have you ever eaten so many cookies that you become afraid of the cookies

Had a swell time at the Brookline Booksmith reading. Deep thanks to the stylishly tattooed Gene Kwak for putting it on. Lovely readings from Sasha Fletcher, Carrot Cake Zaikowski, Jonathan Papas, Anne "Oboe Cinnamon" Holmes, Blake Butler and Rachel Be Cool Glaser. If you are reading this and you came to the reading, thank you for coming. You were, as Mitch Hedberg once said, a smart crowd. Several folks have asked where they can find the thing I read between a napkin dispenser and a blue Christmas bow: it's in Glitterpony and it's together with a bunch of poems in that We Are All Something Something Something book to your right, kind reader.

On August 6th, Carrot Cake's picture was in the Celebrity News section of the Boston Globe because she is the newest member of the Celtics. Her picture was right next to Shaq's, who was in the paper I guess because he read some poetry at some weird bookstore or something. Whatever! Go Carolyn!

After the reading, we ate some Thai food. Fried pineapple. The next day Carolyn and I did the commuter rail shuffle to rendezvous with Carolyn's friend Siri, then we all drove off to Maine to hang out with the saints of generosity, Ben and Vanessa, at their honeymoon island cottage. Astoundingly idyllic. That's not a picture of it in the corner of this post, but that picture gives you the right idea. None of their hammocks gave me a rash. Floated on the Aqua Thunder. Bruce Willis maybe lived on a nearby island. Many small and well-camouflaged frogs. Other things in Maine include a place where you can learn Brazilian jujitsu and places where you can eat dagwood sandwiches. On the way back to Massachusetts, we stopped at the Portland Whole Foods. I had a lot of good Southern barbecue, go figure, including delicious cilantro corn fritters. Something called "picnic fried" chicken. We saw fisherman beards. Portland's warehouses looked a little like the other Portland's warehouses. Now I am back in Massachusetts with a lot of work to do. There I was, in the cocked hat of America, and now I am back somewhere near the harmonica.