We All Deserve To Be

For A Long Time I Wanted To Draw, But I Could Never Get The Proportions Right. My Still Life Sketches Were The Artistic Equivalent Of Someone Who Has Misjudged The Space Constraints Of A Postcard, The Handwriting Shrinking Uncomfortably At The Bottom.

The Truth Is, I Wrote A Novel When I Was 23. It's Hideously Bad. Truly Rotten.

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.

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 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.