Ryan and the Technicolor Wardrobe

I know it’s unrealistic to think that racism will one day go away.  I try not to worry about it too much.  I don’t try to make it a battle that I fight everyday, like others do. (which is a very commendable thing.)  I just try to rise above it and I think I succeed in that regard, most of the time.  As a kid, I used to get into fights over it, and I’m not much of a fighter.  I thought those days were over, but in actuality those days are just less common.  I didn’t realize this until I was 30, when I threw my glass of wine in the face of a guy who had made a unflattering remark about asian people (he thought it was okay since he was part asian) and then proceeded to throw a punch at him that missed him completely.  No one was hurt, but my friend’s girlfriend got splashed with a healthy amount of wine from the crossfire of my walk-by-dousing.  In my head, I was trying to be a hero, but in reality, I was being quite an asshole.  Racism 1, Ryan 0.

That was probably the last dramatic flare up since I was a kid back in Minnesota.  I did have to have to have a little chat with a co-worker at a store I was working at when I was in my mid-20s because he told me “all you asians look the same”, but that conversation was instigated by a store manager who overheard that remark and not because I complained about it.  Even though I had nothing to feel bad about, that conversation was unbelievably uncomfortable.  ”I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it was just a bad joke.” was all he could say and whenever I would tell him “It’s not just a bad joke, it’s a racist joke.”, he would get defensive, and he’d tell me he wasn’t a bad person, and we’d just go on and on, endlessly.  After school specials made this sort of thing seem so much more simple.  Honestly, our little chat did not make me feel much better about things at all.  Racism 2, Ryan 0, co-worker reconciliation: Incomplete.

The only time that I ever confronted racism head on, and felt victorious about it was when my friend Marco jokingly asked me whether I had ever eaten dog before.  He knew I hadn’t, but he just wanted to get a reaction out of me.  I knew that out of my options, being upset or annoyed by the question was going to be poorest possible response, so I hatched a plan:  I was going to fight fire with fire.  His question was meant to be ridiculous so my answer to him was going to be the same.  I just needed to play it the right way, so delicately, because I was only going to have one chance in the lifespan of our friendship to get away with this.

“I haven’t had dog, but the dogs that Koreans eat aren’t like the dogs that we would recognize here in America.” I calmly stated.  ”Well what kind of dogs do they eat?” he asked impatiently, probably surprised that I bothered to dignify his question with a respons.  ”They eat a breed of dog called the updog.”  I held my breath, and waited for what seemed like an eternity.  ”What the hell is updog?” he responded.

“Not much.  What’s up with you?”  I quickly muttered.  Checkmate.

Marco ran after me for a while and when we were both out of breath, he conceded.  ”You got me, you got me clean, too.”  I did and I couldn’t believe it.  Racism 2, Ryan 1.

It was a small victory, but it was a victory against racism (I’m not claiming Marco is a racist, he in fact, is very much the opposite).  It’s how I should be dealing with these instances, rather than trying to be a hero and throwing down some fisticuffs, or trying to teach some 18 year old kid some life lessons.  I’m better off using humor, harmless humor to be exact, rather than trying to combat racist jokes with racist jokes.

Since I’ve only gone 1 for 3 in adult situations with this, I have to find a way to master this newfound method.  Unfortunately, I’m not exactly into trying to find situations to try to this new method out, with fear that I’ll revert to earlier, less pleasant tactics.  (also, pure laziness)  I rather spare random bystanders the threat of getting hit by wine, or for parties to be ruined by my pathetic attempts at fisticuffs for every missed attempt at a joke to diffuse a situation.

What is more likely to happen is that I won’t do anything even though it could be more than being beneficial, or even profitable, to hone this craft.  I could even be considered a hero, but alas, that will never happen, not just because it’s unrealistic, but mostly because I’m unwilling.  Fighting this fight has never been for me, for better or worse, and while someone else will probably eventually come up with some great way to diffuse these little racist confrontations, we’ll have to wait for that someone else to come around and for that method to be invented.  Meanwhile, I’ll be sitting around, thinking of that one awesome time that I tricked Marco with the up dog joke.

“Well, I met her in a bar, like I always say” – The Replacements “Message to the Boys”

While Paul Westerberg’s music a huge influence on my life, I’ve never looked at his lyrics as any kind of guide on what decisions I should make.  Living by his rules, I would probably have crazier stories to tell, but I’m probably more stable and happy from taking his lyrics as entertainment and not much more.  I’ve never been interested in meeting a girl in a bar, I’ve never been comfortable chatting it up with a random stranger in that setting, and it just doesn’t seem like the place you would meet someone looking for a relationship.  I know it happens, but it’s just not for me.  I watched my friend, Taylor, try to make it happen, and it only reinforced the fact that meeting people at a bar, or at least particularly, this bar, is a bad idea.

One night, we went to a bar that we refer to as “The Goat”, a lovable little local dive bar.  We went with Steve, another one of our co-workers, after watching a football game and having a couple of drinks at the office.  Little did I know that Taylor was already on the verge of being tipsy when we arrived at the bar, and Steve was drinking on an empty stomach.  So after a few rounds of beer,  Taylor was eyeing a girl at the next table, Steve was literally eating peanuts for dinner, and I was there with a court side view to watch the hilarity unfold.

I will not fault Taylor for his choice in this particular girl, she was indeed cute, but I will fault him for deciding to make a move, after the girl had left the the bar.  By the time he had gathered enough liquid courage, she had left, but he proceeded to ask her friends if they would deliver his number to their friend.  To be more specific, he  didn’t refer to her as “your friend”, he referred to her as “the brunette with the hammer pants”.  They turned down his offer to pass along his number because the girl had a boyfriend, she was in a 3+ year long term relationship in fact, so, hopefully that took some of the sting out of the rejection.

We drank another round of beers and Taylor tried not to wallow in any humiliation.  At this point, Taylor had hit a wall and he decided to take a cab to his brothers so she could sleep.  That left Steve and I at the bar, and Steve honorably notified me that he was not in any shape to drive.  I suggested that we get some food, not because I was hungry, but because Steve was basically drinking on an empty stomach, save for the peanuts that he ate at the bar.  I decided that we should get the greasiest fast food that was nearby, Del Taco, but at first Steve was against the idea and informed me that he was on the Paleo diet, so he could not eat tortillas since they were not part of the normal caveman diet.  Desperate times called for desperate measures, and I ignored his plea for a more paleo-friendly dining area at 12am on a Thursday night.

Upon arriving at Del Taco, Steve ran into a friend from the past, and I’m sure he was pretty embarrassed to be seen by anyone familiar due to his drunken state.  After a first order of food, I asked Steve if he was okay, and almost on cue, he dropped his plastic cup of water in the ground, ice cubes spilling everywhere to basically tell me “no”.  After a second helping, Steve was finally coherent, and we called it a night.

While I’d like to think that I’m too old for these antics, it was only a couple of months ago that a friend of mine had convinced me, against my better judgment, to climb a ladder that took us to the roof of the building next to the bar.  Despite my fear of heights, I followed him up the roof, and then I was told we would be taking a less than death defying jump over to the bar.. His jump was much more graceful than mine since:

1) My friend isn’t afraid of heights and

2) He was wearing a dress that he found on the top of the other building, so he definitely won the battle of “style points.”

I didn’t exactly land on my feet and I ended up scraping up my hand, though the pain wasn’t what was on my mind. All I could think about was getting arrested, at the age of 30, because I didn’t have the common sense to bail on a plan that I didn’t even enjoy being a part of.  Even looking back, knowing their weren’t any real consequences, it does make me raise question about how often I want to frequent this bar.  Not that I look down on the patrons of the bar, I just think there have been too many strange events that have occurred in a pretty brief amount of time.  Perhaps, on the surface, Taylor, Steve and myself have committed acts that are common, and our stories are ones that every group of friends have. I can see it with Taylor and Steve,  but I can only attribute my rooftop experience with my other friend in a dress, as an experience that only happens at The Goat.

My mom like to freely suggest to me that I should have some strict rules about my car and who should be allowed to ride in it.  These suggestions have good intentions behind them, and often have incidents to back them up, but they sound kind of crazy, like the suggestion that I should refuse to drive people in my car or to let them bring food or drinks inside.  While I’ve had friends spill drinks or leave trash in my car, I don’t think I should start making a list of people or items that are banned from my vehicle.  It’s even funnier to think about the fact that, even with these rules, she would tell me to give a ride to drunk man that I’ve never before just because he’s related to me.

I was playing video games at a friend’s house when my mom called me.  I was supposed to visit my parents down in San Diego that day, so I assumed she was calling me to ask me if I had started my way down there, and then to ask me why I hadn’t left yet.  I was partially correct.  She wanted to know if I had already left for San Diego, but was actually relieved that I was still in Orange County.  She wanted me to pick up my cousin from a hotel in Irvine and to bring him with me.  It sounded like a simple enough request until I found out that the cousin I was to pick up, was a cousin from Korea that I had never met before.  It’s already weird enough when you know you have to spend an hour plus car ride with a complete stranger who’s actually related to you, but it’s worse when your sister informs you “I don’t think his English is very good”.

I drove to the hotel and peeked around the lobby, trying to find my cousin.  I had no idea what he looked like.  I just knew that he was in town because of work, so I had some simple parameters to work from.  I needed to find a Korean man who wasn’t wearing a Hawaiian shirt or any attire that would make him look like he was on vacation.  I thought I had spotted a man who could fit that description in the lobby, but as I approached him, his wife and child had walked out of the elevator, so I eliminated him as a possible suspect.  As much as she is forgetful, I was sure my mom would’ve mentioned his wife and child needing a ride as well if they were hypothetically also in town.

After a few more  futile passes around the lobby, I headed back to my car to tell my mom that I couldn’t find him.  She gave me the room number that he was staying in and told me she’d give him a call to see if he was there.  As I got off the phone, a man knocked on the passenger side door of my car, and it was him.  I unlocked the door for him and upon opening the door, I immediately caught a huge whiff of beer.  My cousin, who I had never met before, was drunk, which exponentially heightened the chances of this being a super uncomfortable car ride.  He introduced himself to me and his English didn’t seem to be as bad as my sister had advertised.  He told me that he was a little late because he had just gotten back from a business dinner, which explained why he reeked off beer, but I was still a little worried, not because I’ve never driven a drunk person around, but because I had no idea what kind of drunk my cousin was.  If he was a happy drunk or a sleepy drunk, I could manage, but if he was an angry drunk or a depressed drunk, I wasn’t sure how I would be able to survive being in a car with him for over an hour.

Luckily for me, he was pretty tame.  I asked him what he was working on and what company brought him into town for business.  He asked me what I did for a living and we basically covered that basics as far as two long lost cousins getting to know each other.  Things didn’t get awkward outside of him asking me about who I was dating, and then advising me to find a Korean girl to make my parents happy opposed to the Chinese girl that I was currently in a serious relationship with.  I brushed it off as quickly as I could and tried to not be offended by his suggestion since he wasn’t from the States.  We eventually made it to my parent’s house, and after spending a day in San Diego, I drove him back to Irvine.  It was a pretty drama-free trip.

He was a nice guy and I’m glad that I finally got to meet him (not that I knew that he existed before that weekend).  I especially appreciate the fact that he didn’t throw up in my car, but even if he had, my mom would’ve helped clean it up, because that’s what family does.  Family is about having a higher tolerance and a greater faith in each other than is recommended.  That’s why I turned the other cheek when my cousin suggested I break up with girlfriend on the basis of ethnicity instead of punching him in the face.  Besides, I don’t need my mom to make a new rule about me physically attacking people in my car.

My parents were never in the PTA at Palmer Lake Elementary School.  I’m sure the Korean/English language barrier was the biggest factor in their absence, or perhaps they found the PTA superfluous.  They might’ve been too busy with work when my sisters were in school, but they weren’t while I was in school, so that’s not much of an excuse.  I don’t know what was discussed at the meetings and why these meetings took place at all.  Since my adult life seems normal enough, I’ll assume that it wasn’t a big loss that my parents didn’t get involved, and I’ll also assume that it means my parents weren’t crazy after seeing a lot of crazy parents in the news throwing tantrums about their kids’ grades.
I’d think that the idea of a PTA is so that parents know what’s going on at school, what’s expected of the kids, ways they can help, etc.  That sounds useful enough, but I’ve realized that no matter how much “guidance” the PTA will give me, I will be a terrible parent at helping my kid excel.  It won’t be for a lack of trying, but artsy, sarcastic Ryan should not help his kids with anything outside of math, and possibly science, but I was never particularly good with science, and perhaps english, since I’m obviously running on with this sentence and I realize that switched from talking in the third person to the first – this is quite a train wreck.
I was in Oregon a couple of years ago to see my nieces and school had just started for them.  My niece, Jamie, had just come home and started doing a work sheet that her teacher had given her.  It was a questionnaire on one side and it was a table on the other side where she was supposed to put various subjects/tasks in three categories:  ”like a lot”, “am okay with”, “don’t like”, or something in that nature.  I sat at the table with her while she worked on it, intrigued, since I usually see my nieces during holidays or summer, therefore they never have any school work to worry about.  So this was something new for their uncle to experience.
As far as the questionnaire went, a lot of her answers were pretty common for a 9 year-old.  Person you’d like to meet: Selena Gomez (Disney Channel actress), place you’d like to visit: Florida (Disney World), etc.  It surprised me that she was skipping a lot of the questions.  To me, these weren’t necessarily things that required a lot of thought.  She wrote “I’d like to be a rich person” for the question of “What do you want be when you grow up?” and this angered my sister.  My sister told her to write something like “you want to be a pet doctor”, but my niece refused.  I offered a bunch of more interesting options like “you want to be the head of FEMA, but you’re going to do a good job”, but those suggestions fell on deaf ears.
Honestly, I had no problem with my niece’s answer.  It’s not admirable, but it’s honest.  It’s not like she wrote “marry a rich guy”, or something less than noble.  My sister was telling her to lie and this made me wonder about the ethics of being a parent.  I understood my sister’s case because you don’t want your kid to look like they have a lack of morals, but at the same time, ordering your kid to lie on homework is pretty hypocritical.  Of course, as the hip 26 year old uncle, I was merely there to play Wii games with the kids, buy them ice cream, and threaten to make them smell my armpits. These more important decisions were not part of my job description – they’re not my kids.  When I finally have my own, I highly doubt that I will force then to lie on their homework.
Not that I’m calling my sister a bad parent.  She’s just trying to prevent her child from getting on the teacher’s crap list.  She’s involved, she’s helping, and she’s trying to guide her kid towards a more fruitful goal than just being rich.  It’s all commendable, and perhaps it’s what the PTA preaches to my sister.  I just wonder if teachers can read through these answers and pin down the kids who are being fed answers from their parents.  At least when I have kids, the teachers won’t have any doubt, because they’ll see the answer “I want to be the head of FEMA.”

I grew up with a girl whose parents worked together.  They didn’t own their own business, they just happened to both be employed by the same company.  I’m not sure if they worked in the same department, I’m not even sure what they did, I just know they arrived at work together and they left work together.  They’ve done this for roughly 30 or so years, and even though I don’t know what they do, I find the whole premise kind of romantic.  For some reason, I find it more romantic that they don’t have their own business, and that they both choose to work together for someone else.  From what I can recollect, they were married before they started to work together, so there was never the “dating someone from work” dilemma.

I’m not hoping to find someone that I work with or will eventually work with.  I think my friend’s parents have a unique situation.  I also think that there’s a huge difference between how our parents prioritized things and how we now prioritize things.  Working at one place for over 30 years is unheard of these days, especially when it’s not a business that you can call your own, or a job that you can’t consider as your “dream job”. Like I mentioned before, I don’t remember what they do for a living, but I’m betting that if they were actually passionate about their jobs, I would have some sort of memory of what it was.  I did see them a few years ago.  I do remember them still being at the same place.  I just forgot to ask what they did after all these years.

It probably doesn’t matter to them that I don’t remember.  They’re just happy that they live comfortably and that they were able to raise their one daughter off of their income.  As far as I can tell they have passions outside their job, but they’ve been fine just making a living.  I think my parents were the same way.  I think a lot of parents in that generation had this mentality as well.  It’s something I kind of envy.

I’ve been drawn to art ever since my adolescent years. I’ve always wanted to do something artistic.  Whether it be playing in a band, being a screenwriter/director, and now as some sort of essayist/short story writer, I’ve always felt that it’s what I should be doing for a living.  My expectations aren’t as grand as one might expect.  I don’t expect to ever be flying around in leer jets while swimming around in a money bin full of money, but I’ve always felt like making art for a living was what I’m supposed to be doing, even though I’m able to find steady, stable, employment elsewhere.

In college my first goal was to record some music, which I was able to do before the end of my sophomore year.  Later, my goal became to finish a full length screenplay before I graduated.  Once again, I was able to accomplish my goal, and I was pretty satisfied with myself.  I completed my goals, and I didn’t embarrass myself in the process.  I didn’t care that I didn’t get a record deal out of my EP or that I didn’t sell a bunch of copies of it.  I just cared that people liked it.  For some reason, starting with that screenplay, I’ve needed my penchant for writing to become a sustainable job for me and unfortunately that hasn’t happened yet.

I feel like I’m dawdling.  I had a friend in college who told me that he smoked a lot of weed in high school.  After freshmen year in college, he had an epiphany and stopped smoking so he could focus on his studies.  He got into grad school and is now doing research that he’s really passionate about.  I really wonder if I’ll ever have a similar epiphany where I’ll stop complaining in my mind about my stable, reasonably stressful job that I currently have.  I don’t think it’s bad to look for better opportunities, but I wish I could be happier with what I have.

Perhaps I haven’t found the trigger for my epiphany to appreciate “normal work” yet.  Perhaps it’ll be something profound like having my first kid, or maybe it’ll be something that barely seems related to the future of my life.  Maybe in 30 years, I’ll look back at these times and laugh at how foolish I was for thinking that I needed to create art for a living and that I could never picture myself working at one place for 30 years or maybe I’ll look back and smile at the struggle to finally get to where I wanted to go.  Either way, I hope I’ll finally be able to find that peace.

Back in college, I would volunteer at church by teaching 5th and 6th grade kids.  For the few years I was there, there were 4 or 5 consistent volunteers that I worked with, and then there were a few others who would drop in every few months.  One of the people who made more than a couple of guest appearances was a girl that I will refer to as “Working Girl” because her nickname for me was “College Kid”, since for most of my tenure, I was the only volunteer who was still in college (aka I was the youngest).  She would pat me on my head or pinch my cheeks as a form of teasing/endearment.  She was really pretty so I let her get away with it, I guess.  I had a bit of a crush on her, but I was never going to seriously act on it.  She was probably at least 5-6 years older than me, I never asked.  A few months after I graduated from college, I was eating dinner with a friend at a Red Robin, and I happened to see her.  She walked over and greeted me with “Hey College Kid!” and I told her that calling me that would no longer be accurate and that she’d have to finally learn my name.  She congratulated me for graduating college and made some small talk before she returned to her table.  Not that I planned on asking her out, but all of a sudden, a cold ugly reality hit me.  I started thinking about what kind of car I drove (and still drive to this day), how I was on the bottom of the career ladder, and things of that nature.  Basically, I had an epiphany about what it meant to no longer be “College Kid”.  I was on the bottom of the “working adult” totem pole and it was a sad and lonely place.

When I met Barrett, he was one of the few college students who attended our church.  He wasn’t from around the area and he had just transferred from a community college.  We didn’t have a college group or anything like that, so my friend was trying to meet up with him to make him feel more connected.  My friend is 5-6 years older than me, which means that he’s 10-11 years older than Barrett.  Not that the age gap really means anything.  Barrett listens to classic rock.  My friend doesn’t.  So, in a decision that would be mutually beneficial to everyone involved, I told my friend that I would hang out with Barrett since I easily had a lot more in common with him.  It was a good move.

So every couple of weeks, Barrett and I would grab dinner and we’d just chat about life.  We were only 6 years apart, so I thought that I would seem less like of an authority figure to him, and more like a friend, and that happened to be the case for the most part.  Barrett still thought I was old.  In fact, he would regularly ask me things like “Did your generation have X-Men the Cartoon?”  While it’s not necessarily silly to ask if a TV show was on 6 years prior (that’s a long time in TV land), it is kind of silly to pose the question as generational thing.  He was also adamantly against the kids at church calling him “Uncle Barrett” because he was young and was, in his opinion, more of a cousin.  (Charis and Allison now refer to him as “Uncle Bar-It”.) We were born in the same decade.  We were only 6 years apart, and if we were in different generations, I was much more in tune with his generation than he was.  After he came back from his hometown after the summer, he told me that he realized that I wasn’t that old, which is probably the nicest thing he’s ever told me.  He would still bring up our “generational” differences, but mostly as an antagonistic joke.  I would still have silly debates with him, (like how he swore that The Mighty Ducks 3 takes place during college, because he argued that a prep-school is a like a junior college) but for the most part, he tried not to frustrate me.

I definitely don’t look at hanging out with Barrett as a chore or as someone that I have to look after, and while at first glance, I definitely find his “generation” talk silly, I know I wasn’t that much different when I was about to graduate.  The journey from 22 to 28 does seem like a long one, and there’s a lot of self-realization that I had to learn on the way.  I’m pretty amazed that I’ve been out of high school for over 10 years and that I’ll be 30 in no time.  ”Working Girl” seemed so unattainable to me and she was probably only 5-6 years older than me, but she just seemed that much older (not in a negative light – she dressed well and seemed to have her life more or less together).  I wouldn’t say that I thought she was part of a different generation, but she was in a different life stage, one that I thought I’d never be a part of at 22.

A couple of years ago, I thought of a really cool Christmas gift for my nieces.  Since they always love to watch The Simpsons with me, I would get them these limited edition Kid Robot vinyl Ralph Wiggum dolls.  I’d bought them Kid Robot blind box toys before, but this one was easily bigger, better, and much cooler than any of the others.  I called the Kid Robot store to reserve a couple (they were going fast), and then hopped in my car, drove through OC/LA traffic and made my way to West Hollywood during rush hour to get the best Christmas presents that Uncle Ryan could find.

Upon opening the boxes, my nieces were ecstatic.  My sister and brother-in-law were impressed, and I was obviously happy that everyone was pleased.  I could continue my reign as “best uncle ever” for at least another year because I was so thoughtful and creative.  I really milked it as I told the dramatic story of weaving through rush hour traffic on Melrose Avenue and how I got the last two boxes that the store had.  My brother-in-law later pulled me aside to disclose to me a secret:  whatever Uncle Ryan buys the girls is automatically their favorite gift, so it doesn’t really matter what I buy them.  It was very touching to hear this, but in a petty way, it was also disappointing.  I understand that I achieved my goal in buying gifts that the nieces loved, but I also wanted them to understand why they were the best gifts EVER.  I understand that they’re kids (or pre-teens, to be more specific), but I just want them to know how much I truly care.

I’ve given cool and thoughtful gifts to my friends as well.  For just a few bucks extra, I added a joke gift of the Owl City “Fireflies 7″ to Sherlan’s already awesome Mastodon – Blood Mountain vinyl record birthday present.  While Sherlan would’ve appreciated the Mastodon record by itself, the joke gift will make the gift an even fonder memory for years to come, even if he never listens to “Fireflies” for the rest of his life.  With just a little extra thought, and an extra $7, we turned a great gift into a gift that will be remembered for the rest of his life.

I know that I’m a pretty thoughtful person and while I understand it’s a pretty good trait to have, sometimes I wish I could turn it off, and I’m not saying this because I’m bitter towards my nieces.  I just understand that it’s kind of dangerous to be thoughtful towards all people and in all situations, because sometimes thoughtfulness can often be misinterpreted to be creepy or it can broadcast the wrong signals.  Like I said, I wish there was a switch that I could turn off when I first meet someone so I could prevent this possible weird situation, but I have yet to find a solution.  It’s definitely gotten better, but I’m not sure if that has to do with age or new anti-social tendencies.

My oldest sister claims that my thoughtfulness is part natural ability and part trained ability.  I’m sure growing up with four older sisters definitely has attributed to my ability to be sensitive to the needs of people around me, but I don’t know if they can necessarily take any credit for “training” me.  If there’s any visible legacy of my sisters “training” me, it’s the fact that I instinctively push down my finger nail cuticles every couple of weeks, and that I always put the toilet seat down.  They also taught me to squeeze from the bottom of the toothpaste tube opposed from the middle, I later found out that this is not necessarily a “girl thing” but something that might be specific to our family.

I appreciate all the influence that my sisters tried to exert on me, and I hope they’re happy to know that at least some of it stuck.  Whether I’m thoughtful because of my sisters is debatable.  What is clear is that either way, it benefits them and their kids and even though it doesn’t inadvertently get me in trouble from time to time, I’m probably lucky that I don’t have to try to learn it now.  Perhaps one day, I will find that switch and provide the world a perfect balance of thoughtfulness, but I guess until then, the world is going to be stuck with too much of a good thing.

I’ve never been able to find my niche with New Years Eve. It sounds silly, but I don’t think I’ve ever spent it with the same people or doing the same thing. Sure, there’s a countdown at some point but that’s it (and on the west coast, it’s on a tape delay). I don’t even sing Auld Lang Syne or come up with crazy resolutions that I will forget about after a couple of months, I just go through the motions and that kind of makes me sad.  Spending New Years alone wouldn’t be as depressing as say, spending Thanksgiving for Christmas alone, but it’s definitely a day you’re supposed to be with friends and like a lot of people in their 20s, I guess I have a revolving door of friends.

So a couple of years ago on New Years Eve, I decided that I’d make an honest effort to find some sort of tradition that I can carry with me in my single years. I can’t say I’ll be spending New Years Eve ’10 with the same people that I spent New Years Eve ’09 or 08 with but I think it’ll be safe to say that this year, like the others, I will be able to find someone to enjoy some scotch with.

I’ve started getting into scotch a couple of years ago and it’s been an exciting journey. I haven’t been drinking alone, I’ve been mostly drinking scotch with friends, or while chatting with a friend online. In 2008, I decided to cap 2008 with a bottle of Johnny Walker Green at a friend’s apartment. While perhaps not a “high roller” bottle of scotch, it was more “higher end” than anything I’d previously experienced and I found it fitting to end the year with something new, and since we ended 2008 with something new, 2009  ended up with something likewise, a bottle of Johnny Walker Gold. (*Disclaimer, we didn’t drink the entire bottle of Green that night nor did we drink the entire bottle of Gold.  Scotch is not meant to be downed or shot.)

It would be nice to have some sort of tradition where the bottle of scotch would be upgraded every year to signify prosperity.  Unfortunately that would be a tradition that might be too difficult to uphold.  The price jump from a bottle of green to gold is about 20-30 dollars which is manageable, but but the jump from a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue is almost double the price of a bottle of Gold.  I could always switch to a different label of Scotch, but that just opens up a whole new can of worms.  Whatever direction I go, I’m probably going to hit a price point that I can’t justify, at least for the foreseeable future.

Traditions aren’t necessarily supposed to be easy, so it’ll be interesting to see how much longer I can keep this tradition for, and if I have to say “goodbye” to this one, hopefully I will fine a new and better tradition that I can try carry on for the rest of my life.  Either way, I just hope that I’ve found a group of friends that I’ll be spending New Years Eve with for many more years to come, because as my 20s start to wind down, finding that special group of people seems to be like the one thing that I’ve been missing all along.