To begin at the beginning.

Wait, no, that’s a little too much Dylan Thomas for the first day back after a long weekend, but it’s as good a place as any to start. Like Dylan Thomas, I am a writer full of whisky and Welsh blood, though not in such high concentrations. Unlike Dylan Thomas, I am both alive and sober, though it’s not quite noon and I’ve yet to make plans for the day.

I’m Miss Plumcake, writer, editor and long-suffering troll starvation expert at Manolo for the Big Girl.

Lured by the siren songs of lithe footballers, cheap wine and easily-obtained pharmaceuticals, I left my newspaper job in Austin, Texas for the hidden beaches of Mexico where I reside in occasionally sunburned splendor with my dog and my boyfriend.

The Manolo, in his infinite kindness and unerring good taste, has invited me to post here twice a week, and I –not being half so dumb as I look– hastily accepted.

That leaves me with the problem of introducing myself.

I think most introductions are a mistake because they start too well.

If you start out with “This is Miss Plumcake, she won the Nobel Prize in Physics” (which I haven’t, although I did pack for two weeks in Ireland using nothing but my Birkin and a cream alligator overnight bag) the bar is set prohibitively high.

On the other hand, if you start out with “This is Miss Plumcake, she was dropped on her head repeatedly as a child” people will be impressed and amazed at my ability to tie my shoes and conjugate verbs. Everybody wins.

With that in mind, here is an extremely abbreviated history of my questionable decisions:

• I wore Wet n’ Wild screaming purple lipstick all through 8th grade. Mrs Cheeseman told me it didn’t go with my complexion. Mrs Cheeseman also made us wrap masking tape around our fingers and pick lint off her skirt, so it’s not like her judgement was flawless either.

• I was much older than I’d like to admit before I realized my first crush –that freckled cartoon Norwegian from A-Ha’s Take On Me video– would probably not come to fruition. See Also: getting to marry Axl Rose in a mullet wedding gown a la Stephanie Seymour (filed under Bullet, Dodged)

• I not only bought, but unironically wore a gold lamé toreador outfit, complete with black satin stretch capris and bugle beads. The nineties were a dark time. A dark, dark, glittery time.

• I accidentally set the oldest Episcopal church west of the Mississippi on fire ten days before Christmas (it’s okay now.)

• I just bought a pair of white shoes…AFTER Labor Day

(the oddly-named Stuart Weitzman “Geek” available for almost 40% off)