Processing. Processing.

This could take a moment.

If I made you a list of everything this semi-retired person has done this week (and don’t worry, I will), you’d be as exhausted from reading it as I am from doing it.

I love writing and reading lists, so pretend I’m Susan Orlean and I’m describing orchids:

One species looks just like a German shepherd dog with its tongue sticking out. One species looks like an onion. One looks like an octopus. One looks like a human nose. One looks like the kind of fancy shoes that a king might wear. One looks like Mickey Mouse. One looks like a monkey. One looks dead.

In the “Work” column, it was a busy week for this otherwise-unemployed Indivisible Baltimore volunteer: meetings and more meetings, flyers and posters and signs and tent cards. I joined Wednesday’s regular street-corner sign wave and printed 300 pages of materials for a Pride event. Under “Medical,” I had 40 Botox shots for migraine and a permanent dental crown installed. And in the “Social” column, I went to lunch with a former boss, dinner with a friend, a dinner party and sing-along at the home of friends, a Pride concert I helped Utah organize, and a birthday party for an older newish old friend.

Saturday night, after hearing Revvnant, 50-Foot Woman & The Worms (featuring the incomparable Rahne Alexander), and Legends of Et cetera, I fell into a deep sleep and dreamt about being unwanted and unloved. In the dream, my husband had decided to see other people, and I was unable to find anyone who wanted to date me. Every person I asked gave me a look of utter repulsion. I was crying. I didn’t have a job in the dream, either.

I know that it’s not true. Marty still wants me, I could probably find a date who is under 100, and a lot of people would show up for my funeral and even cry.

I used to think I was an extrovert, but I’m on the cusp, according to online tests and team-building exercises. By yesterday’s birthday party at Normal’s, I was peopled out. Is that why I felt so emotional?

Or was it because my college bestie brought her 24-year-old daughter, whom I’d only seen once since she was an infant? Olivia was so poised and gorgeous and is already so accomplished. I couldn’t stop staring at her.

A gorgeous Yale grad who climbs mountains and lives on another continent.

Or maybe it was because, between music sets—the brilliant schtick of the Tinklers, with their lyrical genius and humane messages, and the Mole Suit Choir, whom I’d never seen before—I saw my college friend, Mindi. It’s a silly story, but it’s true, and I tell it when I can. I was addicted to black beauties for a short period in the early ‘80s, and one day, I took too many. I was going a little berserk and was in a state of panic. Mindi drove her car behind mine from Towson University to my house in Mt. Washington, just to make sure I would survive the drive, which I’m sure I did only thanks to her being on my tail. (I gave up speed that day.) Mindi gave me three hugs, and I’m still high from them.

She’s gonna kill me for this. She’ll be sorry she saved my life. But I won’t be sorry because you can see how much I love her.

Or maybe it was because I have lived such a rich and fulfilling life that everything I do now reminds me of why I’m able to still do good things today, like make new friends, rekindle old friendships, and revel in the joy of being able to text a picture of a brand-new old Jam album to someone I’ve known for 45 years.

Then Mole Suit Choir played, and though I’ve listened to them online, I could not fully appreciate the power of their voices, a perfect complement of sweetness and dark. I was certain they had cast a spell on all of us—the good witch kind. Their last song was adapted from a poem by longtime friend Chris Toll, who left us much too soon.

Please enjoy.