This piece is from tomorrow’s Met Diary. It’s called “Riding Downtown” and is by Isabel Walcott Draves.

I was headed downtown on the 2 train when a college-age girl sitting nearby began to sob.

I moved over to sit on her right just as a woman sitting on her left began to comfort her.

The girl said she was overwhelmed with anxiety and on the way to her therapist. A man sitting across from her offered her an unopened cold soda, which she accepted.

There we were on the train, four of us together, one of us in crisis. The situation seemed so precarious that I skipped my stop to stay by the young woman’s side. Her distress was palpable.

I, the woman on the left and the man offered her encouraging words in low tones. It seemed to help. She began to breathe normally and calmed down.

We reached Wall Street, the last stop in Manhattan. I didn’t have time to go to Brooklyn and get back to my destination in time.

Preparing to get off the train, I asked the young woman if she was going to be OK. As I did, the woman on her left said she had to get off too. The man sitting across from us said he felt bad because he also needed to get off.

We all asked the young woman if she was going to be OK. She nodded, but sniffled.

The three of us stood, hesitating as the doors opened. Suddenly, a woman swooped in from somewhere down the car and sat down in the seat I was vacating.

“I got her,” the woman said, smiling.

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The man is f*cking irreplaceable, but someone’s gotta try. And thus 19 folks have signed up to run on the GOP side for new OC staffer George Santos’s recently vacated House seat. One of them is George Grillo, 49, who refers to himself as the Republican Messiah, and who are we to quibble? Well, the Republican Messiah was convicted on Tuesday on five counts related to the January 6 riot at the Capitol, including a felony obstruction charge. In his defense he claimed he did not know that Congress convened there. I believe it.

Here are some shots of him in the Capitol that he’s using on his campaign posters. He’s the guy circled in red. Please contact us for information on how to contribute to his campaign or to help cover the legal costs of his appeal.

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Yesterday was the last day of classes for me for the semester. The big law class (90 students) was the most fun. Regrets – there was one story and one joke I wish I found the chance to tell. But that’s okay. One nice Asian girl handed me a note at the end of class: It was in the shape of a bunny and in it she thanked me for the class — said she enjoyed the stories and lectures. How nice is that? She got a 57 on the midterm, and will likely do worse on the final, but I’ll give her an A, for sure.

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One thing I can say about Yoko Ono and Roger Federer is that I didn’t notice anything about their hair-dos. But that’s on me, because both were by the very exclusive NYC hairstylist Tim Rogers, whose life was cut short (sorry) last month, at the age of only 51. The cause of death was not revealed. In addition to his upper upper clients, he was a presence at NY Fashion Week, doing hair for runway shows for designers, among them Marc Jacobs and Anna Sui, the latter of whom is a frequent visitor to Crossworld.

Actress Anna Kendrick was a client. She was not entirely pleased when our Phil broke in on them for this shot. Looking good, though. There’s no stopping the man, Anna — be thankful he didn’t wake you up.

Rogers also dished out beauty advice in a column in Redbook. This included counseling readers to avoid using too much shampoo, which “can strip hair of its protective oils, making it dry and dull.”

“Use only a nickel-size drop of shampoo on short-to-medium lengths, and a quarter-size dollop for long hair,” he added. “Emulsify it with water in your palm first, then rub it just on your scalp, where hair is most oily.”

Who knew? On the other hand, maybe that was what caused his death: shampoo deficiency.

Many of his clients were men, including Jack Schlossberg, JFK’s only grandson. He regularly rushed off to the Hamptons by helicopter to provide cuts to hedge fund managers and investment bankers. His fee could run as high as $800 per session.

According to the obit by Alex Williams in The Times, Rogers “treated everyone like a star, whether they were a celebrity, a model, a C.E.O. or a regular person. He believed everyone could be stylish and beautiful.”

Rogers is survived by his parents and brother, all three of whom look marvelous.

Rest in peace, Tim.

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Today’s puzzle is by two old pros: Doug Peterson and Christina Iverson and it was chock full of wonderful material. Rex felt constrained to disclose that Doug is an old friend of his, before starting his writeup. It led egs to start off his comment by stating: “Full disclosure: Doug and Christina are my parents.”

Some favorite clues/answers were:

34A “Defiant declaration popularized by the drag queen Bianca Del Rio.” Answer: NOT TODAY SATAN.

58A: “‘Let’s have our cake and eat it, too!’” Answer: WHY NOT BOTH?

17A: “100% correct!” Answer: CAN CONFIRM.

13D: “Causes to grow, humorously,” is EMBIGGENS.

Do you know about “embiggens?” It was used in The Simpsons in 1996. The founder of Springfield uses it in some old film footage and when one teacher asks another about it, she says: It’s a perfectly cromulent word. “Cromulent” was a made-up word that has since entered the language. I thought embiggens was also made up, but it goes as far back as the 1880s. Its use as an awkward word in The Simpsons has given it new life, e.g., in today’s puzzle. Miriam Webster includes both in her dictionary.

44D was “Idaho senator Mike,” and the answer was CRAPO. Never heard of the man. And yet he’s been in the Senate since 1999. It’s pronounced Kray-po, not Crap-po. He’s 72, married to his wife Susan for almost 50 years, and they have five Crapo children.

He opposed Obama’s health reform legislation. He voted against a bill that would have expanded background checks for all gun buyers. He urged Trump to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Agreement. He supported depriving Obama of a Supreme Court nominee with ten months left in office, but went along with rushing Trump’s nominee through two months before the election. Bottom line: An utterly unprincipled hack. Sullies the puzzle. Phil refused to waste time getting a shot of him.

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Yuck — we can’t end on that. Kooz — help us out!

From Winter Morning Walks.

A cold wind out of the west all night.
Where our row of Norwegian pines
lines the road, there were lots of joined pairs
of needles this morning, blown over the grass
and onto the shoulder, every pair
an elongated V, coated with frost,
and each pointing east southeast,
where, sure enough, the sun was rising.

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