That’s what she said

I kind of have a thing for Sloane Crosley. 

Do you know her?  Can you introduce me?? 

She is just so freaking awesome/ hysterical/ I want to be her.  Gosh.  Anyway, she is the author of a book that I think is amazing.  It was very appropriately recommended to me by my hipper-than-thou friend, Mindy, who knows that I like short stories and quirky authors*.  

(*Note: David Sedaris is my favorite author. Still trying to figure out how I can be adopted by the Sedaris family and live with David and Amy in La-La Land constantly mocking the human condition and making lopsided birthday cakes with fuchsia and turquoise icing.  Oh, the life…)

"well hello, david and amy! hi."

Anyway, Sloane’s book is called: I Was Told There’d Be Cake.  It is a collection of her personal essays ranging from childhood to present as a young New Yorker.  Her essays and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, BlackBook magazine, The New York Observer, The Village Voice, Playboy Magazine, Maxim Magazine, Mirabella and numerous other literary journals and websites.  They are just so freaking hysterical – and it’s a very fast read.

Here’s what her website says about the book:   From accidentally despoiling an exhibit at the Museum of Natural History to siccing the cops on the wrong neighbor, Sloane Crosley can do no right, despite the best of intentions—or perhaps because of them.  In a sharp, original storytelling style that confounds expectations at every turn, Crosley recounts her victories and catastrophes in an irresistible voice that is all her own, finding genuine insights in the most unpredictable places.  (www.sloanecrosley.com)

Sloane Crosley

My personal favorite of Sloane’s essays is the first one,  The Pony Problem, where she frets over what people would think if she suddenly died and family members, friends and/or emergency medical personnel witnessed the state of her Manhattan apartment and found her hidden pony collection – each one thoughtfully (and predictably) given to her by every guy she’s ever dated.

The Pony Problem

Below are a few of my favorite exerpts from I Was Told There’d Be Cake:

“I find that anything culturally significant that happened before ‘93 I associate with the decade before it. In fact, Oregon Trail is one of a handful of signposts that middle school existed at all.”

“I never asked my mother where babies came from but I remember clearly the day she volunteered the information….my mother called me to set the table for dinner. She sat me down in the kitchen, and under the classic caveat of ‘loving each other very, very much,’ explained that when a man and a woman hug tightly, the man plants a seed in the woman. The seed grows into a baby. Then she sent me to the pantry to get placemats. As a direct result of this conversation, I wouldn’t hug my father for two months.”

“I was taught that candles are like house cats – domesticated versions of something wild and dangerous. There’s no way to know how much of that killer instinct lurks in the darkness. I used to think the house-burning paranoia was the result of some upper-middle-class fear regarding the potential destruction of a half-million-dollar Westchester house the size of a matchbox. But then I realized the fear stemmed from something far less complex: we’re not used to fire. Candles are a staple of the Judaic existence and, like many suburban residents before us, we’re pretty bad Jews.”

“Life starts out with everyone clapping when you take a poo and goes downhill from there.”

“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 sincerely hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.  Thank you, Sloane, for sharing your brilliance and for so many great laughs!  Please write another.

xx, L