How was your blackout? Mine was fine, thanks.

I was in a meeting when the lights went out, but we elected to stay til the end. At 5:00, we emerged from the conference room to a complete ghost town. Almost everyone had left.

I walked down the completely dark staircase, and who do I run into on the 4th floor landing but Monkey! He had stormed my building against the security guard's protests to come get me. At this point, we weren't sure whether this was the coming of the apocalypse or some simple technical glitch, so it was a nice to be together to face whatever was about to happen.

We walked to the ferry terminal, but it was a complete madhouse, so we decided to walk all the way home, backtracking to the Brooklyn Bridge. The walkway on the bridge was so packed that we had to walk in the roadway, alongside the cars. I walked behind a guy wearing a bag that said, "Meredith's Bat Mitzvah was HOT HOT HOT!"

About halfway over I noticed the bridge swaying and wondered whether this was normal, or a sign of imminent collapse. A lot of others were wondering about this, too, but we all got over just fine.

M. and I stopped briefly at a diner to go to the bathroom (the very nice owner of the Brooklyn Bridge Diner gave us flashlights and showed us to the accomodations, apologizing for the darkness.)

After that, it was just the long trudge home. We were both in good spirits, had sneakers on, and are strong walkers. People were generally calm and helpful--some were setting out cups of water for others, some homeboys were directing traffic as temporary deputies of the traffic cops, replete with orange vests.

We made it home on the dot of 8:30, just as the sun went down, and enjoyed a nice old-fashioned evening of candlelight and word games.

And now: Vegas!!