KOMO4.com calls The Nervous Breakdown Literary Experience, Seattle Edition "Seattle's best authors" and, also...

..."a half dozen of the city's most lauded authors":

http://downtownseattle.komonews.com/content/seattles-best-authors-come-together-literary-event

Deeply flattering!

If we let you down, we'll do your laundry.

Because so much of life is a geographic lottery:

I never pontificate to readers because I trust you're smart and informed. You don't need me to tell you what's occurring the world.

I know everyone's lives are brimming with good and with chaos, i.e we've all got a whole lot going on, but if you get a chance, please consider donating to the relief and rebuilding efforts in Pakistan. Its floods have received little attention, but two million people are currently homeless as a result of the water sweeping away huge swaths of the nation's infrastructure. The U.N. estimates the humanitarian crisis is worse than that in Haiti. (Not that it's a contest, but you get the point.) I posted a link earlier this week to an interview I conducted with my friend who is on the ground distributing food and water and helping to build new homes. He posted new photos today. They are indelible and heart-wrenching. Through chance, my puppy has a better existence than the people depicted.

Something is askew.

Mercy Corp's Pakistan donation page:

https://donate.mercycorps.org/donation.htm?DonorIntent=Pakistan%20Emergency&Custom15=wm&Custom18=628aa0a91a17cc4e91f71fd43d9503de

The Stranger gives The Nervous Breakdown Literary Experience, Seattle Edition a fantastic write-up:

Quoth:

"This is a big goddamned reading of local authors that serves as a west-coast franchise of the popular online magazine for writers. Sean Beaudoin, Aaron Dietz, Litsa Dremousis, Tom Hansen, Lauren Hoffman, and Matthew Simmons."

More:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Event?event=4882845

Thank you, humanity:

This merits a much longer post, or perhaps it's best served by simplicity, but for the past 48 hours, I've encountered utterly delightful humans and I'm grateful and then grateful some more.

Plus, I've got a puppy curled up next to me and for now, at least, a welcome stillness prevails.

My friend is doing relief work in the devastating aftermath of Pakistan's recent floods:

I interviewed him for The Nervous Breakdown:

http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/ldremousis/2010/09/pakistan-drowned-in-the-waters-of-the-lion-river/

Also, TNB's editor-in-chief and founder, the estimable Brad Listi (Attention. Deficit. Disorder.) was just interviewed by the National Book Critics Circle:

http://bookcritics.org/blog/archive/conversations_with_literary_websites_the_nervous_breakdown/

"They called the people they loved--many of them...

...giving comfort instead of seeking it, explaining they were taking action, and that everything would be O.K. And then they rose as one, they acted as one, and together they changed history's course."
--Michelle Obama at the tribute to Flight 93 passengers

My new piece for The Nervous Breakdown is here:

Goddamnit, we just might pull this off:

http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/ldremousis/2010/09/announcing-the-nervous-breakdown-literary-experience-seattle-edition/#comment-99898

Six months old today:

It's strange I brought Thomas home only three weeks ago because we bonded instantly and I've been astounded how rapidly the little guy has changed everything for the better. It's not that I'm no longer grieving, but that sense of being pummeled by a 2' x 4' throughout each day has been staved. Thomas is preternaturally intelligent and sweet tempered--he loves observing seagulls and squirrels but doesn't chase them--and his stealth rivals the CIA's. (I watch him closely and we've had few food mishaps so far, but the one time he snuck a strand of spaghetti from me it was with split-second timing.) And when he puts his head on my shoulder when I lie down to watch Netflix on my laptop, the world is several shades brighter.

From top to bottom: at Cal Anderson Park, at Thomas Street Park, at Thomas Street Park, at Cal Anderson Park, at an outside table at the Vivace on the north part of Broadway, at Cal Anderson Park.

The smartest piece on Courtney Love and Seattle maybe ever

From Ma'chell Duma LaVassar at the Seattle Weekly:

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2010-09-01/music/in-defense-of-courtney/

My new feature for Nerve is here:

My new feature for Nerve on how Mom and Dad met and overcame my iron-willed grandmother's opposition is up:

http://nerve.com/before-you-were-born/the-dremousis

They've got the front page now. High five, parents!

The Nervous Breakdown Seattle!

An intersection of lit and wit featuring Seattle-based authors who write for the lauded arts and culture site, The Nervous Breakdown: Sean Beaudoin (Going Nowhere Faster, Fade to Blue, You Killed Wesley Payne), Aaron Dietz (Superheroes), Litsa Dremousis (Esquire, The Believer, Paste, the Seattle Weekly, Nerve, the forthcoming novel, Antifreeze), Tom Hansen (American Junkie), Lauren Hoffman (the forthcoming essay collection, When You I Feel Because), and Matthew Simmons (A Jello Horse, CAVES).

Thursday, September 23, 7:00 p.m. at the Jewel Box Theater in the Rendezvous. Five bucks at the door.

Be there. Or we will talk about you.

It's inconceivable you know me and don't read TNB, but if you're a cave-dweller or coma patient:

http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/

From the New York Times: the latest breakthrough in CFIDS etiology

Last week made 19 years since I became ill.

Thrilled that a treatment might loom.

Hugely vindicating that the more is learned about CFIDS, the more science corroborates what those of us who have it and our loved ones know: it's pernicious, frequently degenerative and, obviously, real.

From the New York Times, August 23, 2010:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/health/research/24fatigue.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1282603206-1mxCW1XFO8Zd3SCUHl0v6w

Bunnies: the gay marriage of pets

Today marks ten days since I brought Thomas home. I love the little guy immensely and am incredibly touched by everyone's well wishes and offers to answer questions as they arise.

Bemused, however, by how many act as though I now have a "real" pet when, of course, that's exactly what I had for the previous twelve years. Contrary to common perception, rabbits are highly intelligent and interactive. Do they interact differently than dogs and cats? Sure, in some ways. But that's largely because rabbits are prey animals, so they're reluctant to open up, as it were, until they know you. After that, they're perpetually demonstrative.

So it's a little goofy how many times I've had to explain this in the past week and a half. But I'm in good company with other rabbit owners Amy Sedaris, Hilary Swank, Clint Eastwood and Robert Kennedy.

Wanda Sykes weighs in on Tiger Woods' divorce:

Every once in awhile I encounter someone who doesn't find Wanda Sykes prescient and hilarious and I know this person should be avoided forevermore.

Full moon lunacy:

Spent a delightful two hours in the park today, mostly. I'm unsure if the police have done a sweep of the U District or Belltown and the junkies and meth-heads migrated up here in larger numbers than usual, if the full moon last night lanced everyone's craziness or if it coincidence, but poor Thomas couldn't quite relax at said park because two meth-heads, apropos of nothing, started screaming racial epithets then yelling, "Bob Dylan is coming! Bob Dylan is coming!"; a man whose schizophrenia, tragically, manifested itself with shouting at a nearby kitten and pretending to masturbate wouldn't stop blaring inanities and a crazy old Greek lady (total coincidence) thought Thomas was adorable and despite my kind but firm rebuttals, wouldn't leave us alone. Interspersed with all of this was a delightful breeze and many kind dog owners who popped over to say, "Hi." Thomas and I drank some water together in the shade and he enjoyed exploring the grass.

So there were pockets of wonderfulness. But in marked contrast to yesterday, when everyone we encountered was friendly and enchanted and, more importantly, not yelling of one's genitals, today's experience was tiring. Came home and we napped together, which turned into full-blown zonking out, which led to awaking at 3:00 a.m. Now we're winding down again for real. But I hope tomorrow's outing presents fewer people whose neurochemistry is betraying them and more happy solitude and/or folks who are normalsauce.

We can dream, can't we?

Thomas:

Occasionally, life works as it should.

On Thursday, I brought home a puppy. For the past year and a half, I'd been saving for one. I knew that when the last of the bunnies died, I'd grieve and save and a year or so after, I'd get a small dog. Of course, I didn't anticipate what happened in October and the horror of adjusting to it.

The puppy is a five and a half month-old blue Pomeranian and, as I've written elsewhere, he's smarter than most drummers and sweeter than cupcakes. The morning I picked him up, I was running pre-puppy errands and accidentally dropped my wallet, laden with cash, my ATM card and credit cards. A stranger named Sarah found it, turned it in and refused the $100 reward I insisted upon. She could have ruined me. Instead, she made a meaningful day that much more so.

She found my wallet on Thomas Street. So I named the puppy "Thomas" in honor of kindness, small miracles and fresh starts.

Bunnies. Now more than ever:

Yeah, I know: baby Holland Lops on the Internet.

But if you're having a week like mine wherein you've considered severing your femoral artery and/or viewing Dane Cook's stand-up, watching bunnies frolic ranks as a sentient choice.

Today is Charles Bukowski's birthday:

I've been celebrating by writing all day. And, of course, by getting blind drunk and nailing a once-beautiful woman with a now slightly large ass while the neighbors wail and break things.

And I offer my McSweeney's piece from 2004, "If Charles Bukowski Had Written Children's Books":

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/bukowski.html

The Whore Who Snored

Why is Grandpa Heaving?

The Years Will Fly Like Hummingbirds and One Gray Day You'll Die

Love Turns to Crap Like a Sandwich

The Alley Cat and the Wounded Dog Share Scraps of Bird and Dung

Uncle Hank's Sack of Empties

Wishbones Come from Chicken, Harlots Come from Hell

The Park Bench Where You Eat Your Lunch Will Be Your Bed Someday

Give Up Now


And, also, a laudatory and wry feature Roger Ebert wrote on Bukowski last year and posted again today on Twitter:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/pages-for-twitter/remembering-bukowski.html

Rest in peace, old man.

"Men can counsel...

...and speak comfort to that grief which they themselves not feel."--Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

"Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved."--Iris Murdoch

If I take up meditation and choose...

...Bill Murray's line from Groundhog Day, "Morons, your bus is leaving" as my mantra, will it defeat the point?