The Mac is definitely not back and less than 12 hours after Obama's win, it was clear Manhattan's mood had lifted like a successful launch at Cape Canaveral. Gone was the fear of finding moose burgers on menus and hearing sentence structure so mangled that Strunk and White seemed the perfect housewarming gift for an incoming VP.
My lethargy on Election Day had manifested itself with exhaustion so extreme I had to take naps with MSNBC as background noise. Curiously enough, others equally fearful of a McCain-Palin win expressed feelings of depression and despair too. But the minute results were posted, poof when the cloud hanging over my head and the Xanax got moved to the back of the medicine cabinet. I had experienced a miracle without having to visit Lourdes or crawl up sacred steps on my knees.
Treating myself and a good friend to $38 Cobb salads at Michael's was worth the price of every lettuce leaf at Manhattan's epicenter restaurant because I needed to take the pulse of the city albeit in a microcosmic way. It was my first meal of the new era - and it didn't disappoint.
The atmosphere was buoyant and so unlike my lunch a few weeks ago when the same restaurant gave off the vibe you were savoring the last gimlet on the deck of the Titanic with not a lifeboat in sight.
Every pundit from Mary Matalin and Jim Carville to Charlie Rose worked the room and though my suspicion is that most of the media seers and soothsayers will go back on the shelf for another few years one could imagine a few deals being worked on over the massive plates of french fries; Barack Obama's power broker- dealer Bob Barnett dined with the married pundits and Charlie Rose took his whole team of producers to lunch to celebrate and told me, "the whole world is celebrating with us." Fox mingled with CNBC and Bloomberg with CNN. All was right once more.
NBC's Jeff Zucker lunched with Goldman's Lloyd Blankfein and even Lazard's Bruce Wasserstein looked like he might smile. The famous Texan, Joe Armstrong and I hugged like we'd just survived a Category 5 hurricane - which in fact we had.
New York doesn't do unhappy well. We wear our emotions out loud and share private thoughts with strangers when packed in subways or on line at the deli. For months we've struggled with a lousy economy, pink slips and fear of what would happen to us if the Republicans made it to the big house - feeling that we had become the bad guys had us on the run.
But in one blast of news heralding our new leader-elect, New Yorkers were back and the only Mac you'll now find is on a menu at a fast food restaurant.
(And by the way, I don't expect to be invited to the wedding of the Palin girl if in fact it ever happens now that Mom doesn't have use of the Rose Garden and Neiman Marcus has probably canceled her credit cards.)
