Happy 2025, if you’re into that sort of thing

So much for that, eh. 2024 was intermittently amusing, up to the first week of November anyway. I occasionally left the house and turned 50. I’ve noticed that, at least since I was 29, I’ve felt… not really angst or anything at starting a new decade but a sort of fascination, for want of a better word, with the fact that I was at the end of one and about to start the next, and I spent most of the year thinking about it. I did it when I was 29, I did it when I was 39, and I did it when I was 49… and each time, once I’d rolled over into my new decade, I stopped thinking about it. Did it when I turned 30, when I turned 40, and again when I turned 50. I don’t think about being 50 now that I am 50, indeed I almost have to remind myself that I am…

I spent years dreading NYE because I spent too many years thinking I should Do Something To Mark The Occasion and that it was important. One of the good things about getting older is that I have long since stopped feeling that; it has to be something really worth going to the effort of trying to wrangle transport to it and back home again. I can’t even remember the last time I did, though from looking through my old photos it appears to have been ten years since I last socialised at a club for NYE (I see no other NYE-timestsamped pictures after that… I dimly recall my friend Lara driving us there, first to a friend’s place out at Marrickville for their gathering and then to the Imperial where the club was… I think the year after that was the time I went over to Joe’s place for NYE before he moved in here, had an unexpectedly easy time getting taxis there and back, and otherwise I don’t think I’ve been anywhere on NYE since. Part of me misses it, there was a club on this NYE that would’ve been nice, but I no longer feel the need I once did to put up with the probable difficulties I’d have had getting there.

Friend who was out working tonight posted the midnight view from Darling Harbour (where he was working):

Looks delightful but I don’t need THAT shit any more either. Back in 1994 and 1997 I went with a friend to Circular Quay for the 9pm show before we kicked on to other things. Do you know how long it takes a hundred thousand people to evacuate that area once the show’s over? Cos I know better than I’d like. With hindsight I can’t believe I actually did that a second time. It was fun, the atmosphere was pretty good, and I don’t ever need to do it again. In fact, I can barely believe I did it once, never mind twice. But I was so much younger then, and still thought that Doing Something on NYE mattered, and wasn’t smart enough to worry about these things. Doing Something didn’t require the effort or preparation it now does…

Anyway—to bed. I don’t have a lot of optimism for 2025, but I’m assuming the world will still be here when I wake up, so back to normal disservice later. And happy 2nd birthday, blog.