I don't do emoticons unless I'm making a big deal out of them. I'll type out, 'This is so amusing it makes me want to grin in pixels.' And then do it.

In New York, if you weigh under 200 pounds and decline so much as a cookie at a co-worker's party, women will flock to your side, assuring you of your appealing physique. This is how skittish we are about the dangers of anorexia and the pressures of body image.

Are there moments when I see unrequited crushes or ex-boyfriends slow dancing with their dates and kind of want to stab myself in the spleen with a salad fork? Yeah, sure.

Everything in New York seems to merit preserving. If it's not historical, it's personal. If it's not personal, it's cultural. But you can't. You can't save everything. You just have to pack it up in your brain and take it with you when you go.

I have definitely had experiences where I can feel the shift from simply living my life to being slightly outside of my life and taking notes.

What annoyed me was that I so often attempted to weasel out of things on purpose, it killed me to do it by accident. It seemed like a waste of whatever detailed lie I was going to have to come up with.

I thought of a high school report I did on the Belgian artist Rene Magritte and a quote I once read from him, something about his favorite walk being the one he took around his own bedroom. He said that he never understood the need for people to travel because all the poetry and perspective you're ever going to get you already posses. Anais Nin had the same idea. We see the world as we are. So if it's the same brain we bring with us every time we open our eyes, what's the difference if we're looking at an island cove or a pocket watch?