New Year's Eve Highlights

The scene: Festive House Party. Drinks, snacks, karaoke and those silly New Year's party hats.

The highlights: Watching my boss sing his own rap. Walking in on some girl who's giving her boyfriend a strip tease and seeing her ass. Toasting to 2003 with some absinthe—three times. Making stupid sentences like "Pound me fast and spray me" with refrigerator magnets with Slyther, then high-fiving him and laughing with hilarity at our genius. Slyther asking to smell my Sonic Route 44 drink and exclaiming, "Good God, woman! I almost lit myself on fire with the amount of alcohol in that!" Me responding, "That's funny; I can hardly taste it." Getting my picture taken with the guys ripping apart the Asian hotties magazine and posting their favorite pages on the refrigerator. Great. Singing Britney Spears' "Oops I Did It Again" in front of a rapidly dwindling crowd. Being accused of cockblocking for Diva. Ringing in the New Year five minutes early. What the hell? Debating the cheesiness level of sitting in the hot tub naked when it's 32 degrees and there's a houseful of people. Oh yeah, and me getting in the middle—er, on the bottom—of a fight.

I wish someone had caught my spectacular New Year's Eve clobbering on camera. I'm INNOCENTLY enjoying my twelfth vanilla vodka Coke when a couple of guys come out of NOWHERE and slam into me. I'm on the step leading to a sunken living room; the drink goes flying and so I do I. The drink hits Diva. I hit the floor. Judging by the scrape on my right elbow, that part of me absorbs some of the fall. The rest is broken by my face. MY TEETH! My mind screams violently. Oh God, what if they've broken a tooth oh God, my NOSE hurts is my nose broken will they ever get the fuck OFF of me my face is pressed into the fucking carpet so I can't scream oh FUCK these assholes are heavy too bad I can't KICK THEIR ASSES because instead they're kicking mine…

I have no idea how long they're on top of me, struggling and kicking and punching. I don't think anyone realizes that I'm under the pile, except for Diva, who is screaming, "GET THEM THE FUCK OFF OF SHAKIRA!" Finally someone pulls them off; Diva pulls me up and I'm sort of crying and sort of breathless and she looks at me and says, "Are you okay?" and I shake a little bit and say, "No…" and then I really do start crying because holy shit that was scary and holy SHIT it hurts. Once we get to the bathroom and Diva says, "Look at me" and confirms there's a little scratch above my eye—not on my actual eye--and I look at my teeth and confirm they're all intact, that's when I start laughing. I look at my shirt, which is positively COVERED in cocktail, and my face, which is pummeled but okay, and I start LAUGHING and I don't know if I can stop. Following the laughter is a bit of crying and the obligatory, "Diva, I love you, you're the best, oh my God, thank you for taking care of me" while hugging her for dear life. It's a bit like those Budweiser commercials—"I love you man!"

We get in the cab to go home. I'm tired. And drunk. And it's gonna hurt in the morning. Never a dull moment.

-Shakira 01.01.03