So, Scalzi, you say, what’s in those boxes? Well, I will tell you. They are signature sheets for The God Engines and Judge Sn Goes Golfing, and each box is filled right up to the top with sheets. The cats are added for scale.

Over the next few days I will sign every single sheet in each of those boxes and then mail them off, so they can be made into (respectively) hardcover novellas and short story chapbooks that you can buy before the holidays are upon us. That’s a lot of signing, but damn it, you are worth it (provided, of course, you have purchased either or both of these things).

Be that as it may, it’s times like these that I remember the days of my youth, when I said to myself, rather arrogantly, I might add, “self, one day you will be an author, and you will have to sign your name a lot. You should start practicing now.” And I did: where other teenagers practiced their guitar, I practiced my signature, turning it into that weird swoopy thing I have now, which is distinctive and yet also oddly easy on the wrists, just right for hour upon hour of signature sheet signing. Yes, they laughed at me then, but I ask you: Who is laughing now? Why, it’s me! Bwa ha ha ha hah ha!

Er. Anyway.

So that’s what I’m doing with my free time, probably though Sunday. Hope you weren’t planning to include me in your weekend plans. Because it’s kind of filled up. No, no. Go on without me. I’ll just sit here. With my boxes. Alone. Except for the cats.

Not that anyone is keeping track of this but me, but for the last year (and five days) Whatever has been hosted by WordPress.com as part of its VIP program. And now, with one year of that service under my belt, here’s my verdict on it to date:

Love it.

Seriously. Since I switched over I’ve had almost no problems of note with Whatever: no site chugging due to high traffic, no database issues, no back-end build problems because my host provider times out processes after half a second, or any of that stuff. The site just works, which is what I want it to do (and what I suspect you guys want it to do, too). This allows me to do what I want to do, which is write, not fight the urge to murder someone because my site is down from some inexplicable reasons. As I’ve really never before had a year where I didn’t have to wrestle with the backend of my blog in some significant way (and usually losing), I appreciate this more than you might expect.

So, hat’s off to WordPress.com for taking such good care of me over the last year. I really (really really) appreciate it.

Athena had a hair appointment yesterday that was going to be a long one, so we swung by the library to get her a book to read, whereupon we discovered that for the forseeable future, the library is closed on Wednesdays. It’s also now closed on Saturdays (and Sundays, but it was always was closed on Sunday) and opens on 11am instead of 9am on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Why? Because library funds were slashed 30% statewide, that’s why, and that was from an already lean budget for libraries. Something had to give. So what gave were Wednesdays, Saturdays and two hours in the morning three days out of four.

To be sure, libraries are not the only public service feeling the strain in Ohio (and in other states) this year. But libraries are close to my heart, for obvious and not-so-obvious reasons. Basically: This recession sucks.

I have more thoughts on this, but I’ll save them for some other time. Consider this just a minor bit of venting.

Today’s AMC column is all about how Chewbacca rocks. Because he does. Really, I think that’s all I should have to say to get you to click through. But in case it’s not, I also reveal the winner of last week’s “writing exercise” contest. And if you need more than that to click through, then I honestly don’t know what you want anymore. It’s like I don’t even know you, man.