As you know, I don't believe in doing things halfway. When major life changes occur, they must occur all at ONCE. Therefore, in the next month, not only will I become a published novelist, I will leave ye olde mighty Geeksofte!

I know! Now, like the rest of the world, I will actually have to work for a living. I will have to pay copays and deductibles like a commoner. No free membership to a swank health club, in which gleaming rows of machines await and banks of hot tubs beckon. No! I'll have to go sweat it out at the Y like everyone else, where the hot tubs (if they exist) have diseases and you have to wait in line for the machines, which do not have fawning, white-garbed attendants disinfecting them every five minutes.

No more discounts to all sorts of venues around town. And cheap software? Uh-uh. I can also kiss my discounted stock purchase plan goodbye - the one that gave me a true savings account for the first time in my life, and helped me become a respectable, indebted citizen with a niceish car and a nicer condo (currently emerging from its giant condom).

But more on that (and my new job) later. In other news, I seem to have become a mass of nervous tics as the book launch approaches. My legs twitch, my arms twitch, my face twitches. Alcohol consumption has increased. By the time you see me on the podium at Elliott Bay Books I'll have no motor control left but will be so drunk I don't realize it anymore.

Meanwhile, very soon, there is going to be an opportunity to win free books. I know you can barely contain yourself at the thought of this but please, try. I am out of control enough for all of us right now.