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Jan. 3rd, 2005 03:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deviOkay, so New Year is meaningless, just a digit flip on the completely arbitrary calendar, and in any case I have several personal New Years of my own (like the start of the school year) that usually feel more like a new beginning, but this time something really has changed. On the 30th of December I was whining at Matt about feeling old and like all the fun was over forever, and now I'm actually breathless with happiness. In your face, 2004.
2004 started at a Templars party, and nothing wrong with that but I was worried and fretful, trying to forget about it by talking to people about their jobs, clutching a dribble of warm Baileys, wanting to get obliviously drunk and not letting myself give in to that. It was pouring rain out. I ducked out under![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kauket's umbrella for a single drag of smoke and then fled back inside. Thus began a year of hard slog, paying dues, body on strike and moods going apeshit, itchy feet unscratchable because they were encased in concrete, novel driving me mad all summer and then trailing back home with its tail between its legs. Life being niggardly to me and everyone around me. That day in Blackpool like a flashing neon beacon in the middle of a dark damp fog. The best thing about 2004 was getting the confidence to sing in front of people, but otherwise it pretty much sucked.
But suddenly, with the flip of a single digit, it feels like anything could happen. Last year I felt like I had a sack of rocks on my back. Now it's like I'm leaping into a gloriously uncertain future with wide open arms and stupid glittery seven-league boots on my feet.
New Year's Eve started atmiss_newham and tjej's house, with a bewildering array of musical instruments (resolution 1: learn to sight-read music already). Then, after a lot of running up escalators, we met a big cheerful group of people at London Bridge and headed for addedentry and j4's party in Deptford via a fish-and-chip shop. Owen's house is vast and had alphabet fairylights in two different fonts ("those are the most amazing thing ever and I need them," I gushed at him), pomo mistletoe (a picture of mistletoe glued to a card), paper chains made out of Time Out (Gay Chat! House of Flying Daggers!), and a sudden sing-song in the basement. mzdt played excellent guitar and we sang Magnetic Fields and I forgot the words, and discovered that j4 is another secret folkie, and we plotted to set up an acoustic all-girl New Order tribute band (what would you call it?)...
That would have been an excellent New Year's Eve all by itself, but thenmiss_newham decided to go back to her housemates in Stratford for midnight, and one by one we each decided it'd be no fun to stay if the going people went, until by 11pm we'd formed a splinter group of about a dozen people, all in a daring race to get back to Stratford in time. We poached addedentry and j4 from their own party, and found ourselves rattling across the rooftops of London on the DLR as the minutes ticked down, making origami birds out of newspapers and laughing far more than was necessary. The electronic readouts at the stations were flashing "Happy New Year".
At Stratford station Jo went sprinting off to get a bus, and I dashed after her (those shoes are jet-powered, I swear), and my skirt fell down around my ankles, which seemed hilarious at the time. I got on the bus, twirling the skirt around in manner of striptease artiste. Bus driver looked deeply bored, clearly having seen it all.
And then we were all pouring into the house, with fifteen minutes to spare, findingkesstrel and Nat on the sofa looking as if they'd always been there, and the rest of the night was showtunes and hugs and snogging that horrified Matt's little sister and finally falling asleep in the bed of the Brazilian Dentist. (He wasn't in it at the time.)
It feels sort of crass to be so optimistic, with the black blots of climbing death tolls on all the newspapers. But what I can't help thinking is: thousands of people are dead. I'm not immortal. Neither are you. So do stuff.
My only resolution so far, except for the sight-reading thing, is to be less timid and more impulsive. If I want to start a fish-fight in the Turbine Hall, I will. Hey, I've already kept that one! Cool.
2004 started at a Templars party, and nothing wrong with that but I was worried and fretful, trying to forget about it by talking to people about their jobs, clutching a dribble of warm Baileys, wanting to get obliviously drunk and not letting myself give in to that. It was pouring rain out. I ducked out under
kauket's umbrella for a single drag of smoke and then fled back inside. Thus began a year of hard slog, paying dues, body on strike and moods going apeshit, itchy feet unscratchable because they were encased in concrete, novel driving me mad all summer and then trailing back home with its tail between its legs. Life being niggardly to me and everyone around me. That day in Blackpool like a flashing neon beacon in the middle of a dark damp fog. The best thing about 2004 was getting the confidence to sing in front of people, but otherwise it pretty much sucked. But suddenly, with the flip of a single digit, it feels like anything could happen. Last year I felt like I had a sack of rocks on my back. Now it's like I'm leaping into a gloriously uncertain future with wide open arms and stupid glittery seven-league boots on my feet.
New Year's Eve started at
miss_newham and tjej's house, with a bewildering array of musical instruments (resolution 1: learn to sight-read music already). Then, after a lot of running up escalators, we met a big cheerful group of people at London Bridge and headed for addedentry and j4's party in Deptford via a fish-and-chip shop. Owen's house is vast and had alphabet fairylights in two different fonts ("those are the most amazing thing ever and I need them," I gushed at him), pomo mistletoe (a picture of mistletoe glued to a card), paper chains made out of Time Out (Gay Chat! House of Flying Daggers!), and a sudden sing-song in the basement. mzdt played excellent guitar and we sang Magnetic Fields and I forgot the words, and discovered that j4 is another secret folkie, and we plotted to set up an acoustic all-girl New Order tribute band (what would you call it?)...That would have been an excellent New Year's Eve all by itself, but then
miss_newham decided to go back to her housemates in Stratford for midnight, and one by one we each decided it'd be no fun to stay if the going people went, until by 11pm we'd formed a splinter group of about a dozen people, all in a daring race to get back to Stratford in time. We poached addedentry and j4 from their own party, and found ourselves rattling across the rooftops of London on the DLR as the minutes ticked down, making origami birds out of newspapers and laughing far more than was necessary. The electronic readouts at the stations were flashing "Happy New Year". At Stratford station Jo went sprinting off to get a bus, and I dashed after her (those shoes are jet-powered, I swear), and my skirt fell down around my ankles, which seemed hilarious at the time. I got on the bus, twirling the skirt around in manner of striptease artiste. Bus driver looked deeply bored, clearly having seen it all.
And then we were all pouring into the house, with fifteen minutes to spare, finding
kesstrel and Nat on the sofa looking as if they'd always been there, and the rest of the night was showtunes and hugs and snogging that horrified Matt's little sister and finally falling asleep in the bed of the Brazilian Dentist. (He wasn't in it at the time.)It feels sort of crass to be so optimistic, with the black blots of climbing death tolls on all the newspapers. But what I can't help thinking is: thousands of people are dead. I'm not immortal. Neither are you. So do stuff.
My only resolution so far, except for the sight-reading thing, is to be less timid and more impulsive. If I want to start a fish-fight in the Turbine Hall, I will. Hey, I've already kept that one! Cool.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2005-01-03 05:33 pm (UTC)I've got to that point quite recently too. It's liberating, isn't it? That's the attitude that got me to Glasgow on my own for New Year -- and here there and everywhere over the last month. I've been happier than I have for ages. :)
Hope it works out for you too :)
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Date: 2005-01-03 05:36 pm (UTC)(I'm going to do New Year in Scotland at some stage...)
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Date: 2005-01-03 05:45 pm (UTC)It was just a big "I'm going to regret it if I don't grab the moment and do this while I've got the chance" kind of thing, you know? :)
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Date: 2005-01-03 09:11 pm (UTC)glad you had a good'n and here's to 2005/the future!
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Date: 2005-01-03 06:06 pm (UTC)BowerHaus?
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Date: 2005-01-03 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-03 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-03 09:33 pm (UTC)That is so impossibly, ludicrously correct. I salute you with wine.