New Years Day

1/1/10 11:38 AM

I failed again and did not get drunk last night. Not all was lost, though. I ate black-eyed peas in a lovely condo in downtown Austin and got to see my old pal Sam, and meet some of his very hospitable friends. Attending the party was a lawyer or two (one was the host), an aspiring filmmaker, a NPR employee (married to one of the lawyers), parents who had been in finance, a PhD candidate (Sam), a lesbian couple and a straight couple I didn't get a chance to talk to, two dogs, and myself. I believe it was the first party I've ever been to in one of those New Urbanist downtown mixed-use condos. Perhaps it was a cosmic prerequisite for getting accepted to one of the urban planning graduate programs to which I'm applying. When we left the small gathering, Sam and I attempted to go to the hipster sock-hop in happening, gentrifying east Austin. We're both over thirty, so by the time we arrived the party was over, and a bunch of wasted twenty somethings in thrift store clothes were standing on the street corner outside the bar deciding what to do. We debated going to the river and drinking, but besides not having any alcohol, we're both over thirty, so we went home to Sam's apartment. There we were greeted by Howard, Sam's effusive shaggy gray mutt, and we all went to sleep happy that 2009 was over.

One more thing I feel compelled to complain about lest I forget: those damn screens on the back of the jet blue seats. They're worse than TVs in a bar. And I'm so damn ADD that even with my personal screen turned off, I can't stop looking at the screens a number of rows in front of me. It makes me feel like a cat being tormented by a gang of cruel teenagers with laser pointers. In the flight last night, save the two eight-year olds sitting behind me, no one seemed interested in the new year's eve ball drop. I think the individualization of entertainment is going to completely kill collective social experiences, and those damn jet blue screens are actively complicit in the death of empathy. On another airline there would have been a group countdown to the new years, but on jet blue you could only hear the count down if put on your headphones, connecting to a bunch of strangers standing a thousand miles away in times square while ignoring the person sitting next to you on the plane. That said, it was only $150 to fly during the new years, so I really shouldn't complain.