Anyway, here’s my own TMI story. I used to take the bus to work when I lived in Seattle. There are always a few ‘regulars’. One person I saw on occasion was a blind woman with a seeing eye-dog. One day, she got on the bus with her dog and took a seat. When she got to her stop, she stood up and I noticed that her white sweatpants had an enormous red stain on the back. I did nothing, I said nothing. I mean, what do you tell a blind woman?

As we started over the Longfellow Bridge, pulling out of Charles MGH, a young man who had been surreptitiously checking out said Blonde, suddenly glanced up in alarm and real concern and said, “Are you okay??”

Further examination revealed a thick stream of blood winding its way down Blonde’s slender, tanned thigh. As a scarlet estuary began to collect above her right knee, the man more insistently exclaimed, “But you’re bleeding!”

With only the slightest blush of shame, Blonde demurely replied, “No, no, I’m fine– just terribly, terribly embarrassed.”

DAYUM. She had the class of an old-time movie star.

Thanks for the Lorrie Moore info which I’ve copied into Word, ready for my next trip to Amazon.

OMG, best idea ever: Bill Nye the Science Guy episode themed “MENSTRUATION!” Woulda been a much bigger eye-opener than “WAVES” or “CELLS.”

Lorrie Moore is amazing. She’s probably the greatest living female fiction writer. She just put out a novel — “A Gate at the Stairs” — that she’s been writing for seven years, but she’s best known for her short stories. “Birds of America” is her best-known collection, and probably her strongest. If you want to check out a story, I fervently recommend “People Like That Are the Only People Here,” at which if you do not cry, you are a little less than human.

I’ve gotta know though; just who the deuce is Lorrie Moore?