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Paul Rosenfels used to advocate that you do not do more than one social event a day in order to avoid exhaustion. And I think we probably did a bit too much yesterday — and paid for it by getting sick — but boy was that a fun day.

Spending the morning at the Bean — writing but not finishing — was nice, but nothing compared to the fun I had when I returned home, and found it difficult to cross the street directly infront of our house, as the cars parked infront of it stood bumper to bumper. Of course, I took pictures, and shared my amusement. It took me a good half hour until I was finished laughing.

Now I was in a good mood, and readily agreed when Dean suggested going to the Cheese Store together. Going anywhere, alone or together, is a rare event for us ever since Dean aquired a chronic disease, and I subsequently earned a full-blown caregiver burnout. And it is difficult, whether Dean uses the rollator or the wheelchair.

We decided to use the wheelchair for the trip to the Cheese Store, then I would park Dean at a nearby coffeeshop, bring the wheelchair and the cheese home, and bring the rollator for the trip to the doctor's appointment and a visit to our favourite restaurant.

The East Village Cheese Store is a glorious little place. I'd been bugging Dean about going there together for quite a while, and it was totally worth it. They sell all kinds of cheeses — quark, cream, butter, as well as crackers, breads, sardines, jam — and quite a few are imported from Europe. They even sell a lot of goat cheeses for those who can't handle cow's milk. You can always find some treasure, and most cheeses are really cheap for Manhattan.

We left with three bags full of cheesy stuff. When we arrived at the coffeeshop, the wonderful Bean, a woman held the door open for Dean and me. She was petite, and dressed elegantly — well, at least partially. It took me a while to notice that she was not wearning shoes, just socks.

I kind of like that you can do this in the East Village, be shoeless, and nobody will look at you funny, or treat you with less respect. The only way to get treated as if you don't deserve any dignity is to treat others without respect.

Carrying the wheelchair leg rests, the shopping bags, and the wheelchair upstairs and the rollator downstairs required three trips, but I remembed one more item to bring: A bag with a pair of sneakers, still perfectly fine, that I had not worn in over a year.

If the petite lady had left The Bean by the time I'd returned, I would simply place the shoes somewhere near — not in — a garbage can on the street. But she was still there, talking to the barristas, whom, I guessed, only understood half of what she was saying.

In the meantime, Dean had eaten his cookie, and I only got the crumbs I picked off his shirt. "You're the boy with the most cheese", I said, still proud of him, and then I asked, "Do you think she is not wearing shoes because she doesn't want to, or because she doesn't have any?". I pointed at the weirdly elegant lady standing near the counter.

Until now, Dean hadn't even noticed that detail. He looked at her, trying to analyze her. "I don't know", he said.

I showed him the shoes in the bag. "I haven't worn them in ages."

A few years ago, I would not have done this. I may have phantasied about being relaxed enough to dare it, though, but I would most likely not have done it. I walked over to her and offered the shoes. She was surprised, and happy. We shook hands, and enjoyed meeting like this. We sat at a table and chatted a bit — her name is Virginia, I gave her my email address, and she invited me to an Open Mike event on St Marks this Sunday — I'll go, if only to check it out.

And while I could not figure out whether she was suffering from early dementia, or whether she was merely weird, I did put a smile on her face. And on Dean's. And on mine.

As Dean and I left for more adventures, I waved goodbye to that nice, weird lady who'd struck up a conversation with the woman sitting next to her. There's an achivement here for me that I only realize now. Visitors are quickly overwhelmed with the city because everything seems stressful and anonymous. But for those who live here and are not scared of getting involved, it's hard to imagine living anywhere else. People greet me when I come to The Bean, the barristas know what I usually order, there are people living here I can wave goodbye to, and I can make new friends. That makes New York home.

After spending a nice hour in a bakery, I decided to liberate the coffee (black, no milk, no sugar) in a public restroom in Columbus Park.

A line was materializing, I joined as I overheard the black woman infront of me mutter something like "Oh my God, oh my God ". Unless somebody actually asks for help, it's probably a good policy to ignore fellow New Yorkers who seem crazy.

From the corner of my eye, I saw — I wasn't sure — a man reach over one of the stalls, with what I suspected might have been a selfie stick. From that stall, an Asian woman emerged a few minutes later. I wasn't sure what I was looking at, this seemed weird for sure. Now that I've been primed, I'll probably switch gears much faster than I did that day, but at that moment, I was merely puzzled. Nobody can accidentally lock themselves in any of these stalls and require assistance to get free, because none of the doors have locks to begin with.

After going about my business in a stall at the other end of the room, in a somewhat paranoid fashion, I hesitated on my way out.

Somebody in pretty unfeminine Nike shoes was hanging out in that first stall. It seemed increasingly likely that this was what I suspected it to be, and itdawned to me he was waiting for things to quiet down so he could leave unnoticed, so I pretended to leave, only to pop up unexpectedly, and to block the door when he came out.

Within seconds, my blocking the door had caused enough people to get stuck here, both inside and outside the bathroom (the one thing you can count on in Manhattan) and I had my audience, including that black woman I'd heard mumble to herself. She was not insane, just a bit too timid.

I confronted the man: "What are you doing here?!"

The presence of a man (who didn't look the slightest bit tranny) in a women's restroom quite obviously creeped out the other women as well, but them being Asian, mostly very polite, and tiny, and possibly not necessarily legal — I knew they would shy away from a confrontation.

Me, at 5'11", however

"You are one sick piece of shit!", I declared, so loud the men in the other restroom had to hear me. My audience was growing. The black woman firmly stood beside me. Few things in my life had ever felt so great.

The pervert pointed at something in the distance, and said, "Did you read that sign over there?"

Yeah, I know when somebody tries to distract me. My little brother had fooled me often enough when we were kids.

"You are one sick piece of shit", I repeated.

Everybody heard me.

He tried his "There's a sign over there" diversion again before running off, while the people around me explained to each other what had just happened.

I thanked the black lady, and added, "I apologize, usually I try not to use foul language on the day of the Lord. And usually I mind my own business".

"I do, too", she said. She smiled.

I calmly strolled off, grinning at the Empire State Building, ready to be good to the (mostly) awesome people of New York City.

Dean and I just enjoyed breakfast together, and in the middle of it, I let him send a nonsensical tweet in relpy to some stranger's cat's nonsensical tweet — the hope being that they get the joke, and we put a smile on someone's face. We do not delude ourselves that the world is a cuddly place full of rainbows, cookies and unicorns.

But when I run across a good question a from stranger, I do take that seriously and try to help them. I recently wrote an essay to help a girl who had led me to believe she needed some help, encouragement, and guidance. Believing she had escaped the open air gulag that is North Korea, I was pretty shaken and reminded of the damage that life in Stasi-controlled East Germany had done to me and my people.

Turns out she was a liar and playing a practical joke on Dean and me. I first shrugged it off, but then it hit me, and I did have to admit that I was hurt and upset. Yes, I was hurt, and it would be wrong to not admit this.

But this is not going to stop me. If anything, people like this jerk will keep me sharp. They will keep me fighting an educational system that turns young people into bigotted minions who hate Western Civilization and cannot think far ahead enough to not damage others. Who shit on their heritage before they learn to appreciate anything. Who demand socialism without being able to see that they will not have an iPhone or freedom of speech or anything much at all in a socialist paradise.

All that these jerks are achieving is to sharpen my perception and my sense of smell. There will always be some jerk who can make you drop everything you do and work your ass off to contact the police department because they tricked you into believing they were about to committ suicide. But there will also always be somebody who really needs help and will be grateful if you care. There will always be somebody who is sitting on a fence, or just about to wake up from their indoctrination. There will always be somebody who actually needs help, who will one day be able to say thank you, and pay it forward. And it's those people that are important.

A sale of electronics! The insanely loud, crappy music, together with the recorded voice from the tape yelling how exclusively open to the public this sale was, and how the staff spoke all languages should have been a warning. But I am not above going for a bargain, and I figured I could use new, shiny earphones, so I walked into the pop up store (read: not interested in being part of a local community, just in exploiting tourists). It took some discipline to ignore the loud noise, but I picked some nice ear phones, and a pretty stylus. I put them on the counter, saying "hi how you doing", and smiling at the man at the checkout.

He was in his 50s, short, but thanks to a pedestal behind the counter, towering over me. He ignored me, yelling "Who's next?", to proceed with tiny pointless actions. Like counting money in his cash register.

I've worked in stores, and there is no way to misread this kind of behavior when a customer is ready to hand over money. Not in New York, not anywhere else.

Again, he yelled "Who's next", pretending not to see me, and then he went on to take coin rolls out of a second cash register. He slowly started peeling them open. If he'd been paying attention to my face instead, he might have noticed how my expressions, up until now open, relaxed, and friendly, froze just a little, as I decided to be proud of what I was going to do next.

Calmly, I put the bill back into my purse, put the purse back into my bag, and then took the items off the counter. I dropped them in a bin on my way out of the store.

"Hey!!!" he yelled after me, which put a tiny smile on my face. I've lived here long enough to know when the city is smiling with me.

I walked out, not looking back, breathing easily, moving naturally, feeling all of New York patting me on the shoulder.

I doubt he learned anything from this; if anything, he will keep hating people like me. You do not learn behaviour like this over night, nor do you grow out of it quickly. Tourists probably mistake this man for a New Yorker. He's not, and will never be.

Yesterday, while I was trying to restore data from a borked SD card, a tiny, sick mouse stumbled into my life. Suddenly there he was, flopping around on the kitchen floor, clearly not exhibiting the movement pattern of a creature that feels reasonably well, is sensibly cautious, or is capable of pursuising a purpose. Timothy, as Dean named him a few hours later, had none of that. Since he was so off balance he kept falling over himself, I found it easy to catch him.

And here my troubles began.

Fully aware of where this was leading, Dean watched as I improvized a mouse hospital room by attaching a strainer to a glass pot, with paper towel pieces as bedding, water and heavy cream in separate bottle caps, apple pieces, peanut butter, a cracker, and a pink sugar heart sprinkle.

The little mouse was not interested in any of this. Falling over again and again, tumbling, struggling, busy scratching his right ear (which seems deformed) he did not care about anything but his itching ear.

Dean asked whether we should name him, while I was resiting getting attached — or admitting attachment — and getting my hopes up. Dean looked into Habitrail (which is not suitable for mice, by the way), while I tried to figure out what that little mouse was suffering from that had caused him to just stumble right into the center of attention in our apartment. And then Dean started calling him Timothy, after the seal from the episode from the old time radio show .

You know you are doomed when you give them a name, right? Damn. God knows I am not bored, and the last thing I need is having my heart broken by a sick mouse. I have enough on my plate right now, as does Dean

I've been catching mice in humane traps for a few months now, and I have seen quite a few, but Timothy is so tiny it seems ridiculous to worry so much, to research mouse diseases and remedies, and to try to help. He could sit on a teaspoon. He could comfortably take a bath in a bottlecap filled with water. (Oops, maybe I should not have written that; right now, he is sitting in one of the bottlecaps.) Our cockroaches are bigger than Timothy. Scratchie's paw is bigger than Timothy.

Today is Day Two, he is still alive, he still has balance problems, but he is no longer frantically rubbing his ear, nor is he hopping around like mad. He's started showing an interest in the heavy cream. I keep watching him for long times, until I am kind of sure to detect intention in his repeated moves towards the cream-soaked cracker, and that is not just ending up falling over into the cream by mistake. He keeps falling, but he has started eating, and I hope to count more pooplets in his pot tomorrow than I did this morning.

Ha, there we have it. Currently, Rachel's happiness can be measured in mouse pooplets.

I know Timothy might break my heart tonight, but I am doing what I can. I do not have to be a Buddhist to care about a tiny life, just me. And looking at the bigger picture does fill me with hope. Within the last 100 years, Western Civilization has made incredible progress for animals. Wherever people achieved some kind of economic stability in their lives, they started treating animals much better than nature does. People have

• created animal rescue organizations,
• invented humane traps and humane slaughterhouses (see ),
• developed wheelchairs for lame animals (ask ),
• engineered new forms of surgery for animals — even

In New York, volunteers are organizing events like (a big fair to connect people with pets). is an organization that hooks up rescue animals with veterans. Cruelty and ritual abuse against animals is still common on our planet, even in New York, but it is regarded as, well, cruel and abusive by civilized people. In a few decades, people might have Star Trek scanners that allow them to quickly diagnose what is wrong with a creature of almost any size, zap their parasites, and compose and disperse the right mixture of supplements to support its healing. Timothy would feel better in no time.

65 years ago, Richard Diamond sang to Timothy the seal to help him heal. Right now, I have to go buy more heavy cream. Timothy might get hungry.

Sitting in the car inside the Holland Tunnel, deep under the Hudson River, I had quite a struggle. Never in my life did I crave half a bottle of egg nog so badly.

A few weeks ago around 5 in the morning, I rode a bike up the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway (a bike path that goes up the Hudson River), and saw a cruise ship comfortably riding up the river at sunrise. The whole thing seemed almost unnatural, and reminded me of the film The Day After Tomorrow, where a seagoing vessel passes by Bryant Park. This would be unthinkable for various reasons, none of which impressed the screenwriters. The cruise ship on the Hudson, however, was real.

The last time I was at Ikea in Brooklyn, and was forced to use the subway on the way home, I did just fine, and managed not to think, ah, we are under the East River now

I tried not to think about where we were while we were inside the Holland Tunnel, but as it is, if you try not to think about something I utterly failed. I remembered a lot of events, all less unpleasant than being where I was.

As a Manhattanite you learn to handle quite a bit.

Cycling down the Park Avenue during rush hour, praying that none of the parked cars suddenly opens a door in front of you, that's no problem.

Looking out of a window on the 128th floor without reinspecting my last meal, that's technically feasible. (Anyway, the worst thing in high-rise buildings of this flavor is the acceleration in the elevator.)

Witnessing an Ebola suspect barf blood into a hazardous waste bin inside a hyperbaric chamber in the emergency department during the night of Halloween, while nicer events are imaginable nothing happened to me.

Watching the German national soccer team score one humiliating goal after another in Brazil, while I am standing, surrounded by depressed-bloodthirsty Brazilians, in a Brazilian Bar, stunned and aware that Brazilians, at times, may slaughter a referee or a soccer player or an entirely innocent random bystander if they are displeased with the outcome of a match, that was certainly memorable, but it ended without incident.

Culinary oddities like an Ethiopian delicacies restaurant, or shrimp flavored crackers, all the while suffering from an absence of good European quality egg nog, or octopus arms in the supermarket, or food that looks like button mushrooms, but then turn out to taste completely differently, and upon inquiry turns out to be calimari — yuck, I did actually eat that! — okay, I can forget about this one.

Finding cigarette butts inside a computer is not as weird as being in a tunnel under the Hudson River: When I worked for a computer repair shop, one of our customers was a prison guard at Rykers Island, and my colleague, an otherwise badass Israeli, was afraid of this fierce person. I was less impressed, but I was surprised to find cigarette butts inside his computer. What drives someone to do this, discarding cigarettes into a PC? And then to be surprised why that poor machine is unhappy?

Explosions and collapsed houses, Frankensturm Sandy, floods, earthquakes, fires, a week long power outage, hearing mice squeak under the bed at night, rats in the walls, giant cockroaches that flutter through the bedroom, being rained on as the tenant about us uses the toilet at the same time as I do...

Being harassed at work by a gangs of youths, cheeky squirrels, filmsets clogging up whole streets, silly eyesoring stretch limousines, hungry raccoons, wet groundhogs in the morning dew, a turkey needing a rescue team, hawks feasting on pigeons, large-scale police operations with arrests and stationary helicopters hovering above our neighborhood at night, my attempt to register on the Obamacare website without losing my mind, working one Christmas season for Manhattan's most popular toy store, an evening in a millionaire's club with real millionaires, having the daughter of the founder of the Communist Party of the United States as the witness at our wedding, giant pythons on the subway, screaming babies in the movie theatre, questionable substances on the seat in a cab, holding a snake in my hand as part of my first job in New York, ten thousand drunken Santas roaming my neighborhood any and all of this can, and did happen to me.

But knowing that I am in a tunnel under a river, with comfortable cruise ships chugging over it, that is a bit borderliney, not to say rather uncomfortable, and utterly unnecessary. The fact that there might be the occasional corpse being fished out of the water bothers me less. As with each river of appropriate length, this is only a question of time, right, but the cruise ships above me this is wrong in principle. And the Hudson is not narrow. Slightly compressed, my hometown would fit in there. And a whole lot of egg nog.

Oh, pass the egg nog already. Please?

Would you rather

1. Hop into a cab and say to the driver, "Follow that car", while pointing at a car, or
2. Say to police, "That's him, get him!", while pointing at a perp?

In New York, finding a restroom can be a problem. In the past, any kind of semi-public toilet would get abused by drug users, so as a result, access is trickier than in Central Europe. In short, plan your pit stops. I headed to Starbucks to grab a coffee, and to liberate my previous one first.

Both restrooms were occupied, and after a long wait, I finally got to feel some relief.

And that's when I heard a conk, a high pitched female scream, yelling, heavy furniture falling. Clearly this was not an accident, like a chair breaking under one or more heavy customers doing something inappropriate. It is amazing what you can tell just from noise.

Do I want to know what is going on, or should I just stay locked in the relatively safe restroom? If I had heard shots, I would probably have stayed where I was.

A skinny, White woman was explaining to restaurant staff that "she attacked me for no reason"; she being a sulking Hispanic woman in a purple vest.

I proceeded towards the counter, watching the curious faces of the Starbucks customers. The entire place seemed to be holding its breath, and I felt a bit weird for walking through what seemed to be the center of everybody's attention.

The presumed victim was calling, I suppose, the police, restaurant staff tried to get to the bottom of the situation, onlookers looked on, and I really needed a coffee. It was rather quiet in the restaurant. That's something I really like about New Yorkers; they are pretty good at staying calm, and letting only the people most suited for the job do what needs to be done.

As I arrived at the line, the woman in purple walked out of the shop, passing two policemen, the sight of which make everyone exhale, and then get tense again.

I said, That's her, pointing at the woman. Quite a few people did the same, and from the irritated look on the cop's faces, everybody had to suspect they had merely come here for a coffee, and had no idea what was going on. I heard people giggle. The expression on the officers' faces was about the funniest thing I had seen so far today.

And that was it. After being briefed by restaurant staff, the policemen left the store and stopped the woman in purple, one was getting her ID and kept talking to her, while the other one came back inside to talk to the victim.

I have my coffee now, and I am watching a make up artist vamp up a skinny blonde model for a photo shoot. This restaurant is back to normal.

I hope she sues.

There is a mouse on Dean's desk. His name was Little Max. He had very cute, tiny hands, almost see-through ears, tiny nosie and eyes. This furry little creature died last night, at the fangs and claws of my cat.

Dean is sad. He keeps calling Scratchie a murderer. He is contemplating brain surgery to reprogram Scratchie's firmware. He showed the mouse to Eleanor. Maybe I should have buried that poor little thing right away, because obviously I am the more stable one when it comes to dealing with dead animals, even though I am the vegetarian here.

My grandparents, like all their ancestors, kept cats for the specific purpose of keeping mice under control. My parents were the first generation of cat owners who kept cats for other reasons — companionship, love — and their cats did kill, even though my parents tried their best to prevent this. Growing up in the countryside, I saw my share of intentionally killed animals, which I will not detail here. Killed for human consumption, these animals did not suffer needlessly, and up to that point, they had had a good life. Nature is generally much more cruel than this. Just two generations of fundamentally different approaches to animals.

When I woke up this morning, the memory of finding the dead mouse last night partly ruined my morning. I'm sure Scratchie doesn't understand why I was more distanced than usual. It's not his fault, he is a cat, cats kill mice. As much as I want him to be friends with whatever rodents or insects he may encounter, so far, there is no Friendship Supplement available yet. I asked both the mouse and Scratchie to forgive me. I don't want any pointless killing to happen in my presence, and as far as I can tell, the only thing I can do about this is to exhaust my cat more often.

Ironically, a few hours later, while sitting in Ray's Pizza, I overheard an elderly lady describe how alive her stuffed cat looks, and how visitors mistake the stuffed corpse for a live cat. Now that I find somewhat creepy.

Currently, there are no satisfying solutions to encourage highly evolved mouse murderers to form friendships with rodents, but I have hope. Cities already have dog runs, and in a few years, people might attend dog obedience training with their barking buddies, and more and more people will get the point of cultivating better relationships with animals through training. Cat ownership is a bit different, but happily awaiting whatever the scientists, app developping cat lovers, and animal friendship connoisseurs want to dream up next.

Don't want dead mice on your desk? Want them happy and healthy and alive? In a few years, there might be an app for that.

I have to make a note in the calendar to not order in or buy any groceries other than storables in September, as there are way too many gorgeous food events in this city, from the utterly lush harvest farmer's markets to the Feast de San Gennaro.

If only a day had 72 hours, so I could get the sleep I need in between all the coffee that is awaiting me, all the nice interactions to with awesome people to be created, all the smiles and sunlight to be soaked up, all the indescribable magic moments to be shared: I went birding with my birding mentor Bruce, and we saw hummingbirds. Dean and I went on a boat trip around Manhattan, and Dean got me princess treatment for that. (Buy premier tickets, and you can be a princess, too!) Dean gave me so many nice book gifts for my birthday I am still not finished reading them all. Scratchie discovered a mouse in our kitchen and is one happy cat now.

In short, I am groggy.

Two or three years ago, a day like today would have been too overwhelming, but by now, I am getting the hang. I can just go with the flow and seize opportunities and I even start to create them. This probably makes perfect sense to people who are studying Asian philosophies like Zen, and to most New Yorkers.

If we're in the mood, we try to say whacky, outrageous, funny things just to entertain random people: Overheard in New York. Talking on the phone while exiting the subway? All those poor souls that are forced to eavesdrop on your conversation, give them something for their money. "Leave the gun, take the cannoli", "Give the cat a kiss on the butt", "I am pretty certain this is totally illegal" New Yorkers get to meet so many people each day it is very hard to shock them, but it is certainly fun to try.

Another game is being good.

I lived in Berlin for a couple of decades and I doubt people there put specific effort into just being civilized. My main concern when I would venture outside, aside from getting things done, was not to cause attention by doing or saying something wrong, or by looking weird. I no longer care about any of that, because my fellow New Yorkers don't; we all see much stranger things, and few would mind doing something heroic.

On the one hand, actions that nobody would think about twice in other cities actually count as "being an asshole" in Manhattan. One reason tourists find the city so exhausting is their lack of New York skills. Never block people on the sidewalk — if you, by not stepping aside, cause anybody to slow down, you are already close to being an asshole. So, avoid being an asshore, and be good. This has the added benefit of helping you become aware of how nice people are trying to be.

On the other hand, the heroes here are common, too.

Yesterday, on 42nd and Second, while looking for the subway entrance, I saw a woman holding another, who was lying on the sidewalk, suffering a seizure. My first impulse was to ask how I can help, but there were already a dozen people, all offering their skills and experience and combined smartphone power, so the best thing I could possibly do was to just go away, and be far away once the ambulance arrived. As hard as it sucks to need medical attention, the best place to be if that happens is Manhattan. If there is any way people can help, they will.

And it is perfectly okay to cultivate random acts of kindness instead of waiting for an emergency to occur. Aware that today would be all about celebrating, I started by buying a fruit I was going to give to some random stranger I ran across. Let's see if some change can buy a little happiness.

A few blocks South, a homeless man sat on the sidewalk, leaning against a fence. "Would you like a banana?" I said.

I know you probably want a home, a job, a girlfriend, and sobriety, but that will take a bit more work on your part than just a nod. To reveal a bit of personal symbolism here, bananas are fruit that I would happily have stood in line for for hours back under communism.

The Feast de San Gennaro is by now a steady part of the Planet Hannotte tradition, it fits right into our birthday marathon, and it demands to be enjoyed with lots of Italian stuff, like cannoli, Godfather movies, music, and anything else that likes to join — obviously, New Yorkers like to celebrate other peoples' holidays, as long as they're allowed theirs.

Unless you go to the Feast when everybody does, which is not fun, you can experience some nice things there: Fresh cannoli, spinach pie (severely yummy), real mafiosinis (well, they look like they are mafia, which is good enough for me), stuffed animals, espresso and gelato and pizza!

I bought some home-cooked food, too My only regret is that I did not drag Dean with me, but there will be no excuses next September. And the absolutely best thing after a week of eating all over the place? I actually lost weight walking around so much!

I would like to say thank you to Orlando, the crazy man who walked into the toy store where I work and kept chatting for a good 15 minutes or so. That's okay, and since he bought a toy, too, that's extra okay. I would like to thank my boss, who keeps surprising and teaching me. I would like to thank Vanessa, a tiny black lady, who stood in line in front of me at the Chinese food cart today, and made friends with the gay boy behind me. We all agreed that food cart is worth forming a line here — It is that good! I would like to thank the cops who regulate traffic in Chinatown and Little Italy, where every day is insane. I would like to thank the firefighters who meet to enjoy coffee at the Bean in the evenings, three trucks at a time, wich always makes my heart jump with joy. I would like to thank my cat Scratchie, who wakes me up five minutes too early every single damn day, and my boyfriend, who gave me the best seven years of my life, and who is not going to stop encouraging me to write.

"I am from Germany", I said, trying to explain why I was interested in watching. "People there find the jury system very weird."

The court officers gave me a look that basically said, "So do we".

I had been warned this would be mostly boring, so I wanted to make sure I was actually not allowed to use my android.

"Absolutely not."

If somebody said "All rise", I missed that, but a few times, everybody stood up, and unsure whether I was supposed to do the same, I decided to err on the side of respect. Not caution, but respect. That was mostly the effect of Jefferson's quote on the front of the court building, combined with the general air of respect among the law enforcement officers and the jurors. Not fear.

The case itself was not exciting at all. A murder trial, or a mob case, now, that would have been exciting. But this was a pretty boring case of a man accused of verbally and physically attacking a female correction officer after being asked to turn his cell phone off. According to the testimony of the attacked officer, he had punched her and spit her in the face.

The minutiae of the case were downright boring to listen to. The lack of any explanation of his behaviour I found disappointing. I felt a little sorry for the jury members for having to sit through something this non-productive for eight hours a day for an entire week, all the rescources wasted on somebody who did not show any respect for anything or anybody at all, and who got off not just essentially scott-free but apparently enjoying being a nuissance.

Why is society spending so much time and effort on one person who is obviously not willing and\or able to learn anything? Why are we doing this?

In Germany, a case like this would be mostly technical and bureaucratic, like rubber-stamping. There would not be much of a discussion. Why does American society allow something trite like this to go to court?

The most touching moment came when the prosecution asked a 30-year veteran of the correction system whether this case was unusal, and he answered, "Not at all. The verbal abuse, we go through that every day".

Being judged by a jury of their peers is a very irritating concept for Germans, who generally believe that the law and justice are such complicated issues they should better be left to the expects, those who studied the legal system. "You be the judge", phrase often heard in old American TV stories, sounds irritating to German ears, who lack confidence and practice: In the almost thousand year history of German nations, Germans tried a jury system for about 80 years. Do Germans believe they need to be ruled by somebody smarter than them? Somebody better?

Can normal people be trusted with their own legal affairs? Can you govern yourself? Do I need a doctor to stay healthy or a lawyer to do what is right?

Americans have fought a war for their independence, and display almost allergic reactions when somebody tries to tell them what to do. Of course do they trust themselves to be able to decide their own affairs.

So, am I trustworthy enough? Can I trust myself? Can others trust me? On the day I was there to watch the court case, the judge reminded everybody in the room to not discuss this case until a judgement had been arrived at, but aside from that, nobody paid special attention to me.

Of course I can control myself and delay a discussion of this or any other topic for a while.

A person who cannot keep themselves in check will sooner or later end up in a situation where society will keep them under control, as it was the case with the man on trial.

So, to sum things up, yes, the whole thing was rather boring to watch, what I saw was mostly "procedure". It is possible you would learn more about the American jury system from watching a few good movies (as Dean and I did), but I am glad I used the opportunity to "go to court and watch".

For myself, I answered the question: Because this is what we do, we appeal to the higher ideals in man, and if somebody fails to rise, at least they had a chance. This is what Americans are, or at least try to be.

This day has become famous in our personal history as Magic Friday. This day could have been horrible, but it turned out much better than even I would have hoped.

Dean's computer double beeped upon reboot. Even half-asleep, I still knew this meant "RAM not detected", and both this day and the computer's motherboard were borked beyond hope; it would take hours to take the machine apart and find out what is wrong and there was no guarantee that this was fixable. I just wanted to go back to sleep and wake up to a new reality.

A wish the universe promptly granted.

A few minutes later, we received a call that made the borked RAM issue look like paradise: Dean's GP told us to go to the ER immediately: Dean's potassium levels in the previous day's blood work were way up. We had been in this situation before, more than once, and we knew this time it could be lethal: One moment you feel fine, the next you're dead. We did not even discuss this, we just got ready to spend the day in the Emergency Department.

Things like this always seems to happen on a Friday, I thought, while arming myself with a triple coffee. Apart from my thermos and my nexus, what else might I need in the ER? The last time we were there, it was so cold we had to ask for extra blankets. In the middle of summer! So I dressed up extra warm.

It was cold outside, and there were heaps of snow and garbage bags blocking the access to the street, so I asked the cabbie to wait: I had to help my boyfriend climb over the heaps of snow. Upon hearing we were going to the ER, the cabbie asked, "Which one of you?"

If we had left just two minutes later, or earlier, the cab I hailed would have introduced us to a different, probably less fortunate cabbie. But this one turned out to be gorgeous man, and he obviously loved his job. He and Dean shared some good small talk — while I tried to not worry (I tend to do that when there is nothing to do but wait). When we got out of the cab, he encouragingly said, "New York, good, good!". This was one happy immigrant, in love with the city and the people, and this cab ride magically set the tone for the rest of our involuntary adventure. Aware of the possibility of this turning into a tough day, I tried to cling to happy moments for as long as I could, by being extra nice to everybody. An extra dollar as a tip can actually help achieve this goal

They should call it the "ER waiting and worrying room", because it is very hard to do anything else there. Nastier parts of my brain insisted on contemplating possible worst-case scenarios, like me being a widow at the end of the day, or how many people were dying in this hospital right now. Those annoying, blaring TV screens put up in rooms like this one were meant to distract patients, but they always fail me. Instead of TV news, why not show the kittenbowl? Or anything else that reminds you to strive for some grace in your interactions with the world. Have any studies been conducted on how TV news improve the waiting and worrying room atmoshere?

For our patience, we were rewarded by meeting Marge Rubin, the most amazing five-star triage nurse ever. Adorably brash and competent, she shut up Dean before he could get into any lengthy discussion of how the hospital should handle patients' profiles and privacy. For triage, you don't want somebody to hold your hand and chat about the weather: Just get the job done right. I took a deep breath and immediately felt better.

The next few hours were filled with more waiting and worrying (or trying not to), but were interrupted by meeting good nurses and doctors. A few times I had to remind Dean to just do what was told, and not discuss ER procedure like drawing the curtain while he was changing his clothes. You might care about privacy, or you might not; in an ER, you do not discuss stuff like that. Others might freak out, and an ER is not a place where you can expect people to make any kind of psychological progress. The ER routines are designed to have all the irrelevant stuff run as smoothly as possible so you can focus on what is important, and save lives.

Enter Dr. Stillman. On the back of the printout she was holding, I noticed a cute sketch. That's the kind of thing I might be doing, so she immediately scored on the rapport scale.

And that was basically it — waiting, testing, waiting, more consultations, more waiting. We waited, played with our devices, tried not to think, and I drank my coffee. Unlike our previous ER experience (which was in summer), this time the ER was not insanely cold, so this time, I was clearly overdressed.

The next time we saw Dr. Stillman, she had a big smile on her face, and informed us that the test results were okay: There was no more immediate danger, and the next thing to do was to go see Dean's GP. Relief! Dean talked her into sketching a self-portrait for his discharge papers. With this best possible outcome for an ER visit, we got kicked out, sort of — we still had to wait for the discharge papers, but I knew I could start relaxing.

About an hour later — yes, it did take that long — on our way out, while waiting for Dean, a man on a hospital bed complimented me for my Stitch hat. He was frail, old, most likely homeless, and alone. We chatted a bit. He wanted to know where I am from. Germany, I said, are you from here? He grinned and nodded. "Wow, I would have thought you are from Russia!" Now this made him laugh so hard I worried a bit it might break him, or his IV I felt good about cheering up somebody.

In the hallway, we met a man on a stretcher, in his 20s, with an ice pack over his foot. Sprained ankles are insanely painful, and he tried to distract himself playing with his smartphone. Dean told him to him to ask for Dr Stillman — "She is sexy!" — and we left laughing.

Next stop, the GP. Dean's doctor was happy that everything had turned out so well. Dean and Jason tend to chatter endlessly on all kinds of subjects completely not related to his health, like classical music, or their online chess battles, and I tend to try and cut this short, especially when I am worried. Now, I can tell Dean to stay on topic, but what do you do when the doctor himself is getting his smartphone out to play chess with a patient just discharged from the ER? In the ER, I found it easy to stop Dean from discussing things other than what we can do right now in the ER, and expose the nurses and doctors to nothing but relevant facts, but now I probably faceplamed, but I was still happy.

On the way out, we discovered a poster next to the elevator, advertizing a "Healthy Heart Hoagie", and a short inquiry with the security guard confirmed the restaurant in question, Bruno's, to be just across the street. We both felt we deserved some kind of reward now.

While I ordered some lunch for us, Dean picked a table, and chatted with a couple sitting at the window. When I returned to him, he was visibly shaken. He held a small plastic bag with a round container in his hands. It was warm soup. The woman he had just talked to had given it to him ("I bought this for myself, but I want you to have it"). Not only that, they had given up their seat in the sun and now I had it. I love sun.

Touched, and quietly happy, we ate lunch.

I tried to imagine things like this happening in other countries. A few days ago, I had spent a few hours studying "35 Pictures That Prove The World Isn't Such A Bad Place", and most of the pictures seemed to have been taken in the US — maybe because here, more people have a camera phone with them; it does not mean that things like this are not happening elsewhere.

Ever since moving to New York two years ago, I was taken aback with how different this city is from the image my teachers and the media in Germany, both Communist and capitalist, painted. I remember one book in particular, Himmelhölle Manhattan, that made me believe this city is cruel, heartless and cold. Even after the fall of the wall, the German media made sure that this is the idea most Germans have of New York.

America's government might be out of control, schools might resemble prisons, and maybe this country is slowly turning into a police state, surveilled by Stasi 2.0, but at the same time, some parts of America are a leading edge of human development. Random acts of kindness are a pretty American thing.

This is still a pretty free country, so, if you want to, you can cultivate tiny grudges, , , and find scientists who claim that more research is needed into the phenomenon of .

Or you can sketch silly, pretty smiles on the margins of patient's discharge papers, rescue injured squirrel babies and lost turkeys, give gloves to a freezing old lady, hold the elevator door for a disabled person, compliment total strangers for their cute hat, reach out and prevent somebody from walking into traffic, hug somebody who feels he is not deserving of love right now, and wish a good day to a police officer conducting the great symphony of Manhattan traffic.

Whatever you chose to think this life is about, you are making it true by believing it. And like Christmas, it is not about the gifts I get — I can buy those for myself —, it is about how big a smile you can put on another's face.

Ready to leave, we saw a woman in a wheelchair, skinny, alone at a table. She probably had MS or Cerebral Palsy something like that.

I asked Dean to wait, went back to the counter and bought a Valentine's Day cupcake, the kind that I had been considering getting for myself. I grabbed a fork and some napkins, then walked over to her table, and gave the cupcake to the woman in the wheelchair.

"This is for you."

She was surprised, and speechlessly shook my hand. She had the biggest ever smile on her face.

And I had put it there.

A friend once asked me whether Dean and I ever fight. Half-jokingly, I asked back, Do you mean as in wrestling?

Well, we do fight, it is just not often or important, and we learnt to not try and solve problems when we are tired. There are a few things I am not happy with, but one monster of a problem I solved today.

Dean was going to take a nap, and I was looking forward to sitting next to him and reading. But when I came to sit on the bed, I found Scratchie spread out on the bed. Since we both dislike disturbing him, it was obvious I would have to sit somewhere else.

Already weakened by the health troubles he has been dealing with for the past few weeks, he was now close to tears.

I am always in the way, he said.

We have been through this before, and I just don't know how to prove that he is not a burden, how he is not slowing me down, and not in the way. Many disabled or old people are concerned with how they are making things hard for their loved ones, but how can you possibly prove that somebody is not a burden? Since the last time we tried to work this out, I have realized that I do enjoy hearing people say, You married whom? Or, How can you handle him? He is a handful!

I like that. I find it easy to handle him, it is not hard.

So this time, I tried solving it from the other end. By admitting that Dean, indeed, is a burden. But one that I thought about carefully before accepting it, one that I decided I want.

There is an East German movie about a communist and a priest who are sharing a hospital room, and who learn that they have to get along and can only survive together. The title of that movie is based on a verse from the bible, May one carry the other one's burden.

That is the whole idea, we are burdens on each other. But burdens we decide we want to carry. We live in a crammed Manhattan railroad apartment, how could we possibly not be constantly in each other's way? I walk fast, Dean walks slowly, of course he slows me down. The question is, do I care? Does it matter? Would I rather be alone, or with somebody else?

The answers to these questions are no, no, and no.

Also, he is not a handful, he is two arms full.

First off, next August, I need to sign up to volunteer for the West Village Halloween Parade. That seems to be the sure-fire way to actually end up in the middle of the fun, and not, let's say, being turned away when the police blocks off everything until 18th street.

I went to see the Halloween Parade in 2011, when I first came here, and fell in love with it right away — even though my costume then was rather lame and consisted of a witch hat and witch fingernail gloves from a dollar store. The next year, 2012, I actually spent much more effort and time to create a nice character, based on the Mittagsfrau, noon witch, who is a popular character in Sorbian mythology. I bought some nice props and make up and sewed a dress from an old red t-shirt, and then got a nice black cape to go with it. And as I was seriously in a Halloween spirit after re-discovering the noon witch for the NYC halloween parade (I still believe I am the only Sorbian in Manhattan — please, anybody out there who can prove me wrong, go ahead, email me!), I told Dean endless stories about all the evil things the noon witch does and then decorated the computer shop I was working for at that time to radiate some of the Halloween fun.

However, Hurricane Sandy happened, and that was it for 2012: The 2012 parade got cancelled. I think we just stayed home that evening. Meh.

For this year, I did dress up for real. With proper ghoulish make up and a fake injury on my hand, and a fake sickle, and — this is the true miracle — I put on a dress. Ask Dean how often I will wear a dress: close to never. Well, I do blame Dean: He brought this out in me. If I had not met him, I still wouldn't own any dresses at all. He likes it. He thinks I am beautiful, and if I have learnt one thing, then it is to trust him with issues like this. If he says I am beautiful, how can I argue with that?

As I was feeling pretty good about myself, I made Dean put on a frog hat, and then we went for a walk in our street. He just wanted to show off what he got (me ), and I wanted to run some errands, get the mail, buy some groceries, etc. We did that, but at the same time, our little walk constituted Rachel's first ever trick or treat.

East Germans knew about Halloween from watching the movie E.T. — that's it. Apparently, in recent years, Halloween is gaining ground in Germany, and that's probably a good thing, as it gives retailers a theme to decorate their stores in after fall — other than Christmas. (I have seen Christmas stuff out in stores starting in August, which made me hate shopping from August until December 27th.)

So, trick or treat! I had put a flashlight into my cute pink pumpkin-shaped little bucket, and it glowed just nicely. I hope that set a trend here, and next year, all kids will have flashlights in their trick-or-treat-bags. I need to set some standards here! :-)

Dean and I talked to some people in our street, and they actually gave us candy.

Next year, we will elaborate our ideas a bit — I will dress Dean in a green frog costume, and then I will kiss him and explain to people that if I kiss him hard enough, he must turn into a prince any minute now! And I will probably turn the trick or treat thing on its head for a bit. How about I bring little gifts for the people in our street? They certainly do deserve a nice thank you for welcoming me here.

Later that evening, I had planned to go see the parade, but I was too late, and the police had already started blocking off the parade, as too many people were on the site, and they wanted to keep it safe. Nevertheless, I had a great evening, and I enjoyed being exhibitionistic — which is utterly out of character for me. People who usually see me wear jeans, sneakers, and a t-shirt were stunned to discover that I actually have long hair, and can actually wear a dress. As Luba from the boutique downstairs said, "Look at you!"

Yep, look at me.

[Contains spoilers.]

I am finishing my movie popcorn while I am writing this. I had eaten about two thirds of my popcorn during the asinine commercials, and once they were over, I completely forgot about it. I forgot about the chocolate and almonds and even the water. All you need to watch this movie is earplugs, 3D glasses, and a boyfriend with at least one arm that you can squeeze.

Dean had made me watch the trailer a few times, and I remember stopping breathing and then gasping for air when it was over. Each time I watched it. We took that as a good omen, and after reading a few reviews, we decided to go watch it on the biggest possible screen, with the best 3D available. Which, in Manhattan, is the AMC at the Lincoln Center.

I like it when good things are successful, and the current screenings of Gravity are sold out. Good. Unfortunately, the Upper West Side does not know how to properly watch a movie, and most of the audience jumped up and started moving towards the exits as soon as the end credits came on. That is wrong. You don't do that. Especially not if you just saw a movie of this class. You sit until the end credits are over, and once the lights are back on, you slowly and orderly leave the theatre.

The story is rather subtle — it's all about letting go, not letting go, and having a reason to live. In real life, an astronaut in Ryan Stone's situation would probably not be allowed to go any missions. A real astronaut should not have to overcome an identity crisis before they start fighting for their life, but that would not make a good movie. That and some other — minor — details don't really add up, and I will probably enjoy reading nitpicking reviews on the bad astronomy of Gravity. But none of that will away take any of the pleasure of a really good cinema experience.

Apart from that, this movie has everything: freezing cold, lack of oxygen, dizzyness, loneliness, panic, unbearable heat, and the fear of drowning. Is it even possible for anybody else but Houdini to get out of a space suit when you are under water?

Ryan has to let go of her dead daughter first before she can start fighting for her own life. I liked that part best — when she decides to let go, to fight and accept the outcome of fighting. Even if she had burnt to death during re-entry, that would have been okay, because at that point, she is no longer a broken creature.

Dean claims I was biting my nails and grabbing his hand and squeezing it real hard. As probably the only person in the theatre, I got to experience this movie in 3D — I was so tense my leg started cramping just when the debris hit the Chinese Space station and Ryan Stone was about to get offed — once again. I was suffering with her. Perfect timing.

If the studios should decide to keep making 3D movies of this class, they won't have to fear losing any revenue to speak of to piracy until the masses have 50 feet wide 3D screens.

So, how did they make this movie? I am looking forward to watching the making of. I am grateful this movie reminded me of the joy that comes with resolving to fight and die standing in your boots rather than lying down to die. And I am pretty glad I do not have to go to space and experience lacking gravity — or oxygen, for that matter — myself now, because I watched this movie. It was that good.

One of the fun things to do in New York in September is going to The Feast de San Gennaro in Little Italy. It helps if you have seen the Godfather movies.

There is a lot of good Italian food, and music, and a few processions, and a blood donation drive, and I usually donate a few bucks for disabled vets, and you see a lot of Italian and American flags, and if you never had a cannoli before in your life, you should definitely try one here, or buy some, and then eat them at home — while watching the Godfather movies.

Dean and I had a good time eating a hot dog and visiting a nearby bookstore and then having a coffee outside a church, listening to a brass band playing classics like the Theme from Godfather. I returned a few days later, to take pictures and maybe have a coffee.

But this time, I ended up a little outside the actual street fair on Mulberry — for some reason, I walked to the corner of Mott and Hester Street, where some event seemed to just have happened. A number of people were holding something rolled up, which I figured had to be the flag of the United States, a giant one, and as people on a rooftop nearby were removing ropes, I deduced that the flag must have been hanging on that building — six floors high. It would have been nice if I had gotten a nice photo of the flag on that building, but oh, well I was too late for that. So I took a few pictures, just in case, and wondered what they would do next with this huge flag. Certainly you do not transport the flag of the United States rolled up like a carpet.

The people holding the rolled up flag moved to the far corner of the street, and when it dawned to be that I was about to witness the unfurling of the flag, I took a video clip, of course. The whole thing turned into a truly breathtaking, and heart­breakingly beautiful scene, right on the border between Little Italy and Chinatown, with people of all races holding the flag, and bystanders rushing to come and hold the flag as it was spreading. I had found a nice spot where I would not be in the way, and filmed this wonderful, only partly planned scene. Clearly, nobody had assigned people to hold the flag; whoever had came up with the idea for this event had just counted on random members of the public to take part. Apparently, whoever had organized this knew to rely on people just caring enough.

Well, I filmed until the flag reached me, and there was nobody standing near me who could fill this gap — but me. I slipped the camera into my pocket, grabbed the flag, and now I was part of it.

More and more people came to hold it, and I vaguely wondered whether I, as a resident alien, would be elegible to hold the flag at all. But at this moment, the only thing that counted was that I was there to fill the gap, and I was willing and able to do it.

We did a great job learning the rules on the job — like the one that the flag must never touch the ground, and so some people checked underneath to make sure this did not happen. A Catholic priest held a speech about patriotism, loving your country, and letting other nations love their own countries as well. I do not remember that much of the actual words.

After that speech, it was time to fold it properly. In order to fold it thirteen times, we had to hold it real tight, and the whole thing was definitely a bit like a team-building exersize, only much more natural, and happy.

Nobody cared the least about whether I was entitled to take part in this — I did, and that was good enough. In many regards, this is what makes this city, and this country great. If you are willing to be one of us, if you are contributing, you are welcome, and there is a place for you here.

As the flag was being folded into smaller and smaller pieces, the people were freed of their task again, and once the flag was actually neatly folded up as a triangle, we gave ourselves a good applause. Spontaneous applause on the street is rare in Europe — it is one thing that reminds me that I am actually in a new country here.

So, I now had taken part in a military fold of the US flag, and not some cutsie 3 by 5 index card flag, either, but a 92 pound giant flag!

Right now, I do feel like I am on the forefront of something valuable to all mankind. Nobody asked whether I was entitled to take part, my help was welcomed and accepted. I feel like I just passed the last in a series of unofficial tests.

If you are not lucky enough to live in this city — do come visit us. Regain your belief in mankind.

As soon as I got home I showed Dean the pictures I had taken. And he made a video of me showing them. The pictures you see above are frames from his video.

And here is one of my videos:

I just came home from a nice chat over coffee and cake with a friend: We start most weekends like that, just hanging out for an hour or two, discussing the last week, and what we are looking forward to. This always leaves me feeling pretty upbeat and inspired, wanting to use this attitude for something bigger.

Today, outside his building, I stumbled and fell. This is 10th and D, and you know the old saying about Alphabet City? "Avenue A, you're alright. Avenue B, you're brave. Avenue C, you're crazy. Avenue D, you're dead". Now this may have been true in the 1970s and 1980s, after dark. I don't know, I was not here then. Today, and before sunset, I just got the nicest reactions from two men hanging out on the stoop. One stretched his hand out to help me up.

I have stumbled and fallen quite a few times this year, and frankly, I do not need any more of that. What can I say, the sidewalks here do need some work. But if you absolutely must trip and fall, the East Village is the place to go. I haven't tried it in the UES and UWS yet, and I somehow suspect it people might not be that relaxed and helpful there.

Here, somebody will immediately help you up, ask if you want them to call an ambulance; I even had people wait and stay with me until I had recovered from the shock. If they are capable of helping, you seem harmless enough, and the whole thing is not going to mess up all their plans, or get them hurt, they will help. All these qualifiers are necessary, though: If you live in New York for a while, you will read enough newspaper articles about good samaritans getting hurt, or killed. But helping me is probably not going to get anybody into trouble, so I do get help.

A block away, with my hands still hurting, I saw a cat cross the street, and walk towards a patch of grass, which he started chewing on. He had only half a tail, but he as dressed in a pretty red collar with a bell on. He probably lost his tail to something horrible, but he had somebody who cares for him. By this time, I was wondering whether I could get any happier than this today.

Another block closer to home, in the park, I had to stop to adore a girl and her tiny little baby doggie — the tiniest dog I have ever seen. A few weeks old, out for the first time, super excited, she was sniffing at me. Standing up leaning against my leg, she would have fitted on my hand. Maybe a tenth of my cat, you easily could pick her up with one hand. She was making friends everywhere she went.

Just one block away from home, I saw a poster for the next block party on 9th street, and by now I was so hyper and in love with the world, I just wanted to get involved. I'll be either at the block party, or in TSP on Saturday, and give away free books. This neighborhood is a good one, and it deserves all my attentions, and whatever I can give back.

Let's fall in love. I have found the right place.

This morning, I enjoyed a nice bike ride to Battery Park City, and then took a nice walk to Robert J. Wagner Park. It was almost noon when I was seriously in need of a coffee, and headed for the direction in which I suspected some. I had to leave the park for that; some things just require some compromise.

On the sidewalk just outside the park, I saw an unusual bird, and I heard a few people discuss whether this was a peacock, or a turkey. I ended up walking along side the bird, taking pictures and clips, like everybody else.

Turkeys are rather uncommon where I come from, and I have no idea what they need, but they probably do not belong on a busy Manhattan street. A few times, the bird was walking into traffic, and that was something nobody wanted to see escalate into a dangerous situation.

But with people walking past, taking pictures, and passing on, only me and another woman ended up actually taking responsibility for the bird. She called 311, and found out that the bird lived in the park, in an enclosure. Now it had escaped and could not find her way back. We slowly walked the bird back towards the park, which took a good 15 minutes. I prevented her from walking into traffic a few times.

This sounds utterly undramatic, but it was not. Manhattan is so busy, a constant flow of moving people, many not looking, most distracted by their cell phones and mp3 players. One man a rode a bicycle, at high speed, followed by a child on a bicycle, right through the pedestrians, bumping into one of them, cursing instead of at least saying sorry. He certainly did not see the bird, nor would he have given a shit, and he certainly did not care what distress he caused to the people trying to guide the bird back to safety. The longer I live here, the more I consider challenges like that a test for my character — to not waste any energy on that, not get upset, not let it distract me from what I want.

At one point, I actually stood on the street, gesturing to cab drivers to stop and watch out for the bird. Back at the park, I left the woman and the turkey, wating for the park staff, not without taking a last picture, and feeling pretty okay about the world. And next time, I'll know to call 311 right away.

Ten minutes later, I had my first coffee, and sat down in Bowling Green Park to enjoy it, while watching a bird take a bath in a puddle. Two men walking through the park stopped in some distance from the bird, to not scare it, waiting patiently, and only continued once the bird was done bathing. Most of the time, I want to hug the entire city, but sometimes I am so proud of New Yorkers I am just speechless.

According to a recent, totally irrelevant study, New Yorkers are very, very arrogant. That is probably true, but who frikken cares. Only in New York City will your average morning include walking through a film set, seeing a flock of helicopters and the silliest cars in the world, hearing total strangers tell you they love your hat, witnessing an arrest on the street, or maybe rescuing a turkey before having a coffee. There is no way living in New York will not get to your head, and make you arrogant in funny ways. And, goddamnit, do I not care what you think!

[Disclosure: Yes, I did take acting classes in high school, yes, I did study modern history and political sciences, among other things, and at one point in my life — well, under communism, actually — I may or may not have wanted to become a politican. ]

This was the first play I have ever seen in New York, or America, for that matter. So all I can compare this to is German mostly small town performances — and damn is New York a whole class of its own. Must be all those acting schools and Broadway theatres and the fierce competition that comes with it.

Am I giving away too much by telling you the very first thing you hear — before you see anything much at all — is one stroke of genius in terms of connecting with the audience? Sound designer John D. Ivy starts the play with the same song that the movie Dirty Dancing starts with, but while you are cheerily remembering the 1960's of that movie, this setting is overtaken by something way more chilling — the soundbites from the JFK assassination in Dallas, turning every single stomach in the audience.

Here is the only thing I did not like: All the intense, high-powered, loud scenes, especially during the first half, were getting a bit dreary. When everything is important, nothing really is. Even men who are addicted to power do have private, calm moments; they doubt and brood, and they have monosyllabic conversations where what is left unsaid is more important than what is said. And the audience needs quiet scenes to structure what is going on. Remember Casablanca or The Godfather? Those memorable one-liners that make a classic might have been there, but they were drowned out by too much alpha male noise.

Everything else was great, and I noticed things I usually do not notice, like the very effective lighting, especially during the last scene, which made it very easy to imagine this as a Hollywood movie — or rather, made it hard not to see this as a future movie. The stage setting, brilliant for its simple effectiveness: the Oval Office, varied by light, and surroundings like the swimming pool. My favourite "thing" was Marilyn O'Connell, the very sexy, very professional secretary of LBJ, present only as the voice on the intercom. May I please push that button, Mr. President?

There were a few good laughs, and tragic moments as well — how do good men end up doing bad things? If the goal of life is to make it through with your mental health and your creative capabilities intact, then the job of the President of the U.S. is one of the most dramatic situations a man can find himself in. How much of your moral integrity will be left after a term or two in the Oval Office? And how much can you actually achieve of that great vision that you presented to your voters? On top of dealing with all the problems in the world, can you create a great society? Or is all you can do inspire people to create one?

As somebody who grew up on the other side of the Iron Curtain, I was not looking forward to seeing a play glorifying socialist big government programs, especially not at a time when Congress is exempting itself from the Obamacare tax it is forcing on the commoners. But playwright Alexander Harrington was smart to give voice to a few facts leftists like to forget, or like to mispresent as something not inherent in communist ideology, like the way communist regimes deal with dissidents. Ordinary Americans, used to free speech, private ownership of guns, and other inalienable rights, cannot imagine the chilling effect on the mental health of people under communist regimes, who have to wonder all the time, am I already being a dissident for thinking this or that?

After three hours of high-powered, electrifying acting — and what could be more energizing than actors playing politicians? — I was struck by how normal the actors looked in ordinary street clothes. Wow — to be playing the President of the United States of America in a Broadway play in fricken New York City, and then to slip out on the streets as a perfectly normal face in the crowd

To return to my inital ponderings about the theatre of New York — is this a common experience for theatre-goers in this city, that you have a hard time imagining a play not becoming a great Hollywood movie? Anyway, I would not be surprised to see this play going full Hollywood movie three years from now.

Two years ago, I moved to America.

A number of things all happened more or less at the same time. Me, coming from a relatively small place, where I had been living on my own for most of my life, moving to Manhattan, moving in with somebody I had not seen in over three years, getting married, learning how to share not just a small apartment, but a life.

This is my only life, and it is much more magical and real than I could have imagined.

In summer, my cousin Bia and I loved to lie on the lawn in our grandparents' garden, or on the beach, or where ever we happened to be, be quiet, and just read books. Lots of them. All day. Bia liked Science Fiction. I liked Cowboys and Indians.

Fast forward 25 years. I probably pass a dozen Indians, and maybe a cowboy or two, each day, and everything around me is science fiction. Dean and I live in apartment full of books, we have our own book club, and we have what we call book dates: We go to a book store, shop around, and, or, just sit in a quiet place, and read.

Only these quiet places are harder to find here in Manhattan, and one of the worst is the Scholastic bookstore on Broadway. This bookstore features a room full of noise-making equipment where the staff hypes up the children, animating them to jump and scream. Do the designers of this bookstore really believe that being on the Muppet Show will help a child quiet down and concentrate on thoughts? It must be a living nightmare for those children who actually like to read. Anyway, in this awful place, the least suitable for focusing and reading that I have ever seen, I discovered one of my favourite books of all times.

The book that initally caught my eye was , by . One shop assistant, seeing me with this book in my hand, recommended , by the same author.

Within less than a minute, I was choking.

I had to have this book.

The Arrival tells my experience of the last two years much better than I could, and it does so without words: Arriving in a new country. Whatever place you come from, upon landing here, becomes "The Old Country". Here and now is the new world, and learning to navigate it requires giving up quite a lot. Any old country thinking will not help.

The moon above me might be the same, but being closer to the equator, it sure does look different. I slept a lot during the first few weeks here, like a baby, and I noticed how the summer nights here sound very different — the fire trucks and ambulances and the crickets. There are dragonflies here. The plants and trees and insects and birds and squirrels are different. This is confusing and wonderful and scary and dangerous. I always loved squirrels, and in the old country, they were tiny, red, and shy. Here, they are big, grey or black, and cheeky. I like that.

On the other hand, if a midge-like creature bites me, I don't know how dangerous that is. Within a few weeks of coming here, I got this annoying rash, which several people told me could be poison ivy, well, we didn't have poison ivy in the old country Gingko trees are rare in Berlin, here, they line entire streets. American Cockroaches are giant, and I quickly learned to prefer them to the German ones. The first time I saw a cardinal and a blue jay, I almost collapsed with awe. Food that tastes like in the old country is difficult to get, and way more expensive, too. God, do I miss Leinöl und Quark. And don't get me started on rye bread. Sometimes you just stand infront of a shelf in a store and look for anything that looks like something from the old country. If you go to a farmer's market, you can actually buy squid. I didn't know that you can make cake from carrots, and I will never forget the first pumpkin pie of my life. People put a lot of ice in their drinks, but once you experienced the first really hot summer here, you will understand that, and all the ACs. I learned what it means to come "from a cold country".

If you think you can hack it here because you studied America and read all about it and saw it on TV you are in for some good surprises. It took me a while to stop being so pissed at all the journalists who misrepresent America in the European media. Even having excellent command of the English language is not as much of an advantage as one might think, as many of the natives, and especially strangers on the phone, don't seem to know it.

I miss the metric system. I am no longer 1,79m — I am five feet eleven now. An ounce or eight feet are still pretty sketchy concepts to me. One of my first friends here was our cat, and among other things, he taught me what sixteen pounds feels like. He can meow in German, that is such a relief to my ears.

Thank god cars are driving on the right side here, too, though it was pretty scary to see how New Yorkers don't wait for the lights to turn to cross a street. The streets don't have names, but numbers. Simple skills, like holding a conversation while walking down a street, have to be learned all over. The laws of gravity do apply in New York, which is as helpful as it is painful, and you should always remember that "The sidewalk is your enemy", as a friend keeps telling me. As with everything else in America, the potholes here are giant, and vicious on top of it.

People are very friendly here, and much more open and sophisticated than those that I met in the old country. I have become more like the typical New Yorker, or maybe I should say like the typical East Villager. Every once in a while, people tell me, The East Village is not America. I probably sound cute saying this, but I have been to Connecticut, New Jersey, the Upper West Side, and Brooklyn, and I can confirm that.

For months, I was just all over the place. I am still not exactly organized. But I now feel I am home whenever I return to my neighborhood. People know my name and my face, and that feels really good. The old country is 4.000 miles away, and I have made some kind of peace with the fact that I am living in a strange land now, that I got upgraded to Rachel 2.0, that I often have to guess and take risks, that my life is much more dreamlike, and real, at the same time.

On the day of the blizzard we were woken by bird songs. We usually hardly ever hear anything in our apartment, aside from an opera singer practicing scales. In summer, when we have the windows open, we hear sireens, helicopters, cicadas. But birds, in winter, in our backyard that has either bushes with berries nor birdhouses? So, the birds were unusual, and this went on all day until the storm.

After hurricane Sandy, we had stocked up on more batteries, emergency chargers, candles, funky headlights, etc. So we were pretty well prepared. As always before a major weather event, I filled various pots and a big barrel whose dayjob is that of a wastepaper bin with water. So far, we never had had the water turned off, while this is almost the rule for highrise buildings above the 10th floor, where people might go not just without power, but also without water for drinking or flushing the toilet. I know somebody who lives on the 18th floor and who was really messed up during the after-Sandy-blackout.

I had also stocked up on food. After Sandy, a few stores in our neighborhood had stayed open, inspite of the blackout, but who wants to go out during a snowstorm

Anyway, the day was nicely exciting, especially since we had the TV on to stay up to date just in case. Apart from those two storms that united to form a nor'easter, there was one other current event constantly reported on, the manhunt for a copkiller in the California mountains. Awesome. What could be better than a snowstorm at night while a killer is on the loose, while you have fresh strawberries from Florida and sit in a warm, dry apartment on the other end of the continent.

It had been raining for days before the storm, and those wet streets suddenly froze, then came the snow, which was falling for a good 30 hours, but apart from that, Manhattan was fine.

On the next morning, the streets had been cleared, as had been most of the sidewalks. There are lots of tiny stores in our neighborhood, and the owners are responsible for keeping the sidewalk infront of their stores safe, but as the storefronts are so tiny, they often face just just 3 to 5 metres of sidewalk, so clearing that is no big deal.

In areas without stores, and in parks, the situation is a bit different, as the city is in charge of clearing those sidewalks, and the people doing these jobs may not be exactly friendly. Often, the parks are simply closed after a weather event. People living near Tompkins Square Park are getting fed up with this, so some have taken on putting sand on the sidewalks in the park themselves, instead of waiting for the park employees to do this. I talked to one woman with a bucket and a tiny shovel throwing sand, and she got to hear "Thank you!" from everybody she met.

People were upbeat and cheery, and it was sunny all day, so I went out again after lunch to take more pictures. I bought a coffee for a buck at Ray's Candy Store and had small talk with a few people. Generally everybody was happy their kids could run around with their sledges and build funny sculptures from snow. I saw a few tiny snowmen, but mainly more phantastic stuff like snow sharks, the pyramids of Gisey, and the sphinx. I noticed that only White and Asian people seemed to enjoy the snow enough to build sculptures.

The flag in the park was at halfmast, as former mayor Koch had died. I think that was on the same day my grandpa died.

Later, I found out why I had been hearing birds: Between the window sill and the AC, there is a narrow space just big enough to harbor a gang of birdies in a blizzard: It is dry, protected from wind, and some warmth is seeping through. The birds surely felt something was up.

A clip I took afterwards in the backyard:

All in all, we had a nice, cosy snow storm.

Greetings from the stormy islanders including the fluffy kittycat.

We had a lot of fun yesterday.

Well, at least one of us did. Me, I have to die now.

We dropped by a hot salad bar yesterday to have a late lunch. The food looked good, the place had wifi and good coffee, and a nice mezzaine. I had picked lots of tiny bites from the hot salad bar, among them something that looked like a mushroom cap.

This piece of mushroom turned out to be much more rubbery than I expected. And honestly, it tasted like fish. My nose is stuffed, so my sense of smell is on strike at the moment, but damn did this taste like fish. I really do not like eating fish. Or anything that lives under water. Just the smell of it revives memories of being forced to eat fish in kindergarten and elementary school, and makes me want to puke. Actually, just the idea that I might smell fish makes my stomach clench like a fist.

I am fine with photographed and painted fish. As long as it doesn't smell. And even living fish, let's say, on a pre-smello-vision TV. Or behind glass where they can't touch me. I am okay with those smell-less fish that cannot touch me on the telly. Very good fishies. Very polite and probably good citizens, too. I'm not sure if I would want them as my neighbors, but that's probably racist and anyway, we are living on an island.

I should have left it at that, just eaten the rest of my salad, and covered up the weird taste with more coffee. But I did not.

"Do you think this is really mushroom?", I asked Dean. He had four or five of these things on his plate.

I started to feel rather funny. I thought of the documentary we watched last night, about giant squids, because Dean and I are geeks; we love technology, strange creatures, and generally everything that requires smart effort. One of our favourite species is the cuttlefish — very smart, very funny, and beautiful, too. So I was thinking of the giant squid and their suckers. That might look like mushrooms if placed on a hot salad bar without labels.

"Did I just eat squid?"

Dean did not say anything. He tasted his mushroom.

"Tell me that these are mushrooms. If they are something else than mushrooms, I don't want to know. Just tell me that these are mushrooms "

In hindsight, I am impressed with his pokerface. He can be very convincing even when I know he is making things up. He must have had a really great time eating his mushrooms. Once Dean has decided to poke fun at me about something that distubs me, there is no way I can get the truth out of him because he will just keep pulling my legs. And arms. And tentacles, too.

"They are mushrooms", he said.

I relaxed a bit but not for long. My mind kept going back to how weird these mushrooms tasted. I had been wondering a bit about the rubbery, hard texture. Not mushroom-like at all

The rest of our meal I spent completely freaking out over whether I had just eaten squid. Or octopussy suckers. Hard, rubbery, fishy suckers. Dean had a great time, and as we left the hot salad bar, Dean asked one of the staff whether this might have been a squid or octopus.

My first instinct was to just run out of the door before I could hear the answer, but my damn legs carried me back to the hot salad bar so I was unable to miss hearing this:

"Yes, It's calamari "

I swear the world turning stopped for a short moment, like one of those insanely fast, smooth elevators where you get sea sick once they stop on the 40th floor.

Now my somatic paranoia, mixed with this imaginary sea-sickness, demanded all my attention. My knees got a little weak, I am sure my face turned green, I pressed my hand on my mouth I am sure made their day.

Back at home, I googled "I accidentially ate squid" and got : "A 63-year-old South Korean woman was shocked to learn she became pregnant with 12 baby squid after eating a portion of calamari. The story — definitely giving new meaning to the term Octomom — was authored by researchers at the Kwandong University College of Medicine."

This fully confirmed my firm suspicion that I have to die now. I have to die of Toxic Squid Pregnancy Poisoning (TSPP). Dean really should have stopped me from putting this on my plate, but it is too late now.

I am sitting in the basement.

Of Macy's, that is. And I am enjoying awesome Ben & Jerry ice cream.

My boyfriend just asked whether we had ice cream like that in East Germany, and in fact, for the best ice cream in East Germany, go to Burg Stargard. There is a legendary ice cream parlour that survived not only communism but also the predators that rose after its demise. However, the point here is that this particular ice cream parlour did not expand and spread its awesome recipe all over Germany as it would have deserved it in a free market society where the best idea actually has a chance to compete and win.

I did have a nice time at Macy's, and yes, it is amazing, and yet I feel somewhat sad, bordering on bitter. People deserve to enjoy their only life, and that includes buying random crap for the money they work for. Working without being able to buy what you desire is slavery. Yet that is what generations of people did under communism — work but not shop or travel.

At Ben & Jerry's, we put our heads through a cardboard logo, and a nice store assistant offered to take our pictures. I couldn't help but remember the store staff in East German stores, famous for their frustrated, hostile attitude. As a consumer, all you could do is come up with jokes.

I enjoy looking at nice design, pretty kitchenware, whatever. I don't care if this is stuff I don't need or cannot afford. What is worse — working all your life and never being allowed to go see Paris, or living in a big, big world where you have to figure out how to handle your freedom. How to make choices

There was a string stuck in Dean's toenail, and he told me to pull it out; so I did that.

Then he said, "Now eat it." So I did that.

Dean's expression was the most fun I had today!

"Ugh!!! Where did they find you?!"

Scratchie and Dean are taking a nap on our bed. I watched them for a while, they are so cute lying on their sides in almost the same position. I feel like having a coffee, but I prefer to wait for them to wake up. Dean would not wake if I opened the kitchen cabinet, but the cat would probably be up and running immediately; there might be something for him in it. It took almost half a year since I moved in with the boys until Scratchie stayed in the bed when either Dean or I came to join him.

Now I don't want to disturb them as they are lying there so peacefully.

My coffee has to wait.

Before I am fully conscious, I feel Scratchie jumping on the bed, and secretly, I am begging for just a few more minutes of sleep. How does that little pest know when I am surfacing from REM-sleep?

And thus a new day begins for us, whiskers tickling my face, followed by a soft, furry paw, and if I do not obey now, the saberteeth tiger will use his saberteeth. The predator demands to be fed.

I open my eyes and behind the tiger on the window sill, I see a blue streak of the sky.