My A-number one visceral fear is speed. More than knives or snakes or confined spaces. Speed. I won't even go on a motor boat if I can help it.

I thought we had reached an understanding, the institution of marriage and I. Weddings are like the triathalon of female friendship: the Shower, the Bachelorette Party, and the Main Event. It's the Iron Woman and most people never make it through. They fall of their bikes and choke on ocean water.

Time grabs you by the scruff of your neck and drags you forward. You get over it, of course. Everyone was right about that. One mathematically insignificant day, you stop hoping for happiness and become actually happy.

The children were overwhelmingly morbid. Not a single adult asked me where butterflies go when they die, but this question was more popular than pixie sticks with the under-four-foot set. I cursed parents for not preparing their children. When I was five, my mother and sister sat me up on the kitchen counter and explained the facts of life: the Easter Bunny didn't exist, Elijah was God's invisible friend, with any luck Nana would die soon, and if I ever saw a unicorn, I should kill it or catch it for cash. I turned out okay.

The truth is, I wrote a novel when I was 23. It's hideously bad. Truly rotten.

I think that most New Yorkers would object to calling me a New Yorker. I didn't grow up here.

I like to try to do a little work before I do anything in the morning, even if it's a paragraph.