A Guide to Visitors, 8 p.m. Tuesday March 2nd at the Canoe Club:

Pleased to announce that a month ago, I had another piece accepted to A Guide to Visitors, the story-telling salon. The evening's theme this round? "Seattle Stories".

Details:

http://agtv.org/calendar.html

More on A Guide to Visitors (for the uninitiated, no, it has nothing to do with tourism, guiding or visitors):

http://agtv.org/press.html

Striking, saddening reports and video from the devastation in Chile:

One of the more evocative and comprehensive pieces I've read so far. Scroll down for video embedded on the lower left side:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/world/americas/28chile.html?hp

As if I haven't encountered enough hyprocrisy from skull-dented, Bible-thumping lunatics in recent months:

Yesterday a woman called me from a listed Seattle number, relayed the name of her Bible group and asked, "We're in your neighborhood and with everything going on in the world today, I wondered if I could read you some Scripture passages?"

It's axiomatic that extremists in all belief and/or philosophical systems fuck things up for everybody. Still can't decide whether or not to post the group's number, though.

Yippee! More good news re the Smith Mag book:

Smith Magazine's newest book, It All Changed in an Instant: More Six Word Memoirs (HarperCollins) in which, as previously noted, I am included alongside some of my very favorite writers, is featured on Huffington Post today:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/26/six-word-memoirs-james-fr_n_466011.html

I'm watching the bipartisan health care summit at Blair House...

...and among other inanities, I don't understand how Senator Kyl (R-Arizona) has deduced that President Obama's health care plan is a "job killer". Besides the pesky fact it's inaccurate, Kyl's pronouncement is designed to terrify the very populace, the middle class and the lower income, the bill helps the most.

A year into the president's first term, ninety-nine percent of Republicans have made it abundantly clear they are going to declare him a big-government favoring, tax-increasing socialist regardless of what he actually favors. He could provide each American home with free gas for a year and the G.O.P. would still maintain the president hates the nation's cars.

Enough already. Reconciliation it is.

Though I'll be avoiding them henceforth, natch:

You know how with certain individuals it's impossible not to conclude that in lieu of gray matter their brain pan is stuffed with layer upon layer of dead flies?

I had the pleasure of interacting with two such specimens yesterday and I'd like to take this time to thank them for providing future material.

In case there weren't enough reasons to think RNC chairman, Michael Steele, is a complete tool:

Excerpt from today's Politico.com feature:

"Republican National Chairman Michael Steele is spending twice as much as his recent predecessors on private planes and paying more for limousines, catering and flowers – expenses that are infuriating the party's major donors who say Republicans need every penny they can get for the fight to win back Congress.

Most recently, donors grumbled when Steele hired renowned chef Wolfgang Puck's local crew to cater the RNC's Christmas party inside the trendy Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue, and then moved its annual winter meeting from Washington to Hawaii.

For some major GOP donors, both decisions were symbolic of the kind of wasteful spending habits they claim has become endemic to his tenure at the RNC. When Ken Mehlman served as the committee chairman during the critical 2006 midterm elections, the holiday party was held in a headquarters conference room and Chic-fil-A was the caterer.

A POLITICO analysis of expenses found that compared with 2005, the last comparable year preceding a midterm election, the committee’s payments for charter flights doubled; the number of sedan contractors tripled, and meal expenses jumped from $306,000 to $599,000."

More:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33324.html

My newest (very) short story, 'Jess' Expiration Date' is...

...at Six Sentences now:

http://sixsentences.blogspot.com/2010/02/jesss-expiration-date.html

Part of a larger, forthcoming work.

And not just "fun under the circumstances", but actually fun:

Holy fucking hell! Thank you, everybody, for a birthday party last night that was more fun than sunshine and puppies and spaghetti combined! Here's to a glorious year for all!

With the love and the hugs and the loving hugs,
Litz

Along with the jammies corollary:

Looking forward to tonight, which will be the largest, though not the last of the birthday gatherings.

I must be presentable, cogent and witty in a few hours, however, but once again, I've barely slept. And I'm afraid if I close my eyes now, I'll zone through the festivities, which would be poor form. Though I'm unsure how I'll be presentable, cogent and witty unless I get some sleep.

Great thing about my friends and family and among the reasons I love them so? Everyone is fully cognizant of the circumstances this year and if I arrived with a pillow in tow, their feelings for me wouldn't change.

Hope not, anyway. Because we might be testing that theory in a bit.

Um, Seattle?

While it has been delightfully sunny these past three days and all of us welcome the return of chirping birds, might we stipulate the pervasive tank tops and sandals are a wee premature?

It is a mere 50 degrees Fahrenheit, not even "warm" unless one has been bred from penguins.

A fine salute to a fine man and writer:

Roger Ebert has always been one of my favorite film critics because of his vast knowledge, deft wit and sense of fair play.

Incredibly sorry he's enduring cancer, much less such a pernicious form. I know he wouldn't want my pity, but he'll always have my respect:

http://www.esquire.com/features/roger-ebert-0310

Link via my dear friend, Jade Walker.

Condolences:

I think all of us following this story knew its probable outcome, but still, one can't help but hope for a statistical improbability. I'm unsure why KING 5 hasn't updated its URL, but the following piece, headlined, "Climber's body recovered from Mount St. Helen's crater" contains the latest information as of last night:

http://www.king5.com/news/local/Rescue-effort-to-resume-for-fallen-Mount-St-Helens-climber-84471252.html

Thinking of Joseph Bohlig's loved ones.

Two awful things and one pleasant one:

1) The latest news, updated at 2:00 p.m. today, re the stranded climber on Mount St. Helens:

http://www.king5.com/news/local/Rescue-effort-to-resume-for-fallen-Mount-St-Helens-climber-84471252.html

Continued good wishes to him and to his loved ones, who are enduring an indescribably hellish wait.

2) Residents of Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, heads up. Now I know why there was a cacophony of sirens Saturday night:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011093483_webcaphill16m.html

http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2010/02/16/follow-up-on-weekend-roving-gang-attacks-man-fights-back-with-busted-umbrella

http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2010/02/15/man-stabbed-in-summit-ave-street-robbery

3) Received additional good writing news today. Not that this is on par with the suffering endured by those in the above pieces. It just makes life in my home a bit brighter.

Oh, hell:

I had a lovely afternoon with two friends today, replete with mochas, and also received some delectable writing news. I've been up since 4:30 a.m., however--thank you, grief, my constant companion--and was hoping to conk out soon.

I read the following piece two hours ago, though, and now everything is churning again. Including TJ, this makes the fifth climber from our region in the past 19 weeks. Hopefully he returns safely. Please keep him and his loved ones in your thoughts and/or prayers:

http://www.king5.com/news/local/Climber-falls-into-Mount-St-Helens-crater-84414752.html

Much better:

Yesterday, despite all the revelry I could muster, October 6 through October 10 kept involuntarily and continually playing on my mind's screen.

Today, while I'm not exactly clicking my heels, it is, in fact, February again.

I'm about a quarter of my way through sending individual "Thank you!" missives, but my deepest gratitude to all of you on three continents for everything this week.

Okay. Matinee time.

Thank you, everybody!

I'm getting ready to head out soon for the second of what will be four birthday celebrations--today is the actual day--and I deeply appreciate all so many of you have done to help take the deep sting out of what is, this year, an uncharacteristically painful occasion.

Last year he said he wanted to make my birthday "perfect" and from start to finish, he did. And each year he called at 12:01 a.m. to be the first to wish me "Happy birthday!"

So for many reasons, since I've awoken, his death has outweighed the impact of my birth.

Thank you again, each of you, for everything. It means more than I can express.

And thank you, TJ, for this day last year and forevermore for each moment.

Love to all,
Litsa

Nor did I upend any tables:

Had a wonderful dinner at Quinn's last night with S, my friend of 20 years, that included much banter, long-running jokes and mashed sweet potatoes.

Also, I managed not to detonate anything. Much additional celebrating-under-the-circumstances lies ahead the next few weeks, so I take this as both a victory and a good sign.

I'm so fucking sick of those who...

...sentimentalize the North Cascades.

Yes, they are gorgeous.

But he died there.

For me, the latter will always outweigh the former.

Stay of execution!

Yesterday it looked like I was going to have to euthanize my beloved 11 and a 1/2 year-old bunny, Xander. When we got to the vet, it turned out what presented as fatal was actually treatable and by last night he was eating and leaping around again.

This is now the fourth time it's looked he was going to die but hasn't. He's the lagomorph equivalent of Superman crossed with Elizabeth Taylor.

The House Republican leaders are craven halfwits:

You'll notice at no point in their new letter do House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) mention the millions of uninsured and under-insured Americans, i.e. their fellow citizens, many of whom are their constituents. Disingenuously and, given the stakes, amorally, they refer to their latest obstructionist tactic as "bipartisanship":

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/02/top-house-republicans-throw-co.html?wprss=44

I wish it were legal by executive order for President Obama to suspend health insurance to both houses and parties in Congress until they get off their fucking asses and pass meaningful and comprehensive legislation that accords each American the basic human right not to die, get sicker, or go broke in the event of illness or injury.

Weekend recap:

• I completed my sickest weekend in several months and loathed each waking and half-slept moment of it.
• Watched two of my all-time favorites, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle and The Graduate back-to-back last night. Awoke feeling somewhat improved. Would like to think it's their comprehensive brilliance or my aforementioned illness-loathing that prompted the symptoms to calm the hell down, though most likely the Amoxicillin kicked in.
• Did not watch the Superbowl (not that I'm a huge NFL fan, but still) because our annual condo board meeting was scheduled for kick-off time. No, really.
• Discovered at said meeting that some of my adored and respected neighbors not only wish to spend their finite seconds on earth fretting about the garage floor's cleanliness, but that they will implore others to do the same.
• Last night on the street below, two drunk guys got into a brawl, replete with pithy, alcohol-soaked exchanges like, "Fuck you, man!" "No, man, fuck you!" Then one of them looked up, saw me standing at my window and yelled, "I'm sorry! I just have to tell him this one more thing!" and hissed at the other guy, much more quietly, "I said, 'Fuck you!'" The city's genteel reputation? Intact.
  

Today's NFL memory:

I was the only girl on the block growing up so I became adept at playing touch football. When my brother and I were on the same team, he got to "be" Fran Tarkenton and I, Lynn Swann.

I developed early, however, and one day as Mom watched us play from the kitchen window, she noticed some of the fellas to whom I wasn't related were touching me a bit too long in certain places. So, she benched me.

Alas.

Hello, symptom flare-up:

Jesus fucking Christ I'm sick today.

Remember that scene in Postcards from the Edge where Dennis Quaid utters one of Carrie Fisher's best lines, that he feels like he "slept under an elephant's foot?"

It's like that, only without all the coked out anonymous sex that preceded it.

Though it'd be kinda cool if someone made my turkey, spinach and avocado sandwich for me right now:

Yesterday I wrote more than I have in any 24 hour period since he died.

Today I feel as if a meteor landed on me while I slept.

Back at the keyboard, though.

I've had worse nights.

Query:

At what point in the grief process does ice cream cease being an acceptable side dish w/ breakfast?

B/c we haven't reached it yet.

Hooray! Smith Magazine editors featured on NPR today:

Smith Magazine editors Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser were featured on NPR today in support of Smith Mag's new book, It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-word Memoirs (HarperCollins), as previously noted, a wry and insightful tome featuring, among others, Amy Tan, Frank McCourt, Sarah Silverman, Gloria Steinem, Andy Richter and, well, me.

Congrats again, Larry and Rachel!

The NPR feature:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123289019&sc=fb&cc=fp

And now, congregants, let us turn to p. 22 of David Cross' I Drink for a Reason and...

...reflect upon his passage re hippies, "Maybe tax them more. Create a 'well-meaning, but actually harmful tax' so that when they advocate drinking and bathing in your urine, they also pay into a universal health-care system to offset the damage brought on by drinking and bathing in one's own urine."

Amen.

Hey, __. This one's for you:

The 82nd annual Academy Award nominations were announced this morning:

http://carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/oscar-nominations/

Better than spaghetti and puppies and ice cream combined:

Via Facebook friend Jon Auer's page:

John Paul Auer is pleased to announce: 1) The Posies will play "Frosting on the Beater" in its entirety on 4/17/10 @ The Crocodile in Seattle 2) A handful of hours after said Crocodile show, freshly rocked Posies will leave Seattle for the south of Spain to begin recording a new album for release in 2010, and 3) The Posies will also play all material from said new album @ The Crocodile on 4/17/10 as well. For rizzle! Tickets go on sale online 2/6/10 @ The Crocodile.com.

Nice job, good, on continuing to exist in the world.