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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.

-Sloane Crosley

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Because, Ten-year-olds Of The

Sloane Crosley

...

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.

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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.

Natural Instinct

There's An 'everything Must Go!' Emotional Liquidation Feel To The End Of Your Twenties, Isn't There? What Will Happen If We Turn Thirty And We're Not 'ready?' You Don't Feel Entirely Settled In Any Aspect Of Your Life, Even If You Are On Paper.

Out Of All Artists, Authors Are The Least Trained For The Spotlight. Wanting Attention Isn't A Requisite Part Of The Package.

I Like To Try To Do A Little Work Before I Do Anything In The Morning, Even If It's A Paragraph.

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.

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.

It Seemed More And More Like Something Out Of A Children's Book - The Butterfly That Followed The Little Girl All The Way Home To Her Fifth-floor Walk-up. How Above-the-law Children's Books Are. Hansel And Gretel (littering, Breaking And Entering), Rumpelstiltskin (forced Labor), Snow White (conspiracy To Commit Murder), Rapunzel (breach Of Contract).

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A Lot Of People Are Lonely. A Lot Of People Are Lonely Even When They're Surrounded By Other People.

Yes. I Am Writing Full-time. Which Is Strange. It Feels Like Not Having A Job.

I Can Say With A Solid Degree Of Authority That I Am A Selfish Person. I Spontaneously Forget The Names Of More People Than Not, Unless I Want To Make Out With Them. I Will Take The Last Square Of Toilet Paper Off The Roll Without Thinking Twice. I Tip Taxi Drivers So Poorly I'm Amazed None Of Them Have Run Over My Foot While Speeding Off.

It's Never Good To Fall In Love With Someone Whom You'd Have To Stab In The Eyeballs To Elicit A Response.

Falling In Love

Ah, The Power Of Two. There's Nothing Quite Like It. Especially When It Comes To Paying Utility Bills, Parenting, Cooking Elaborate Meals, Purchasing A Grown-up Bed, Jumping Rope And Lifting Heavy Machinery. The World Favours Pairs. Who Wants To Waste The Wood Building An Ark For Singletons?

Life Starts Out With Everyone Clapping When You Take A Poo And Goes Downhill From There.

When You Spin A Globe And Point To A City And Actually Go To That City, You Build An Allowance Of Missed Opportunities On The Back End.

I Was The Youngest Of My Entire Family So You Are Tap-dancing To Try To Get The Attention Of Your Older Cousins. I Really Hit My Social Stride In 6th Grade, But Before That I Was A Pretty Big Dork. You Learn How To Be Amusing And How To Work For It.

There's Already A Marriage Clock, A Career Clock, A Biological Clock. Sometimes Being A Woman Feels Like Standing In The Lobby Of A Hotel, Looking At The Dials Depicting Every Time Zone In The World Behind The Front Desk - Except They All Apply To You, And All At Once.

As Most Doctors Will Tell You, Cleansing Is Ridiculous. You Know What's Been Around Longer Than That State-of-the-art Juicer? Your Kidneys. And Your Liver. Still, The Cleanse Has Recalibrated My Definition Of A Splurge.

I Thought I Was Going To Write Fiction But I Fell Backwards Into Non-fiction. It Started When I Got Locked Out Of Two Apartments In One Day And I Told The Story To Some Friends, One Of Whom Worked In The 'village Voice' And Asked Me To Turn It Into An Essay.

No Affair That Begins With Such An Orchestrated Overture Can End On A Simple Note.

For Me, Titles Are Either A Natural Two-second Experience Or Stressful Enough To Give You An Ulcer. If They Don't Pop Out Perfect On The First Try, They Can Be Really Hard To Repair. Or, Worse, If The Author Thinks They Pop Out Perfect, But The Publishing House Does Not Agree, It's Difficult To Shift Gears. And Then? Then You Go Insane.

Publishing House

You Know What They Say: 'why Sit At A Table That Doesn't Have Key Lime Pie On It If You Don't Have To?'

Because I Am A Horrible Flincher, Contact Lenses Are Not An Option. I'm Always Envious Of Contact-wearers. There Are Endless Reasons To Take Off One's Glasses During The Day And, As I Have Grown Older, What I Don't See Has Become Increasingly Pronounced.

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.

Juice Cleansing Has Been All The Rage For Some Time. And I Used The Word 'rage' Advisedly; One Must Push A Violent Flood Of Liquidised Vegetables And Fruit Through One's System For At Least Three Days In Order To Perform A 'cleanse.'

In New York And L.a., There Is Sort Of That Silent Competition To Be On The Cutting Edge Of Something. You End Up Having A Conversation With How The World Receives Your Work, Especially If You Are Writing Narrative, Not Fiction. Sometimes It Is An Awkward Conversation. It's Like Group Therapy.

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Paul Feyerabend

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