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In the first week I was here I was forced to buy an umbrella. I simply did not need one in California, where the rainy season consists of a light mist for two weeks in February. And because I was so unused to having one, I had to buy two more as replacements within the first three weeks. I kept leaving them at restaurants or friends' houses. I soon learned, however, to think of my umbrella as a permanent appendage, no less useful than my left arm.

But while umbrellas are generally useful in staving off the rain, you get a good gust of wind underneath those things and they essentially become sails. No matter how fortified you think your umbrella may be, when that wind hits through the concrete canyon walls, you're off like Marry Poppins. I've literally seen small women dragged back several feet.

But that's if your umbrella is strong enough to withstand the winds. If it's a cheap one, the metal skeleton gives way immediately and you're left with an awkward, arachnidan mess on a stick. Which led me to my ultimate question: with so many New Yorkers battling their umbrellas on a weekly basis, why hasn't someone come up with a better idea?

In my quest to solve this riddle, I came across the "nubrella" pictured below. It claims to be absolutely wind-impenetrable and defiantly durable - all while keeping out even more rain than a normal umbrella. What a brilliant idea! Unfortunately, it has one very fatal flaw: no self-respecting New Yorker would be caught dead looking as much like a douche as this guy. Umbrellas, 1. New Yorkers, 0.

Do I get off at Nose or Ear?

The endless ins and outs of subway-riding culture never cease to amaze me. In the summer, you have to make sure the particular car you're walking into is air conditioned before you step into it. Especially if it's a car with one or more more homeless people already on it (which you should avoid 1: unless you plan on wearing eau de armpit that day and 2: unless you LIKE a little crazy with your morning coffee).

Next, you have to perfect the art of being aggressive enough to actually muscle your way IN to the damn car, but being careful NOT to touch anyone with more pressure than the normal brushing of clothes. If you do, you will be lucky to receive a look of condescending hatred. You will be unlucky to receive a much sharper shove back.

Then there are those brave, idiotic souls who venture BETWEEN cars while the train is still moving. This always fascinates me. I keep facing straight ahead, but with a careful watch out of the corner of my eye, my cell phone in-hand. I want to be prepared to snap a quick photo of their twisted body dangling to the tracks for the 6 o'clock news.

But my favorite. The one that is always good for a laugh are the people who sit on the part of the bench right in front of the subway map. It never fails that there will be that one person who has to study the map for at least five minutes. And if you're sitting in front of it, that means ducking your head left, right and downward until they're done. It's an incredibly awkward situation. And as long as it's not me, I giggle like mad. Note to newbies: the Times Square and Penn Station stops are especially good for this as they're typically tourist-saturated.

Here are some fantastic rules from New York Magazine:

Rules of the underground:
(1) Knees may be no more than six inches apart.
(2) If you can't control your offspring, watch as a stranger does it for you.
(3) What did we say about checking out the girls?
(4) The Post is only 25 cents—buy your own.
(5) Holding the subway door makes everyone on the train love you.
(6) As does loud music.
(7) Lie down on subway only if dead.

The Sun Also Rises

In moving from West to East I have taken the opposite path of the very sun. I’ve gone from peace-inducing evenings of sunsets to eye-widening mornings of sunrises. It’s the sun, it seems to me now, that shapes the cultures of the two coasts.

On the West coast, the sun was seducingly sedative. Every evening, I would peek out of the corner of my kitchen window at the ocean. Or I’d walk down to the sand to feel its breezes. The sun would set slowly at first, lazily strolling across the sky. But as it reddened and tightened into a little ball, it would suddenly and very visibly quicken its way through the draining sky. Finally, it would dip beneath the waves and I’d be left with the cooling, magical realm that is twilight. It was so easy to surrender yourself to the beauty and simplicity around you. But then, that could also leave you complacent and stale…which is what would have happened to me had I overstayed my time there.

Here on the East Coast the sun is quite the opposite. It comes raging out of the East River, the jagged skyscrapers absorbing its light and reflecting it back a thousand-fold like so many jeweled attendants. The windows of my apartment – all which share the Western wall, unobscured by obscurities - are temporarily blinded. The temperature of my apartment is immediately warmed by several degrees, even on the more winter-like mornings. Like a vampire, I hiss and reach for a non-existent marble lid that will block out this beast. But there is no sleeping in late by such windows.

This is a city where the sun itself orders you to get your big butt out of bed and carpe damn diem. I’m beginning to learn I better do exactly as he says.

In the Spirit of Lee Greenwood

One of the things I love most about my apartment is that I can see the Empire State Building clearly from the windows in all of my rooms. And on any given Holiday, they light it up with the appropriate colors. For example, it was spooky orange and creepy purple for Halloween - which I naturally adored. But what impressed me last night was what they did for Election Day.

Now, I'm fully aware and thankful that this election has been so insanely popular all over the US. But it seems even more palpable here in New York. Here, it's not a badge to say you follow politics...it's a prerequisite. Just a couple of weeks ago my co-workers didn't even attempt to disguise their gasps of disdain that I did not know who Joe the Plumber was. They're a group of mostly Latin-Americans and they were following US politics way more closely than I was. I felt not just un-American, but un-New Yorkian.

Yet listening to WNYC and constantly refreshing the election map page on nbc.com last night (bite me, I don't have a television yet) changed all that. I was talking and texting with friends all night. And even though I was technically alone and didn't go to any election day parties or events, I felt very much a part of something greater. The feeling was positively electric. You could literally feel it building up and down your spine, leaving tingles in your toes.

By the time Barack was being announced the winner, I'd heard stories from friends of American flags draped over hundreds of people in Union Square. Times Square was filled with New Yorkers and tourists alike, transfixed by the giant screens. I received txts of both "Yes we can!" and "Si Se Puede!" Hope filled the air in the form of cheers, shouts and honking horns for hours all over the city.

Before bed I looked out of my window to see that great beacon, the Empire State Building. It was all lit up in the center of the city in bright red and blue. And I smiled and then sighed, very proud to be in New York and very, very proud to be an American.

Coat Check It or Keep It On

As part of my introduction to this city, I've learned there's a whole coat culture out there. In the South, jackets are purely functional (the last trend I can remember more recent than Member's Only were those forest green LL Bean ones everybody just HAD to have). In LA people don't even bother with jackets, although the ladies will wear UGGs with shorts, which just breaks my poor, gay heart.

But here in New York, you have to have all kinds of jackets. Bubble jackets or Northfaces for everyday casual warmth. Trench coats for when it rains. Wool coats for, well, just to be a New Yorker. Not to mention all the different lighter jackets you have to have to match each and every outfit. I recently went to Burlington Coat Factory, but came out with nothing because I got lost in the choices. Waist, knee or ankle length? Grey, blue or black? Do brands matter? It was an ocean of options I had no idea how to navigate.

That's why it was doubly upsetting that while I was supposed to be decreasing my closet space, I actually lost a jacket. And not just any jacket, mind you. My favorite one. A brown, leather jacket from the 70s that was my Dad's when he was my age. This jacket was one of my prized possessions. But while out at a club last night, I made the fatal mistake of setting it down for no less than five minutes. When I returned...no jacket. I searched and searched, called the Lost & Found the next day and even put up an add on Craigslist. The damn thing is apparently gone for good.

Below is a photo of my beloved jacket (isn't she sexy?).

NOTICE: If you see someone wearing this jacket, you are required to immediately pummel that person to the ground, rip the jacket off of him and call me. If you do, I will love you for life. Just like my jacket.