Though D-Day was good, too:

Today (now yesterday) my first piece for BlackBook Magazine hit the stands. It's short, but they didn't alter a word. Eight months after I first pitched them, it's fun to hold the tangible results. (I'm reviewing The Long Winters' upcoming disc for BB's Dec/Jan issue, too. Yea!) Also, the new issue contains the winners of their "Hemingway Challenge Contest", wherein readers were asked to submit six-word stories inspired by Hemingway's renowned, "For sale: baby shoes, never used." I didn't know until this evening that I had made the cut ("We removed the wrong eye. Braille?") as did two members of my beloved and freakishly talented writing group. Bono graces the cover--literally--and Tony Bennett's version of "New York State of Mind" piped over the speakers as I paid at the newsstand.

This is, quite possibly, the best day of all time.

Damn it, I'll go over your head if I have to:

How cool would it be if "E.R." had some kind of internal power struggle that manifested itself in the operating room? Then someone could yell something like, "You just exposed this entire hospital to a lawsuit in there!" Then two staff members could have joyless sex . Really, they should look into that.

Of course, I would be The Godmother:

My parents and I went to lunch today at Niko's in Seattle's Magnolia Village. I had a mouth full of souvlaki when a woman approached our table and asked me, "Excuse me, but were you on a blind date about six weeks ago at The Still Life in Fremont? You and a guy were sitting at a table outside?"

"Um, yes. That was me," I replied, a bit startled.

"My friend and I were sitting at the table next to you and I want you to know we felt awful for you. That guy was a jerk. We talked about it after you left. You were all dressed up and funny and asking him questions and he was boring and rude and *then he didn't even pay.* We were mad on your behalf," she explained, genuinely fired up.

"Thanks," I replied. "It's nice to have it coroborated. He was an asshole and I can't understand why he kept emailing me saying he wanted to meet me, because when I got there he made no effort."

"I know," she continued. "He complained about *everything*. Like how his company sent him to London and he hated it? Who hates London?"

"Exactly! And what about when he said he hates New York?"

"That's when I knew he was sunk. Why would you go out with a writer and then say you hate New York? What's wrong with him? I hope you don't think we were eavesdropping, but the tables are so close at The Still Life that we heard everything. By the way, my name is Renee."

"Hey, Renee. I'm Litsa." We shook hands.

"She told me she thought the women at the next table caught on and were sympathetic," Mom said. "Remember, honey? The biotech researcher I told you about who made her pay for her own coffee?" she asked my dad.

"I said it then and I'll say it now: she should have poured it in his lap," Dad added matter-of-factly.

"Guys like that are the worst," the woman at the next table chimed in.

"I know," Renee and I responded simultaneously.

Renee had to get going, but I thanked her for her input and for objectively verifying my take on a crappy evening. The woman at the next table smiled at both of us and returned to her book.

Lately, I've been thinking that there needs to be a Girl Mafia. We wouldn't kill anyone--or even permanently injure them--but, when called, we would burst in and kick dickwad guys in the shins. So they learned a lesson. Behavior modification, as it were.

Of course, the world is full of bitches, too. I love my guy friends and I've seen some of them get their hearts stomped, but it's not funny to joke about kicking women because it happens all the time in real life. However, I've long maintained that a guy can use the "c word" if the object of his affection has crushed him, as long as two other women sign off on it. (Once, my friend, Tony, took a woman to Canlis and the Seattle Opera on a Saturday night. On the way home, she told him, "I hope you don't think this was *a date*. I would never go on *a date* with you." My friend, Eva, and I signed off immediately.)

Anyway, if you see a biotech engineer with an office in Belltown and a hideous dad-man golf shirt wearing shin guards, you can smile, knowing he's a changed man.

Postscript: I know the above examples only apply to breeders. I'm working on solutions to my gay friends' dating snags, too.

Sick and tired of being sick and tired. Ha, ha, ha:

For those keeping track at home, my mom's surgery on Tuesday went quite well--much better than expected--and she's recovering rapidly. Thanks, all, for thoughts and prayers. I relayed messages to her and she was touched.

But here's what gets me: it's so fucked up that she needed surgery in the first place. The nerve damage from the fibromyalgia began loosening her teeth two years ago and they had been falling out since then. On Tuesday, she had to have all of them pulled and dentures inserted.

Mom has been in unremitting pain for over a decade and it breaks my heart. She hides it well and I'm amazed by how many folks haven't grasped the obvious: they only see her when she's able to leave the house, which, on average, is twice a week. She's wearing a cute ensemble and she's got her cane and she's lively and funny and makes self-deprecating jokes about how slowly she moves.

They don't see the hours that went into getting ready: showering from the night before and getting dressed in increments. Put on bra and underwear; lie down. Put on pantyhose and jewelry; lie down. Same for hair, makeup, shirt, pants and shoes. And this is someone who logged the second number of trial hours for several years running at the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.

She's already outlived her own mom, who also had acute fibromyalgia--though no one was sure what to make of it then--and who succumbed to a heart attack at forty-eight after a two year stroke-induced coma.

The Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health have thus far concluded that: 1) one is probably born with a genetic predisposition to fibromyalgia and/or CFIDS; 2) the symptoms from both illnesses significantly overlap and are probably related; and 3) both illnesses tend to run in families. I, of course, developed CFIDS at twenty-four and my second cousin became severely ill with fibromyalgia in his early twenties, so the evidence is definitely born out in our family.

Last week I told Mom that I have a sort of survivor's guilt: I was struck younger than she and her mom, but I will probably benefit more from current research because I will be younger than her when a treatment or cure is discovered. Ampligen is in FDA test phases and, if approved, will be the first drug developed specifically for the treatment of CFIDS and fibromyalgia. If it works, Mom and I could have new lives.

Which isn't to say we don't love the lives we have. Like I said, Mom's spirits are good--we both have a deeply ingrained "never say die" mentality--and I have sold or placed fourteen articles since May. I love my family and my friends--here I'm truly blessed--and I'm going to New York again, halle-fucking-lujah.

But the toll has been high: I've been much less ambulatory and in much more pain since mid-July. I have daily intestinal cramps and a fever as often as not. I walk with a cane several days a week. I've made it out of the house less than ten hours all week and on Thursday, the chills were so bad, I almost cried in public. (If you know me, you know it takes a lot--like a fucking anvil on my head--to induce public tears.)

More so than anything, I feel isolated. I once wrote, "I don't want to live with my nose pressed against the glass" and I don't. Which is why I remain hopeful: the alternative is unthinkable.

For more on the new Centers for Disease Control study that concludes the U.S. loses $9.1 billion annually due to CFIDS:

CFIDS -- Legislative Alerts and Updates

Preaching to the choir, loudly:

One of President Bush's Harvard Business School professors is publicly decrying his former student as a boorish, hypocritical ideologue. I wish both Democrats and Republicans would stick to the pertinent issues--jobs, health care, terrorism, Iraq, AIDS, the enivironment, the deficit, poverty, education--and stop debating who did what thirty years ago.

On the other hand, I got a kick out of this. It won't change anyone's mind--Democrats know Bush is intellectually deficient and Republicans don't care--but it underscores a point I've long maintained: If Bush had been born into Clinton's circumstances (or Reagan's, for that matter), he would be a gas-pumping dropout. He's accomplished nothing without his family's help. (Obviously, Gore and McCain benefited from their senator and admiral forebearers, respectively. However, both men proceeded to work their asses off. Therein lies the difference.)

Enjoy, fellow choir members:

Salon.com News | The dunce

Best campaign '04 quote so far:

"Politicians are doing what politicians do. I liken it to when you go to the zoo, and the monkeys are sitting in there jerking off and throwing their shit. And you just gotta go, 'Well, they're monkeys.' But you can yell at the media and go, 'You know, your job is to tell them when they're being bad monkeys.'"--Jon Stewart, Entertainment Weekly, September 17, 2004 issue

These little town blues are melting away:

I'm going to New York again in November and I'm literally counting the days. My friend, JT LeRoy, will have a new book out in December and I've been invited to the launch party. Also, I just found out I'm going to interview him again--this time for The Black Table--and I'm psyched. (I'm still sending out queries. Hopefully, I'll interview him for additional publications.) His upcoming novella, "Harold's End", is like a fish hook: it punctures you, gets under your skin and stays there. I can't wait to discuss it in print.

Near the topic, if not quite on it, at tonight's writing group Jade suggested a freewrite about "a city that we hate". She and Margaret thought that I should post my results here:

I can't be objective about this. I love my family and friends--adore them, really--but when I think about Seattle, I think of that Bob Dylan line from "Don't Fall Apart on Me Tonight": "It's like I'm stuck inside a painting/ that's hanging in the Lourve/ My throat starts to tickle/ and my nose itches/ but I know that I can't move".

As anyone who's known me longer than ten minutes discovers, I love New York truly, madly, deeply. I feel at home there in a way I never do here. And as everyone who knows me finds out soon enough, I've been sick for the past thirteen years. I haven't had enough health and cash simultaneously to make the leap.

I'm optimistic, though. No one has heard me say I'm staying in Seattle nor will they ever. And like I said, I can't be objective about this because I feel like I'm being held against my will. I've lived here my entire life and what bothers me most about Seattle is the pervasive anemia, the toxic mellowness that hangs over it like a mushroom cloud. Obviously, there are notable exceptions--we've got some amazing writers and musicians, for starters--but ambition is a dirty word here and I don't get it. I return to this again and again in my work and in my life: this is finite and we're going to be dead one day. I can't see the point in *not* running toward the highest bar.

In the August 9, 2004 issue of New York Magazine, John Buffalo Mailer...

...interviewed his father, Norman Mailer. The elder Mailer makes the most salient point I've read re the RNC convention:

"Do the activists really know what they're going into? That's my concern. Or do they assume that expressing their rage is equal to getting Kerry elected? It could have exactly the opposite effect. The better mode may be to frustrate the Republicans by coming up with orderly demonstrations. Now, when I was young, the suggestion to be moderate was like a stink bomb to me. An orderly demonstration? What were we, cattle? You have to speak out with your rage. Well, I'm trying to say, we would do well to realize that on this occassion, there are more important things than a good outburst. I wish we could remind everyone who goes out to march of the old Italian saying, 'Revenge is a dish that people of taste eat cold.' Instead of expressing yourself at the end of August, think of how nicely you will be able to keep expressing yourself over the four years to come if we win. Just keep thinking how much the Republicans want anarchy on the street. I say, don't march right into their trap."

Norman Mailer and John Buffalo Mailer Discuss Protests at the Republican National Convention

Happy stuff:

My Black Table interview with Augusten Burroughs is here! This is the second time I've interviewed Burroughs and each time he was unfailingly polite, refreshingly grounded, and instinctively hilarious. We spoke last month on the phone:

AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS' MAGICAL WAY OF THINKING.

Come back to the five and dime, Fran Lebowitz, Fran Lebowitz:

I'm on deadline now--more on that once everything is turned in and published and/or posted--so instead of concocting my own Slippery Fish bon mots this afternoon, I thought I'd share my two fave quotes from "The Fran Lebowitz Reader", which I recently finished reading. (For the uninitiated: before she was a judge on "Law and Order"--a role she got by calling the producers and asking--Lebowitz was one of the country's premiere essayists.)

"To put it rather bluntly, I am not the type who wants to go back to the land--I am the type who wants to go back to the hotel."

"A great many people in Los Angeles are on special diets that restrict their intake of synthetic foods. The reason for this appears to be a widely held belief that organically grown fruits and vegetables make the cocaine work faster."

Now, if anyone wants to bring me dinner--say, phad thai with barbequed pork, two stars--that'd be supercool. Back to work.

Socket wrench...seeks nuts to crack:

First, I click on my Nerve account and discover the worst tag line ever and possibly the most horrifying metaphor in recorded human history:

"Shovel...seeks butter clam for harvest."

Then I look up and discover (my husband) Jon Stewart interviewing (talented lunatic) Burt Reynolds. But Reynolds' visage now resembles that of a burn survivor: taut skin and features askew. And it's heartbreaking, really, because he *chose* to mangle his face.

Some nights I think the only things standing between me and a felony are four bunnies, Green and Black's Chocolate Mint Bar, and a delightful array of shoes.

P.S. My writing group kicks ass.

At least it wasn't a blood relative:

The letter writer (see previous post) revealed himself yesterday. Turns out--for reasons I won't go into--that he was neither sweet nor creepy. Harmless, though, so no worries.

I'd really prefer not to discuss this again. Thanks.

Sweet or creepy?

I received the following missive (see below) in my Nerve mailbox yesterday and I'm stumped. The sender left his entire profile blank, except to say he's 32 and "gainfully employed". I acknowledged the kind sentiments and thanked him for taking the time to write them. I explained that his anonymity was more frustrating than beguiling, though, and if I could put my picture out there, he could reveal himself.

Nothing.

Late last night--I couldn't sleep for a bunch of reasons--I replied again and explained that I'm already on the brink of getting an anti-harassment order against one of my neighbors and that the anonymous thing was disconcerting.

Zip.

He obviously knows me, but he doesn't know me well. All of the guys with whom I'm close are either: 1) platonic, or 2) exes w/ whom I'm now friends. Also, anyone who knows me at all knows that gutless men get on my nerves. I've asked out guys and taken the initiative a whole bunch of times: I know what it's like to risk your heart. But life is short--cliched but true--and (mixed metaphor alert!) sometimes ya gotta dive right in.

He's probably a friend of a friend, at which point it could be anyone. I have a few hunches, but if you've got a hypothesis, please let me know:

chrysalis_stage

32 | Seattle, Washington
Butterfly? or Moth?
To: writerstrumpet
Subject: Just wanted to tell you...

Hi Litsa,

I know it's a little strange being greeted by your first name in a response to a personal ad. When I saw it, though, I realized it could only be you.

We know each other in real life, and I have admired you since the day I met you. However, these are things I don't think I'd have the courage to tell you in person. Honestly, I've been debating writing this note since I saw your profile. So, allow me to whisper to you from the only cover of darkness I have.

From what I know of you, I think you're a talented writer, amazingly well read, stylish, wicked smart, and yes, quite lovely both in person and in spirit. (you picked a great picture, it really highlights your amazing smile). I have thought, at times, about asking for a chance to get to know you better. But, in the end, I doubt I'm the sort of man you're looking for.

Still, I wanted to drop you a note to wish you luck in your search, and in life. I sincerely hope you find the person you seek. Any man who earns your love would be lucky indeed.

Best regards,
- C

Summer's almost over. May your Winters be Long:

I was at Seattle's Easy Street Records on Sunday night when the most luscious rock/pop --notice I didn't phrase it the other way around--burst from their speakers and changed everything. That's how I discovered The Long Winters. Their second CD, "When I Pretend to Fall", is magnetic: I didn't return someone's call last night because I wanted to keep listening uninterrupted. Today I bought three more copies for friends who have upcoming birthdays and tomorrow morning I tear the cellophane off their first disc, "The Worst You Can Do is Harm".

If you don't hear from me by the weekend, please send mochas:

The Long Winters | Seattle, WA

In a perfect universe:

Bill Clinton would still be president.

There would be a BLT w/ thinly sliced avacodo and a side order of hash browns on my bedside table tomorrow morning.

War, poverty, disease, illiteracy, religious fanaticism, overpopulation and global warming would disappear faster than paychecks at casinos.

Most men wouldn't be easily threatened.

I'd have *all the clothes.*

My parents would be healthy and I'd be living in New York, right this second.

Love--and bunnies--would last forever.

If Armistead Maupin doesn't write about this, I will:

Gay Porn Star Serves Moguls

New York Post Online Edition: gossip

If inclined, please disseminate this post from Salon's War Room '04 column:

Salon.com Politics

Hersh: Children sodomized at Abu Ghraib, on tape

After Donald Rumsfeld testified on the Hill about Abu Ghraib in May, there was talk of more photos and video in the Pentagon's custody more horrific than anything made public so far. "If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse," Rumsfeld said. Since then, the Washington Post has disclosed some new details and images of abuse at the prison. But if Seymour Hersh is right, it all gets much worse.

Hersh gave a speech last week to the ACLU making the charge that children were sodomized in front of women in the prison, and the Pentagon has tape of it. The speech was first reported in a New York Sun story last week, which was in turn posted on Jim Romenesko's media blog, and now EdCone.com and other blogs are linking to the video. We transcribed the critical section here (it starts at about 1:31:00 into the ACLU video.) At the start of the transcript here, you can see how Hersh was struggling over what he should say:

"Debating about it, ummm ... Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib ... The women were passing messages out saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened' and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It's going to come out."

"It's impossible to say to yourself how did we get there? Who are we? Who are these people that sent us there? When I did My Lai I was very troubled like anybody in his right mind would be about what happened. I ended up in something I wrote saying in the end I said that the people who did the killing were as much victims as the people they killed because of the scars they had, I can tell you some of the personal stories by some of the people who were in these units witnessed this. I can also tell you written complaints were made to the highest officers and so we're dealing with a enormous massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there and higher, and we have to get to it and we will. We will. You know there's enough out there, they can't (Applause). .... So it's going to be an interesting election year."

Notes from a similar speech Hersh gave in Chicago in June were posted on Brad DeLong's blog. Rick Pearlstein, who watched the speech, wrote: "[Hersh] said that after he broke Abu Ghraib people are coming out of the woodwork to tell him this stuff. He said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, 'You haven't begun to see evil...' then trailed off. He said, 'horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run.' He looked frightened."

So, there are several questions here: Has Hersh actually seen the video he described to the ACLU, and why hasn't he written about it yet? Will he be forced to elaborate in more public venues now that these two speeches are getting so much attention, at least in the blogosphere? And who else has seen the video, if it exists -- will journalists see and report on it? did senators see these images when they had their closed-door sessions with the Abu Ghraib evidence? -- and what is being done about it?

-- Geraldine Sealey

[09:26 PDT, July 15, 2004]

And then Dave Eggers and I went shopping for pants in SoHo...

...and grabbed coffee at Dean and DeLuca. (You know, the one in my mind):

My first piece for McSweeney's is here!

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: If Charles Bukowski Had Written Children's Books.

Six strangers have linked it to their blogs, so I thought I'd do the same. It ran on McSweeney's front page for three days--I have a screenshot--but I don't know how to hyperlink it, so y'all are going to have to take my word for it.

My mom likes to say, "Life shits on everyone eventually. Enjoy the good times while they're here."

I agree and I'm enjoying.

(Not now, Dave. I'm on deadline.)

Lou Reed's late-eighties Honda scooter ads came dangerously close:

When Stephen Dorff played proto-Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe in the film, "Backbeat", he embodied the hushed, aching loveliness of the doomed bassist. A decade later, Dorff portrays some wanged-out jealous boyfriend in the new Britney Spears video.

Has there ever been a more precipitous decline in rock 'n' coolness?

Late Night Confessions:

1) I don't like yoga.

2) I have a subscription to US Magazine.

3) My brother and my two first cousins all married virgins, making me--by default--the family whore.

4) One of my exes married a woman whose IQ rivals that of the average cobb salad.

5) I made up two words this week, "awesomeosity" and "dicklicker":

"I got accepted into McSweeney's! *Awesomeosity!*"

"Nice lane change, *dicklicker!*"

6) When I see people wearing fleece pullovers and Tevas, I sometimes want to kick them.

7) Other times, I want to trip them.

8) I'm always thinking of you, New York.