A few weeks ago I was very surprised to pick up a copy of the Upper East Side Resident and see the headline "Crime Wave Hits East 78th Street." All the crimes included in this "wave" were committed at about this hour, between 2am and 5am. These crimes were a mixture of rapes and robberies, and each one occurred in the lobby or foyer of the victim's apartment building.

I thought of this as such a frivolous hazard a few moments ago at the corner of 78th Street and York Avenue. The wind made the street-signs and store canopies flail madly in the night, and taxis racing downwind seemed to have extra abandon raging at the heart of their insane speed. To hear these portentous gusts of cold air handily slaughter the streetscape, to shut my eyes and stand bolt upright in the freezing air and open every cell of my brain to this magnificent cacophony, to let this rebel air fill my body to the marrow and then to almost rush away with the winds and the trash right down the gutters and out to the shores is to gasp for balance while the breath of life suddenly flourished in this mad, mad rush.

How does anyone really know what to do at a time like this? There is surely a Ms. Manners column about it somewhere, trying to address those whose attempts at condolences have only worsened or patronized the grief of the survivors.

I do not really care to grieve among friends or strangers. Inevitably, there is a blatant competitiveness among mourners to prove that their grief is the deepest, and that their feelings for this person, however glibly conveyed while this person was living, are in fact the most profound and most sincere feelings of all those gathered at the bier.

It has happened with a blessed infrequency in my life, but I think that tonight I recognized what it is I do when informed of the death of a friend. I gasp for air, then bite my lip, think of everyone I know who should be informed, but then hang up the phone and pace back and forth through this tiny apartment, slowly and unconsciously growing the most outrageous, jealous smile across my face and reaching up to the sky. Tonight I shouted "You lucky bastard!"

I never know which way to look (should it be up, down, to the left?), but I look away from myself, and look somewhere quickly with the hope of stealing one more opportunity to say hello and then good-bye to someone we will never see again.

Tonight I thought of the conversations she and I had, of the times she visited me here in this apartment, of the times we made time to see each other during our workdays, of the eventful trip to Rochester well over a year ago; I thought of her as the originator of a certain phrase I've incorporated into my daily vernacular, and I thought of the other memories of other events which somehow include her.