City of Legends

My friend, Thomas, was nosing about, trying to get me to tell him who the new book, loveaddict, is being dedicated to.  I am practicing keeping secrets, I told him. 

I can, however, say who (or is it "whom") it will not be dedicated to:

• Either ex-wife
• Any one of the three sisters or the three Panthers
• Any woman I have ever made totem of a fruit, a vegetable or a gemstone
• Immediate family, or even not-so-immediate family.  That would be icky.

The specificity of some of the exclusions sounds like you can bet it is at least a woman.  Never said that, all will be revealed in good time.  But I can tell you I spent a massive amount of time thinking about it.

Why?  You ask.  Well, on at least three occasions in my life, right after I have taken the immortality pledge by dedicating a book or other magnum opus to a woman, she bugs out.  So, I was thinking of dedicating it to some of my creditors, in hopes…

But that would be a waste of a perfectly good opportunity to celebrate someone who has had an impact in my life and on my art. 

I have considered dedicating to groups of people, like the Morgantown High School Class of 1973, the nuns in Dundalk, Ireland, or the people at the Appalachian Education Initiative.

I have sat down with all the muses, major and minor, and evaluated them for impact, resonance and deservedness.  As my brain makes the inevitable, if somewhat delayed, transformation from liquid to crystalline intelligence, I have come to realize many things that, in their own time, were obscure to me.

Wait until you read the book.