A creature of the neighborhood

I'm savoring my last couple days in New York. So far today:

• Got severely ripped off buying school supplies. Should a regular, three-subject Mead notebook really be over $8? I contemplated this for a while, considering the alternatives, which were choosing other, more glamorous, and much more expensive notebooks at the same store, or scouring the entire Upper East Side for cheaper ones. Sheer boredom led me to get the Mead one.
• Made one last trip to Dean & Deluca, where I got a tasty lunch of sushi and iced coffee--cheaper than the notebook, go figure.
• Made a mental list of all the things I'd meant to do this summer, but hadn't. The only thing that came to mind was visiting Williamsburg, land of the hipsters. Then, upon reflection, I realized that this would probably have been a waste of time, as I saw plenty of hipsters right here in Manhattan, and hipster-watching is hardly worth a longer subway trip.
• Faced facts and realized that I am, after all, a creature of the neighborhood. Saw a girl, Upper East Sider all the way, slim, with straight dark brown hair and silver ballet flats, and stopped myself before rolling my eyes, realizing that, had I made a different shoe choice that morning (I, too, have silver ballet flats) and had I not dyed my hair this odd shade of reddish-brown, that could, in fact, be me. That, and I had sushi and iced coffee (with skim milk) for lunch, at Dean & Deluca, for god's sake. I mean, my cell phone rang both at the stationary store and at Dean & Deluca, so what I lacked in put-togetherness I made up for by being one of those people talking on a cell phone.