June Gardens

In the past, I wasn’t much of a blog reader. Like plankton, I drifted in the internet tide, momentarily attaching myself to a social media site then floating wherever Google took me. One day my friend Kit Rodenbough asked me if I read the blog Bye Bye, Pie! “It’s written by a woman in Greensboro,” she said. (That’s in North Carolina. Where I reside.) “Her blog name is June Gardens, but everything is true and she puts her photo up, so isn’t like she’s someone else. She has millions of readers and often gets over a hundred comments a day. I’m hooked.” Millions? Over a hundred comments a day? To put this into perspective, I only received 80 comments when an essay I wrote was on the freakin’ home page of AOL. (Would it be tacky to link to it here? … let me think about that.) And my blog? Maybe five responses have not been spam.

I checked out Bye Bye, Pie! and now I’m hooked. I know! (You have to read it to get I know!). True, someone sharing the nuances and crises of their life is not unusual in this wacky privacy-free world we live in, but someone who does it with such rhythmic writing skill, wit, and charm 365 times a year (and she’s gifted in petspeak) is rare. We all know “Rhythm is a Dancer” and you can “Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick” anytime. (I’m trying to write like June and failing).

Recently voted best blogger in the Triad by Yes! Weekly, her fans spread far beyond central North Carolina. One reader sent Ms. Gardens a first class plane ticket to Hawaii. Others showed up at the Atlanta airport to meet a friend of hers stuck there on a layover. That is huge fandom. I can see it now, a publicist telling The View talent booker:  “She’s like a classier, smarter Chelsea Handler, which means she’s the new David Sedaris.” I think she’s an original. It is with glee and envy I present the fabulous Karen Disner/June Gardens.

1. You’ve kindly explained here why your blog is called Bye Bye, Pie! Let’s just say that in 2008 you moved to North Carolina from Los Angeles with your husband. A lot happened in “Greens-boring” you never expected, like divorcing your husband of 15 years (read April 12, 2012 post) and writing a wildly successful blog. What other surprises, good and bad, have you encountered since moving here?

My then-husband and I first moved to Wadesboro, NC, population 3,000. We went from a town of 3 million to a town of 3,000. This was what you’d call jarring. My point is, a year later we got to Greensboro and the culture shock from LA was lessened by our time in a town with one traffic light and no movie theater. 

I like it here, though. I liked Wadesboro, and I like Greensboro. Southern people are friendly, and maybe sometimes they don’t mean it, but I still prefer it to the Midwest reserve I grew up with. Also, who knew the springs could be so lovely? For every Confederate flag, you got your ham biscuit and you got the springs here. The South does its best to even things out. 

2. Why the name June Gardens?

When I first started blogging and it was the no-spending blog (Bye Bye Buy!), my name was June Cutoff Cash and Marvin was Marvin Gardens. When we stopped not spending, I just morphed into the married name June Gardens. I suppose I should get a maiden name.

3. How do you write such great posts every day? Each one is hilarious yet tender, and often tear-inducing. Does the gift run in your family? Did you always write?

My father is funny but never writes. My mother is supposedly also funny–I say this because her friends are always saying, “Oh! You’re funny like your mother!” But the mother I know is kind of stern and mom-like. I never meet this Shecky Greene everyone speaks of. And yeah. Writing about my day is kind of the only thing I can do relatively well. I am pretty much always writing my blog in my head, but before I had one, I was always writing a description of whatever I was doing in my head, to tell someone at some point.

4.  Is your family shocked or not surprised at all by your blog? Does anyone read it you wish didn’t?

No one who knows me is shocked by me, I don’t think. Once you’ve met all this, you get jaded. Meeting me is like moving to New York for a year. Nothing gets to you after. Truthfully, I wish certain people from my old life wouldn’t read it. It feels…intrusive now.

5: Tell us what’s in your make-up arsenal. What can’t you live without?

Obsessed with makeup. OBSESSED. My father says I should be the makeup whisperer. Love Chanel products and love Smashbox primer. They discontinued their damn foundation and I RESENT THAT, SMASHBOX! That said, no makeup holds a candle to my Latisse and my Botox.

6. You’re internet dating. Any “dos and don’ts” advice?

Show a photo of your whole body. Don’t show photos of your pets–trust me. Did that. Looked crazy. Don’t go out with anyone who wants to meet six minutes after the first email. And I tell the truth about my age. Otherwise someone will go, “God, what a hideous 35-year-old.” 

Bye Bye, Pie

Iris gets some Mama Love

Whew. The title may be longer than this interview. But what a book! You don’t need to be in the entertainment business to enjoy it and learn from it. While flying across Canada, and even taking a ferry to pitch one song to Willie Nelson, he packs in wisdom, wit and wonderful anecdotes about everyone from Bob Dylan to Dinah Shore. And, of course, the Red Headed Stranger, Willie. Lots of great photos and graphic art, too.

1.  You arrived in New York City in 1980 from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, with $275 tucked in a wallet made of duct tape. You knew no one in the music business. You started by memorizing every name and face you needed to know in Billboard magazine and crashing black-tie events wearing a $5 thrift store tuxedo jacket and pants you had “dressed up” with black electrical tape down the side. No one ever noticed?

The beauty of events like that is that they’re always badly lit. It’s the ambiance . . .and they say sinful things never happen in the daylight. See, nobody paid attention to me. I was in a room full of people who knew each other. My job was to get in, recognize, say hello, introduce myself and get out before the dinner bell rang. I wrote this book because so many people complain they can’t get a break in the music business. There are ways to create your own luck.

2. You do seem inordinately lucky. You also have bulletproof confidence and know how to walk the thin line between being impressed by a celebrity but not intimidated – and make yourself interesting but not draw attention away from the star. Where did that come from? Was your father or mother an entrepreneur?

My father was a Baptist minister! I guess he had to have complete confidence in what he was selling and face a lot of rejection, too. And he took me into some pretty shady places where people had moonshine stills and, well, imagine the movie Deliverance. I was just a kid. It probably had something to do with my fearlessness. But ever since I was five years-old – and I never lived in a city of more than 40,000 until I moved to New York – my nickname was “city slicker.” I don’t know why. There was just something about me that people picked up on.

3. I’m sure you’ve amassed quite a memorabilia collection. What have you done with it?

Oh, some of it’s in my sister’s attic in her big Alabama house built during the Civil War. A lot more is in my garage. I’m just starting to go through it. I turned part of my garage into a Texas roadhouse bar and put a lot of the memorabilia there. Like I have a beer bottle Willie drank out of under glass. Over the years some of the stuff I’ve saved has been mistaken as trash and thrown out, like the butt of a cigar Jules Styne left in an ashtray at the Songwriters Hall of Fame. And a wad of gum from Gene Simmons! In the end you have to say: it’s all finite, baby.

Buy Stalking the Red Headed Stranger

Randy’s website

Randy’s Facebook page for the book

I recently had the pleasure of hearing the vivacious Eleanor Brown speak to her Triad-based fans courtesy of the Bookmarks Book Festival (FYI: They have great literary events year-round, not just when the fest happens in September).

Her present tour to support the paperback release of her bestselling debut novel The Weird Sisters rivals that of a rock star. For anything you could possibly want to know about this delightful, absorbing book go to this page on her site: Author Q&A

I was able to catch up with her for a few breathless minutes to ask her about life after publication.

1. Have you figured out a way to sign an e-reader? Kidding aside, what are your thoughts on digital books?

I generally sign bookmarks for folks with e-readers, but I’ve also signed the e-readers themselves or their cases. My boyfriend worked out a way for me to sign an image of the book cover and email it to folks, but it’s too slow to do during a signing. We’ll see what happens in the future!

I’m a reader first and foremost, so I love digital books. Since I travel a lot, the fact that I can take a near-infinite number of books with me on a device that weighs a pound feels like a miracle. I’ve also found that because of the lower price points compared to hardcovers, people are willing to take a chance on a new author (like me!) and that really feels like a blessing.
2. What questions/comments do you love and which ones would you rather not hear?

Oh, I’m happy to hear any and all questions and comments. I hear a lot of the same ones frequently, but even though I’ve heard the question, the person asking it has never heard the answer, so I’m always happy to answer it again!
3. You’re currently on a massive book tour to promote The Weird Sisters. Which is stronger now: a fear of flying or a fear of missing an event because of flight delay/cancellation? (Eleanor’s blog on handling this common phobia)

My fear of flying has been manageable this tour, for a number of reasons, so I guess my fear of missing an event is bigger right now – I hate disappointing people!

4.What’s the biggest misconception about being a bestselling author?

That writing is all you do. That really oversimplifies the business aspect of being an author, which is as difficult and time-consuming as the writing part!

5. What’s the most fun about it?

Probably the most fun is the same as any other author – sharing and talking about stories with other people. The best part of having The Weird Sisters be so well-received is realizing that all the questions I wrote the novel to answer are shared by other people – we’re not alone.

6. What are you working on now?

Another novel set it an small town in the summer, but over the course of this story, the characters all get the thing they have always wanted, which turns out to be not such a good thing!

Eleanor’s site.

Buy The Weird Sisters/order a signed copy

Thank you, Eleanor!

I had my doubts when I received the invitation via email two days before. Is she seeing someone and she’s going to be coming home at 8 a.m.? How many people will get there that early? 9am is hard enough. It turned out her daughter was in charge of alerting her at 7:45 with “Mom, you need to get dressed. A bunch of people are about to show up to celebrate your birthday.”

She was stunned and delighted as each new arrival popped in, at least a dozen in all.

Now, I would need an hour heads-up but for this natural beauty who wears little if any make-up and probably has never woken up with Bed Hair, a quarter of an hour was fine. In order for this to work you also need to know the person’s schedule to make sure they’re not going to be running off to an important appointment (like their therapist or a beauty treatment if it’s their birthday).

Consider this:

1. People are more likely to attend. At the end of the day, invitees may be tired, stressed and have more on their to-do list than they did when the day started. They may feel they have to stay longer than they can and then not show up at all. With a party scheduled at 8am, guests are fresh and it’s perfectly acceptable to not linger and head off to work. One woman was there only five minutes and no one thought it odd.

2. It’s inexpensive (as parties go). Coffee, orange juice, a couple bottles of sparkling wine or champagne, a quiche or two and a breakfast pastry or muffins is all you need. Add bacon or sausage and fruit if you like. Or put a few people in charge of a doughnut or a fast food breakfast biscuit run beforehand. Stick a few candles in the pastry, muffins or doughnuts. A cake is too much in the morning for me but to some people it ain’t a b-day bash without a cake and everyone singing that dirge-like “Happy Birthday” off-key. Up to you.

3. It’s different. That alone makes people more celebratory.

4. It’s a fun, unforgettable way to start a birthday. The honoree will always remember it.

I’m lamenting the limitations of the digital age. How much of a description can you put in a file name? What happens when technology changes and you can’t access old photos anymore? They’re gone.

Do you have a photo of a stranger that haunts you? Share it on my Facebook page.

I’m in the midst of working on a new book and won’t be blogging much for awhile. Here’s the photo I see every time I turn on my computer: my beloved, darling Tucker. We found each other in December 2006 at the Guilford County (NC) Animal Shelter. Sometimes when he meows he sounds like a pigeon and when he snores it’s like an elf wheezing. He rarely conks out on my keyboard but when he does I know it’s time to take a break.

Mama Jo-1940s

An adapted excerpt from the chapter “Watching a Photograph Slowly Fade” from When I Married My Mother

“Are we putting up a Christmas tree this year?” Mama Jo asked when our third Thanksgiving as roommates rolled around.

I groaned and was sorry I did.

The first year we lived together, after uncovering the ornaments of my childhood, I had effortlessly lassoed people to help me move furniture, get the tree in the house, string the lights, and do it all in reverse a month later. Now I was weary of cajoling or hiring people to help me out. Arthur and Janet had bronchitis, and the idea of directing my young inexperienced niece and nephew as to what to do made me more exhausted. I’d stopped wrapping presents for Mama Jo because it was too hard for her to unwrap them. Instead, I just put them in a decorative bag with colorful tissue paper. Now I was doing that for everyone’s presents because it made life easier on me.

The next time she asked me about a tree, I said, “Let me just finish with the Christmas shopping and cards.” I had a long list of my friends, her friends, business associates, family, and extended family to honor in one form or another.

The third time she asked, I said, “I’m too tired, Mama Jo. We’ll do it next year. I promise.” She’ll be here then. She will.

I placed a small artificial tree on a table that had white lights and Aunt Gladys’s wax cherubs on it. “How’s that?”

“That’s fine,” she said with a weak smile.

I never stopped to think how it made her feel to know there was nothing she could do to make that tree happen. Or how watching me do everything was probably tiring her out as much as it was me, maybe even more so. Or maybe I did. I knew I was losing her and was in deep denial.

Three times she asked.

“Hey,” I said cheerily one day, “let’s go to the Festival of Lights, Mama Jo! Let’s have an adventure!”

She smiled that big broad grin of hers I’ll never forget. “Okay!”

This was an annual event Arthur had suggested as an enticement for me to come down from New York City for the holidays many years before, and I’d had no interest. Now I’d be happy to do it with my mother. I invited her granddaughter to join us. On our way there, we turned on the radio station playing continuous holiday music and sang along, easily falling into the Christmas spirit. When we saw the entrance to Tanglewood Park lit up like the Vegas Strip with a grand archway inviting us to drive under it, we all let out a “Wow!” I hoped it made up for the lack of Christmas cheer at home.

We slowly drove through the park in Mama Jo’s thirteen year-old red wagon, oohing and aahing at more than a hundred displays and nearly a million lights. Even with my mother’s failing eyesight she was able to make out most of the mammoth animals, stars, and Santas that blinked and moved. Sometimes she was mistaken.

“Is that a cat?” she asked.

Chris, thinking it was funny, said, “No, Mama Jo! That’s a snowman!”

I turned around to give her a nasty look and then did the same thing myself a few minutes later when she thought Santa and his reindeer was a train. She stopped making comments, and I felt bad. What was wrong with letting her think it was a train? I described the things we saw and tried not to choke up over her loss of vision.

I also found myself imagining the army of people it took to put up these lights and how they would feel when it was time to tear them down. I could at least put up one tree.

We stopped at the Gift Village, and I waited in the car with Mama Jo while Chris went in to investigate. As the Christmas music continued, I held my mother’s hand, which was in a bright pink glove that matched her beret. We sang along to “Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland” and other holiday favorites, her soft voice giving out at the end of most lines.

When it was my turn to gift shop, I zipped through and returned with a few things, including something I’d been on the lookout for for months: a slim wooden table that was the perfect size and color for my brother’s guest bathroom. At last, when Mama Jo visited there she’d have something to grab onto. Even though someone was always at her side, the instability of the situation unnerved her.

I wedged the gifts into the back of the car around Mama Jo’s wheelchair, and excitedly told her about the table as we pulled out of the space. I reached for her hand and gave her a reassuring squeeze before we went off to cruise through the rest of the park and ooh and aah some more.

The table would never make it to Arthur’s house. Nor would she ever leave our house again. By Christmas she was in home hospice care.

She was gone by the following spring. Slowly I’ve been sorting through the family mementos, the hundreds if not thousands of photographs she took. Many are of Christmas trees throughout my childhood. For our family, it obliterated what was missing the rest of the year in a home that would eventually be shattered by divorce.

I still look back now, especially at that artificial silver tree that had the multi-colored device that rotated and bathed the tree in various colors, and kick myself for not putting up a bigger tree for my mother when she asked. I probably could have found one just like that silver one on eBay. What a smile it would have put on her face. In fact, I might just go look for one right now.

MAY YOUR HOLIDAY SEASON BE FILLED WITH MANY GOOD MEMORIES AND THE NEW YEAR WITH LAUGHTER AND COUNTLESS BLESSINGS.

Jo

After viewing an MRI of my lower back, I prayed New York neurosurgeon Dr. Ezriel Kornel wouldn’t utter the dreaded word “surgery.” He said, “You have a cyst in the ligaments around your L4 that has to come out.” I visualized a laparoscopic number with a tiny scar and I’d be back home the same day. Then he said, “I recommend fusing the L4 with spondylolosthesis (slipped vertebra) with the L5 to stabilize the area, remove the disc, replace it with OptiMesh that turns into bone and insert permanent titanium hardware of two screws, a rod and a clamp.”

When I could speak again, I asked, “What about going through airport security?”

“Not a problem,” he answered with a smile.

“Wow.” It took a moment to get my head around what he was saying. “Back bling.”

I’ve now learned that more people have back issues than I ever imagined; they’re all terrified of surgery; it can be the best thing you can do for your body and mind; and pretty much everyone asks the airport security question.

Ten months before, I thought I was fine. I had a few aches and some stiffness that, as a baby boomer, I attributed to (cringe) aging and arthritis. Then one morning I tried to get out of bed. My entire lower right side had turned into burning concrete and someone, somewhere, was driving a pickaxe into it. With my luck, I thought, I’d thrown something out in my Pilates class. You know, while doing something that was supposed to be good for me. I’d been doing Pilates for over two decades. It was doubtful.

Once I walked around I was fine. My hope that I’d slept in some funny way lasted until the next morning. The same thing happened.

Friends told me, “I had that. It’s sciatica. It’ll go away. Are you stressed out about something?”

Please. Who isn’t stressed out about something.

It didn’t go away. What was really strange was it was most comfortable to sleep on my left side but when I tried to get up the pain on my right was so excruciating I had to scream over and over to get through it. I couldn’t sleep on my right for long without it hurting. That left my back only which I don’t like. I wasn’t exactly a man-magnet at this time, nor did I want to be.

An x-ray showed a vertebra right above my sacrum had slipped slightly, causing the disc to bulge and press against the nerves that go down my right leg. No one knew what caused this. I wasn’t born with it and hadn’t experienced any trauma. But I’d been hearing popping sounds in my lower back for many years. Not one-time pops, like a chiropractic adjustment. It would pop and crunch every time I repeated a certain movement.

Each professional I saw commented, “If it doesn’t hurt don’t worry about it.” A Pilates instructor warned me, “That’s not right. You need to really strengthen those abdominal muscles. Even though you’re in good shape you can still have weak muscles around your spine.”

Apparently I was born with loose ligaments and fascia (connective tissues). Sitting/slumping at a computer for hours on end, often with my legs crossed, didn’t help. Something had to give.

To alleviate the pain I tried massage, acupuncture and chiropractic adjustments. The relief was temporary. I switched to a kneeling chair at my desk (Office Star™ Ergonomic Fabric Knee Chair that I found at Staples). It was definitely more comfortable and I sat up straighter but if I sat for more than 15 minutes and tried to get up I was sorry. I started using a timer to alert me.

I went through physical therapy. The pain was still there. I had a steroid shot, another. The pain was still there. Not burning-concrete-and-pickaxe pain, and I could get out of bed (carefully), exercise, walk, even cautiously enjoy my African dance classes. But daily discomfort, the constant worry that this would get worse, should I or should’t I do this or that, and not sleeping well muddled my mind and made me very cranky. I had a new understanding of people in chronic pain as well as painkiller addicts.

Through all this I was taking Tylenol and Aleve. I stayed under the daily max of each, usually under half the max. When I had my annual physical, eight months after this annoyance began, the ALT number for my liver was above normal. Not crazy above, but enough for my doctor to say: no alcohol or Tylenol for a month. The alcohol was easy to stop. The Tylenol? What I wouldn’t give for a hit of that.

I knew acetaminophen can screw up your liver (especially when mixed with alcohol, which I cut way back on), and NSAIDs like Aleve can tear up your stomach. I knew it’s easy to O.D. on acetaminophen because it lurks in everything from certain types of Alka-Seltzer and Midol to Vicodin. Click here and scroll down for the National Institute of Health’s list of products that contain acetaminophen. You’ll be surprised.  http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a681004.html I was often tired but I was sure that was from not sleeping well and being in my ancient fifties. What did I expect? Here’s the danger of acetaminophen vs. NSAIDS. The liver is insensate. You know if your stomach hurts.

Now, almost a year from the onset of my back problems, the pain had skyrocketed due to the cyst. I had to have surgery. I was freaking out. Taking out the cyst, an out-patient procedure, didn’t concern me. It was the several-days-in-the-hospital and 6-8 week recovery time of the spinal fusion that I wasn’t sure I should have done. Hearing friends solemnly say “I know someone who went through that and they’re still in pain” then brightly adding “but who knows what they can do today!” didn’t help. Normally, I’d consult five doctors before having anyone cut into me. I was in too much agony to do that.

Luckily, among all the fear mongers, I found two people who’d had spinal fusions and were delighted with the results. Ian Lesser said, “Best thing I ever did, though I had it done right after 9/11 and had to wear a bone stimulator with wires hanging down in back for about a month. People thought I had a bomb.” He also told me what his doctor said when he asked before the surgery how much it would hurt. “More painful than stubbing your toe. Less painful than getting shot.”

Shelley White had her back fused from her shoulder blades to her tailbone! After hearing what she went through and that she was an inch and half taller and exceedingly happy that she did it — “I feel like God reached down from heaven and gave me a beautiful gift” — I christened my operation The End of the Suffering Tour. All would soon be better in every aspect of my life.

It’s now over two months since I went under the knife. I’m so giddy with energy and a body that feels twenty years younger, my girlfriend Nicki Tal proclaimed, “You’re like a frustrated stripper now!”

Bring on the pole dancing.

I’m a new pain-free, pain killer-free person. And I’m a half an inch taller – which I think means I need to lose 1.7 pounds less than my previous goal, now in striking distance. I bet the body burns more calories to combat pain and to heal, or those painkillers deaden the appetite (or both). I easily lost ten pounds and have kept it off. I effortlessly reduced my intake of alcohol and coffee to special occasion use. I’m sure that’s enhanced my relaxed and centered state of mind. I find it easier to make decisions. Business dealings that had stalled are suddenly falling into place. There’s even romance in the air. Woo-hoo! Maybe all that oxycodone and restful post-op sleep recalibrated something. Or (here’s the airy-fairy in me coming out) I literally needed more backbone.

People keep telling me how young I look. What’s some short-term pain for that! Unlike a facelift, my insurance covered almost all of it. In fact, they shelled out more for this operation than I’ll probably pay in premiums for the rest of my life, causing me – for the moment – to stop complaining about their exorbitant rates.

As for whether you should go to a neurosurgeon or orthopedic surgeon when back problems persist, I went to an ortho in Greensboro, NC, first and consulted neurosurgeon Dr. Kornel, who was a NY friend, at the same time. They said basically the same things. I happened to be in New York and near Dr. Kornel when all this came to a head. But the orthopedic practice I went to told me during my post-diagnosis what-do-I-do hysteria that they send all their back patients to neurosurgeons and couldn’t advise me. Draw your own conclusions.

Most important, you have to go to physical therapy and you have to do the exercises. You also have to be careful about the way you move your body for the rest of your life. Twisting, for example, can increase the odds the vertebrae above or below the fusion can slip. As Dr. Kornel said, “Fixing it is the easy part. Making it stay that way is up to you.”

We’ll see how long I remain a happy camper. Does everyone who has back surgery have the great results I’ve had so far? No. I’m just reporting good news that I hope helps others. There’s just one thing I forgot to ask Dr. Kornel. How much does that back bling weigh? Maybe I can up that 1.7 pounds to 2.

For more on Dr. Kornel and his practice Brain and Spine Surgeons of New York in White Plains (and Dr. de Lotbinière who assisted) http://www.bssny.com/meet-our-physicians/Ezriel-Kornel/

Listen to his radio show Back Talk Live! on WOR (710AM) in New York City Sundays at 9PM. http://www.wor710.com/weekend-personalities/Back-Talk-Live-/8311878

He recommends this site for anything back related.  http://www.spineuniverse.com/

I would also like to thank Dr. Neal Guffey for his support and advice, Marion Jahalal for her excellent post-op care, and my friends who were there for me in my time of utter dependence and micro-managing mania. Northern Westchester Hospital in Mt. Kisco, NY, felt more like a hotel than a hospital — until I saw the six-figure bill. Thank you Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina for taking care of that. And, finally, to oxycodone. Our blissful one-month affair will always remain a beautiful memory.

Mr. Waters, whose name is synonymous with “filth” and has spent, I’m sure, far more on therapy than the budget of all his early films combined (Hag in a Black Leather Jacket, Mondo Trasho, Pink Flamingos, to name just a few) lures us in with a fairly safe but highly amusing chapter on his adoration of Johnny Mathis. He even quotes Freud’s line about psychotherapy as “transforming hysterical misery into uncommon happiness.” So we’re not only going to get his tales of the people he’s had mad, lasting fixations on but some high brow stuff, too. Sounds like my kind of book.

We traipse through unknown (to me) off-color stories about Tennessee Williams. Then it’s on to the sad tale of Leslie Van Houten, one of the unfortunate young women to be caught in Charles Manson’s spell and still in prison for it. He lightens the moment by next introducing us to his favorite fashion designer Rei Kawakubo who creates clothes Goodwill would reject and cost a fortune.

And then he gets to the Baltimore role models chapter.

Bring on the filth, throw out the airbrush gun. We’re up to our necks in foul-mouthed freaks. I tip my hat to Mr. Waters for his wonderful way with words, delicious dirt about himself and others, and insanely thorough research. When he interviews someone, no matter who they are, he’s done his homework.

He gives just enough of a reprieve from the lowlifes and larger-than-lifes that he loves by breezing into a chapter on his favorite books, none of which I will be running out to get but I loved seeing them through his maniacal eyes. The next chapter about his interview with Little Richard for Playboy had me caught in an insanity that felt like I was being pushed up the wall by centrifugal force. In “Outsider Porn” he tracks down more way-off-the-radar weirdos in the worst neighborhoods (one in California lived in a kind of cabana along with two 750-pound pigs, roosters and hundreds of rats and was famous for . . . Well, if I couldn’t share it at a dinner party last night, you’ll just have to read about it).

I found myself wondering if Waters ever wished he’d had a video camera with him instead of just his tape recorder while interviewing his subjects. Could there be a John Water’s reality TV show in the wings? Then it hit me. Reality TV today is just an early John Water’s movie with much better looking people.

His chapter on his “roommates” – his art collection in various homes – was illuminating. I’ve always marveled at how art aficionados can lay on the hype about something that would make most people say “My five year-old could do that!” With Mr. Waters, he goes much deeper than a gallery brochure. This is an example of his interpretation of a Cy Twombly work. (click on the image to enlarge)

From here he segues into “the amazingly aggressive and powerful female artist Lee Lozano, who in 1971 vowed for ‘art’ never to speak to women again.” For 28 years she kept her promise. He wonders how she managed with her mother when Ms. Lozano became ill at the end of her life and lived with her parents, as do I. How exactly did that work? He supplies a few possible scenarios.

But when John Waters explains why he lives alone by calling love “that terribly exciting disease that, to me, feels like another full-time job,” I realize he isn’t just a role model for the mega-misfits, he’s a paragon for a large part of the population who enjoy being single, or at least find it a lot easier to negotiate than Couple Land. That one paragraph could put Match.com out of business.

There’s so much to say about Sonya, do check out her site. One of my all time favorite book titles belongs to her: ONE OF THOSE HIDEOUS BOOKS WHERE THE MOTHER DIES. That was before I actually wrote such a book! And I still love it.

1. I’ve been recommending your novel-in-verse to everyone. Even the never-married-with-no-children ones love it. It’s the perfect gift for my friends with a child going off to college. Everyone laughs and cries. Did you have doubts, especially when known as a YA writer, that it would be so well-received? If so, what kept you moving forward?

You are such a sweetheart, Jo. Thanks for doing all that recommending! If you keep this up, you will turn me into the next JK Rowling. And if that happens, I will buy you a Ferrari… [Jo: I will paint it pink just like the Cadillac Elvis gave his mama.]

Of course I had doubts about writing my first book for grownups. I was born worried. And I was supposed to be working on a YA novel that I was under contract for. But every time I sat down at my computer, I found myself wanting to write about going through menopause instead, and about my imminent empty nest, and about being offered my first senior discount—not exactly subjects that teens would find enthralling. For a while, I tried really hard not to write it, but this was one of those books that grabbed hold of me and just wouldn’t let go. I honestly felt like I didn’t have any choice in the matter. Holly demanded that I tell her story!

2. One of the reasons your book is so captivating is that the voice of Holly is utterly authentic. I’m sure many readers confuse you with Holly. Can you share your thoughts on life imitating art. Where is Sonya, your husband, children, editor and more in this story?

By a very strange coincidence, Holly is a poet and so am I. And I’ve been through lots of the same things that Holly has— menopause, freaking out at the relentless decline of my body, being behind on a deadline, dealing with having an empty nest, and doing all of this while trying to care for a sick mom who lives thousands of miles away. But I am not Holly, and the husband, daughter and editor in the book are made up characters. Honest! I’ve got two kids, a son and a daughter,  and when I was writing about Holly’s daughter, I was drawing on feelings I’d had about both of my kids leaving for school. So the feelings were real, even though the situations were fictionalized.

Or as someone once said (of course, I can’t remember who, because my brain’s a sieve): “All of it is true, but none of it really happened.”

And it wasn’t easy to let Holly tell the whole truth—about her insecurities, fantasies and deepest yearnings—because I was painfully aware that people reading my book would assume that all the most humiliating parts were based on my feelings and experiences.  And on my body! Even the most sophisticated readers fall into this trap.

3. When taking from real life, do you have any rules to avoid lawsuits, or just having someone hate you forever?

I try not to write things that would embarrass anyone I know. If I think there is anything even remotely questionable, I check with the person first to make sure they won’t mind. And so far, I’ve only made a few enemies…

Just kidding! Everyone has been extremely generous with letting me “borrow” from them.

4. Which poems do readers recall the most when they meet you? What are the “Hunchback” Greatest Hits?

Well, everybody’s got their own favorite, but this little rhyme is the one that most people seem to really get a kick out of:

To the One-Pound Bag of Oreos I Just Bought:

It’s so sad

to think

that just moments

from now

you

will be gone

and I’ll

be a cow.

It’s ironic, because my editor suggested I cut it from the book. But I thought it was funny, and it happened to be my agent’s assistant’s favorite poem,  so I used that as ammunition in arguing for keeping it in. And I’m so delighted that it made the final cut.

Here is another one of the “greatest hits”:

If Only Michael and I Had a Court Reporter Living With Us

She’d record every single word

we said to each other—

her silver hair pulled up into a neat brioche

on top of her head,

rocking ever so slightly, her eyes closed

in Ray-Charlesian concentration,

her quick fingers clicking away

on the keys of her stenotype machine

while the ticker tape transcript,

that oozing ribbon of absolute truth,

gathered in white-looped paper mountains

around her primly crossed ankles.

Her presence in our home

would doubtless cut in half

the length of time Michael and I

spend arguing.

Whenever our fights escalated

to the you-know-I-can’t-stand-it-

when-you-say-that stage, Michael would

protest (as usual), “I didn’t say that!”

But there she’d be,

our intrepid court reporter,

to check back through her tape

and set him straight.

“Actually,” she’d say,

glancing at him coolly over the top

of her tortoise shell spectacles,

“your exact words were…”

5. I saw a video of you speaking to a group of women writers and thought, “She should have her own TV show!”  Anything in the works? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04iYme5KCnM

Why? Do you know any TV producers? If you do, please tell them I’m available! Seriously though, I love speaking so much that sometimes I fantasize about trying to create a one woman show using the poems from The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus. But I’m very busy writing that YA novel that I should have been writing when I was writing The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus. The new one is about a compulsive liar named Colette. She’s so devious. I love her!

But even though I’m busy writing, I want your readers to know that if their book club chooses to read the book, I’d be happy to Skype into their book club discussion of the book. Because all writing and no play makes Sonya a dull author…

And for the next few weeks, I’ll be posting poems from The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus to my blog, about how it feels when your child leaves for college, so if you know of anyone going through that, please send them this link: www.sonyasones.com/wp/whats-new

Thanks for having me Jo, and for asking such fun, thought-provoking questions!

xx,

Sonya