Setting: Paul & Eddie’s, dive bar in sleepy Silicon Valley megawealthy suburb, the old Cupertino train station and “inn”. Year: 2006. Tumbleweeds blow by the Lexii.

She takes a drag off of her latte.

“There were men, a world of men. My mother drove me around Cupertino bars (there are 2) trying to sell me as a white slave, cross-dressed as a poor kid, to get enough quarters to do her laundry in the Cupertino laundromats (there is 1). I quickly got hooked on glue and peanut M & Ms. Wanna hear a tape of my therapist? It’s fascinating. She lost me in San Francisco where I was forced, I hate to say it, but forced, to learn Java. I was so used to being an addict Cosmos were the next thing on my landslide to homeownership. I’m on my third book about it, and I just feel the need to share my story, because there might be others out there just like me.”