As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I recently switched jobs. This has meant, as it always does, settling into a new commute and a new weekday neighborhood. I was at my last job for about two years, during which time I got to know the Financial District pretty well.  The staff at my favorite deli, the nearst Duane Reade, and the Starbucks downstairs all knew me as a regular (or at least knew my taste in coffee and sandwiches), and I was a little sorry to leave that behind and find myself wondering once again where to go for lunch or a drink.

But of course there’s a perfectly good deli near my new office (and the inevitable Starbucks and Duane Reade), and when I stopped in this morning for my coffee, the guy at the counter asked me if I wanted my usual. Two weeks in the neighborhood, and I already have a usual - these are the things that make me like living in New York. The guy who makes my coffee probably serves coffee to thousands of people in any given week, and I’ve only been in there four or five times so far, but New York deli staff seem to have an uncanny ability to recognize a regular in the making.

That doesn’t mean the people on the subway are any less obnoxious, though.