I know, I know; this kind of thing is all over the internet already. On the cab ride from LaGuardia, I joked to myself: should I also write a novel while I’m here? On what it’s like to be a twenty-something, relocating from the friendly, barren coal dust of the Midwest to the hard cold diamond of NYC? Haha, I said to myself, haha.

The cab driver did not care that I was laughing to myself, nor that I also found his jokes funny. (To his boss as we left the terminal: “Shut up you asshole! Fucking moron.”)

Pictures of New York aren’t new. Pictures a day aren’t new. But it all feels so new, every minute, already. I can’t help myself.

Welcome to: August, New York City, before I turned 30.

Above: minutes after arrival in my sublet, midnight. There was a cool breeze, laughter from the bar downstairs, the smell of curry.