I'm going to be a part of it.

Well, the animals laugh from the dark of the wilderness/

A baby cries hard in an apartment complex/

As I pass in a car buried under the influence/

The city's driving me out of my mind.

My tolerance for this city, like my tolerance for alcohol, crowded streets and my own family, is in a constant ebb and flow. The last few times I've taken the F I could have sworn I had taken the crazy train, a bag lady peeing her pants next to me while an old woman tells a crackhead to get her life together and stop begging for money on the train, the stop I get off on lined with homeless people tucked in for the night on cardboard boxes at 7 pm, their blackened calloused feet the only parts of their bodies peeking from beneath their filthy blankets.

As much as I breeze by these things, I soak them in. As Dailer put it, "deep down, you have feelings," and for a girl who was raised in the Midwest believing that her life could turn out just like the plot of The Secret Garden, a girl who got her EasyBake Oven when she was 14 (the same year she got an Erector Set with a real fake drill!), it wears me out emotionally. New York is like a really crappy boyfriend sometimes. Like sure, he forgets your birthday and you "fall down the stairs" every time the Yankees lose, but he also has the best food and an amazing public transportation system that allows you to drink yourself blind and still get home at night.

This morning I got boxed out for the last seat on the N train. It was clearly mine, but I hesitated, and a spry 50-something man hip-checked me and wedged his way into the center seat, a more appropriate fit for my (younger, smaller) ass but really, who's counting?

It's warm here, now, so the city is changing, waking up. There are literally mobs of teenagers roaming the streets, supporting my theory that being a teenager is boring no matter where you live, and the only three things you can do at that age when you aren't in school or on the internet is to see a movie, go eat with friends, or hang out. Right now everyone in this city ages 12-19 is opting for the third choice, and the sidewalks are a sea of questionable fashion choices and really expensive cell phones.

I met some friends for dinner the other night, after one of those days where I wanted to headbutt everyone in the 5 boroughs, the kind of day where went on Orbitz to check flight prices to anywhere. It had rained earlier in the day, but rain had given way to a clear and warmish night where everything seemed cleaner and shinier.

"Don't you feel lucky to live here?" my friend said, while sirens blared somewhere in the distance and our little threesome struggled to keep together in the tide of people flowing the opposite way down the sidewalk.

Of course I do.