The next six days are going to drive me out of my mind (and thank you for the appropriate song lyrics-title, Miniature Tigers). We are knee-deep in deadlines at my office, and I will likely spend all weekend either here or working from home, looking up the spellings of names, checking facts and essentially ripping apart all of the writings that have been collected for Texas Music's Winter '11 issue, hitting bookstores near you the first week of January. I'm hoping to take a few days off after that, maybe the 23rd through that Christmas weekend; then, it'll be grinding out Horns Illustrated as quickly as possible the following week before we ring in a new year somehow-or-other. I would LOVE to be at the Bright Light Social Hour New Year's bash, but at the same time, I don't want to go if that isn't where the bulk of my friends are.
I haven't ever been great at the whole New Year's thing. Growing up, my family would always watch celebrations on TV and have low-key parties at our house, sometimes with family friends, but more often just with the four of us - my mom, dad, brother and me. I think the first special-event New Year's celebration I ever attended was for the turn of the century. The Wittlif family New Millennium/End of the World celebration was spent in venues around downtown San Antonio, Texas. Even though we lived in the city, we got a hotel room downtown so we could avoid the inevitable TERRIBLE traffic to get out. We got dressed up, and went to the top of a fancy hotel to have a buffet-style dinner. Little known fact about me (unless you are related to me) - I used to be morbidly afraid of elevators. I legitimately thought, every time I got in one, it would break and I would die. So, when I climbed into this metal death trap on this particular day, squeezed in with about 40 other people (well past whatever the capacity of the thing was), I was more than a little nervous. Add to that the fear of it actually being the end of the world (I was a sad, frightened little girl - what can I say), and then have this particular elevator work thusly: instead of taking you to your correct floor, it whisks you just above the floor you want to stop on, by maybe 3 feet, and then DROPS like some twisted carnival ride, so that you free-fall back down to your floor of choice. Now, more adventurous youngsters would probably get a kick out of this. Me? I stuck my nails deep into my clutch handbag as some older, tiny woman screamed from the corner in broken English, "OH MY GOD! WE GOING TO DIE!!!" Kind of set the tone for my entire evening. After dinner, I walked down the 20+ flights of stairs with my mom down onto the street level, and then our troupe headed to a local children's theatre, where tons of awesome music (Prince, Michael Jackson, Sly & the Family Stone, ridiculous 90s boy bands, etc.) blasted out of the house speakers. People were set up in and around the theatre seats, and some braved the stage to get their groove on. I was grumpy from my near-death experience, so I remained in the seats, busting a few moves but mostly waiting for my impending doom when the clock struck midnight. My mother then said, "You realize that it's already midnight at other locations around the world?" I chewed on that for a moment, felt my stomach start to settle, and tried to enjoy the last bits of our New Year's celebration in peace.
My next big New Year's celebration was during my senior year of high school, when my family traveled to some tiny Texas town (I don't remember the name of it) and got super-fancified, and then went and danced to a swing band with a bunch of friendly strangers. It was a blast, and it allowed me to wear one of my favorite dresses I've ever owned - a red, sleek, silky thing from Rampage that I felt I should be buried in one day. (Failed to find a photo of it on the interwebs - I'll upload one later.) It was fun to be swept off my feet by talented strangers, and a little nerve-wracking to get the same questions over and over again: "Do you know where you're going to college yet? Know what you want to major in? What are you going to do with your life?" Sheesh, people, I had enough trouble with my resolutions!
The next two New Years were spent at a lovely little jazz club in downtown San Antonio - the famous Jim Cullum's Landing. The music was fun and the whole affair felt very grown up, but I was doing it for someone other than myself, which is really the exact opposite of what I should have been doing ushering in new eras those first two years in college. The next real celebration I had was one of the best ones I can remember - it started out with a brand new group of friends at a house party, and ended downtown in the cold, as a sad little ball dropped from the roof of an Austin bar while a shitty local DJ said sexist things. It was awesome. I feel like 2009 was the dawn of something really new and wonderful for me, and standing in painful heels on 6th street while people made out, passed out and puked around me was seriously the best. I don't care how crazy it sounds. I think my resolutions for 2009 were to try to meet more people, and to really and truly learn to love myself, and those were the healthiest resolutions I'd ever made.
Last year, I'm almost 100% sure I was super sick on New Year's, getting over some terrible fever, feeling like Death's bride. I say almost 100% sure, because I really don't remember what I did on New Year's. And this is not the hilarious "Oh, she must have had TOO much fun!" kind of not remembering - this is, whatever I did was so forgettable...I've forgotten it. If you're reading this, and you are a friend of mine, and you spent New Year's with me last year, first of all I apologize for being so forgetful, and secondly PLEASE remind me where the devil I was for New Year's Eve/Day!!
Generally, the winter holidays are some of my favorite. Even though my New Years have never been truly epic enough to really write home about, there's something about the cold weather, the fresh smells, the sense of family and friendship and the magic of the whole thing that gets me. Sadly, this year, particularly because somebody clearly failed to let Austin know it's winter now, I've sort of been lost in work and won't even get to use the decorations I collected the last few years to make my apartment festive. I'm hoping, though, that that just forces me to appreciate my holidays all the more. I'm not sure what my resolutions are yet for this upcoming year, but I'll share them when I parse them out. For now, I'm just excited at the possibility that will come as soon as I slog through these next six days.
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