I live in New York, but I don’t, really. When I’m here, I am based, like some impoverished flight attendant, out near LaGuardia Airport. It’s easier that way. Not to mention cheap. When in Manhattan, it is generally for work. Most of my friends live somewhere else, and the ones that do live here are in the same business. I might be home, but they’ve just left for Los Angeles.

Recently, while walking through the Lower East Side and realizing I was pretty well lost, I got indignant.

This isn’t supposed to be happening to me. I live here. Who are all these people? And when the hell did Ratner’s disappear?

Clearly, it was time to put the passport away, forsake the world’s most boring neighborhood for a week and head in to the city, for a week of Grey Line bus tours, museum visits, pastrami at the Carnegie Deli and whatever it is people do when they first come here and fall in love.

Hey – better the Carnegie Deli than another egg salad sandwich from Pret A Manger eaten at my desk on the fly. Better a Grey Line bus crawl by night than another thrilling rush-hour tour of Sixth Avenue in the 40’s, a tour I get to take every single time I show up to work. (Oh, look, honey – they’ve put a new bank on that corner! Terrific! Take a picture!)