METROPOLITAN DIARY
Giovanni
Dear Diary:
I married a woman with flight benefits.
I traveled to N.Y.C. to live like a local.
A museum, an opera, a slice, a haircut.
His name was Giovanni.
His joy, family.
Haircuts, his craft.
He greeted me and asked about family every 10 weeks.
He brimmed smiling when my wife visited.
He took several years to understand where I called home.
He called me Minnesota.
I adopted him as a friend, father and barber.
— Jim Johnson
Cortado
Dear Diary:
When I moved to Park Slope, I lived in an apartment on the third floor of a brownstone. Every Saturday and Sunday, I would walk to the coffee shop around the corner and order a cappuccino and an almond croissant.
After a few years, the woman who was my girlfriend then and is now my wife moved in, and I added a cortado to the order.
Later, we bought a place in Flatbush, and on the morning of our last day in Park Slope, I asked her to go to the coffee shop while I brought down the last boxes.
When she got there, she asked for a cappuccino, a cortado and an almond croissant.
The man behind the counter paused.
“I know that order,” he said. “You’re the cortado!”
— Connor Jennings
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html