READ ME!

---

READ ME ... yeah, right. Right?

What is this all about? Maybe you should read the READ ME READ ME.

Out of the blue, one evening during the relationship that constituted the one time that I ever truly felt secure, confident and happy dating someone, I was struck with an uncomfortable thought that has not become unseated.

I was passing through the living room that we shared, listening to the words and music of Patsy Cline before clicking off the stereo and heading out to (yet another) blissful delicious dinner at a fashionable and hip (yet not trendy) Los Angeles restaurant when it hit me.

Wouldn't it be terrible, I thought, if I continued to be as happy as I am right now, because then I would never have the kind of passion and emotion contained in the tangibly heartbreak-painted songs of Patsy Cline? Without Cline-worthy sorrow, how could I be a writer?

That was well before John and I broke up, Gladys fired me, Yale died suddenly, and Elizabeth committed suicide.

Thanks to 20-20 hindsight, I now laugh at my former naivete, while still somehow acting as if I was, in fact, right.

Passion flows in all directions, and those who are capable of the lowest depths of despair are often the same ones who can reach top heights of breakthrough.

If Judy Garland could joyfully celebrate "New York New York" with Liza Minelli at Carnegie Hall; if Bjork can trill "It's Oh So Quiet" and when with the Sugarcubes, "Bicycle;" if Pete Townsend can entreat, "Let My Love Open the Door;" and Madonna sing "Dear Jessie" on the Like a Prayer album; if Tupac could revel in "California Love;" and Liz Phair croon optimistically "Whip Smart;" then good works can come without unnecessary drama.

And I want to believe -- though my actions betray me -- that neither delight nor despair are prerequisites to creativity.

Perhaps if I can convince myself this, Patsy Cline music be damned, maybe then I will finally stop playing with fire.

---

"It's best to avoid the high highs and low lows."
... my father, countless times.

---