This was taken in Times Square. I was walking through on my way to work. I thought the reflections made the windows look like tiny little paintings. It was a lot more impressive in person.

A stormy morning outside the Fox News studios during their breast cancer awareness promotion. Even the planters were wrapped in pink! [Fun fact: the “planters” are actually concrete barricades that prevent someone from driving a truck loaded with explosives into the studios. It’s true!]

This beautiful bird bath is outside the church where my meditation classes are held. This is where I go to learn how not to suffer. Would that be an irony?

I spent the week designing and assembling the 2011 benefits book for the employees of a large investment bank. As a consultant, I don’t have any benefits. Do you know what their health plan includes? Foot care. Foot care! I have to write a fat check each month for, what amounts to, catastrophic coverage for my family and they get fucking FOOT CARE!

Also, alternative medicine, vision, dental, prescription, life insurance, accident plan, disability plan, legal assistance plan, long-term and retirement medical coverage. And that’s just the health plan. Don’t get me started on profit sharing, 401(k) company matching contributions and deep discounts on shares of stock.

Sign me up.

Over the summer I, along with several of my colleagues, were relocated from our tony Rockefeller Center digs in Midtown Manhattan down to Soho. All the girls squealed with delight because now they can visit shoe boutiques on their lunch hour, but I thought it was a downgrade. Midtown is where the action is, baby, and I miss it. The street meat in Soho is practically nonexistent. What I’ve found so far is drab and mushy.

The company I’m consulting for has a few offices in the city, including one still in Rockefeller Center. I’ve become a bit of a mercenary. I am sometimes sent to a hot spot to help out with the workload. I’ve been back at Rockefeller Center for the past week and it feels like home to me.

I celebrated my good fortune with a visit to Margon, a Cuban cafeteria-style joint on 46th Street. It’s tiny. If you’re not looking for it, you’ll pass by. The Cubanos are pretty popular but I’m not a fan. I go on Thursday or Friday for the ox tail.

Is ox tail actually from an ox or is that just the name of it? Who the hell raises ox? And I’ve never heard of ox meat for dinner. Are they raised simply for their delicious tails and to pull carts? I’ve never seen an ox. Do they even have tails? God, they’re good. That’s a plate of black beans, rice and fried plantains on the side. I glamor the girl behind the counter, so she always pours a little of the ox tail gravy on my rice and beans.

It’s pretty narrow and cramped. The crowd is a mix of laborers and suits. During peak lunch hours, you may end up eating with a total stranger if there are no other seats available. If you don’t like having your personal space violated or if you’re squeamish about eating off of plastic plates and trays, you’re probably in the wrong city, anyway. The food is scrumptious and that’s enough to keep me coming back.

In this one small section of 46th Street, within steps of each other, you can get an Irish meal at O’Brian’s, a Cuban meal at Margon, and an Indian meal at Minar. You can get a haircut, your nails done, a waxing, and your eyebrows threaded. You can also sell your excess gold for cash. You can go to St. Andrews, a Scottish bar/restaurant with a large LARGE selection of scotch whiskey. It’s the only place in town where you can order haggis. Again, this is all within about 10 paces of each other. Multiply that times 1,000. That’s New York City.

Have you ever noticed that after you’ve survived a bit of a crisis, food tastes better, colors are more vibrant and the air is more fragrant?

After a recent bout of unpleasantness, I blew off some steam on Friday night at the very masculine Hudson Bar and Books. It’s a scotch/cigar bar in the West Village. The wood is dark, the top of the bar is gold tin and the books are stained with cigar smoke. There’s always a James Bond movie playing on the TV in the corner. [This evening’s selection: Dr. No. Dynamite fashions. Ursula Andress emerges from the Caribbean. ]

If you fight and hang in there long enough, eventually you’ll get a bit of a repose and, if you’re lucky, someone will bring you a nice tumbler of 15-year old Balvenie on a silver tray with a little ice on the side. This is the moment you exhale and realize that the world has not, as expected, collapsed. And take it from me, pallies, the second round goes down even smoother.

My friend just returned from Spain and smuggled a few illegal Cuban cigars into the country. [The U.S. still has a trade embargo with Cuba, believe it or not.] I’m not a big cigar smoker—a few a year perhaps—but smoking a COHIBA from Habana felt dangerous and fit in with the evening theme of unwinding. The smoke was kind of harsh and my voice was several octaves deeper the next morning.

Afterwards, I took my somewhat tipsy ass for a walk. I walked from Hudson and Horatio, up 8th Avenue, all the way to Port Authority to catch my transport back to New Jersey—a distance of about 42 blocks. It was a glorious night. Just a tinge cool. Everyone was out and about. New York did what it always does for me—provided its own rolling sideshow. The big parade of humanity. When I got to 8th and 14th, I plugged my iPod in and listened to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. I know that’s kind of square but it worked so well that I listened to it twice.

I passed young couples who were arguing in the middle of the sidewalk right next to couples on first dates who clearly wanted to dispense with the formalities and get to main event. I walked over subway sidewalk grates that blew hot air up at me as A trains whizzed passed underneath. I’ve always heard that you shouldn’t walk on a subway grate because it could collapse under your weight. Not only has it never happened to me in 20+ years, I’ve never seen it happen to anyone else.

Is everyone aware that Manhattan is having a bedbug problem? It’s true! They’re everywhere. There are special trained beagles who can sniff out the little devils. Bed bug beagles! What a smart business opportunity.

I passed the Tello steakhouse on 8th and 20th Street. Its clever neon sign out front has a blinking “M” that implores you to “EAT” “MEAT.”

At 27th Street I passed a man in a wheelchair walking his three-legged dog. He (the dog) was missing his right front leg. Two tough sons-of-bitches.

At the other end of my trip home were two beautiful daughters safely snug in their beds and a wife who, once again, didn’t bail out on me when things went sour for a while. Between the three of them and New York City, I can’t see that I have much to complain about.