Wednesday, February 15, 2006

New Year's, 2000

We were asked in class if we rememebered Y2K. Boy do I! I dredged this up from an old website post, something I wrote about December 31, 1999 turned January 1, 2000. Total fluff, not really IT related (other than brief mentionings), but it captured my mood of that night in Athens, GA, just over 6 years ago.

Turning Time

New year's eve: so this is the last day of 1999, and chances are tomorrow will be just like today was. I find myself wondering if I should feel mystified. This is how we mark time; outside of us, this day has no significance any more than any other day. Hm.

I decide to dress up a little, since I so rarely do. Find that slinky slightly shimmery turtleneck in thin horizontal stripes of black and olive green (whoda thunk that polyester could seem fashionable?), wear with black jeans, motorcycle boots and leather biker jacket, thinking I may as well enter the new year ready to kick some ass if I had to, not that I really would but sometimes the image is fun. Run out of patience before I get to makeup, so I go clean-faced. Good enough for friends who wear jeans and flannel to work, and good enough for myself.

Go to Piotr's with Ben, who will have to leave early to cover the y2k readiness centers. Suprise, the TV is on. Someday I'll have to break them from this habit. Drink some beer, engage in conversation depite the television. So you heard I'm working at Cisco? Yeah, it's good -- I like it muchly. Pride must show through me. It makes me giddy sometimes.

11:30, and Ben is getting back as we're making plans to head downtown to watch the fireworks. It bothers me a little that Morris Newspapers spent more on fireworks for one night than they pay Ben in a year. Someday Ben will be appreciated for his value. But then, shouldn't we all be? We drive downtown, even though Piotr's apartment is about 12 blocks away. Ben and I park at the paper, lose the others. Guess they'll work it out on their own. Ben checks in at the paper, comes right back out and we head to the center of downtown. Ben's phone rings -- there's a fire down at College Square, the direction we're heading. We go by to find it's only someone's cigarette butt that got thrown down a manhole.

There are people all around, with noisemakers, friends, looks of excitement and drunkenness on their faces. This beats the hell out of watching television any day, even if it is only little old Athens. Sometimes being there makes all the difference in the world. We continue on to where we think the fireworks will be, where most others are gathering. We hear our names shouted, look up to the top of the parking deck to see figures waving at us. We wave back. There's a police car parked in the middle of the intersection; that's a cop who wants to be where the view is good. Other cops on bicycles, roaming the town, looking un-anxious. There are a couple of false starts, false countdowns. Then the fireworks begin. People are screaming, whooping and hollering, whistling, laughing, shouting. Sparks fly over our heads, kids with sparklers run around us, creating volumous amounts of smoke to add to the surreal nature of this time. Lights are still working, no airplanes falling out of the sky, no rioting in the streets. No great pyramid from outer space coming to take the believers away. Ben needs to test an ATM, discovers the only problems being drunkenness of the users. He heads back to the paper, I look for the friends.

I go back to the parking deck, but streams of people are flooding the glass-walled stairway and I don't see them. I decide to walk down to House of Joe to see if they are there, since that spot was mentioned. I start walking, feeling like a salmon, floods of people walking past me. I think I have the long-strided but not too hurried pace down well. Every other person yells happy new year at me. Two girls throw multi-colored shiny confetti at me. People I've never seen reach out to me, we high five or give a quick shake of the hand. Everyone seems to be in a good mood, such that I've never seen. People are looking me in the face as I go by, wishing happy new years. I wonder if it's relief that life will still be as we know it, that the worst-case scenarios have not come to be. One guy calls me girl in leather. Even the pandhandler tells me I look beautiful after he asks me for change which I do not have. I find myself walking in step to tunes blaring from parked cars. I get to Joes, and it's closed. Turn around, walk back to the paper. More people with happy wishes greet me as I sail past. I find this general elation contageous.

I make it back to the paper, and Ben tells me friends are back at Piotr's, tells me to take the car. I head back feeling a little mystified. These people in the streets after midnight are the same folks who will be guarded as they walk down the streets on Monday morning. I feel lucky to have seen this side of humanity.

Back with friends, I share some champagne, share some more conversation. Ben joins shortly thereafter. We eventually leave, and life continues on as it always has.

2 Comments:

At 2/15/2006 4:58 PM, Blogger Pradoster said...

I remember that journal entry. not sure if I remember that night though.

 
At 2/21/2006 8:06 PM, Blogger Naomi Butterfield said...

*Grin* Yeah, it used to be on my cs page. I remember that night pretty well, probably because I wrote about it. It was just almost freaky how palpable the relief was that everything didn't dissolve into utter chaos once '99 rolled over into '00. I've since wondered how much of that panic was media hype, and wondered if anyone suffered from the Y2K bug in actuality. I don't remember any reports of trouble, but it certainly could be just that I didn't hear about them.

 

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