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More than six months after the worst oil spill in U.S. history, Grand Isle is still struggling. Residents are sick, physically and emotionally. Many are devastated financially. They say the place they call home and its prized resources have been tainted and tarnished. And more painfully, they think the world has forgotten them.Please, please read ( Read more... )

Last night I dreamed I was lying on a beach dictating words into a tape recorder. Instead of going into the microphone and being recorded, the words kept slipping into the water and washing back up a little while later, covered in oil, ruined and unrecognizable.

For the record, I've never written anything via dictation, though I have watched Fear ( Read more... )

I woke up very late today and found that I could not get through the newspaper. My brain just refused to process it. So instead of continuing to slam my head against murdered babies and pipelines and global overpopulation and reports that national news media are saying the BP oil disaster is allllllllllll fixed now, I got online and booked a room ( Read more... )

We made it home. We'd had such a wonderful time that we were able to endure the first night without air conditioning. Well, I was. I don't suffer so much from the heat as long as I don't have to do anything strenuous; I mostly just lie around and become stupefied, like a basking reptile. But Chris suffers, and he didn't sleep much that night, and ( Read more... )

Yesterday I took marquisdd and his soon-to-be-husband Ben down to Shell Beach. I guess I hadn't adequately explained that Shell Beach has neither shells nor beaches, or I thought they'd memorized Soul Kitchen, or something, because they brought towels and sunscreen, and Ben had the quote of the day: "I wore my bathing suit to a construction site." It wasn't ( Read more... )

The newspaper kicked my ass this morning -- oil on the Mississippi coast; Coast Guard enacting a 65-foot "safety zone" to keep media and the public from seeing the cleanup; Grand Isle racefail -- and I texted Chris about it, which I had sworn I wouldn't do. He needs to get away from this shit for a few days, enjoy his family, luxuriate in a nice ( Read more... )

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I never got to visit here, but it was the main beach of Chris' childhood.

I tried to upload some photos from one of our more recent (pre-oil) Grand Isle trips, but Flickr doesn't love me tonight, so here is a link to the set from my 40th birthday trip in 2007. I'm embarrassed by all the shots of me in a bathing suit, but goddamn it, I was a crazy fucking junkie channeling Kenneth Halliwell at the time; looking cute was ( Read more... )

Friends have contacted me asking about volunteer opportunities on the Gulf Coast, especially with regard to cleaning or otherwise helping wildlife. I also run across comments saying things like "If I could, I'd be down there rescuing and washing pelicans," which does my heart good. As far as I know, there are still enough wildlife professionals and ( Read more... )