For the 63rd time I increment the year count. The year count has come to mean pretty much nothing to me. I am fast asleep by midnight on the 31st. Frankly, so is everyone I know. Or if they are not, they are mindlessly watching a ball drop on TV amidst a parade of crappy musical performances by people I've never heard of. Yawn.
I'm trying to think back on if I had any memorable New Year's Eves. I recall one time when I was a freshman in college and a group got together over winter break for a bit of a party. It was a happy bunch, and since we were at someone's house, rather than a bar or a dorm, everyone was fairly well behaved. The year was rolling over into 1980 and I recall the frequently verbalized sentiment was that the '70s were awful, let's hope the '80s are better. I think they were. In my recollection, the '80s were vastly superior to the '70s. For completeness, the 90s were on par with the '80s; everything since has been a homogenous blob of "just OK" with some bright spots here and there.
Strangely, other than that I have only a couple passing memories of specific New Year's Eves. I recall taking a train trip with a long ago ex-girlfriend to Toronto one year and mostly being bored and annoyed. I recall one wherein I did a midnight 5k run through Ann Arbor with another long ago ex, ending up with drinks in a downtown bar that no longer exists. Other than those, I can't identify a single specific NYE memory.
Good. Maybe that means I don't feel the need to wait for a demarcation to make a change or adjust my life. Maybe I'm advanced enough to see things as a continuum -- an eternal on-going effort to improve and grow. Maybe I'm just beyond all the silly shenanigans that surround it.
Or maybe I'm just a wet blanket.
[Rant] Something Less Than Human
