feet first into the leap year
I usually write some sort of "my year" post on or around New Year's Eve, giving it some sort of dramatic title (like the year of motion and miracles or a year of greatness and lakes). I still want to come up with a dramatic title for 2007 but if I don't do it soon it will be too late and it will feel stale and silly.
I don't want to do that year-in-review business though, mostly because I have been over 2007 too many times in my own brain. instead of dance parties, moments of spiritual clarity, flirtations run aground or acted on and fizzled, I have several serious and quite important life changes as benchmarks: the frustrating end of a year-long relationship, a new job (and the first on a career path), a new apartment. I feel like 2007 was my first fully-adult year; there were still dance parties, revelatory nights, reflective and beautiful days, and consuming flirtations, but they all feel like whimsy compared to everything else that I dealt with.
what feels more important now is new year's eve, so let me tell you about it:
a bunch of friends from my college years, the boys I used to visit in kalamazoo, plus a few of their friends, have converged on K from all corners of the country - tyson in oakland california, dave and eric from boston, another dave from chicago, two gentlemen I didn't know until this weekend from beautiful milwaukee, wisconsin, who picked me up early on sunday morning after I capriciously decided it would be good to come here. we stopped at the fireworks barn in porter indiana and bought a trunk full of bottle rockets.
these kids are the most gleeful partiers I have ever had the good pleasure to party with. we spent sunday night playing card games, wrestling, singing, and dancing really big. REALLY big. the two nice guys who drove me here from milwaukee were in especially good spirits, having just won almost $500 in their fantasy football pool. in the morning we went to a diner called maggie's and ate breakfast stew.
on new year's eve day, I finished the monday crossword puzzle and learned to play cribbage. apparently I didn't get the memo about the new year's eve party which was both a. a potluck and b. dressy. luckily I always pack a dress, and luckily I know how to cook. I bought some vegetables and took advantage of our kind hostess's authentic thai curry paste. I put on my dress and made myself a gin and tonic. not as fortunately, someone thought it would be cute to buy five little caesar's pizzas to the potluck, and that's what everyone ate. then again, there was homemade pecan pie.
at midnight we were singing along to "sweet caroline," followed quickly by curtis mayfield's "move on up" and a rousing, arms-all-around-each-other shouted rendition of "the piano man." fernando, a tall, rascally fellow, thought it would be funny to pop one of the magnums of champagne we brought and spray it all over the attic level of the small apartment we were dancing in. we were all, naturally, drenched in champagne.
by then it was snowing thick and fast, and the branches of all of the trees on the old street were heavy. we ran outside, dancing to james brown jams on somebody's cell phone, and in a madcap round of "death rocket 9000," in which the contestants try to outrun fireworks, we set off bottle rockets in an empty fifth of vodka and sprinted down the street. I did it in high-heeled pleather boots and a dress and performed as well as my competitors. all of the snow rinsed off all of the sweat and all of the champagne.
things calmed down after that, but not for the worse. the night culminated in seven or so of us piling up on someone's bedroom floor, some of us out from the alcohol, some of the rest of us talking about what it will be like when we die. there was a mobile of gauzy butterflies hanging from the ceiling and spinning in pretty, languorous patterns.
we were supposed to depart for the 'kee at 8 am today, but needless to say none of us were up before 11. the milwaukeeans -- tom, a gray-haired john kerry look-alike with strep throat, and his aforementioned raunchy friend fernando -- wanted to catch the Michigan-Florida game, and decided to delay our departure until the end of the game. it's 4:30 and the game is not over yet. there is a wide swath of snow all around lake michigan, from here to the west coast of michigan and all the way around the foot of the lake to the north shore of chicago. we may never leave.
but maybe that would be OK. kalamazoo has been, as it always was, a dreamland, a liquored paradise where everyone loves one another and loves the world and just wants to have a good time.
judged on last night and this morning alone, 2008 is going to be a very, very good year. maybe now that the "big things" in my life, set into motion in 2007 are in place, 2008 can just be a breeze, a productive, fun, whimsical, affirmative year. here's hoping.
I don't want to do that year-in-review business though, mostly because I have been over 2007 too many times in my own brain. instead of dance parties, moments of spiritual clarity, flirtations run aground or acted on and fizzled, I have several serious and quite important life changes as benchmarks: the frustrating end of a year-long relationship, a new job (and the first on a career path), a new apartment. I feel like 2007 was my first fully-adult year; there were still dance parties, revelatory nights, reflective and beautiful days, and consuming flirtations, but they all feel like whimsy compared to everything else that I dealt with.
what feels more important now is new year's eve, so let me tell you about it:
a bunch of friends from my college years, the boys I used to visit in kalamazoo, plus a few of their friends, have converged on K from all corners of the country - tyson in oakland california, dave and eric from boston, another dave from chicago, two gentlemen I didn't know until this weekend from beautiful milwaukee, wisconsin, who picked me up early on sunday morning after I capriciously decided it would be good to come here. we stopped at the fireworks barn in porter indiana and bought a trunk full of bottle rockets.
these kids are the most gleeful partiers I have ever had the good pleasure to party with. we spent sunday night playing card games, wrestling, singing, and dancing really big. REALLY big. the two nice guys who drove me here from milwaukee were in especially good spirits, having just won almost $500 in their fantasy football pool. in the morning we went to a diner called maggie's and ate breakfast stew.
on new year's eve day, I finished the monday crossword puzzle and learned to play cribbage. apparently I didn't get the memo about the new year's eve party which was both a. a potluck and b. dressy. luckily I always pack a dress, and luckily I know how to cook. I bought some vegetables and took advantage of our kind hostess's authentic thai curry paste. I put on my dress and made myself a gin and tonic. not as fortunately, someone thought it would be cute to buy five little caesar's pizzas to the potluck, and that's what everyone ate. then again, there was homemade pecan pie.
at midnight we were singing along to "sweet caroline," followed quickly by curtis mayfield's "move on up" and a rousing, arms-all-around-each-other shouted rendition of "the piano man." fernando, a tall, rascally fellow, thought it would be funny to pop one of the magnums of champagne we brought and spray it all over the attic level of the small apartment we were dancing in. we were all, naturally, drenched in champagne.
by then it was snowing thick and fast, and the branches of all of the trees on the old street were heavy. we ran outside, dancing to james brown jams on somebody's cell phone, and in a madcap round of "death rocket 9000," in which the contestants try to outrun fireworks, we set off bottle rockets in an empty fifth of vodka and sprinted down the street. I did it in high-heeled pleather boots and a dress and performed as well as my competitors. all of the snow rinsed off all of the sweat and all of the champagne.
things calmed down after that, but not for the worse. the night culminated in seven or so of us piling up on someone's bedroom floor, some of us out from the alcohol, some of the rest of us talking about what it will be like when we die. there was a mobile of gauzy butterflies hanging from the ceiling and spinning in pretty, languorous patterns.
we were supposed to depart for the 'kee at 8 am today, but needless to say none of us were up before 11. the milwaukeeans -- tom, a gray-haired john kerry look-alike with strep throat, and his aforementioned raunchy friend fernando -- wanted to catch the Michigan-Florida game, and decided to delay our departure until the end of the game. it's 4:30 and the game is not over yet. there is a wide swath of snow all around lake michigan, from here to the west coast of michigan and all the way around the foot of the lake to the north shore of chicago. we may never leave.
but maybe that would be OK. kalamazoo has been, as it always was, a dreamland, a liquored paradise where everyone loves one another and loves the world and just wants to have a good time.
judged on last night and this morning alone, 2008 is going to be a very, very good year. maybe now that the "big things" in my life, set into motion in 2007 are in place, 2008 can just be a breeze, a productive, fun, whimsical, affirmative year. here's hoping.