I don’t remember now where I was on December 31, 1999. If it was anything like years prior, I imagine that I spent it at my parents house in Massachusetts, a fire in the fireplace and (with the idyllic twisting of memory that always inevitably occurs) perhaps drinking some kind of warm chocolaty beverage—who knows. Like every year, I watched Times Square live on my parents’ nearly-two-decades-old 32-inch JVC television. This particular year I, like the rest of the world, was partly concerned (though at 12 years old, I can’t imagine I was that concerned) about the quote failing computers, falling airplanes, and so on and so forth. And, as has been stated before, maybe too many times by now, “the new year—the Future—arrived time zone by time zone, encircling the globe, without incident or apocalypse. The apple dropped. The millennium started. We’d all worried, What’s going to happen next? And the answer, it turned out, was, nothing, yet.”
Thinking back on it now, knowing the 12-year-old me, I was probably most concerned then about computers failing due to the Y2K nonsense because that would seriously have cramped my ability to play Quake 2 capture the flag.
I’ve had a handful of memorable New Year’s celebrations since then. In 2005 or maybe 2006, I spent December 31st at my good friend Liz’s parents’ house. A lot of friends from Peabody were there and a few more came and went, stopping in to say hi. When the time reached midnight we threw torn up napkins into the air to celebrate. Looking back, my most immediate thought is, How wasteful of us.
I rang in 2008 in San Francisco with a girl I loved and some of her best friends. It was cold and we had nothing to do but walk up and down the Embarcadero until it was time to watch a maybe 15-minute long firework show and a live band in front of the Bay Bridge with thousands of other people, then shuffle with the masses to the BART and go home. On the way, walking through the littery street with the crowd, a man near me looked over and said matter-of-factly with humor in his voice, “I don’t get it: if you brought it, take it back with you!” referring to all the trash left behind. I switched among a Polaroid camera, my 35mm Konica, and my Kodak point-and-shoot to document the night, which in retrospect was probably excessive. It was actually my most thrilling New Year’s thus far.
I ended 2008 in Seattle for the first time since I’ve been living here. I’d never been to the firework show that they do off of the Space Needle downtown, but it was absolutely spectacular. It was cold and drizzly and beautiful and we drank champagne in public from the bottle. The week before I’d received my first DSLR as a gift and used that to document this time. I spent it with the same girl, though we wouldn’t be in love for very much longer. 2009 was mostly downhill after that first night, and has had few improvements since.
I’m not really sure what to expect from 2010. I think I’m ambivalent, indifferent or maybe expectationless. Though I do have a plan for New Year’s.
I decided when I went to San Francisco that it was my intent to spend the holiday in a different city each year. This year I planned on going to Times Square by myself, maybe by bus, maybe staying the night and leaving in the morning. The details were unclear and, in point of fact, unimportant—tertiary to simply getting there and witnessing the event (i.e. the madness). Then I mentioned it to a very good friend of mine while I was home for Thanksgiving. She was immediately on board to go to New York City, even offering to get us there. The only other variable was where we’d stay.
Somehow it got brought up to a few other friends, one of whom is a teacher in Brooklyn. He offered us a place to stay and suggested that Brooklyn is a far better area for festivities, reasoning that, in Times Square, “you can’t even pee.” Also, that most people arrive there in the morning and camp out the entire day. So Brooklyn it is.
It’s a stupid association, but anymore when I think of New Year’s, I often remember the song by Death Cab For Cutie. It’s just always felt like a good portrait of December 31st at midnight. “So this is the New Year.” This is it. It’s especially poignant when you think about it in the context of 12/31/99 at midnight. When I wake up on January 1, 2010 inside a new year—a new decade, a new arbitrary measure of time—I don’t expect too much to be different. But who knows? Maybe I’ll wake up hungover on a floor in a flat in Brooklyn, NY and the air outside will be crisp and cold and I will see more clearly and feel more alive than I have in a year.
New Year’s, Past and Future
I don’t remember now where I was on December 31, 1999. If it was anything like years prior, I imagine that I spent it at my parents house in Massachusetts, a fire in the fireplace and (with the idyllic twisting of memory that always inevitably occurs) perhaps drinking some kind of warm chocolaty beverage—who knows. Like every year, I watched Times Square live on my parents’ nearly-two-decades-old 32-inch JVC television. This particular year I, like the rest of the world, was partly concerned (though at 12 years old, I can’t imagine I was that concerned) about the quote failing computers, falling airplanes, and so on and so forth. And, as has been stated before, maybe too many times by now, “the new year—the Future—arrived time zone by time zone, encircling the globe, without incident or apocalypse. The apple dropped. The millennium started. We’d all worried, What’s going to happen next? And the answer, it turned out, was, nothing, yet.”
Thinking back on it now, knowing the 12-year-old me, I was probably most concerned then about computers failing due to the Y2K nonsense because that would seriously have cramped my ability to play Quake 2 capture the flag.
I’ve had a handful of memorable New Year’s celebrations since then. In 2005 or maybe 2006, I spent December 31st at my good friend Liz’s parents’ house. A lot of friends from Peabody were there and a few more came and went, stopping in to say hi. When the time reached midnight we threw torn up napkins into the air to celebrate. Looking back, my most immediate thought is, How wasteful of us.
I rang in 2008 in San Francisco with a girl I loved and some of her best friends. It was cold and we had nothing to do but walk up and down the Embarcadero until it was time to watch a maybe 15-minute long firework show and a live band in front of the Bay Bridge with thousands of other people, then shuffle with the masses to the BART and go home. On the way, walking through the littery street with the crowd, a man near me looked over and said matter-of-factly with humor in his voice, “I don’t get it: if you brought it, take it back with you!” referring to all the trash left behind. I switched among a Polaroid camera, my 35mm Konica, and my Kodak point-and-shoot to document the night, which in retrospect was probably excessive. It was actually my most thrilling New Year’s thus far.
I ended 2008 in Seattle for the first time since I’ve been living here. I’d never been to the firework show that they do off of the Space Needle downtown, but it was absolutely spectacular. It was cold and drizzly and beautiful and we drank champagne in public from the bottle. The week before I’d received my first DSLR as a gift and used that to document this time. I spent it with the same girl, though we wouldn’t be in love for very much longer. 2009 was mostly downhill after that first night, and has had few improvements since.
I’m not really sure what to expect from 2010. I think I’m ambivalent, indifferent or maybe expectationless. Though I do have a plan for New Year’s.
I decided when I went to San Francisco that it was my intent to spend the holiday in a different city each year. This year I planned on going to Times Square by myself, maybe by bus, maybe staying the night and leaving in the morning. The details were unclear and, in point of fact, unimportant—tertiary to simply getting there and witnessing the event (i.e. the madness). Then I mentioned it to a very good friend of mine while I was home for Thanksgiving. She was immediately on board to go to New York City, even offering to get us there. The only other variable was where we’d stay.
Somehow it got brought up to a few other friends, one of whom is a teacher in Brooklyn. He offered us a place to stay and suggested that Brooklyn is a far better area for festivities, reasoning that, in Times Square, “you can’t even pee.” Also, that most people arrive there in the morning and camp out the entire day. So Brooklyn it is.
It’s a stupid association, but anymore when I think of New Year’s, I often remember the song by Death Cab For Cutie. It’s just always felt like a good portrait of December 31st at midnight. “So this is the New Year.” This is it. It’s especially poignant when you think about it in the context of 12/31/99 at midnight. When I wake up on January 1, 2010 inside a new year—a new decade, a new arbitrary measure of time—I don’t expect too much to be different. But who knows? Maybe I’ll wake up hungover on a floor in a flat in Brooklyn, NY and the air outside will be crisp and cold and I will see more clearly and feel more alive than I have in a year.