I'm an Accidental Fashionista.

A few mornings ago, my thirteen-year-old daughter emerged from her room, prepared as usual for the discerning fashion eyes of her eighth grade peers.

"Mom," she asked, "should I wear my red Vans with this dress or my short black boots?"

The voice came from the bathroom where my wife stood crop dusting her hair with Monsanto-inspired abandon. "I'm not sure, honey. Go ask your dad."

You heard that correctly. Our house, while inhabited by three females, has dubbed the lone male, also known as me, as fashion consultant to all things feminine.

I'm pretty much the same age as those rugged-looking dudes in the commercials, the middle-aged guys who can pull a truck out of the mud with a couple of horses or fix a printing press with their bare hands…you know what I'm talking about? They've got it all, except for a little problem below the Mason-Dixon. 

But here's the thing: I doubt those ads would sell any blue pills if the Marlboro man stood by his wife's closet, pointing out which infinity scarf looks better with that cashmere sweater. 

Like I do.

I work in the fashion industry. I have for twenty-two years, designing advertising for a well-known apparel and shoe retailer. Most dad-types occupying my demographic pigeon hole are about as interested in women's clothing trends as the Tea Party is interested in Burger Kings without drive-throughs. 

Am I fashionable personally? Sure...compared to Tom Hanks in Castaway or maybe Rush Limbaugh without the benefit of a push-up bra.

Hells no, I'm not fashionable. If I could wear basketball shorts and a t-shirt every day for the rest of my life, including weddings, funerals and dinners with Michelle and Barack, I freaking would. I'm currently lobbying for my gravestone to be inscribed, "Here lies Tim. He thought elastic was fantastic and sweatst were the best."

But after two full decades wading through terra-pixels of women's skirts, jackets, tops, pants and shoes, it's become part of my genetic makeup, similar to the Cheeto-tinted face of John Boehner. 

I recently reached a new low. I caught myself using the word "pair" as a verb, as in "Why don't you just pair that sweater dress with some tall boots? No, no, leggings are fine. They're just a conduit between the boots and the dress." Shit, what a dork. I had to watch an hour of football to purge myself of that metro-sexual stench.

Occasionally, I'll discover myself talking about clothes with two or three of my wife's friends. The husbands never hang around to glean any information about the latest UGG color, as well they shouldn't. I usually join them later, timidly entering their presence, my aura still reeking of chunky chain jewelry.

Every once in a while, I'll demonstrate cutting-edge stylishness in spite of myself. That tiger design is currently sold on my company's website for sixty dollars. But as you can see, my wolf shirt puts it to shame, and at a fraction of the cost.

Don’t' get me wrong; I'm not ashamed of the trajectory my career has assumed. I just, you know, don't want to talk about it anymore.

How about those Seahawks?

We Wear Uniforms, Not Outfits.

If you are tuning in today to possibly read about something that matters, well, you may be out of luck. In fact, you might assign more importance to future posts featuring my 3D prostate growth chart or the top five best mammals to make into jerky. Yes, today the pond can't get much shallower without becoming simply a moist algae bloom.

This piece concerns irrational loathing. I won't go so far as to use the "h" word, since I know how damaging it can be, especially after having it used against me by my own children hundreds of times. Should I be upset at the frequency with which the little urchins screamed "I hate you!"usually for nothing more than suggesting they brush their teeth sometime before Easter? Probably not, but I still find it difficult to lob "H bombs" at anyone besides the Jerry Sanduskys and Ariel Castros of the world.

Have you ever despised someone or something with one hundred percent potency? I'm talking all Yang and no Yin, not ninety-five percent acrimonious and five percent compassionate. I'm talking about perfect, black malice with not a ropy vein of lukewarm empathy.

I've only felt this churn of enmity a few times during my five decades above ground: 

When a guy smashed into my daughter while she was stopped at a red light and then took off, I visualized acts of violence using nothing more than a wood rasp and three Bic lighters. 

I had a boss a few years back who held a graduate degree from the Ann Coulter School of Motivational Speaking and Public Humiliation. After having prepared a presentation for several days, I entered her office and placed a stack of my drawings on the conference table. Several of my co-workers sat quietly watching her. She closed her eyes and said, "I will not open my eyes until you tell me that this is sophisticated."

Rivulets of smart-ass responses dripped though my brain and then toward my oral cavity: Actually, no, it's not sophisticated. I went with a toothless Appalachian theme in honor of your mom. I held back and replied, "Uh, yeah, I think so."

She continued, squinting."Because if it isn't sophisticated, you're going to have to put on your big boy pants and start over again—you're aware of that."

I wanted nothing more than the ability to cause her bowels to spontaneously evacuate. 

Geez, I'm getting myself all worked up now. Anyway, I haven't felt those levels of vitriol with much frequency, thank the lord. But I did feel it again on Saturday when the number-two-ranked Oregon Ducks rolled into Seattle to play my Washington Huskies. The gridiron rivalry dates back to 1900.

How do I feel about the Ducks? Let's just say that if the U of O were my ear, I'd grab a steak knife and go all Van Gogh on that thing. 

After years spent wallowing in mediocrity, Oregon's athletic program was infused with over $230 million by Phil Knight, founder and chairman of Nike, Inc. and an Oregon alumnus. His uncomfortably narrow, overpriced shoes and gaudy apparel translated into lavish collegiate facilities in Eugene and sweltering sweatshops abroad. Here's Phil, performing a convincing imitation of a western buffoon in Ted Bundy clothes.

The Ducks football machine spares no expense, donning a different uniform for every opponent. Here are some of Oregon's notable football fashion statements:

I have to admire their designers. It's got to be tough to find colors that compliment the distinct hue of kidney malfunction. 

Maybe I'm just jealous because the Huskies used to own the Ducks and now haven't beaten them for ten years. The frustration spilled over at Husky Stadium on Saturday. Two chubby U of O fans continued standing and dancing amid a sea of downtrodden UW supporters, taunting the crowd even after Oregon had sealed the victory. The guy next to me, very mild-mannered for the entire contest, suddenly screamed out, "Sit down, fuckhead!"

The crowd erupted in laughter. The guy sat down. The Huskies lost.

I hate the Ducks. Oops. Oh well.

No other way to say it—this is bullshit.

I would like to make a prediction. This may happen in five years, maybe ten, maybe never.

Anyone who's ever queued up at a grocery store checkout line, whether for just a pack of chipotle e-smokes or lugging a cart filled with enough stuff to get the Ingalls' covered wagon from De Smet to Walnut Grove, has passed that densely stocked tabloid section. It's usually wedged somewhere between the Five Hour Energy and last chance Super Size Kit Kats.

Leading the pack is the bastion of bastardization, The National Enquirer, but always trailing in close pursuit are pubs like The Globe, Weekly World News and OK! Oh, but things are hardly okay in the tabloid universe. With the consistency of an A-Rod fib, these rags spell out doom and divine intervention in equal helpings. Here are a few headlines I wouldn't be surprised to see next time I hit Safeway:

Miley and Billy Ray secretly wed. In legal ceremony, happy couple proud to call Tennessee their home.

Woman finds hair clump in her calzone and discovers the face and beard of Jesus. Crowds flock from all corners of Tennessee.

On visit to Tennessee, Bill Clinton discovers second penis inside his nose. Can't stop blowing it.

Anyway, back to my prediction. I submit that, before too long, video screens will accompany the printed pages along checkout row. Sensational headlines will beckon us to their broadcasts and websites.

And anything goes. Saturday night, I got another whiff of the bitter stench of tabloid journalism. I don't know about you, but I find local news insufferable—the ridiculous banter between the flirty weather guy and the sexy anchor in her shellacked hair and one-piece Nancy Reagan clown dress, stepping all over each other's weak jokes, then chuckling anemically before snapping into "serious mode." Time to talk about some more car wrecks.

I try my best to avoid local news, but sometimes it's just a wrong-place-wrong-time type situation, and such was the case Saturday. As the concluding credits rolled up on a college football game, the pulsing headline titled, "Only on KIRO 7," filled the screen. The broadcast led with the horrific assault of a security guard in Seattle's Westlake park back in July. Instantly plastered in high def were the name and a Facebook image of a thirteen-year-old boy identified by the guard as one of the youths who beat him to unconsciousness as he attempted to prevent the group from stealing a backpack. Not until he'd recovered three months later was the guard able to label the boy as one of his assailants, someone he'd seen on numerous occasions hanging out in the park.

But it didn't end there. The story cut to a reporter standing on the front porch of the alleged perpetrator's mother's apartment. She quickly shut the door without comment, yet she wasn't swift enough to avoid her image being beamed across western Washington. Apparently, KIRO 7 takes no prisoners. If it bleeds, it leads.

I think we've all grown fairly callous regarding "infotainment," the new face of broadcast journalism. We're used to the rapes and murders and fires that dominate our headlines. 

This is different. While Seattle's online newspaper, The Post-Intelligencer, chose to run the same story with the same facts, they also opted against naming or picturing the accused boy. Of course, KIRO could have also done that, but that wasn't quite enough red meat for a ratings-starved station that consistently finishes last among Seattle's three predominate news channels. KIRO chose to put a face to the story, to erect a lightning rod to absorb our fear and prejudice. 

Look at this kid. He's thirteen, but he looks about nine. It sounds like he's going down the wrong path, and if he did what they say he did, he needs to be punished. 

But that's not the point. It's one thing for a television station to prematurely condemn an adult, but a child? Would KIRO do the same if a white kid were involved, or would they be wary of the legal ramifications brought forth by a family with more substantial resources? I think we all know the answer to that. 

To KIRO's credit, the headline projects a rare bit of insight:

"Only on KIRO 7."

A Veteran's Tale

What were you doing in early 1990? What's that? You weren't born yet? Then go Snap Chat or Tweet or something while I talk to the grown-ups. 

Sorry, you can stay. I'm just envious and longing for those days spent backpacking through Europe with three pairs of socks and a perm that even the French thought was repulsively greasy. I have slides.

But while my new bride and I argued our way from Lucerne to Lyon and all points betwixt, my brother-in-law, Dean Ainardi, began his own journey. He joined the United States Air Force. 

On Friday, Dean formally retired after a twenty-three year career. The ceremony, held at Joint Base Lewis/McChord for family and friends, was emotional and funny, touching, sad and inspirational as hell. Sharply dressed men and women, some in camouflage, others in full dress uniform, packed the room, outnumbering civilians perhaps two to one.

Every fresh-faced airman I came across greeted me as "sir." Although it would have made a lot more sense for me to address them with such deference, such is the underlying theme of service in this setting.

Dean is one of those guys who downplays everything, and I know he would have done the same thing had I not asked him some very specific questions about his stint in the military. I really wanted to know more of his story. As is common with so many veterans, it's the story of a remarkable person who considers himself anything but remarkable. 

My questions are italicized and Dean's answers follow.

You enlisted in the military at age 25, a little older than when most people join. What made you to decide that was the direction you wanted to go?

After my dad died (in 1987), I was kind of drifting from job to job and pretty unhappy with the jobs/my life as a whole. After I met Tammy and I knew that I was going to ask her to marry me, I knew I needed to find a career, not just a job. I tried the college thing (before I met Tammy) and knew that was not going to work for me (Apparently they actually want you to attend the classes, turn in assignments AND take the finals.). I was looking at jobs and everybody wanted school or experience, I had neither and I somehow wandered into a recruiter’s office. “The rest is history.”

How did Tammy react when you said you were thinking of joining?

Well since I have the Ainardi gene, I was an idiot and did not tell or discuss this with Tammy. The night I asked her to marry me, I also informed her that I had joined (not was going to join…had joined) the Air Force and would be leaving in six months. She was “a bit” shocked and overwhelmed but still said yes. In retrospect if I had it to do all over again I mayyyyy have involved her in that decision.

In your first assignment back in 1990, you were sent to the Philippines to work as an apprentice mechanic. You ended up helping to evacuate five thousand people prior to a volcanic eruption. Did you experience any second thoughts (or third or fourth) about having signed up?

No, not really—the actual evacuation part did just the opposite. It was an eye-opener to what the military could actually accomplish. For the first time in my life after Dad died I felt like I was actually accomplishing something. I realized that I was part of something way bigger than just a job. I also realized how much your supervisors relied on you to know your job. 

It taught me that you have to be able to think on your feet and make decisions on the spot. I was very low rank and the decisions I made were very low level but at the time it really opened my eyes to what the military was all about. Of course on a personal level, I was separated from Tammy the first year and a half of my marriage so on that level yes I thought, “WTF did I do,” but what I learned about myself and the confidence I gained in myself far outweighed the separation downside.

During your experience deployed to war zones and dangerous areas, did you ever have an "Oh shit, I’m gonna die!" moment, and if so, where did it take place?

The first one was in the Philippines. My boss and I were in charge of keeping the roads from Clark to Subic Bay Naval Station (where everybody was evacuating to) clear, using a huge vehicle wrecker.  We were staying in an open-bay barracks. I was sleeping on the top bunk when an earthquake hit, which was common during the eruption. We were getting five to ten a day but this one was a big one.

I woke up just in time to see the ceiling cracking and starting to fall in on me. We luckily hauled ass out of there about two minutes before the roof came down on the bed I was sleeping in. Needless to say, we slept in our wrecker the rest of the time we were there.

In Iraq, I had many of them, but if you ask most people that have been in that type of situation, the first is usually the one you remember. For me that is true also. It was my first time over there and I had been there a couple days. This was before anyone had figured out how effective the predator drones were for base security, so the bad guys had basically free rein to shoot mortars over the fences any time they wanted. 

I was walking between our shops when we got attacked. I was stuck in the open with no bunkers close.  The mortars started exploding around me and I was fu@#ed.  I was too far away to run for shelter, there was no good cover, so I hit the ground and covered up best I could.

The mortars all missed, but that was my first real “oh shit” moment in Iraq. Like I said, the first one is the one that freaks you out a bit then after that it just kind of becomes your “new reality” and you just deal with it.  That was probably the most scared I have ever been in my life.    

Yeah, I think a lot of people assume that the Air Force is a “behind the lines” military branch, where you work on distant bases out of harm’s way, and obviously that’s not true at all.

Over two plus decades of service, you are retiring with the rank of Senior Master Sergeant, a title comprising only two percent of all enlisted personnel. You’ve supervised and trained thousands of mechanics, a lot of them fresh out of high school. What's the biggest blunder you've seen someone make around one of your vehicles?

Well, when you get young airmen arriving at a base, they are scared to death. They always do stupid shit, so I could go on for days with this. But one of the funniest AF blunders happened at Aviano Air Force Base in Italy.We got a new kid right out of tech school and when I told him to pull a vehicle in for some type of repair, he said he did not know how to drive. 

The guy was from New York, had ridden subways and buses all his life and had never driven. Sure as hell, we figured out that he came into basic where you march or are bussed everywhere so no need to drive.

We researched the qualifications for our job, and nowhere does it say you have to have a driver’s license. We ended up having to do what we could to teach him in Italy, but we had to send the guy back to the US to go to a driving school and get a driver’s license.  

We've all heard of “Desert Shield” and "Desert Storm," which you served in. But you also participated in "Operation Desert Fox." What was that all about? Sounds kind of Vegas.

Honestly Tim, I could not tell you. Every thing we do is some type of campaign. Each one has a different name with a specific set of objectives.  Once that campaign objective is completed it is closed, and in theory, we go home because it’s done.  In reality, they create another campaign with another name and we stay there and keep doing the same thing. More than likely, as with everything in the military, it has more to do with funding than anything else.    

Last question. Somehow you've managed to maintain a highly positive family situation throughout all the moves and absences. Your kids, now 17 and 21, have lived in Delaware, Italy and Tacoma, Washington twice and Louisiana, and they’ve grown into such great people. How did you and Tammy make it work?

We drink a lot. All kidding aside, I have no idea why we are/were successful and why many military families aren’t. We (military) are no different than mainstream society. We deal with all the same issue as the “outside,” and I don’t think our divorce rates (as with most social issues) are much different than the mainstream society.

Honestly, this is more of a question for Tammy. One thing that most people don’t realize is the pressures put on the spouses and family members. I move from place to place and go from my job at one base and I go to the next base and do the exact same job. The spouses and family members do not get those luxuries. They have to “reinvent” their lives every time we move with new schools, new jobs, new friends…

But to try to answer this;  Tammy and I have really enjoyed the military.We bitch and complain all the time about the bad stuff but we also know that we got some great stuff from the military. All military families suffer and give up a lot as far as “normal” American families but we also get a lot in return. How many normal families get to move from place to place and experience different life experiences and cultures? How many normal families get to spend over 11 years in Europe and travel all over the place and get paid to do it? Not many that we know of. 

We have understood this from the beginning of our marriage, and we made sure the kids understood that, yes, this is tough, but look at all the good things we get being in the military. We don’t dwell on the bad. 

Thanks, Dean. We're glad you're home.

It's Not Like She's Leaving Forever, Right?

Rain splattered the windshield as our dented minivan, one hubcap shy since 2012, sloshed north up I-5. First day of Fall, indeed.

"You better slow down." I could feel my wife's eyes. "There are always speed traps here." 

"I know." I said (which I always say, even when I don't know). "It's kind of funny that eighteen years ago, this was the same stretch of freeway where we sped back to Seattle in the middle of the night. It was the one time I actually wanted to get pulled over." 

I can't confirm this fact empirically, but I'd say most men harbor a secret desire to roll down the window and say, "Sorry about going eighty-five, officer. You see, my wife's in labor...really? I can follow you all the way into Seattle? Yeah, this Kia can definitely keep up with your Crown Vic. Great, yeah, go ahead and flash the blues and I'll pull out."

And now my wife, our firstborn daughter and I were headed back to the northwest corner of Washington, our destination twenty minutes away from where my wife's water broke that April night in 1995. She wasn't due until May, but like a dawn belly flop into chilly Lake Holyshit, our little pot roast had apparently decided she'd been basting long enough, and still eighty miles from the hospital, the carrots and potatoes were ready.

During the silent moments of the two-hour drive to her new home, I worked myself to the brink of tears a couple of times. I focused on anything else—the tightening band around my bladder and kidneys brought about by the huge coffee I'd just finished, an optimal intermittent setting for the windshield wipers—because the only thing more unsettling than seeing the driver next to you texting is seeing the driver next to you blubbering like Jimmy Swaggart.  

This trip up to the college stirred up emotions that weren't unfamiliar: 

That morning she started daycare after my paternity leave ended, I felt like Joan Crawford, only with the guilt and without the expensive face cream. It felt terrible leaving my daughter with these people who knew nothing about her. Would they let her beat on a stool with a spatula while listening to Nevermind? Probably not, which made them incompetent and untrustworthy childcare providers. 

When my wife and I dropped her off that first day of kindergarten, we peeked into the classroom with its tiny desks and tiny chairs and tiny humans.The boys were shaggy little mop tops or perfectly parted with product. The girls wore so many shades of pink and purple, it looked like an undulating Barbie aisle at Target. On the way out, most parents avoided eye contact o keep the throat lumps from exploding into salt water bombs.  

Dropping her off at college was different though. It was joyous. Nervous at first to meet her new roommate, her happiness kept seeping its way into my leathery carcass. I understand that the future promises a few teary phone calls, maybe some "I just can't do this" moments, but yesterday was a triumph for all of us. We parents can be hard on ourselves. I'll often look at the undesirable traits my daughters exhibit and blame myself, but I'm going to try not to do that anymore. 

My daughter has earned the right to own her quirkiness; her tool box still needs a few crucial items, but it belongs to her.

It's probably going to hit me at strange times. She and I have bonded over sports since she was old enough to bat a tennis ball with her dimpled little fist. We always watched football together on Sundays, bantering incessantly and covering scads of non-football topics. I always looked forward to it. 

We liked talking about Harry and Ron, Hermione and Snape. And Katniss, of course.

One of our family's favorite dinners is French Dips. Saturday at the grocery store, I swooned slightly as I stood holding the plastic tongs, realizing we only needed three French rolls.

I won't hear the sounds—heavy, lanky footsteps trudging around the house, pulling milk out of the fridge and dumping a million goldfish into a plastic bowl, always a few scattering on the floor. Her toothbrush won't be pounding the sink too hard and spraying water onto the mirror. 

Okay, I know she's two hours north and not locked up in a penitentiary or shipped off to a war zone. But there's something primal, something ancient, about a child leaving her parents, and I haven't sorted it out yet at all.

I guess there's some time now to do that.

Hollywood's Land of MIsfit Toys.

Remember Chuck, the older brother on Happy Days? You don't? That's probably because he only appeared in a handful of Season One episodes and then vaporized into the hazy post-high school brother who never was. Chuck didn't even show his toe-headed self on subsequent Happy Days holiday specials where everyone comes home. He must have gotten himself messed up with drugs or was sent to Nam or something.

Television casting is an ever-morphing amoeba; always has been. 

How about when Partridge Family drummer Chris, a dark complected, brown-haired lad transformed into yellowy blond Chris for Season Two? Why did it even matter? Those kids didn't play the instruments anyway, and if anyone screamed to be replaced, it was the little one,Tracy, whose jerky tambourine demonstrated the musical prowess of a young Linda McCartney.

Here are a couple shots from the pilot episode of Leave it to Beaver. If your facial recognition skills seemed to have failed you, fear not. The original Ward Cleaver was some guy named Casey Adams. The first Wally was a kid by the name of Paul Sullivan. Wow, Pete Best has nothin' on those poor sods, getting replaced by Hugh Beaumont and Tony Dow after one episode. That must have been rough for those guys, sitting on the sidelines while The Beav and Company rocketed to pop icon status for the next half century.

When we welcomed The Brady Bunch into our homes that fall of 1969, it didn't take long at all for Robert Reed and Florence Henderson to light up our tubes with raw sexual energy. Those two appeared born to play Mike and Carol Brady, especially when they were in their pajama-clad foxiest. 

But did you know that Joyce Bulifant from the Mary Tyler Moore Show and Gene Hackman had originally been penciled in to play the very Brady parents? I'll admit, Gene Hackman might have turned a few heads with his puka shell necklace and manfro, but not nearly to the level of Robert Reed, especially back lit in the soft sunsets of Waikiki.

Yet even America's favorite white family had a nosy neighbor named Nielson to spar with, especially when Bobby and Cindy grew up enough to start looking like Rob and Candy. Enter Oliver, the newest, cutest ratings magnet to stuff his Dorothy Hamill bowl cut into the Brady split level.

Not sure Oliver helped steady the foundering comedy; he may have actually tainted its fragile chemistry.

During my prime TV watching years, a couple of shows experienced fairly sizable cast turnover. After Three's Company captured lightning in a bottle with Jack, Chrissie, Janet and Mr. Roper, the show's potency leeched into the slog when Suzaane Somers was swapped with Jinelee Harrison and Mr. Roper was succeeded by Mr. Farley, played by Don Knotts. 

But when Farrah Fawcett turned in her badge and bikini to Charlie after a contract dispute, that hit home. I was fifteen years old and had just been given my brother's old TV when he went to college. It was one of those big console sets, black and white, and it was mine. I guess you could say that Tuesday nights were my "date night" with Charlie's Angels. Jill, Sabrina and Kelly materialized in my room at eight o'clock and filled my musty teenage lair with their silky presence for the next forty-two minutes. 

It always seemed to go so fast, and yet somehow, I had plenty of time.

I don't pay much attention to many TV shows now, especially network stuff. An obvious example of current day high-profile actor replacement is the whole Two-and-a-Half Men situation, where Ashton Kutcher surfaced in the wake of Charlie Sheen's toxic jetsam. I've heard the show's not as good now. 

This one is my favorite. In 1968, Chirstina Crawford, daughter of faded Hollywood starlet Joan Crawford, had been playing the role of 28-year-old Joan Borman Kane on the daytime soap, The Secret Storm. While recovering from surgery, Christina's role was filled by her wonderfully versatile mommy dearest, John Crawford. 

Here's a typical example of the elder Crawfords's ability to take the audience by the hair and flog it with the wire coat hanger of thespianic genius. Let's face it—she looked every bit the part of a 28-year-old—who'd been smoking and drinking nonstop for the past fifty years. Masterful.

Regrettably, there are two other categories that come to mind. The first is the list of actors and actresses who died during filming and hence necessitated quick and tasteful decisions by network creative staff, people like Corey Monteith in Glee, John Ritter in 8 Simple Rules and Phil Hartman of Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons. All so sad.

And lastly a group exists which is best illustrated by the Bewitched, Darrin Stephens tag team of Dick York and Dick Sargent. No one even seemed to care that Darrin was played by a different guy. It was kind of like when your roommate comes home with a twelve pack of Bud Light and you really wanted Coors Light but it's cool because at least your roomy bought the right cigarettes.

My Strange Addiction. Or Is It?

That's the cover of the book I've been reading—just came out a few weeks ago.

As the image flashed onto my Kindle screen this morning, I felt a tinge of relief that nary a nosy bus passenger would catch a glimpse of my guilty subject matter. I mumbled a silent affirmation, grateful for the technological anonymity that has ushered public scrutiny of hard copies toward the same splintered bench on which VHS tapes, compact discs and Mitt Romney huddle in the cold.

I'm not exactly proud of this reality, but I'll share it anyway; I love books about murderers. Okay, maybe "love" is a bit muscular for describing the attraction, but I must admit that I'm drawn to this stuff like a stoned teenager to a Dr. Pepper and a bag of Red Ropes. How else can I put this? 

It's not cool, but I'm a fool for Ann Rule.

Obviously, I'm not alone. Otherwise, Barnes & Noble wouldn't offer a complete section of shelves stocked with red- and black-splashed paperbacks with crooked headlines in 22-point Impact Extra Bold. But still.

I suppose my mom is to blame (Sorry, Mom). She was the kindest, gentlest, most compassionate person I've ever known; hell, she taught freaking first grade for something like eighty-seven years. But she had a streak in her.

My earliest recollection of her fascination with the macabre dates to 1974, when young brunette women began disappearing from college campuses and state parks in western Washington. In the pre-politically correct Puget Sound era of the 1970s, news of missing white girls grabbed and held the local Seattle headlines. Clues slowly emerged from a handful of witnesses—he drove a tan Volkswagen, he introduced himself as Ted. I remember my mom's face as she carefully studied the perpetrator's composite police sketch.

When Theodore Bundy was finally detained as a suspect in August of 1975 and his image flashed across our color Motorola, I hadn't heard that type of conviction in my mom's voice since the time she vowed to never again buy Froot Loops or anything else that disappeared during one episode of Kaptain Kangaroo. "That's him," she said, pointing at the screen. "He's the one. He did it." She was right.

The table next to her favorite recliner was always overflowing with paperback true crime, from Helter Skelter to In Cold Blood to The Stranger Beside Me. Due to my Raisinet-sized attention span, I'd merely peruse the photo sections in the books' middles, my twelve-year-old sensibilities reeling at the atrocities portrayed, wondering what could cause one human being to deliver such savagery upon another. As I matured into a seasoned enthusiast, I read them cover to bloody cover.

I eventually flew the nest, but my fascination never waned. And when Gary Ridgway, the notorious "Green River Killer," was ultimately nabbed in 2001, I found myself lamenting that my mom passed away before she could get a little closure on that historic freak. This guy grabbed the bone-flecked baton from Bundy and tested my mom's theories for decades.

And now, here I am, reading about Charles Manson. Again. There's something about that whole story, the manner in which a complete loser, a lifetime illiterate, racist, petty criminal, can persuade people to kill, that will always whet my felonious taste buds.

Hang on a second. If that's the case, why don't I care about George W. Bush?