Today is the last day of my antibiotics. This week has been a whirlwind of nausea, weakness, fatigue, and socializing. Tomorrow it is all over, my colon is now a dead zone, and I promise never, ever to swallow lakewater while swimming, ever again.

But! This weekend the most generous person in the world had a birthday, and we went to the woods to celebrate. We were a ragged band of orphans- rag-pickers and matchstick-counters, and we went running on the forest paths, and ate steamed mussels and bacon, and spilt soup on the deck for the raccoons. We turned up the heat too high and played travel scrabble with microscopic tiles and read poetry aloud, and ate cake, and figured out what the internet is, and that the only viable jobs of the future will be the mail carriers and the web designers- those who make the internet, and those who move three-dimensional objects through space. And loggers who blog. Because packages must come wrapped in paper, afterall.

I also had the most wonderful reading last week- really transcendental, actually, and I am still processing it- the entire city showed up to hear the four of us read about losing our virginity, eating disorders, grandma’s time in Auschwitz, and schizophrenic mothers, respectively. The entire city listened, rapt, as we read, and cried. And afterwards they wrote down their deepest fears and secrets on small scraps of paper and we read them aloud into the microphone, in front of god and everyone, and the people were set free. And a rainbow grew out of the west and stretched over all of Portland, and although it was night, and the rainbow couldn’t be seen, it could be felt, like a change of air pressure. And nothing was ever the same again.

I love my life. How is any of this possible? It is not just me, making the magic, It is you. It is you!

Thank you!