Sometimes I want to be on 'The Real Housewives of New York.' I want to remind them to figure out how to get along and support each other.

New York is a city where people are ambitious. They want things.

I started writing about New York as soon as I arrived. I was 19. I used to write short stories and send them out.

There are worse things than being thirty-five, single, and female in New York. Like: Being twenty-five, singled, and female in New York. It's a rite of passage few women would want to repeat. It's about sleeping with the wrong men, wearing the wrong clothes, having the wrong roommate, saying the wrong thing, being ignored, getting fired, not being taken seriously, and generally being treated like shit. But it's necessary.

But that was the problem with New York: No matter how succesful you thought you were, there was always someone who was richer, more successful, more famous.. The idea of it was sometimes enough to make you want to give up.

That was the wonderful thing about New York: Years of bad blood could be wiped out with a single gesture of friendliness.