Evidently, the power's back on.

One of the many, many reasons I love New York and New Yorkers: With power outages, jets flying overhead, people walking en masse over bridges, cell phones not working, and the like, you'd expect people to be coping with 9/11 trauma everywhere you looked... and instead (at least in Williamsburg, where I am), it's more like a gigantic block party. I'm sure some people are- quite understandably- having problems, but it's nothing like it could have been. No looting (at least, that I've heard of); no visible panic- instead, you have people like the woman just north of Washington Square Park, who was handing out cold water to passersby, or Rainie and the crowd at piano bar, laughing about the blackout of '77 ("You should have been here then. THAT was a blackout...") by candlelight, as the late afternoon sun silhouettes the people smoking in the doorway. Tough, strong, good people, New Yorkers are.

(One sad, pathetic exception to this: FUCK YOU to the guy driving the SUV who sat in the intersection and argued with the people- including me- who were helping to direct traffic at 15th and 5th as an ambulance- with siren going- waited behind. I wish I'd gotten your number, you pig.)