"hit it and quit it" or "the years keep getting shorter on me"

It's less fun to wake up fresh when everyone around you is hung over. I spent the day deep frying things, playing with Bukowski, and watching Mean Girls. It's been a good year, even though it hasn't felt like one. I knocked a good eight things off the list I made of things I've never done to work on this summer. I still don't know what I'm trying to do with this life, and all of my goals for the future are sexual, which doesn't seem very mentally healthy, but maybe that's enough of a motivation to keep me from giving up on the rest of it.

New Years. Plural.

2007 - Commie Jam in a mismatched suit. Sunny, Rachel and Rob's house in Logan. Jerking and floating through a disconnect. Russian champagne and vegan cupcakes. Card games and banjo. A clown calls me on the suit; he's the only one. He's trying to pick up on Sarah. It's our third New Years' together, which is more than I've shared with anyone that isn't blood. We drop by the Brain, and crash a condo. Kylie Minogue Britney Spears iPod dance party is as exciting as it gets, but it's pleasant. Never had that before.

2006 - Party at Marion's house. Everyone is well dressed. Why is there a line at the Budweiser keg with Guinness on tap? White people are stupid. Red Bulls and Vodkas, Makers and diets, jello shots and I think I ended up smoking some pot. Old friends like Charles Wiley, Devon and Christian Duckworth, Tom Yates. New peeps like Eligio and Gaetano, most of the Berwyn Bordello crew. Took a cab to the wrong place and left my new camera inside. I shouldn't own things that don't fit in my pockets. Drunker than either of us realized, Sarah had to babysit.Total devastation in a cab. Near breakdown. But a beautiful day after.

2005 - Kyle is incapable of recommending good parties. Out with the yuppies and in with the bike kids. Arrive at the same time as Critical Mass. Twelve of us, twelve of them and at least as many on the way in close cell contact. Ira's pissed but we have full fridge privelages. First New Year's with Sarah. First New Year's with Erin and her boyfriend. Pete Wolf gets obnoxious when he has his own bottle of Jameson. He's in a rowdy mood but loves us all. Crash the after party, everyone is cautious of the drunk guy with the mohawk. After after at the Elks. Meet the neighbors, and sleep soundly.

2004 - Berwyn Bordello invades a smaller party. Takes it over. Roll around in the snow, hook up with Nikole and flash my dick at everyone I know.

2003 - Single on New Years. Still in love with Erin, who's at a rave with her boyfriend. Head out with the people I don't know I'm about to live with. At Natalia's I make out with everyone. Everyone. Shouldn't have left but followed the tide. Zip around the city in a stupor.

2002 - How many drugs can me and Erin do? Ecstacy, coke, adderall, vicodin, pot, whiskey, and miller lite. Dennis' loft and Dan Lieber's parents. Kevin Heath, Shahbaz, Curran, Naia and Tobz. Shahbaz is the only one I still talk to. First good new years I can remember.

2001 - Ted Hearne's place. All the girls I like are fucking each other on couches. My best friend won't talk to me and I don't know why. I'm drunk and I feel alone. Write on some drunk people, take some pictures, wish I was dead. Wander off in the cold. Hide and cry.

2000 - My parents have got me on lock. They're afraid of violence, riots in the street. Y2k. Me, Tom Yates, Kevin Heath, and Joey Mitchell chug Jaggermeister and eat pizza. I'm the only one that won't join the military in the next two years. None of them have been shot though. I'm happy about that

1999 - Babysitting in Miami. Play on a trampoline. Answer a seven year old's questions about love. Shoot off fireworks.

1998 - 1993 - New Years in Boca Raton. Watch the Mtv Top 100 video countdown. Shayna tries to keep Mom from having her one drink of the year (Kahlua). Every time I go upstairs I burst into tears.

1992 - Get home from Florida on New Years Eve at about ten. I pretend I want to stay up for the ball dropping but I really just want to play the TINY TOON ADVENTURES Nintendo game that Bubbe bought me that morning.

1991 - How the fuck should I know?

1990 - As far bak as I can remember. My first new decade. I can't believe it isn't the 80s anymore. In ten years it'll be the future. Bubbe tells me that in the thirties, when their teahers told them they would live to see the new milennium, no one believed it. I spend most of the night on Pop Pop's lap. I'm amazed to see all the adults awake, and partying at this hour and not have to sneak around to do it. The countdown was magical. Everyone in the room chanting together and smiling and looking all full of hope. Wow.

[currently watching "Basquiat"]