5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Whatever.....

New Year's Eve, and here I am at work once again. No great surprise, really. Not that I'm gonna complain about it either. NYE has just become one of those days that doesn't really register on my list of important things anymore. Part of that has to be the fact that I don't drink anymore, and can only tolerate drunk people in small amounts. Another factor would be the fact that I'm old. No two ways about it. I'd rather stay home and watch reruns of Dirty Jobs than wind up puking in the gutter somewhere.


But on the whole topic of NYE, I got to thinking about what would constitute a stereotypical NYE party. Then I started going through the memory files trying to see if I had anything that matched up to that ideal party idea. The first thing I noticed is that overall, memories of NYE are somewhat sparse, even from the sober years. But there are a couple that stick in the brain for one reason or another.


One was from what I think would have been the post high school, pre college years, somewhere between '88 and '90. May have been as late as '91, but I don't think so. Mr Crow was my cohort at the time, and the scene of the event was Mr Voros' recently deceased grandmother's house. We were in the basement, which had a pool table and a rudimentary bar, as I recall. I must admit that having some surviving pictures of this event has helped me prop up what would be otherwise shaky recall. Ken Mangold was there and so was Gary, whose last name I can't recall at the moment. This was when Chris was dating that girl from St. Louis, and she was there along with her sister, I think. There was some other guy that I have absolutely no recollection of who may have been a friend of Chris' girlfriend. I remember a big pan of what was basically lemonade and vodka, I think. Someone called it 'sip, strip, and go naked'. I started off playing bartender. Which I enjoyed doing because it kept me close to the alcohol, which of course I drank way, way, way too much of. This resulted in me falling down a lot, and finally getting carted off to an upstairs room, where I was supposed to stay to sleep off my alcohol induced stupor. I somehow made it back downstairs and continued to make an ass of myself. Ah, memories....


Another NYE that I can recall, and have a picture or two of (maybe), found me in Chicago. Once again, I was in the company of Mr Voros, along with Morgan, and Stan. There was another guy whose name I can't remember, and somewhere along the line was a redhead that may have been named Penny. What made this one memorable, up to a point, was being at this bar named Iggy's that had open bar till midnight. Cue the heavy drinker. Yet another evening I can be proud of....


There are other holidayish parties that I can remember bits and pieces of, but none that really stand out as being NYE. Most all of them involve me drinking way too much. It also would appear that after I quit drinking, not only did NYE stop being an event, I slowly stopped getting invited to events related to NYE. Not really a huge loss, I guess. In the end, I suppose that NYE just ends up being another day for me. Which reminds me, I need to get some new calendars for the downstairs. I may also be saved from having to play nice with the neighbors tonight by way of Pinklady having had a massive migraine last night that she is still trying to recover from.


Anyway, hope you all have a fun NYE, and don't forget to share your stories and pics.