Remember when I used to write blog entries every weekend? Yeah, me too...

What was remarkable about New Year's this year was, well, it was not remarkable. Don't get me wrong -- it was still New Year's: way to much alcohol, too many people in the house, MaMa Strunk flipped out and beat up underage children, but there was no real drama to report. A sign we are maturing? Maybe. I refuse to believe it!

Again, don't misunderstand me. It was ridiculous amounts fun. I don't think New Year's could ever NOT be fun. There just weren't any stand out stories from the actual party at my house. It was wild, debacherious entertainment. It was New Year's!

Interestingly, the memorable part came after my party. Once MaMa Strunk had started to mow down my sister's idiot friends, those of us over 21 left and went to Spilt Level. If I remember correctly it was me, Lauren, Kimmy, Sean, Sean's roommate Ben, my sister's retarded friend, Albert! at the Disco (no, seriously, this is what he calls himself), and some other people. I can't remember how it all happened, but, like I do when I'm drunk, I kept knocking Disco's hat off his head. So, apparently, he took it to be this big offense and all of a sudden he grabbed my arm and I was being swung around like a tilt-a-whirl and I was flung into, of all things, Kimmy's closet! Talk about irony...

There actually is some history with me and Douchebag at the Rave (exclamation point!) that has to do with running around my house at 4 a.m. screaming on a Tuesday night when I had to get up for work the next day at 6 in the morning, but I digress...

I don't remember much about what happened after that. From what I understand via Sean that there was almost a fight (I think? I was pretty drunk. Can't remember.) and then Disco left. Honestly, the first thing I remember after my spinning incident was waking up in Kimmy's bed the next morning. Okay, that's not totally accurate, I remember waking up at 2 a.m. with Tommy McKnight and Kimmy whacking me with pillows trying to wake me up, but that did not work.

New Year's Day was the same as New Year's Eve -- understated.

Well, almost. As in normal, we all woke up in Spilt Level trying to put ourselves back together and once we managed to do that, we stumbled to WaWa, bought coffee in plenty and then returned back to our respective housing to get cleaned up and changed.

We met back up and made our way to Lauren's Grandmom's house, where her Aunt introduced us to a nifty shot called an Irish (Italian?) Flag. You take a swig of lime juice, then good tequila, then Bloody Mary mix. Spicy! It was top shelf tequila too. I've never had really good tequila before (thanks, Lauren's Aunt!) and there really is quite a difference between Jose Curveo and $60 a bottle tequila. We also ate really yummy food there. Mostly, I think we were giving our bodies time to recover from the night before we started to drink all over again.

Once we had our fill of food and drink, we wandered back to my house where we nested for an hour or two. At some point Lauren's cousin (well, sorta -- he is the immy's cousin, which kinda makes him her cousin by marriage), Jarek, showed up. I had met him before, but never had any real contact with him, but on New Year's it's pretty common for me to run into people I haven't seen in weeks/months/years, especially vague acquaintances. Over time more and more people showed up and we took turns running from the corner to watch the parade back to my house to warm up and socialize in a comfy environment.

Earlier in the night, somewhere in between going to Lauren's Grandmom's and coming back to my house I decided to take my last pill of --fill in the blank-- (I don't know if it is okay for me to write about what I took or if I should not put it in here so I am going to go with the safe route and not write what it was that I tried) that Sharon had given me for my last birthday. I had two left -- Philly Danielle and myself decided to take two together last fall -- and shared the other one with Lauren. When I took --fill in the blank-- in the fall it was a lot like taking E, but much, much milder. I guess you could call it low level E if you wanted. I had drank so much on New Year's Eve that I thought I would do something different for New Year's Day.

Jarek and I wound up in my kitchen at one point, alone, and it was kind of awkward because we really don't know each other, but I was high and feeling "expanded" so I just chatted away happily and he seemed to be on the same vibe. It was an interesting conversation. I remember that I told him what I took and he asked how I was feeling. I said, "I just want to sit with somebody and talk about different ideas." He said, "Well, I can do that!" I was quite enamored with him from then on.

Later on, in my bedroom, with the rest of the gang, he played the piano and we had a discussion about atonal music and Buddhism. Not only was he sweet, but he was smart. Go figure.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear here: I was not "after" him, I wasn't trying to "get" him, I merely was crushing on him because he was nice to me. This is important because of what will happen later on. As I told Philly Danielle later in the night I was enjoying liking somebody and totally understanding that nothing would ever happen. Lately, I've been learning to appreciate other people's beauty, both inner and outer, without going into a depression because I'll never know it the way I want to. And I think this learning really began on New Year's. An interesting lesson to bring into the new year!

Throughout the night the group of us traveled all over, my house, 2nd Street, other people's parties, but eventually Lauren rounded us up to head to Avalon, a New Year's club where her uncle is a member.

On the way to Avalon, Jarek's friend (Randy? Ryan? something with an R. We'll call him R-Friend) mockingly proposed to my sister. I forget how it happened, but my sister was drunk and flirting with both of them and I guess R-Friend moved in for the kill first. Anyways, the proposal was cute and funny and adorable. Half serious, half joking, I cried, "Nobody would ever propose to me! I am going to be alone forever! What the fuck?!" Again, I was being half serious/half joking. God knows how it ACTUALLY spilled out of my mouth, but I think it was a tone of self-depreciation -- you know, Kathy Griffin-like. So, out of nowhere, Jarek says, "I'll propose to you!"

I nearly died.

I can't explain it, but it was creeping me out that he was so nice to me. You have to understand, most guys make me feel weird, awkward, uncomfortable, unwanted and here is Jarek, who I hung out with throughout the night and never once felt completely guy-oslated from him, and now he is offering to propose to him. Again, understand, I wasn't gunning for him or trying to get with him at all. I was probably flirting, or at least attempting to flirt, but I wasn't trying to take it anywhere. And he was being so nice. It was just bizarre because guys are not nice to me.

I had a conversation with Kimmy a few days after New Year's about all of this and she was confused and asked, "All of our guy friends are nice to you. I don't get what you are talking about?" She's not wrong. Our guy friends are nice to me and they're civil and very cool. There are even a few who I feel completely comfortable in front of. But I wouldn't expect her to "get it." I love her, and all of my hags (especially Katie -- when I say I think a guy is cute she goes over, grabs his ass, and screams, "ARE YOU GAY CAUSE MY GAY FRIEND LIKES YOU!" and points at a dumbfounded and mortified me) but none of them understand what it is to be gay. The Jarek event was similar to the Jeff experience I had a few New Year's ago, but not nearly as physical. It wasn't that my other guy friends are assholes, cause none of them are, it was that the way Jarek approached me was completely different.

Once he said he would propose, I didn't let Jarek forget it! Once we arrived at Avalon, he got down on one knee (again, I completely died...), and, by my suggestion, used the tab of a Pabst can as my engagement ring. He said he wanted to whisk me away somewhere -- R-Friend screamed out, "San Francisco!" -- so Jarek went with San Francisco and we could buy a mansion overlooking the bay for the rest our lives. Who wouldn't love that speech?! Come on!

As dorky as it is, I woke up the next day and found the beer tab in my jeans pocket. Before I went home from Avalon I told Lee Ann what happened and she said that if I wanted to always remember that moment I should slide the tab around my necklace chain. So I did that on the 2nd and it made total sense because I already have a pendent with the Tori Amos lyrics, "...the fear in the boy, the fire in the man..." and I think those lyrics, combined with the beer tab, sort of make the situation a complete circle for me. Personally, it was a nice wake up call -- hey! there are smart, attractive boys out there who aren't complete assholes. Who knew?! I don't know what Jarek's story is and, quite honestly, I'm glad of that. Thank God this isn't an Adam thing where I'm going to pine away for the next three years constantly wondering what could have been if only... It's not Jarek himself that I will take away from the experience, it was what he taught me about men and about me.

That was sort of the big story for me this past New Year's. There was also my sister and I getting into a fist fight at the end of the night, after Avalon, but, seriously, that was such a delicious release of pent up aggression, anger and annoyance that I am thrilled it happened. We haven't talked since New Year's. I don't know. I'm not really that broken up over it. I'm genuinely sorry it came to physical violence because that's totally not what I'm about. It was bound to happen sooner or later, though. In fact, we haven't crossed paths since then. I'm not complaining... I'm not going to write about how the fight started because it would probably be another 14 pages, but suffice to say it mostly had to do with her ignorant, loser friends. Imagine that.

The 2nd of January was quite wonderful as well. While mostly everyone went back to work, Lauren and I were able to take off. We went to the movies and had the most delicious dinner at Cafe Valentino. It was a great way to end the two day party that is always New Year's and I'll always remember the sane, quiet day that I had to recover before returning to the real world in 2008 with my L.

Sadly, there isn't much else to report since the beginning of the year. Kimmy's birthday was quite interesting this year, but don't want to hash up any old issues. Okay, I'll write this: I was thrown into a car by Timmy! It's sort of complicated. I don't want to get myself or anybody else into trouble. I just wanted to document that I seem to be having a violent year so far. I'm waiting for a crazy Beneficial customer to body slam me because the coin counter did not correctly count his/her (you should see some of our beastly woman depositors -- WWE anyone?!) change.

Before I returned to school, I came home from work and meditated and worked out about four nights a week. Returning to school has put a stop to that. One thing I'm trying to learn how to do is manage my time, which I have to come to find out I'm not very good at doing. I want to spend more time working on MYSELF -- meditating, going to the gym (or if not the gym, using the rowing machine), reading, writing (like now!). I work 40 hours a week and Wednesdays and Thursdays I have class so those days I don't get home till around 11. I tried getting up an hour earlier in the morning to go to the gym but that was a complete joke. This week I seem to have come to some kind of time management schedule thing (as in proof by this blog entry), but I sort of blew off working on school stuff this week. Argh! If anyone has suggestions I'm only more than happy to listen.

Wynia and I went to a Howie Day concert this past Tuesday that was very, very enjoyable. It was kind of weird because it was at the Tin Angel, which I think holds a maximum of like 250 people. It was surreal seeing Howie perform in such an intimate environment. It was like he was playing in my living room. Very cool stuff. He played "Bunnies" so he could have farted the rest of show and I would have been perfectly fine. He also played "Buzzin'," another HUGE favorite of mine.

Okay, I am rambling now. There are a few other things I wanted to write, but I kind of just wanted to get New Year's out of the way. Hopefully, I'll catch up on the smaller stuff soon, but knowing me it will be another three months before I write anything else.