2002-12-30

So I hear New Year�s Eve is tomorrow. Hooray. I�m currently debating whether I should bother going out at all: historically, I haven�t had much luck with New Year�s celebrations. I think it�s the pressure � that whole �party like it�s 1999� thing. Even when it WAS 1999 I had trouble rustling up a decent good time on December 31st. I always crumble under the stress and end up not drunk enough or way too drunk, and start the year off either cranky and tired or too cross-eyed fucked to figure out what year it was to begin with, let alone what year it�s supposed to be once midnight rolls around.

I can�t remember a single New Year�s where I had a genuinely enjoyable time � or at least, one I didn�t regret later. Case in point: New Year�s Eve, 1996. I�d miraculously gotten off work before midnight, so I hustled my ass and managed to make it to the club to meet my friends by eleven. Naturally, my friends were all half in the bag already, having been drinking since, oh, probably six o�clock, knowing them. So I made the classic blunder of attempting to �catch up� by ordering four or five highballs at a go and sucking them back like a fishnet-stockinged Hoover. Ha ha. Do I remember the clock striking midnight? No I do not. I�ll tell you what I DO remember. The bar I was at (the Warehouse, for anyone who�s been to Calgary, and I can hear those of you who have laughing knowingly at this point) has sort of a goth/industrial theme going with the d�cor. There are booths along the wall on raised platforms, accessible via short metal ladders. Inevitably, as I was descending from one of these fun little obstacle courses on a daring mission to get more drinks, I bailed completely and ended up on my ass on the floor. This didn�t faze me one bit, and I popped back up like a spiky-haired Whack-A-Mole, right into the path of a strange guy. �Hey!� I yelled.

�Yeah?� he said.

�You�re cute!� I bellowed. (This may have been true. I don�t know. I certainly wasn�t in any position to make that call.)

�So are you!� he bellowed back.

I gave him my number, and believe it or not, despite my complete and total lack of grace, tact, and ability to focus my eyes, he actually called me the next day and left a message, which I declined to return.

That is my last memory of the evening. Unfortunately, my friends have the annoying habit of gleefully filling me in on any salient events that may have slipped my mind. (I�m forever trying to break them of it.) To my chagrin, they informed me of my heroic attempts to hail a cab that night. Apparently I managed to flag one down, but when it pulled over, a couple of big jocko homos ran ahead of us and got in. Rather than just curse them out like a sane person, I grabbed one of them by the jacket and physically hauled him out of the cab. Oh yes I did. I don�t know who ended up in the taxi, but I do know that I�m lucky I lived through the night. I sure am a feisty one! If of course by �feisty� you mean �borderline retarded�.

So, as much pride as it gives me to have stories like THAT to tell around the campfire, I�m thinking it might be a wise plan to avoid the whole quagmire of Auld Lang Syne action this year and sample instead the novelty of NOT waking up January 1st with a paralyzing headache and a sickening crush of retroactive humiliation.