The rain came down hard and the streets flooded on the evening Marilyn Monroe died. It was August of '62 in Los Angeles, with people focused on their everyday problems that felt like a sort of death to them before they saw the morning paper. It's only when actual death stares you in the face that you can have some perspective. My mother and I were in the car with her friend, a chubby woman whose name I can't remember and who was kind and respectful and laughed like her funny bone had been … [Read more...]