the ball drops

because blogging just so happens to be more fashionable than an email en masse, I will lay the play-by-play of NYE while orphaned in montreal for the second consecutive countdown. exhibit a: the mirror.

this hip little weekly (for whom my roommate LR writes about art from time to time) had a FIVE PAGE SPREAD about all the shit that goes down when the ball drops on this crazy island. From Erotic Circus to Ye Olde Orchard to everything in between.

it also had a lovely little top 10 of 2008s 'best' movies, music, art, dance, et al; which I read at one of the DEADEST HOURS I have ever worked while singing at the top of my lungs to the best of janis joplin.

while reading this guide to the ever-so-cool montreal new years experience (and wondering once again to myself how-the-heck Raf Katigbak landed the job as editor of vice canada), it dawned on me that I was reading the bible of expectation. the overdrinking, overdancing, overflirting expected. the perpetual anticlimactic cock tease countdown followed by the question: who is the kiss?

sort of trite, right?

so this new years, with a five page spread atop a heat press, I decided to go where the wind takes me, zero plan steeze. after checking in with my tightest of homies (an email to the lover in france, a phone call to a cherished lady bird, a meeting with alex boy, a plan with britt, a call from saraj, an invite from gram) I decided to forego the velvet rope, the cool hunting, the dance party, the dinner, the expectation, and just stick with the couple of peeps I have made into a mtl fam jam.

thus, with winnipeg phone numbers written on my hand (I didn't call a soul though - life is complicated sans cellulaire) I set off into the night in my grandmothers foxy boots (a gift from my mom). high-fiving my bro at saloon, to the Dep (where a cabby bought me a seven up 'je vais payer votre premiere brauvage de la nuit, mademoiselle') to the metro, up a hill, past the lineups and ridiculous bare skin of st. laurent, through the people in the streets, past the noise, the lights, into the loitering hallways of corridor, up to the warm energy of the wide eyed to my friends -best friends- my cross-canadiana friends who have art on their walls and there was wine in my hand and thinly rolled joints passed between lips and a mellow countdown and many friendly kisses and a beat and new friends and a russian fox wearing a little black dress and a photo-shoot which is likely on the internet somewhere (is anything sacred?)

and after, a break from the wide-eyed, blood flowing up the hill, a saucy redhead to meet, chili (non-carne) and champagne at casa (exhibit b), to an unexpected and sweaty dance party, to the famous 24 hour bagel place, to my saucy redheads abode, to sleep, to wake, to sip tea and eat more bagels, to work, to home, to here, to laze in haze & to sleep again.


7:30 dec 31 2008 - 7:30 jan 1 2009 in a nutshell.

someone once told me the way a person spends their nye is how they will spend the coming year after it; this proverb has whispered in my ear like a ghost each holiday season, proving to be - subjectively - accurate. (notable example: an incident I would like to call 'stealing Janelles new years cab and the madness that ensued')

If this tale is true, I am hot in anticipation.

left the house in hot grandma boots: style & comfort.
ten lines of winnipeg phone numbers stylo-d on my hand like some booked dance card: staying in touch.
surrounded by lovelies (old and new): I love 'em
not once phased by expectation: flow going.

seems like the very best way to start up 09.

happy fucking new year. loco.