A Year In New York

Today I’ve been running last-minute errands and pondering what it all means, spending a year in New York City. I’ve worn through a lot of shoe leather in this crazy town and learned some hard lessons,  and now it’s time for me to pass those lessons on to you.
Here goes:

1. The World Won’t End If [...]

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My colleague Rebecca and I stepped onto the Pelham-bound train with our eyes darting suspiciously this way and that. Just moments before we had left our seats at the Union Square movie theater, where we saw “The Taking of Pelham 123.” Taking the subway after seeing that movie is akin to watching “Deliverance” right before [...]

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Shortly after moving to New York I bought a lampshade on Lexington Avenue for $55. That seemed like a lot, but what did I know? Maybe lampshades just cost more in Manhattan, like parking spaces or toothbrushes.

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My sister Susan is about to have a baby, and so before going back to California I visited this baby store on Lexington Avenue and bought her three stuffed animals wrapped in fancy package. But I left the gift in New York because the purchase itself was so annoying.

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This evening I unexpectedly find myself at dinner on the Lower East Side with a columnist for a big New York magazine and his girlfriend. (Don’t ask.) There had been no warning, no time to prepare.
I smile and nod gamely over the eggplant lasagna and wish I’d shaved, or combed my hair, or gotten around [...]

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If my transformation into a New Yorker is already underway, I thank Rebecca the Mattress Saleswoman. I have been bouncing onto an inflatable mattress for two weeks now, and today I would get some real bedding. Rebecca was the first person I met when I walked into Sleepy’s, a bed store that is as [...]

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You’re at a wine bar called Buceo 95 on the Upper West Side, the kind of place with red lounge lamps suspended from the ceiling, and it comes time for everyone at the table to boast or lie about what they do for a living.

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