Far be it for me, the Christmas Psycho, to poo poo people’s end-of-holiday plans. But screw New Year’s Eve.
That’s right, I said it.
New Year’s Eve is amateur hour mixed with disaster plied in alcohol, and I avoid it at (almost) all costs. It’s a moneymaking racket, it’s bullshit, it’s an excuse to get obliterated and shit in your friend’s shoe without repercussion. The last time I made an effort to actually Go Out for New Year’s Eve was when I was 18. Me and a bunch of friends from the shoe store we all worked at decided to rent a hotel room in a swish area of Cowtown (yes, it’s an oxymoron), where we proceeded to mix various kinds of alcohol with the greasiest of greasy Pizza Hut. By the time we got to the club, which we’d paid too fucking much money to get in the door of, I couldn’t remember my own name and I no longer wished to dance my ass off to brainless pop techno like “Sweet Dreams� or “Tribal Dance.�
“Do a shot of tequila, it’ll make you feel better,� one of my gal pals slurred, and dragged me over to the bar where she ordered me two shots.
Idiotically, I decided that because she was four years older than me she must’ve known what she was talking about. So with Kahlua, vodka, Bailey’s and God knows what else churning through my system with rubbery cheese and partially digested pepperoni bits, I downed my first shot. Predictably, my stomach churned. I looked at the other shot sitting on the counter, then back at my friend who was slowly sliding down the front of the bar as she laughed like Krusty the Klown. I decided against it and handed the shot to the guy next to me.
“I don’t drink tequila,� he yelled over the din.
“Shut up, it’s free,� I said as my friend regained enough consciousness to start dragging me to the dance floor.
As I lurched forward, so did my stomach. Blessedly it stopped in my throat. Now the wonderful thing about this club that we were at is it was once a bank, hence it’s ever so clever name, The Bank. This is mostly inconsequential, except it’s important for me to explain because the way they did the design for the club kept with the former bank’s inopportune bathroom facilities. That is to say, it was two levels – employees could pee upstairs, and the public was relegated to peeing downstairs. It took my brain longer than normal to calculate that I was crammed in the far back end of the club and moving maybe a fraction of an inch every 10 minutes thanks to the crowd, while the bathrooms were way at the other end of the club down two flights of stairs. Translation: I was boned.
I looked for a garbage can. Nothing. I looked to the right and saw people everywhere, ditto to the left. So as the crowd came to a halt once more as we tried to work our way through, I stopped, leaned forward, cupped my hands around my mouth as if I was going to cough, and chucked. For having no other options, I’m proud to report that I executed the move quite professionally. Not only did I not get anything on my friend or the guy walking ahead of me, but there was minimal splashback on my shoes and everyone was so drunk that they just walked right over it and didn’t notice. Not my most shining moment – especially at 5am when we discovered in the elevator going back up to our room that I’d gotten enough on my shoes for it to ferment and peel paint.
So yeah. For the most part, I dislike going out for New Year’s Eve because I inevitably wind up running into a carbon copy of my 18 year-old self.
Not that I don’t celebrate. In recent years I’ve done the cheeseball local happenings, like sitting outside in the freezing cold to watch fireworks or hanging with friends as we tried to count wrinkles on Dick Clark’s face. See, I do like to stick a final nail in the coffin of the year. But for the most part, I’ve not felt the burning desire to pay exorbitant fees to gain entrance to some Hollywood club where everyone thinks they’re The Man for one night, only to be handed one glass of champagne as the bell tolls for a toast while trying to fend off some narbo squealing, “C’mere, baby, I gotta kiss someone at midnight!� No you don’t asshole. Go away.
The last two years I’ve broken suit and gone the house party route, which I find quite enjoyable with the right crowd. Last year was probably the most fun because it was the first New Year’s I spent with Campbell and his crew, who are always good for entertainment. There was The Fighting Irish, a successful entrepreneur who proudly spent upwards of 40k on liquor in 2004 and brought his driver along. The other addition to our group was Eeyore, who has a downer look on everything, even as he makes attempts to pick up women. One of the highlights of the evening was watching Irish get into a pseudo fight with his friend, screaming, “Fuck you, man, you owe me money, but I love you!� Another: when he approached porn star Jenna Haze and declared, “You’re probably carrying tons of VD, right?� Needless to say, he went home alone. Even his driver hooked up that night.
But aside from all the surrounding hullabaloo, it was also the first night that Campbell told me he loved me. We’d been dancing around the subject for a while, and there were several times where I’d practically bit my tongue until it bled to keep from saying it, because no fucking way was I saying it first. So fueled by a couple shots, Campbell took me to the mock dance floor that was usually a living room, where we proceeded to cut quite the rug. And then the countdown began. Ten, nine, eight… everyone around us was holding something drinkable… seven, six, five… the music was turned down low… four, three, two… Campbell and I looked in each other’s eyes… one! We kissed. We hugged. And in my ear, he said, “I love you, baby. And it’s not the tequila talking.�
You may chuck now. Just make sure you don’t hit your own shoes.
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sandra 10:20 PM Dec 29 2005 |
You know...it's only vomit-worthy because it's so movie-esque. Kind of cute, actually. I had a significant New Year's Eve many years ago...actually (totally pre-meditated) "lost it" (wow, that sounded like an after-school special -- not changing the wording because it's just that cheesy) that evening. At the time, I thought that was a great night to sleep with someone for the first time. Now? I think, "damn, I hardly remember it..." Which might be a good thing, come to think of it. |
