Somebody just pointed out the obvious to me: that in writing about this Undressing of America I'm also undressing myself. Shedding the cloak of competence that writers reflexively draw around themselves. Tom Barbash once read a short story to a bunch of us at the Grotto with a writer for a protagonist, a depressed writer whose wife has just left him. A friend asks him how his book is coming and he answers something like, "The research is taking a little longer than I expected but it's coming together well." And we all laughed because we knew writerly bullshit when we heard it. I always want to look like I know what I'm doing, more so when I'm having a hard time. So this is unnerving for me, this undressing—but exciting too, because it's new turf. I get to be the hero of my own True Story article. "My Secret Shame...Procrastination!"