Another New Year's Saga

Maybe I should have stayed home. The signs were there. I had been up until the wee hours the previous night, due to my neighbors' knock down drag out fight where they screamed obscenities at each other and stomped around until 5 a.m., a mere two hours before I had to get myself out of bed to spend a long day with the children in the library. Ugh. I don't deal well with lack of sleep.

I was totally exhausted when I got home and started thinking about whether I should brave New Year's Eve. I am really superstitious about this holiday. I'm convinced that somehow the events of this fateful evening will foretell the type of luck I will have in the upcoming year--and last year was not so good for me in the luck department. I recall last New Year's Eve…laying in bed and hearing my then-boyfriend's drunken vomiting and thinking that it didn't bode well for the year ahead. Really, I should have known. But I couldn't stay home on New Year's Eve....

I put on a silver dress and chug two large cokes. Calls from the girls ensue. What will we do? Should we all meet? When? Where? How? I get a call from Tigerlily who sounds hollow. She's having major New Year's depression. It's a New Year's emergency! I head over to her place with medicinal champagne. We drink, we rant, we apply glittery eye makeup. She knows of an "adult prom". I wonder what that entails and feel a little nervous at the possibilities, but what the hell? Her boyfriend arrives and says that he'll join us as long as he can wear a stuffed weasel as a tie.

So we're off. The adult prom is not "XXX Adult", just a no kids affair. A prom with far more liquor than the one I attended in high school. I'm kind of relieved as I had fear of hours of naked Twister and I'm not feeling all that limber. Anyway, the house is decorated in a prom-like manner and there is a place for you to have your prom picture taken. Tigerlily and I pose together, looking like an incredibly gorgeous same-sex couple. The hosts are playing prom music from the last 20 years. I hear the sweet sounds of Spandau Ballet. Eek!

Tigerlily informs me her depression is fading because she's found a sense of purpose: She's going to search through the crowd of cute guys and find me some good ones. Some? Oh boy… She says she's going to find me a fabulous guy for my all-important New Year's kiss. This scares me a little, but I quash the fear with a huge whiskey sour. At least my breath will be fresh from the antiseptic powers of whiskey. She and her own fabulous guy head off into the crowd to snap me up some fellas and I talk to a group of friends who have just arrived. At 11:45 she grabs me and says she has some candidates for me. She introduces me to Guy 1. He's really cute but he looks at me blankly. She tells him that he will kiss me at midnight. He smiles and says "oh yeah!" He still looks blank though…I think he's either really stoned or really, really stupid. I ask him if he's a good kisser. He smiles more and mutters, "sure…". Such a sweet talking devil, this guy. Tigerlily grabs me again and says she has someone better for the big kiss. I wave to Guy 1 and meet Guy 2. He went to high school with Tigerlily. She adores him. He is cute with floppy hair and a nice smile. He's really tall and he looks kind of nervous. I ask him if he is up for the challenge and he says he hopes so. Oh man, I hope so too. The countdown begins and I start feeling more nervous. I'd prefer no kiss than a bad New Year's kiss. A bad New Year's kiss might mean another year of suck. Oh well, it's midnight…I'm going to take a chance.

<KISS>

Ooh….I do believe I see fireworks!

Damn, that boy can kiss. We kiss until 12:03 or so and then look at each other sort of nervously. He smiles at me and says, "well, Happy New Year!" And then he turns and walks away. What the fuck? I suppose I should have been thankful for the parting line. I shrug and go back to talking to some friends.

Tigerlily comes back over and introduces me to Guy 3. She's never met him before, but she think he's attractive. He is a lot shorter than Guy 2 and looks sort of like Elvis Costello. I do love Elvis Costello, perhaps I will love Guy 3. We start talking and then dancing to the 80s prom music. He leans in and kisses me…my second kiss of the new year! We hang out for a while, wrapped up in drunken conversation and 80s music. Then I have to go to the bathroom and he walks me there. I come back out and he has disappeared. He didn't even give me a parting line. Ah…I have somehow kissed and repelled 2 men so far in 2003. It's going to be a good year, I can feel it! Tigerlily goes to get the scoop on Costello and comes back to report that the woman he's been in love with for the past 5 years has just arrived at the party. Oh it figures. Well the party theme is successful…I feel like I am in high school again and I want to go home. The alcohol and exhaustion has hit me hard and I burst into tears and go sit outside. I am tired, my head hurts, I'm nauseous, I am sick of men and will become a nun in 2003. Tigerlily and her boyfriend sit with me and let me have my tantrum. It doesn't last long...I soon realize that it's all kind of funny and start laughing hysterically. Making guys disappear is my special superhero power of the evening! Maybe my kiss renders them invisible. Excellent! I better use my gift carefully. We all laugh for a while and then decide to return to the party.

More drinking. Guy 1 - The New Year's Kiss That Wasn't approaches and tells me that I missed out in not kissing him. Oh really? He plants one on me. Ooh! Not bad....hey, he's still here! But I fear he will walk away and cause me to have another tantrum, so I tell him I am going to find Tigerlily. At least I gave him a parting line.

Tigerlily is in the back yard sitting with her man and someone else. Well look who has amazingly reappeared: it's my new year's kiss guy, Guy 2. He gives me a big smile, as if he didn't walk away from me a mere 2 hours ago. We sit together and talk for a while. I ask him why he pulled the old walk-away and he says he just didn't want to wreck the moment because it was such a good New Year's kiss. Hmmm…. Well, I don't get it, but I'm not going to puzzle it out tonight. I am freezing and start to shiver. Guy 2 takes off his jacket and wraps it around me. Apparently chivalry isn't totally dead in 2003…but it's certainly unpredictable and just plain weird. We all end up going back to Tigerlily's place and I fall asleep on her couch, leaning on Guy 2.

I guess it was a fairly successful New Year's Eve. It was dramatic, anyway. Laughter, tears, alcohol, glitter, bad music, disappearances and lots of kissing. Looks like 2003 will be a Lifetime movie. I predict that there will be lots of exciting new material for the web site. The excitement never ends in the gorgeous and sassy realm!

-Gigi 01.01.03