The New Year's Thing

[copied from dland]

**In 12 days I will be 50 years old**

The mystique of Happy New Year has always escaped me.

I remember when I was a kid and I would be babysitting on New Year’s Eve, and I would get all excited as I watched the ball drop in Times Square and then I would realize that it was a minute later than it was before, and the clock turns over past midnight every night, and really, why all the fuss? There I would be, sitting alone in somebody else’s house watching TV and thinking, Okay, now what?

I did spend one semi-raucous New Year’s Eve freshman year of college, so that would be 1971-1972. Oddly, I found myself with my two best buddies from college (Maryland) in a house in New Jersey, which belonged to my guy buddy’s best high school friend, except his parents were away and there was no one in the house but the three of us and we got majorly stoned and then laughed at the TV news. For me, this was raucous. We laughed a lot and then fell asleep.

So, whatever. I guess this has some flavor of new beginnings and bad times behind us. I’m all for that. I just don’t get why the clock turning over past midnight tonight is any different from any other midnight. Each day is a new beginning, if that’s what you want to do with it.


ENTRY #36