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.

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

Life starts out with everyone clapping when you take a poo and goes downhill from there.

Since graduation, I have measured time in 4-by-5-inch pieces of paper, four days on the left and three on the right. Every social engagement, interview, reading, flight, doctor's appointment, birthday and dry-cleaning reminder has been handwritten between metal loops.

When it seems impossible that a deep connection with another person could just go away instead of changing form. It seems impossible that you will one day look up and say the words "I used to date someone who lived in that building," referring to a three-year relationship. As simple as if it was a pizza place that is now a dry cleaner's. It happens. Keep walking.

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who know where their high school yearbook is and those who do not.

You can't possibly fathom the ins and outs of a prepubescent beauty treatment until you've felt the strange but exhilarating tingle of a cottage-cheese-and-Pop-Rocks facial.