Zuckers Morning

I eat an half a bagel too much. Everything feels disproportionately large here -- the food, the people, gulps of air. At night we take long walks, and he cuts through the neighborhood like a real local -- here's a restaurant my friend opened, here's an art gallery that I have beef with, here's a spot that expanded, good for them. Every comment conveys ownership, possession, and an ease that comes with 10 years. He grew up here the way many of us dream about the characters in young adult novels. There were private schools, days of being the outsider, pre-Giuliani subways, concerts, drugs, dyed blonde hair, and guitars. All the kids here sound like rock stars, and you wonder, was it the city that made them, or they who made the city?