Green Bay, WI

I spent week in bed at the hospital. Many nift people came to visit: my parents, my brother Dave and his family, Hiroko, Tomoko, Jon, Peter, Peter’s surgeon-dad. They bore gifts as varied as Cheez-It, Kit Kat, Twilight Zone DVDs, Mad Libs, and the first book in George R. R. Martin’s _A Song of Ice and Fire_, which is highly recommended. I’ve always been interested in microcosms, like long plane trips and schools after-hours. My hospital room was the tiniest microcosm: me phasing between sleep and reading, with morphine on command after my operation, nurses coming in and out, delivering food and such once I was allowed to eat, visitors coming in to listen to my drugged-out babbling. It was an interesting week.