New Year’s Eve 2000
The end of the Millennium and the demarcation line into the future, or something. New Year’s Eve is one of my favorite holidays and I was looking to make this one the best ever. My plan: dancing the night away at the Rawhide.
I figured it was going to take me a long time to get from Mountain View, where I live, to San Francisco, particularly given the fact that the festivities in the bay area for New Year’s Eve are invariably centered in the city. I resolved to clean my room in preparations for actually putting my studio up after innumerable aborted attempts, but I didn’t make much progress in that department. I got dressed up and hit the road toward dinner at 5:30.
Dinner at Chef Wang’s of Los Altos, right on El Camino Real. The waitress there, Lucy, always remembers what I want. She didn’t wait on me tonight, though, so I inadvertently had something different. Not bad, but not as good as Kung Pao Tofu. I headed north on the highway about 6:15.
Hitting the 101, I was astonished by the fact that traffic was flowing as normal. I leaned on the accelerator more than normal, just in case the slowdown was farther ahead. The traffic kept flowing, though Palo Alto, and then Menlo Park and Redwood City and San Carlos and San Mateo and Burlingame. Damn, traffic is certainly bound to slow down as we get closer to the city. San Bruno, South San Francisco, Brisbane, San Francisco. I exited the 101 at 65 miles per hour, found a place to park and arrived at the rawhide 45 minutes before they open.
Managed to find some way to assist the decor crew, thus getting in for helping out. It was great to be able to wander around and help the crew ready for what promised to be the biggest night of the year.
The music started out deep in house territory and wandered into ambient trance and then into progressive house. It was sweet. Patrick and Gigi showed up, with Dan, Zoe, and their mac-programming friend, Alex. And, of course, no New Year’s celebration would be complete without Kai (complete with his better half, Marina).
I started stepping in earnest a little before 11. The crowd increased and increased and at 11:59:55, there was a countdown and a balloon drop. It got out of control. I hugged so many people around me. They were just grabbing and giving love to complete strangers.
There were so many delicious people in attendance, many of them sporting that orgasmic Irish brogue. I mean, shit, nothing’s a bigger bonus than chatting up a pretty redhead to have her say, “<brogue>So, are you having a good time, then?</brogue>.” Yum.
Some fucking dimwit starting setting off smoke bombs about 2:45, so they turned the lights on at 3 and kicked everyone out. It was still an amazing night and one of the best New Year’s celebrations I’ve had. Bring on 2001!
Yes, I’ll be posting my resolutions soon, along with a refit of the snippets section so that next week isn’t “Week 54.” Happy New Year!