It\’s not \”a bag lady\’s tale\”, it\’s the \”Hand-bag Lady\’s tale\”. Kinda my tribute to Margaret Atwood on the way. I wonder what Ms. Atwood would do with my material. I\’m thinking my main character needs lots of lunatics in her life, so she might be a waitress. At an Applebee\’s kind of place. Managed by an Iranian, like my old pal Moshi. And his rich cousins, Khalid and Omar. So the insanity is balanced. Or she can have a computer support job. On the phone, so we don\’t have too many customers to describe.Something that keeps the number of main people in the single digits. After my last book, I need a set number of people to keep up with. A girl CAN have too many imaginary friends, doncha know.

Speaking of friends, some of my real life friends want to be \”in\” the book. Hmmm, what if I do and they don\’t like it? Or if I fictionalize them so much they don\’t recognize themselves? I have nightmares of Truman Capote, who used all his friends conversations in his stories. The poor society ladies read all about their own lives in the New Yorker.

I know, I can have the main character, still unnamed, whining about listening to her walking buddies, J,A & C, who spend ENTIRELY too much time complaining about how hard it is to find size four jeans in this town. Or maybe size 2? Then I can jet them out to Aruba for the rest of the book. So they\’ll be there and still be my friends when it\’s over.