The Eve of Whatever Noncelebration

I dislike New Year’s Eve.  When I was little, I was dragged to boring parties where the adults got drunk, wore stupid hats, told stupider jokes. I only liked it when they played cards, but mostly on that night, they didn’t. When I was in high school, I was indifferent and then I was working on into college for the telephone company, working as a long distance operator through Xmas vacation and New Year’s Eve and some other holidays. Then I was married.  Then I was divorced.  Then I was married again.  Then I was in an open relationship and New Year’s parties meant you might get laid but if you did, it was always with the wrong person. There is a prevailing odor of disappointment that hangs over that night, the sense that somewhere there is a better party, somewhere people are actually having fun and not just pretending to.  When I lived on the upper west side of Manhattan, I gave a couple of really splendid parties then, a mix of literary people, artists, movement people, an underground filmmaker or two and some computer nerds. But since I’ve lived on the Cape I can only think of maybe four good ones since 1971.  One I gave in a space where people could dance, as women and gay men especially did then.  One was at a gallery run by friends where again here was a lot of dancing.  One was a wedding of friends with two fucking bands and lots of great food and champagne.  One was a time Woody and I had the flu and watched all of Soldier Sailor Tinker Spy, the BBC version, drank champagne and fell asleep before midnight. This year we put on an Eve of Whatever Noncelebration.  We ordered pizza, drank wine and played games and everybody was in bed before midnight.  New Year’s Eve as my friend Dale said [he was there this year with his partner Stephen] is the time when amateur drunks are out.  The roads are dangerous and people often end up passed out or depressed. Got up on time the next morning with no hangover, nothing much to clean up and a whole day to get going on the new year.  I make my resolutions at the Jewish New Year when we really get into selfexamination and serious spiritual makeovers. This Saturday evening we went over to Dan and Paul’s for an annual party for our friend Lisa.  Several years ago she planned to leave Wellfleet for a town in Georgia and toward the end of the first week of January, we all gave her a going-away party. But she never went away.  Lisa’s birthday is around this time, so it devolved into a peculiar birthday party.  There’s a lot of good food and drinks, but the main event is when everybody  gives Lisa any number of unwanted gifts they have received themselves.  She opens them.  If she likes them, she keeps them, but 90% of them she gives to somebody else at the party.  Sometimes [like last night] when I volunteered to take some garden tools, there’s a willing taker.  But at least half the time, she presses it on someone in the group she considers appropriate   for that regift.  It’s fun.  Many of the things are perfectly nice but unwanted by the original recipient.  But some of them are outrageous, like a weird styrofoam snowman in lurid colors.   I unloaded three.  Lisa kept one and the other two were grabbed up at once.  I didn’t want them; the other three people did.  Everybody wins.