Her name was New York and she had a screwy subway system, among other perfect things about New York City.

It's hard for me to explain to you the way I fell in love with New York City, because to be honest, I don't have much experience with this whole "falling in love" ordeal. I thought maybe I'd fall in love with it the way I fall in love with good shoes or the way I fell in love with Beyonce's "Love on Top" the first time I heard it: fast and hard and easy and undying, though my actual love life hasn't always been just that.

There is a piece of me that was in love with that city long before I ever set foot within a hundred mile radius of it, but that was me loving the idea of it, I guess. So I fell in love with the city in a way that's difficult for me to put into words, because coming out of JFK? It wasn't what I expected. And I was sleep-deprived and jet-lagged and Queens just isn't really all that beautiful, to be honest.

But there was a moment when we came around a corner and the skyline stretched up and up and up and begged for me to reach for it, and I loved it. I loved the way that city can build tunnels underneath rivers and then scrape the clouds on the other end, but I guess the real thing that sold me was the subways. I know that sounds odd, but it just did it for me. That was the moment I knew I loved New York City more than I ever even imagined I would. There was something about the way there is this whole system of dirty, gritty, musky trains tearing through the catacombs of the most glamorous city in the world. What I realized was that home isn't ever going to be perfect. It's not going to always be clean and gleaming and studded with diamonds. Home is where people laugh at your jokes and hold your hand even if it's a little germy.

Maybe what it really is about the subway is this whole poetry in motion thing they've got going on right now. Like, does that scream my name or does that scream my name? My entire life is poetry in motion.

So the subways sold me, weirdly, and after that it was a straight shot to heaven. I welled up in Times Square at night. I spun, arms open, laughing on Fifth Avenue. I stared at a Matisse in the Met and had to do deep breathing. I ate some of the best food I've ever had in my entire life in this bizarre Vietnamese place somewhere in SoHo that I'm sure I'll never be able to find again and that's a travesty. I crushed on every boy on the underground. I wanted to hug the bull on Wall Street and kiss every NYU flag and spend eternity with the weird gorgonzola/pear/honey/greens/balsamic salad my mom found somewhere in Hell's Kitchen. I loved my tour guide and Max Brenner's weird chocolate shop that felt like a nightclub and I don't even like dark chocolate, but there was this gelato place that made this dark chocolate hot chocolate and I think that might be the presence of heaven on earth in food form. I stood and stared at a name in the 9/11 memorial for a solid five minutes and wondered who they were and praised that city for emblazoning that name in bronze because I don't think they should ever be forgotten.

I was proud of myself when I started to figure out that the World Trade Center was to the south and the Empire State Building was north, and I envied every person with their thick city accent who "Yeah, I know the subway routes, why? Where you goin'?" because how the heck do you figure that thing out?!

But I just sort of walked away feeling different. A rite of passage. First bra, first kiss, first trip to New York. Toughens you up a little. Puts a little swagger in your step (or something).

There's a part of me that could go on forever about this. Don't get me started, because I will, but I should stop now, before I get ahead of myself. These last two weeks have been lessons in falling in love. For real this time. And it's never what you expect, except that it feels like coming home.

"If you want to become a real New Yorker, there's only one rule: You have to believe that New York is, has been, and always will be the greatest city on earth. The center of the universe." -Ellen R. Shapiro
-me.