It seems silly to long for the golden age of New Years parties, but I remember them fondly.
This year - quite currently - Berta has prepared meatball marinara with rolls and a nice corn dip for the Frito Scoops. There’s some assorted fruit and Chex mix, too. All this food, it’s a shame nobody came. Not that we invited anyone.
It’s a weird situation. It’s too difficult for me to figure out the intersection of the groups of people who would come, who I wouldn’t mind having around, who can coexist with my kids, and who can stand to be near each other. I can think of a few people offhand who might qualify individually for the first three criteria, but then there’s the insane puzzle of trying to figure out which friends get along with which other friends, and suddenly during all of this I come to the same two conclusions I usually end up at: I have to hang out with you all one-on-one, and I’m going to need some new friends. And so, no invites. Sorry everyone.
Anyway, this isn’t a year-end retrospective on my friend selection. It’s just sad that given a week or so to prepare some kind of simple gathering for New Years, I didn’t call to invite anyone, and now there is a vat of tasty meatballs of which we’ve eaten maybe four. No, there’s no cornbread, but hey, there’s still an hour before next year.
Thinking back, I recall the year that my mom, on a kind of dare, arranged for us to go to Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Berta and I stood out in the feezing cold for hours waiting for the ball to drop, and when they finally lit it up, it was practically a bright speck on top of a building several city blocks away. That was certainly a memorable year.
I’m trying to think of the more memorable but not overyly shocking New Years parties… Let’s see… Oddly, Brian shows up in a few of these.
The first one is the year we spent the night in Pittsburgh. Berta and I went to someone’s apartment that Brian had heard about (no, not a friend of his, just someone he’d heard about - he’s… odd that way) and hung out. I guess we met another of his friends there, whose name I can’t recall. There are several things that stand out in my memory of that occasion.
First, Brian’s friend sung two songs. On one hand, I wouldn’t poo-poo anyone’s public effort of artistry. It takes chutzpah to perform in front of people. Especially songs that you wrote yourself. That are more like poems with some random-seeming pitch changes. And no instruments. Ok, yeah, that were really bad. Sorry. But, entertaining!
Also memorable was the guy at the door who was carding people to come in. Apparently - and this story is third-hand and years ago in memory - he was an ex-cop, and he had taken the job upon himself as the “authority figure” for the gathering. I don’t think he knew the person who lived there either. I remember him being fussy about one of the three of us tapping the keg for some reason or other, and then Brian being verbally confrontational, which is funny because I really think Brian would have taken this guy. Ex-cop was already one or two sheets to the wind. (I have an idea where that expression comes from, and wonder if three sheets is really totally gone and whether it’s ok to just be one or two sheets to the wind. Probably is.) Not that his sobriety level would have changed my mind about Brian’s ability to take him.
Finally, about that particular party, I recall the playing on the stereo of Garth Brooks’ “Friends In Low Places”, which, being country, sent Brian into a rollicking good bit of guff, which we egged on by singing along with the rest of the crowd as someone cranked up the volume. My, that was entertaining.
On another New Year’s Eve we went with Brian to the Dracula’s Ball at the Trocadero in Philly. This would be the second time we would see Sunshine Blind. I’m not sure how I was convinced to do this twice, but I will admit to a weird stint of interest in the whole goth culture, not that I ever conformed to that stereotype. But that’s a story for another time, as I’m sure you’ll have interest in more detail.
Anyway, we hung around and listened to the bands play, and “danced” as it were. As goth people do. There was surprisingly less beer than one might expect because it was simply too difficult to acquire.
The upstairs was the only place that served alcohol, most at startling prices. Being that the concert hall was a remodeled burlesque parlor, you can imagine that the interior was not designed for quick exodus such as in the case of a fire, nor was the area reserved for drinking alcoholic beverages large enough to fit all of the people attempting to get limber. So what little time we spent there crammed against the other drinkers, we didn’t do much drinking, which is really not a very goth thing anyway, now that I think back on it.
After the concert, people left pretty quickly. We headed back into West Chester, where everyone at Chris and Tracy’s party had mostly passed out. Chris was a bit tipsy, and was teasing some girl he had just met who was very tipsy. I think she passed out in the middle of us asking her some of those questions that you ask drunk people to get them amusingly confused. Bummer.
Well, in stark contrast to all that, the kids are all done their bubble bath, and I think we’re going to watch the animated Charlotte’s Web or something before the ball drops.
I hope you all had a great 2006. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll recap the year, as is traditional. Lots of changes for me this year to keep track of. Looking forward seems like a good idea, too. Ok, there’s a lighted ball calling my name.
