In I Totally Meant to Do That, writer Jane Borden recounts her nearly decade-long experience being a Southerner adjusting to living in Manhattan—and a Southerner living in Manhattan who comes to understand just what she left behind when she moved away from home. As a book subject, it’s in some ways fairly straightforward. What makes Borden’s handling of it so engaging is her ribald sense of humor and disarming sincerity. Here is a writer boisterous enough to compare a high school acting turn of The Lottery’s Miss Bessom with “as played by a man with hearing loss and hemorrhoids” and make something as innocuous as high-fiving a stranger on the subway feel like a fleeting moment of ordinary joy. City Paper caught up with Borden by phone to chat about Southern accents, thank-you notes, sorority rush, and the inherent kindness of talking behind someone’s back.

City Paper : I was curious to see if you had a Southern accent. You make reference to it a bit in the book, but it’s sometimes hard to tell. Did you lose it by osmosis or on purpose? I ask only because I made myself lose mine on purpose.

Jane Borden: I did. I lost it pretty quickly. I think I’m just an assimilator is the short answer. I’m kind of a chameleon wherever I go but it didn’t take me too long to lose it at all. The interesting thing is when it comes back. Whenever I’m home, it immediately comes back, and if I talk to my friends or my parents on the telephone, it comes back. And, you know, when I have too much to drink, which is what I mentioned in the book.

CP : Since I got the book two days ago, and I have to confess I’ve only made it about halfway through, I get the impression it’s a story of acclimating to living in New York—a process that kinda/sorta made you aware of being Southern.

JB: That sums up the first half pretty well.

CP : Was it a situation where you didn’t think about the North-South differences until you were living in Manhattan? I mean, I get the impression when you were 16 you weren’t thinking to yourself, “I’m such a Southern young lady.”

JB: Exactly. Your reality is what you’re presented with. And so growing up I didn’t know that this was anything weird or necessarily specific. It was just life. And when I went to where it was different, New York, that’s when I was able to understand it for what it was in relief. And then my initial reaction was to not hide where I came from—it’s not like I was ashamed of it or anything. But I realized that because it was so different it required so much explanation, which was exhausting. So it was easier to just blend in.

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