Twenty Five New Years

I was sorting some paperwork recently and came across notes in which I had constructed a list of every New Year's Eve (NYE) celebration I'd been to. I'm now updating that list here because a bit of mental arithmetic tells me I've celebrated the turning over of the calendar twenty five times to date.

It surprises me that I did nothing in 1990 - my HSC year - but I was a sheltered home-body back then and nothing much changed till I went to uni. I confirmed this by looking back at my old written diary entry and I just did what a nerd who can fill his own time did. One interesting line is a sort of resolution:

I stick to my plan of constant occupation of time with fun, interesting, useful or necessary things as determined by myself and the changing world.

I cannot say that much has changed in a quarter century but then with something as general as that how can you falter? Anyway here I go with commentary on each year.

1991

By the end of 1991 I had a bunch of new uni friends so I find it odd that the first NYE I went to was the backyard party of a schoolmate. My overwhelming memory is that I was kinda bored. I had gone there with a close friend so we had company but more was needed to compensate for the predominance of pedestrian conversation and the pushing of beer onto every guest. I compromised and accepted a wine cooler. Entertainment technology has vastly improved since then and I recall the host playing the best of Cold Chisel in endless loop. Possibly that is all they had. Someone declared that to be a true Aussie you had to like Chisel. It took me something like a decade to get over my aversion to them because of that night. I now think they do some classic tunes (particularly the ones written by Mossy).

1992

This time I had fun. A friend who lived in Somers at the time hosted a sleep-over for a smallish number of Korner friends. I cannot remember much but do recall walks to the lovely beach there. There was also some home-made dinner and good conversation. It was small and nice but I think I prefer something a bit more jumping and so we move on.

1993

I went to a large Korner pool party held at a share household on Stockdale Avenue close to Monash Uni. This was more what the youthful me had imagined NYE was supposed to be like. I remember enjoying the party despite the fact it was dominated by friends and acquaintances older than me. They did get a whole lot more drunk than I did and this is a continuing theme in much of my life - I get to be the one who remembers all the silly things you said and did.

1994-1995

I may have made a token visit to a Korner party at First Street in Clayton but then went to a sleep-over in the Ashburton area. A friend was house-sitting there and invited a small group along who called ourselves Us. It was fun and I vaguely remember things like listening to Meat Loaf albums and watching Red Dwarf. A very similar gathering in the same house happened 12 months later. These were relatively sedate gatherings and I suspect we went to bed shortly after Midnight.

1996

This year I was back to a big Korner party and once more it was held at the same Stockdale Avenue share house. It was a fun night made even better because a small group of us walked to another house - Animal Farm - for a rest from the crowd while sitting in a spa. By the time we got back to the big party it was after Midnight but we just re-wound our watches a bit and hugged friends anyways.

1997

The thing with Korner is it has never been one thing. It draws on different Monash Uni interest groups and cuts across many generations. As a result there is sometimes more than one party and at times I decided to go to them all. So I started the night at something hosted in Ashburton, prepared for a two-party night because I'd pre-booked a taxi the day before. It took me to the other party, held at a house I would later live in - Currajong Street back closer to Monash.

On getting to Currajong Street, I found a party in full-swing. It was a hot night and many guests were hanging around the driveway. One of them drunkenly snogged me which was very surprising. I was sober and so diverted our activity into dancing inside to a song I particularly liked. From there I made my escape and into chatting with others. Friends have since discovered that cracking onto me while they are still sober is more likely to get them what they want. But despite an absence of things that could have been, I still had a fun night.

1998

Once more I started at a party at the same house in Ashburton. I think I annoyed others by having the temerity to play Never Ending Story by Limahl on the stereo. That group have a problem with things that are overtly hopeful or childishly fun. It is one of the ways in which I have never entirely fit and why I have always cultivated other friends too.

That night I also had another party to go to hosted by a disparate friend – someone who I knew independent of any friendship groups and who had recently moved to Brunswick. I took public transport and got stuck sitting in a train carriage at Flinders Street Station as the clock struck Midnight. There were crowds both inside and on the platform, all cheering and wishing the world a happy New Year. Many were drunk but they were cheerful and it was something I'm happy to have experienced.

I got to the next party in a converted warehouse apartment. It had some excellent fixtures including a lovely steel spiral staircase. The party was smallish but had a good vibe. However, I was a stranger to everyone but the hosts. My friend very quickly told me that I will have to dance, and that's exactly what I did. Interactions with strangers are fine if you have some common activity and I remember amusedly watching some of the guests mock-flirting while singing along to Outside by George Michael. As things got slower there was some conversation and eventually it was dawn and I could get public transport home.

1999

There was only one Korner party in 1999 because a well-connected person decided to throw a huge one. He hired the Oakleigh Masonic Hall and purchased a bunch of second-hand lounge settings to define half the hall as a relaxing space while the other half was a dance floor. This was my first encounter with a computer substituting for a stereo. However there was also a live band - some friends who often rehearsed but had never performed. And there was catering. It was a big old night and to this day one of the best I remember for dancing and chatting and seeing lots of familiar faces. I also became a 'furniture delivery fairy' the following day, but that's another story.

2000

This time I think I over-did things by attending three parties. One was a Korner party held in Balaclava and, to fit everything in I only was there as guests started to wander in. The next was on Heller Street in Brunswick and I was there with sufficient time to get into a few interesting conversations with Us and others. Finally I went to a party on Strelden Avenue Clayton. Everyone was gathered in the backyard holding alcoholic slushies and I only walked in minutes before the countdown to Midnight. Following that the party spirit started to wane and I suspect that travelling from party-to-party deprives one of time to truly enjoy any one event. I was tired from all the party-hopping and was happy to hit a bed.

2001

My diary tells me I started the evening at a pathetic party in Bettina Street Clayton for which I have zero memory. I do remember next attending a party in Clarinda (with a mix of Korner and Us) and then went onto another Korner party hosted at Prince Street Clayton. It was a good party house (what with different shared spaces and nice looped patterns of movement in its layout) and so I imagine it was a good party but I cannot say for sure. Remembering a life of partying can be difficult even for the mostly-sober.

2002

A big two-storey share house in Glen Waverley hosted a Korner NYE. There was a pool in the backyard and I remember other decent pool parties there featuring games like Marco Polo. On this night it was surprisingly cool but some of us took a dip anyway (coz dammit we are having a pool party)! I managed to get a few non-Korner friends to come along and so felt as if I got to see more friends than I usually would at one party.

2003

There was a Korner party at Currajong Street and I remember it was pretty good overall. Looking at old photos would help refresh my memory as to who was there. I think I had a silk shirt at the time. The one thing I definitely remember is that a handful of us went for a walk to the nearby footbridge over Dandenong Road and watched the sunrise from that vantage. I should try to do that sort of thing more often.

2004

On the afternoon of this day I had been at Monash Uni and found a public notice regarding Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) lying on the ground (rather than in a public bathroom as was intended). I put it in my bag on a whim and later it will return to our story. That night I went to a Currajong Street party and then after a few hours got a lift to another Korner party.

The next one was hosted in Ashwood and once there I went to the toilet and affixed onto its back door the poster saying 'are you spoiled for choice?' It stayed there for ages and it took the hosts months to discover the culprit. In other ways it was a fun night and included indulging of nitrous oxide bulbs as well as the amusing sharing of 'seconds' (excess gas) as a sly way of initiating snogging. A bit of titillation on NYE is traditional.

2005

Titillation of another kind happened at this party but was an incidental product of the temperature that evening. A Korner party was hosted in Jordanville and it was a stinking hot night. I remember lamenting that it had been cool a few years previously while we had a pool but now it was a sticky one and all we had to cool off on was the backyard lawn. Guests started stripping as if there was a pool and a few guests decided to take it a bit further by flashing each other. Having a pool would have been better overall.

2006

I started at a party on Shaftsbury Drive in Mulgrave. I just bet there was an alcoholic slushy machine. I'm sure it was fun and could have still had dancing. Remember dancing? Following that I went onto another Korner party in Pinewood which I imagine was more chatty in nature. That tended to be the way of things - one party would be more dance-oriented and another more chatty. Eventually I went to bed at a home in South Yarra and had a well-rounded night all-in-all.

2007

There was a short-lived share household called The House in Oakleigh and it played host to a big all-in Korner party. I remember it was a long house with a big back yard well-suited to a large gathering. At Midnight there was the usually round of hugs and the odd snogging. One peculiar behaviour was someone who tends to make others standoffish seemed to follow me in my rounds of the crowd like some kind of cuckoo for kisses (a tactic that was poorly received). As fun as the party was I think I was a bit tired of dodgy characters by this time (and never entirely understood the enthusiasm back then for open group invites).

2008

Choral friends had been organizing a Beach Trip (set between Boxing Day and New Year's Day) and I had visited these in 2006 (for a night) and 2007 (for a few nights) but 2008 was the first time I went and never managed to come back to the suburbs for NYE. It just seemed simpler and nicer to stay at what was called Beach Trip Of Beds For All in a hired dorm house in Rosebud close to the beach. Extra friends and acquaintances visited on the night for a barbecue dinner. There was singing and dancing and welcoming in the New Year on the beach (complete with other groups in the mid-distance setting off fireworks).

2009

Hiring houses to accommodate big groups can be pricey so the Beach Trip I travelled to for NYE was in a bunch of tents at the Rosebud foreshore camping reserve. It was a mixed experience and there were big storms on NYE itself. Nonetheless there was good company to be had and I do enjoy the convenience of having suburbia and shops right by the beach like they are there.

2010

The Beach Trip this year was over the other side of Port Phillip Bay and a I visited it for one afternoon. However I spent most of my time at a different gathering of choral friends on Western Port Bay. We had a small collection of tents in a camping area close to Balnarring Beach. We had a pretty lazy time which included some skinny dipping one night that was rudely interrupted by a young seal. NYE itself was fun but tiring. I recall that an inflated mattress is as good as a bed once you are exhausted from having fun.

2011-2012

Both these years there was a Beach Trip at Stony Point in a mix of tents and hired cabins. I discussed these Summer Holidays in another blog post at the time. That was the last occasion to date that I have camped in tents.

2013

And then there was just one more Beach Trip - the tenth for those who had gone to all of them - and it was in a rather nice holiday house and auxiliary cabin back in Rosebud. There were both fun and lazy things to do and one thing I miss is just hanging in a living room reading a book as various friends do other things or come-and-go on different sojourns. We had a lovely time and this included the obligatory walk to the beach to welcome in the New Year.

2014

This time I was back to attending one-date NYE celebrations in suburbia but was still spending it with choral friends. There was a party in Kooyong (at the same house that hosts my current role-play game). I helped with party preparation and some barbecuing. It was a night of good finger foods and raucous chatting. I'm on the same railway line so I even got to make my own way home now that the state government gives us all-night public transport on 1 January.

2015

Finally we come to the twenty fifth NYE celebration I've attended, and it was also a house-warming and a pool party. I got to engage in a favourite hobby by providing the hosts with a big playlist they could pipe over an excellent internal set of house speakers. And I also got to swim. Well sort of. There were so many guests and so many kids that it was difficult at times to move safely in the water. Still, it was a hot day and the water was wonderfully refreshing. That Blackburn house itself was charmingly kitsch while also well-fixtured for a party. I made some barbecue mushroom burgers to share. Later I snacked on grapes at the poolside. There was chatting and choral singing and a good time seemed to be had by all.

* * * * *

Since 1991 nothing much has changed. Humans still like to get together for a party and the kind of things they enjoy tend to be the same. Technology has only made small differences to what we do together and we still cannot take our smartphones into a busy swimming pool. If I have changed it is in better understanding how to pace things and to focus on what I enjoy. If there is a lull in that enjoyment I'm better now at just sitting back for a bit and watching the party go by.

Following a lot of the experience recorded here I tired of having to accommodate every invite and be with everyone. Also, during the Festive Season you get plenty of other chances to spend with various friends. And finally there is nothing fundamentally important in the last day of December. It is just an excuse for a good party and you can aim to have those all-year-round.