The only relief that comes with New Year's Eve is that it marks the end of the frustrating string of holidays. The season from mid-November through January 1st reinforces the conventional and exhausting notion that a person should be a part of an intact family unit and a romantic couple. New Year's Eve is especially at fault when it comes to this institutionalized feeling of inadequacy that I haven't found The One, or at least The One to kiss me when the annual clock turns.
Yesterday my sister and I decided to make a positive change away from convention. First, we went to Project Trust, a free clinic in Boston, and got OraQuick Advance rapid HIV tests. Within twenty minutes we had some refreshing news to ring in 2009. To celebrate, we prepared a Spanish tapas feast, drank champagne and sangria, and watched Almodóvar's exquisitely meta film of transvestites-and-priests-and-familial betrayal, Bad Education. As the New Year approached, we watched Wong Kar-wai's Happy Together. After Almodóvar's campily fantastical tableaux of drag queens and Wong Kar-wai's dreamy photographic images of Chinese gay men in Buenos Aires, the approach of midnight recessed into the background.
We fell asleep around 11:15, having had just enough to drink to make us sleep like babies for twelve hours (two glasses). No offensive parties cluttered with uninteresting guests, no big crowds or foolish drunks, and no distracting boyfriends or wankers of the week--only the sweet scent of coriander and fennel prawns, and the lovely homoeroticism of world cinema. Jealous?
(The above photo is of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum courtyard, all dressed up for the holidays.)
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