I sometimes feel a little pressure to do more than just enjoy New York City—I’m supposed to be crazy about it, embrace it fiercely and declare that nowhere on earth could be better. But I’ve lived in many places, and I love Chicago, Boston, Iowa City, Prague, and London just as much as I love New York. Iowa City. How great is Iowa City? It’s green and hilly, you can leave things unlocked, play pool in old-fashioned bars, run into friends and neighbors on the street, squeeze into everyone’s favorite diner.

But of course I have moments of joy about living where I do. And there have been many such moments in the past few days, because Manhattan has been gorgeous. On Thursday morning, I chased down a cab and was driven uptown, the windows rolled down, buttery yellow sunshine, trees in bloom. Soho doesn’t have a lot of trees, but all of them are covered with white blossoms. I’m so grateful that, in my current apartment, I can actually hear birdsong (we used to live on Houston, and that sucked. We heard cars, car horns, and construction all the time). And last night we went to see Katy Pfaffl perform at the Canal Room. A good show, and there’s always something pleasant about hearing the clink of bottles during moments of quiet at a small concert.