Monday, January 01, 2007
5:27 PM
So this is the new year...
My New Year's Eve was straight out of a Beckett play, like a scene from Waiting for Godot. Due to unforeseen circumstances, all the other housemates were out partying or out of town, so the only people left were me, my favorite German housemate Carina, and her boyfriend Robert who'd just arrived from Munich the day before. (We don't count the couple in the basement, who have their own little world.) We'd intended to greet the New Year drinking on the roof (perhaps not the brightest of ideas), but since it had been raining all day and the roof was slippery, that plan was shot. So we finished a bottle of wine, moved the couch in front of the huge window in Ben's room, and stared at skeletons of trees against a pinkish-grey sky. With cans of beer in hand, we waited for midnight to roll around. Five minutes before the stroke, the city was still quiet. One of us opened the window and listened.
"Why is nothing happening?"
"No firecrackers or fireworks?"
"Do Canadians celebrate New Year?"
"Maybe they'd rather stay in bars than light fireworks?"
"I have no idea; we're not from around here, remember?"
"Maybe everyone's staying inside because of the rain."
"Maybe our clocks are wrong and we're actually an hour early."
"Maybe our calendars are warped and we're actually a day early."
"Maybe we should call someone."
Carina called Nilo who assured us Canadians did indeed celebrate New Year. But that she had leftover sparklers in her room we could help ourselves to just in case we didn't see any fireworks. So five minutes after midnight, after concluding that our window-watching idea was useless, we opened our beers, lit our sparklers, and did little jigs of joy. Three foreigners in a quiet city, ushering in 2007 with whirling lights and much floor-creaking.
* * *
I've loved my previous New Year's Eves too. I remember drinking passionfruit vodka at the Marikina Riverpark with Kael, EJ, and Mitzie to greet 2004. And having champagne and focaccia with Elmo and his mom for 2005. And spending a cold night watching fireworks from the funeral chapel with my family and the Soncuyas for 2006. This time last year I was sitting in limbo, in an eclipse, all my plans up in the air. Now I'm where I want to be, still slightly homesick, but drinking in every last drop of this experience.
* * *Pictures and mini-stories:
The Smee Casualty Board! We use the kitchen whiteboard for chore reminders, school and job updates, basic info (we realized after 2 months that we had no idea what each other's last names were), and a tally board for mice. We thought we only had one -- who'd eat only whole wheat bread and sunflower seeds -- and affectionately named it Smee, in a pirate-y mood. Then we discovered we had a family. One mouse entered through the space under my door (one disadvantage to living next to the kitchen) and found its way to my bed (no, I'm not that desperate...yet). Carina and Nilo caught it with an upside down trash can, stuffed it along with my blanket in a garbage bag, and we trekked to the park a block away to "set Smee free!" Except the tame little rodent kept snuggling in my blanket. We had to shake it off...and I had to wash my sheets. Twice. We waged war on Smee's relatives, though, who were only assigned numbers, not names. We caught SIX on sticky paper a month ago, and fervently hope we caught them all. I still have dreams about mice, which I assure you aren't as delightful as the rats dancing in the Nutcracker ballet.
The Gingerbread House! One December night before the term ended, Ben wanted Christmas cookies, and Nilo decided she wanted to make a gingerbread house. So we all chipped in -- my contribution was gladly setting aside my unfinished 20-page paper (on notions of privacy and the female outider in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire and Lillian Hellman's The Autumn Garden) and making a literal midnight RUN (with running shoes and jogging pants) to the supermarket to buy...food coloring. The baking took two hours, and the house smelled exquisitely sugary at 2am. Notice how the gingerbread roof rests precariously on the walls and uncooked spaghetti supports. With the leftover dough, we made a tree, a cat, a bike, the number 62, a heart, a woman, and a man -- which they let me eat, head last.
Ok, no real story here. Just a cute picture by the front door, of me and Carina supposedly saying goodbye to Adam. Me in pigtails, days before I cut my hair short again and dyed it "chocolate cherry -- just a fancy name for burgundy brown (and yes, I share Kate Winslet's character's fascination for haircolor names in Eternal Sunshine, among other quirks). I love how you can see the stark trees as well as the hallway light above our heads. We're there, smiling, with the liquid glass blurring what's inside and what's outside, just within reach.
(More photos coming soon!)
Labels: house, life, photographs
