I really hate New Year's Eve

Or, I should say, rather, that I used to hate New Year's Eve, until I realized how much I was hating it, and then somehow, gave myself the permission to stop caring about it so freakin' much.  And now I can relax and admit that right now I would much prefer staying home with my kids watching Star Wars instead of trudging out to some local performance in town and having "fun."

God I sound like such a Grinch!  Let me explain.  It's all the pressure to have some kind of amazing experience and get more wasted than one's usual judgement would allow.  And for what?  So I can prove to myself that my life is fun and worthwhile?  That I am loved and cherished?  The worst is the countdown.  God forbid there is nobody there to kiss! 

There have been many ups and downs of life, some truly wonderful times and dark and lonely ones, but I have never felt worse about myself than on some certain New Year's Eves.  You know what I mean.  Looking back, I think if I just could have relaxed and remembered that "all things must pass,"  it would've seemed at least okay.

My first memory of New Year's angst was at some point in adolescence, and I was staying up to midnight with my father and grandparents, in their old haunted hoarder house.  (See the "barbie head" post.)  Just that alone......I was celebrating with old relatives.  At midnight my father uncorked a bottle of something and shouted "Happy New Year!"  with so much embarrassing glee I wanted to melt into the floor, afraid that some of my peers, hundreds of miles away, might find out about this.

How sad is that.  I want to go back and kick my adolescent butt.  My dear father, gone now for almost 20 years, and I couldn't even appreciate a nice moment with him.  I suppose that's typically how adolescence goes, but still.  If I could have just halfway accepted the circumstances....I might not have been so miserable on New Year's Eve.  Well, hopefully now I've finally learned my lesson!

the catsitter

Well I am just appalled at myself in retrospect but I have to say, maybe it's not the best idea to hire a teenage girl to LIVE with your cat while you are away.  I mean, living in your apartment, sleeping in your bed, so your cat won't get lonely.  Unless you don't mind her going through all your private belongings, and eating every scrap of food.  Cutting school and making prank phone calls all day long.  Sampling every bit of makeup in the cabinet.  Considering every piece of clothing you own, to see how it would look and does it fit.  Private letters from old boyfriends?  Don't leave them around.  Any reading material on the bookshelves that might be a bit inappropriate?  I mean, what was she thinking!  And does the White Album really say "Paul is Dead" when you play it backwards?  She's going to really work on finding that out, using your very expensive turntable!  But at least the cat wasn't lonely, and certainly got alot of entertainement.

that woman is surprisingly attractive

St. Mark's place in the East Village, New York City, late 80's, teenage me.  Walking along the sidewalk, there is a radiant goddess strutting royally, looking confidently straight ahead, like she "just don't care."  Or rather, to put it more accurately, her boobs are.  Although I am a straight woman as far as I know, I couldn't not stare at her magnificent boobs, pushed up and glowing like the only two planets in the universe.  She sees me staring and she smiles!  Could she be cultivating reactions such as mine?  A moment later I notice that she is surrounded on all sides by a silent troup of.....cool people.  Oh, also she is dressed like Gretel, side braids and all. A very slutty, hot, Gretel that you wouldn't take home to mama. 

This is a person who, unlike my teenage self, definitely craves attention.  Which is one reason this moment stands out so much for me, as I was the complete opposite at that time in my life.  The energy she exuded, was just something that had never occured to me.  What an idea, what a new possibility of being!  For one moment in the east village, the ying and the yang collided.

Of course it was Madonna!  Now if you live somewhere like New York or LA, you know that you run into celebrities often and you're supposed to feel cool by acting like you don't care and you're really busy with your own great life.  In my teenage defense I would like to say that I didn't at that moment actually recognize consciously who she was, and also she's alot...shorter and more petite that one would expect.  There.

Whew.  I had to wait until the kids were in bed before I could write this post!

You have something....

The morning is cold and white, crisp and reassuring.  Seems like nobody else is awake yet, and nobody can see me yet, a safe feeling.  Walking past stores that are not yet open, windows with blinds closed, shades drawn like closed eyelids.  My feet are soft on the ground in my treetorn sneakers, the required footwear of teens in the 1980's in this upscale wealthy suburb.  I feel every crack on the sidewalk, every bump and stone is reassuring, it is the same as it was yesterday.  I shrug along in my giant packpack, dreading the day ahead, hoping it will bring nothing of note.  I dress so as not to be noticed, wearing the same jeans as yesterday, one of three I own.  Up from behind me walks a classmate, not a friend but friendly enough.  "You have a sock hanging out of your pants," she says, not unkindly.  Dammit, I knew it, not matter how hard I try I just can't seem to dress right, and someone has noticed.  I act casual, ripping out the sock from my pants leg and tucking it into my coat pocket.  I keep acting like that all through high school, like being inadvertantly humiliated just doesn't bother me at all.