R-E-S-P-E-C-T!!!

Have I ever told you about the dream I had some 20 years ago? I was married to the Anti-Christ and things were very bad, in fact, I was suicidal, and we were about to separate, not that I knew that at the time.
In my dream, I was flying, or at least hovering, over the World Trade Towers. My body was parallel to the ground, and I was pointing south, my head facing the Statue of Liberty. It was dawn. To my right was Hoboken. The sky there in the west was still black, but there were enough stars to make the sky look like Van Gogh's Starry Night. The buildings of Hoboken were black, and silhouetted against the stars.

The sky lightened as it made the arc to lower Manhattan on my right. From black it faded to ultramarine, cobalt, Maxfield Parrish blue directly over my head, and then made the spectrum change to saffron, orange, magenta and crimson as the sun rose in the east. There the lights were coming on in the high rises, and the windows were like diamonds or stars in the blackness of the building shapes.

Directly beneath me were the Trade Towers. And there, on the edge of the roof, strutting and belting it out, was Aretha Franklin. She was singing "Respect" and she was doing it just for me, hovering there above her. Both of us at the top of the world.

I woke up and went straight to the local record store, and sat on the sidewalk until it opened. Then I went in and bought a copy of Aretha's Greatest Hits. For the next year or so, her music sustained me through the darkest days of my life.

I just bought tickets to see Ms. Queen of Soul live at an outdoor amphitheater. Next Friday night. Is this a cool world or what?