My friend, Caryn Rose...

...writes the frenetic and essential music blog, Jukebox Graduate. Here she posts the Supersucker's Eddie Spaghetti's analogy wherein he compares the Republicans to Van Halen:

jukeboxgraduate.com: eddie spaghetti on the election

You, too, Mary Beth Cahill:

As everyone knows, John Kerry and George W. Bush are locked in a dead heat. Both parties are flipping out.

My friend and I are particularly concerned. The last thing we said to each other when we got off the phone at midnight on election night 2000 was something like, "Hey! In the morning we'll have a new president." Then, on September 10, 2001, also around midnight, we wrapped up an otherwise ordinary phone conversation by making plans to get together so that I could retrieve a photo that I wanted to use for my MovieMaker bio.

Neither phone call has anything in common with the other except that *both of them inadvertantly triggered disaster.* Neither of us is superstitous, but we're not taking chances, either. Next Monday, November 1, we've agreed to a phone block with regards to the other. Just in case, I won't hit my favorite coffee house--located in his neighborhood--and he won't take his usual route past my place on the way to the gym.

You won't get prescient strategy like this from the DNC. Terry McAuliffe, *call me.*

Hard to say who would be more pissed off, George W. Bush or Al Gore:

The Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, is reporting--via UPI--that Bill Clinton wants to be the next Secretary General of the United Nations:

Haaretz - Israel News

You can email the author, Rebecca Skloot, with suggestions and/or support at rskloot@yahoo.com:

I'm horrified that our country's most sophisticated city, New York, permits wild dogs to attack pets and their owners, but allows the victims no legal recourse. I know that all of us are caught up in the election, but this story is so egregious, so fucking *wrong*, and yet solvable through legal channels (letter writing campaigns, press conferences) or extra-legal ones (poisoned meat). I've emailed Ms. Skloot to let her know that if she's starting an online petition, to count me in and that I'll forward it accordingly. In the meantime, if you love animals, please read her incisive and heartbreaking New York Magazine piece, "When Pets Attack":

When Pets Attack

Of course, nothing compares to the hymm we sang at St. John's Elementary...

..."Peace is Flowing Like a River", wherein we changed "peace" to "piss" and giggled uncontrollably because we were *so* clever:

In Bill Clinton's autobiography, "My Life", he writes that one of his favorite hymns intones, "the darker the night, the sweeter the victory".
That's how I feel about the past six months: I would have enjoyed them anyway, but they've been particularly sweet in light of the excruciating three years that proceeded them. It's with joy, not arrogance, that I post my good news here. The latest:

1) I found out earlier this week that the print and online versions of Kitchen Sink's Issue 10 will run my piece, "50 Questions for God". I wrote it fourteen months ago and I think it fits well with Kitchen Sink's ethos. Said piece hits stands in December. In the meantime, peruse the current issue:

kitchen sink magazine - for people who think too much

2) Yesterday I discovered that my Black Table and Bookslut interviews with Augusten Burroughs have been linked to his official site. Burroughs boasts one of the most comprehensive and best designed author sites around and it's worth checking out if you're a writer or a fan of his work:

# 1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Wait 'till you get to the "loofah mitt" on p. 16:

O'Reilly Hit With Sex Harass Suit - October 13, 2004

Merry Christmas, Al Franken!

America's newspaper and sodomy:

My writing continues to advance while my health continues to, well, *not* advance. At this rate, by the time I make the New York Times bestseller list, my lymph nodes will be the size of hubcaps.

Found out today that USA Today's "Hip Clicks" column featured my Paper Magazine profile on Augusten Burroughs and that Salon ran my letter re--god help us all--anal sex memoirist, Toni Bentley.

Enjoy!

USATODAY.com - Beer for club kids; Sarah McLachlan's cheap video

Salon.com Life | Letters

I've always liked John Kerry--I'm a bit of a policy geek--but this sums it up for a lot of folks I know:

JohnKerryIsADoucheBagButImVotingForHimAnyway.com

Good night and God bless:

The New York Times > Arts > Christopher Reeve, 'Superman' Star, Dies at 52

"I refuse to allow a disability to determine how I live my life. I don't mean to be reckless, but setting a goal that seems a bit daunting actually is very helpful toward recovery." --Christopher Reeve, 1952-2004

Stay tuned for more--yea!:

My Black Table essay, "Seizure Sex":
THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO OOOF.

My Paper Magazine profile on Augusten Burroughs:
PAPERMAG PAPERDAILY

My Skirt Magazine essay, "The Not So Great Cookie Offering" (aka "Baking and Fucking"):
Skirt

My Poets and Writers interview with Augusten Burroughs:
Poets&Writers, Inc.

Don't let the title fool you:

My friend, Jade Walker, writes The Blog of Death. Her obituaries for the celebrated, infamous, and everyday folk are eloquent and sharp. What I love most, though, is that in acknowledging death, she celebrates life:

The Blog of Death

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.