ABSTRACT
When I asked my husband’s permission to write a personal essay about our married life he said, “Fine, just don’t mention my laundry fetish.” So that seems as good a place as any to start. My point is that I had to ask him where to draw the line. I’ve been an enthusiastic reader of personal essays more often than I have been a writer of them, so I’m not sure anymore what’s appropriate. Am I telling you intimate details of my life because the confessional tone suits me, or because I have come to believe that bare-breasted disclosure is required by the genre, and I don’t want to let you down?
