This is day thirty of my challenge to myself: thirty All Things Good posts in thirty days. Assuming that I’m not struck by lightning in the next few minutes and this makes it up onto the ‘net, I will have succeeded in this task.

And what a better way to end it, than by talking about the wonderful Twitter people I was able to meet last night in person – people I would never have had the honor of meeting were it not for this weird and wonderful online community.

Johanna and Greg and their three bright and lovely children picked me up outside my hotel on their way into town and we drove to Powell’s books. This store is an experience all in itself – it’s so big it requires a map. Seriously. It made me feel that I ought to drop to my knees and kiss the ground or something. Mecca for book lovers.

Bill Cameron showed up first. Actually, it turned out he had already been there for like an hour or something, so I ought to say we found him first. The seven of us invaded a partially occupied table and began the chatting. John Barnestorm showed up next. By then, we had pretty much cleared the table of other reader people, except for one determined soul who sat in a corner chair and continued to work through his selected books through almost the entire evening. We were starting to worry about Kristina, but Bill checked Twitter and we knew she was on the way. And then that she was circling the building waiting for permission to land.

Seriously, these are all fascinating, intelligent, articulate, and funny people. We covered a wide range of topics, from writing to Legos up the nose stories, (thanks Kristina) and had a marvelous time.

Today is my last day here in Portland. I have mixed feeling about that. It’s been a busy week and I’ve learned a lot, but I’ve spent about enough time “contemplating suicide” as the writer crowd last night decided to phrase it. I’m looking forward to home. On the other hand, I plan to join the Harness family again this evening to do something as yet undefined. And I am learning a lot here at this conference.

What is the next step for the blog? I’m not sure. Johanna suggests Thirty Days of Crappy Things. This may not be terribly uplifting. I could do Thirty Things you May Not Know About Suicide. Which wouldn’t be uplifting either, but maybe educational. Or go back to random posting whenever I happen to feel like it. Or something.

I guess the jury is still out.