Looking back at photos is a dangerous game. Nostalgia can be a caustic drug, particularly when loss is involved. Here in the New York winter, those August days in the South feel impossible, unreal, until a picture brings it all back, all of it, the good and the bad, and there were plenty of both.

"My mom's cat was dying," a woman in a white blouse dotted with holographic silver sequins explains. ("I live in a community of healers," she told me earlier, in the same breezy, dismissive manner one might use to say in Queens.) "Couldn't eat. Had lost half her fur. And he saved her life."

Last week, after years of back-and-forth, it looked like New York might finally pass medical marijuana. Governor Andrew Cuomo, who opposed the idea as recently as last year, was basically on board, and the Compassionate Care Act had already passed the state Assembly. All that was left was the Senate, where the bill reportedly had more than enough support.

The other Sunday, my oldest brother, Ben, came to Fort Greene from Manhattan. It's our every-other-week ritual.

If you were released from prison after serving 17 years for murdering your friend, what would you really want to do upon experiencing freedom? Would "eating a cronut" be in the top 5,000? No? Well, you are not ex-New York club fixture Michael Alig, who literally cried while eating the pastry the other day.

In a twenty-two page complaint filed in a Manhattan federal court, Anton Purisima, 62, is suing everyone from New York City to Kmart to a "Chinese couple" who allegedly took photos of him while he was being treated at a hospital.

Columbia University has come under serious scrutiny for its handling of campus sexual-assault allegations lately. Legal complaints have been filed. Tell-alls have been written. And now, unsatisfied students are taking to the school's walls, sharing the names of alleged assaulters.

What you see above is a "bounce house"—those inflatable trampoline domes that kids love to jump in—being swept 50 feet into the air in South Glens Falls, N.Y. yesterday. Of the three children inside, two were taken to the hospital with serious injuries.

Shame on New York's dysfunctional state government: last night, in a disgusting display of favoritism for special interests, our State Senate attempted to hand the public's whole motherhumping life and legacy over to the forces of Big (Garbage) Yogurt.

An Australian grilled cheese maker called Jafflechutes, a name that I'll address with much concern later in this post, has succeeded in crowdfunding their parachute-based grilled cheese operation for a visit to New York, as soon as this month.

A couple that leapt to their deaths from the George Washington Bridge on Monday allegedly murdered a man in Suffern, N.Y. just before their joint suicide.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Gothamist, for bringing us Kalan.

Wednesday morning, police found at least 25 dead cats hanging from a tree in an abandoned lot in Yonkers, New York. The cats, most of which were stuffed in plastic bags, were arranged ritualistically throughout the tree, according to Vocativ.

When the police found me I was standing on a subway platform, somewhere in Brooklyn, barefoot, wearing only soccer shorts in October, and crying. My hands were folded behind my head like a captured soldier. For the previous 12 hours I had wandered the streets of New York, convinced that I was being videotaped, Truman Show-style, by hidden cameras. I made my living as a public defender in Brooklyn, but I did standup at night. I'd recently met with a network executive to discuss a pilot for a reality show based on my act; now I thought the city was my set.

A 45-year-old man surfing on top of a northbound subway car on the 6 line died Wednesday night after hitting his head against an overhang, according to DNAinfo.

Is it an effigy? Is it a "puppet"? Dude, when it's a likeness of the governor being hoisted by a demonstrator in a minuteman uniform over a crowd of angry gun-toting protesters in the capital, the optics sort of overpower the semantics.

New York City is so attractive that its population is growing past all-time highs. We're popular. We're cosmopolitan. And we have the most segregated schools in America.

Is your watch broken? Do you need to get your watch fixed? Are you looking for a New York-based watch repair shop? You should probably skip Ron Gordon Watch Repair, because he's so bad at fixing watches, he's threatening frivolous, insane lawsuits against critics.

Per Se, which calls itself “the urban interpretation of The French Laundry,” is considered one of the best dining establishments in New York City. The city’s health inspectors seem to disagree. Eater points out that the Columbus Circle restaurant racked up 42 “violation points” during a February 19 inspection—enough to earn a failing “C” grade if Per Se’s owner, American chef Thomas Keller, fails to contest the Department of Health’s findings. (In the meantime, the restaurant is required to display a prominent “Grade Pending” flier.)

Great news if you can't grow a beard and have a few thousand dollars to spare: "Facial hair transplants" are reportedly on the rise in New York.