Happy New Year!

I wonder if there is someone out there, a corporate middle manager type perhaps, who greets people in the morning with "Happy New Day!"

It can't be denied that this is possible.

It's both a terrifying thought and a not-bad-now-that-I-think-of-it idea. Terrifying if one were assaulted with it a 8 am each weekday. Not a bad idea, however, to greet each day with the hope and conviction one feels at the start of a new year.

No I'm not in a hangover induced stupor.

Last night worked out fine. At the last minute I answered a Craigslist post from someone wanting company for First Night. The post was simple and non desperate. He asked for music preferences, not photos. After a brief phone conversation in which I deemed him articulate and polite, I decided to meet him downtown. What could be safer than meeting someone in a crowded public place? And no, that's not ironic foreshadowing for a closing of "I'm glad I escaped with my life..."

It was a pleasant evening. Tacoma's First Night was exactly what the doctor ordered: a festive, all ages crowd, music and dance performances in all the cool old theaters, very few drunk people (I don't like being around falling down drunk people. The last time I was drunk was at a Beat Farmers concert when I was 30), and a sense of supporting and being supported by my community.

The guy (Tom) and I got along fine. No fireworks between us, but that was not the intention of the evening. He was very knowledgeable about music and was, as I'd sensed from the phone call, articulate, intelligent and polite. How refreshing.

My mood was all over the map, partially due to what I've been through with men (yep, not just one) in recent weeks. I think I was a decent companion for the evening, but I was not at my best.

The best part of the evening was getting a badly-needed performing arts fix. We started the evening with strawberry margaritas at El Toro, and then wandered into a couple of the theaters: Pantages, Rialto and Pythian Temple. My favorite of the evening was a Tahitian dance / storytelling performance "And Hila drank of the fruit. And then the giant eel god..."

In the category of, er, interesting was a hurdy gurdy performance at the Pythian Temple. A bunch of rather dowdy musicians (hurdy gurdyists?) sat in a semi circle on the stage. From a distance it looked like each was just cranking the handle on a box, producing a droning 'reee reee reeee' sound kind of like a bagpipe. They just sat there and cranked their butts off. 1st song: 'Ree reeee reee' 2nd song: Reeee ree ree' 3rd song: 'Reeee-reeee reeee-reeeee'. At the end of the 4th song I turned to Tom and said "Um, I think I get the idea." and we left. As we were leaving Tom explained to me that a hurdy gurdy is sometimes referred to as a wheel fiddle and that the player uses his or her non-cranking hand to press keys to produce different pitches. His explaination was sufficiently interesting to inspire me to Google more info when I got home. But no, I'm not going to actively seek out upcoming hurdy gurdy performances.

Somewhere between 11 and 11:30 Tom mentioned that barring anything I still really wanted to do, he'd like to leave before midnight to beat the traffic. I had just starting thinking that I wanted to be on my couch at midnight, watching the Space Needle fireworks on TV, so it worked out perfectly. He gave me a ride home, we wished each other a Happy New Year and agreed to get together for a movie or concert sometime. A few minutes later I was happily on my couch watching the fireworks on TV as well as firework displays visible from my living room window. Around 12:30 I got into bed with a book: Home Front by Patti Davis, an autobiography very thinly veiled as fiction (and a good, indulgent read) and that was it.

I'm happy and excited about the new year.

I wish everyone a wonderful 2009.