Charming, but single

So, this New Year’s was supposed to be a couple of friends at my place. Snacks, drinks and a late-night trip to the little cigar bar across the street. Simple, relaxing, low key.

Gone are the years of big house parties, renting out the back room of a bar, going out of town. Big New Years plans always end up causing too much stress – where are we going to stay, how much will it cost, what will I wear, who will drive us home, etc.

“People who make huge plans for the New Year are really partying amateurs,” College Roommate informed me. “We don’t need to have some big to-do for New Year’s Eve because we are partying all-stars.”

I’d agreed enthusiastically. Perhaps we were both covering up for our subpar plans. Me, drinking with a few people in the bar where I always go. Her, hitting bed early because she had to be up at the crack of dawn to drive to go see her boyfriend’s college football team play in some lame bowl game. (Our college plays in an ACTUAL bowl next week, thankyouverymuch.)

I turned down an offer to go to New Orleans for a party that sounded like fun. I didn’t have a place to stay, wasn’t going to pay for a hotel room and was less than thrilled by the prospect of being anywhere near the French Quarter on New Year’s Eve.

The last time I did that was several years ago and the guys we were with ended up getting in a fight with some guys from New York as we walked down Canal Street to the Quarter.

I remember they were from New York because College Roommate had yelled, quite drunkenly, “I am from NEW ORLEANS. Why don’t you go back to BROOKLYN where you belong!” And I thought this was pretty funny because while my dear friend was from the general vicinity of New Orleans, she definitely didn’t live within the city limits. (Which I guess is splitting hairs when you’ve consumed countless cups of daiquiri, purchased in “milk jug” size for the occasion, while preparing to go out, so we let her slide.)

And then the cops showed up and I remember crying for the purely selfish reason that if these guys got arrested, it was going to be me and my drunken belligerent friends wandering the city streets alone without a ride, unable to return to the suburbs where we were sleeping that night because I simply didn’t know the address of the apartment complex, so we wouldn’t even have been able to hail a damn cab. I love New Orleans, but I get lost almost every time I go. I have a terrible sense of direction and I don’t know the city well at all – I once led an expedition of revelers five blocks the wrong way down Canal because I didn’t pay attention to the fact that cross streets changed names – Bourbon becomes Carondelet, Royal becomes St. Charles.

Alas, on that New Year’s Eve many years ago, the guys were able to slip out of the cops’ sight, grabbing us and pulling us down a side street and away from the action. “Outta mind, outta sight,” one guy, another friend’s older brother, told me as he patted a little bit of blood off of the side of his face.

I nodded and wiped my eyes. I was 22. I’d seen my share of bar fights, but this was my first walking-to-the-bar fight. After some bar hopping and ridiculously overpriced drinks, we ended up at someone’s house in God-knows-where. (I thought we were on the West Bank, but each of my girlfriends has a different opinion as to where we actually were come 3 a.m.) I have a sneaking suspicion that our male tour guides insisted we go to this house to buy drugs – because no one offered us any drinks when we got there, which is pretty much unheard of for the Big Easy, and because we didn’t stay that long.

After the hellacious hangover that I’d tried to stave off by drinking mint juleps the next morning with my Dad at Pat O’Briens before we went to a football game, I swore off New Orleans for New Year’s Eve and I’ve stayed closer to home.

Since my overnight house guest just cancelled and it is looking like it is going to be a much smaller affair chez moi tonight, I’m thinking I don’t need to go buy more wine and chips at the store, as I planned. I also probably shouldn’t bake the brownies I’d planned to share with my guests.

But I will.

Just in case there is an early morning brownie-related emergency to which I need to attend.

The end of another year has turned my thoughts to what I have achieved in the past 12 months and what I haven’t.

I have gotten a better job. I have become friends with my parents. I kept my New Year’s Workout Resolution for three whole months. I’ve grown up considerably, even though I still have moments of panic, like on Christmas Eve when I realized I left my spare casserole dish at the office potluck and didn’t have anything to contain the Christmas Morning Breakfast Strata and called my mom freaking out and later flipped out while I was wrapping gifts because they looked so ugly and you would think that I would be GOOD at gift wrapping because everyone else in my family is and I am so talented at so many things, like falling down in high heels, spilling things and, to a lesser extent, dating.

Dating. Oh, have I dated.

I was hoping 2006 would be THE year. You know, the year where I fell blissfully in love over romantic candlelit dinners, afternoon picnics and evenings at home cooking and had a date for weddings and parties and Saturday nights and got flowers on my birthday and had someone other than my brother for whom I could buy comfy sweaters that I would later steal and wear because they smell so much like a man I loved. (I love my brother. I won’t be stealing his sweaters because that’s kind of creepy and he has a girlfriend to do that.)

Not so much.

I did, however, find a surge of confidence in the Spring and decided to get out there and online date – which has proven to be every bit as scary as I thought it would be. But it has also been fun. And as much as I complain about it, I will probably continue on for a few more months at least and take advantage of the confidence boosting effects of my New Year’s Resolution workout plan. (Finally putting that gym membership to good use!) But I’ll probably be switching to Yahoo! Personals when my Match.com subscription runs out in January.

Maybe.

And I did learn a lot of about how you can be happy even when you’re alone and how you at times have to buy those flowers for yourself and not rely on other people – especially men – to make you feel sexy and loved and special and beautiful and charming and irresistible.

Sometimes.

That will be the case this New Year’s Eve, as I seem to have alienated my only chance at a midnight kiss (or after hours fun) for the glorious celebration of the changing year. The whole detailed mess is probably best left between the two of us. I can’t decide if, in the end, I owe him an apology or if he owes me one or if the whole thing is being blown royally out of proportion.

Suffice it to say that the correct response to your divorced Man du Jour when he tells a story that ends with, “And that’s the main reason why I’m not married anymore,” is NOT “Well I know one person who is very glad that you’re not married anymore,” followed by a soft kiss on the lips.

No matter how cute you are.

No matter how drunk you are.

No matter how low-cut your dress is.

No matter how sexy you look in those shoes.

Just, you know, for future reference, in case you ever find yourself in that situation after a night of too many cosmos with one of your girlfriends while she downs something on the rocks and laments the parting of her boyfriend of six weeks (She really felt like he was the one, y’all!) and you decide that a late-night visit to your Man Candy’s house is, like, totally the best way to occupy the hours between closing time and hangoversville.

So, my “Romantic Daily Horoscope” from today says the following:

Astral influences indicate that love and abundance are coming your way, but you have to clearly visualize the bounty. It’s your job to figure out how to improve your life using your vast store of inner resources.

I’m sorry, I can’t move on to figuring out how to tap my inner resources to improve my life. I’m too busy clearly visualizing every sweaty moment of the hot, juicy bounty of sexy, tall, cuddly man love that I’d like to come my way.

Look, the horoscope said I had to VISUALIZE these things! And WHO am I to argue with MY HOROSCOPE?

So tonight’s birthday celebration? Could be looking up.

As of today, I am no longer in my mid-20s.

I’m in my late 20s.

I’m almost 30.

Twenty-seven used to be my “scary” age. The age when I was starting to get old. I don’t have words of wisdom.

I should HAVE some words of wisdom by now.

Aw, hell.

For some crazy reason, I want to read chick lit this holiday season. First on my list is BreakupBabe, which I bought months ago and never read, not because I didn’t want to read it, but because I haven’t really had the time.

Then I could sift through all of the publicist-gifted books I get. “Dating Up” or “How to avoid marrying a Jerk,” to name a few. (Seriously, Publishing Publicists, I love the free books. I do. Keep on keeping on. But don’t fashion publicists want to help a sister out? Maybe some cute shoes like these or a Hobo International clutch in, say, Ocean? Didn’t I once call “Envy Me” by Gucci the official scent of this blog? I also like the new Burberry scent! Free online dating? Don’t you people want to use me for something other than book reviews that I sometimes don’t even write? No? Just books?)

Leave book suggestions in the comments. Remember, I’ve never brought myself to read an entire Shopaholic book. But I did like Bridget Jones.