This place is just so different from anywhere I have ever been that I find it really interesting ... I am e-mailing too many people way too much information, but oh well.

I've been to most of the major U.S. cities, but NY is different--I'm still working on exactly how. So far all I have is that it's not really an American city--it is, but it isn't--it's more of an international city--it doesn't feel American to me--it feels like its own little country, like it is its own little District of Columbia or something.

I think a lot of the people who live in Manhattan would like it if you had to get a passport to get on the island--we are offending a lot of people in Chelsea with our presence. It has been very clear from day one that Patrick and I are not anywhere near cool enough, in this life or any other future life, to live in Chelsea--we have a temporary visa, but we will never be granted permanent residence.

We can actually afford to live on the island, but this island hates animals, and children--they actually had to pass rental housing laws against discriminating against children here because so many property managers were doing it. I can understand the fashion students being that way--they are young and acting their age--but when the middle-aged and senior citizen types stick up their noses at my dogs and look at babies in carriages like they are monsters--it's just strange to me.

These people that think Manhattan is so great and they never want to leave the island--I can understand that to a certain extent, but at the same time I wonder if they understand how compromised their quality of life can be. Without a car, you are at the mercy of your surroundings--it's like being poor and living in a bad neighborhood in North Omaha or Kansas City--you are stranded in a sense--you have access only to what you can walk, or, if you can afford it, take a bus to, so that means you shop at overpriced drug and convenience stores because it may be hard, if not impossible, to get to a real grocery store, which by the way, doesn't really exist in Manhattan. There is one large Whole Foods grocery chain just across the street from my hotel that is only a year old, and was lauded in the local press as the second coming. Only one--on the entire island. Everything else is drug stores or tiny grocery chains that have limited selections and charge way too much. And I don't count Whole Foods as a real grocery store--it is a gourmet, high end food store for wealthier people.

Cultural life is definitely at its height here--it is fantastic to have so many choices every day of the week--but the mechanics of daily life can be a real grind.