She Doesn't Need To Shut Up, She Actually Puts Up

In this world that we were born into, in this life we've been given, we come to recognize that it is made up of a strange and frightening combination of fragile, strong, evil, love, light and dark.

We come forth and are thrust into this jumble of madness and told to make sense of it all. To experience, but not this or that. To love, but them not those. To take it, but not too much. To give, but to those who deserve.

It's not a clear picture, and there are roads that lead to destinations that are dark and life rattling. Where you become your environment, and it has a hold of you entirely. It all but makes you life's bitch.

If you're lucky something else happens. Something wonderful and just as troubling. Something even harder than sinking to that dark place that you struggled to get to in the beginning.

You recover.

So what happens then? What happens when you've been to the bottom and you lift yourself, fighting tooth and nail, hand over hand to the top again.

This happens.

The Melindaville Blog washed over me and held me close. Her words wrapped around me like a soft, warm blanket. What is The Melindaville Blog about? In her own words:

My name is Melinda Roberts Tyler and many people have told me I have had a fascinating life. In my lifetime, I have been a professional actor and musician, worked as an exotic dancer and high priced call girl, as well as started the world's first fantasy phone call service. I was a member of San Francisco's punk rock scene of the 1980's, performing with the band, "Wild Women of Borneo," during which time I became a hard-core heroin addict. I recovered from addiction in the mid-1990's and became an honors college student, a fully funded doctoral student, and an award-winning professor of psychology. I am currently writing a detailed account of my life experiences in a memoir, whose working title is "Lost and Found: A Journey." My purpose is to tell my story to inspire others if they desire change in their own lives and to increase awareness about the need for free and available treatment in our society.

I could sit here and nitpick about little things like using the word 'blog' in the title, or the crowded sidebar with unnecessary items like the calendar. I could harp about how far you have to scroll down to get to the archives. I could slap Melinda on the hand for saying "dye their hair" instead of exclaiming that wild women COLOR their hair as I learned in hair school. But, then I would be the world's largest douche bag.

Melinda takes you on her journey and when she tells the tale, you are right there in the room with her. Right there in the hotel room as a call girl. You are sitting beside her in her lonely little apartment, infested with cockroaches and library books. She takes you on the path of her recovery without seeming whiny or self-obsessed.

I thank Melinda for asking us for a review, but I have to decline. I cannot review you, Melinda, because simply enough:








Instead? What I want to do is sing your praises and share your words with the world. Melinda is the type of person who doesn't just sit around, telling you how to make the world a better place and change lives. She actually changes lives.