"I'm only happy when it rains."

When I first heard her dragging, gravelly voice crush out that immortal and audacious line I knew I was done in. From that moment I was and would always be, a Garbage fan.

Lead singer Shirley Manson may even have been my first girl crush. (Well maybe second to April O'Neil from "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"--she was pretty badass.)

Packed into a WASPy school full of glossy blond Regina Georges, I finally had an apropos role model: a 90s punk-red siren with black-coaled eyes and a mean Scottish accent. I wanted to be her: The baby doll sheaths, the combat boots—goth-black, the tussled bedroom hair, the snarl, the ink lips, her chaotic, demonic beauty.  

She was a huge inspiration on Justine, the (anti)heroine of my novel Pretty Girls Make Graves. I had Justine listening to Garbage along with a plethora of other 90s riot grrl music.

Justine evens dons the short skirt (a relic from her days as an outcaste in Catholic boarding school), and big black boots: A grungy half-adult, half-baby girl, slick with post adolescent disillusionment and self-sabotaging tendencies. Oh and she is most definitely only happy when it rains.

For the first time in seven years, Garbage is releasing a new album (May 15) and going on tour. Upon hearing that, I decided to fan-up and Facebook stalk Shirley Manson a little bit, and so I posted on her wall.

I think fan mail inherently falls short for the fan: how can you possible convey (or fully understand) how someone has influenced you? So I wrote something that sounded trite to me, but I wanted to express my gratitude. To my shock and delight, the magnanimous Shirley Manson, wrote back.

What a seriously down-ass and solid thing to do. Her response underscored and validated what Justine and I already felt: Shirley Manson is a seriously cool girl, not to mention a seriously decent human being. She’ll always be a valid role model for the kind of girl who’s looking for something else. And that’s Justine. And that’s me.