I was sitting on the ground in front of the most perfect dance performance to David Bowie’s Underground by a Rogue in a live action Dungeons and Dragons interactive nerdstravaganza.

I don’t think I’ve ever laughed that hard in my entire life. There are some delightfully mad creative people in this world and I enjoy my sometimes role as an enabler.

This year I got to camp with the folks who always make the art I enjoy the most at Youtopia. It was really great to be able to hang out and take it easy while watching the unsuspecting festival goers interact with  all the art pieces at Fool’s Errand.

I got to do a second round of the Nightmare Menagerie again this year, thanks to an art grant from the SDCAP folks (who were super great to work with), but also a successful GoFundMe campaign to buy the bulk stuffed animals I needed to sew into all kinds of weird combinations. I sewed a lot of really ridiculous ones and made a lot of ridiculous art to go with the custom ones for folks who donated.

So stuffed with nightmares

It took about six weeks and a lot of ibuprofin (my hands still kind of hurt) to sew the total of 205 animals stoked in the Menagerie over the course of the weekend. And I was pleased to see that it was completely empty on the final morning. I have not yet started sifting through the nightmares. I still have the ones from last year. Eventually I’ll figure out something to do with them all.

Highlight possibly of my life [“the ones I missed because I was napping” edition]: Apparently one afternoon, a five year old girl took it upon herself to become a temporary  Menagerie barker. She stood there yelling, “Nightmares! Get your nightmares!”

Which also kind of made my brain explode with joy when I was told about it later.

After all the gut stuff and sewing, I was more than happy to take it super easy all weekend, considering I had just had another (successful, yay!) poop transplant the week before. I feel SO much better now compared to before. I hadn’t even noticed how truly shitty I had been feeling. I mean, I was having to leave work early to go home and lay down. I had a hard time making myself focus on anything. I couldn’t eat without a lot of pain and stopped working out because I was tired.

Two days after the poop transplant, I could focus again. I complete stopped being kinda nauseous all the time. No more abdominal pain. I haven’t even had any minor flare up symptoms. I no longer be have to paying super close attention to what goes in and comes out of me all the time.

Poop transplants are both!

I AM FUCKING ECSTATIC.

As a result, I’m trying to be as careful as I possibly can be through this cold and flu season coming up and keep cramming as much fiber as I can into my diet to keep my new gut buddies happy for as long as I can.

Despite all the sickliness, the GF and I had a great time up in Seattle for one of my best friend’s weddings (where I was pleased that my rehearsal dinner speech achieved the right mixture of sentimental and dry academic). We got to wander through the Chihuly naming glass flavors, and wander around the 50th anniversary of Star Trek exhibit at the EMP and stand inches away from Hudson’s armor and gun from Aliens, and get to spend time eating and arguing about everything with my briefly reunited grad school fam.

I’m really fucking happy I’m feeling good again.

Now I just need to mail the GoFundMe custom creature orders to all my non-local donors, then I’ll hope I’ll be able to enjoy at least one long, uninterrupted minute where absolutely nothing is wrong.