Your day job is as publicist in New York; was omitting details about your career from the collection a deliberate choice?
It was and it wasn't. It's not like I coincidently have a day job—it's very much my life, filled with people I care about, like a work family. A dysfunctional work family. So in a way, my not writing about it is because "office life" alone would probably provide enough fodder for a whole separate essay collection.

Because you generally interact with many different types of writers, has your experience working with them made you reevaluate your own work?
It definitely makes me want to play up. This is part of the reason why I'm not a literary agent. I think agenting is acknowledged as one of the more rewarding sides of book publishing, but when you're younger, reading unsolicited manuscript after unsolicited manuscript, mediocre writing starts to infiltrate your brain until you think, "Well, if this is being considered, why not my stuff?" But I think it's important to stay healthily intimidated by the writers around you if you want to keep getting better.

Since most of the stories seem to be based on your own experiences, how did you choose what would be included and what was left out? Were there any stories you loved that didn't make it into the book?
There were ones I was close to that were left out of the book, if that makes sense. But they were left out because I was still very much tangled up in their topics and they lacked the connection with the reader that I hope the final essays have.

Cake chronicles, to an extent, the misadventures of a single girl in the city. It seems like any book written by a female with that general overview is immediately labeled as "chick-lit." Is that label something you tried to avoid or is it just an occupational hazard?
I honestly only think about it when I'm asked that question. I understand the question, and my opinions on "chick-lit" are many, but it never entered the writing or editing process. The book is very much my voice, and I'm not a big cosmo-drinker or pink-sheet-purchaser. So it's not as if those references or subjects came up in the text and I had to go back and edit them out. They're naturally not really there. So when there was something a bit girlish (I am, in fact, female—so "occupational hazard" is right), I was confident that it wouldn't be overkill.

In "The Pony Problem," you end up with a collection of plastic ponies from guys who took your request for a pony seriously. Have you ever made any substitutions—a car? A cake?
I actually have not. I do think I will again and it will come about the same way the ponies came about—somewhat unconsciously. I will say that since the book, I've been give a lot of cake in different cities. So, you know, jackpot.

In "The Ursula Cookie," you write about having a boss who starts off great and slowly morphs into something awful. How did you manage to stay with it for a full year? Obviously, now you can look back on the situation with a certain degree of humor, but was worth the strife?
I think it was worth it for me. It's funny, most life lessons you know when you're about 12, but it doesn't matter; you have to live through them to really understand them, which is frustrating. The whole "don't let people treat you like shit/trust your gut" principle was there for you all along and you just didn't know how to apply it. In your teens and early twenties, you think you know—this is why stupid Avril Lavigne songs feel so poignant and definitive to younger girls: because young women want so badly want to implement the Girl Power lyrics.
And I think I knew, the way even 12-year-old me would know, that my first job was a bad situation. But if I had left after six months, I might have turned around and gotten myself into the same situation all over again. I think we're all a little emotionally thick-hearted at that age [23] and I'm perversely glad it got so bad that it left no room for doubt or justification. And because of that, if I ever had another job with a similar dynamic, I'd see the signs and get out a lot quicker.

Now that you can find just about everything on the internet, have you fallen victim to playing semi-updated versions of Oregon Trail online or is the magic of the game relegated to middle school?
I haven't! There's an Oregon Trail application on Facebook but I don't use it. That's about as close as I come: just knowing that it's out there. I think I cherish the original version too much to tarnish my memories.

There's a whole essay, "Smell This," that ends with someone leaving a modestly artistic piece of fecal art in your bathroom. Did you find the culprit? Or rather, since it's clearly one of the more glaring images I took away from the book—do you have any new suspects?
Ah, I'm afraid that's still between me and the Anti-Defecation League.

Some critics are calling you a modern-day Dorothy Parker. How do you respond to that endorsement? Are there other authors you've been inspired or influenced by?
It's very flattering, but I think if you read a random Dorothy Parker essay and one of mine with the names taken off, it would still be very apparent which one was Dorothy Parker. She's a social genius and a marvelous writer. Maybe someday… Meanwhile, I am a fan of humorists like Geoff Dyer and David Rakoff and read a great deal of fiction and short stories, actually.

What's up next for you? Can we expect another collection or stories or something longer?
Probably both. I'm working on a novel, which I'm very excited about, but I also can't imagine that I'll stop writing essays anytime soon.

(June, 2008)