For Auld Lang-Rod

11:57 PM, December 31st, 2007. I'm at my friends' party on Degraw St, in the apartment I lived in for several years when I first moved to New York. As everyone hurries to get a glass of champagne poured and ready before the ball drops, someone turns on the TV, flipping around til he finds a broadcast from Times Square. It was Carson Daly, and all of a sudden there, standing next to him, in a Yankees cap:


Me: Oh hey! Is that A-Rod? It's A-Rod! Turn up the volume!
Everyone else: (laughing, talking, pouring champagne)
Me: This must be part of his whole No-really-I-love-New-York image rehab thing! What's he saying?
Everyone else: Ten!... Nine!... Eight!...

So I have no idea what was said (shot in the dark: "it's great to be here in New York!"), because my friends are normal healthy people who do not care about baseball player soundbites when they're celebrating the New Year; but A-Rod's mug was just about the last thing I saw in 2007. Seems fitting somehow.

Anyway, here's to 2008 and just the littlest bit of a fresh start. If one 2007 moment really encapsulated my entire year, it would have to be the sudden swarm of gnats that descended on Joba Chamberlain during Game 2 of the Division Series, resulting in two wild pitches and a blown lead. (Only because the Mets' implosion wasn't really a "moment" so much as lifestyle). At the aforementioned party I tried to describe that eighth inning to a non-baseball-fan friend, but he refused to believe that I was talking about non-metaphoric gnats.

So Happy New Year, everybody. Thanks for reading, and I plan to be optimistic about this upcoming year for at least five or six days yet.