There’s a great scene in “The Crown” where Queen Mary, Elizabeth II’s grandmother, is in bed, smoking away, and she mentions that she can hear people outside practicing for the procession that will occur upon her death.

The thing is it’s not an average day, and as someone who’s lived here for 30 years I thought I could shield my niece from a lot of NYC’s craziness but so much is unavoidable. She got a month’s worth in 12 hours. And she was only 19 and had never been in an urban environment before. I would have been terrified. She…

I’ll take you out of the grays to thank you and explain myself. My husband and I have indeed lived here for 30 years, but we’re in our 50s, so we’re not natives.

It was interesting to kind of second-hand experience what it must be like to be a 19-year-old woman who is a newcomer to New York. Stuff that I take for granted, the subways for example, must mystify people. I don’t know how people who aren’t fluent in English manage them. While we were standing around in the Times…

In retrospect this comment came off as callous, at best. For that I apologize. But I’ve never had children and I’m very close to all of my many family members, and I was acting in loco parentis to a very unworldly young woman. I guess my latent parental instincts were kicking in.

I’ve never understood the appeal of Gucci. The stuff is aggressively ugly.

I think it’s more vaguely Art Deco. The round mirrors for one, and if you look closely, those lamps are kind of Art Deco. I could see that fireplace (with a less “wow” pattern) in Jay Gatsby’s house. Even the strange hanging chaise longue or however you’d describe it might fit in with the decor of a large bedroom in…

CAUTION: Long post ahead. And I Heart NY, this was an especially cursed episode.

Love your user name.

You have a promising career in corporate PR ahead of you.

You would think that with Diahann Carroll’s recent unfortunate passing more people would remember “Dynasty” and what a runaway hit that was in the 80s.

Net worth of $4.5 billion.

That was kind of the subject of last Friday’s Pissing Contest:

I wonder if HBC ever met Princess Margaret in real life. Her great-grandfather was a Prime Minister (Asquith) and there are several life peers in her family tree. 

Oh my God, a Sugar Daddy! I haven’t thought about those in 40 years. In fact I don’t think I’ve seen one in 40 years.

I will have to try that, and maybe make an arugula side salad while I’m at it. 

The thing about Nixon was that the Republican leadership went to him and said, “For the good of the country and the good of the party you need to resign.” And he did. The Republican leadership is never going to do this to Trump and even if they did he’d laugh in their face. What country? What party?

I’m having two crowns put in in a couple of weeks. Boy does my timing suck. Why didn’t the scheduler at the front desk say something like, “You know, Halloween is coming up so you might want to put this off until mid-November...”

Oh, stuffed shells, I haven’t made those in months (it’s been too hot) and they’re one of my favorite foods! Maybe I’ll make them tonight, if I can summon the will to go to the supermarket. A pity about that garlic bread though: had they been fasting for a week or something? I’m a huge guy but I doubt I would have…

I did it because I live a very privileged life in a neighborhood with vast income disparities. My mother-in-law used to do something similar, and I was inspired by her.