All About Eve

"Is this the most over-hyped night of the year or what?" Cyd Zeigler asked rhetorically at Henry's swank New Year's Eve party. For me, it is often the most dreaded night of the year. So much sweating and anticipation. Where to go. Who to go with. Forced to drink champagne against your will and then stumble through the virtually incomprehensible auld Scottish lyrics of Auld Lang Syne. And for what? To see how Dick Clark is fairing since his stroke? Note that Anderson Cooper and Ryan Seacrest seem to revel in working the holiday since they can assiduously avoid kissing anyone personal at midnight? It's all just a lot of show. No wonder the older I get, the more I just want to stay home in bed.

On Friday night, Mike and I met up with Cyd and his wonderful boyfriend Dan at Barracuda. Earlier in the evening, I had been roped into hours of joyous heterosexual mayhem by Elaine Miles, the best friend of my newly discovered half sister. I had sipped $600 a bottle red wine while I came to realize from their foreign party rituals that I don't spend much time in groups of straight people anymore. It was a bit like discovering a lost civilization. But moments later, a cab had whisked me down to homo town and I was back in my noisy, ass-grabby element.

Cyd and Dan are a sensational couple with a romantic love story straight out of 1940s MGM. Like Enchanted Cottage with homosexuality but without the disfigurement. Unfortunately, our work schedules are so dramatically different, it is rare that we get to spend much time together. So when they suggested Mike and I join them at a party on New Year's Eve, we jumped at the chance. As it was, we had headed to the bars on Friday night to pick up copies of HX for some ideas of what to do on the big night. Going to a house party with Cyd and Dan was the perfect solution. A room full of strangers but also a couple of built-in reliable conversationalists too. Even Mike, who hates meeting new people and going to parties, seemed to approve of the idea. And, we figured, if the party sucked, we could always wander down to Therapy and have a few drinks in public. As if to make our plans even more fateful, on New Year Eve, the drunk trains run well past their usual killjoy time of 1:50am, guaranteeing us an easy way home no matter when we wanted to call it all quits.

So, Mike and I headed off into the city with a bottle of champagne and a bottle of vodka in a brown paper bag. Mike thought we should have put it in more discreet packaging, but it's December 31st, I think everyone knew exactly what we were carrying. Plus Mike brought along mini bottles of rum to warm us up along the way. He chugged his as a shot before boarding the train, but I kept mine in my pocket. By the time we got to the city, my short nap on the Metro North Train made me hungry. Unfortunately, everything in Harlem was closed except for our tried and true Popeye's Chicken. I ordered a chicken strip combo, and poured my mini bottle of rum into my medium Coke and drank it on our way down to the party near Columbia University.

We got to the party and it was in a very glamorous new building with fresh wood paneling in the elevator that Mike insisted on sniffing like he was a junkie and the elevator car was made of modeling glue. We hung up our coats and wandered into the sea of cute guys. We struck gold! It was just the right party to be at. Tons of food and booze and cuteness. We set about immediately to get smashed off our asses.

It turns out that Henry, our party host, wasn't a stranger since I met (and lusted after him) at a karaoke night with Cyd some months earlier. Mike knew instantly that I liked him because he was completely my type, although he wasn't the only one. There was a cute guy named Justin acting as one of the party hosts and he was also adorably blondie pie, though in a different way from Henry. Henry looks more like Daniel Craig as James Bond minus 20 years of rough living, while Justin looks like Torrance's unsupportive college boyfriend in "Bring It On". Justin was very solicitous to everyone in the room, so it was impossible to feel special when he would get kissy and grabby. It was still welcome though. Turns out he was 28, not 22 as I first suicidally suspected, and he had an equally adorable boyfriend hosting with him named Dan, who didn't seem to mind how flirty he was with everyone.

The party was in full swing for hours after the ball dropped, but Cyd and Dan were ready to drop before 1am. Once they left, Mike and I kept drinking and tried to meet a few of the other drunk strangers at the party. I got into a deep discussion about developing nations and how clean water programs, the Life Straw (perhaps the innovation of the early 21st century) and Heifer International lay the groundwork for economic development with a guy who specialized in such things but probably preferred to make out than explain the complexities of emerging economies in Africa to a drunk college dropout. I was just trying to show an interest in his work, which did not interest him in me at all. Later, we ran into a friend of Cyd's named Sergio, who had initially been driven away by our feverish discussion of the pending Iowa caucus. We do like our deep discussions at shallow gay parties, don't we?

Much drunker and later, Sergio took a second crack at us and found a much lighter conversation going on. The discussion evaporated entirely when we decided to make out instead of chat. And let me tell you, it was just what the doctor ordered. I didn't get his number. I didn't want to go home with him. I just wanted to spend a few moments at a party talking about nothing (his favorite color is red) and kissing intermittently. After all, it is New Year's Eve. The night of the year designed for making out with a stranger. And so much better than the year I randomly made out with Paul's friend Manfred after he had thrown up in the gutter outside Revolver. However, all good things must come to an end. Mike and I left to take one of the drunk trains home and I gave Sergio one last good kiss good bye. And that was the end of the that.

Now boozed up but good and happy after an hour of canoodling, I sailed into Grand Central Station and fell in love once again with its simple grandeur and the thrill of the crowd. No one told me but it turns out that Grand Central is THE place to be on New Year's Eve after midnight. In lieu of striking clocks and abandoned glass slippers, it is a sea of hot young drunk straight guys, smiling and having a blast. Everyone is infused with the joy of the night, boisterous and friendly, waiting for their respective trains home.

The party continued on our train, although it quieted somewhat as one by one, the passengers passed out in their seats. We did get caught at one station while the police were called aboard to deal with some belligerent passengers. Later, an attractive red-headed woman ran into her old friends who were sitting around us. The boys had given her the charming moniker "butt lice" and it was "butt lice" herself who explained that her friends had been the rowdy boys who had been pulled off the train. Another local mystery solved, although the origin of her nickname remains purposefully unknown.

A little after six AM, the train pulled into the station and Mike and I made our drunken way up the hill. Dawn was just starting to break and the town was covered in a slight foggy haze, blurred considerably at the edges by my drunkenness. By the time we walked up the hill and turned into the driveway, the dawn's early light was making its way slowly through the clouds, dramatically lighting the night sky above the bare tree branches and filling the yard with an eerie blue glow. It was all so beautiful to come home to. My home.

Eight is my lucky number, I thought as I tumbled into bed. And this year is 2008. So maybe this will be the year it will all fall together. This will be the year my luck returns in force, and all the pieces fit together the way they should. I already got a little lucky at the party, so there is no reason to think that kind of luck won't last all year long. I pulled the covers up to my head, nestled into my sea of pillows and drifted off to sleep with visions of my happy new year to come. Just the perfect ending to a perfect New Year's Eve.