#17 New Year's

[I'm not bobby apologizes for there being so little SYANALTNL lately. He's on vacation and has been happily rant-free for a while, but...]

then New Years happened. Hear me out.

Shouldn't new years be at the beginning of spring or, per my people, at the onset of fall, when the summer's over? That sense of newness makes so much more sense associated with the new school year that marked the passage of time in a much more meaningful way when we grew up than this weird anti-climax post-halloween-thanksgiving-and-christmas-and-after-this-everything-is-going-to-be-cold-and-miserable-or-at-least-back-to-normal-back-to-business-so-let's-freak-out-and-go-apeshit-idiot-fest. There's something so kind of sad and desperate about the way people party on New Year's. It's one last grotesque and desperate hurrah.  And I mean how much money does NY waste on that freaking party with the ball, anyway? Meanwhile, I can't get an express train on the weekend???

Speaking of which, what brings someone to go to Times Square for New Year's Eve? What kind of odd confluence of genetics and life experiences leads someone to go do something that ludicrous? How do you get to a place in your life where you're saying, Oh, I mean no I can't make it because I'm going with a whole bunch of people to west 45th and 6th and we're gonna spend all night standing in the half-rain-half-snow with thousands of drunk and desperate people frenching each other? And then trying to get home and everyone kind of knows the season is over so they're just a little bit belligerent and a little more drunk and a little louder and a little bit more completely-impossible-to-take.

Anyone who's into the idea of changing new years to September 1st let's organize, get a petition together, write your congressman, meet up a nice hotel bar for a drink, something...or just bitch about it and agree not to participate. Who's in?

#16 The First Snow of Winter

So it's the first snow of the year and I'm already pissed off. Everyone's completely delighted at the wonderful winter wonderland and all I'm thinking is that this crap is going to be disgusting grey slush in no time. It's the first real indication that you're basically going to be spending the next 3 months indoors, with outdoor time essentially being spent getting from indoor point A to indoor point B. And in that journey, you're going to half-slip on the ice-slush at least once, your nose and ears are going to burn-hurt, your lips are going to chap and god forbid it's actually snowing, in which case everything you and everyone else is wearing is going to be covered in the stuff and it's going to get all over everything and you can't even walk and do the crossword anymore b/c it's either snowing or too darn cold to hold the pen without gloves on and who can do the crossword with gloves on? I don't know about you, but I like being outside. I like walking on unslushy stable traction-granting ground. I like not having to try to leap over the little pools of standing arctic pond that settle at every pedestrian crossing and falling in at least once a week completely soaking my feet in the icy hand of death. I like my trains running on frigging time.

Speaking of which, so I'm on the subway this morning and the conductor announces "due to the cold weather express trains will be running local between 96th street and Chambers."(emphasis added)

What the hell is that??? That's like saying due to a water shortage, we will be screening "Yentl" in IMax 3-D every day, non-stop, for the next 6 years. But no one even questions it, they just nod their heads, seeming to say Oh, well that makes sense. No it makes no freaking sense. But everyone just expects the entire freaking system to break down just because it's cold or snowing. It basically gives the city carte blanche to half-ass it for 3 months.

I mean, yeah, there's definitely something pretty about snow when it first falls and you're at home all warm and safe, sure, I get that. But the gigantic hassle is completely not worth it. And any time I bring all this up, people will nod and agree with me and say, yes you are totally right,

but then when I say and that's why I hate the first snow of winter, it totally freaking sucks people always say oh no snow's great, it's wonderful, it's so pretty and wonderful and great and wintertime is a time to spend at home, with family and really take stock and enjoy the company of your loved ones. Um, I mean aren't loved ones for the most part best enjoyed when you're not forced to? Isn't being thrown in with your family for long hours out of a sense of holiday obligation or meteorological exigency a sure recipe for disaster? I mean doesn't it basically ensure a total familial meltdown?