I'm not sure why I remember this night, specifically, because I've attempted to take mental snapshots before, and most of them just never took and maybe ended up killing a few people like that evil camera in Goosebumps. Rest assured, nobody died on this balmy, summer twilight as I filed toward that parking garage on the North Shore. In fact, I considered this walk to the car a birth, of sorts. Not a Katherine Heigl in Knocked Up birth, but more like a Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness birth, though this did not involve sleeping in a public restroom with my son. I don't even have a son.
This was the summer sandwiched between my second and third year at Pitt, and I was coming off a sophomore campaign that saw me inherit the reigns of The Pitt News sports section, wield a cash advance in New York City during the Big East Tournament and see my name in the Trib for the first time all at the ripe age of 19. This night came about a month into an internship that I thought was going well, and I had those impressions reinforced by a couple of superiors on a mid-week walk out after we'd all knocked off around midnight. Someone cracked what was likely a joke poking fun at one of the interns who weren't as cool, at least that's how I remember it. Anyway, I laughed, glanced off toward Heinz Field, which still awaited a myriad of mustachioed coaching blunders, and thought: I will make it. I'm just not there yet. To me, like the closing credits of Contagion promised about the next devastating viral outbreak, my success wasn't a question of 'if,' but 'when.'
That was closer to five years ago than to four, and as the Times Square ball dropped to light up the big, 2012 sign on TV, I raised whatever was in my right hand, turned to my left and let Ryan Rylands kiss me on the forehead, neglecting to consider where his mouth has been. Nevertheless, I woke up in my own bed on New Year's Day, pleased to have spent the previous night with at least a couple old friends, none of whom were named with any combination of the words 'Ice,' 'Light,' or 'Natural.' While they'll have to wait another week for my company, everyone I saw on my 24th New Year's Eve, I'm sorry to say, will appear in another mental snapshot filed in my 'before' scrapbook. (I'm sorry, first because there's a chance you now might mysteriously die, and second, because being my friend up to this point has likely reaped you little to no tangible benefit. ... Actually, I shouldn't be apologizing for that second one. That's your fault. Thanks for reading, by the way. You look nice. You losin' weight?)
What's funny about New Year's Eve is actually pretty close to what I remember Ashton Kutcher (real name: Chris Kutcher) saying in that one commercial I kept inadvertently seeing for the New Year's Eve movie, which I can only assume is out of theaters by now, and that's a shame, because I really did not want to see it. I'm a man of principle, too, so I refuse to Google New Year's Eve quotes to try to figure out exactly what he said, but it was something like, 'Nobody parties all year, then all of a sudden goes all Kanye on you,' on New Year's Eve. And ayo, Ashton, I'm really happy for you, and I'ma let you finish, but I have one of the best New Year's Eve philosophies of all time.
I think of it like this. At the crux of it, and I don't say crux enough, New Year's Eve, for most of us, is not that different from any other planned night out. Maybe you dress up, maybe put on a bow-tie if you're looking for attention, but you hang around the same people. Chances are you go somewhere you've been before, and when it's all said and done, at the end of the day, when it comes down to it, what you did on New Year's Eve probably wasn't any more spectacular than a big Saturday night. But because it signifies the beginning of another calendar year, it's memorable. You know what it's like? Rain on your wedding day. Or a free ride when you've already paid. Good advice that you just didn't take. I wouldn't have thought, but New Year's Eve figures.
No matter how ironic it is, though, New Year's Eve still is often celebrated at social gatherings in modern society, according to a source with knowledge of the event, and this is a modern society, much to the chagrin of every sports columnist at every newspaper in America. After all, they didn't make a movie titled 'That One Saturday After Finals' ... they called it 'New Year's Eve,' and that's already far too many New Year's Eve movie references for a supposed man of principle. I should just admit that I wanted to see it but was waiting until after the holidays to get discounted admission. And now I'll have to wait until the Blu Ray comes out. #firstworldproblems #whitgirlproblems
For me, New Year's Eves have served as somewhat of a social timeline, meaning I had this idea way before Facebook ever thought of it. That makes me, like, the third Winklevoss twin, so you can bet that Zuckerberg's going to be getting a call here soon. From the eventful New Year's Eve that rung in 2004 in Marshall, to the eventful New Year's Eve that rung in 2008 on the South Side to the not-as-eventful but still pretty cool New Year's Eve hosted on Semple Street that welcomed in 2009, these nights are your life condensed to a couple hours. Whether you want to accept it, and you probably don't if you didn't have a whole lot of fun Saturday, you are your New Year's Eve plans.
Which brings me back to me. I didn't have a whole lot of fun this New Year's Eve, but I didn't expect to have a whole lot of fun. I expected to have some fun, and I did have some fun. I hung out with Ryan and Pede in the South Side and Squirrel Hill, then enjoyed the company of one of my best friends from high school before heading home for a comfortable night's sleep. The next morning, as I digested a New Year's pretzel slathered in icing and prepared for my second fantasy football championship loss of the season, I couldn't think of anything I would have done differently the night before, and that is the first time I have ever said/typed/thought that ... ever. And there's proof.
When I moved back home four months ago, I don't know how long I thought I'd be around. After about a week, I began to write a post that I never finished in the most non-surprising development of 2011 that didn't involve the words 'Sunseri' and 'sack.' Thanks to the magical powers of the internet, here's a snippet of that from the Jose's Mesa cutting room floor:
If you're wondering how my first week back in Pittsburgh is going (That's a Vin Scully tribute, for our baseball dorks), picture me wielding my cell phone like a gun and forcing all my friends to look at the pics I took over the past year, and you'd have something resembling what took place on the South Side Friday and Saturday night. If I wasn't starting a sentence with, "In New York ..." or, "Oh yeah, the bars close at two ..." I assaulted every old friend I saw with a cell-phone pic gauntlet that surely would have bored even the most enthusiastic parents of a newborn baby. Because, you know, they like to take a lot of pictures.On Saturday, I mentioned New York once to relive a fun concert some friends and I went to over the summer, and that was it. I talked some Twitter hijinks, gossiped about friends, opined on the state of rap in Pittsburgh and cackled about some high school Tom Foolery. I ate meatballs and briefly wore a questionable hat, which, of course, was underneath the coffee table when I posed for my only photo. I watched backyard fireworks and lit up a Swisher at midnight, fumbling it into the dirt about halfway through. I toasted the good times, and -- AND -- I got home safely.
I did this because I had to do this. When you suddenly appear on East Carson Street like Jim Carrey in The Majestic, it's a lot like you've gone off to war, died and come back as somebody else who looks like you. You see old friends, and they're surprised. 'Whoa! I haven't seen you in a while,' they say. 'What have you been up to?' That's when I take the entire bar hostage, rig everyone up to the thing that held that guy's eyelids open in A Clockwork Orange (Google it, you'll see) and scroll through my camera roll until they're forced to acknowledge that I was having some mild success in life. At least until the cops come.
My New Year's Eve 2011 snapshot will include all of these things, though I'm no longer sure it belongs in 'before,' because I certainly don't act like a 19-year old, at least when I'm around people. It's not meant for 'after,' either, and quite frankly, I'm not so sure there will be an 'after,' but if there will be, this is assuredly not it. Where I am right now reminds me of a movie that spawned a lot of strange activity on the third floor of Litchfield Tower B in 2006, activity I will not characterize here in order to protect the guilty.
That movie was called 'Waiting,' and though I won't quote it any further than I already have, I think it fits the theme of New Year's Eve 2011, and thus with yours truly as he currently stands.
For now? I don't mind it.
But check back with me next year.
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