Happy New Year’s Rockin’ Eve 2024!

I begin this New Year’s Eve post with a public service message.

Ryan Seacrest will be hosting the 52nd (wow) annual installment of ‘Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest’ on your local ABC affiliate.  The idea of such luminaries as LL COOL J & Cardi B joining the lineup of performers including Rita Ora, Megan Thee Stallion, Jelly Roll, Sabrina Carpenter, Tyla, Multihyphenate Sebastian Maniscalco, Aqua, Doechii, Ellie Goulding, Green Day, Janelle Monáe, Loud Luxury x Two Friends with Bebe Rexha, Ludacris, Nile Rodgers & CHIC, Paul Russell, Reneé Rapp with Coco Jones, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Post Malone, who has sold over 80 million records and earned numerous awards, including 10 Billboard Music Awards, and will perform “Chemical” and finally K-Pop group NewJeans performing “Super Shy” and “ETA” all appearing on one five hour show literally takes my breath away.  But I’ve steeled myself to miss this epochal event.  I notice that Mariah Carey isn’t on the schedule.  A few years back she had a situation where her costume exploded off of her while she was being hoisted onto the roof of some building in Times Square to sing “All I Want for Christmas is You.”  They mercifully cut away in time but apparently, she never recovered.  I had also hoped that they could have released Madonna from her crypt for one last mummified rendition of “Like a Virgin” but I guess they couldn’t find enough formaldehyde to pull it off.  I also don’t see Lionel Ritchie’s name on the list which leads me to believe either he has passed away or the last of his fans has.  Ah, the changing of the guard.

I’ve decided to step in and recommend that all my readers deny themselves this pleasure.  Combining Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion and Ludacris all in one sitting might be just too much musical talent for anyone to endure.  It would be like Mozart and Bach joining Taylor Swift on stage at the Bellagio in Vegas.  Just too much magnificence.

I don’t do New Year’s Eve parties.  And it’s probably the result of several factors.  First off, I don’t drink.  Secondly, I find loud bars or other party venues difficult to hear over.  And this despite relatively good hearing.  So, the typical large New Year’s Eve gathering doesn’t have much to offer for me.  And as far as family gatherings, it’s really not a great night to be driving home from a late party.  Usually around here, the weather is awful for driving and there are more drunks on the road that night than any other.  When the kids were still young, we’d do some kind of midnight celebration with noise makers and calling up relatives to wish them a happy New Year and then we’d have some food.  Root beer floats were the favorite of my kids.

But New Year’s Eve is a great time of the year for course correction.  Taking stock and making changes.  I was talking to Camera Girl about this and she said, “I like to call it a time for reflection.”  I then mocked her ruthlessly, “What a fabulously original way of stating it.  Do you mind if I quote you?”  She was unconcerned.  Her poise while mouthing platitudes is remarkable.

Next year will be a busy time for me.  There will be a large increase in my commitments to several annoying tasks.  March, April, October and November will be extremely unpleasant.  And I have to figure out whether I should alter my format for the website.  There will be a number of interesting stories to follow this year but as far as the daily posts a lot of what can be said, has been said and in excruciating detail.  Maybe I’ll decide to limit my output to discussion of breaking events.  This would allow me to move forward with my fiction writing which I’m embarrassed to say ground to a halt in the second half of 2023.

I think what that means for me is that I will need to create that most hated and least successful of all documents, the “life schedule.”  As an engineer I was often responsible for making and updating and reporting on a project schedule.  Usually it was done on Microsoft Project, a powerful but highly annoying program.  Of course, I have no plan to plot my life on MS Project.  Camera Girl would not stand for it.  Me trying to regiment her free-wheeling method of running her house would madden her and probably lead to my demise by any one of several domestic weapons.  Although death by deli meats is my best guess.

So, I hope to spend the next few days attempting to take stock of how I spend my time and, in some sense, “mending my ways.”  And I don’t think of this as a negative.  The environment around us is constantly shifting and for this we need to adjust.  Once a year is hardly too often for this very important activity.  Probably seasonally is the correct frequency.  Spring cleaning and fall stowing away is pretty common but I’m much too lazy for that much organization.  So New Year’s resolutions it is.

But for those so inclined have a Happy New Year’s Eve with champagne and dancing till morning.