I’m All Lost In, #146: Vegan coconut ice cream; vegan sesame-seed coffee; and an Adidas jacket. Plus the Week in X>Y, including Erica scoops the Seattle Times again.

I’m All Lost In…‍ ‍

the 3 things I’m obsessing about THIS week.

#146‍ ‍

The Week in X > (is Greater Than) Y‍ ‍

ECB at PubliCola > the Seattle Times This is obvious to anyone who follows Seattle city hall, but I’m writing it to memorialize Erica’s big week. She scooped the fuck out of the Seattle Times on the news that Mayor Wilson fired SPD Chief Shon Barnes on Thursday. It was perhaps the biggest city hall story to date of 2026. (LOL. She scooped them again on Friday by getting the details on Barnes’ $700,000 severance.)

Not only did ECB have the Barnes-is-toast story posted on PubliCola hours before the Seattle Times, but some of her earlier, original reporting contributed directly to his demise: ECB had receipts on Chief Barnes’ curious record of being out of town a lot. In addition to the fact that Barnes’ whereabouts raised doubts about his commitment to Seattle, there was his toxic gaffe about it too: At the beginning of the week, Barnes had to be physically escorted from a press conference after going chest out to confront a reporter who’d simply asked about Erica’s reporting on the chief’s revealing calendar.

I’m biased about ECB. We’re best friends and we co-founded PubliCola. So I’ll defer to another longtime local writer and reporter, Bruce Barcott, who posted this after the PubliCola story hit:

As Seattle staggers through its latest police chief drama, I want to pay respect to Erica C. Barnett and Publicola. She has been asking serious and reasonable questions about Chief Barnes and his WFH approach to his job since late last year. This isn't petty "gotcha" stuff. A police chief's presence in the city he's hired, paid, and sworn to protect and lead is a big deal. Some might say IT'S THE JOB. Barnett did the work of observing, asking, finding documents, actually reading those documents (a calendar), and connecting dots. And then checking facts. And then publishing facts. Public servants get to take days off. They're allowed vacations. A conference now and then is fine. We're adults here. We know this. What Chief Barnes has been up to, according to Barnett's reporting, is next level. Link to her Publicola work in first comment. ‍

An Arm Rub > A Cold Compress This pro-massage observation contradicts something I wrote in June [I’m All Lost In, #140, 6/21/26]. Under the header An Ice Pack > A Massage—I wrote: “Pulverizing my arm with the massage gun feels good in the moment, but the lasting effects are nil.”

After a massage this week, I stand corrected. I also stand before you without an aching left arm for the first time all summer. (I cannot wait to play tennis this week.*)

My pain had persisted for weeks after my ill-informed June testimonial to ice over massage. But this week, after XDX and I traded massages Tuesday evening—her back, my left arm—the lasting effects are clearly a miracle.

On the bus ride home after the arm massage, I was both buoyant and blissed out. More notably: I started the next morning without wincing awake to the strain of my arm. It wasn’t until a few hours later that I realized, Oh, my arm doesn’t hurt. It was a bit like the joy you experience when you suddenly realize, Hey, I haven’t thought about my ex all week.

Admittedly, this is the story of human hands as opposed to the hard-rubber foam massage gun I wrote about in June. However, it’s official: I’m a verbal Yes, please on the magic-cure effects of massage.

For example, this week’s recovery is also likely related to the fact that during my recent trip to New York City, I returned to my favorite room on earth: Relax Station up the stairs on Mulberry St. in Chinatown/Little Italy [I’m All Lost In, #48, 9/14/24] where I paid for a professional massage. I asked them to focus on my left arm.

Post Manhattan massage, 7/24/26

*Despite looking forward to freely smashing my one-handed backhand again, I got creamed by Valium Tom on Saturday.

World No. 229 Kristina Liutova > World No. 76 Maya Joint 20-year-old Australian tennis player Maya Joint came to the world’s attention this summer during round one of Wimbledon when she played former tennis superstar Serena Williams; 45-year-old Williams was playing on a “comeback-tour” whim. I previewed the match [I’m All Lost In, #141, 6/28/26] because I was rooting for Joint; I became a Maya Joint fan during her breakout 2025 season [I’m All Lost In, #114, 12/20/25].

In her ridiculous signature cyber-shades, the teenager had won two lower-level but notable WTA singles tournaments in 2025 (Morocco and Eastbourne). She ended the year formidably at World No. 32. However, as Wimbledon 2026 came around this June, Joint was in the throes of a dreadful spell. She had plummeted to World No. 87 by then. I was hoping she’d reverse her free fall and beat Williams. And surprisingly, she did beat Williams. It was only Joint’s fourth win of the year, though, making her a blah 4-13 on the 2026 season overall. Nor would the match turn out to be the beginning of a course correction.

Joint went on to lose 6-3, 2-6, 0-6 in the next round to fellow Gen Zer, rising 21-year-old star, Alex Aela, the World No. 28. (It was actually Aela that Joint beat last year for the Eastbourne title.)

And this week, Joint lost in the second round at a minor tournament in Memphis to World No. 228, 16-year old Kristina Liutova, Joint is now 6-16 on the year; in addition to her losing run in Memphis, she went 1-1 the prior week in Prague where she also crashed out in the second round. This time she lost to World No. 64, 19-year-old Tereza Valentová, 6-1, 0-6, 3-6.

I’m being specific about Joint’s scorelines because you’ll notice a pattern: After controlling the first set (with her fierce backhand and convincing athleticism), she inexorably goes on to lose the next two sets badly. As a Joint fan, it’s become a repetitive bummer.

Maya Joint, losing in Memphis, 7/30/16

This Week’s Obsessions

1) El Cerro

A tasty cup of sesame milk coffee, aka, El Ajonjolí, 7/31/26.

Not only do I keep coming back to this brand new all-plant-based, Puerto Rican bakery & coffeeshop on the east end of E. Pike St. for their not-too-sweet, sesame-seed-milk horchata, I’m also here for the captivating mood: The chatty owner, the laid-back yet energized baristas; the light Afro-Cuban jazz playing on the sound system (Rubén González, Omara Portuondo, Compay Segundo); and the bright, archipelago mountaintop atmospherics. El Cerro = the hill.

With a lavender-speckled-and-swirled ceramic floor and mint-green walls, plus a gentle assortment of potted plants, a wood counter and high beams, and golden hanging lantern lamps, it feels like an attentive, fine-dining restaurateur spent month’s getting everything just so at this small-scale cafe.

I’m always nervous for a new business. But by week’s end, I was one in a crowd of boisterous patrons taking up all the available tables and savoring El Cerro’s single-origin Puerto Rican coffee along with the sweet bread, guava sponge cake, and twisted Bavarian cream pastries. The baked goods come directly from a Seattle-based Puerto Rican custom-cakes shop called La Antillana.

El Cerro, 7/31/26

El Cerro, 7/31/26

‍2) Adidas Jacket

I tagged along with ECB to the Soho Adidas store on Spring St. last week when we were in New York. And while she was busy checking out the assortment of flamboyant new models, I was taken with a staid, gray-tweed zip-up track jacket with stately black Adidas-striped sleeves. It was on sale too. 20% off brought it from $100 down to $80.

In comparison to the fraying, baggy dark blue zip-up I bought at Crossroads thrift store last year, this was a sleek, statement purchase.

I left the slovenly, old jacket in NYC and as if I were Mr. Rogers, I reverently folded the handsome Adidas jacket into my suitcase.

Back in Seattle, I’ve been wearing it all week despite the July heat.

3) A Scoop of Vegan Coconut Ice Cream

Another correction to an earlier assessment. In mid June, I wrote this: “But there’s trouble afoot. For the first time in memory there are no lines forming. As we head into summer 2026, it’s eerily quiet at the ice cream shop on my block” [I’m All Lost In, #139, 6/14/26.]

While still not as convincing as the queues of summers past, the lines have finally formed on the sidewalk outside Hello Robin. And despite my ongoing effort to zero out treats (as I’ve done with alcohol so far this year), I’ve been standing in these lines most evenings this week.

I’ve been getting a big scoop of their chunky vegan coconut ice cream in their trademark blue-an-white paper cup, ferrying it upstairs to my apt., transferring it to a mug, and adding a tablespoon of carob powder.
…
Lastly, an off-brand music recommendation from me: A catchy indie-pop rock song from 2010 called Pumped Up Kicks by a band called Foster the People. The lyrics—from the POV of a school shooter—are impolitic and tasteless perhaps, though classics like the Boomtown Rats’ I Don’t Like Mondays‍ ‍and the movie Heathers track the same controversial R-rated subject matter. For my part, the melancholy hook—”All the other other kids…” —jumped out at me before I’d processed the rest of the words. I was immediately smitten, and as I usually do with pop jams, I started projecting my own stories onto this sticky refrain.