Diary of a Manicurist

It all began in Kindergarten. I thought the song "Shake Your Booty" by KC & the Sunshine Band was really  funny. I decided to be sassy and start singing it in front of my class at the end of a school day, figuring all the other kids knew the song and would think I was funny. Only one kid knew it and he sang it with me and we giggled and giggled and made everybody laugh. I remember walking away wondering why nobody else had ever heard that song before. From that point on, I obsessed over the radio, rolling the dial up and down slowly and listening to every station. My likes and dislikes formed naturally, uninfluenced by anyone else. Then in 5th grade I discovered a couple kids that were just as bananas over Styx's "Too Much Time On My Hands" and AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds" as I was. How exciting to actually talk to my peers about something I liked and have them "get it!" That's when I started to receive confirmation and validation that...

This is an update to a blog that I posted several years ago, a true story about a magical day I spent hanging out with Guns N Roses guitarist Izzy Stradlin in 1988. November 23, 2012 It took over 24 years for the stars to align in such a way that Izzy and I would end up in the same place again. Quite honestly, I'm surprised it took that long, with me always traveling back and forth to many of the same cities he's known to frequent. I always imagined that when the day came that I would cross paths with him again, it would be in a casual situation where I could pull up a chair and smile and speak quietly and naturally. Unfortunately, that's not how it went...  Right before Thanksgiving, I received an email with a PDF attachment from a generous Christian friend of mine. It was a ticket to see the last show of Guns N Roses residency at the Hard Rock Hotel. He refused to let me pay him for it, just said he couldn't go and wanted me to have the ticket. Knowing Izzy Strad...

"Please allow me to introduce myself..." I was born into this world as the love child of two hippie teenagers who hitch-hiked to the Woodstock Festival. I was given up for adoption and grew up in northern Indiana near the border of Michigan. As a small child you could always find me with a radio in one hand and a Barbie doll in the other...I was born fascinated with both music and the beauty industry! Soon the little radio gave way to a big stereo, tons of albums and a guitar and the Barbies succumbed to a drawer full of nail polish and make-up. Although I tried for years to play guitar I finally gave it up, deciding it might be more fun to spend time with people who already knew how to play--and I could grow my nails long again! Never very starstruck, I always thought of musicians as nothing more than just regular people like me--perhaps a little more exciting to talk to maybe. I liked hanging around talking to them because they were usually either eccentric, flamboyant show...