Downs and Ups

Adam isn’t keen on the Times Square ball-drop, but, as an East Coast kid, I still insist we tune in. Sometime during my years in the Midwest, Disney horned in on the Times Square festivities, which peeves me to no end. Ditto the forced merriment of the hosts, sunny tributes to “the world’s best police force,” and the corporate sponsorship of bloody everything. Fie on Discover Card for “bringing us” the countdown clock and, by implication, time itself.

If I hadn’t known Dick Clark was ailing, I would have thought that he was dead, so thick were the celebrity encomiums. Behind those blinding white teeth and freaky, penciled-on brows, substitute host Regis Philbin had to be feeling glum. By midnight, his chatter sounded strained and slightly deranged, as in the moment when he observed that “Every person, all over the world tonight, is just thrilled at this moment.” Adam and I winced at the presumptuousness. Surely there were a few spots on this earth tonight—Indonesia’s Aceh province springs to mind—where some folks were feeling less than thrilled.

Having slammed Regis, how now to segue to my next self-centered thought? I was startled by how much the arrival of 2005 did privately thrill me. Once Discover Card had made the new year official, I felt as if a tiny bulb had been switched on in the darkness of my skull. How heavenly the time this evening. How hopeful the time still ahead. How clean and agreeable this fresh start.