Hello 2004
Jan. 1st, 2004 11:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gordonzolaI assume other people have noted the similarities between Halloween and New Year’s Eve. People dress up and desperately look for the right party or place to be. There’s social anxiety that comes with every sip of booze. "Am I having enough fun?" "Could I be having more somewhere else?"
I went out this year on New Year’s Eve for the first time in at least 12 years. I actually felt fairly immune to the social pressures since it was such a novelty. See, my parents go hunting every New Year’s Eve. New Year’s Day is a bonus hunting day since it’s a holiday so my Dad’s hunting buddies deign to allow women up to the clubhouse during that 48 hour period only. I don’t actually know if that’s still true, but it was rigorously enforced when I actually did hunt for the last time, during the ‘70s.
So I usually house sit with my lover or a small group of friends, getting away from the city craziness. Sometimes I tried to plan with my old friends but none of them live in the area anymore and I never ended up making it out of the house anyway. This year I decided to be a little more adventurous.
After a pleasant musical interlude at Adobe Books, who’s owner is one of the few people I see regularly who knows my parents,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jactitation and I wandered the streets, sat in Dolores Park and made it to our downscale local bar right before midnight. I felt like a 19 year old when I realized I’d never been at a bar at Midnight on New Year’s before. It looked like the Fourth of July since everyone was wearing American Flag top hats (sale at the party store?) and setting off fireworks just outside the door.
There were the old sailors who’d been coming to the bar forever and probably spent most of the New Year’s Eves of their lives there. There was the group I decided had to be the owner and his friends because I’d never seen them in there before and they seemed too comfortable to be strangers. There were the drunks who kept trying to fool people by Yelling out "10 … 9 … 8 …" every few minutes and then laughing.
Then there was the other similarity to Halloween. It’s a night when the bonds of compulsory heterosexuality are loosened. Just like dressing in drag is "ok" on Halloween, it seems like the mandatory midnight kissing is something looked forward to all year by some folks. One woman seated next to Jacco and me was there with her boyfriend but seriously making out with her girlfriends under the pretext of New Year’s tradition. "C’mon, give me a real one," she’d say. Under the cover of custom and alcohol excess, a lot of people were getting their first, or yearly, homo kisses.
The task of being awake for the New Year and being drunk completed, Jacco and I left our unfinished Anchor Steams on the table and headed the three blocks for home to watch the last Sopranos episode on our rented DVD. It started to rain so I had to put my "Happy New Year" tiara on over my 49ers wool hat.
I went out this year on New Year’s Eve for the first time in at least 12 years. I actually felt fairly immune to the social pressures since it was such a novelty. See, my parents go hunting every New Year’s Eve. New Year’s Day is a bonus hunting day since it’s a holiday so my Dad’s hunting buddies deign to allow women up to the clubhouse during that 48 hour period only. I don’t actually know if that’s still true, but it was rigorously enforced when I actually did hunt for the last time, during the ‘70s.
So I usually house sit with my lover or a small group of friends, getting away from the city craziness. Sometimes I tried to plan with my old friends but none of them live in the area anymore and I never ended up making it out of the house anyway. This year I decided to be a little more adventurous.
After a pleasant musical interlude at Adobe Books, who’s owner is one of the few people I see regularly who knows my parents,
jactitation and I wandered the streets, sat in Dolores Park and made it to our downscale local bar right before midnight. I felt like a 19 year old when I realized I’d never been at a bar at Midnight on New Year’s before. It looked like the Fourth of July since everyone was wearing American Flag top hats (sale at the party store?) and setting off fireworks just outside the door.There were the old sailors who’d been coming to the bar forever and probably spent most of the New Year’s Eves of their lives there. There was the group I decided had to be the owner and his friends because I’d never seen them in there before and they seemed too comfortable to be strangers. There were the drunks who kept trying to fool people by Yelling out "10 … 9 … 8 …" every few minutes and then laughing.
Then there was the other similarity to Halloween. It’s a night when the bonds of compulsory heterosexuality are loosened. Just like dressing in drag is "ok" on Halloween, it seems like the mandatory midnight kissing is something looked forward to all year by some folks. One woman seated next to Jacco and me was there with her boyfriend but seriously making out with her girlfriends under the pretext of New Year’s tradition. "C’mon, give me a real one," she’d say. Under the cover of custom and alcohol excess, a lot of people were getting their first, or yearly, homo kisses.
The task of being awake for the New Year and being drunk completed, Jacco and I left our unfinished Anchor Steams on the table and headed the three blocks for home to watch the last Sopranos episode on our rented DVD. It started to rain so I had to put my "Happy New Year" tiara on over my 49ers wool hat.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-01-01 12:56 pm (UTC)14th street was used as a parking lot for airporter buses picking up and dropping off scary white people! ACK! Me and Joe yelled at a lot of people from our window. It was fun. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-01-01 02:28 pm (UTC)wow, a short film on the whites-only busing would have been great. Next year?
no subject
Date: 2004-01-01 01:24 pm (UTC)Despite having never actually met you, I am suddenly very sorry to have missed seeing you in a tiara and wool hat.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-01 02:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-01 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-01 05:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-01 03:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-01 05:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-01 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-01 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-01 09:35 pm (UTC)even *my* bois. yesssssssssssssssss.
oh, but when it comes to women, all you need is 2+ drinks within the confines of a gawth club to loosen those bonds.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-01 10:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-01 10:29 pm (UTC)you're so sweet!
my life has been at breakneck speed and i've barely had time to even do worthwhile uh, such as they are) updates, let alone read the delights that spew forth from your LJ!
and i know NUFFINK about the GAWTH! NUFFINK!
no subject
Date: 2004-01-04 10:31 am (UTC)Which season of the Sopranos? We just finished watching season four from the library. On one level I know it is just a big soap opera, but in a way I think it is some of the sharpest critisism of American society out there...and one of the few t.v. shows that actually deals with ethics. Good stuff, but painful to watch. I get myself all worked up wishing desperately the characters could find happiness.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-04 10:54 pm (UTC)