"In New York, you collect a thousand encounters a year, a passel of handshakes, a zillion air-kisses, and boatloads of business cards that you pitch into your purse and eventually deposit your chewing gum into. Amid this break-neck montage of glancing contacts, I’m tormented by the constant thrumming fear of being fingered as a flake. It clashes with my carefully cultivated outside-self who is Darwin-self-sufficient, unyielding, loyal. Only my best friend knows my most current address in the event that I die and my secrets have to be destroyed before mother descends because, seriously, what oddball moves this much and for such a salad bar of reasons?"