Where are my huh

I signed up to push hands in Berkeley's Chinese Martial Arts tournament. The rules have been slightly improved. While the first round of each match is stupid "restricted step" push hands—imagine fencing without sword—the second round is "moving step"—imagine sumo without the belt or obesity. To prepare, I'm trying to get to the top of the 145-175 lbs weight class, and have started intermittent fasting. Basically, I only eat between the hours of noon and eight, which is working so far since I am otherwise an inveterate midnight snacker and something something metabolism blood sugar indexing. However, I've been misplacing my keys and phone constantly.

In other news, I received contributor copies of Letters to Lovecraft, and Oliver has become sufficiently interested in the phone that it is very difficult to get him to pose for a picture; he keeps running to my side to see what's on the screen. But here he is, messing with the books:



My story is "The Semi-Finished Basement", which is about my pet peeve: the claim that "Everything happens for a reason." And now, a newspaper blogger agrees that thinking that life is fair makes you a terrible person.

If you're local to the Bay, you can now buy copies of The Nickronomicon at Diesel: A Bookstore in Oakland. On the shelves, baby! I hope this makes up for the loss of Borderlands Books, at least insofar as this title is concerned.

In yet other news, I'm teaching at LitReactor.com again in the spring: The Architecture of Fiction begins on April 23rd.


Finally, I'm very sad to report the sudden death of Melanie Tem of cancer.