i get sick every 3 days, and it takes me 2 days to heal, so i’m usually only not blowing my nose, coughing, etc, for about two days a week. none of the infections are ever infectious, so i can’t infect anyone else with my infections. i just get a lot of symptoms but it’s okay. sometimes when people haven’t known me for very long, they think it’s my fault that they got sick, but then they get to know me better and understand. i like to think of it as “helping me appreciate more when my nose is clear.”

me and my friend topsel went to the circus, because apparently the circus is in town. they had monkeys conducting naked people who would jump through rings that were on fire and also rings made of ice. the rings made of ice didn’t seem quite as dangerous to me, but i guess they’re pretty cold as well. they also had a guy in face paint walk on a tightrope over a ball-pit filled with peanuts after loudly announcing that he was allergic to them. that was so exciting i almost got out of my chair.

i met my friend topsel at the park. he was picking daisies and i asked him why he thought he had the right and he said the park overgrows with them if people don’t pick them, almost like mother nature is littering on herself. i sat down about 50 yards away and started picking daisies too, but he noticed, and picked with me. this continued on in silence for probably about 45 minutes before he handed me his phone number on an otherwise unmarked piece of paper. he produced it out of his pocket, and i never saw him write it. maybe he had a sense i would show up.

topsel has an interesting personality. he’s entirely unaffected by depictions of things, and therefore has to spend a lot of time traveling to actual places, where real things live. he doesn’t watch any movies, or tv shows. his house doesn’t have any art in it. the walls are bare. he spends the money that most people spend on entertainment on chocolate bars. topsel loves chocolate bars. i think they make him feel about six times as good as the average person feels after eating one. oh, and he always wears sunglasses. he says it “cultivates a perception,” but doesn’t really like explaining what that means. i think i’d do anything for him.

after we went to the circus, i walked him home. topsel lives in blax village, which is the de facto artist district of our city. the rent there is slightly above low. there’s a lot of graffiti everywhere, and many corner stores with blinking lights, some of which are even blinking intentionally. topsel spent about 5 minutes fidgeting with his keys, trying to get them in the lock, whilst i watched for any shady figures to come by with a crowbar or other dangerous implement. he finally got in and bid me a brief “adieu.”

i ran home through the sewers’ underground obstacle course because it’s really fun. i still had some energy left after the circus, and i felt like listening to the dance music people are always playing off their boomboxes down there. i started feeling kind of sleepy, and decided to stay at one of the tent parks underground for the night. if i don’t go to sleep right when i’m tired, sometimes i end up staying awake for a few extra hours. i rented a night in one of the tents, prayed with the complimentary bible, and took a direct train to snoozetown.