Linda: For me, it's telling the truth., finding or knowing the truth. For me, truth is so
powerful, freeing, enlightening, and so entertaining. All of those things that I really like.
I think, when the truth is spoken, it hits the air in a whole different way than a lie. It
sounds different, feels different. It smells so much better than bullshit.
I used to tell my kids that the bad thing about lying wasn’t that if you get caught lying
you’ll get in trouble. The bad thing about lying is that it pollutes. You know? A lie goes
out into the room or the air...and it pollutes everything.

Sparkle: Yeah.

Linda: ...it has a kind of sick energy, and it flits around, and pollutes the environment.
And, I'm an environmentalist! A communication environmentalist. I mean, I want to clean
stuff up. Get rid of the lies. In my earliest days, I bordered on being a pathological liar. I felt totally insecure about who I really was and I wanted desperately to be something other than that. So, I invented a more interesting family and a more impressive educational background. I’m almost sure I stopped doing that a long time ago. Maybe not. I’m still trying to prove
something, or do something, or be something more or better than I am—even just in the
eyes of strangers. I’m coming to understand what that's about---that what you start out
wanting to do or prove is always different than—and not necessarily as good as---what
you end up doing or figuring out…That’s my story.

Sparkle: I found out that a lot of my problems, a lot of the reasons that I ended up doing
drugs and alcohol, had a lot to do with the fact that so many people expected so much
from me. Like you said, "Oh, Sparkle, you were always, you know, up there!"

Linda: It's true. You know, you were the beautiful, sparkling, super woman.
No one sparkled like Sparkle.

Sparkle: Right. And it's like, God, I just wanted to take a break from that. I wanted a
breather. I didn't want to have to prove myself to anybody. I didn’t think I had anything
worth proving. Not really. Nothing real. It was so much easier to be down there with
street people drinking wine under the bridge and not having, you know, not having to
prove myself or impress the other homeless people because, hey, I was just there under
the bridge drinking wine just like them. I didn't ask them if they had once been a
congressional candidate or did they ever do real estate... And they never asked me
anything like that. So, they didn't expect anything. They didn't expect anything from me.
And I could cruise I could just take it easy. I could do nothing. I didn't have to do anything.
Or be anything. Or show up all Sparkle-like.

Linda: (imitating a pretentious voice) "Oh, Sparkle, your outfit is adorable! We must have
lunch soon."

Sparkle: Right. and nobody would say, “Gee, what are you doing with yourself these days?”

Linda: Yeah.

Sparkle: And no one saw me or looked at me like, (imitating a haughty voice) “Gee, isn't
it a shame? Remember what she used to be?” And especially I didn’t want to see you, Jill.
I didn’t want to see you. Because when I saw you—you, of all people, knew what I could do.
​So, I couldn't see you. Because then, geez, you know, I'd be really depressed for days after that, Jill. You know? And, now I don't feel that way, you know. Now I don't feel that way at all.