This year, I decided to try to attend the Business Meetings of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) to learn more about the organization. I’ve served in numerous other governance roles, so my perspectives here are largely trying to make sense of these new experiences in those contexts. Here are some preliminary observations.

One caveat about my comments. These are simply my personal observations and should be taken with a grain of salt. If anyone has corrections or suggestions, I would welcome comments to help me learn more.

Worldcon, the World Science Fiction Convention (which I’m attending this year) is governed by the World Science Fiction Society. WSFS is basically an entirely volunteer organization that is constituted of the local group that is organizing to put on the Convention each year.

The business meetings use the Lumi virtual meeting platform. Another organization I belong to (the MTA) has used the same platform for their annual meeting. This platform works pretty well. It uses Zoom at the backend, but runs in a browser window, so it is a bit clunky. In practice, however, it works pretty well to provide access to the documents, let you see who is speaking, and offer a seamless voting interface.

Outside of Lumi, they also set up a Discord server for chat while the meetings are going on, with separate channels for on-topic and off-topic discussion. And the obligate channel for pictures of pets, of course.

There are five meetings scheduled: A preliminary meeting, three business meetings, and an in-person site-selection meeting to be held during Worldcon. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the preliminary meeting. But I did attend the first Business Meeting and it was rather like being thrown into the deep end.

The first business meeting was conducted entirely in executive session. The public agenda was “Report from the Investigation Committee on the 2023 Hugo Awards.” Since the meeting was held in executive session, I can’t discuss the content of the proceedings. But that’s not my goal in this post.

The Presiding Officer is supported by three additional roles. A Parliamentarian advises on points of order, a Timekeeper keeps track of time used for debate for and against motions, and an assistant Presiding Officer manages the on-screen presentation. This allows the Presiding Officer to focus on running the meeting without having to refer to external documents or deal with the technology. As someone who’s served as Presiding Officer for many years (of the UMass Amherst Faculty Senate) it looked like the system worked pretty well.

The meetings are highly structured using Robert’s Rules, with very strict time limits established for debate for each of the topics. When the Presiding Officer presented a motion with the proposed time limits, they asked the body if they could be accepted without objection. With more than a hundred attendees, basically nothing could accepted without objection. The net result was that we then had to have a formulaic vote on each of the time limits. They all passed handily, of course. So objecting (as is typical) just wasted 10 or 15 minutes of time in the meeting. That’s the goal of Robert’s Rules: to allow the meeting to move forward expeditiously while giving people who object the opportunity to make their objection known, even if that objection is not shared by the majority.

One of my goals in attending the meetings is to get a sense of the key players. Some of the people I’ve heard of before. But many are new to me. You can pretty quickly get a sense for who are the people that respect the process and try to make the best of use time. And those who are there to try to derail the proceedings and gum up the works. It’s the same in every organization.

One of the most peculiar aspects of WSFS is that the organization only “exists” during Worldcon. Each year, people buy a membership in WSFS (as part of attending Worldcon or separately) and there are business meetings in the weeks leading up to the convention. The membership gives you the right to attend the business meetings, to vote in Hugo Awards, and to vote for the following years’ site selections. But there is no leadership or on-going meetings during the rest of the year. Several times (both in the meeting and on the Internet generally) I’ve seen people use this as an excuse for why problems can’t be addressed or solved.

There are typically thousands of attendees at Worldcon (~8,000 in Glasgow in 2024) and even more people who purchase memberships to be able to vote (a total of 10,000 memberships). But there are only about 150 people attending the business meetings. It’s time consuming to learn enough about any organization to understand how it works and participate meaningfully.

I currently have no plans to try to get more involved in the governance of WSFS. I’m already serving as Secretary of SFWA and that’s plenty of service, thank you very much. But I’m always interested to see other models and there are enough connections between SFWA and WSFS that learning more about the organization and the key players seems useful.

pine cone

For several years, I’ve considered attending LOSCON in Los Angeles. This year, I’m going to go!

A few years ago, I was accepted as a participant, but due to my health circumstances at the time, I declined. I was still recovering from being hospitalized and was only attending conventions where masks were required. Now, almost no conventions still require masks. (Readercon, next weekend, is a welcome exception!) And I have recovered from my hospitalization. Well… As much as I am going to recover. So I’ve decided to apply to LOSCON again.

I’m particularly interested in attending this year because next year’s Worldcon is also going to be in Los Angeles. Many of the relevant people will undoubtedly be at Worldcon this year too (which I’m also attending). But it will be a chance to meet the LA folks specifically.

They asked for proposals for panels, so I drafted one that I haven’t seen at conventions before.

Poetry and Songs in Speculative Fiction

One of the enduring traits of Tolkien was his use of poetry, rhyme, and song as essential characteristics of his world building and the lore of the world he created. This panel will explore innovative uses of the lyrical arts to enhance speculative fiction and some of the challenges of adding this dimension to your works.

I hope the panel is accepted. Many of my own stories have had examples of music and/or poetry (e.g. Better Angels: Tour de Force, Something Else to Do in Modern Magic, and others). I think it would be fun to put a panel together to get authors to talk about the topic.

LOSCON takes place over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. I’m looking forward to going!

The final(ish) Schedule for Worldcon has come out and I am on the program! My experience with Worldcons seems to be either feast or famine. I had eight appearances as a participant in Chicago, for my first Worldcon, and then was totally declined as a participant for Glasgow. This year, I’m excited to moderate one panel, appear in six more, and I also have a reading. Here is my schedule in chronological order.

Reading: Steven D. Brewer

Room ???, Weds 11–11:30 a.m.

A Familiar Problem. Becoming a powerful demon’s familiar might just be the best thing ever. But what’s the catch? Rory Soletsa is supposed to find his magical familiar, but he doesn’t want something trite, like a cat; or stupid, like a bird; or ugly, like a toad. Amazed when he is captured and becomes the familiar to a powerful demon who presents as a voluptuous, beautiful woman, Rory discovers how much more powerful his magic is with her. And he’s ecstatic when the demon tells him she will train him in advanced offensive and defensive magic. But just what is she training him for?

Note: This session has been rescheduled from Sunday.

Can Biological Research Ever Be Independent?

Room 447-448, Wed. noon–1 p.m.

Let’s face it, we conduct science in an inherently for-profit environment, which leads to all sorts of biases. How do we work around these built-in barriers to create truly independent science? Without breaking too many laws, of course.

An Hour of the Strange, Unusual, Creepy

Room 343-344, Wed. 3–4 p.m.

Ewww! Gross! WTF? Yep, all of this stuff is real… and some is common in your back yard.

Self-Publishing for Poets

Room 445-446, Thu. 10:30–11:30 a.m.

From chapbooks to zines, poetry has a rich history of self-publishing. Whether your goal is merely to get your poems into more hands or to craft an online presence as a poet, this workshop will help you learn how to market, sell, and self-publish your poetry. From blogging to Instagram to Amazon, we’ll dive into the important details of crafting a bestselling poetry collection. Learn how to format poetry, how to find the best distribution sites for poetry books, and how to market a collection from advertising to book reviews.

Life as We Know It

Room 447-448, Thu. 1:30–2:30 p.m.

Nothing in fantasy or sci fi is original (no, don’t rage-quit); it is all amalgamations of things we have seen or heard of. So would we recognize life that is truly alien?

Human Evolution and Our Influence on It

Room 445-446, Thu. 3–4 p.m.

Just because we’re at the top of the food chain doesn’t mean that humans are done evolving. Can we predict what is in the future for our bodies? Which creators’ visions are realistic?

Biology and Evolution of the Dog

Room 447-448, Sat. 9–10 a.m.

Human’s best friend, best creation, and best companion: What was the evolutionary path of the household dog? Was humanity the worst thing to happen to wolves?

Makerspaces: For When You Can’t Own All the Tools

Room 335-336, Sat. 6–7 p.m.

A makerspace is shared workshop or group of workshops where people can use the tools and facilities to work on their own projects. Some are membership-based, and some are in public libraries. Assume that any major city will have at least one. Our panelists will discuss their involvement with makerspaces, what they recommend, and how the user can get the best experience from a makerspace.

Percent Human DNA ribbon

When I attended my first WorldCon, I created some Airship Pirate ribbons to promote the serialization of Revin’s Heart. It was (from my perspective) a wildly successful promotional campaign. It was a huge amount of fun, gave me an ice breaker to discuss my book as people walked by the table in the dealer room, and was surprisingly (to me) gratifying to see dozens of strangers all over the convention wearing my ribbon. Since then, I’ve thinking about what I could do to meet or surpass the standard I set then. I think I may have done it with a new ribbon to promote the Better Angels.

The Better Angels are non-human biological androids. That means that they have no human DNA — they are the product of clean-room biological engineering. They are molecularly assembled to spec, fully grown (well, as pre-teen girls), and have a personality module that has programming to govern their behavior. So, although they look like pre-teen girls, they are not human. They were not born. They don’t grow or develop. And they are programmed with a stack of modules that provide all of the functionality for their behavior, from basic autonomic physiology to language and higher-order behavior. In the case of the Angels, they can be singing-and-dancing pop idols or ruthless, cold-blooded covert-military soldiers (Or more! Read the stories to see what else they can do!)

This time, I’ve created a ribbon people can wear with a space to write in their percentage of “human DNA.” You might ask, “How do you know your own percentage of human DNA?” What a great question! To answer that question, I’ve created an app (well, just a webpage, actually) that analyses your DNA and tells you what percentage is “human.” The Better Angels, of course, have zero percent “human DNA”, but how much do you have? Luckily, the app can tell you!

screen of Makasete Human DNA Analysis screen

The 任せて Human DNA Analysis app is simple to operate. You scan a QR code to open the app on your mobile device and tap the fingerprint icon on the screen. The app runs, emits several progress messages, and finally reports your percentage of “human DNA”. Sometimes the first time it runs, it may give you anomalous results. But if you run it a second time (or more), it gives you “more accurate,” precise, and consistent results.

Note the disclaimer at the bottom of the page, however: “Accuracy of 任せて DNA Analysis ±100%”

Also note that, yes, of course I could link the app here. But you’re going to have to come visit me in the dealer room to get the QR code. (smiley-face)

I used to write little web apps like this all the time. For most of my career, I was the Director of the Biology Computer Resource Center at UMass Amherst. I created dozens little web apps for teaching or infrastructure for the Biology Department. But I haven’t done anything like that for a few years. I had to solve a variety of minor technical problems to make it work, and I was tickled to find that I haven’t completely lost my touch.

I invested a fair amount of time investigating what to use as a plausible value of percent human DNA. The simplest answer would have been 99% or something like that. But that wouldn’t have given me a context to talk about the structure of the human genome, which is delightfully weird and complex.

Most people know there are these things called “genes.” And a lot of people know that genes contain the “code” for proteins. When Francis Crick and others “cracked the genetic code” there was great optimism that we would quickly be able to read the “blueprints of life.” But genomic structure turned out to be way, way, way more complicated.

It turns out that only a tiny part (1%-2%) of the DNA in your genome contains coding sequences to make proteins. There are lots of other sequences in there, many of which are still only poorly understood. Each coding sequence is paired with regulatory sequences that control when it is transcribed. There are also bits that code for RNAs that aren’t translated into proteins (transfer RNAs, etc). As much as 8% of your genome includes human endogenous retroviral sequences. Retroviruses (like HIV, varicella-zoster (aka chicken pox), and herpes) have been sticking their DNA into eukaryotic genomes for billions of years. Then there are structural and repetitive sequences, that include things like centromeres, telomeres, and microsatelites, that may comprise as much as 50% of your genome.

Humans are primates and mammals and tetrapods and vertebrates and eukaryotes. The amount of “uniquely human” DNA is actually vanishingly small. Almost all of our genes are literally identical with bonobos (our closest primate relatives) and are functionally identical with all mammals and tetrapods and eukaryotes. Some proteins (like ubiquitin and cytochrome C) have been honed by billions of years of evolution and are virtually identical across all living organisms.

In the end, I met with a couple of professional biologists to ask them what percentage I should report as “human DNA” with the goal of being able to tell a fun story about genomic structure. They were pretty amused by the idea, once they got past the science fictional elements (One said, “What! They don’t go through development!?”), and we agreed to pick something something around 60%.

The ribbons are currently scheduled to be delivered in time that I should have them for Readercon! And I will bring plenty to Worldcon. (Well, a goodly number, anyway. These things don’t grow on trees, after all.) I’m excited, because I suspect they’ll be a hit and, when people see others wearing them, they’ll want to stop by the table to get one of their own. And, who knows, maybe even pick up a book!

So if you’re coming to Readercon or Worldcon, come find me at the Water Dragon Publishing table and get your DNA analyzed.

I sold books at the Amherst Artisan’s Market today. A little blond girl, with her mother and younger sister, stopped by my vendor table and was very taken with the cover illustration on Better Angels: Tour de Force. I did my regular pitch:

I call this “fluffy military space opera”. It’s about a group of non-human biological androids that look like pre-teen girls and act as a magical-girl singing-and-dancing troupe, but they can change up their programming and become a covert military force.

“That sounds fantastic!” the girl said.

“I should tell your mother,” I said, “that although this book doesn’t have adult themes, it does have some violence. The contrast between the Angels being cute little girls and ruthless killers, when they turn on their soldier programming, is what the Japanese call ‘gap-moe’ and is what I was going for as an author.”

“Oh, violence is just fine,” the girl said. “I read that all the time.”

“But do you have ten dollars?” her mother said.

The little girl’s younger sister piped up and said, “She has a HUNDRED DOLLARS.”

“No, she doesn’t,” her mother said.

“But, Mom!” the little girl protested, as her mother dragged her away.

I almost wanted to say, “Sorry, Brunhilde!”

June was super busy, with the Nebula Conference and the two Pride bookselling events. July looks to be quieter. There are a bunch of events I could have attended, but I’m currently only scheduled to go to Readercon. Look for me in the dealer room where I will, again, be running the tables for Water Dragon and Small Publishing in a Big Universe.

If you’re an author planning to attend Readercon and you don’t have a place to sell books, there is probably still time to request a spot at the Small Publishing in a Big Universe table. It costs very little and gives you a place to tell people to buy your books. Plus you can stand behind the table yourself to meet with readers and sign copies. It doesn’t work so well for authors who are not in attendance but, if you’re there in person, you can really make a lot of sales that way.

I was so busy in June, I didn’t get much writing done at all. Some people can snatch moments here and there to write. For me that can work alright for the little story fragments that I write for #wss366, but it doesn’t work for making progress on my serious writing projects. I did, finally, get back to writing in the past week and wrote the final, climactic scene of one of the storylines in The Ground Never Lies. I had been putting it off for months. Now I only have one or two world-building scenes left to write and then I can try to merge the two storylines. After that, I hope to pass it off to my trusty beta readers to see if the whole thing hangs together. It will need a lot of revising, but July should be perfect for that.

In August, I will be attending Worldcon in Seattle. The schedule has not been finalized, but my draft schedule looks great. I’m currently scheduled for seven panels (serving as moderator on one) and a reading. The reading is from my forthcoming book A Familiar Problem which has been delayed since January. I’m really hopeful it will be out in time for Worldcon. (Of course, I also really hoped it would be out for Boskone and Watch City and the Nebula Conference and Readercon, but… Well… Sigh…)

I finally bought our plane tickets. The most convenient airport for us is Bradley, in between Hartford and Springfield. It’s nice because it’s a somewhat smaller airport and only half the distance to Boston. But Boston tends to have more direct flights. When I fly to Europe, I’ve usually flown out of Boston. I did a search and found that there were no non-stop flights to Seattle from Bradley. There were two from Boston. When I checked, however, they were operated by Alaska Airlines and the cost was nearly twice as much as having one stop. So, we’re flying out of Bradley.

After Worldcon, I will be busy with family and then getting ready for the fall. The fall… Sigh… I have to teach the writing class two more times (in Fall and Spring) and then I will finally be able to retire and be done with working. Then I can dedicate myself to writing full time. I’m really glad I did the phased retirement, but I’m looking forward to wrapping it up.

I was interested to read this interview with Peter Thiel because, although I’ve heard a lot about him and his stupid ideas, I’ve never actually seen what he has to stay for himself. It turns out that he’s an idiot — at least about science.

He’s basically the kind of person who, when the TV isn’t working right, believes in percussive maintenance — that is, to whack it a few times and see if that makes it work better. He basically supported bringing in Trump to whack the United States a few times and see if it starts to work better. His thinking is that, if it starts working better then great. And if it doesn’t, you just throw it out and buy a new one. I mean, it doesn’t really matter to HIM if a bunch of people that depend on government services die or whatever. But, rather than pushing this analogy any further, let’s look what he actually said.

His basic critique is that our society — science in particular — has become stagnant or, minimally, is offering only diminishing returns:

There are intellectual questions: How many breakthroughs are we having? How do we quantify these things? What are the returns of going into research?

There certainly are diminishing returns to going into science or going into academia generally. Maybe this is why so much of it feels like a sociopathic, Malthusian kind of an institution, because you have to throw more and more and more at something to get the same returns. And at some point, people give up and the thing collapses.

There are a couple of inter-related problems with his assertion. The first is that current science is just a lot more complicated than people in previous generations expected. If you read people around the time of Crick and Watson, everyone thought that, since we’d “cracked the code” of DNA, we would simply be able to read the “blueprint of life”. As we know now, it was not nearly so simple, with introns and exons and non-coding sequences and RNA processing and endogenous viral elements and epigenetic effects and many, many other complicating factors that people had no idea of in those earlier times. And complicated science leads to the second problem: it’s a lot more expensive and we’ve defunded the government and education.

If you note when all of these breakthroughs were happening, it was during a time when the United States was taxing the highest incomes at 90% and investing a lot of that money in growing higher education. That money was gradually choked off and before Trump researchers were spending most of their time applying for funding. Rather than, you know, actually doing research. That’s why things weren’t going any faster than they were. And now that there’s NO FUNDING, there’s no chance of doing the research at all.

Furthermore, the slow, patient work of science has made astonishing breakthroughs which he seems to completely neglect. We have made astonishing breakthroughs on cancer. Cancer used to be a death sentence. Now, there are a lot of cancers that we can simply cure. And the rate of progress has been accelerating — at least until we let Peter Thiel and his moron surrogates defund the NIH.

It’s impossible to quantify how many people are doing to die because of what Trump has done. Even worse, it’s probably going to take generations to recover — if science in the United States ever does. Labs that lose funding probably won’t ever recover. A lot of the people that were doing the work will move to other countries or other lines of work. A lot of people that were going to go into science now never will. We’ve lost momentum we will probably never regain.

Peter Thiel doesn’t care.

I spent the weekend of June 21 and 22 selling books at two events. I had applied and been accepted to participate in the Queer Artisan Market back in late May. But then in the middle of June, there was was a flurry of activity to organize the first Amherst pride parade in just a couple of weeks. I volunteered to sell books at the rally after the parade and got accepted to that as well.

Before I went, I checked the books I had on hand. I had copies of my own books, Revin’s Heart and Better Angels: Tour de Force plus two or three copies of six other titles — Water Dragon has an extensive selection of LGBTQIA+ books in their pride collection. I reached out to see if I could get a few more titles. Unfortunately, he wanted to hold back the stock he had for BayCon, so I just went with what I had.

I also printed out a bunch of extra copies of my Islands of Revin’s Heart and Better Angels ‘zines. I spent the time in the booth, after I set up but before things got busy, folding them up. It’s a nice, relaxing thing to do. And people really seem to enjoy taking copies of the ‘zines with them. I don’t know how many people actually buy the books after taking one, but I figure they can’t hurt.

The very first time I sold books was at the 2022 Queer Pop-up Market at the Mill District in North Amherst (just down the street from my home). I only had the first two novelettes of Revin’s Heart, with the third (of seven) about to come out. I didn’t have any of the kit for selling books yet. But I had a great time meeting potential readers and sold enough to be encouraged. Now, I’ve got everything I need and have become an old hand at loading in and setting up.

Over the years, the market has evolved into an artisan market. It was canceled in 2023 (due to weather, I think) and I was declined a spot in 2024. But this year, I had booth number 1. They have gotten their organization down to a fine art. Everything was laid out nicely for my arrival. I was able to back my car up to my spot and got my son to help me unload everything and set up in just a few minutes.

The market was lively in spite of hot weather. The booth next to me sold crocheted animals, including a lot of molluscs. There were jewelry makers, a booth with fancy lemonade, printmakers, and many other awesome booths. I was the only bookseller.

It took me a few tries to develop an effective tour of the table that let me pitch the books most effectively. I sold out of one of the books before noon. But I still had at least one copy of all the rest at the end of the day.

Over night, it rained very hard and was still raining in the morning in advance of the Pride Parade. I watched the radar, trying to decide whether to go. Books don’t do well in the rain. But there was a message from the organizers saying that the rain was predicted to end at 9:30. Sure enough, the rain ended and I headed to common to set up.

I was a little worried because it was the first time they’d run the event. Information about setting up had been sketchy. They didn’t have assigned locations. But I pulled up, grabbed the spot closest to where I was parked, and — after spreading a plastic drop-cloth on the grass— I was able to set up.

It was quiet for the first couple of hours until the parade arrived at the common. Then it got super busy. I ended up selling about twice as many books as I had the previous day in a much shorter period of time. I still had a few books left at the end of the day, but I had sold out of several things and what was left fit in a single box.

I should look into other pride events around the region to sell books at. I like the community and excitement of pride events. They’re fun and welcoming.

Although I had attended the SFWA Nebula Conference previously as a virtual attendee, 2025 was the first year I went to the face-to-face conference. For me, it was the capstone of a three-week-long road trip with my son. We attended a wedding, then visited my brother for week, and finally continued onto the Nebulas in Kansas City. We had a great time.

Before the conference, the SFWA Board had a two-day retreat to talk about strategic planning. This has been a priority of mine as a new board member. Until the Nebulas, we’d been largely in crisis management mode, after the loss of the leadership and staff last summer. This retreat gave us the opportunity to dedicate enough time for some extended discussions about where we think the organization should go

It was also my first opportunity to meet most of the principals of SFWA. I had only met one of the other board members previously, other than via Zoom. Zoom is great for meetings, but it doesn’t provide much opportunity for side-conversations. I also got to meet the staff, including the new executive director that we just hired. More about that below

Note: this is not any kind of official report and represents only my personal impressions of what we did over the two days of meetings.

We began broadly by reviewing SFWA’s mission statement. Then we cast a broad net and began to consider how to more concisely sum up what we want SFWA to be. After an hour and a half, we had a working statement to use as the basis for further discussion to start developing our strategic plan.

SFWA does a lot of things. From the estates and legacy program to the writing dates. From the givers grant to the emergency medical fund. From the contract committee to griefcom. We tried to list out all of the programs that SFWA currently manages. It’s a long list. Then we tried to put the activities in categories: development, membership, communications, internal support, and programming. Finally, we tried to develop a set of priorities to help us understand what we want to accomplish in the coming year.

In the afternoon, we focused primarily on discussing the membership program, so we could talk about the other aspects (development, communications, and internal support) with the staff that would be attending the following day. We identified three areas to prioritize and then split up into breakout groups to develop plans for each of the three areas with action steps. After we shared out the results, we adjourned for the day.

On the second day, the board met again, this time together with all of the staff and volunteers for introductions. Unlike the Board, where we had been meeting via Zoom, I mostly hadn’t interacted with others except via email or Discord, so it was nice to be able to associate a face with a name. We had a brief discussion with the new executive director to describe what we had accomplished during the strategic planning. Finally, we had a brief official board meeting and, among other things, voted to accept a proposal for the proposal for the location of next year’s Nebula conference.

When I got home after the conference, I had a one-on-one onboarding meeting with the new executive director. I had an opportunity to discuss what my goals are for SFWA. We had a frank discussion where I had a chance to share my perspective. I’m really impressed by her acumen and approach. I think she’s going to be a great addition to the organization.

I’m very encouraged for the coming year. We developed some good, concrete plans for improving the organization. We are fully staffed with great people. The leadership team looks to be stable for the coming year with fantastic new people coming in board in July. I think we have successfully weathered the crisis and the sky’s the limit going forward.

I’ve already signed up to attend the Nebula Conference in 2026. It’s going to be in the Chicago area. Through June 30, early bird registration is available at a reduced rate. Since it’s in the midwest, I can probably combine it with a visit to my brother again. I hope to see you next year in Chicago!

After a long chilly spring, the weather has finally turned hot. And hot weather requires hot salsa.

A few restaurants I visited, especially in the southwest, had great salsa or — if you were lucky — fresh pico-de-gallo. Most of the salsa I found in our local grocery store, however, was disappointing. I think I must have tried every kind of fresh or bottled salsa over the years, looking for the right one. Little did I know how easy it was to make your own salsa. Here’s my recipe:

Ingredients

1 large can of petite-diced tomatoes

1 red onion, diced

2 jalapeño peppers, finely chopped

several sprigs of cilantro, coarsely chopped

1 big squirt of bottled lime juice (maybe two or three limes worth)

salt to taste

Directions

Dump the can of tomatoes in a plastic storage container, add the onions, jalapeños, cilantro, lime juice, and salt. Mix.

That’s it. That’s all you have to do. None of the proportions are really important. Just use a smaller can of tomatoes to make a smaller batch. But, honestly, why would you ever do that?

It does get better if you let it sit for a while. But, on a hot day, ain’t nobody got time for that.