And now for everybody’s favorite monthly (more or less) feature: my M-protein levels. This is a marker for the cancer load in my bone marrow, and the lower the number the better. This month it’s basically flat and holding at a pretty reasonable level, so that’s good news:

The bad news, as usual, is that I continue taking the evil dex, which has lately turned into the chaotic evil dex. I take it twice a week, and sometimes it puts me to sleep and sometimes it keeps me awake. That would be OK if there were any way to predict which it would be, but I haven’t figured anything out on that score. And that’s not even the worst. During the day, I very reliably crash two days after taking the dex, and lately “crash” means a deep sleep for upwards of six or eight hours, even though I’m taking a tiny dose. It’s mysterious as hell.

POSTSCRIPT: For those of you who have asked after my mother, she’s doing great and is nearly 100 percent recovered from whatever her mystery ailment was. While my sister and I were taking care of her I tried to introduce her to the wonders of American fast food, but I fear that it was for naught. Now that she’s cooking for herself again, I’m pretty sure she hasn’t so much as ordered up a pizza from an outside vendor.

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We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

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If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

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