Table of Contents
Preface xi
Chapter 1 A List of Things We Should Probably Get Out of the Way 1
Chapter 2 Right after the Inhale 11
Chapter 3 People Who Might Want to Think Twice before Asking Me for Money 25
Chapter 4 Cheerleaders: Part 1 35
Chapter 5 Seriously, How Much Do I Look Like Elisabeth Shue in This Picture? 47
Chapter 6 Cheerleaders: Part 2 63
Chapter 7 The Truth about My First Date 79
Chapter 8 Let's just Talk about the Cover, Shall We? 97
Chapter 9 This Is Where I Went off the Rails and Started Melting My M&M's 107
Chapter 10 It's the Old Mermaid-Tinker Bell-Rose Lamp 119
Chapter 11 Tiny Dancers. Tiny Cells 133
Chapter 12 Water to My Chin 143
Chapter 13 Germans Do Bible Studies a Little Differently than, Say, Rednecks 153
Chapter 14 All Inked Up and No Place to Go 163
Chapter 15 My Dad Looks Nothing Like Denzel 179
Chapter 16 Cutting Corners. Setting Fires 187
Chapter 17 Lovers and Leavers 201
Chapter 18 Everybody's Doing It. Want Me to Do It for You? 221
Chapter 19 Dear Miss Danielle 235
Chapter 20 Ode to Big Dark 245
Chapter 21 Chicken-Fried Women 253
Chapter 22 Look at These People, Kids. Your Mom Is Braver than All These People 271
Chapter 23 When Hope Is Your Name (A Letter to My Daughter) 279
Chapter 24 The Last Piece 289
Acknowledgments 294
