round the corner from my house, there is a laundromat that doubles as a post office. Further down the street, there’s a mini-market that sells tacos in the back. I love the awkward economy of this arrangement, of two things smashed up together: a restaurant that sells waffles and gyros, a bar that is also a barber shop. My friends in New York have long since stopped taking notice of these quirks. Like the way people just toss old chairs and mattresses on the curb. A walk through the neighborhood can be like visiting a crappy Salvation Army--a bunch of hobbled chairs and couches vomiting their stuffing. The scrapper in me wants to make some use of all this foster furniture: Wouldn’t a torn-out car seat look cool in my living room? Couldn’t I paint that broken cabinet? Fortunately, I rarely can transport these things back to my apartment. Otherwise, I’d be knee-deep in junk and half-baked craft projects.

When my friends visit Texas for the first time, they bring back the oddest assortment of observations: Biblical quotes on the highway billboards, no-gun signs posted on gas stations, drive-thru beer barns. I call them “odd” because they are things I never thought to question, having grown up with them so long. (Drive-thru beer barn? I was born in a drive-thru beer barn.) And that must be how New Yorkers would feel, were they to hear that I get a little spike of excitement whenever I see a clothing line flapping in the breeze from a fifth-floor walkup, whenever an AC unit drips on me, or I see some business’ random concatenation—soap and barbecue, sushi and fried chicken. But then again, I’m also excited because I love sushi and fried chicken and, sheesh, they just saved me a trip!