Buddy Holly's widow and Anne Lamott

There's a weird pairing.

I love Anne Lamott, and am re-reading "Operating Instructions." Although I didn't have kids and can't claim much in the way of maternal urges, Lamott's journal of her son's first year, during which she also lost her best friend to cancer, is an amazing book. I had completely forgotten that this is where I stole her "My mind is a bad neighborhood" quote. (I thought I'd at least embroidered upon it when I added that I don't want to travel through it unaccompanied, but nope - turns out that was Lamott's too.)

Lamott's "All New People" is one of my absolute favorite novels.

Anyhoo, I noticed that there was only a brief mention of Buddy Holly's widow at the Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock, and saw not one photo. I vaguely remembered from reading about her during the making of the Gary Busey Buddy Holly movie that she was kinda money grubbing and frankly sounded like someone I would never want to meet, but I hoped I was wrong. So I sniffed around (read: asked my second cousin, then Googled her when I got home) and discovered she was a Yoko Ono before her time. Lubbock had to rename Buddy Holly Blvd (or Ave or somesuch) to The Crickets St (or Rd or...) because financial negotiations soured -the former Ms. Holly, who remarried, had kids and has grandkids, wanted a small fortune along with the 15% cut of merchandise which she already received and continues to get. It's sad, but it also speaks to that little smarmy snarky part of me that likes to think badly of people.

This is where Anne Lamott comes in. In "Operating Instructions," Lamott describes a "fabulously wealthy" woman who's really nasty: "She has a worm inside of her. She has to keep feeding it grim bits, like mean gossip and bad news about other people." I think most of us have a worm inside us. I know I do. (I met someone a few months ago who doesn't have much of a worm (ABBA shout-out!). And my brother isn't very wormy either.) I don't think I'm incredibly wormy, but I know I'm way wormier than I'd like to be. Lamott says, "I'm a little bit too much like this person for comfort. My worm is not quite as big as hers, but maybe it will be with age."

I've got to keep a close eye on my worm.