1/2/2006 - The Year of Adventure

How can this next year be bad with all the adventure blessing the beginning of the new year?

Last year was pretty rough, and I'm still having a hard time, but this year will be better because I just had the best fucking New Year's Eve on the PLANET. I wasn't super psyched about it at first. How much fun can a sick guy, his broken-hearted roommate and her divorcee friend have in Austin right now anyway?

Drove down with the Ducks to Austin in Rob's truck and had an amazing time swooning over banjoes, electronic music and Mozart the Original Rockstar. Our original plan to meet up with Alec failed miserably because his directions were lame so we went to the Duck's house, which had to be the dirtiest little Punk Nest on all of the planet. We drank peppermint schnapps and Shiner Blonde while poking the comatose punk on the couch with a stick and blasting weird avante garde sounds into his ear with a half-broken boombox. He did not stir. Rob said there were shit turtles in the toilet that you had to reach your arm into to flush. Not staying here tonight. Smells funny.

We hop into Rob's truck and head over to 6th street buzzed on.... schnapps... looking for adventure. Amanda says the roads are blocked off and there is an ocean of unhappy, boring-type people there. I am excited to go, not because of the boring people, but because of the ocean part of all of it. Ocean of people. Swell.

We tried to spread happiness with our spelunking equipment (the plan was to end up in a batcave) but the lines to get into bars were long and stupid and there were cover charges and no one looked happy at all about the situation except for us, the saddest bunch.... until we see a couple walk out of a bar with luscious silk robes on, smoking cigars and we think 'oh, that's the one'.

I get lei'ed by a good looking guy at the bar and hang my spelunking light from it. Free champagne is handed out and shots of whiskey and kamikazes are ingested 3-2-1 HAPPY FUCKING NEW YEAR! We are euphoric! Everyone is so half-assed about their well-wishing that we decide to compensate for the entire city of Austin. We are skipping/tumbling/cartwheeling down the streets, hugging strangers and other general haberdashery. HAPPY! HAPPY! HAPPY! I yell, and Ducks is honking and Amanda is cartwheeling all the way down 6th with a headlamp on, falling occasionally and getting up to click heels with Rob.

Our mission is to find just four people as excited as us and whisk them off into the batcaves. People on the balcony of a very fancy hotel seem to be having a swell time and so we walk into the hotel like we belong there, and almost immediately get ourselves kicked out, but not before I grabbed a DELICIOUS box of chocolate truffles with beautiful golden leaf drawings all over them, four in the box, four for the 4 of us.

It was harder to find happy, actual, smiling people than you think. Ocean of people. None of them happy. We find one happy guy, who happens to be the same guy that gave me the lei and he agrees to adventure on the condition that we all do handstands, which we gladly do.

Run run. We run but Amanda has damaged her leg in a fall and now she has to stretch in front of the bus station and people are laughing so hard they can't breath at the five of us, stretching and doing squats like an Olympic Shenanigans Team on Congress ave. We jump on the bus, thinking it will take us to a batcave but instead it takes us to a Chevron miles away and that's the furthest it goes, so we get off, jubilant as ever. Lei boy starts to panic, gets skeered and decides to fold and try to get home. I grab some Pale Ale and a few handles of Mississippi Mud, excited that I can buy beer after 1am.

Amanda speaks at length with a limo driver who says he will take us to the batcaves after his shift is over and we get his business card. We all hitch a ride with two fratboys named Nick and Moose that we've flagged down in their white pickup truck. Ducks and Rob are in the trunk and Amanda and I are in the backseat and almost get mauled for having graduated from USC before the Rose Bowl. They keep calling us hippies and we laugh because we know that's just what they call everyone who is different from them.

We end up on a giant wooden porch behind a closed Secret Mexican Restaurant surrounded by forest and glowing lights and really awesome people. I don't know how it happened. I met a couple that was eerily exactly like Carl and Kate. I armwrestled with a guy named Ben in a black suit who kicked my ass, and drank my Mississippi Mud. A wiry geologist with a braided beard got Rob all sauced on $60 tequila.

There was a beautiful creek with an amazing cove on the other side of it, with a bench and a hammock and dozens of gorgeous windchimes singing in the trees. Rob is swinging Amanda every which direction, tossing her like a rag doll and the headlamp goes flying into the creek. Terrible misfortune. Or is it? A little Mexican boy runs out of the shadows, gathering the pieces of the headlamp, and putting the batteries back into it, handing it to Amanda. I catch a glimpse of him on the rocks across the creek before he disappears into the dark again. Our little New Year's Angel. We sat for a while drinking our beer and musing to each other about how perfect this New Year's has been.

Toben calls and he is with Kate and Leslie and Adam in Chicago. I think it is amazing that we've all graduated and are hanging out in quiet glory spread across the country like cream butter. We hang out there until everyone's gone, including Nick and Moose in their truck and we're thinking 'hmm... how do we get somewhere else.... our car is miles away'

Amanda calls the limo driver, who gives us directions to the secret batcave but reluctantly says he is too tired to take us there. "Fuck it," we say. "Let's go climb that pole"

We are walking down the street with a large red wooden arrow, pointing at things and taking pictures. At some point I climb onto a big scary hearse with a siren on top of it, like the ghostbustersmobile. It is a photo opportunity. Click. Fall. I fall off the hearse and onto my ass. Yes it still hurts.

Onward we go in the general direction of the truck. We know it is near the tall buildings in the distance.. we are walking walking and trying not to think of how truly far away we are when some raspy voices holler at us from a front porch, and we think 'ah yes, happy people' and invite ourselves in.

They are thirty-somethings and we are twenty-somethings but the thing we have in common is whiskey. And a few other things. It turns out we have stumbled upon Austin's very own Tom Waits tribute band, and that they have been cooking the most delicious barbeque salmon. Anyone who knows me well knows that this could not be more perfect, as I love Tom Waits.... and SALMON very very very much. I have a beer with the singer while singing Filipino Box Spring Hog and eating tasty salmon in a tortilla.

Eventually we must part ways and the Tom Waits guy gives us a pile of CDs and stickers and sends us on our way. As soon as we step out the door, a car approaches and we all stick our thumbs out. Lo and behold, we flag down the one empty taxi in all of Austin, occupied by a gracious bald taxi driver who takes us back to the truck on a $6 fare.

We are delirious with good luck and a few other things. I black out and wake up to find us all passed out in a parking lot with a flashlight in my face, cop telling me to wake the hell up. Like magic I pass the sobriety test and pretend-drive to a motel, when what I really do is drive to IHOP to pass out again.

Rob and I wake up with the sonic death screams of a hangover ringing in our ears. We order eggs from a dragon-tattooed waiter who looks, acts and probably smells like Vince Vaughn and he asks what we did last night. We tell him we hitchhiked, I fell off a hearse and we slept in the parking lot. He pours us coffee and remind us to check for our licenses and credit cards. We tip him generously.

The next morning when the Ducks and Amanda finally wake up, Amanda says something about how our delightful New Year's Eve might have saved her life. I think about it, about how much stupid joy was packed into one night and I think it might have saved mine, too. This year will be better. It's going to be amazing. Sometimes it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel... but just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there.

I can't wait. I can't wait! I'm excited about the future, and the future is now.