Survival Rule 1 for NYC: Never. Make. Eye. Contact. Walking to the C train after dinner after “Chef,” my consort and I paused in Washington Square to see what everyone was staring at in a tree (last time it was a red-tail hawk), and I stupidly linked irises with some over-tanned nitwit in a baseball cap with a beanie propeller on top who wanted to inform me that he could tell said tree was 200 years old. “I’m a vegan, and I know things about plants — I can commune with them because I eat them.” And it was hard, but I stopped myself from responding: “Yeah, I’m the exact same way with cows.”