I read this as part of my arduous research while writing the Drawn To the Rhythm and Rock And Roll State Of Mind books and this was a stand out selection. Etta James is unflinchingly honest about her failures as much as her successes. If I had lived through half that stress I’d have been dead of exhaustion long ago.

Just Between You And Me

After working for many years in retail, I find this website hysterical. Especially the customers looking for books with blue covers.

Me, in Venice

Everybody’s life has a sound track. (Doesn’t it? Tell me it’s not just me.)

I have this amazing ability to get lost. Seriously, wildly, awkwardly lost. When I went to Venice, I didn’t stay in Venice (my first mistake) I stayed in a town called Mestre, just a short bus ride from Venice.

Should you ever plan to go to Venice, I suggest three things. One, stay in Venice. Two, condition for the trip because you will be doing a lot of walking and a lot of stairs. Three, waterproof shoes.

On the first day I got on the bus no problem and when I arrived in Venice I noted the bus number and parking spot and then went off to enjoy Venice. I walked and walked and walked in inadequate shoes. At one point I was headed down a sidewalk and either didn’t notice the water or didn’t think it was a big deal. It was the tide. I ended up wet to the knees in my inadequate shoes. Did I mention it was March? Cold, wet, inadequate shoes.

At the end of the day I went to catch my bus. Which bus was it? Bus two in space six! I hopped on the bus and rode back toward Mestre. Except nothing looked at all familiar. The longer I was on the bus, the less familiar the scenery got. I asked people on the bus, showing them the post card the hotel had given me with the address and a map of the neighborhood, but I was in an Italian city and the only language I speak fluently is English. The other riders were able to communicate that I was on the wrong bus and nowhere near where I needed to be. The bus driver had enough English to tell me which bus to catch after he left me off. When I got on the second bus, the driver had even less English, but he looked at my map and pointed to a spot on the floor right next to him. Then, when we got to the stop nearest my hotel on his route, he used hand gestures and the map to explain to me how to make my way back to my hotel. I was never so happy to see a hotel in my life.

And what song do you supposed was running through my head that long day as I walked around Venice and Mestre on my numb, wet feet wearing jeans that were still wet and stiff to the knees with sea water? The Proclaimers, “I Could Walk 500 Miles” because, what else would be stuck in my head?

What song is the story of your life?

Don’t Tell Me You Love Me

My mother detests this show, but I think it’s hilarious. Plus, when they go for a heart-wrenching moment, they don’t hold back. It’s kinda like MASH that way.

Clarity is incredibly important in communication. Without clarity, words are just so much babble.

The first time I went to New York City, we were staying in New Jersey with Frank and Marilyn Thorne. Frank Thorne is best known for his comic book work on Red Sonya for Marvel in the seventies. He’s also known for the adult comic Ghita of Alizarr as well as a number of other adult titles. In the fifties, he started illustrating newspaper comic strips. Last I heard he was still writing and drawing out of his home in Scotch Plains at nearly eighty years old. He’s sort of a legend in comic book circles and he happens to look like Santa Claus. Long white hair, long white bread, round glasses, generous laugh. Put him in the red suit and you suddenly feel like you should have been better all year. Then you remember what he does for a living. His wife Marilyn is also a legend, mostly for being the most patient living human. Her husband is a pornographer and she plays organ for her church.

When we went to the city, Frank was going drop us at the train station in the morning and at the end of the day when we were ready to leave, we were to call him so he could meet the train. He told us to buy our tickets and wait on the platform, the train would be along in about fifteen minutes. His instructions had to be very specific because my then-husband and I hail from the sticks. The actual sticks. When I say I grew up across the street from a cornfield, I mean there was a cornfield out my bedroom window. This was many, many years before I mastered the subway system in Seoul, South Korea so I’m pretty sure I was wearing my best deer in the headlights look that morning.

We bought out tickets and went to wait on the platform as instructed. A train pulled in about three minutes later. My husband and I looked at each other. Was this the train? Frank said it would be fifteen minutes. We better wait. We don’t want to get on the wrong train. Who knows where we could end up. The station we were at was about halfway between New York and Newark. What we had seen of Scotch Plains was quite nice and the smidge of Plainfield was nice as well, but at some point we’d been through a section of Sayerville that made me want to lock all the car doors and hide under the seat. In retrospect, it might have been the area we were visiting. Frank wanted to show us “the largest concentration of strip clubs in America.” On a two block stretch, there were four. Still the risk of getting on the wrong train was too high.

Back to the platform. A conductor got off the train and started walking toward us shouting, “New – AWWWWK.” It sounded less like speech and more like he’d started to say something and someone had stomped on a sensitive part of his anatomy. We debated. Was he saying New York or Newark? Our sense of direction wasn’t tuned to this particular part of the world and we hadn’t paid much attention to the signs on the way up. My husband walked over to the conductor and said, “Excuse me, are you saying New York or Newark?”

The conductor looked him straight in the eye, from eighteen inches away and bellowed –

“NEW AWWWWK!”

Just then, Frank comes running down the platform, white beard flapping over his shoulder, waving both hands at the train yelling, “This is your train! Get on the train!”

So you see, clarity in communication is essential. Without it you might end up making Santa Claus run down a train platform shouting at you to get on the train.

Some of these are scary, some are silly, some are an odd combination of both. My favorite was the helpful zombies, but the scary woman in the middle of the road made me jump. Which one did you like best?

I had read the story Lamb To the Slaughter as a kid and forgot both the title and author. While I was working at Borders I mentioned the story to my co-workers and a week later (which is why Borders was great and the CEOs who gutted it should be beaten) one of those co-workers handed me this book. Then, much later I wrote a Monk fan fiction story ripping it off that I posted here under free reads.