"Books are my drug of choice."
~Terry McMillan, author of Waiting to Exhale

I agree with that quote this week. Reading is a soothing balm while grieving a heavy heart. No calories either! I found my eyes reading and re-reading the same lines in a neural loop for the first two days after coco died. It was easier at first to flip pages of a magazine and lose myself in pretty pictures. If Oprah had a makeover maybe it's time I had one. The thought of shaving off all my hair-- Buddhist monk style, did cross my mind this week.


When not writing, I spent time this week on aimless nonsense like seeing what people most Google .. fascinating sociological insight into the sexes. Be scared. Be very scared. Clearly I'm not the only one with time on my hands.

Now to some real reading. Humor has it's place during the grieving process but the bedrock of healing goes deeper.
An exquisite compilation of poems on grieving and healing is The Art of Losing edited by Kevin Young. The book jacket design is moody perfection. This would make a lovely gift for anyone with a broken heart.


There nothing like reading a memoir about prison to cheer someone up. Having Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat Pray Love fame blurb it should be our first clue that it won't be an abject downer. The smartly titled: Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman chronicles with wit and style her year in prison on drug charges.