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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.

-Sloane Crosley

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When It Seems Impossible

Sloane Crosley

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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.

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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.

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Sometimes We Don't Know What We Want Until We Don't Get It.

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You Just Don't Notice The Time Of Your Own Metamorphosis. Until You Do. Every Once In A While Time Dissolves And You Remember What You Liked As A Kid. You Jump On Your Hotel Bed, Order Dessert First, Decide To Put Every Piece Of Jewelry You Own On Your Body And Leave The House. Why? Because You Can. Because You're The Boss. Because... Ooooh. Shiny.

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.

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.

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

I Would Gladly Have Accepted A Heaping Spoonful Of Nepotism When I Got Out Of College And Was Looking For A Job.

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I Thought I'd Had Another Few Decades Before My Noise Complaint Years.

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Air Travel Is The Safest Form Of Travel Aside From Walking; Even Then, The Chances Of Being Hit By A Public Bus At 30,000 Feet Are Remarkably Slim. I Also Have No Problem With Confined Spaces. Or Heights. What I Am Afraid Of Is Speed.

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Alaska Is What Happens When Willy Wonka And The Witch From Hansel And Gretel Elope, Buy A Place Together Upstate, Renounce Their Sweet Teeth, And Turn Into Health Fanatics.

I Think That Most New Yorkers Would Object To Calling Me A New Yorker. I Didn't Grow Up Here.

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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.

The Year Most Of My High School Friends And I Got Our Driver's Permits, The Coolest Thing One Could Do Was Stand Outside After School And Twirl One's Car Keys Like A Lifeguard Whistle. That Jingling Sound Meant Freedom And Power.

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It's Remarkable The Logic We'll Build Around A Misapprehension.

I Have Nothing Against Canada. I Think That Canadians Might Know The Secret To All Existence, But To Us It Just Comes Off As Timid And Kind And Too Nice, And It Strikes Us As Lacking Edge. Unless You Are Hijacking Someone And Going On A Reality Show With Your Eight Kids And Wearing A Velour Pink Pantsuit, Then You Have No Edge To Us.

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.

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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Friendship Is A Spackle In Itself. You'll Forgive Your Friends A Lot, And If You're A Woman, You'll Forgive Your Straight Male Friends Even More. They Represent The Possibility Of Mutual Toleration Between The Sexes, A Keyhole Into The Mind Of The Other, And The Promise Of One Day Meeting Someone Just Like Them Except That You Want To Sleep With Them.

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I Wanted To Be An Archaeologist. But In School You Have To Take A Tremendous Amount Of Statistics For That, And I Am Not Good At Statistics. So I Hit A Real Wall With Archaeology. It's Probably Like Wanting To Be An Architect - You Think It's All Fun And Games, And Then You Have To Get Out A Calculator And You're Done.

I'm A Summer Baby, So I Usually Have My Birthday As A Good Summer Memory.

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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?'

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.

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).

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.

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

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.

Hey There.' I Cleared My Throat. 'how Are You?' I'm Engaged!' Incidentally, This Is An Unacceptable Answer To That Question.

Who Do You Have To Sleep With To Get Laid In This Town?

Cats And Their Owners Are On A Private, Exclusive Loop Of Affection. Thus Cats Have Become Symbolic Of A Community Eschewed And A Hyper-engagement With Oneself. They Represent The Profound Danger Of Growing So Independent In New York That It's Not Merely That You Don't Need Anyone - It's That You Don't Know How To Need Anyone.

Most People Don't Get Lucky. They Get Human. They Get Crushes. This Means You Irrationally Mortgage What Little Logic You Own To Pay For This One Thing. This Relationship Is An Impulse Buy, And You'll Figure Out If It's Worth It Later.

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.

I Was Compiling A List In My Head Titled 'reasons To Get Up: You Don't Have To Leave, But You Can't Pee Here.

I Think The Goal With Any Writing, But Especially Narrative Nonfiction, Is To Put The Blockade Of Putting Your Thoughts In This Unnatural Medium Of Print And Then Trying To Reach Through That And Actually Convey What's Going On, What You Think, And Make People Laugh And Recognize Themselves While Doing It. Definitely The Laughing Thing.

I Write On Weekends, On Vacation, And, Really - On Deadline And On My Floor. Both Terrible For The Back.

I Was Diagnosed With A Severe Temporal Spatial Deficit, A Learning Disability That Means I Have Zero Spatial Relations Skills. It Was Official: I Was A Genius Trapped In An Idiot's Body.

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.

Sometimes In New York, You're Walking Down The Street And You Realize There's A Girl Walking In Front Of You Whose Thighs You Could Hit A Golf Ball Through, And Maybe That Makes You Depressed.

I Love To Bake, So I Made Vanilla Bean And Blueberry Muffins For Sick Hospital Children. Just Kidding! All Of That Is True Except The Sick Children Part.

I Got Out On The Street And Started Crying The Kind Of Hysterical Tears Made Justifiable Only By Turning Off One’s Cell Phone, Putting It To The Ear, And Pretending To Be Told Of A Death In The Family.

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.

Ladies. Large Masses Of Girls Are Often Prone To This Salutation. I Hate Being Mollified With This Unsolicited "ladies" Business. I Know We're All Women. I Am Conscious Of My Breasts. Do I Have To Be Conscious Of Yours As Well? Do Men Do This? Do They Go, "men: Meet For Ribs In The Shed After The Game. Keg Beer, Raw Eggs, And Death Metal Only." I Would Imagine Not.

I Don't Really Think Of My Essays As Being About Myself. I Know It Sounds Insane, But I Just Don't Think Of Them As A Memoir. They're Essays; They're Not An Autobiography.

I Love Giving People Advice On What To Do With Their Books, But I Don't Really Know How A Kindle Single Gets Covered.

I Do Think New York Prepares You For The Crossection Of Personalities And Realities On Display When You Leave The Country, And I'd Live Somewhere Else If I Had A Reason Or Burning-the-the-point-of-discomfort Desire To Do So.

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

If You Have To Ask Someone To Change, To Tell You They Love You, To Bring Wine To Dinner, To Call You When They Land, You Can't Afford To Be With Them.

They Say It's Not The Snoring Itself But Those Anxiety-packed Moments In Between Snorts. It's The Waiting For The Nasal Passages Of The Person Lying Beside You To Strike Again. And Strike It Always Does. In The Dark, Almost Against Your Will, You Produce That Special Glare Reserved For People Who Cannot Control Their Own Behaviour.

My Personality, When Tasked With Creating Meals, Goes Something Like This: Is There A Way We Can Make This More Difficult? Because Let's Do That. I Don't Mean To Complicate Things. It's Just - Why Buy Pre-packaged Potato Salad When You Can Spend Your Morning Boiling Potatoes And Flipping Out Because There's No Dill In The House?

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

We Are Only As Good As Our Most Extreme Experiences

The Hardest Thing Is Spending Twelve Hours A Day Accommodating The Rest Of The World, Then Going Home At Night And Criticizing It. I Would Be Curious About What I'd Write If I Didn't Have To Worry About Offending.

A Pet Store Is A Celebration Of Dogs' Existence And An Explosion Of Options. About Cats, A Pet Store Seems To Say, 'here, We Couldn't Think Of Anything Else.' Cats Are The Hanukkah Of The Animal World In This Way. They Are Feted Quietly And Happily By A Minority, But There's Only So Much Hoopla Applicable To Them.

I Am Starting To Like La, But The Concept Of A Place You Have To Get Used To So Much Seems A Little Weird To Me. I Have Been To Many Foreign Cities Where I Didn't Have Do Acclimatize As Much As I Did To La

I Don't Understand How You Can Be A Decent Writer And Not Know People.

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

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?

Let Me Put It This Way: I Don't Feel As Settled As I Look. I Think That's True Of Everyone, Probably. Except For Beyonce And Jay-z. I Don't Think They Wake Up And Think, 'ugh, When's It Going To Work Out For Us? Why Can't We Catch A Break?' Aside From Them, I'm Pretty Sure Everyone's Life Feels A Lot Less Intentional.

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.

I Can't See The Forest Through The Trees, Except The Trees Are People.

I Wouldn't Want To Live In Berlin. It's Bombed Out And There's A Lot Of Techno.

I Have A Disproportionate Amount Of Faith In The Goodness Of The World And That Everything Will Actually Work Out Okay.

Unless You Are A Professional, You Will Find The Tart To Be A High-maintenance, Unforgiving Whistle-blower Of A Pastry.

I Have Come To Understand Myself As More Of A New York Writer, Or More Of A Woman Writer, But I Don't Feel Like That While I'm Writing. But I Think That Most New Yorkers Would Object To Calling Me A New Yorker. I Didn't Grow Up Here.

As We Grow Up, It Feels Like You Should Either Invite People Into Your Life Or Not. There Should Be Fewer And Fewer Instances Of Friends You ‘can Only Take In Small Doses.’

I Definitely Rediscovered Reading For Pleasure By Devoting Such A Large Swath Of My Time To Sitting On Airplanes. I Am Now Painfully Adept At Removing My Shoes So As To Have The Least Amount Of Foot Surface Area Touching An Airport Floor.

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.'

Suburbia Is Too Close To The Country To Have Anything Real To Do And Too Close To The City To Admit You Have Nothing Real To Do.

At The End Of Each Year, I Sit On The Floor And Go Page By Page Through The Old Calendar, Inking Annual Events Into The New One, All The While Watching My Year In 'dinner Withs' Skate By. When I'm Done, I Save The Old Calendar In The Box Of The New One And Put It With The Others On A Shelf.

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