First Year in New York

I looked up and a year went by. A good year. A hard year. Max and I got engaged…and then we got married. Kate and I wrote a book proposal…and then we started the book. I turned 30. The gray hairs started winning out. Seasons changed. (Oh, how I love you, dear seasons.) I learned a few things, mostly about clothes and solitude.


When you fall in love with someone from New York, move there. You won’t regret it.

Meet clients in a park or somewhere you’d normally meet a friend. Skip the office and go outside. You don’t want to work with stuffy people, so don’t act like one.

It was easy to make friends at work and at related events in San Francisco. It won’t be easy here. Most of that is your fault for working so hard. Slack off or start something new.

You’ll see famous people doing unremarkable things. It’ll be strange at first—how little you actually care and how often it happens—but eventually, you won’t even think about it. Except when you’re across from them at dinner or when that tall guy with great hair at a show is David Byrne. (Really, that hair.)

Nice people are nice people everywhere. You can still be one of those people, even in New York.

On the other hand, cops are cops are cops. From what I can tell.

You may have managed to get through years of disgusting humidity in Texas by wearing sweaty-ass jeans and running from an air conditioned car to an air conditioned building. But New York has a lurid smell in the summer, you enjoy walking, and these window units only go so far. Get some cheap dresses and embrace the breathy sauna of summer. You’ll miss it when it’s gone.

Don’t listen to the haters. The beach is beautiful here, especially when it’s warm.

Very few things will ever make you as happy as The American Museum of Natural History.

When you make friends with someone in the neighborhood and keep meaning to have him over for dinner, invite him over. He may just be passing the time until a beautiful day in October when he suddenly passes on.

You’ll love the light here more than anywhere else, except Santa Fe. Soho is magical in the afternoons. And Brooklyn is too, of course. Take your camera. Or just walk around in the evening light and soak it up.

When winter shows up and you’re choosing between a tailored coat and a sleeping bag with arms, get the lady-sized tea cozy. It’s the only thing that’s genuinely warm when it’s genuinely cold.

After a big snow, go to Central Park. You’ll feel five again.

Space is expensive, but quiet is what you’re after.

Smile. When you’re alone on a sunny street or surrounded by people who look nothing like you or squished on a train or at the library or eating by yourself or goofing with your husband or paying for beans or completely exhausted. Smile. And get some sleep.


February 26, 2014