New Years 2001: The main square in Taipei, Taiwan. Our hosts worry the Americans will separate and get lost. Two girls are propositioned for money. We bunny hop through thousands of people to safety. I sit alone on the fountain outside the dark high school, staring at fireworks in the distance.
New Years 2002: Post-first Christmas bash party. A selection of people in my basement. Random adolescent hijinks, sans alcohol.
New Years 2003: Punk show in Aberdeen, SD. The music finishes and we count down to 2003. I avoid kissing the only other gay boy in South Dakota and run outside where it has started to snow. Crazy Mike the first plays guitar and harasses girls. Self-destructive friends make snow angels in the street. I feel infinite.
New Years 2004: My basement again. Watching the Adult Swim special where the Brak Show gets cancelled. A failed attempt to watch Purple Rain with Maren and Emma.
New Years 2005: Rome with Maren, Mike, and Mike's friend Adam. Maren drinks a bottle of wine for dinner and Mike has explosives thrown at him. We try unsucessfully to find a bar. We end up eating gelati in the train station. Maren returns to the hostel and passes out pre-midnight. Mike and I walk towards the colosseum, explosions everywhere. We turn down a sidestreet and find the city celebrating in a piazza with an outdoor concert. At midnight the city explodes into fireworks and corks. Mike and I wander on to the forum and Colosseum. The beauty of the night almost makes it okay I've still never had a new years kiss.
New Years 2006: Getting drunk on five bottles of smirnoff ice and playing UNO with my mom and sister. Twilight zone on in the background. We watch the ball drop and explode an entire package of party poppers. I wonder if the christian calendar means anything to an agnostic.