Thursday, 21 July 2005 | Stuart

My friend Stuart left New York a week ago to move to Israel. We'd already said goodbye over a casual sushi dinner, sitting on stools while facing the city through glass, talking more in depth than we usually do, and afterwards walking around the city aimlessly. But last Tuesday he unexpectedly ended up in my neighborhood, so I ran out to meet him so that we could spend our last few moments in the same city half-arguing about cell phone etiquette and giving each other a big, sweaty hug. I'm going to miss him.

Stuart and I met in 1997, the first week after I moved to London. He was passing through the hostel where I was staying, on his way to Romania to sell prune juice or something equally odd. He and I and a few other strangers spent a day sightseeing in London just before he took off. I'm not sure how or why we kept in touch, but eventually he put me on his group email list, which he used like GPS, enabling his friends to keep up with his whereabouts. We rarely wrote personal emails, but for some reason, when I moved to New York three years ago, I included Stuart on a list of people I informed about my new address. I heard back from him right away; he was moving to New York on the same day as me.

Now he's gone again, and in May, my friend Joel left for Bangkok. But, as if my friends are taking shifts, Eric is joining me here next month (via Chicago) and my childhood friend Natasha now lives here too, the first time she and I have lived in the same town since 1986. It's an unexpected bonus, like being allowed to bring a friend along on a family vacation, or being told there's ice cream in the freezer. I'm so glad she's here.