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.

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.

Because, ten-year-olds of the world, you shouldn't believe what your teachers tell you about the beauty and specialness and uniqueness of you. Or, believe it, little snowflake, but know it won't make a bit of difference until after puberty. It's Newton's lost law: anything that makes you unique later will get your chocolate milk stolen and your eye blackened as a kid. Won't it, Sebastian? Oh, yes, it will, my little Mandarin Chinese-learning, Poe-reciting, high-top-wearing friend. God bless you, wherever you are.

A human being can spend only so much time outside her comfort zone before she realizes she is still tethered to it.

I would gladly have accepted a heaping spoonful of nepotism when I got out of college and was looking for a job.

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.

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