I was pretty dorky, but there are tiers of dorkdom and I always had friends, though they were equally dorky. I was one of those kids who contracted cooties in the second grade and then had cooties, because there wasn't a vaccine for it. When I was around people, though, I generally wanted to make them laugh. I told a lot of stories.

Some of the writers I admire who seem very, very funny and very emotional to me can develop a closeness with the reader without giving too much of themselves away. Lorrie Moore comes to mind, as does David Sedaris. When they write, the reader thinks that they're being trusted as a friend.

As most New Yorkers have done, I have given serious and generous thought to the state of my apartment should I get killed during the day.

Picture it in your mind's nostril: you get in a cab in time to catch twin thugs named Vomit and Cologne assaulting a defenseless pine-tree air freshener.

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

Because this is the beauty of strangers: we're all just doing our best to help each other out, motivated not by karma but by a natural instinct to help the greater whole.

Brits and Americans have hundreds of different phrases for the same thing. Luckily, it's usually a source of amusement rather than frustration. A flashlight by any other name is still a torch. My personal favourite is 'fairy lights,' which we boringly refer to as 'Christmas lights.'