As I type, birds chirp in the trees outside my front and back windows and confirm my decision to move to Brooklyn last year, which feels as right as did heading to Manhattan from Toronto nearly 28 years ago (what!? did I say 28!??). New York is my home, and it's hard to imagine living anywhere else.

I work at a mental health center in Manhattan, but I don't analyze others over dinner. By that time of day I like to do some yapping of my own, generally in exchange with those close to me who reliably reach for the silliness in life’s seriousness.

One recent weekend, I saw God of Carnage in the afternoon and a more obscure play in the evening, with friends of over two decades. I go to the theater or something like it (ie Patti Smith at the Metropolitan Museum) about twice a month. I love to read and am almost never without a book –winding down on Swann’s Way now, with the sense that the whole of Recherche will be a looong project, requiring some trashy magazines between volumes for balance.

Exercise is important to me too, whether it’s cycling, swimming or walking in the woods. I’ll take mountains over beaches any day, but I love the Cape anyway. Among my most vivid vacation memories are those of kayaking this summer on ocean waves between Falmouth and the Vineyard, first thinking Chappaquiddick looked really close, then wondering how soon my arms would give out and I'd have to be towed back to shore. It was great.

First a meeting for a non-alcoholic beverage, with the hope of a sense of connection.
On a more official first date, dinner and perhaps an alcoholic beverage in a restaurant where we can actually hear each other talk, with the hope of continued sense of connection.