Happy New Year

Walking through Times Square the other night after watching the final performance of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, the streets were still littered with New Year's confetti. Looking up, I could see it blowing off the nearby rooftops, spiraling down slowly like flat, overgrown snow. As I started down 42nd St., I turned back to get one last look at the ghostly flakes, and a working-class, red-haired, middle-aged man addressed me.

"It's still falling, isn't it?" he said. I agreed. "It'll be falling in a week still," he continued. "Seriously." I smiled. "Happy New Year," I said. And he said the same, and we both walked on.