This is the hard part about having best friends that I feel no attachment to -- I don't give them any benefit of the doubt. And being best friends is always about the benefit of the doubt.

There is no such thing as equality for some. Equality must be for all. That is what freedom is. That is what liberty is. No human being is born more or less important than any other. How can we allow ourselves to forget that? What simpler truth is there?

New Yorkers love the bigness -- the skyscrapers, the freedom, the lights. But they also love it when they can carve out some smallness for themselves. When the guy at the corner store knows which newspaper you want. When the barista has your order ready before you open your mouth. When you start to recognize the people in your orbit, and you know that, say, if you're waiting for the subway at eight fifteen on the dot, odds are the redhead with the red umbrella is going to be there too.

It's goodbye to some things. And hello to others.

hubris, n. Every time I call you mine, I feel like I'm forcing it, as if saying it can make it so. As if I'm reminding you, and reminding the universe: mine. As if that one word from me could have that kind of power.

Because sometimes you just have to dance like a madman in the Self-Help section of your local bookstore.

Then I go in the den and turn on Law & Order, since the only thing i can really count on in life is that whenever I turn on the TV, there will be a Law & Order episode.