Girlbomb Birthday Party

Me and Janice!!

Ever since I read Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl, I've been a fan of the memoir.  The ability of a person to chronicle and express their experiences never fails to touch me - and perhaps is the reason why I find myself sharing my own life as freely as I do here on DelSo.  A number of years ago, I read a review for a newly published autobiography, Girlbomb (A Halfway Homeless Memoir), written by  NYC native, Janice Erlbaum.  Based upon the review, I purchased the title for the high school library where I worked and when it arrived, I immediately devoured it.  Although Janice is a couple of years younger than I am, I completely identified with her experiences as a smart-beyond-her-years teen growing up with limited parental involvement during the early '80's.  Our situations certainly weren't identical, but I very much shared her experience of being "underprivileged, underage and underdressed."  When I finished the book, I visited her website, girlbomb.com and sent her an email:

             "...So much of your book described my own self-medicated adolescence in the 80's.
              I also had a life with limited stability and your memoir brought so much of the     
              confusion  and contradiction right back to me in a breath-taking way."

Janice and Rachel!!

She graciously responded and through the years we've exchanged an occasional email and are, of course, requisite Facebook friends.  A couple of months ago she posted an event to celebrate the 5th birthday of Girlbomb to be held at the Bowery Poetry Club and I just knew I had to go.  Despite having lived in Albany for 20+ years, I was still somehow able to resurrect that hip, East Village, undergraduate, English major vibe, a result I'm sure of my company (my former Chelsea roomie, writer Rachel Aydt) and my attire (primarily black).  I can't describe, without gushing in a way that would completely dissolve my street creed, how excited I was to finally meet Janice and hear the words which had leaped from the page, actually fall from her lips - it was fantastic!  The club was everything you ever imagine a poetry club to be - dark, curtained off and with an appropriately creative graffiti-filled bathroom.  In addition to Janice, a number of other fabulously talented women read their work and performed for the crowd of appreciative fans.  Here's the official event notice:

          Girlbomb’s fifth birthday party! Celebrating five years since the publication
           of GIRLBOMB: A  Halfway Homeless Memoir. Readings and performances
           by author Koren Zailckas, GEMS founder Rachel Lloyd, and biffles Dana
           Piccoli and Melissa Saunders; dancing and schmoozing also on the agenda.

It was a great event and I thoroughly enjoyed feeling as if I was a part of a "scene" in NYC, if only for one night.  Thanks, Janice for an inspirational evening - and especially for writing.