New Years: Faithful in Her Fashion
NEW YEAR’S EVE, 1951: I vow to stay up until midnight. My mother and I go shopping and buy blue metallic top hats that say 1952 in silver glitter.
We buy pink Hawaiian leis and noisemakers. We get a Lazy Susan tray from the deli with corned beef, pastrami and tongue. I learn what tongue is; I nearly die.
That night I wear my pink Angora sweater and my gray felt skirt and my patent-leather Mary Janes. At 8 o’clock my mother puts out the food. I hear the man on the radio dedicate a new song to our boys in Korea. It’s “Till Then, When All the World Will Be Free, Please Wait for Me.”
I eat everything on the bottom tier of the Lazy Susan except the tongue. I get very, very sick and am put to bed at 10 o’clock.
NEW YEAR’S EVE, 1960: I go out on my first New Year’s Eve date. I am 16 and hot stuff. Three boys have asked me out, and I go out with Mike Levin, a senior, whom I have a crush on from Student Council.
I wear a black jersey sheath with a white Peter Pan collar, Size 7, and black spike heels with pointy toes. We go to a party at a motel (!) where there are college boys (!) and liquor! I drink a screwdriver. I dance with a strange boy who asks for my phone number and calls me at 8 the next morning.
Someone puts Mathis on the hi-fi. People start making out passionately, wantonly, in front of everyone. I nearly die. I try not to look. At midnight, everybody starts kissing everybody. Wait until I tell my girlfriend Penny.
Mike Levin takes me outside where it is 20 degrees and kisses me so sweetly I’m sure I’m in love. Two weeks later, I start going steady with another boy.
NEW YEAR’S EVE, 1963: I live in New York and go to college. I still tease my hair because the First Lady does. I wear a maroon A-line sleeveless dress with a matching jacket and square-toed, short-heeled shoes.
My date takes me to see “Waiting for Godot” at a small theater. Afterward, we go to a party. People are talking softly and drinking Scotch and soda and smoking Camels and Gauloises. Miles is on the stereo playing “Kind of Blue.”
At midnight, people outside are shooting guns. Someone could die. Or they couldn’t. We keep talking about Nietzsche and Camus and Being and Nothingness.
NEW YEAR’S EVE, 1971. All Power to the People. We are in Berkeley at a house on Berkeley Way. I’m wearing my Mary Tyler Moore bell bottoms and my surplus-store black turtleneck and hiking boots and some lucky beads I have strung myself. You never know when it’ll all come down and we’ll have to retreat to the mountains.
Some are on mushrooms and some are on mescaline and some have gotten clearlight tabs from the Dolores Street Supermarket. Some do reefer and others just sip from the bottle of mescal with a worm in it. Some do everything.
I’m having a good time, but I know that people are dying in Vietnam. Around 10, the session begins. We’ve got horns, guitar, drums, piano and weird little things holy Tibetans play.
At midnight we kiss, but we never stop playing. Men kiss each other. Someone grabs my rear end. Watch it, pig!
By 2 a.m. I’m playing the piano with my knuckles. We sound great. The little kids are thinking: As soon as I’m old enough, I’m voting for Reagan.
NEW YEAR’S EVE, 1980. I vow to stay up until midnight, but the party starts at 9 and I’m ready to go to bed. My baby is 9 months old, and she still doesn’t sleep through the night. I’m wearing something that makes it easy to nurse her. Maybe if I drink some champagne it’ll make her sleepy too.
We eat a feast of red pepper shrimp, tortellini with pesto, bouillabaisse, Cuban bread and Boursin cheese. Jaime has brought her homemade cannoli.
At midnight, I kiss my family. I kiss the old acquaintances who’ll never be forgot. We gather around the piano and sing, “Is that all there is? Is that all there is? If that’s all there is, my friend, then keep on dancing. . . .”