I never wanted to be a person, I wanted to be a New Yorker.

In which our heroine goes out.

When I first moved to New York, I was so overwhelmed with the sheer opportunity of going out that on more than one occasion I just collapsed into a puddle of tears. I would become exhausted by journeying out to this lecture or that reading or this party or that show every night. My mother said to me some words I never forgot: “New York is always going t…