Janet Sucks

Happy nineteen ninety nineteen
So here's how I spent it:
Evening of the 30th: Made Herring Salat, which is my family's traditional New Year's party food. It is bright pink in celebration of Saint Sylvester, and very German. Here is the recipe:
ingredients:
1 small jar herring pickled in wine sauce
1 can sliced potatoes
1 small can sliced beets
1 sour green apple
2 hard-boiled eggs
1 small sour dill pickle (or 2-3 cornichons)
a teaspoon of capers
a teaspoon of sugar
a dash of white wine vinegar
1/4 cup of sour cream
1/4 cup of mayonnaise (usually I just eye the sour cream and mayonnaise, but they should be about equal)

Dice the herring, potatoes, beets, apple, and one egg into tiny cubes of about the same size, put together in a mixing bowl. Dice the pickle, capers, and maybe a shallot much finer, add. Fold with sour cream and mayo, add sugar and vinegar to taste. Chill for 6 hours, garnish with sliced hard-boiled egg. Feeds about 10 as an appetizer or snack.

Midnight #1: Hung out with

lowellboyslash and

padnick at the latter's, being depressing and talking about heroin overdoses in in Texan suburbia.
Caught the L into Manhattan, where it stopped at Union Square, then went back. Caught a taxi at 3rd avenue and went to Penn Station to catch the 3:15 to Boston with Josh (because my mother loves him). Left my father's hat in the train station bathroom.

8 am on the 31st: arrived at South Station in Boston, got picked up by my parents who had just come from the airport in a rental van. Got lost in Boston as usual. Headed south to Middleboro, stopping for McDonald's on the way, off the wrong exit. Started snowing while we were trying to force down over-sugared mcgriddles. Eventually made it to my third cousin Eva's and crashed in her spare bedroom, feeling rather ill in the digestive system; blaming either the herring salad, the McD's, a possible sensitivity to White Russians (oh, no!), or caffeine withdrawal.

4 pm: Gussied up and headed to a quaint restaurant with monumental portions of meat for my great-cousin Edith's "100th" birthday - no, really, even though the menus had the quotes, she's actually 100, and sharp as a tack. Due to in-law rivalries Eva's mother didn't come, but Edith's son brought his daffy English wife, and Eva's identical twin daughters are getting to the age when I can no longer describe them as either "cute" or "creepy".

7 pm: long snowy drive back to Eva's for cake and coffee.
9 pm: Parents drove us down to Providence to catch the 10:30 train to New York. The area around the train station is the most recent growth of "downtown" and you can't see anything from anywhere anymore because it's full of empty overpriced office buildings and condos. On the bright side if I get a teaching job at RISD in a few years those things will probably have gone bankrupt and cheap.

Midnight: Texted everyone I knew from the train somewhere near New Haven, traded swigs of scotch from a flask and chastely kissed the one I'm with.

2 am: arrived at Penn Station, which was full of drunken revelers trying to get home. Took the 2 down to the financial district to transfer to the J to get to Bowery Ballroom for Amanda Fucking Palmer's early-morning New Year Show, discovered there was no uptown J, got out and walked a few blocks in the bitter cold until a miraculous taxi appeared.
Arrived in the middle of Emilyn Brodsky's set, liked her, got her CD. Brian was playing bass. Found Liz and

bethofalltrades and

lentower, who gave us chocolate and coffee beans.
AFP started slow with Fake Plastic Trees on the ukelele with the Danger Ensemble having a hugfest.
No one's posted a setlist yet, but I remember she played
Muse's Apocalypse Please
Girl Anachronism (yay),
The Point of It All (boo),
Trout Heart Replica (that's what I came for!),
Tainted Love (with audience synth: "tss tss" "GA DONK-DONK")
Coin-Operated Boy (will kiss for kash),
Ampersand (meh),
Slide (w/memorable Ensemble bit),
Astronaut (annoying audience request),
Oasis ( :D )
Runs in the Family,
Another Year (we left during this, too exhausted to feel the Perfect New Year's Song)

And apparently came back for encores until 5:30 am, including In Between Days with Brian and Hallelujah and UghMerica and Leeds United and whatever, I don't mind missing precious encore stuff when I'm about to fall the fuck over.

New Year's night anywhere in Manhattan is amazing. It even seems like there are more vagrants and corpses around than usual, on top of the people in running makeup or dressed for crime or both, sobering up.

Current Mood: sore
Current Music: Amanda Palmer - 1-1-94

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