Thursday

Yesterday was a great day. It was also a long one. Whenever I do something at six in the morning I stay up all night (especially on topsy-turvy election days beginning with a dinner engagement and ending at a sun-up party, in clothes the official invites refer to as "smart casual"). This certainly contributed to my feeling of setlag throughout yesterday. After the last few elections I was stunned this one played out so handily--ballyhooed, as it has been, owing to certain hot-button expectations that never really materialized into reality. What Bradley Effect? Indeed, the four hours set aside for the official State Department shindig was nearly enough to accommodate everything from Kentucky going red at daybreak to the President-Elect's rousing and almost content-free acceptance speech. By then it was lunchtime, thankfully; when eyebrows weren't going to rise over the election night drinking I usually do. I joined a Voters Abroad afterparty in the smoky backroom of O'Brien’s Bar and lived the whole thing over again via CNN's twenty-four hour recap. And the day frittered by. I returned to the apartment in time for housekeeping to kick me back out again. Surfing the web, I marveled that my home state, generally red as a happy circus balloon seconds after the polls close, was still undecided hours after the race was called (and, in fact, remains yellow as of this report). I was exceedingly happy to read this. When Sunshine got off work, we returned to O'Brien’s before sharing a celebratory meal at the nearby Refinery where I ordered something called an "Obamatini": coffee-infused vodka and crème de cacao, with unmixed heavy cream doodles floating on the surface. It looked for all the world like a Hostess Cupcake in conical stemware. Later on I slept for eleven hours. [Cavin]