The first time I celebrated the turn of any year was New Year’s Eve 2005. As the clock struck midnight, I stood to clink my champagne glass with a friend’s … only to find a gay man sitting on the floor of my gay friend’s apartment hugging my right leg, tugging on my jeans, and regretfully proclaiming, while he gazed into my eyes, that if only I didn’t have a boyfriend, he would give me a New Year’s kiss. With this delectable memory of my first new year’s eve celebration, and with the bye-bye of the aforementioned boyfriend who hitherto stood between me and my flamboyant kiss, I had nothing but the highest expectations for the ringing in of 2006.
In the company of only one gay man last night, five high school buddies and I hit up Broad Street. One buddy was our “in” to the Charleston social scene, promising us pubs, after parties, and his hunkish straight med school friends. There were no disappointments before midnight as the rounds of drinks poured in, and we girls were surrounded by hot, southern, funny, and charming doctors-in-training. Less than an hour after the ball dropped at midnight though, the ball also dropped on our show. Our social butterfly of a buddy ended up sick over a trash bin at the pub, and was driven home by his roommate. Another friend was beyond inebriated, with a guy none of us knew hanging onto her shoulders not ready to let go anytime soon. There were dynamics of somethmm-somethmm developing within our group. Later, completely unrelated, there was a bathroom stall sharing incident, the details of which are a bit fuzzy.
With our “in”-buddy passed out in his roommate’s car en route to bed, we had about as much chance of finding the after party as we had of not being stupid enough to try anyway. We ended up walking for an hour through quiet residential streets with multi-million-dollar, porch-lined, southern mansions loudly debating whether “legare street” is pronounced luh-gair or luh-gree (luh-gree; it’s “french”). We never found the after party, but of course someone inevitably had to urinate in the drive way of a gajillion-dollar mansion. We did manage to eventually all end up at our friend’s place downtown without being stopped by cops, where we crashed for the night.
The highlights of the collective aftermaths today include a lost contact, a clogged kitchen sink, a bloody eye, a lock-in that really wasn’t, shrimp and grits, a Hillary Clinton spotting (that’s Senator Hillary Clinton), and a phone call from a guy whom I apparently gave my number to.
Happy 2006 everyone. I was too busy with libations last night to make resolutions, though it may not be a bad idea to start with “to drink less.”
*Addition* - Reminesce 2005 with Dave Barry in his annual month-by-month year in review.