This book is a collection of essays (and a few poems) that can stand alone or be read out of order. Like any "witness statement" that is oered in life, these stories can be told with more or less information and from dierent perspectives, but they are true to me. Here I am reading at my favorite poetry reading "Dinner With The Muse," hosted by Evie Ivy, (who took this photograph of me on a Halloween) when I was one of the features at the Green Pavilion Restaurant in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. I am reading a poem about how Ophelia survived Hamlet and lives on, without needing his aection. Hamlet's name is written on my heart-shaped purse and I am wearing my Viking jewelry, purchased at a gift shop in Times Square.