January 16th, 2009

I will be in Los Angeles next week. I’ll have a chance to meet Jay O’Connell, the author who provided Howard Kazanjian and I a quote for the book Thunder Over the Prairie. I’m looking forward to that. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to meet with the promotional director for Barnes & Noble and discuss the in store publicity for the book. I’ve always enjoyed working with Barnes & Noble. I can’t say I’ve sold a lot of books when I’ve done signings there, but that’s not because they haven’t put their all into it. I’m uncertain about what to wear to LA. I generally dress like a real estate agent – business suit, heels, bouffant hair. Okay, so I dress like a real estate agent from the 60s. Maybe I’ll wear a dress. I know a lot of women wear dresses without pantyhose, but I can’t do it. And I have to wear Control Top pantyhose. I’ve found there’s no quicker way to flatten my stomach-and shut down my entire digestive tract. Guess I’ll have to go shopping. I’ll look from something from my favorite designer, On Sale. Before the holidays I decided I’d write a letter to my brother’s daughter from his first marriage. I knew it was a long shot that I’d hear anything back and I was right. It’s unfortunate, but not unexpected. I can’t help remembering one of the last times I saw her. She had gotten permission to go to a dance and I was going to do her hair and her step-sister’s hair. While I was doing her step-sister’s hair, her step-mother entered her bedroom and starting dumping clothing out of her dresser drawers and the closet. Then her step-mother ordered her to pick it up. I never got to help her get ready for her dance. I missed out on that and so did she. She was very upset over the incident. Her step-sister wasn’t made to pick up anything. It was reminiscent of a scene from Cinderella. The image of her on the floor, crying, putting all those clothes away is tattooed on my brain. What’s that have to do with trip to LA, what to wear or writing? I think those memories shape everything you do and every decision you make. From the most mundane such as how to dress, to the more complicated such as how to write a much needed letter.