Rain, rain, and more rain.

Rain all evening, all night, and then this morning.

This is the view of downtown Austin from my window at 6:30am this morning:

Shoal Creek, behind my building, is once again swollen to levels that belie its name.

The parking lot at work is submerged in about 2 inches of water.

This is not at all normal for Texas in July.

Jessa and Kenan are without phone service. There is flash flooding throughout the hill country.

It's bizarre, and dangerous, and annoying, but ultimately probably a good thing. Normally we are having major drought conditions by midsummer, so a decent rain is a good thing.

And the air is cool and clean, and you just can't beat walking to the grocery store in a light summer drizzle when the water is just the perfect lukewarm temperature to make you feel giddy and free to do anything you like.

Then the thunder comes and you dash home to drink tea and watch movies and hope it stops by Thursday so they won't cancel the fireworks.

For now, the raindrops in the puddles on the sidewalk splash like little wet pyrotechnics. Thunder like cannonfire rumbles through the sky. I hum the 1812 Overture to myself.

You may recall a recent story in which I hyped my upcoming debut as a book-review columnist.

Well, in case you hadn't already sussed it out by now, I'm joining the crew of Bookslut. The new issue is up today, or most of it anyway.

Unfortunately, my travel obligations for the month and the limited availability of my friends meant I had to postpone the sushi book review until next month. (Sorry, Jessa.) Until then, you can read my manifesto on cookbooks and thrill to several far-more-entertaining-and-accomplished articles by the rest of the Bookslut staff.

If you're still reading this, what are you doing here? Go read the new issue!

I only just discovered the little croquet backwater on Kenan's Analog Roam blog. This has to be the most amusing course map I have ever seen for any sport. How can you resist challenges like "The Hill of Yelling and Throwing Things" and "The Flower Box of Certain Consternation"?

Ah, the ostensibly-civilized savagery of croquet.

I yearn to try this course, yea though I know it will reduce me to a whining mass of wicket-mangled pulp.