2006

Over dinner I ask Adam and January (my official cohorts for the night) what their New Year's resolutions are. I spring this on them suddenly, so they're caught off guard and as such are unable to really come up with good resolutions. I've got a few fermenting in my mind, but when January and Adam decide not to turn the question back on me I leave my resolutions to simmer a while. I figure they'll be ready for a more official unveiling in a few days.

But it's not the resolutions we are all thinking about, really. In one of those pregnant pauses that happen periodically between friends, each person caught between choosing words and discarting others, January speaks up. She remembers an old superstition that I told her about, taught to me by a girl named Devon in Prague, who learned it from her mother in Connecticut. The idea is simple -- whatever you're doing at 12:00 a.m., whoever you're with, whatever is happening, that is how your new year will be. Surrounded by friends? You will be surrounded by friends. Watching the South Park marathon, falling asleep? A year of inaction (my particular fate last year).

Two hours later, January and I stuff our faces full of grapes in traditional Spanish style. We hold our grapes in our hands, waiting to hear the countdown 10! 9! 8! 7!... Instead, the countdown starts at 5! 4! 3!... and January and I hastily shove grapes down our gullets in an attempt to eat them all by the New Year. It's almost impossible, since I'm laughing so hard. January smiles at me, and a grape falls out of her mouth. The world around us explodes, the flash of cameras, people begin to kiss, to sing, someone throws confetti, and the world is sparkling, new.

I think that's a pretty good way to start the new year.