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Early in the evening, I had my Introduction to Modern Psychoanalysis class at the Center for Modern Psychoanalysis. As I disembarked the 6 train at Astor Place as I have over 1000 times in the last 7 years, I felt hope. Seemingly the first time in recent memory, I looked up. I popped into the Starbucks full of NYU students, bought myself a coffee frappuccino and skipped down 8th Street. It was really the weather that brought on this unprecendented random euphoria but it was long overdue.

After class, Z collected me for our weeky culture club--2 members does a club make. A rail of a man, hunched at the shoulders, salt creeping into his peppery hair in fitted Diesel jeans--his lankiness ever more apparent and eternally unapologetic--head bent, eyes focused on a piece of newsprint, awaiting me. A smile crept onto my face thinking of the hundreds of times I had met him thus in varying contexts with varying degrees of apprehension and enthusiasm coloring my consciousness. Time changes even as you stand still.

As we walked and talked, I was impressed as I always am at the ease in which converstaion flows between us. The lack of explanation should mean we run out of things to say, and sometimes we sit in silence, but it's never uncomfortable. I'm notorious for filling silences with sound but for some reason it's unnecessary with him. In the here and now, the effortlessness is what's most palpable and desired. Suddenly I'm overcome with grattitude for everything that's come before that has made what's here now possible, perhaps even made it more meaningful.

I'm animated and he's interested. I wobble in my heels and he laughs--it is funny but it's also comforting because I know he'll catch me before I hit pavement. He's not one for pep talks yet it's him I turn to in the darker hours because he won't coddle me. He won't lie to protect my fragility but he won't push till there's a crack in my humanity--a fine line, foreign to most.

I was raised in praise. One of those homes where the good got manigified and the bad brushed under the rug. So as I grew, I became weary of criticism and weak in handling it constructively. I think most only children come from similar situations and maybe it is that element that unites us in our quest to keep it real.

So the real point of this post is his glorious new abode overlooking the cube at Astor Place. 1800 luxurious square feet of hardwood flooring with ample closet space, 2.5 bathrooms, 4 bedrooms, 2 balconies--one of which is actually off his bedroom--, a laundry room which is larger than most NYU singles, and a quality kitchen with requisite black granite counters. The doorman building apparently has a pool on the roof and a gym somewhere within its winding hallways.

In all of this, the thing that resonates most in his happiness is humility. I would say that in many ways that is Z's most endearing quality. You would expect a certain swagger from a man who has accomplished what he has, but all you get is an unassuming demeanor, a book or newspaper in hand, and the sense that if we lived in a different time he'd have a hanky in his breast pocket.