Throughout the continuing course of imagining, writing and researching this book–one that I describe as, that is nonfiction–many have suggested that I fictionalize my subject.

It’s difficult for someone who writes memoir–particularly someone who is (barely) under thirty and not famous or otherwise miserable, not to feel defensive on behalf of the form: it’s taken a lot of heat in the last few years, to put it mildly.

But arguments made from a blatently hostile (defensive) posture are rarely compelling: one winds up arguing for the genre’s eminence as opposed to, merely, it’s right to exist, or, even, one invididual’s particular privilege to write it. 

I hesitate to go there. That’s not to say, of course, that haven’t. (Or won’t.) My responses have surely varied, but a few things have always been true:

One is that I have thought about it, and that I may in fact do so, at least in part.

Another is that I’m not very good at writing fiction. To me, it feels something like how I imagine it would feel to have a child: exquisitely painful, singularly rewarding, and something one can only do once every few years without stretching one’s body/brain in potentially dangerous directions. (I should clarify that, with spare few exceptions, each of The World’s Children represent accomplishments far greater than my paltry attempts at literary fiction.)

Anyhow: the point is that that what compels me to create, first and foremost, is an interest in making connections, not making up stories.

That said, I do, really, believe in memoir as a form.

Over the weekend I went to hear (the adorable, brilliant, undeniably–as one friend put it, “foxy”) Nathan Englander talk with Leonard Lopate and read from his new story collection; it was (outrageously) snowing in Brooklyn, and I imagine the underground library would have been more crowded with bodies and plastic-rimmed glasses had it not been, but his charm reverberated nonetheless.

At one point, while talking about his enterprises outside of fiction–translation work, dramaturgy–he made reference to the short story as the “supreme literary form.” “I’ll argue that with anyone,” he declared, before going on to not make the argument at all.

The thing is I’m sure he could make that argument. I’m sure someone could also make that argument about lyric poetry, or narrative poetry, or street jazz.

And, certainly, you could make it about memoir. And while I’m not sure I want to, I feel pretty confident I could.

Here’s why: to my mind, there’s a basic reason we find ourselves wildly compelled by the particular, intimate experience of complete strangers–when, that is, it’s rendered with beauty. It’s that, no matter its focus–grief, loss, love, secrets, sex–the subject of all memoir, is, in one way or another, the search for self-understanding.

And that search, to me, is the most universal human experience. We can’t come close to fully knowing another person; the only subject we can ever grasp is ourselves; memoir makes that journey art. At its worst, it can be disengenuous and without humor; at its best, it can be painful and raw. But it’s almost always human.

This week I had my chart read by a friend’s New Agey Therapist. I, of course, already see a therapist. But said friend felt I so urgently needed the wisdom of hers–one who incorporates astrology–that she actually paid for my session.

(New Agey Therapist: “How do you feel about your friend thinking you need this so badly she’s paying for it?” Me: “Well, funny about her paying for it. But otherwise, great! It’s no secret I’m in dire need of professional help!”)

As far as astrology goes, I’ve never had particularly strong feelings one way or another: I’ve identified, rather aggressively, with the Libra traits–indecisive, social, needing, always, balance and art. But I never gave much critical thought to the enterprise–why or whether it ought to hold up.

I still haven’t–and frankly, probably won’t. Unlike certain other belief systems, I don’t see astrology as threatening potential harm or large scale military action–and I’m interested in it as a tool, another means of investigating, and shaping a story around, who I am and why.

So I listened, rapt, as this woman explained the indecipherable, multicolored circle known as my birth chart. 

It was, again, a reminder of the unique comfort in being told who and how you are, what you’ve done and are doing can be explained: that there’s some sense and reason to it, that it isn’t just random.

It’s easy to dismiss astrology, as it is most systems of belief: they’re based in bullshit myths; they traffic in broad generalities, they give people false hope.

But I also know that when you’re in your late twenties and sorting out who you are and what you’re meant to do, perhaps nothing is more precious than being told such angst is determined by the stars. (Saturn, specifically, which is taking its sweet ass time finishing it’s orbit around me. Hmmph.)

It’s as meaningful as being able to tell someone, as I have, during the course of this project, that their memory–or lack thereof–makes sense; that there’s history, or science, behind what might seem a painful blank.

(Sidenote: Ben Greenman wrote a much funnier, less direct defense of memoir in the Times Book Review this weekend, and you should read it.)

All to say: there are infinite ways to tell stories, none (debatably) intrinsically superior. Those of us who tell them choose the form that makes sense to us; my adviser used to say writers don’t choose subjects, their subjects choose them. I suspect that’s true for form as well.

And stories, as Lots of People Before Me have said in various ways, are kind of all we have.

“Grandma, I’m dating a Jewish doctor!”

Just a few years ago, this comment—coming in the context of my history dating men fairly described as variously under-Jewish and under-employed—may have elicited the desired reaction: an “Oh, really?” Surely: “A doctor?”  Perhaps a “Canahara!” or “Shana velt!”

But while uncommonly cogent, at 103 my grandmother has not evaded the loss of certain skills: to wash her own hair, consume hard cheese and discern particular meaning are sadly among them.

But I couldn’t resist a try. Her calm response (“Yeah? Tell me.”) gave instant assurance the significance was lost.

Still, I kept going.

“Well, I think I like him. He’s smart, musical, funny.” I sighed. “But he wants to keep seeing other people.”

She didn’t hesitate. “Eh, screw him,” she said, flicking her hand the way she’d done moments earlier toward the poor fellow playing Iago on PBS’ Sunday afternoon opera. (“That no-goodnick!”)

As she stroked my head I slipped into a tearful state of anticipatory grief on behalf of my unborn children—all but certain to miss out on a Yiddish speaking relative who, with the sincerity only Old World roots can summon, insists they don’t take the subway without a red ribbon tied to their underthings.

“You’re beautiful and smart,” she said. “You should have hundreds of men coming after you. Hundreds!”

It wasn’t worth arguing—neither to dispute the probability of many men (Jewish, employed or otherwise) chasing me down Manhattan streets, or to clarify/explain/rationalize why Jewish Doctor may not deserve such rapid dismissal.

Otherwise, I could’ve presented a rather quick case in his defense: “Grandma,” I could have said, “it’s just been two weeks.”

In fact, we had only been seeing each other a matter of days when JD (I wasn’t planning upon this nickname, I swear, but his initial happens to be A—so, as Grandma would say, screw it) made this declaration:  “Just so you know,” he said. “I’m going to keep seeing other people.”

At the time we’d only gone out once, but were clocking somewhere in the ballpark of three-four accumulated hours on the phone—and things were beginning to feel intense.

The reason they were feeling intense (aside from the obvious, which is, ‘Hello!’) is the same one that enables me to write this now: we had started off, and have, as of this moment, continued to be, startlingly—perhaps dangerously—open with one another.

It was both our fault.

(Date # 1: Me, straight-faced—“I hate dating Jewish men.” Him, later, earnest—“I’m really ready for a partner.”)

Such that, a few days and dates and phone calls later, he said this: “I don’t know how we reconcile being so comfortable with one another and the fact that we’re not exclusive.”

My response was coy: “It’s kind of your problem,” I said. “I mean, you’re the one who wants to keep dating.”

I had told him right away that I probably wouldn’t see other guys—not because of him, but because, after a few months of careening my heart around New York City like a pedicab driver on some mix of non-legal stimulants, I didn’t have the energy or the will.

But in fact, it was my problem, too—I’d been the one to call him out, after all. (“What’d you do tonight?” “Oh, went out for dinner…”)

And, besides, after knowing someone for less than fourteen days, how can you possibly demand that they see only you?

Not talking about it seems like a good place to start.

But truthfully, I have no idea. Here’s one thing I realized this week: despite my many years of being single-while-constantly-seeing-somebody, the number of times that I have established a relationship via anything like conventional dating totals exactly one. (It was my Missed Connection, actually, which may disqualify the thing from any official realm of Normalcy.)

Aside from that, though, my relationships have come about through other, less traditional courtship modes. Which ones isn’t significant. But what is, is this fact that I am periodically moved to remind you: I fucking hate dating. More importantly, I am terrible at it. “Dating,” in the conventional sense of seeing someone with increasing regularity, while seeing other people, more or less regularly, too, actually boggles my mind.

It amounts, essentially, to inhabiting an indefinite state of limbo—a place where few people are comfortable, but some (me), essentially break down like a piece of paper held to an open flame.

On the wisdom of accepting this, I vacillate.

And, also, about this: like most of us, I want to be with someone who really wants to be with me; who is so taken with my soft hands, rosy complexion and capacity for critical thinking that the thought of pursuing others diminishes instantly: like diet soda at Fashion Week—gone. Done.

But then, I also want to be with someone who is exceptionally smart, who is funny and sexy and kind (this week’s handful of minorly elusive non-negotiables)—and what happens when I come across someone who is those things, but who is also more cautious than me when it comes to entering romance?

Do I take Grandma Edith’s (ill-begotten) advice, and say, “If you can’t be all in right away, screw you—you never will?”

Or do I attempt patience, and the discipline to hold myself together amidst that wretched limbo, while I wait out whether I like him, and he likes me, as much as we think we might?

“I think I need to go on some dates,” I announced the other day. Things were, again, feeling intimate—and again, a reminder had surfaced that he wasn’t ready to see only me.

“Do it,” he said. “Go on some dates.”

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. What I wanted to hear was (something like): “No, don’t! You are obviously The Most Awesome Woman in Eastern Standard Time besides Tina Fey! What if you meet someone better and leave me bereft and heartbroken and doomed to years of lonesome pining/dating girls with lesser humor and skin?”

But I knew, of course, he wouldn’t. What I didn’t, and still don’t, quite, know, is whether that would be okay.