Easy Street

 

(photo kidnapped from overdrive)

I started Ron Perlman's memoir last night and damn; it's spectacular. I purchased the audio book version and was overcome with heart palpitations and lightheadedness while listening to that gorgeously sexy voice of his. I only got through chapter one and part of two by the time I arrived home. I'm impatiently waiting for Friday night's drive to Norfolk when I can tear through a good five solid hours - just me and Ron.

Like most gals, I first took note of this man when he starred as Vincent in Beauty and the Beast with Linda Hamilton. I remember seeing him and his lovely wife on the red carpet in a magazine and thought he looked like the sweetest guy in the world. He was tall with a slightly intimidating physique, but he wore the cheekiest grin and immediately I cut the picture out and added it to my scrapbook. My taste in men has always been superb, all the way back to age eleven.

What I gleaned from the first few pages of Easy Street (The Hard Way) was how Ron Perlman seemed so much like me. He talked about being the biggest kid in all his classes, about being overweight and labeled a fat kid. How he kept his head down and only lifted it to make a self deprecating comment about himself before someone else would say something just as horrible or worse. I was never the fat kid, instead I was always the ugly girl. It's been thirty years since I was first given that title and I still struggle with it every day. I so admire people like Ron Perlman that are open and honest and share their hardships with the world, with me. I'm intrigued by survivor stories (Cambodian Odyssey, The Fifth Diamond, Girl, Interrupted, Man's Search for Meaning, Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot) mostly because I one day hope to overcome my issues; to survive and triumph rather than rest at the bottom of San Francisco Bay.

Easy Street is an exceptional book. It reads like poetry and then on a hairpin turn it's like a Mike Hammer novel. Perlman writes like those rare and extraordinary authors that lay out the scene for you so clearly that it feels like you are reliving an old and dusty memory. I'm chompin' at the proverbial bit to get through today and tomorrow's workday so I can hit the dark road to Virginia with Ron Perlman at my side.