I think the rule of thumb should be this: if you preface a sentence about a friend with the phrase, 'I love X, but... ' more than once in any conversation, you should stop hanging out with them.

When I was nine years old, I wrote a short story called 'How to Build a Snowman,' from which no practical snowperson-crafting techniques could be gleaned. The story was an assignment for class and it featured a series of careful but meaningless instructions. Of course, the building of the snowman was a red herring.

Insomniacs tend to fall into two general categories - those who give up and those who don't. I don't. I refuse to admit defeat by turning on the light. I will not try to read or watch a movie, thank you. Productivity is a crutch of the weak.

Normally, I am a vocal advocate for 'looking both ways' and 'knowing the size of one's own body.' But working, socialising and simply running errands in Manhattan, means I am bound to break my own rules on occasion.

and there's something about having an especially different name that makes it difficult to imagine what you would be like as a Jennifer.

At the end of each year, I sit on the floor and go page by page through the old calendar, inking annual events into the new one, all the while watching my year in 'dinner withs' skate by. When I'm done, I save the old calendar in the box of the new one and put it with the others on a shelf.

Cohabitation seems a greater leap in cities because it's all the harder to extract oneself if things turn sour. It's what keeps otherwise functional adults living with their mothers.