Even as I struggle to locate my shady apartment and squint bemusedly at street signs, I am happy to be lost.  The people around me -- clad in such diverse colors and patterns my head spins -- are like an endless, shifting blanket.  They are the spongey layers of a lasagna that holds me at its center, its heart.  In this city, I am no one -- nothing more than a single crumb in the lemon-meringue pie that is New York-- and I am reborn.  My past is wiped clean away like makeup residue from my cheeks.  In this city I am anyone I wish to be, and it is the most wonderful feeling there is.

It is strange to think that in a dense and colorful city such as this one, practically the capitol of the world, people from my past are most likely all around me.  Today alone, I may have passed by two or three -- or, at any rate, two or three who at some point in their lifetimes had met or passed by someone who had met someone I know.  These people are close by me, yet lifetimes away.  And, while I suppose that together they are more than a crumb, they barely constitute half a crust of a single small pie piece, or perhaps a tablespoon of meringue.

I don't know what the future holds, but today I am more hopeful than ever.  With a cheap polyester scarf at my throat (an announcement to the world -- I am no longer abashed!) and a bag full of paper at my side, I am prepared for anything.

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