“If You Don’t Expect To Much From Me You Might Not Be Let Down”
I’ve been listening to Hey Jealousy by Gin Blossoms pretty much non stop for the last couple of days. I don’t really know why. I heard it waiting at the McDonalds Drive Thru and it’s just been in my head. Moving On…
“Give it a rest, trying to turn this night into anything more than it is, which is new years eve, which is the biggest single let down of a night every single year.”
-Barney Stenson, “How I Met Your Mother”
“How I Met Your Mother” is not my favorite show, and it probably never will be. The quote above isn’t profound, or that meaningful. (Neil Patrick Harris yells it at the main character while standing out of the moon roof of a limo.) It does seem to sum up the feelings of resentment a lot of people, myself included, have towards December 31st. I don’t know if this is because people have a joy hangover following the holidays, if Seasonal Affective Disorder starts kicking in right around then, or if everyone is just fighting the inevitability of time. I do know that my history of New Years Eves archive a sad decade or so of expectations that weren’t met. I’ll take you back starting at the present and working back Memento style:
2007—>2008: By this point i’ve given up on trying. I spend the early hours of the night in a Dunkin Donuts with my family and cousins. We discover my brother’s camera’s ability to color swap. I’m home by 9:30. At midnight I’m at the dining room table on my laptop. My dad’s asleep upstairs. My mom’s in the basement. I hear celebration from the TV playing to an empty living room.
2006—>2007: A small collection of friends come over to my house. We fail to come up with anything to do, so we play a game of Risk which we then abandon right before midnight. At midnight we gather around the table in my living room as the ball drops. We celebrate awkwardly. Panic(!) At The Disco comes on. Things get more awkward. Everyone is gone by 1:00.
2005—>2006: Probably the closest thing to a good New Years I’ve had. I was going out with my ex girlfriend, Emily, at the time. The night still was not without tension as we balanced spending the night at her cousin’s house and in my room. I know at some point I watched the Oakland Raiders thrash the New York Giants. I know at some point I watched ”The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants.” At midnight we kissed.
2004—>2005: One of my last sleepover’s at my grandma’s with siblings and cousins. I spend most of the time texting an ex at the time. My mood can best be described as emo. I don’t end up seeing her. In retrospect it’s for the best. At midnight Nanny hobbles outside and bangs pots and pans.
2003—>2004: Another year at Nanny’s house with siblings and cousins. I really can’t remember anything from this year except that I pulled out a cavity filling while chewing bubble gum. It left a huge painful space in one of my teeth, which remained for a couple of months because I never told my parents.
2002—>2003: Another year at Nanny’s house with my brother and sister. I’m in high school, insecure, and immature and don’t want to be forced to go to my grandma’s. I’m asleep on her couch at 10:00 and sleep through the night.
After that it gets hazy. I don’t really remember the specifics of any earlier years but my point has been made. My plans this year fell apart over the course of the last couple of days and the disillusionment of expectations that will probably not be met once again return.
I could just take some initiative and organize the befuddled mass that are my friends. Right now it’s 4:16 in the AM and i’m on the treadmill typing this up. l could just stay up all night, get really tired around 9:00 PM tomorrow and just sleep right through to 2009. I could send 2008 off with a bang and masturbate, ejaculating at the STROKE of midnight. (The lengths some people will go to make a hilarious double entendre about masturbation.) Some of those ideas are better than others but the possibilities are endless. My advice to all those disenchanted by the New Year’s hype, if you just get your expectations low enough then you can’t be let down.
