A letter from June 25th, 2016

Dear Beth-Beth, I hope you are well. I hope you are better than I am. I have just ****** my lungs, taking years off my life, while helping mom and dad clean out the crawlspace. The mold alone was enough to drive me away, but I could not escape. I poured out bottles of water that they had stored away for Y2K. No joke. Anyway, yesterday Britain decided to leave the European Union. I hope by the time you're reading this the world has recovered from the Brexit. What a stupid thing to do.... I'm honestly starting to worry that Donald Trump will be sworn into office in January. That would be idiocy rivalling the Brexit. Logically, I can't believe that it would happen. But so many unbelievable things have happened. *cries in your arms* I'm thinking of voting Libertarian, but Amy told me not to. I'll probably vote for Hillary. Two weeks from tomorrow I leave for the Dominican Republic. I'm actually listening to The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao while I write this. I'm really nervous. I still haven't figured out a good dosage of Vyvanse. I hope you don't ever spend a sleepless night these days. That is the worst thing. Oh, one more thing. Elon Musk has been saying that we'll have humans on Mars by the end of 2025. Has that happened? That would be amazing. He's a weird guy, but fascinating. He almost makes me believe that it's possible. I am personally hoping that we contact an alien species during my lifetime, so that I can be an anthropologist working for NASA. I can only dream. I also sent out a short story to editors for the first time. I won't hear back for a while, but I have hopes. At least I could get my first rejection letter. I have a long way to go. I hope you've figured this whole thing out. Best wishes, Bethany Stoller