Big Deal Times Square, I Drop The Ball At Least Twice A Week

Sniff…sniff…What is that I smell? Is it the scent of a stale blog? My goodness, has it really been over a week since I updated? To be honest, I had no time as I was prepping for Christmas, but man, I’m glad that the holidays are over and done with. My house is almost undecorated, and there will be no more seasonal celebrations for a while, except for a New Year’s Eve celebration with a group of friends.

I’m so over Christmas, probably because the Christmas season feels like it’s 3957593493 weeks long and Will. Never. End. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the celebrations, gaiety, and togetherness, but I also start missing my regular life, having some sense of what day it is, and not having to tell myself, “It’s the holidays! I’ll have another 15 pieces of cake and wash it down with more vodka! Cheers and bring it on!”

But anyway, at this point today, my mindset is Down with Festivity! Thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot poles for all!

Now, I just have to make it through 2025, where my Number One Goal is not to spend money on anything unless we absolutely need it. No frivolous spending. At all. AND I MEAN IT THIS TIME. My rule is that we only spend money on things that have broken or that we’ve run out of. 

I’m positive that’s going to be sweet, sweet sailing, and you will not hear me complain about self-imposed minimalism because we have too much crap in this house that we don’t use. That brings me to my Number Two 2025 Goal of purging the house of said crap. Again, more joy. Gee, I can hardly wait to get started on that. Har har har. 

I’m sure - should I be able to pull off a year of minimalism - I will find joy in having more money in the bank and less shit falling out of our closets, so by the end of 2025, it should be a win on all fronts. 

Must. Stay. Positive.

As I was lying in bed last night, taking a break from my vigorous middle-of-the-night routine of repeatedly getting up to pee and eat antacids, I reflected on how I have never managed to stay awake until midnight on New Year’s Eve for about 55 of the last 58 years of my life.

Last year, I did make it to midnight at a party as we played this hilarious but complicated dice game that was more confusing than advanced calculus (I never got the hang of it, and TRUE CONFESSION faked my way through it, wondering what the HELL WE WERE DOING.) When the clock struck twelve, it felt…anti-climactic. Just to clarify, I enjoyed being with friends, but I thought at midnight that maybe I should be feeling something significant or different. It reminded me of my birthday when I was a kid when I’d go to bed age 8 and wake up age 9, with my mother asking over breakfast if I felt older, but I felt exactly the same and wondered what the hell she was talking about. 

Anyway, this New Year’s Eve, I’m going to predict that Bill and I will be home early from the party, and by 11 pm, I will be asleep on the couch, and he will be asleep in his recliner. When the ejaculation of gunpowder, lights, firework explosions, and dog barking start going off willy-nilly in the neighborhood around our house, we will both sit up in a full-body panic and stumble into the bedroom. One of us will immediately collapse and emit the kind of big, blubbery loud-ass snores normally heard from very old dogs, while the other one of us will get out of bed and stumble into the guest bedroom so she can get some damn sleep. 

Oh yeah! Another wild night in the McGinnis house. It’s soothing to know we are not alone in not being NYE party animals, and it is somewhat of a letdown to be so average. But that is us.