I no longer get overwhelmed by pangs of desire and loss when I come to New York, but I'll never be immune to its pull, either. My brother just moved back to Austin because it had gotten so hard to live here, and there was a piece in the Times today or yesterday about how impossible it is to find an apartment, so it's pretty easy to talk myself out of wanting to move here again . . . and yet: chatting up the woman in front of us in line at the Penn Station taxi stand, watching pedestrians framed against Central Park's glorious trees through the cab window, passing a very serious-looking and well-dressed Indian man in a business suit whose hair and goatee were dyed a bright gingery orange . . . I miss it.