If there’s one thing New Yorkers know how to get worked up about, it’s their leisure time. That’s why a question like ‘Where were you for the holidays?’ never gets a simple answer. People are either competitive about going someplace ahead of the curve or defensive about going someplace behind it. Florida to visit parents or Disney World is often explained with chagrin. And those who stick around the city can be quite aggressive when rationalizing why it’s so great to stay put and go to the movies.
“Let everyone else go through airport security,” one woman told me after making sure I knew she’d just been in Berlin on a motorcycle just before the holidays. “I’m staying home.” Good for you, I say to her, and God bless all of you who were sensible enough to do the same, especially those whose flights were canceled due to the blizzard.
The days after New Year’s and all through the land
Airports are packed with the rested and tanned.
Teterboro, Newark and old J.F.K.–
The baggage is coming, get out of the way.
St. Bart’s: Peggy Siegal and Andrew Saffir
Who make movie parties when they are both here.
Helen Lee Schifter was getting Mustiqued
Saint Bart’s, she now tells us, has already peaked.
She says on Mustique it’s about being chill.
Jay McInerney listened and followed the drill.
He sailed with Anne Hearst on a catamaran
Of which Terry McDonnell was at the command–
A Grenadines trip, louche, relaxing and sunny,
An outward-bound passage for grown-ups with money.
Another defector from St. Barts’ fast lane?
Bettina Zilkha, who did Key Biscayne.
She’s had it with worries of getting invited
To parties where boldface New Yorkers are sighted.
We’re not in Hollywood, so let’s be snob-o:
No one we know bothered with Cabo.
Way cool? Sayulita down Mexico way:
“The New Tulum,” all the trendsetters say.
Newsflash! Off Kenya, the island of Lamu–
Nadine Johnson was there, Jacqueline Schnabel was, too!
What about fashion? Where’d Tory Burch go?
Cancún’s Mayakoba-lagoons you can row!
And jetting to Europe for family and friends?
Bazaar’s Glenda Bailey, first lady of trends!
Amanda and Christopher Brooks did relax
Far from Gstaad in the Adirondacks.
Donna Karan, we hope, kept herself out of harm
Last month in the outback she injured her arm.
André Balazs was in Cuba, they say
Katie, his ex, off in Aspen, hooray!
Connecticut Christmas for Candace Bushnell,
But soon it’s Jaipur and Sri Lanka as well.
She’s going for festivals, both literaire,
Asking this question: “Who else will be there?”
The Olsens, we read, were upstate in Accord.
It’s hard to imagine they didn’t get bored.
Art people? To Panama, Marco Brambilla
He saw lots of palm trees, but no Barry Diller.
Yvonne Force and Todd Eberle? Vegas New Year!
At Jay-Z and Coldplay’s big concert, we hear.
And Angela Westwater went to Del Rey
Art Basel it wasn’t, but her mom’s there, O.K.?
Welcome back, players, asleep in your beds.
May visions of bedbugs not dance in your heads!
Prosper, prevail and plow through life with cheer.
Vacation’s over, now work the New Year!
