on my freelance work (basically doing double work this week since I was on vacation last week). I now find myself with ALMOST NO WORK immediately pending. I owe a short-short to a guy as a Strange Horizons fund drive prize, and will write that this week, but otherwise... nada. I don't even have a short story in progress, and though I could start writing the next Marla novel (in earnest, that is -- I've done a little doodling on it already, actually), I want to wait until I've actually sold the thing before I devote that much time. I've fallen out of the habit of writing short stories, and it's no longer second nature, but I may see if I can generate some new ideas or further develop some of the ideas I have scrawled here and there. I'm always happier when I'm writing fiction. Why stand in the way of my own happiness?

Oh, and Pseudopod just bought my story "Bone Sigh", so listen for that sometime in the future. I think it will work well in audio.