This holiday season has been a depressing one despite "Doctor Who" and birthday get-togethers and turducken (I didn't decorate at all, which I think is a first), and while I was sorely tempted to stay home and sulk on New Year's Eve, I opted to go see Gogol Bordello at Terminal 5 instead. I tried not to witness an arrest on Secaucus Junction's track 2 platform while on my way to New York (probably drugs, but I don't know and didn't want to); I was largely unimpressed with the amount of beardage at the venue (why do today's kids feel the need to look like early 20th-century Midwestern farmers?); and I was rather unsympathetic to the teenager who asked me to buy a Budweiser for him, though at least he was gracious enough to accept my polite refusal. And he didn't have a beard, though it was probably not for lack of trying.
The opening band, Man Man, were a lot better than I was expecting, and they certainly got the crowd going. Gogol Bordello, however, were on fire. They had the whole place dancing and jumping around, and they sounded incredible. And I got twerked on. Twice. Well, OK, the first girl definitely knew what she was doing, even if alcohol may have played a part, and I couldn't back away as I was leaning against a column. The two friends about twenty minutes later were probably just getting carried away with dancing and didn't know or care that they were grinding against someone, and it would've been rude of me to ask them to stop...
At least they were only dancing. A few minutes after that, what I'd thought was a frenzied burst of dancing a few feet away turned out to be two girls fighting, and it took a few people to pull them apart. The band and the crowd counted down the last few seconds 'til midnight, and then we were showered with confetti (which I'm still finding).
Happy New Year!
I'm not doing the "resolutions" thing. There are goals I want to accomplish this year, and things I want to change about myself, but I don't think it's realistic to set them in stone on the first day of an arbitrary calendar, nor do I have a final list in my head. NaNoWriMo was another bust for me last November, but I did start a novel... just like I did last year. I want to write them both this year, or at least make some serious progress, so I can make a serious attempt this November. I want to get more music done; I've been writing and playing, and I've got new ideas (in addition to old ones that haven't been fleshed out yet), but I need to record more. I want to get back to organizing and uploading my collection of photos to the Gallery... of Death! In June, I'm going to do the Spartan Race with my colleagues Jenn and Vaida (we're the Eh Team), but that means that I need to stay focused on running and eating better than I have been these past two months. I'd like to run at least one 5K before then, too, just to make sure that I'm on the right track (so to speak); Jenn might accompany me as well.
I want to be happy again, but that's not really a goal in and of itself. I need to take happy where I can find it, and hope that I find more and more. As a Chinese cookie reminded me on New Year's Eve, "Every person is the architect of his or her own fortune." Someone else may have taken away a reason for my happiness, but that doesn't mean that I can never be happy again.
"I don't think my time is quite yet complete,
So I'll follow the rhythm, and speed up the beat."
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