Ringing in the new year: 2007

I had to let the after-effects of the weekend to wear off before I could report on the events.

Saturday night, I was working the door at Arnie's. Larkin was playing, which is generally chaotic in and of itself, but this was an unusual night. First of all, downtown was pretty dead, so the door didn't take in that much. Because of that, it wasn't as crowded as a Larkin gig usually is, so the hooligans (and I do mean that term as a compliment) had a little more elbow room to be drunk in. Had it been the normal near-capacity audience, all the people crowded together would have kept one another upright. Instead, they had a little space to stumble around.

The band finished up a little early, mostly due to the fact that the drummer and lead singer were getting a bit sloshed. The last few songs had a couple skipped beats and whole verses sung in a single, elongated syllable. Everyone survived, though, so it was a success in my book.

I left Arnies to head down to my friend Kim's party. It was pretty late, but it seemed like most everybody was still there. I chatted it up with my friends for a couple hours, got a kickass Rat Pack Christmas CD from my friend Mary, had some much-needed starchy foods, and went home to fall dead asleep.

Sunday, I did a little driving around looking for apartments, then went to Borders for some coffee. Coffee turned to long talks with Mary, Andey, Amanda and Kelly, then turned to lunch at BBD with Mary and Kelly.

In the afternoon, I went over to Karen and Nathan's house for a bit. I helped Nathan cut some wood for their new attic door, played with their little girl Lexi for a while, and we all (save for Lexi) had a couple glasses of really good wine. Good times, good times.

Sunday night. New Year's Eve at Arnie's. Full buffet. Beer a'flowin'. I helped pass out the comlimentary champagne for midnight, and the strategy was to pour the glasses in the back office, take trays of glasses to the front, pass them out and work our way back. The two main problems we encountered were: A) people grabbing glasses off the tray before I made it to the front, causing the tray to become off-balance, and thus spilling a few glasses, and B) people responding to my yelling, "Excuse me!" by either staring at me blankly and not moving out of my way or actually going out of their way to get in my way. We were a couple of glasses short, so my toast at midnight was done with a Bud Light pitcher filled about two fingers up with champagne.

Midnight came and, while I did get a couple kisses from friends, I didn't have a real New Year's kiss. Not that I've ever really had a real New Year's kiss. I'm talking about the kind of kiss that nullifies all background action and lasts so long it makes most anyone around you a little uncomfortable. Even the times I had a girlfriend at midnight, there was always some reason it didn't happen. One time it she had the flu, once it was strep throat, a couple times it was either or both of us being really tired, and one time she came down with a near-crippling case of paranoid delusional psychosis leading to a break-up two days later.

Not thatg I truly minded not having a girl at midnight. I was having fun regardless, and I didn't have any drama like I did last year. All in all, it was a great night.

Monday, I slept in really late. So much so that I had a really hard time getting to sleep last night. I ventured out just once to go pay my rent and put in my notice with the landlord. I roasted some chicken for dinner and settled in for a marathon of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations on the Travel Channel.

2007 is up and running, and I'm starting it off on the right foot, for once. I'm so looking forward to what the next year will bring.