The driver took the scenic route home, down the West Side Highway, lights versus lights, a face-off over the Hudson River. I can never decide which view is more beautiful. I was coming from one of my favorite nights in a long while, just one of those dinner parties with best friends where every conversation clicked, every morsel consumed loved, every moment exactly as it should be. I indulged in a car home, to my new new home, and the driver played Rum Diary on the DVD player and I collapsed against the leather seats. On my left, New York pulsed and played. On my right, the water moved but it seemed like the boats just stayed still, like they couldn't decide if they were real or just buoys; just extra thoughts some sailor artist had.

I didn't expect this car ride home to be full of so many memories. Here was midtown with all of my old haunts, the places that changed me most, I think, all those years ago. My old office. Then further downtown, my current office, my favorite walk, the corner where he kissed me the second time, which I sort of think of as the real time, because second kisses are more important than firsts.

I like this tour from a car. I am so rarely a passenger in cars, a circumstance I don't miss, but which occasionally reveals itself to be extraordinarily useful in this place of underground living. Who are all these others, on the road past midnight in their own cars? Are they going out or, like me, going home? Which do they wish they were doing?

Which do you?

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