Like Wonder Woman in sky blue Converse All Stars:

I'm not superstitious by nature, but all of us have our idiosyncrasies. (Obama shot hoops the morning of each primary or caucus, believing it lucky and joked he lost New Hampshire's primary because he skipped said ritual that day.) So there is a part of me that is hugely reluctant to commit this to print for fear of jinxing things and waking up with, say, bubonic plague or ebola. But here goes:

• At this very moment, I do not have a fever.
• I was able to attend an arts event last night for the first time since Memorial Day weekend, i.e. the onset of shingles.
• For most of the past three weeks, I've used my cane instead of forearm crutches.
  
• While I was in a whole lot of pain today and, to borrow Carrie Fisher's line, felt like I slept under an elephant's foot, and, also, was unable to leave the house until 5:00 p.m., I still walked from my place to Denny Ave (stopping several times, but hey) and on the return loop grocery shopped at QFC.
• On the way home, I was able to carry a light bag of groceries on my "bad" side, i.e. the shingled one.
  
• For the past three weeks, I've been able to do all my own grocery shopping, laundry, dishes, and have whisked away my own garbage and recycling.

I'm completely aware that in many ways, all of this sounds like I'm a budding adolescent or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, an aging and decaying old lady, but trust me: under recent circumstances, it is huge. Huge. And just as importantly, if not more so, last month I wrote my piece for Nerve, resumed writing here, and honed in on the novel again. It's too soon to take on other deadlines--the only reason I was able to tackle the Nerve feature was because my parents and TJ did every other single thing for me, like servants but without the quaint living quarters--and I know my immune system still needs much more time to heal. (And, of course, I know that's a relative term.) But after spending most of the summer as a virtual invalid (I haven't even addressed the Percocet toxicity and uncontrollable vomiting), this is, shall we say, nicer.

Fingers crossed, wood knocked, salt tossed.