In varying degrees, about New York:

1) Ephemeral New York ponders the lesser-known glories and horrors of New York. Richly curated; one of my favorites:

http://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/

2) I don't want a mosque at Ground Zero for the same reason I don't want a church or temple at Ground Zero: religion, along with poverty and illiteracy, fuels most wars and is a huge element of this one. Honor the 9/11 dead and their loved ones but keep the locale secular.

And for the record, I believe in an omniscient deity. But I don't think he/she/it/what-have-you thinks treating our existence like a team-choosing playground soccer match is a swell plan.

I've been writing the past few days straight...

...and because I had to scan photos for an upcoming feature, I went on a scanning bender.

While it's been a creatively invigorating summer, the rest of it, for reasons obvious and less so, has been difficult. Really enjoy that I'm writing the most I have in three years and it's been good to rendezvous with friends. The flip side is that the constant writing and deadlines aren't improving my health and the person I most want to spend time with, I can't.

So it was good to delve into pictures of better times and remember that they do come 'round again.

My condensed take on the week's news before I meet two dear friends for coffee:

• I've said this before, but unless gays stir plutonium into the mix, there's no way they're going to fuck up marriage as much as straights have. (Though, presumably, GLAAD isn't going to adopt this as a talking point.) Incredibly happy Proposition #8 was ruled unconstitutional. As for the yammering about judicial activism, as my mom (a retired attorney) put it yesterday, history has demonstrated repeatedly that the majority gets it wrong, i.e. with segregation, for example. That's why we have high courts.

• Not to get all basket-weaving, but if you remember being a little girl and hating that almost everyone in power was a white Protestant dude, Elena Kagan's confirmation resonates that much more so. Congrats to the five GOP senators who voted to confirm her and Senator Nelson, Democrat, from Nebraska, I get that you stuck to your convictions when you voted against Kagan. Your convictions, however, are inherently sexist.
  

Interviewing Mom and Dad today...

...for an upcoming piece.

Easy part? We're super-close.

Downside? If I fuck this up, I'll never hear the end of it.

My new essay, "The Mirror Maze", is at...

...The Nervous Breakdown now:

http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/ldremousis/2010/08/the-mirror-maze/

Things are both more and less real tonight.

Again with the yin and the yang:

We celebrated Dad's 77th birthday and Mom and Dad's 46th anniversary (which was recently) in one big joyful amalgam yesterday and there was much banter and sumptuous food and it was a splendid, rejuvenating afternoon. (And my brother, who is reflexively hilarious, made one of his funniest comments maybe ever, but I'm not going to repeat it here. Also, he told me something deeply sweet, but that remains private, too.)

Today I can barely walk, which is hardly unprecedented, nor a big deal in the scheme of things. But in the last few hours I've read there were three more robberies at gunpoint near here, that my beloved Steve's Broadway News (a longtime Seattle lynch-pin) has closed, and that due to lack of funds, one of the city's largest shelter networks is broke and that 400 more homeless persons will have nowhere to go by the end of this week. All of which, in varying degrees, is horrifying.

A day in which an iced decaf americano and writing will have to do the trick.

On my way home:

Certain things are returning to normal.

Dropped by the Seattle Weekly offices late yesterday afternoon to turn in the updated freelancer contract. I'm completing my newest essay for The Nervous Breakdown right now and I received another assignment from Nerve that's due soon and all of this pleases me tremendously. I've always derived great joy from my work and know how lucky I am to say it and mean it.

Feel disoriented and dislocated most of the time, though, and it's compounded by those who want this to be something it's not. And, of course, by the fact I don't leave the house unless I'm properly dressed and when I'm out with others I say reasonably funny things and present an approximation of a person who doesn't know irrefutably that part of her is dead, too.

But the writing is going very well and, as I said, I really can't emphasize how grateful I am. The rest will follow eventually, I know.

From top to bottom:

After I left the Seattle Weekly offices and started heading northeast, I saw this poor creature on 1st Ave. and Pike in front of Pike Place Market. As Seattleites know but others might not, this is one of the city's most populated intersections, with constant, dense traffic and ceaseless pedestrians. The horse seemed weary and crushed. I loathe these companies: animals shouldn't be ridden on city streets.

Free skates offered on Harrison in between Belmont and Summit. Bemused by the sign's text message spelling ("sk8s").

A few yards further down the hill on Harrison, an absolutely stunning flower. One of my guy friends once teased me the reason he loves me is, "You're not one of those girls who knows all the names of plants and makes a big deal out of it." Which is true, though in this case I wish it weren't. A gorgeous creation simply springing from the ground.

Oh, Twitter:

It's not yet 10:00 a.m. PST and I've been recommended by two colleagues and excoriated by a racist porn actress.

Doing my job right, I suppose.

The latest on the XMRV retrovirus...

...and its potential danger to the blood supply.

From the Wall Street Journal, July 26th:

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2010/07/26/fda-advisory-committee-to-hear-about-xmrv-working-groups-research/

Break out the Doc Martens! My new Seattle Weekly piece on the book Grunge Seattle...

...and the author event tonight at Moe Bar is up now. This one's online only:

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/07/book_signing_with_justin_hende.php

I'm unsure why Oliver Stone aligns himself...

...with the left because if the hateful things he spewed came from the right, he'd be apoplectic. Under the auspices of presenting history from an internationalist point of view, which is honorable, he attacks Jews, which is deplorable. Stone proves it's possible to be a well-read idiot:

http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/oliver-stone-jews-dominate-media-19557?page=0,0

Getting drunk off dessert:

My new post for KOMO 4's Capitol Hill blog:

http://capitolhill.komonews.com/content/starbucks-olive-summit-soon-booze

One of the galleries nearby frequently hosts live music...

...(despite the fact they're not zoned for it, but okay, fine) and in the summer, when all our windows are open, it sounds like the stage is in my living room.

In a city that has launched so many great and good musicians, I keep hoping I'm going to hear an incipient Death Cab or Blue Scholars or Visqueen.

So far? A sonic approximation of dogs fucking cats, only not so interesting.

You think it can't get worse re BP but it does:

They had disabled the rig's alarm system a year before the explosion.

From today's Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/23/AR2010072302515.html

Two things I've heard repeatedly in the past nine and a half months that are completely fucking true:

1) There is a shared language and sensibility among those who have been through it, a shorthand, and it helps sustain you.

As I've written of before, TJ's was the 30th funeral I'd been to. (I have a large family and social circle and it stands to reason the more loved ones you have, the more you will lose. Also, because I learned from my mom how to respond in crisis, over the years others have asked me to accompany them to their loved ones' funerals and, of course, I did.)

I was familiar with grief and loss but had never experienced anything remotely as powerful or catastrophic as TJ's death, including the loss of my health when I was 24. Just as my life is organically divided before and after CFIDS, so it is with his death, only a million times more so.

And as I've written of dozens of times, I've been incredibly fortunate and moved by loved ones, colleagues, acquaintances and near-strangers who have reached out to me. I'm tenacious by nature, but there have been days I've thought the force and near-ceaselessness of the pain would break me. And it's then someone who has lived through it (and with it, as it takes different form in time but never goes away) says, as if on cue, "One day his death won't be the first thing you think of ten seconds after you wake up" or "It's the little things that'll catch you off-guard, like seeing his favorite foods in the grocery store" or "At this stage you feel like you're not going to get through it, but you will" or one my favorites, sent by a dear friend in all caps, "FUCK ANYONE WHO EXPECTS YOU TO GRIEVE ON THEIR SCHEDULE" and I feel loved and less alone and understood and, perversely, lucky. Lucky to have such insightful people in my life.

2) Within hours of receiving confirmation of TJ's death from the Chelan County Sherriff's Office, both my brother and one of my best friends, Tim, each of whom have been incredibly kind and empathetic--unfortunately, they'd each experienced horrific loss--warned me there are individuals who barely knew the dead but this won't stop them from seeking attention for knowing the dead, even if the connection was tangential, because they are strange and sad and they think this is the only thing for which they might receive attention and they will revel in it.

My brother and Tim were right.

What it means to have CFIDS:

At my high school reunion on Saturday evening, I stood for five hours. I used the cane (I've been back on it since April) and drank plenty of water and moved around in the course of the event, obviously, and had eaten lean turkey and veggies before my friend picked me up. When you look at the photos, I don't look sick and, indeed I received several compliments that night. (I only mention it as it relates here.)

It's now 3:10 on Wednesday afternoon and I've been able to leave my home for an hour and forty-five minutes total since my friend dropped me off later Saturday night: Sunday I made it across the street to pick up dinner and an iced decaf americano, returned and ate in bed; Monday I ran errands on Broadway and in 45 minutes, the symptoms hit so severely I barely made it to my last stop--oh, irony of ironies--at the health food store to pick up more high-grade multi-vitamins; yesterday the pain completely immobilized me--and if you know me, you know I have a very high tolerance for pain--and I could barely sit up, much less get dressed and leave here. I'm clothed now and about to depart to the south part of the neighborhood on an errand. I'll need the crutches to get there.

Like all of us, I have issues. Discipline is rarely a tripwire, though. During the aforementioned block of time, I've read the book I'm reviewing for the Seattle Weekly, nearly finished said (admittedly short) feature and completed half of my latest essay for The Nervous Breakdown. I sent off a new list of pitch ideas to Esquire.com, returned emails, cooked meals and unloaded the dishwasher. Next month makes 19 years since I became ill and I've been vastly sicker than this. And again, if you know me, you know I have perspective: a close friend's sister has brain cancer for fuck's sake and I just read another piece about the seemingly endless war in Congo--a mother saw all three of her sons die in front of her--and I only have to look at the schizophrenic man who lodges himself at the outdoor tables at Top Pot during the summer to know the boundless ways in which I'm lucky.

My health just isn't one of them.

The Senate Judiciary Committee just voted to...

...confirm Elena Kagan, 13-6.

Scalia and Thomas fear Kagan, Sotomayor and Ginsburg will make abortion free then pop out to buy shoes and frozen yogurt.

My new essay on Seattle's lit scene is up now at The Nervous Breakdown:

Part of our editor Brad Listi's series, "The View from the West", which explores West Coast literary culture. Brad's essay precedes mine, as does one from Anne Walls. Enjoyed each of theirs tremendously and am flattered to be included:

http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/blisti/2010/07/the-view-from-the-west-vol-4/

Last night's 25th high school reunion was...

...unremittingly hilarious, deeply moving, a mind-bending contortion of past and present and, also, irritating as hell.

Enjoyed it vastly more than the four years itself.

One of my classmates, Joe McDermott (D) is in the Washington State legislature, running for King County Council for District 8 and I'll be proud to vote for him. Another is a councilwoman for a culturally dead tiny Seattle suburb and she resembled Sarah Palin in her lack of intellectual or cultural acumen. (She pointedly lied to me and I called her on it.)

Discovered two of my classmates are incarcerated for child molestation.

More than anything, I enjoyed reconnecting with those with whom I was closest and still love.

Writing my essay on the evening right now for The Nervous Breakdown.

Pope Benjamin has declared...

...ordaining women akin to pedophilia.

So that means the Vatican's okay with it?

Debating whether or not to open with this tonight at my 25th high school reunion from an uber-preppy, Catholic high school.

Because who doesn't want quality rigatoni nearby?

My newest post for KOMO4.com's Capitol Hill blog, this one on Broadway's new and packed Italian restaurant, Panevino, went up earlier this week:

http://capitolhill.komonews.com/content/panevino-broadways-most-successful-new-restaurant

News that might alter the course of human history deserves a wee more attention:

CNN.com linked to this but I'm unsure why it's not getting traction yet because the implications are huge: scientists at the University of Arizona have created the first mosquito that is incapable of giving malaria to humans:

http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=12816097

[Postscript, Saturday July 17th, 12:30 p.m.: The Seattle Times ran the Los Angeles Times' version of this story on its front page today. Hooray! At long last, I control the world with my mind:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2012378603_malaria17.html]

Hello, lovelies:

Much is percolating this week.

I'm signing off until next Monday and will only be returning exigent missives.

XO!

Litz

Everything...

...and nothing separates us from the dead.

Sometimes I feel ridiculously lucky to live here:

Earlier tonight, from top to bottom:

Pigeons eating the remnants of a foccacia sandwich in the middle of the street at 10th and John.

An incredibly sweet 16 year-old Pomeranian named Will in Cal Anderson Park.

A sign posted alongside Scripture passages outside the non-denominational church on Broadway at E. Republican.

Greetings, Armageddon:

After a night spent twining in and out of sleep, at which point I can now hear birds chirping so it's not really night at all, a cavalcade of sirens has erupted just south of here. I hope everyone is okay, but the sonic evidence indicates there's a bunch more Russian spies near Denny Avenue.

Nine months ago today:

"Time must have become a very odd kind of mirror-maze for her now; and mazes can change at any instant from being funny to being frightening."--A Single Man, Christopher Isherwood, p. 98

PJ puppy!

At Thomas St. Park early Monday evening. His name is PJ and he's a ridiculously sweet and massively energetic four month-old Maltese.

At one point, he took a bite of my maple cruller and I had to fish it from his mouth. Later we repeated the cycle with a pen cap he found in the grass. I didn't mind--he was just doing what puppies do--but wished his owner paid closer attention, for the little guy's sake.

I got this shot by holding my sandwich aloft: that what he's honed in on. He licked my face about a dozen times and one could argue it was kinda gross but I found it immensely cheerful.

The latest on Haitian children orphaned by the quake:

One of the most devastating features I've read.

Excerpt: “We don’t really know what to do next,” said the Rev. Gerald Bataille, the primary supervisor of the children. “Somehow, the whole world wants to help Haiti, but we feel like we’re on our own.”

More:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/world/americas/06haiti.html

A------e, by continuing to act like a batshit lunatic...

...you do nothing to dispel the widely held notion you are a batshit lunatic.

Surely there must be some other misbegotten shred you can cling to besides poking around here at least once a day?

Like perhaps getting a job, hobby or friends.

Another birthday of note:

Does it compare in scope to the founding of our great nation? Not yet. But still, raise whatever's handy and toast the fourth anniversary of the highly lauded, rollicking and occasionally batshit literary site, The Nervous Breakdown!

Much continued success and joy to my TNB colleagues:

http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/

"If the wind were colors/ And if the air could speak..."

I wish all weeks could be like the previous two.

Last week I wrote more in any seven-day period than I have in over two years--thank you, health and grief, for cooperating!--and then this past week, my dear friend, Kate, rolled through town from San Francisco and we had a rollicking good time. The atmosphere is always more buoyant when she's near and I haven't laughed so hard in awhile.

So, so lucky the people in my life are, in fact, the people in my life.

So, it looks like it's time to run this one again. From Thursday, March 04, 2010:

Greetings and salutations:

Like most sites on the web, The Slippery Fish has Sitemeter software installed and has had so for several years. I've always kept the Sitemeter logo displayed on the bottom left (scroll all the way down) instead of electing to hide it, as is the more standard practice, because it's fair to let readers know I can see their IP number, ISP, city, state, country, page hits, searches that preceded their arrival here, searches they conduct once they are here, whether they email an entry and if so which one, the entries they click on, the duration of each page view, the duration of their entire stay, if they have the site bookmarked or search for it individually several times a day, etc. As I said, nearly every web site features Sitemeter or equivalent software. This is common knowledge in 2010.

As with everything I write for public consumption, it is, in fact, for public consumption. I don't reveal secrets here, i.e. while much of the content is personal, none of it is private. So for the tiny but persistent band who still routinely searches for any shred about him here, and in some cases repeats this action daily, by all means, continue. I won't reveal your names. But keep in mind I'm not searching the web (or anywhere else) for information about him.

Because I don't have to.

Posted by Litsa Dremousis: at 11:25 AM

Adam Kellner is Somewhere:

Above: a photo of Adam shortly before his disappearance



Above: video Adam's family has compiled including news footage and vital information re his disappearance from the family's Stevenson Ranch, California home

Thirty-five year-old Adam Kellner helped his ailing stepfather to bed, then vanished. That was two and a half years ago. I just interviewed Adam's mother, Sherrill Britton, for The Nervous Breakdown re her son's possible whereabouts and the horror that shrouds her life:

http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/ldremousis/2010/06/adam-kellner-is-somewhere/

Mischief abounds!

Tomorrow through Friday, I will be frolicking with my dear friend, Kate, in town from San Francisco, and our itinerary is kinda spectacular.

And as if in honor of her arrival, Top Pot just created a new lemon-glaze old fashioned.

This gets good.

A year ago today:

Henry 1998-2009

In recent months, I've sardonically taken to referring to my home as "The Mausoleum". (If I weren't sardonic, I'd be suicidal.) When I moved here in September 2007, TJ, Elvis (his beloved and goofy cat), Lulu, Xander, Henry (my beloved and goofy rabbits) and I were alive, quite obviously. By May 2010, 20 months later, I was the only still left. (I might be scared of tempting fate, but having lived through the past eight months and three weeks, you're going to have to come after me with Kryptonite before I flinch.)

The pets, despite being spectacularly healthy, were each quite old and he and I knew the inevitable was approaching. If I live another 50 years, however, I'm still going to wish he were here. Quite lucky to have so many gifts from him and his things he kept here. Luckiest of all, of course, to have boundless memories of the two of us.

Here's to taking on more and more deadlines and to completing the novel; the first I'm doing now and the second I'm honing in on. "Knock wood", as he would say. And "When, not if."

Tweets from the past week (minus re-tweets and replies):

Monday, June 21st:

8:47 a.m. Pens, toothbrushes, razors. #ThingsThatShouldBeRecyclable

8:56 a.m. I'd love to go Robin Hood on #TonyHayward, steal his yacht & donate it to those whose lives have been upended by the #BPdisaster.

4:02 p.m. If there's a global shortage of Chico's summer apparel, it's b/c my neighbors seem to be hording it. #whygodwhy

Tuesday, June 22nd:

4:35 p.m. #McChrystal's lack of foresight is like that of Girls Gone Wild co-eds. What did he think was going to happen?

Wednesday, June 23rd:

7:21 a.m. #JoeBarton is sending #McChrystal a fruit basket right now.

9:21 a.m. My new Seattle Weekly feature on the whimsical & hook-laden Horace Pickett is out now: http://bit.ly/aBwf0Y

6:58 p.m. Why is it the least interesting people are always afraid I'm going to write about them?

Thursday, June 24th:

9:49 a.m. My hairstylist only works two days a week b/c she just had a kid & my back-up stylist is on maternity leave. #BabiesRuinEverything

6:37 p.m. Breaks my heart to enter the once thriving Steve's Broadway News and find it, yet again, empty. #CapitolHill #Seattle

6:41 p.m. I've written for KOMO4.com's Capitol Hill blog the past few months. Here's my latest post: http://bit.ly/9zrA61

Friday, June 25th:

7:55 a.m. The great thing about #iPhone owners is that they don't talk about it all the time. Oh, wait.

8:38 a.m. The gardening service downstairs is using some loud plant-destroying machinery that's making my home reek of gasoline. This ends well.

10:26 a.m. #FF: @DavidCornDC, @Single_Shot, @thejoelstein, @mental_floss, @RebeccaSkloot, @afpakchannel, @Dr_Todd_Boyd, & of course, @swreverb

2:48 p.m. @jadewalker is as kind as pizza is tasty. Reminded again how lucky I am she's my friend.

2:57 p.m. Can't tell if the couple across the street is engaged in a murderous row or an afternoon romp. #OpenWindowWeather

Saturday, June 26th:

9:06 a.m. If you own and ignite fireworks on June 26th, what exactly in your life is worth celebrating?

10:05 a.m. Re my previous tweet, I'd forgotten today is Pride Day! So yeah, everyone, carry on igniting stuff.

Sunday, June 27th:

9:56 a.m. Watched "Spinal Tap" for the first time in years & among other things, it made me miss Bruno Kirby. "'Yes I Can' if Frank says I can."

1:25 p.m. Just read Sen. Byrd is "seriously ill". Am I an asshole for thinking, "Oh, shit. Another Democrat's seat up for grabs"?

6:27 p.m. Wait a second, I think I detect a theme to the Dalai Lama's tweets.

Monday, June 28th, today:

9 hours ago Sen. Orrin Hatch is worried that if #ElenaKagan is confirmed, she and Sotomayor & Ginsberg are going to make abortions free & then go shopping.

8 hours ago Wish there were also confirmation hearings for barristas and editors. #SCOTUS

4 hours ago Girl on cell at Denny & Summit: "Sorry to inform you I'm moving to Alaska in 3 mo. I love you. Bye."

3 hours ago Why do couples w/ agonizing marriages want to see everyone else wed?

1 hour ago Re #BillClinton announcing it's possible to blow up the #oilspill, does anyone else hear him say it in Darrell Hammond's voice?

Tales from the neighborhood:

• My newest post for KOMO4.com's Capitol Hill blog:
  http://capitolhill.komonews.com/content/vivace-al-fresco-one-broadways-most-resilient-establishments
• QFC's Broadway pharmacy has now screwed up three of my prescriptions in two weeks, two of them in ways that were potentially disastrous. Getting the uneasy sense they're inspired by Joseph Mengele.
  
• Spotted this one on my way home from Thomas Street Park earlier tonight. Love the juxtaposition of Mary's welcoming arms and the placard's subtle menace:
  

Riz Rollins paints with music and...

...has long exemplified the vast knowledge and reverberating love of the very best DJs. Trent Moorman's new Q & A in the Stranger with the veteran Seattle spinner and scribe:

http://lineout.thestranger.com/lineout/archives/2010/06/24/riz-rollins-seattle-mystic

My new Seattle Weekly feature is here:

The whimsical and hook-laden Seattle-based band, Horace Pickett, plays Artopia this week! Touring in a Volvo, a giant stuffed tiger and a drunk guy shredding hundred dollar bills:

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2010-06-23/arts/dabbling-in-bliss-horace-pickett-s-dark-whimsical-and-hook-laden-tunes/

Perhaps unsurprisingly...

...it is easier to write for long periods of time when, unlike today, my nerve endings don't feel like someone took a cheese grater to them.

Cure or effective treatment, please.

Dad!

As I wrote elsewhere yesterday, my father taught me to respect everyone but that trust should be earned and that, also, he's the reason I swear a lot. (And so well.)

Dad, Mom, George and I had a relaxed and silly Fathers Day, capped off with dessert at the B&O, which only augmented the joy.

Of course, we don't get to choose our parents and I have some friends who are kind and wonderful despite the monsters they were saddled with. With each passing year, my brother and I feel increasingly lucky to have parents we would have picked if we'd had the option.

Dad says I'll always be his "little girl", but from the time I was just that, he believed I could conquer the world. He's one of the rare Greek men of his generation who nourished his daughter's intellectual and creative acumen as he did his son's. Plus, Dad taught me an effective batting stance and how to get spin on the ball when shooting free throws.

And while he will always try to order food not on the menu and remains convinced the Internet is a fad and this sometimes drives me a tad bonkers, I wouldn't change a goddamned thing.

Except, as with Mom, to confer immortality.

Just once...

...I'd like an editor to say, "Fuck it. If they don't know that word, they can look it up."

Sick of the lowest common denominator.

Christmas seems...

...both like yesterday and a lifetime ago.

Time is contorted this year.

Let's congratulate GOP Texas Congressman Joe Barton...

...for becoming the nation's most contemptible individual in the space of one hearing.

Rod Blagojevich and Sarah Palin jealously admire his efficiency.

Louis C.K. on lube, how Jimmy Carter might die and why the Pope is a pedophile. From last night's Daily Show:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Louis C.K.
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

"Mike Todd died in a plane crash and my father consoled Elizabeth Taylor with his penis."--Carrie Fisher

Sure, her recent work might benefit from tighter editing, but Carrie Fisher will always be in the pantheon as a writer and as an actress. In a characteristically hilarious new interview, she holds forth on her legacy; plans for her ongoing one-woman show, Wishful Drinking; her laugh-or-you'll-cry geneology; and Tea Baggers.

From Pop Eater:

http://www.popeater.com/2010/06/14/carrie-fisher-interview-tea-party-star-wars-wishful-drinking/

Side note: If you don't consider "Rosemary's Baby", the season #2 episode of "30 Rock" in which Fisher guest-starred to be the reason TV was invented, odds are good I don't like you much.

Orayne Williams:

Of the slew of horrific details surrounding the BP disaster, one of the most unsettling is the huge role human error played at each juncture. Even the most optimistic of us can't help but feel shaken by the enormity of the damage we, as a species, caused.

There has been much sardonic (and cathartic) humor online that we're near the tipping point and our extinction might be for the best. And I've had moments when I've agreed.

But the best among us keep me hopeful. Orayne Williams, a homeless and abandoned Brooklyn high school student who still graduated with honors, earned a college scholarship and plans to become a doctor, is one such example:

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/06/15/2010-06-15_untitled__college15m.html

We could all use a bit more Baxter:

Yesterday at Thomas St. Park in Seattle, 5:50 p.m. Baxter is nine weeks old and his owner told me it was the kitten's first day outside their apartment building. Yeah, I know, cat photos on the Internet, but whatever: Baxter is ridiculously sweet and preternaturally smart and a lovely counterbalance to a world sometimes teeming with crap.

Bemused detachment...

...is not only necessary at this stage but perhaps a key factor in getting one to the next.

Lucky:

It's hardly a secret this is the worst year of my life.

However, I'm so massively fucking grateful to so many for so much.

Last night was a kick and I'm glad I rallied despite feeling wobbly inside and out. Incredibly fortunate to have such perceptive, wickedly funny and kind friends.

An apropos of nothing, if you need a laugh and/or to feel superior, check out this guy because he'll fill both requirements:

http://gawker.com/5559349/finally-obamas-british-past-connected-to-scandalous-british-present

In six hours...

...I must be cogent and witty for a dinner party.

Right now, I feel like the bumblebee that just crashed against my bedroom window.

Still, I finished another chapter of final draft last night.

Onward.

The most recent findings re the XMRV retrovirus and CFIDS/CFS from a new Chicago Tribune feature:

Despite the depressing-as-fuck headline, it's encouraging that in recent years, the illness has finally been recognized as the pernicious, debilitating force it is. Mad props to my loved ones who have always understood this.

From yesterday's Chicago Tribune:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-06-07/health/ct-met-chronic-fatigue--20100607_1_chronic-fatigue-syndrome-xmrv-autism

"Can you pick a favorite color from a thousand shades of gray?"--Joe Pernice, "Say Goodnight to the Lady" by the Pernice Brothers

Today's events have reached vast crevices and in some cases, been wholly inexplicable.

All one can do is keep writing.

In a world that is often...

...unfathomable, slipshod and erratic, some mornings it is best to reach for the blackberry truffles.

How Botswana's government and citizens successfully mobilized to contain the worst fall-out from AIDS:

While the news isn't click-your-heels great--tragically, one in four Botswanans is HIV-positive--it's hugely invigorating the country defied the World Health Organizations projections and is treating HIV rapidly and effectively.

From the Daily Beast:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-04/in-saturday-is-for-funerals-unity-dow-and-max-essex-show-how-botswana-beats-aids/

Defying the boundaries of logic and displaying the reasoning skills of single-cell organisms:

From yesterday's New York Times, "Before Oil Spill, It Was Unclear Who Was in Charge of Rig".

Excerpt:

"As a result, deepwater rigs operate under an ad hoc system of exceptions. The deeper the water, the further the exceptions stretch, not just from federal guidelines but also often from company policy."

More:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/us/06rig.html?hp

RIP, sir:

I'm not a huge sports nut, but John Wooden was a sage and his words resonate. A compilation:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=5249709

Two birds; one stone:

Put BP in charge of detaining aid to Gaza and let the Israeli military oversee oil stoppage.

It's been a morning of hippie-wrangling:

I skew left, obviously, but find it incredibly irksome when those on the left condemn "Americans" as if our nation of 300 million individuals is a monolith or as if they, too, aren't American.

Also, it's imbecilic and self-defeating to abdicate the "American" moniker to the far right.

How we approach death...

...says everything about how we approach life.

As horrifyingly often as we read stories like these...

...do they ever become comprehensible?

A gunman has killed twelve in Cumbria (northwest England). One was his friend. The other 11 were strangers he shot randomly. There are 30 different crime scenes so far and he is still at large:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/england/10219655.stm

[Update at 7:15 p.m. PST. Friends, neighbors and acquaintances of the assailant, who has since killed himself, report he was an outwardly stable and affable man. No discernible motive so far:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/england/10216923.stm]

It's futile, of course...

...to think this way, but the wrong ones are dead.

Re the newly launched criminal probe:

BP's legal fees are going to top the Vatican's.

We should call it the BP oil...

..."eruption".

Referring to it as a "spill" at this point is like calling pneumonia a "cold".

While remembering those who have served honorably...

...let's not forget to include soldiers with Gulf War Syndrome. Earlier this year, the VA finally recognized it as a real and pernicious physical illness.

One soldier's perspective:

http://www.cfids.org/cfidslink/2010/020304.asp

Gratitude and sorrow:

Between continued failed attempts to contain BP's spill, the Israeli military's immoral and stupid attack on the ship bringing aid supplies to Gaza, the gunman who killed 12 in a Pakistani hospital and now the tropical storm in Central America that's claimed 115 so far, the news today has been a fucking horror show.

I feel grateful for all I have and awful for those who are suffering.

Where's my parade?

This past week, I finished another chapter of final draft, had another pitch accepted and explained Twitter to both my parents.

Strange but perhaps fitting symmetry...

...that birth and death each result in lack of sleep.

In fairness:

Bumbershoot has amended its original and asinine plan re graphic design artists and the festival's logo. (See my May 24th entry.)

Update:

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/05/bumbershoot_abandons_logo_comp.php

And now, perhaps the most diametrically opposite links ever:

1) The Wall Street Journal's meticulously detailed account of the staggering ineptitude of BP and the Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704026204575266560930780190.html?mod=wsj_share_twitter

2) Bad Postcards, via actor and writer, Stephen Fry, who is a delight to follow on Twitter:

http://bad-postcards.tumblr.com/

Side note: when I worked in publicity at the Seattle International Film Festival in 1998 and Fry was one of the guests in conjunction with his lead role in the gorgeous and heartbreaking Wilde, he got my name right on the first try. There are still people in my building who mangle it.

Let's wrap this fucker:

If you haven't already, contact your U.S. Senators and urge them to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell when the full Senate votes on it in June.

And House of Representatives? High fives on last night's 234 to 194 vote. Ponies and snowcones, Speaker Pelosi.

My new Seattle Weekly feature on the Inside Out Jazz Awards is online and on stands now:

Really enjoyed writing this one!

David Pierre-Louis, owner of Lucid Lounge and the event's organizer, is wholly invigorating. All proceeds are going to Haiti and I got to speak with the legendary Clarence Wilcox:

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2010-05-26/music/206-swing-at-inside-out-jazz-awards-show/

State Department, I'm on it:

Starting a fund to get Kim Jong-Il some Paxil and a blowjob in the hopes it will calm him down.

Who's in?

Today's "what the hell?" moments:

1) Bumbershoot, one of the best and most kaleidoscopic arts festivals in the nation, apparently sees no contradiction in profoundly disrespecting graphic design artists:

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/05/bumbershoots_logo_contest_has.php

2) Last week on Facebook, a forum in which I usually generate scads of comments, I posted that BP executives should, fittingly, be boiled alive in oil. No response. Zilch. I'm sorry: does someone have a better idea?

Fell asleep uncharacteristically early tonight and...

...awoke later with horrific nightmares.

No way to understand how relentless and all-encompassing grief is until you're in it.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali's new book, Nomad:

Compelling review of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's new book, Nomad, and an examination of the corrosive and misogynist effects of Islam--or any religion--carried to the extreme. From Tunku Varadarajan at The Daily Beast:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-05-22/ayaan-hirsi-alis-new-book-nomad-reviewed/?cid=topic:mainpromo1

Just received a small but fun accolade from Smith Magazine:

Sort of the literary equivalent of a Frango:

http://www.smithmag.net/sixwordbook/2010/05/21/broke-my-toe-watching-american-idol%E2%80%94the-best-six-words-of-the-week/

Friends; calzones; Woody Allen before he was openly pervy:

Capped off a stressful and sad week with dinner last night at Via Tribunali. Companion and I cracked each other up, ran into a writer friend I adore, too, and I scarfed a calzone the size of a baby who'd eaten its twin.

Will be writing all day and again tomorrow, but between Xander's death, several deadlines and having all the windows in my unit replaced yesterday as part of a building-wide project that's been run as smoothly as the Warren Commission, I will induldge in two more hours of respite.

Love and Death, which I've seen scads of times and was lucky enough to first view at a Woody Allen film fest my folks took my brother and me to as kids, and I will be nestled in bed for the next two hours. And my unopened box of Dilletante truffles might get deflowered.

Too late. It's a grown-up now, but I was suitably gentle.

A fun little jaunt:

Cab driver this afternoon, unprompted: "The Greeks! All they do is talk! And ruin the world's economy!"

Then I told him my nationality.

Xander 1998-2010

Had to euthanize my beloved bunny, Xander, at 4:30 p.m. today.

In the last day and a half, he'd lost use of one of his hind legs and it would have be spectacularly cruel to let him suffer. Also, once I got him to the vet, it turned out the little guy had fluid in chest cavity, which is a sign of cancer, so as my vet said, "You read the signs perfectly." Xander was 12, literally almost 130 in rabbit years and he had a wonderful life. He was the last of his three siblings and a deeply sweet and brave creature. Also, in light of TJ's death--the atomic bomb nonpareil of my life so far--as deeply as it hurts to lose Xander, I've got perspective.

Turning in early tonight.

So, there's that:

The world's economy is built on quicksand and the weather has tenor-like mood swings, but at least the Napolean Dynamite craze has finally died out.

My father and large swaths of my extended family on both sides...

...grew up without the right to free speech. It's rarely far from my mind that half the things I write would land me in jail in vast chunks of the world.

Horrified by the ongoing abuse and torture of journalists in Russia. From today's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/world/europe/18impunity.html?hp

Environmentalism or laziness?

My newest piece for KOMO4.com's Capitol Hill blog is up:

http://capitolhill.komonews.com/content/environmentalism-or-laziness-0

So:

This week will make seven and a half months and it makes no more sense now than it did the second week of October. The worst of the shock has subsided and there are now scattered moments when I don't feel I'm screaming inside, but still.

Had a wonderful lunch yesterday with a newer friend who is one of the most intelligent, engaging, caring and funniest individuals I've known. Feel very lucky she reached out to me after he died.

Just turned in a piece for KOMO4.com's Capitol Hill blog and am working on my Seattle Weekly feature re the Lucid Lounge jazz club and Inside Out Jazz Awards due Tuesday. Maintaining traction on the novel and am quite pleased with the past week's output.

Momentum both in spite of and because of myself.

A few from Goodfellas spring to mind, too:

Really want to tell an editor her mother sucks the devil's cock in hell. Disturbing when lines from The Exorcist are totally apt.

More headway:

Yesterday one of my doctors showed me the latest newsletter from Johns Hopkins. It was devoted to CFIDS and the newest research breakthroughs.

Today a feature in the Guardian U.K. effectively illustrates the more pernicious aspects of the illness. (Note: in the U.K., CFIDS/CFS is frequently referred to as M.E., for Myalgic Encepholopathy.)

As most of you know, it's what I've had for the past 19 years and thus far, despite enormous progress as to its etiology (the Centers for Disease Control announced in April 2006 that five genetic markers had been isolated in those of us with CFIDS; it appears almost certain the trigger is the XMRV retrovirus or another, similar virus) there is still no effective treatment.

Fingers remain unendingly crossed.

The Guardian U.K. piece:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/may/13/me-chronic-fatigue-syndrome

I caved:

Fuck it. Here goes. Follow me on Twitter @LitsaDremousis.

Illuminating one of the many reasons Lena Horne was singular and great:

The headline is misleading, but this piece by James Gavin is one of the better tributes to Ms. Horne I've read so far:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-05-10/lena-hornes-stormy-past/

A 48 word recap of the past 24 hours:

Enjoyed splendid Mother's Day; bantered with brother; was pleased by Elena Kagan's nomination then saddened by Lena Horne's death; read devastating NYT piece on backsliding AIDS crisis in Uganda; had more nightmares; wrote most of today in pajamas while birds trilled soothingly outside window; am in massive pain.

And, also, because she's learned to navigate the Internet...

...with ease and her customary intelligence and never sends my brother and me emails with clip art drawings of hearts with bows around them and "jokes".

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

Finding Adam Kellner:

A FB friend of mine just wrote this piece about her friend's adult son, Adam Kellner, who vanished from his mother's home in Stevenson Ranch, California (30 miles north of Los Angeles) three years ago. He disappeared without his wallet, license, keys or medications. (He has schizophrenia but was functioning well, under the circumstances.)

My loved one was missing four and a half days before his body was found and I can't fathom the even lower depths of hell in which Kellner's family has lived for three years.

Please help get the word out:

http://www.jewishjournal.com/gina_nahai/article/family_still_asking_where_is_adam_20100505/

Also: serf tossing

Britain's election just yielded a stalemate in Parliament between the Labour and Conservative parties. Possible tie breakers: scone eating contest; tweed scavenger hunt; rapid-fire mocking of French.

Again with the odds and sods:

• Had dinner at the Tamarind Tree and saw the A Guide to Visitors show last night with some delightful friends and colleagues. Fantastic meal and company and AGTV, per usual, was stellar. Also, at one point, the house manager's dog, Zack, curled up at my feet while I stroked his neck. More performances should include ridiculously sweet canines traipsing about.

• I've got another piece on KOMO4.com's Capitol Hill blog. More so than anything, I'm enjoying interviewing familiar faces in the neighborhood and shedding light on some of my favorite venues: http://capitolhill.komonews.com/content/broadway-market-video-succeeding-netflix-era

• I am so fucking sick right now that Glenn Beck could walk through the door, go on a tirade then raid my fridge and I wouldn't react. Okay, not really on that last part, but you get my point.
  

Slightly in advance of Mother's Day, a fraction of the excellent things my mom has said or done:

• She (and my dad) read to my brother and me nearly every night from as early as I can remember.

• She taught my brother and me how to roller-skate.

• When she went back to school when I was ten and George was eight, she logged two years of a 4.0 at North Seattle Community College then transferred to the University of Washington for her next two years and graduated summa cum laude. And she helped us with our homework each night before she even got a chance to start hers.

• Her homemade lasagna remains unparalleled. I'm certain it could end wars if everyone just got a slice.
  

• Because she was raised in a traditional Greek household (code for "sexist as hell"), she taught me I could be anything as long as I devoted myself to the task at hand. And, of course, never let my slip show.
  

• Once when my brother was in high school and didn't want to help in the kitchen, she told him, "Just because you have a penis doesn't mean you can't unload a dishwasher."
  

• We laugh about it now, but when I was a junior in high school, she said she knew times were changing and she'd understand if I had premarital sex, "if, for instance, you're twenty-seven and engaged."

• When George and I were in junior high, she decided we were old enough to see R-rated movies, but she wanted our first to be a good one so she took us to see The Shining.

• She taught us "the N-word" was the worst word we could utter and, more importantly, taught us why.

• When she was a deputy prosecuting attorney, I frequently visited her office and encountered several defense attorneys who said Mom had repeatedly and thoroughly trumped them in court, but they liked her anyway because she played fair and was a class act.

• She instilled in me a lifelong appreciation of Hemingway and Fitzgerald.
  

• Many years ago, she put a Maniati (Spartan) curse on someone who broke my heart. Subsequently, his career went off the rails.
  

• She taught me this same Maniati curse that has been passed down for centuries. I, too, have used it sparingly, but to great effect.

• My father is equally wonderful, but Mom will always be the glue.
  

My new favorite sentence:

"But it is also true that the mega-dosage of reality programming has lowered the lowest common denominator to pre-literacy."--James Wolcott, Vanity Fair

This sounds all goopy-sweet caramel sauce but...

...I could not be more fucking sincere: it's only noon and I've already had three delightful and meaningful encounters with some of the world's most loving individuals and I'm reminded again how fortunate I am.

I always enjoy Dick Cavett's NYT essays...

...and this one is especially compelling if you're prone to vivid dreams of all stripes and, in particular, to nightmares:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/dreams-let-up-on-us/?ref=opinion%20&ref=opinion

Because, Part II:

Because we don't know why we're born or when we'll die and North Korea, Iran and Pakistan are in a potato sack race to see which can annihilate humanity first, let us find respite in the joy that Pomeranian puppies bring.

Because...

...today is hell and this is one of my favorites. March 2009, Red Rocks.