Returning home to Manhattan a few years after college, I ignored the prevailing advice that the only way to get a newspaper journalism job would be to forsake New York City life for a smaller town. I’d roamed the world solo from the Himalayas to the Nile. Now I was happy to be off the long hippie trail and back on the subway.

Instead of heading to a local daily in Somewhere, USA, I found work on New York’s fashion trade papers and set out on intrepid reporting assignments like asking men in Rockefeller Center how much they spend on their underwear.

Talking to strangers feels natural to me. So does gathering facts and finding fresh angles that make a great story.

On the style beat, I was determined to follow social issues and cultural trends, not just describe products. So, even at Women’s Wear Daily, I wrote about rent pressures in New York’s Garment District and the spread of sweatshops in Chinatown.

That led to covering real estate for The Wall Street Journal, writing business news and my Page One “A-head” on luxury hotels: “What’s That Thing-a-ma-jig in the John?” that considered the benefits of a bidet.

Perhaps I flushed my journalism career away too soon, but I beat the rush and was happy to move into PR and Corporate Communications, directing press strategy, messaging and content.

I’ve represented hospitals, schools, mission-driven non-profits, mayors and other elected officials. Typically, I’m speaking for others — marketing their strengths, or providing sensitive statements and guidance when bad things happen to (mostly) good companies. Or with taxpayers’ money.

Stories that stand out? Watching surgeons transplant half of a healthy man’s liver to a sick friend. Seeing someone (else) give birth for a women’s magazine feature. Managing New York’s tabloid media and politcal fallout after cops killed a young father in a public housing hallway.

Now I’m making time for some of my own stories too, in words and photos that embrace life’s idiosyncrasies. Like an essay I initially wrote for my two sons, published as a New York Times “Rites of Passage” column. Or captioned street shots taken in Brooklyn, and on the road where my global wanderlust still beckons, often.

There’s certainly more home-life details to convey that would round out this swift work-life rundown. Everything’s ready for story-mining, as media lingo goes. For me that would be the sometimes maddening mash-up of career, marriage and motherhood; confronting grief and loss of my husband, Michael; single parenting and the solace of smart, sweet sons; new jobs and a lack of them; shifting from city to suburbs and back again, meeting a man online and moving forward together.

These days, our south Brooklyn apartment has a wide harbor view and the comfort of the Manhattan skyline a short ferry ride away. My EZ Pass bill is insane, mostly from crossing the Verrazzano Bridge to see friends in the liberal New Jersey community that was home for two decades.

Of course, I continue to talk to random people on city streets — nearby in Bay Ridge and Tribeca; or in places like Mexico City and Santiago. Or Naples and Istanbul. Leaving the daily grind has enabled trips to Hanoi, and Cape Town. Bangkok, and Buenos Aires too. Find me in Pittsburgh, Palermo or Penang, all stops on many near and distant road trips.

Maybe it’s to capture someone’s image. And absorb a dose of news or politics. Or simply to sip the best coffee and hear travel advice, if not to report on anyone’s fashion spending habits. I don’t need boxer shorts as an ice-breaker, just curiosity.