For years, my friends have been saying that I should write a book, but it has always seemed that the days were too busy to sit down and put this outrageous life on paper. Has my life settled down? Not really. But I need to make sense of the craziness, and maybe writing will help. If you read books about happy endings, this book is not for you. The ending is real, and sometimes real life is not pretty and, oftentimes, not happy. To understand the whole picture, I must start at the very beginning. A song from my childhood reminds me-"The beginning is a very good place to start."