all is noisy on new year's day

The New Year was rung in, and rung in with authority. I had no inkling that the crowds would be as large and insane as they turned out to be, but the combination of drunken hippies, naked anarchist poets, computer-savvy BBS-era alumni, and Dustin proved to be a winning combination.

A regular narrative doesn't do justice to a party of this caliber and temperment, so I will hereby present a few notable happenings and/or quotes., to creat a sort of "action portrait" of the night, just like a drunken Jackson Pollock pissing and cursing and throwing paint off a metaphorical balcony onto a literal canvas, only in word form.

Snapshot 1: I arrive. Many, many people are there. Everyone is excited to see me. I feel proud. I am the party star. I am popular. Then I realize the enthusiasm is due to the six rolls of toilet paper I am carrying in my backpack.

Snapshot 2: Kristen's friend Maggie is recounting her confrontation with a rageaholic man earlier in the party. She pokes my shoulder with her index finger to punctuate the crucial points of why she didn't want to finish the man's cup of Jungle Juice. "And, I said, 'No. I don't want to drink it. That's just sugar and your spit."

Snapshot 3: Danny Dawson takes my glass of water out of my hand and begins drinking it himself. Due in part to Dustin's coercing, I decide to fire a warning shot at Mr. Dawson, by tossing a new glass of water about six inches away from his head. A few minutes later, Dustin and I refill our glasses and return. Not with further vengeance, but instead to play an impromptu game of Spit Take.

Snapshot 4: Mike Barnett warns smokers not to go past the patio, due to the fumes wafting away from the gasoline-soaked wood in the fire pit. A few try to slip past him anyway. "Listen to him!" I cry. "He works for Pepsi!"

Snapshot 5: Maggie asks me to sing "A Man of Independent Means," a song I wrote with Fred Lee. (Hear a much better singer than me sing it here) Thinking she was mocking me, I put her off, until finally relenting and singing a rap-type version of the first verse. My lyrical memory fails me after that, and I have to stop. "The first verse was good," Maggie says. "Then it just started to suck."

Snapshot 6: As the furniture blazes in the fire pit, the pledges of "Sigma Nude" assemble on the balcony. Dustin leans over to me and says, "The good thing is that now, corporations will no longer exist."

Snapshot 7: Jesse DeBoer meets Jessica Beaird for the second time in roughly fifteen minutes. "What's your name again?" he asks, again. Jessica tries a hint, "OK, think about it. What's your name?" Mr. DeBoer gets it right.

Snapshot 8: For some reason, I am left to cook an enormous block of frozen bacon on my own. I have never cooked bacon before. I remind everyone nearby of my bacon-preparation naivete, as I weakly poke at the icy bacon with a spatula. Soon, Jason Shamai arrives. I wonder if he, as a vegetarian, is upset by the smell. Clearly, he is not. "You can't eat that!" someone tells Jason. "But I can smell it!" he cries.

Snapshot 9: Maggie asks about Katie Vigil, the sergeant-at-arms of Sigma Nude. "So, you guys dated in high school?" Yes, I told her. "She looks like Jake Gyllenhaal." You mean Maggie, I tell her. Maggie Gyllenhaal. There is a pause. "No, I'm Maggie!" she exclaims.