Granted, I still have self-involved moments. I still have moments where I gaze in a mirror at my wrinkly, wrinkly hide and think, Oh my God—total pachyderm. Skin care by W. H. Auden. But overall, I, like the rest of the country, have, in this period of America Fights Back, directed my gaze outward. Never before have I felt such allegiance to, or pride in, glorious New York City—I host, I invite, I sponsor; I am the mayor and the chamber of commerce of Nanhattan.

Rudy Giuliani told us that the best thing we can do for our city is spend money; I have looked deep within and met the challenge. I’ve also been helping incite others to spend money: one of the city’s finer department stores called and asked me to dream up some ideas for window displays for the Christmas season. Now, understand, I’m no traditionalist vis-a-vis holiday decorations. I’ve never really warmed to Santa, and elves are inextricably linked in my mind with the phrase “questionable bathing habits.” No, I adore the cheeky, pop-culture-sawy windows Simon Doonan has done for Barneys over the years. But, as you can imagine, this is a tricky time for humor and levity. For instance, I tabled my first idea right off the bat: I had thought it’d be fun to do a sunny setting that’s orderly but easily unmoored—flowers in a vase, patio furniture, a deck of playing cards—then direct an industrial-size wind machine at it and call the whole thing “Anne Heche.” But this seemed a little ... de trop. So I moved on. Next I had an idea to make a feministtype statement about how female editors in chief of magazines are fired with a casualness that borders on the wanton; I envisioned trapdoors and a lot of Thierry Mugler. Then Ithought that Imight poke fun at our president—despite his popularity rating—by doing something with that speech of his when he said, “I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family”; it would be divine to see children anxiously dodging foodstuffs being proffered by a mother who personifies Vogue s recent proclamation that this is “the year of the boot.” Then I “went cultural,” thinking I should comment on how Fay Weldon has written a novel for Bulgari, and how products like Froot Loops have branched out into children’s books in which the characters are, yes, Froot Loops. I imagined a window done up as a library, but a library whose books all contain very, very subtle references to stores or designers (e.g., John le Carre’s Tinker, Lord & Taylor, Spy; The Common Law, by Oliver Bendel’s Holmes; Prada and Prejudice; The Jil Sander of Iwo Jima). But, somehow, these ideas all seemed ... small. So instead I faxed in only one idea to the gal who’d called me. To wit: we behold a barren window, enveloped in darkness (this is not minimalism, this is total absence). We hear the sound of intense anticipation—a recording of several thousand people’s quick intake of breath. Suddenly a spotlight pinpoints a tiny note card lying on the window’s floor. The card reads, “Bush’s Tax Rebate: The Window.”

Two days later, my contact called back and said, “Nan. Fabulous. Love love love—you, the window idea, my idea to hire you to brainstorm ideas. But we’re going traditional. Not cheeky. Traditional. Elves.”

I chuckled inwardly. Merry Christmas, darlings.