IT’S SO EASY TO EMBARRASS YOURSELF

On writing, living, and humiliation

Obscurity is a skill I’ve learned to both master and abuse in my time as a writer. It was born out of antipathy, necessity, chagrin. I was an illiterate child actor who wished for a talent agent (grown man, pressed suit) to pop out of a box on Christmas morning and abduct me to Los Angeles; I’d even settle for Atlanta. My mother had recently quit her jo…