magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

I called Garth this morning. 'So. Brunch.' He handed the phone off to Chris, since we could better coordinate. 'Supposedly Caravan of Dreams has brunch, which we've never tried.'

'It's worth a shot. Cora's coming too, so let me call her, and I'll call you back with a time.'

When I got to the corner of 1st Ave and 6th I heard yelling from across the street. 5+ years with the glasses, and I really can't see a damn thing, but eventually figured out that it was Kate.S, Dave.Z, and Abi. Presumably Chris had invited them as well, and this wasn't just a random run-in.

I waited for them on the corner. Dave ran to use an ATM machine. Abi saw a poster with a photo of the Ramones and said, 'I wonder if they've been resurrected for the new year and are taking over the East Village,' and ran to look.

Kate said, 'I've never like the Ramones.'

'Me either, really.'

'Or the Smiths. I've always hated the Smiths.'

Garth, Chris, and Cora were waiting in the restaurant for a table. Caravan's brunch was okay. But not great. And no hard booze brunch drinks, like bloody marys and mimosas. Just beer and wine. Chris and I did both start New Year's Eve off with a sangria.

After brunch we walked down to a candy store in SoHo that they had passed on the way up from the train, which it turns out that I had been to before. Kate seemed to know everyone in the store. We bought candy. Stood around outside eating it.

Abi realised that she had left a bag of knitting stuff in the restaurant, and she and Dave went back to retrieve it and would meet back up with us. The rest of us, seeking refuge from the cold, and by this point freezing rain, figured that it was New Year's Eve, what better day to ensconce yourself in a bar at three in the afternoon, and headed to The Library, which I had never actually been in, because the one or two times I tired to find it I was looking on the wrong Avenue.

Two Sapphire gimlets later, the (now) snow having let up, we headed out again, this time to Brooklyn, to Dave's house, to officially start the pre-party. 'I'm getting kind of hungry again,' Garth said.

'Me too. I could definitely eat.'

'Punjabi Deli's right around the corner,' Dave said. 'A big bowl of vegetarian Indian food for $2.'

'It's not really a meal,' I caught myself starting to complain, 'more of a snack. But if there's going to be food involved later on, I'm game.'

'We can probably make that happen.'

I actually got the $3 slightly more food and bread. Definitely didn't fill me up, but was a totally good idea to put something in my stomach.

At Dave's, a bourbon and Coke. And a soynog, I can't remember whether or not I put rum in it. ('It's probably just going to go bad if you don't drink it. No one around here will.') We watched Brain Candy. Then headed up the Slope to an apartment where a bunch of kids who were at Brown while we were at RISD were having a party. 'They're making veggie sushi,' Dave told me.

And, as it happens, the New Year's Eve veggie sushi party, a tradition that they started last year, was initially inspired by the fact that a few of them had come to one or two of our veggie sushi nights in Providence. 'They stole your thing,' Chris said under his breath in mock-indignation.

'I think it's pretty cool actually. To see all these branches of the seed that I planted years ago. Two or three glasses of red wine with dinner.

A bit before 11 we cut out, which I felt a little bad about, eating their sushi and then not even sticking around until midnight, but told them 'We have to go to another party with a bunch of RISD kids,' and they understood. Kate had already split, Dave and Abi were headed somewhere else, and Cora had actually headed off for work much earlier in the day, after brunch, so Chris, Garth and I got into a cab and headed to Williamsburg.

'I don't know how to get there,' the driver said. 'Could you take a different cab?' Which we did. The driver of the second cab didn't have too much better of an idea, but took us anyway, and we did out best to direct once we were in Williamsburg.

'For some reason, this part of town always confuses me,' I said. 'I just can't get an accurate map of it in my head. I have no idea why. I'm usually really good with that sort of thing.'

We got to the party, at Allison.M, Holladay, and Lacey's, with a good half hour until midnight. They had already drank all their champagne though, so it was back to gin, not quite as fancy at this point in the night, and as close as I could approximate to a gimlet with the slightly under-ripe limes on hand. But, seeing as how I hadn't paid for any of the drinks I had imbibed post bar, I was and am in no real position to complain.

Counted down to midnight based on the clock on the stove. And again to someone's watch or cell phone. Had another gin drink. And then it was off again. Garth to Evy's party, Chris to a party that Jessie's new roommate Liza had invited him to.

Evy's was on the way, so we all stopped in there, Chris and I split a glass of wine between us, and then it was off again.

The next party was winding down. The stragglers were planning on heading out to a bigger party elsewhere (which people from Evy's party may have been talking about as well). But in the interim, there was a keg, so two cups of beer, and a third on the street on the way, ready to toss at the slightest hint of the police.

The big party was in a basement loft space where Cybèle had played a show over the summer. But it was dark, and shut up, and there didn't seem to be anything going on. On the walk over I had been talking with a girl (with glasses) named Dorit ('With a T?' 'Yeah,' she said, 'a T.'), who took a picture of Chris peeing on a wall, and then, when the remnants of the party were splitting up, headed home with her quieter friend (from out of town?).

Chris and Liza and I walked towards the subway, but were all more or less interested in another drink, and stopped into a bar on the way for a Delirium Noel, their seasonal brew I suspect, probably about 9% alcohol.

And then late, nearly four in the morning, drunk on the subway. Home. Alone. (But aside from that, a good New Year's Eve.)