Things I am Going to Miss About New York

I've left New York - only one week until I leave for Syria. Of course I already miss it: Specifically, I miss:

- anonymity on the street - this does not exist in Damascus, where I might as well wear a sign that says "FOREIGNER"

- PDAs - not exactly down with the culture in the Middle East

- Flight of the Conchords, Weeds, The Office

- free concerts all the time

- that I can see any movie on a big screen from mainstream to indie, the latest to something from 1936

- Baked (in Redhood)cakes and cookies

- everything that makes the red states cringe: on-demand abortions, abundant gays, and craploads of immigrants


- a city so liberal that Manhattan Mini Storage can put on a billboard "Your closet space is shrinking faster than her right to choose" with a picture of a coat hanger

- breakfast anytime, which means greek omlette anytime

- a variety of restaurants, from Indian to Ecuadorian

- biking daily through at least two, and often three boroughs

- the view from the Williamsburg bridge

- the view of all of Manhattan from my apartment in LIC

- bars with pool and kareoke

- all my lovely friends, of course