“Asatru,” that book I started reading yesterday, was a quick read. It only took me a little over two hours to read, so when I finished it at 5am this morning, I needed something else quick. I can’t start my day THAT early!

I got another cup of coffee and looked over my TBR shelf. “Dean & Me: A Love Story” by Jerry Lewis and James Kaplan has been looking back at me for a few days now, so I decided to heed the call.

Believe it or not, I’m not a Jerry Lewis fan. The guy…I don’t know. I just never thought he was that funny. Slap stick isn’t my thing and the whole Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis thing was way before my time. All I remember about Dean Martin is the cool singing persona. I have a vague notion about some kind of break up between them, but nothing solid. So why did I pick up the book in the first place?

When I wrote about reading The Best American Short Stories – 2014 back in September last year, I mentioned browsing a used book store and picking up several new books and some ice cream. Like I’ve said before, the shelves I gravitate toward in used bookstores are the classics, histories, and memoirs. I don’t have to know anything about someone to read their autobiography or memoir. Everyone’s life has a story to tell, or a lesson to learn. Besides, I find them encouraging when I try writing my own life stories.

The cold returned this morning. California desert cold, nothing compared to you snow bound folks, but still…35 degrees and 30mph winds aren’t fun, even when the sky is clear and the ground is dry. As the sun came up and the air did not warm, I decide to snuggle down and keep reading with another cup of coffee this morning.

After about one hundred pages, I decided I really needed to eat some breakfast. That’s when I set my phone up and watched videos of these two characters for over an hour. It wasn’t time wasted. It was research! They really were funny back then.