happy new year from your friendly neighborhood freak show

i am still flipping out about the heart rate, but on the plus side, the abdominal stuff has calmed down considerably (although not stopped completely) and i haven't had even a hint of bleeding. i keep going over in my head all the scenarios in which little z might be perfectly fine, but none of them seem plausible.

i decided last evening over our new year's eve dinner (barbecue [veggie] ribs, mashed potatoes, creme brulee, sparkling grape juice, and no vegetables because i didn't feel like it, dammit, plus i ate the biggest dark green salad you have ever seen in your entire life for lunch and didn't think i could handle one more veg) that 2005 was our year of loss and that little z had until midnight to clear out or else he was committed, because we are not losing any of our children in 2006. when i went to bed a little after midnight, i told him, that's it. you are going to make it.

this will be the first test of how obedient and compliant a child he is.

at any rate, i don't know what to do, other than hope, and to try to will this child into good health with all of my might. we'll see how it works out.

in the mean time, we are following our new year's traditions. we met in march, 2000, just after all the big millennial celebrations. i had spent that new year's eve in formal wear and a tiara, with my girlfriend, on the riverfront in my then-home city, kissing teen age boys (it was that or old people) and generally being a gigantic spaz. now that standards had been set, i wanted our first new year's together to be memorable, but justin is not a holiday person. our first new year's eve together was nice but disappointingly quiet. the next year was a disaster that ended in tears. i gave up trying to get justin to go out. the next year, we rented a movie, cooked a really nice dinner together and stayed in, and had a few people over for hangover recovery the next night, which worked out well for us. our tradition was born.

the next year the new year's day party became formalized, our "get lucky!" potluck, in which we ask people to bring whatever they traditionally consume on new year's day for luck to share with the rest of us, so we can all accumulate as much luck for the new year as possible. tonight will be our fourth "get lucky!" party on new year's day. we almost didn't have it this year, what with our general feeling of shittiness right now plus the fact that justin was supposed to work tonight. but people started asking when they were going to get their invites and letting us know they had cleared their calendars to be here (like anyone has commitments on new year's day night???), so justin got his co-worker to switch schedules with him, and the party is on.

i'm glad we're still doing it. it's nice to have something worth making into a tradition. we usually throw a party every quarter, but new year's day is always the nicest, i'm sure in part because i don't do as much cooking since people will be bringing food in, but i think mostly because it's a way to get the holidays right. there are such high expectations for thanksgiving and especially christmas, to get the food just right and to find all the right presents and to have a perfect time with your family, that the whole thing inevitably falls short. when you have to cook a gigantic meal, something always burns or doesn't cook and someone is always disappointed because their own tradition wasn't perfectly followed. for all the money spent on presents, someone's doesn't fit, or the one you worked so long on isn't appreciated, or the kids ignore the toys and play with the boxes. and family - don't get me started. family is such a complicated thing. to expect some currier and ives scene in any family is wildly idiotic, and yet we all do anyway, and we're always disappointed.

no one has any expectations of new year's day, other than maybe to watch a little football, if that. at our house, no one has to deal with their parents, no one has to cook (or buy) more than one thing, there are no presents to figure out. it's just a relaxing night, the one you wish christmas would be like. that's why it's my favorite party of the year.

i expect the crowd will be a little small tonight. some of our more peripheral friends will probably stay away, out of fear of us or our sadness. i can't help that. but whoever will be here will be people we love, and that's damn lucky, even if the food they bring doesn't hold any magic.