Tag Archive for: Murder 101 series

Writing Can Save Your Life

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We’re writing about writing this week at the Stiletto Gang. After a very happy Hallopalooza, and a great big shout-out to Southern Evelyn David for thinking this up while working her tail off at her day job, we’re settling back in to posting about the things we love, the things we think about, and the things we’d like others to love and think about. So this week it’s writing and I have a lot to say.

Not that that’s different from any other week.

The Northern half of Evelyn David and I talk about this quite a bit and she was the impetus behind a talk I gave in Tennessee last year that I called “Writing Can Save Your Life.” See, I didn’t started writing in earnest until I turned 39. It seemed like I had passed through my thirties thinking “I’ll write later” when I was finished potty training, house breaking, and doing lots of little things every day that added up to big things when the day was done. I kept putting it off until a rather round birthday approached and I realized “I am middle aged. I’d better get moving.” So I started to write and cranked out Murder 101 in a year, focusing on little else. I started Extracurricular Activities while sending out query letters to agents until the wonderful Deborah came knocking. And I continued writing while I waited to hear from the wonderful Kelley that indeed, she wanted to publish my books. I was so glad I decided to write.

Fate had a different idea of how my story would turn out, though, for on the day that I received my contracts for the first two books in the Murder 101 series, I was also diagnosed with cancer. And not just any cancer, “a bad one” as an acquaintance would say when my husband told her about the news. But instead of focusing on how bad the situation was (and it was) and how I should have been able to focus on the happiness of seeing my dream come true (that’s life, baby), I continued to write. I wrote through three rounds of chemo, one horrendous surgery, twenty radiation treatments, more chemo, two biopsies, a clinical trial, more chemo, and finally, the clinical trial that changed my prognosis from dire to positive. Because as bad as Alison Bergeron’s life may seem to those of you who read about her in every installment, she has never had cancer and she never will.

What she has is man trouble, murder trouble, and dog trouble. She falls down in too-high heels, a lot. She says the wrong thing at the wrong time and zigs when she should zag. She deals with life’s little problems, which to her, seem like huge problems. That’s why I love her. And that’s why I write.

I love writing, but in particular, I love my characters and try to do the best by them. Because as bad a day as I am having, I can make theirs that much better. I can get out of my own head and into somebody else’s. I can let them live happily ever after or make them hit a giant bump in the road, a bump that will soon by smoothed over. They have their ups and downs and hopefully, always end in “up.” But ultimately, I always know what’s going to happen to them, and that kind of control is hard to come by in the real world.

I have been on a lot of medicine and have been attended to by the smartest people the best insurance in the world can get you access to. I’m lucky that way. But I’ve also been supported by devoted family and friends and despite what I have had to go through, been able to do what I’ve always dreamed of doing: write. Writing is my passion and it gives me purpose. Without it, I don’t know how I would have survived.

Do what you love every day. It doesn’t have to be writing, but if it is, make it a point to escape for a moment or two every day and go to your other “world.” Because for me, in a very real sense, writing saved my life.

Maggie Barbieri

Halloween Then

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It’s that time of year again, when many little children (except for the ones who have parents who think that Halloween is for pagans; I, myself, worship at the feet of the god of chocolate) don costumes and roam the streets, looking for candy. And thank goodness they do! Mama needs a 100 Grand bar to satisfy that sweet tooth.

It’s not like the old days, though, when we used to get up early, particularly if Halloween was on a Saturday like it is this year, put on our flammable costumes, and roam the streets in groups, hoping not to be picked up by a serial killer, get an apple with a razor blade in it, or worse. I remember my mother sending us out, me in charge by age seven, and going up and down every street in our development, hitting every house until our environmentally-unfriendly plastic bags were bulging with candy. The rule? When your bag was too heavy to carry, you went home. Nobody in the group was carrying your bag for you (and yes, I’m looking at you, Colleen) so if you couldn’t heft it, you were out of luck.

To illustrate just how different Halloween now was from Halloween then, I’ve brought along a few family photos. Captions will explain who is who. Enjoy.

1. This is my grandmother. She took us trick or treating this particular year; I think it’s 1968. She thought it would be funny to wear one of her dead husband’s suits and put a bag over her head. It wasn’t. She scared half of the children in the neighborhood, not to mention the grownups. We left her home the next year.


2. We call this one “Bride of the Living Dead.” This is my sister, Tricia, at four years old. I don’t think my mother was going for “recently exhumed corpse” with this look, but that’s what she got.


3. Shazam! (Need I say more?)


4. Shazam revealed! (Fooled you, huh?)

5. This one is from the “When Bad Costumes Happen to Good Children” collection, currently on display at the Smithsonian. Again, my sister and her friend, Janet, look far more sinister than I think either of their mothers intended. (Notice Tricia’s lovely bridal corsage; that definitely looks like it’s been underground for some time.) Let’s just say that my father knocked off of work from the police department early and came home only to see these two lovely creatures before they set out on their candy grab. He ended up running screaming from the house thinking that trolls had gotten loose from under a bridge.

6. I think this might be a real gypsy. Note my sister’s concerned expression in the background. I think she’s been shaken down for all of her candy but she’s not sure how or why.


7. And here I am with two of my three siblings, further cementing my youngest sister’s contention that there are NO PICTURES OF HER.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween!

Maggie Barbieri

The Top Chef Effect

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As all of you faithful Stiletto Gang readers know, I love tv. Especially reality tv. But one of my favorite shows is Top Chef and right now, we’re in the middle of Season 6 which seems to be barreling toward a finale including both Voltaggio brothers, Jen from Philadelphia, and Kevin with the pig tattoo. It’s scintillating stuff if only for the fact that includes two of my favorite things: a) food and b) tension. What could be better than sixteen chefs battling it out to find out who will be Top Chef while living in a house with total strangers for several months? It’s a perfect storm, if you ask me.

But in addition to being a totally enjoyable viewing experience, I have noticed that Top Chef is seeping into other portions of my life, namely my cooking habits and my dining out experiences. For instance, while cooking dinner, I try to invent a “flavor profile” while preparing my dishes. I still don’t know what that is, but right now it consists of more butter, extra salt, and a little more cheese on the pasta. Nobody here seems to mind. Next, I try to plate creatively. So, rather than dump the spaghetti right onto the plate, I try to artfully arrange it into an interesting pattern to create a visual experience for the diners, one of whom is a vegetarian, one who only eats smoked and cured meats, and one who is on a low-roughage diet. Doing the artful plating makes me forget that I’m making three separate dinners every night and still not pleasing anyone in the process. And digging into the artfully plated food helps drowns out the sighs and moans of the diners who are being served these dinners, many of which they don’t like. So, as you have probably guessed, food and tension are both integral parts of my everyday life which further illustrates why I love of Top Chef.

Top Chef has influenced my dining-out experiences as well. Husband and I went to dinner the other night at a place I’ll call “Ye Olde Inne” or YOI for short. YOI has a great reputation around these parts yet we had never been there and were anxious to try it. The plan was to have dinner with friends who live on the other side of the county, so YOI seemed like a good halfway point for both couples to meet. Ambiance was lovely, server was hysterically funny and more than competent, but drinks? Eh. Food? More eh. Price? Over the top expensive for what we were served.

Here’s the thing: when I go out and order a cocktail, I want a cocktail. My urinary tract health notwithstanding, a glass of cranberry juice masquerading as a cosmopolitan just does not cut it. Jim’s scotch and water looked just like water—no amber hue evident in that ice-filled glass of a supposed stiff cocktail. My salad of arugula, beets and goat cheese was pretty good because how bad can you mess up goat cheese and beets? The menu promised locally-grown tomatoes and since we’re into fall, I was skeptical. (Turns out I should have gone with my gut; the tomatoes were on their last legs.) And to look at? The plate resembled the remnants of a salad once picked over and pushed to the side, with the arugula sitting in a sad-looking mess under a half moon of beet and a dollop of goat cheese that had fallen off the center of the plate and listed toward the edge, desperately trying to hang on while being transported to the table. I thought about my own attempts at plating and decided that even my half-hearted, misunderstood groupings of spaghetti looked better than this mishmash of ingredients, thrown together in a professional kitchen.

My friend and I ordered two glass of chardonnay to have with dinner. We were served pinot grigio. Twice. (The bartender looked kind of surly so I was afraid to bring this error to his attention.) Dinner was acceptable, but not overwhelmingly fantastic. The bill, on the other hand, bordered on overwhelmingly fantastic in terms of its total. Seems that YOI is fine with serving mediocre meals at an exceptionally high price.

So I’m wondering: am I more critical because I have a virtual dining experience every Wednesday night and have learned a lot about what goes on in a restaurant and in chef’s minds? Or have I become more particular in my old age? Hard to say. But I will say that I’ve gotten more protective of our hard-earned cash so that when we decide to go to dinner and it is to a place with a reputation for quality, I’m disappointed when the owner and his staff are mailing it in. After all, I had put on Spanx and high heels; I meant business. Why didn’t they?

Is there a Top Chef effect? Has Top Chef and the like made food/restaurant critics of us all? Or is a bad meal just a bad meal?

Maggie Barbieri

Brand A or Mango? Help me decide…

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For the fifth time in as many years, I’m shopping for a new computer to replace the one that no longer works, otherwise known as “their computer” which is the opposite of “my computer.”

And I’m getting darned tired of it.

I have stuck with the same PC company for all of these years, but I’m nothing if not astute. Perhaps I should switch brands/platforms? Because the five computers that I have owned have all been replaced, one after another, by newer, faster, and sleeker models all because their predecessors have bitten the dust in one way or another.

Horrible virus that wipes out your hard drive? Check.

Computer won’t start? Check.

Computer freezes to screen saver page but won’t allow you to open any applications? Check.

Internet won’t connect and gives you a notification that tells you what your problem is in numbers only? Check.

Computer instructs you to call technical support? Check.

Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t think that computers should be disposable. Why is it that computers, like cars, depreciate in value once you open the box and set them up? Why can’t they last for say, oh, three years or even past the warranty date?

PC companies would have you believe that if you switch to the company with the fruit name—let’s call it Mango or “Mang” for short—that nothing you do with other PC users will be applicable, something I’ve come to find is a complete falsehood. (I’m highly suggestible.) The PC companies would also have you believe that their products are much more affordable. This is true. Know why? Because Mango’s computers don’t have to be replaced every year! And Mango’s computers are safe from most viruses! This is important to me because my computer(s) have never met a virus they didn’t like. Every time a new virus is identified and word gets out to concerned PC users everywhere, I usually already know because I’ve already dealt with the virus and am dealing with the guys at Geek Squad who swear they’ve never seen a virus as bad as the one I’ve brought in. (That’s always comforting.)

We’re currently down to one computer, the one on which I work and write, and that just isn’t going to work for a family of four. When everyone is home, that means that they lay in wait until I take a bathroom break and then line up beside my desk like cars waiting to cross the Canadian border, just waiting for the opportunity to check their email. Scintillating exchanges occur like “r u home?” or “I’m lol-ing” or “what r u doing?” all of which could be discussed at length by using the more reliable but far less technologically-cool landline.

I live in fear that my trusty laptop will die and we will have no computer at all. And then I’ll have to run to Mango to purchase something as soon as possible, always a recipe for disaster. I’ll probably get talked into a 50 inch monitor with web cam and complete mani/pedi capabilities and that’s never a good thing. I’ll over-buy. Because that’s what I do in panic situations. (See Bluetooth capable car with no Bluetooth-capable cell phone as an example.)

So I’m asking you, dear Stiletto Gang readers, what do you suggest? Stick with generic-PC company, also known as Brand A? Or switch to Mango (Mang for short)?

We Catholics have a patron saint for everything. I think we need one for computers. I’d feel so much better if I could pray for my computer’s continued health.

Maggie Barbieri

Do I Care?

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Lots going on in the world this week so I’ve taken some time to wonder “do I care”? Let’s find out, shall we?

David Letterman had “relations” with several staffers, none of whom were married. He was. Do I care? No. It’s his private life—as well as Mrs. Letterman’s and his young son’s—but really, does it matter to any of us? Do I care about the mea culpas and whether they were genuine, funny, sarcastic, or smarmy?

Not a whit.

Here’s the thing—if we find out that Letterman sexually harassed any of these women, women who worked for him, then we have a different kettle of fish to fry. (And yes, I’m the queen of mixed metaphors.) My “do I care” will turn to “I most certainly do care” in a heartbeat. Because using your power to manipulate those in a subordinate position to you is certainly a crime. Having an affair while involved with someone else—while reprehensible in my book—is not. The extortion plot? Also a crime. But Letterman’s dalliances are not my business and I would rather not hear about them anymore. Go back to stupid pet tricks, Dave. Or in your case, stupid human tricks.

Crime is crime, but bad moral character is just that. And I just don’t care if my 11:30 pm talk show host guy is a philandering s.o.b.

Roman Polanski was extradicted from France after thirty years on the lam for raping a thirteen-year-old girl after plying her with champagne and Qualuudes. Do I care? You betcha. As a woman, a mother, and a person living in a society where children should matter more than they do, this event tips the scales a little more toward goodness. She was not a consenting participant in this event no matter what Mr. Polanski—or his apologists, too many to even believe—have to say on the matter.

There’s a reason that the person holding the scales of justice is a woman. I hope Mr. Polanski is as frightened as his victim presumably once was. About this I care deeply.

Jon Gosselin has suspended taping of “Jon and Kate Plus Eight.” Do I care? No, siree. Well, let’s amend that; maybe I do care if only because now those poor, innocent children will finally be able to live their collective lives off camera. Maybe something positive did come out of this after all.

I’m thinking that this post makes me sound angrier than I intend but when I realized that I had to wade through several articles on the Letterman issue in the newspaper this morning—as well as the details as to whether Polanski will ever make it here to stand trial—to find out what really was going on in the world, I got my panties in a twist so to speak. And when I saw yet another celebrity come out in support of Roman Polanski, I got a little more irate. And when I saw the Gosselins on television yet again, I was near stroke. I want to know what’s going on in the world at large, the global community, and my world. And no, I don’t mean what Michelle Obama wore overseas to try to secure the Olympics for Chicago (which I kind of care about because that woman—same age as I—really rocks the shift dress). I mean what our government is doing (or not doing, as the case may be), how our troops are faring overseas, how close we are to figuring out how to give health care coverage to the majority of citizens in this country. Or how we’re going to help the one in four American families who have had a member experience job loss in the past year. And on the lighter side, who the Mets fired and why, whether Eli will be able to throw on Sunday, and how Mark Sanchez is faring after getting spanked by the Saints. The important stuff. The stuff that matters to me.

So do I care about David Letterman? Not so much.

Roman Polanski? To the extent that if he is found guilty, his butt is fried by both a court of law and the court of public opinion.

The Gosselins? Not at all. Except for eight little children who deserve a childhood.

Your thoughts? What matters to you? And what images or stories are you assaulted with every day that send you over the edge?

Maggie Barbieri

Clothes Do Not Make the Writer (Thankfully)

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I was planning on writing about something else entirely, but Marilyn’s post yesterday generated so many comments that I took some time to think about what exactly I wear when I write and why.

I fall into both camps that were discussed yesterday—I do get up and get dressed almost immediately upon waking, but there are those days when I loll in my pajamas for a few minutes. These are the days, inevitably, when it is raining cats and dogs and someone needs a ride to school. On those days, yes, I have been known to drive around town in Old Navy pajama pants and a “Life Is Good” tee shirt, hoping against hope that I don’t break a law that would require that I pull over and face a cop, most of whom live right in the town. I’d never live it down. And, for sure, I’d end up in the “Blotter” section of our local paper, the section most often cited as the first one everyone goes to on Thursday when the Gazette arrives. Trust me—you do not want to see your name in the Blotter.

I could be one of those writers who spends an entire day in pajamas, but I don’t feel like the day has any merit until I’ve showered and dressed. Additional grooming is another matter entirely. I have just returned from a lunchtime trip to Trader Joe’s where I realized—upon gazing into the mirrored glass above some of the pre-prepared dinners—that I never brushed my hair today. There’s really no point in getting up and worrying about what you’ll wear if you forget to brush your hair, is there? Thankfully, I never forget to brush my teeth but remembering to put on a little make-up? Another one of my issues.

Work attire usually consists of tee shirts and jeans. However, there are some days that require that I leave the house to see a client and on those days, I usually put on a pair of nicer pants and a blouse with a cardigan. My mother calls these “wake clothes” because they are too dressy to hang around the house in, yet not dressy enough to wear to a wedding. To her, they represent the clothes that we normal folk call “business casual” but since we’re a wake-professional family (all Irish-Catholic families are to some degree), she has denoted them “wake clothes.” Feel free to adopt this phrase into your vernacular. Guaranteed, most everyone will know of which you speak. Incidentally, husband I went to Bermuda this summer to a resort that had five restaurants on the premises, many requiring “smart casual” wear. We wore our wake clothes. We weren’t turned away.

The only problem with the tee shirt/jean combo is that it doesn’t allow me to wear many of the fifty-odd pairs of shoes that I own, many stilettos, most dressier than the usual daily ensemble requires. So every once in a while, just to shake things up, I will put on a pair of shoes that I shouldn’t be caught dead in during the day in the middle of the week and prance on down to the A&P to clickety-clack along the aisles, feeling like Amazonian shopping woman.

But here’s an equally thought-provoking question that I’d love your input on. What’s on your desk when you write? What are your magic writing talismans?

Maggie Barbieri

Getting to Know You (Ok, me)

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As I get older, it is refreshing to acknowledge the things I like and don’t like to do. For years, I did things because I felt like they were the right thing to do or what I should be doing. Because everyone else was doing them. Or loved to do them.

Case in point: yoga.

For years, I was a faithful practitioner of yoga, knowing that it would be the best thing for my type-A, control freak, slightly ADD personality. I went every week with my purple mat, in my cute black stretch pants (that incidentally could have benefited from a tummy control panel) and twisted myself into various positions, holding them as long as I could, and trying to think about anything but all of the things I wanted to think about. I never could execute a handstand, but I could live with that, because when it came to the “pigeon pose,” I was a champ.

The only problem was, I wasn’t relaxing. What I was doing was stressing about not being able to relax at yoga. And I was thinking about other stuff that didn’t have anything to do with my own inner peace, chakras, or mindfulness. Every time I got into a pose and was instructed to hold it, my mind went in about five hundred different directions, starting with: “Things I need from Shoprite: eggs, milk, butter, toilet paper…” Then I would refocus (and readjust my tummy-control-less yoga pants) just in time for the next pose and clear my mind. Seconds later, I was back to: “…chicken, bread, toilet paper—oh, right, I already have that on the list—beer…beer…beer…”

My friend, Tami, is a yoga instructor and in the best shape of anyone I know (with the exception of trainer Shari). She is also very serene. She has graciously invited me to her class and while I was tempted to go, I never took the plunge. I couldn’t figure out why. Then, it finally hit me: I don’t really like yoga.

For all of you yoga devotees, let me be perfectly clear: the problem is me, not yoga. Yoga is a fabulous form of mediation and exercise. It’s just not for nut cases like myself.

But for years, I kept thinking that because it was such a fabulous form of mediation and exercise, I should do it. Even though it didn’t do anything for me physically or spiritually. I finally found the courage to articulate this epiphany to my friend, Melissa, who stared back at me and said, “I could have told you that.”

Why are our friends more likely to know more about us than we know about ourselves?

Now that I’ve embraced this new-found self awareness, I have also finally admitted that I really don’t like the beach. It’s hot, it’s crowded, and there’s sand. And flies. And it’s outside.

I also don’t like expensive coffee, I would rather have a big plate of fried chicken than a salad (despite what it does to my cholesterol and triglycerides or whatever they’re called), and I think that programs on public broadcasting stations are for the most part boring. I also prefer a dimestore novel to what is purported to be a literary masterpiece. I will no longer suffer through an “important work” if my mind starts to wander after the first three pages. I also prefer cheap chardonnay to the more expensive ones. But I won’t cheap out on Champagne.

By this time, you’re probably wondering why it took so long to come to some of these truths. I guess I’m just a slow learner.

So, what have you learned about yourself recently? Please share.

Maggie Barbieri
http://www.maggiebarbieri.com

Don’t You Die on Me, High-Speed Internet Access!

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I often make fun of my kids who have complete meltdowns when one of their gadgets go dead like the iPod, the Wii, the X-box, the Sims game on the computer. I usually start with, “when I was your age, we didn’t even know what computers were!” or something equally unimpressive to their young, technologically-savvy ears. So, it was with great interest that I have been judging my reaction to an email I received two weeks ago yesterday, in which a man—I’ll identify him as Greg (not his real name)—wrote to a group of local dsl users with his company—I’ll call it ZT&T (not its real name)—that ZT&T was dropping all of them as customers. No explanation as to why, but uninterrupted service was promised, despite the fact that service would be suspended within forty-eight hours. Not long enough to get another service, but just short enough to send the names on Greg’s email list (which were revealed, not hidden), enough time to panic. I recognized two of my friends on the list.

I’ve identified the five stages of grieving for your internet service. Here they are:

1. Fear: Who was Greg? Did he really work for ZT&T? Why did he reveal the entire email list to all of the other affected customers? Was he phishing? To counteract the fear, I called ZT&T and reached India. The man in India assured me that Greg was real, he did work for ZT&T, and yes, he was dropping me as a dsl customer in less than forty-eight hours. He bid me adieu and wishes for a nice day. I told the man in India that not only was I beyond annoyed, I was dropping ZT&T as my local and long distance carrier. He was unimpressed.

2. Frustration: I called Greg; he had left a phone number which I assumed went back to India where I would get the desk of the guy sitting next to the first guy I spoke to. When Greg picked up his phone, I was amazed. He let me rant and then told me that service would be uninterrupted; they were selling us, en masse, to another local carrier we’ll call Berizon. Yes, yes, yes, Greg intoned, there would be no interruption of my dsl service. I reiterated that I ran a business from my home that was dependent on high-speed internet access; in his monotone, he GUARANTEED that I would have service on Thursday when I awoke. I did—it just went out after lunch. Technically, he did not lie.

3. Anger: My emails to Greg, which in the beginning ended with “have a nice day” or “thank you for your help” descended into “you’d better resolve this before I bring Andrew Cuomo, Attorney General of New York State, and all the wrath he wrought down on your pathetic tuchis.” Before long. Greg, too, was unimpressed. (Sense the theme here?) He assured me that I was first on the list for reconnection and would have email by Monday, the 15th at the latest. Later that day, I received a packet in the mail from Berizon with my installation disk saying that I would have service a week from Saturday, June 26th. I called Greg back, but he didn’t pick up his phone this time; an away message on his email indicated that he had gone on vacation (I’m not making this up). He instructed us to call someone else. But I’m so dang tired of this whole thing that the thought of explaining who I am, why I’m angry, and how desperately I need high-speed internet service made me think twice about calling this new person. Something tells me Greg didn’t fill the new guy in on the hordes of angry customers in our Village.

4. Denial: “This isn’t really happening,” I would intone as I waited for my dial-up service to connect. Hours later, while still waiting, I would still be in my fugue state, rocking back and forth in my chair, saying the same thing. Every try to download a pdf on dial-up service? It takes four days. Eventually, I did download the complaint form from the Attorney General’s office, but since it took so long, the bottom was cut off and I have to start again.

5. Acceptance: I will have dial-up forever. I will never work again. It’s okay. Lots of people live with dial-up. Lots of people have productive lives. High-speed internet isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Just as I got to this point, the doorbell rang. When I opened it and took in the smiling face of the Berizon technician, his shiny truck at my curb, I nearly jumped into his arms. “Berizon man! I am so happy to see you!” I screamed, clapping my hands together; I held back from hugging him. He took a step back from the doorway and slowly made his way down the front steps, fear etched on his kind face.

“Nobody is ever that happy to see me,” he said, regarding me warily. “They usually want to wring my neck.”

I checked his name tag. His name was Dave. Not Greg. And he worked for Berizon, not ZT&T. In my book, this guy was okay. He helped me call up my web page and helped me get a wireless connection. Never will I make fun of my kids again. Now that we have the technology, let’s all use it!

Maggie Barbieri