I've agreed to go out to a New Year's Eve party tomorrow night, but I don't want to. I am afraid of being on the road with drunk people, specifically drunk people who don't normally drink and drive. I used to go to Terry and Carol Carr's New Year's Eve parties in the 80's, and they were marvelous, but since then I just haven't felt the same joyous urge to see in the new year with other people. John wants to go out, though. He doesn't ask a lot of me socially so when he does I'm inclined to go along with whatever it is. Even if it means taking my life in my hands.
I know I'm being a drama queen, but that's how I feel. Part of my reluctance is from experience: I don't like drinking, and I don't like being around a bunch of people who will try to kiss me at midnight. The other thing is we're all getting up the next day and going to the traditional New Year's Day Party at Deb Notkin and Alan Bostick's in Oakland, so why would I want to go to San Jose the night before? If we could go to a party here on the peninsula I'd be a lot happier.
Oh, who am I kidding? I like most of the people who will be at the NYE party. I don't object to having a drink or two, and we're not talking crazed lampshade-wearing hoopla, anyway. We're a bunch of computer geeks with approximately 2.3 cats per household, 10,000 books apiece, and waistlines that expand every year except for Allyn Cadogan and Karl Mosgofian who probably have the same deal with the devil that Dick Clark has. I can put up with being kissed by my friends, for pete's sake. I can do this.
If I'm honest, and I invariably am, it's not leaving the house I object to, or seeing friends, or even going to the trouble of finding Mike Ward and Karen Schaefer's house on a night when so many are drinking and driving. I think I object to time having slipped away. I'm no longer young, slim, single, or feckless. Terry's gone, and so are those glittering, energetic years. I am repulsed by the thought of being undignified, trying to relive my youth, looking like a pathetic fool getting my jollies from kissing other women's husbands. And yet, why do I care if no one else does? And since when is it wrong to be silly or cut loose for a night and not worry about one's dignity?
I don't know where this stick up my bum came from but it sure is uncomfortable.
