Welcome to Running in Slippers, a humorous memoir about how Angie plummeted into despair after a failed relationship and the death of her father, taking you through the totally raw and vulnerable rollercoaster of severely misguided attempts to fill the voids, reading like a train wreck that you can’t look away from.

Between social masks, social media facades, and the COVID pandemic, our society has become increasingly disconnected. Much of what we see in-person and online is profoundly filtered and edited. What we don’t see are the everyday struggles and imperfections of real life.

We don’t connect by being perfect. We connect by being real. It feels terrifying to allow our deepest, authentic selves to be seen, and possibly rejected, but that is exactly why she is doing it: to break out of the masks and encourage connection through vulnerability.

“Paula cheerily drops me off at the zoo, where I meet Hazel in hysterical sobs. We sit on a nearby bench. The irony of this is that the outside of the Honolulu Zoo is a popular congregation hot spot for a lot of mentally unstable, homeless people. Since I am in the middle of a hysterical, emotional breakdown, under the influence of drugs, barefoot, with two plastic hospital bags, and haven’t showered, brushed my teeth, or eaten in three days, I fit in perfectly. I ramble my story to Hazel, including how deliriously high I am.

The thing about Hazel is that I don’t trust her.”