Obligatory New Year's Thoughts

As I write this I'm listening to a podcast from the Krebs Cycle blog. The author of that blog, a guy named Adam, is going on about what he did for New Year's. I just stumbled across this blog a couple of weeks back, and I admit I initially clicked on it because of the science theme (I am a scientist, after all), but I check it out because I like Adam's writing style and his topics are somewhat interesting. Right now Adam is talking about why he doesn't particularly like the New Year's holiday. Incidentally, if you think the Krebs Cycle is something Lance Armstrong might ride in the Tour de France, clearly you've forgotten most of your intro bio course from college/high school. Here's a diagram of the Krebs cycle for you to peruse. Without going into too much detail about this biological process, you're doing it right now, or else you're dead.

I'm not an anti-holiday person. I love and enjoy spending time with my family, so Christmas is a great time for me. Thanksgiving is all about cooking, and there's nothing I love to do so much as to cook womploads of really fattening food for people, so I am all about the Turkey Day. Easter is my favorite ecclesiastical holiday, which is good since it's the most important holy day of the church year. I also love Lent, as it forces me to look inward and be contemplative about my life and the choices I make every day for 46 days (I don't believe in "skipping" Sundays, thank you very much!)

That being said, there are two holidays that I just cannot abide. The first and foremost is Valentine's Day. Ick, ick, ick, ick, ick!! I have been single more often on Valentine's than not, which only makes sense since I've been single during most of my adult life. This, however, is not why I abhor Valentine's Day. Since I have about 6 weeks before I have to tackle that holiday, I won't go into all of my various reasons and rationalizations for despising this wretched holiday. Yet.

The other holiday I hate? Well, if you guessed New Year's Day, well, sorry, but you're wrong. The holiday I hate is New Year's Eve. For years as a young adult I felt the need to go out on New Year's Eve and show just how horrifically drunk I could get in the company of good friends. Later, I tried spending New Year's Eve with friends maintaining some semblance of sobriety and participating in absurdly insipid activities and games to stay awake until the new year's arrival at midnight.

I think the year that really cemented my feelings of hostility towards New Year's Eve was 1999. My friends and I organized a trek to Atlanta to usher in the "new millennium" (which really didn't start until 2001) in the big city. I lived in Nashville at the time, and Atlanta seemed a much more cosmopolitan and exciting place to party in the new year.

I spent $20 on the cover charge to get into Backstreet. Inside, there were about 5,000 people on a dance floor the size of my living room. I was asked not to "cross dance" -- don't ask, I don't know what it is, either -- by some very snippy queen and saw my friend Joel nearly kill a group of girls who had made a clear space between them on the dance floor by standing lock-armed around an iron rail along the side of the dance floor. When the countdown was over, and it was officially 2000, we went back upstairs to the main bar. The people there were unfriendly, the drinks were watered down and I saw a girl expurgate the entire contents of her stomach onto the floor next to the bar. No one rushed to clean this up. After about an hour and a half, we decided this was a lousy place to be and headed back to our hotel at the perimeter.

I stayed up until 5:30 in the morning drinking gin and tonics. Actually, that's inaccurate -- we ran out of tonic at about 4:00, so after that we were having gin and gins. I fell asleep, or passed out, I can't really remember which. I puked about 3 times, and was awakened 20 minutes before check-out time by one of my friends staying in another room.

We had a lovely brunch at Einstein's, which still ranks as my favorite restaurant for brunch and makes a trip to Atlanta nearly worth having to drive around Atlanta. Brunch was by far the best part of the trip, but I would rather have saved money on the hotel and the bar and had everyone over to my house for a lovely meal.

Since then, where and how I spend New Year's Eve has largely been based on my mood and work schedule. The past two years I've been in Chicago for New Year's Eve, and both times I spent the evening at home alone. And I'm not complaining. Yesterday I got my apartment nice and clean and even rearranged my kitchen. I toasted the New Year with a very dry martini (I couldn't open the cap on my vermouth) and Dick Clark (bless his heart, that stroke really packed a wallop!). I then took my evening meds and went promptly to bed.

Today I had a lovely time at church and then cooked brunch for a friend. I helped a nice elderly lady from church get upstairs to her apartment, so I feel as though I'm starting the new year off with a good deed, which is nice. I really attach very little significance to the new year vis a vis adopting new habits or making changes in my life. I know what I need to do to improve my personal and professional well-being, new year or no new year. Resolutions are largely a crock that no one expects to live up to. It's wonderful when people do live out their resolutions, but my question is, why did you have to start January 1st? Why not start on November 22nd or wait until February 13th?

Now I'm going to get back to the very important task of watching the Bears lose to the Vikings. Well, at least the Panthers won, and most importantly NC State blanked South Florida to win the Meineke Car Care Bowl (geesh, how pathetic a bowl is that?) yesterday, so overall it's a good football weekend.

For what it's worth, have a great New Year!