Essays

On Not Writing

(Originally published in the NY Times) I started writing this essay five years ago, and then I stopped. That I was not able to finish

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Subway Lifer

(Originally published in the Virginia Quarterly Review))

I know New Yorkers who last took a subway in their twenties, thirty years ago, or who would rather be stuck in traffic any day than on an express train anyplace. Someday I, too, may know the luxury of a town car and driver or what it’s like to always take a taxi home. But until those hypothetical ships come in, all I can know is what I am now: a subway rider…

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A Year in Trees

(Originally published in the NY Times) SOMEONE asked me the other day how I had gotten over the sudden death of someone I loved. What

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On Being Not Dead

(Originally published in the NY Times)

ONE night last year I called my friend Oliver and told him to meet me on the roof of our apartment building. He lives three flights down from me. I had pulled together a simple dinner — roast chicken, good bread, olives, cherries, wine…

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