I'll Be Nicer This Year

"Are you going out tonight?"

"No.  I never go out on New Year's Eve.  I don't do well. It's a night when amateurs put on silly little hats and blow whistles and drink and say, 'Look at us.  We're crazy,' and I say, 'No. . . just stupid.'  I don't like crowds.  I don't like people all that much, really."  

Then last night, I started getting little texted videos of people out and partying.  It looked kinda like fun.  I shouldn't be such an asshole.  

My mother said to me last night while we were drinking faux Bellinis, "I don't remember ever going out on New Year's Eve."

"I know you did once.  I have a picture of it."

"Well, that would have been the only time," she said.  

I guess she didn't remember.  

Then I said that I didn't remember ever going out on the Eve, either.  

"Wait," I said.  "I've been out on New Year's Eve in Mexico City before.  More than once.  We used to go down after Christmas to climb, then we'd be in the city for New Year's Eve."

Yea, those were some crazy times.  We wandered the city after a big dinner in the Zone Rosa to the outskirts of town where the jerry-rigged stolen power lines lit up a carnival in one of the neighborhoods.  There were little booths, games of chance, food stalls, etc.  My favorite one was the fellow with the hand cranked electrical charger and two metal handles you would pay to hold on to see how much electrical current you could stand before letting go.  If you got over a certain voltage, you won a cigarette.  I offered to buy a turn for all my buddies.  None of them were man enough to take the challenge, though.  

Then I remembered New Year's Eve(s) in Key West.  On my first trip there long before the commercialization of the island, I met a couple who would become my good friends for a long, long while.  One year, my girlfriend and I went down for the New Year and they put us up on a friend's 65 foot sailboat that was at dock for the week.  On the Eve, we partied.  They had drug consortium friends in town.  These were some monied mothers.  We drank expensive champagne and whiskeys before dinner, and long white lines were run on tables.  

Then we went to eat at one of the good restaurants on the Atlantic side of the island.  At one table was the police chief and his crew.  At another was the fire chief.  There was a police presence outside.  No matter.  Key West was a different country back then, and my friends were doing lines off the table as we ate, calling the servers over for a bump or two as well.  My friends were real pirates, and the rest of the night became a blur.  

My girl and I went back to the boat and slept.  I have plenty of photos of New Year's Day, and I just looked for them. . . to no avail.  My digital files are a frigging mess.  Those photos tell the story, though.  I'm passed out on a beach.  

My friends partied for the next two days.  

Though I was younger and more resilient, I wasn't the partier my friends were.  Here is one from that trip, but I don't think it was the very next day.  

Whatever you do today, don't make silly, small resolutions.  Go big!  Pick something very special.  

"This year I will become the Governor of my state."

Something like that.  Then just put your head down and do everything you can to fulfill the pledge.  Otherwise. . . forget about resolutions.  Most of them are too stupid to even utter.  Not that they are not noble ideas, but you will only disappoint yourself.  

"Why do you have to be like that?"

"I don't know.  I'm going to be nicer this year.  Seriously.  That's my goal."

For years now, I have made a pilgrimage to the National Shore this coming week.  It feels as if I should do it again.  The estuaries and rivers are hauntingly quiet and beautiful, a remnant of the state my parents brought me to when I was a child.  It was a spooky state then full of wild animals and wilderness, peat fields full of smoldering muck fires and iridescent swamp gas.  In the evenings at this time of year, the sky would fill with birds going home to roost as the sun went down.  

Yea, I'll take the drive this week.  

I chose today's photo with intent today.  2025 will probably not be an easy year for most people.  But. . . I don't want to be a prophet of doom and gloom.  Nope.  Not me.  I'm a high profile happy guy.  

Ho!

Anyway. . . Happy New Year.  Here is something for your hangover.