Summary

The narrator worried that, at almost 40, she had yet to create “a world view” (1). When a young girl came to stay with her and her boyfriend Miles, the narrator misidentified a hot dog as a banana (1). She realized she had to create something apart from her.

The narrator flips three coins on her desk. She asks the coins questions. If two or three heads appear, the answer is yes. If two or three tails appear, the answer is no. She asks the coins if writing this book is “a good idea” and why she is worried about the project (5). She wants to know if it has something to do with “the soul of time” (6, Heti’s italics).

The soul of time idea came to her when she was visiting her friends Teresa and Walter in New York with her friend Erica. She feels...