I rang in the new year in my most favorite of ways, surrounded by friends and strangers alike at my friend's epic, annual NYE house party. It's always a memorable event, to say the least and this year's party was no exception. New year's day we, the core group of us that help throw the party each year, surveyed the damage and trecked over to Swinger's for our always anticipated morning-after breakfast. This breakfast not only provides us with substinance we need to remedy our hang-overs and lack of sleep before we head back to the house to tackle the mess, but is also the perfect opportunity to fill each other in on the goings on of the previous night that we may have missed and can't wait to gossip about. This party, in one night, usually manages to produce enough juicy gossip to compete with 4 years of the high school grape-vine (and it certainly indulges our ever-lingering cravings for said gossip). So the breakfast conversation is a barrage of "So and so slept with who?!?!," "They did it where?," "Did you catch so and so's girlfriend chatting with his ex?," "Did you hear the dirty secret that leaked out?," "Who was that dude passed out in a puddle of his own vomit?," "I hadn't seen so and so since middle school!," "I heard there was a crack pipe in the jacuzzi.," and the ever popular, "Did you hook up with anyone last night?" While this year's morning-after breakfast certainly lent itself to the usual gossip, we were all a little pleasantly surprised by how composed everyone was this year. Perhaps it's that the vast majority of the guests are all of legal drinking age and most are probably even post-college now, so we've all grown up enough that ending a night with our head in the toilet is no longer looked at as evidence of a fun evening. And perhaps, as we grow older, more of us are in serious relationships or at least have our own places to return to before indulging in a roll in the sheets with whom ever was in kissing range when the clock struck 12. What ever the contributing factors may be, it was nice not have to clean up vomit, broken beer bottles and someone else's discarded panties this year. In fact, clean-up was refreshingly easy and relatively quick.
As for me, I drank, but not even enough to be greated with a hangover the next day. I ended the night, not by crashing, fully dressed on the floor or buck naked next to some stranger, but alone, in my pj's, cozy in bed. I had a blast ringing in the new year, even without being the answer to any of those questions posed at the breakfast table New Year's day. I was content just to be in the company of some of my favorite people (and a whole lotta strangers).
