stage clear
So New Year's Day was actually awesome! New Year's Eve blew but New Year's Day was awesome!
And that's the way it should be. Who gives a shit about the old year? Good riddance, 2007. We should be celebrating the new.
Of course, I may just be saying that because I spent New Year's Day with Carly, Des, Anya, Natalie, Jon Good, and a slew of '06ers; and I spent the last moments of New Year's Eve wandering confusedly through a really scary neighborhood in Brooklyn with a brown-bagged Corona in my hand, completely sober. About fifteen hours later I was seeing Sweeney Todd with high quality people--dear God I missed having people to talk to after a movie--and eating crack fries and Indian food. My, what a difference a tick of the odometer makes.
I also finally managed to visit Anna at the pie shop she works at (go there; the pies are delicious) in the last few hours of 2007, and the day before that I got to hang out with Aries. If I can't be happy during the holidays, I guess, I'm more than satisfied being happy on the days around them. :]
And 2007's final moments did come with one last hurrah--the unexpected din of fireworks exploding over the East River. They were exploding for the benefit of the throngs watching on the lower Manhattan shoreline, but they were flying high enough that people as far away as Crown Heights could stand outside on their porches and cheer and clap as fire streaked through the air above the warehouse roofs. By the time I managed to find a spot on Washington Avenue where I could get an unobstructed view, the show was mostly over, but I did get to see the show's apocalpytic finale, in which the night was so illuminated with chrysanthemums of red and white and orange that for a moment there was no sky. Bystanders put down shopping bags; cars pulled to the curb; crowds of strangers congregated under apartment awnings and hugged each other and wept. A stern-faced mother posed her little daughter outside their brownstone and took pictures, and as I passed them by they both shouted at me, "Happy new year!" Indeed, there was not a pedestrian, police officer, drug dealer, homeless person, or drunken partygoer on the streets that night that did not shout "Happy new year!" as I passed them by. It was as if the world had decided to be a little less cruel for just one night--Christmas may be for the Christians, but the turning of the calendar is for everyone. We are all brothers and sisters on New Year's Eve. When else would muggers and thieves put away their knives and pat each other on the back and say, "Congratulations on making it through this one alive!"
...and then less than two minutes into the new year there were police cars screaming down Washington Avenue, trailed by an ambulance. Business as usual, I guess.
Resolutions? Yeah, I remember when I used to believe in free will too. We are ants under the cosmic magnifying glass. Control over anything but our own petty habits is but an illusion.
And that's the way it should be. Who gives a shit about the old year? Good riddance, 2007. We should be celebrating the new.
Of course, I may just be saying that because I spent New Year's Day with Carly, Des, Anya, Natalie, Jon Good, and a slew of '06ers; and I spent the last moments of New Year's Eve wandering confusedly through a really scary neighborhood in Brooklyn with a brown-bagged Corona in my hand, completely sober. About fifteen hours later I was seeing Sweeney Todd with high quality people--dear God I missed having people to talk to after a movie--and eating crack fries and Indian food. My, what a difference a tick of the odometer makes.
I also finally managed to visit Anna at the pie shop she works at (go there; the pies are delicious) in the last few hours of 2007, and the day before that I got to hang out with Aries. If I can't be happy during the holidays, I guess, I'm more than satisfied being happy on the days around them. :]
And 2007's final moments did come with one last hurrah--the unexpected din of fireworks exploding over the East River. They were exploding for the benefit of the throngs watching on the lower Manhattan shoreline, but they were flying high enough that people as far away as Crown Heights could stand outside on their porches and cheer and clap as fire streaked through the air above the warehouse roofs. By the time I managed to find a spot on Washington Avenue where I could get an unobstructed view, the show was mostly over, but I did get to see the show's apocalpytic finale, in which the night was so illuminated with chrysanthemums of red and white and orange that for a moment there was no sky. Bystanders put down shopping bags; cars pulled to the curb; crowds of strangers congregated under apartment awnings and hugged each other and wept. A stern-faced mother posed her little daughter outside their brownstone and took pictures, and as I passed them by they both shouted at me, "Happy new year!" Indeed, there was not a pedestrian, police officer, drug dealer, homeless person, or drunken partygoer on the streets that night that did not shout "Happy new year!" as I passed them by. It was as if the world had decided to be a little less cruel for just one night--Christmas may be for the Christians, but the turning of the calendar is for everyone. We are all brothers and sisters on New Year's Eve. When else would muggers and thieves put away their knives and pat each other on the back and say, "Congratulations on making it through this one alive!"
...and then less than two minutes into the new year there were police cars screaming down Washington Avenue, trailed by an ambulance. Business as usual, I guess.
Resolutions? Yeah, I remember when I used to believe in free will too. We are ants under the cosmic magnifying glass. Control over anything but our own petty habits is but an illusion.