The thing about being a writer is that you’re always spilling the beans. Especially memoir and essay writers. (Fiction writers can maintain a bit more dignity – but not a whole lot cause you know they’re thinking about what they write even if not actually experiencing it.)  I have friends who are not writers and most of them seem wonderfully dignified, more mysterious and adult than I am. 

Tonight and tomorrow afternoon I’m going to read in public an essay that has to do with the mess of my divorce, getting breast cancer just before my second wedding, and, well, my left breast. What it looked like, felt like etc. I woke up this morning wondering what on earth I thought I was doing when I wrote all this stuff. But it’s one thing to write it out in the privacy of your own home, and a whole other thing to go out and read it aloud to perfect strangers.

Maria Escandon was right; we’re like subway flashers, and tonight I’m going out in my trench coat to expose my most intimate thoughts and feelings.