I have been a Simon and Garfunkel fan for years --- an ardent one. Since I was 13 my life has had a running score under it of songs from the duo, and both of the artists solo. I hear a song and it quickly brings back where I was at the time when I first heard it. I have some pretty vivid memories of lying on a tweed couch in a room in our house in a room that we called "the study" listening to S&G while wearing HUGE headphones. I look at the earbuds that people wear today with such envy as I remember never being able to lie comfortably on the couch with the "moonphones" I was wearing.

Certain songs come on and I can feel the nubby fabric of that couch. Others remind me of long road trips where I would play tape after tape as the miles rolled away. Timing things like driving on the New Jersey Turnpike while listening to the line about the Turnpike in America was the equivalent of writing a soundtrack when you are 18.

I met my oldest (literally) friend through Simon and Garfunkel. She wrote a piece about them for a magazine called Horoscope back in October 1970. The article posted their astrological charts and included anecdotes and stories that I had never seen before. I, who clearly was setting the course for my later career in journalism, wrote Elinor to ask her how she knew this information. The article was forwarded on to her by the magazine (think snail mail, airmail stamps and weeks of waiting). She responded in April with a lovely handwritten note about how she had met Paul and Artie (her words) back when they did an early tour to the Bay area.

Letters flew across the country as I wrote and Elinor answered. For years. High school moved onto college moved onto career and marriage and motherhood. And the letters became emails and IMs. I still have boxes of her letters (yes, I save everything) packed up in the attic of my house. Reading them is like reading a history of both of our lives. No one had a better chronology of my teen angst, growing pains and real inner thoughts during these decades than Elinor. 35 years of writing tells a pretty in-depth story of a person's life.

Just last week I packed up a box of Simon and Garfunkel CDs to send to Elinor for her 87th birthday present. Moves over the years had taken their toll on her music collection and I could think of no better way to celebrate another year than by sharing with her the new re-issues of both Simon and Garfunkel and Paul Simon material. Each of the CDs has bonus tracks --- the outtakes.

Listening to these outtakes to me is even more fun than listening to the final versions. It feeds my desire to know where the writing came from. When you hear a different music track or lyrics not even close to what's on the final cut you feel like you are inside the writer's head. Often the outtakes just have humming over the music instead of words, or bits and pieces of the final verses. Listening to Let Me Live in Your City,which went on to become Something So Right gives the song a new perspective.

So, you ask, what does any of this have to do with books? Lots. Paul Simon and other songwriters often tell really tight 3:46 minute stories in their songs. Think about it. In 3:46 you can see an entire group of events and feelings play out. Studying songs can be a great exercise in writing. I have never forgotten my 7th grade teacher who drew a rather apathetic group of students together for a pretty riveting discussion of Sounds of Silence.

BTW...my older son also now is a Simon and Garfunkel fan. In fact, I am borrowing HIS collection of remastered tracks. Last month he did a paper on Dylan Thomas and quoted Paul Simon's line about him and Bob Dylan, which made me smile. Elinor jokes that she is the oldest fan and he is the youngest.

When I read books I often want to dissect the story. I want to know what came first when the author was writing. The murder, the kidnapping, the fact there were twins, the title, the thoughts go on and on. I have favorite books where I wish I could see the early drafts to see how the story evolved. I want the outtakes.

On Nelson DeMille's website he has the handwritten first draft of the first chapter of his novel, Night Fall. I love sharing things like that with readers. Character names changed in later versions. Fun to see that.

I often wonder if authors look back on early drafts once they are done. Or is it all wrapped up in their heads? Or does the story push on and become something else so these early versions represent something primitive and dismissable? Like the notes I write on the backs of envelopes of things that matter for the moment and then never matter again.

The outtakes of our lives form the history of our lives and shape it in ways that we often never measure. What we cast aside gets us to where we are now. Ponder that.

I would check off the following boxes of jobs that I would like to have: ER triage, air traffic control and programming the NFL Schedule. I thrive in an environment where the pace is fast and each one of these jobs has that. Since I have absolutely no aptitude in science, the ER triage job is not being offered to me any time soon. Thus I love watching ER and medical shows. I still miss Chicago Hope. (Okay, I confess that I had a wicked crush on Peter Berg.) I also like reading books about the medical profession.

There's a new memoir just out for those of you who, like me, also enjoy reading about medicine. It's called HOT LIGHTS, COLD STEEL: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years by Michael J. Collins. It details the challenges that are faced by an orthopedic surgeon during his four training years at the prestigious Mayo Clinic. I like the way this book focuses on Collins' humanity as well as his growing talent as a surgeon. He starts out green and ends up a pro. His writing is engaging and the tone is endearing. You'll yawn with him through sleepless nights, sweat the life threatening challenges and embrace his tales of his wife and growing family. I closed it wanting to meet Collins. If I break my arm or leg, I want him to be my doctor.

Last year I discovered a new author named Charles Martin, who wrote a book that I was crazy about called THE DEAD DON'T DANCE. His second book WRAPPED IN RAIN will be out in March and it solidified my feelings about him. I started it Thurs night and it kept me company on my flight from Nashville to home on Friday. I finished it yesterday morning and immediately saw that there is no sophomore slump for Martin. He is a writer who writes emotion so the story wraps around you and then it tucks away somewhere inside you and stays with you. The plot goes like this. Two brothers grow up with an abusive father and they are raised by a nanny/housekeeper who keeps them on a course that is steeped in "doing the right thing." It's billed as Christian-based fiction, but let's just say that the message does not get in the way of the story. It just works. VERY worth exploring.

Yesterday and today I found myself on the couch giving into a cold that sapped my energy this past week. I read THE BITCH POSSE by Martha O'Connor what will be coming out in May. In it, three high school girls form a trio in Holland, Illinois back in 1988 and forge a partnership that will haunt them in the years to come. It's egdy, dark and very unnerving. These women each have a story, which will follow them in the decades to come and chart the course that she lives on. I can see why people are excited about O'Connor and have been giving this one attention.

Off to pluck another book from my towering "to be read" pile. More to come....

I spent last week in Nashville at a trade show for the Christian Booksellers Association. I stayed at Gaylords Opryland Hotel, a sprawling hotel where walking from one end to the other constitutes a major workout. They actually said their fitness center is not very large as they feel everyone works out just walking around.

It was not my favorite hotels for one reason. I loathe manufactured fun. This is why my children will someday be seeing a therapist since they have never been to Disney World or Disneyland, and will not get there on my watch. I hate places where the fun is programmed to happen.

Opryland houses gorgeous indoor gardens under an atrium. Palm trees, beautiful foliage and wonderful flowers fill the hotel. Sounds nice, right? Well, it would be if they did not then take it over the top. There were waterfalls all over the hotel, which means there was a constant whoosh whoosh whoosh noise that just made me crazy. I was having a meeting on a bench near one waterfall that was programmed to whoosh on a system that I could not time. The woman I was meeting with and I kept jumping every time the water shot up. I felt like I was at Bellagio in Vegas, minus the choreographed Frank Sinatra tunes. (In case you are wondering, Vegas is another manufactured fun place that makes me crazy.) Then there was a boat road through the "river" in the hotel where folks were paddled along by a guide who pointed out fish, flora and fauna. I love boat rides in the real outdoors, not the manufactured outdoors!

The hotel rooms were dark, the hi-speed Internet cord was short and there was no outlet behind the desk to plug in a laptop. I decided this is a better vaca hotel than a business hotel!

All this said, they had a feature I loved the concept of. If you dialed extension 102 they would answer the phone "Consider It Done." Whatever request you had, they wanted you to know you could "Consider it Done." It got me thinking how nice it would be to have a "consider it done" button for every aspect of your life. Considering how long most of us spend on hold and then doing battle with the cable, cellphone, other utility companies, as well as insurance companies, banks and doctors, think how nice it would be to hear "Good morning, and thank you for calling and consider it done." Though I did not request brighter light bulbs, an extension cord, or a pin to close the drapes in my room that were open that little sliver where the lights outside my window made me feel like I was living on an airport runway, I liked knowing there was someone standing by to fulfill my every whim. For the record, they got A for wakeup calls since I was unable to figure out how to program the CD alarm clock in my room!

Did lots of reading while I traveled, which I will explore in the next Blog entry.