My feelings in regards to the release of my upcoming memoir can be best described in the form of the following knock knock joke.
Book: knock knock...
Me: who's there?
Book: Your book! Remember me??
Me: (screams) Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!! Aah! Aaah! AAAAAaaaaaaaah!
Admittedly, this is not a very funny joke. In the flesh, I am a very private person. My writing style, however, is deeply personal and recklessly honest. It is more of a sick joke, really.
The majority of my hostessing memoir was written over a year ago. Though I got sober in the time between completing the first and second drafts of the manuscript, I allowed myself to describe my experiences so honestly because I was sure that I could just "skip town" if things got too uncomfortable upon the book's release.
Running away, after all, was largely how I dealt with my problems. Having left America in the dust long ago, I figured that I could always leave Tokyo if my book got too prolific. There were lots of cities left in the world where I hadn't yet fucked up my life.
When cutting and running is a way of life, it becomes pretty easy not to care who you piss off or hurt along the way. I did try not to implicate anyone who didn't need to be involved in my misadventures, and I had to make various efforts to disguise identities lest I get sued. The one person whom I absolutely didn't care if I hurt by making her exploits embarrassingly public, however, was me.
Yet in the past ten months, I have begun laying the bricks of a stable existence. It has been amazing, if unfamiliar, and for what might be the first time in my life, I can't just "run away" if anything goes wrong. I don't want to run away. I am scared as hell, mind you, but I am here to stay.
"Cutting and running"
Interesting choice of words.
Posted by: postpaleo | November 12, 2007 at 03:33 PM
What you are doing is a very big and hard thing to do
its scary but in the end it's gonna be worth it :)
*hugs*
Posted by: LaMortImmortelle | November 13, 2007 at 05:23 PM
I hear you, sister. It's scary! But it's good. Recklessly honest is so much better than recklessly dishonest...
Posted by: girlbomb | November 14, 2007 at 08:52 AM
*echo*~*echo* same here need to stop running away...nicely written :) cheers
Posted by: Violainedreams | October 19, 2009 at 02:07 PM