Whatever I write, I tend to obsessively edit myself. These stories, raw and unpolished as they are, were written in response to those who feel I should stop editing and start sharing.  Some of these conversations have actually taken place. Some are completely fictional. All of them say something about me.

Who is Stephanie?

She's a real person. She's also a fictional character.

I know a lot of interesting people, people who give advice, share wisdom or just tell interesting stories. The fictional Stephanie embodies all of them, as well as my own conscience, self-doubt and, to some extent, my ego.

Stephanie—the real Stephanie, the person from whom the literary Stephanie takes her name—is someone I work with. She is a pretty girl who dresses like an art student or a gypsy and smells like honeysuckle, and occasionally, cigarettes. Stephanie has the strange and frankly irritating habit of asking personal questions people feel compelled to answer. Sometimes, while in conversation with Stephanie, people spontaneously and inexplicably volunteer information they would not normally disclose without even being asked. This apparently supernatural skill extends to getting her way in general. While I would never say Stephanie is bossy, she does have a unique ability to get people to do what she wants them to.

We are not currently, nor have we ever been romantically or physically involved. We are friends, but we are not particularly close. I take most of the blame for that. Stephanie, like most of my friends, is a person who knows a great deal about a very small part of my life. If you know the real Stephanie, then it's ok to picture her in the following stories. After all, that's what I did.

Once, the real Stephanie asked me to describe her in three words. If you read these conversations, sooner or later you will discover those three words for yourself. But using three words to define a person is an absurd restriction. Stephanie— like, I suspect, most of us—defies such limited description. And so there were many other words—appropriate words—that I could have used to describe her. Stephanie is fey. She is generous. She is principled. She is canny. She is often unintentionally funny.  She is assertive and ambitious. But if I could use one word that I did not, mainly because I didn’t think of it at the time, it would be this:

Stephanie is irrepressible.