Meditation on New Year's Eve: A Trip Report

For all the excitement surrounding New Year’s Eve, it’s the one night of the year that perpetually falls short of expectation. It’s for this reason, that three years ago, on the eve of a most unsatisfying new year, I swore a blood oath never make plans till the day of this one night that links two years. Going into New Year’s sans expectation has since served me well, and I will continue this laissez faire tradition of waiting till the last possible moment to commit to anything on Dec. 31st. Given the life changes that occurred in 2007, I wasn’t entirely convinced that I wanted to see 2008, let alone greet it with anything other than apprehension. 2007 was an amazing year for a variety of reasons: I ended a long-term relationship, had some success writing professionally, fell in love, had my heart broken (on a couple of occasions) and still, like a punch-drunk pugilist, seemed to be prepared for more abuse.

It was noon on the December 31st, an otherwise non-descript day save a spike in liquor sales that had been steadily escalating since nine that morning. I may take a relaxed approach to an evening’s festivities, but I was uncharacteristically organized in terms of my stockpile of liquor; the gin was chilling in the freezer and a bottle of Prosecco had been hiding in the fridge door for a couple days. I was only working till 3:00pm and it was around noon that I received a message saying that a friend was going to host an impromptu party at her Pilates studio. After work I went to work on the phone, calling my friend Amy (the sister of the studio’s owner) to see if she wanted to come by for drinks beforehand. I also had it set in my mind that my roommate Craig, whether he wanted to or not, was coming with us (I had convinced myself if it’s one day of the year someone shouldn’t be left alone, it’s New Year’s…I’m not entirely sure why, but it seemed to make sense at the time).

Amy showed up with her wine, Craig had his beer, and I was already into my second gin and soda, but it wasn’t until 11:15 that we were motivated to leave for our destination. We arrived at the studio 30-minutes later, took the elevator up and I was introduced to one of the most incredible spaces I’ve ever seen. 12-foot ceilings and wood floors greeted us, and to satisfy patrons’ penchant for the latest exercise craze (strip-aerobics) there were 12, floor-to-ceiling stripper poles for our drunken amusement. Lucky for us, the poles were already waxed, which is just as well as I had forgotten to bring my buffing kit. Did I mention there were hula-hoops? Anyways, we arrived, started chatting and it was 12:04 before we realized it was in fact, the New Year. We congratulated one another on our mutual survival of 2007, hugged, shook hands, and then got back to the business at hand, drinking. Stacked in the corner were machines called “Reformers.” Although they are part of an exercise regimen, for the untrained eye these appeared like medieval torture devices which could have easily been at home in a dimly lit dungeon where uniformed men with strong jaw lines remind you they have ways of making you talk.

Despite a broken turntable, the music was great, and the only thing better than my personal bottle of gin, soda, and my bag of pre-cut limes was the freezer, which had bags of ice aplenty. With New Year’s rounding out my holiday calendar I was quite convinced, in my fragile state, that I hadn’t been this inebriated in at least a week. It was then and only then, susceptible to suggestion as I was, that learning to hula-hoop seemed like a great idea. Women it turns out have a physiological advantage over men in the arena of hula hoping; it’s called “hips.” Try as I might to get a rhythm going, my hyper-masculine, upside-down pyramid physique seemed to work against me; a couple gyrations of the hips and the hoop would be lying at my feet, a victim (much like I would be later that evening) of gravity. Eventually, Amy offered enough advice for me to overcome the learning curve and I was swinging the plastic tubing around my waist like a pro. I must have hula hooped for all of 2-minutes, but when I stopped I realized how insane the endurance contests of the 1950’s were. Hula hooping, staple of playgrounds and high-pitched, pre-pubescent girls—it turns out—happens to be an incredible abdominal workout, which in retrospect makes sense given the stack of them that reside in this Pilates studio. Fatigued from my first physical activity of 2008, we decided that we needed to go dancing. Amy and I declined a ride from someone at the party, who despite denying it like a senator on the campaign trail, had been drinking with us that evening. It was about to be a cold walk home when a friend whose band had just finished a set at a local bar, pulled over and offered us a lift. We got back to my place, we dropped-off our booze and began the walk to the Armview, where we intended to meet back our posse and dance till the wee hours of the morning. With 100-meters to go to our destination, I saw Craig my roommate walking towards us. Given the recent spate of violent assaults in my neighborhood, I sent Amy off to the Armview and walked home with Craig. Craig’s late night desire for pizza was eventually assuaged with thoughts of grilled cheese sandwiches (which we had the ingredients for at our apartment), and having cooked Craig dinner earlier that night, the favour was returned to me in the form of a perfect grilled cheese sandwich. Wiping the crumbs from the corners of my mouth, I made my way to the bedroom and let the red LED display of my alarm clock bid me good morning with the time 4:00am.

For an evening as unplanned as it was, it was hard to believe how much fun I’d enjoyed. I drifted off into slumber, content and satisfied with my luck at having good friends, excellent taste in gin, the good fortune of having all the makings of grilled cheese sandwiches at home in my fridge and a great roommate willing to cook said grilled cheese. I went to bed, happy. A happiness that was sadly short-lived by the splitting headache and the terrible fatigue the next morning.