the sunday papers

Yeah, I know, it's pathetic. But think about it: You move to New York City to be part of the artistic elite, to go to cafes and argue late into the night about intellectual verites, to hang out with cool people and evade your Midwestern, middle-class, middlebrow—mild—upbringing. Then you have kids, and you have to earn a living. Then you get old, and you have to mind your health. Then, then, then—a thousand things erode that intitial, fabulous self-image of being a young-thinker-about-town, a cutting-edge iconoclast, a Not What You Were Brought Up To Be.
But then, once a week, comes Sunday morning. A morning when, unlike in any other city in the world, you can walk out to any street corner and buy The New York Times. A Times with the Metro and City sections in it, a Times that makes you feel as if you're at the center of that world you dreamed of in the burbs. So you put on a pot of Zabar's coffee. You open up the newspaper. You light a cigarette. Yes. This is the life you signed on for, all those years ago, when you were actually young and actually cool. Fuck the PC police. You are at the center of the universe.
Reason not to quit smoking today: It's Sunday.