Kiss goodbye to 2005

The closing days of 2005 involved the last day ever of my life as a lawyer, much alcohol, many, many Djarum Vanillas, the popping of my Morton's cherry, much bingeing, some insanely adorable British Shorthair kittens, an interview with a raging diva, popping the Morton's cherry, Djarum vanilla, witnessing the slow certain dissolution of a dream that was supposed to last a lifetime, watching the blossoming of another possible dream, going for my first ever foam party, having yet another Honey Trappers bikini fest, getting my hands on a really big albino Burmese python, and having Hamster Boy very nearly kiss me but for some fast evasive action. And that was just in the last two days.

Leaving the firm was bittersweet, as these things always are. I will miss the people, and I will miss being able to say "Yes, I'm a lawyer" with that smug sort of satisfaction us lawyers know you can hear, but which we can't help (pardon us our simple pleasures because after four years of study and x number of years of sheer unadulterated hell, we need to take our pelasure where we can get it or we'll just crumble like the soulless husks that we are). I wil miss The Boss, and the colleagues (but not the walking germ warfare that is Smokey) and I will miss having lunch with my fellow suffers in different firms (notably, SheWhoRunsInStillettoes and Ego). I will miss the certainty and the definition the job gave me. (Someone told me that it what I did was not who I was, and this is true, but when you don't know who you are just yet, it helps). I will miss the independnce that comes from having a steady job. I will miss, much as it pains me to admit such a shallow thought, the prestige that society confers on you when you stake your claim as part of the legal fraternity (specially if you have a respectable pedigree, and I do.) I hate the idea of being demoted to being a student again.

But.

I will not miss the backbreaking work. I will not miss the hours which meant that there were too many occaisions where I only had time to run home to bath and change and catch an hour's sleep before going back to repeat the whole cycle again. I will not miss the unrelenting stress that made it hard to breathe. I will not miss butterscotch stealing clients. I will not miss the feeling that I wasn't doing what I was meant to do. I will not miss the feeling that with every day that passed, the window of opportunity was becoming smaller, and that I was faling to live the life I was supposed to live.

Ego and I celebrated the end of that particular phase of my life in fine style. If only I had my camera. Fags, steak sandwiches and chocolate martinis, all in a row. And feeling happier than I've felt in months. Finally, living.

2005 was not as much of a car crash as 2004. But things happened, as they will, with all the big surprises saved for the end of the year. People got married, and I wished them well. I found the place I want to live for the rest of my life, and found it with a person I imagine that would be no hardship to live in it with. I lost Cajun, and cried so much it hurt and I found how little I had learned about letting go. I changed the template of this blog, the Boy went away on military service for a while. I got news that shook the foundations of my world for a second time and wondered and for a brief while, thought maybe I would walk away from it all. I fought with a friend unknowingly and only found out through a blog and through her silence, the cause still a mystery to me. I left this blog. I came back. The Honey Trappers were formed. I found my better looking blog twin.I got in touch again with Topher, after many years of silence. Someone from the past left me a note which twisted me inside out for a while. I decided to go to New Orleans and then Hurricane Katrina happened and I couldn't go any more. I went to Bangkok again and nearly drowned in cuteness at Chatuchak and had some of the best sex imaginable (no, I didn't have to pay for it). I got Merlot and went through the weirdest road trip ever and committed at least five crimes in the course of the week leading up to it. I fell in love with you, again and again I laughed a lot. I burned up like a candle working on a case. I got sicker than I thought was possible and thought, just once, that I might not get better. I lost five kilos and looked like a junkie with track marks in my arms. I hurt, ached and cried for you and you and I got caught in the middle. I went to Taipei and realized I don't ever want to go back. I got accepted. I quit. And I come into the new year free.

After dinner at The Boy's de facto parent's house I met the Honey Trappers to count down the final moments of 2005 at the beach.The Honey Trappers pranced into 2006 in wicked little bikinis, and a score of one boy each for the new year. We sauntered into the VIP section of the countdown party, danced on foam and sand and concrete with various men with varying degrees of enjoyment, got soaking wet, drank some (not me) smoked some (me), met friends and friends of friends and some of the Honey Trappers (whose names shall not be revealed to protect the guilty) performed a sort of striptease, got a lapdance and got covered in foam.

Foam parties, by the way, are not all that they're cracked up to be. You get wet, cold and every damned thing in your bag will come out dripping. When we were finally leaving, Oriental Dream suddenly said, "I lost my slipper!". Two Honey Trappers crounched in ankle-deep foam and water to search for the missing item. Jubilee Jodie finally says, "I found it!" and pulls out a slipper from the foam like a prince for a HDB Cinderella. Oriental Dream looks at it, and then says, "Noooo, that's not mine." Said slipper is dropped like a hot potato and all the Honey Trappers recoil.

The music eventualy became boring and we left to find a better party along with abovementioned friends and friends of friends (one of which was Hamster Boy). We danced til six and had breakfast and watched the first sunrise of 2006 come up. My first morning of 2006 was with Hamster Boy (who was still high) peering owlishly at me from me front seat, blinking every now and then with the goofiest expression on his face. The rest of the first day of 2006 has been one featuring unconsciousness and running around with The Boy. It's been a good start so far.

The new year will be one where I resolve to live life, where I will follow passion and let it overwhelm reason more often, where I will let more things go and learn to live and let live, where I will find the grace to accept the things I cannot change, where I will love without reservation and where I will let life, and God, take me where it and He will.

2006 will be a year of change and upheaval and tumult and tears, I know that already.

But I will finally be living.


Me and Lucy


Happy New Year everyone.