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Dear Fleabag

It's not news to praise "Fleabag." Everyone loves this show. It has been called "a perfect show."

It's also not news to praise the writer's eccentricity. She's Phoebe Waller-Bridge; she seems to have come from nowhere; she can write, act, be tragic, be funny, be weird. She is like Lena Dunham--fearless and astonishingly talented. A huge inspiration.

All that said, I just have to add to the heap of adulation. It's rare for me to feel I'm seeing "myself" in a story. But, for whatever reason, I feel that Ms. Waller-Bridge has a direct line to my heart.

Though I do not sit listlessly in a rat-infested empty cafe everyday, I nevertheless feel my work life is somehow symbolically *linked* to sitting in a rat-infested cafe.

Though I do not have a passive-aggressive artist stepmother working on a "Sexhibition," I nevertheless know what it's like to be in a conversation, un-moored, constantly wondering if the remark I've just heard has secret "barbs."

Though I've never had someone accidentally reveal that my nose is weird, I *have* had someone begin an indelicate sentence, stop, rewind, then try, frantically, to paper over the half-stated indelicacy--thus making the indelicacy much, much worse.

It's such a treat to see these universal phenomena documented on camera, because (a) it makes the viewer feel less alone and (b) it reminds the viewer that basically *anything* is up for grabs if you want to tell a story. You can make art about *anything* ....if the desire is there.

Thank God for this show. Do watch if you haven't yet--already.

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