In a more happy note, here’s an email I wrote to a guy who I met out volunteering.

Dr. X,

It was nice meeting you on on the volunteer cleanup today. My wife and I are (most recently) from San Francisco, and New York has been kind of trying for us at times. We’ve had a lot of great times, but the city overwhelms us on occasion. But I think the way that New Yorkers are coming together in the aftermath of the hurricane, the number of people I see helping out, the way that people are genuinely inquiring after each other, genuinely listening to others stories— it’s really wonderful. For me, at least, this is going to be the year that I really started to love New York. And part of that is meeting people from all walks of life out volunteering. So thanks for being a part of that.

Got a really nice response, too.

Honestly, New Yorkers are impressing the fuck out of me. The people uptown here totally realize how lucky they are, I haven’t heard a single person complain, everyone just talks about what happened to others. Every volunteer event I’ve gone to has had more than enough volunteers to fill the jobs that are needed. A coffee shop brought out a brace of lattes for us while we were working near them.

I haven’t seen an example of greed or human stupidity in the aftermath of this storm. It’s kind of spooky.