Happy New Year everybody. Did you have a good 2003? Boy that one sure flew by fast.

The final days of the year are always a manic dash to obtain or create the ultimate New Year's Eve plans. Must party. If you can not party on New Year's Eve you do not deserve to live. Even your parents are partying tonight, with their own parents no less. Grandma's are sippin champagne, The Amish are dancing, Hare Krishna's are giving away books for free, and Mormon husbands are slipping their wives non-herbal teas. Don't do it Brigham Young, the caffeine will kill her!

Oh yeah, I got out there baby, I've got "born to party" shaved into my chest hair.

Actually that night, and the days before, I didn't really feel much like going out. The only thing that maintained my mission to mix it up, was my fear that someone would find out that I did absolutely nothing and forever label me "uncool." Instead of yearning to DO something, I would just feel relieved if I could SAY I did something.

This little piece of small talk inquiry is usually bullshit anyways. When someone asks you, "So what did you do for New Year's?" they're just setting themselves up so they can tell you about their fabulous time. Imagine if the conversation went like this:

"So what'd you do for new year's Mark?"

"I went to a party at an old brewery."

"That's cool, hey I gotta go, see ya Mark." That would FREAK ME OUT! Where's the obligatory- "Oh, well my friend Stacy and I went to this party at this mansion in the Hollywood Hills it was so cool, bla, bla, bla"? I always feel like the new year's chit chat is actually a contest in coolness, or its a way of probing acquaintances to check their hipness on the New Year Barometer.

"So you stayed home and watched Catch Me If You Can?" I now have serious reservations about hanging out with that girl ever again. The energy and pathos of loneliness is electrically harnessed and then amplified by 10 foot tall holiday speakers. 10 years ago, I remember just before the clock struck 1994, I was burying my head in my pillow watching TV, wondering why my precious Heather hadn't returned my phone calls. I was sure that from now on Dick Clark would be my dusty static New Year's kiss, that ringing in the New Year was indicative of the misery to come. It actually turned out to be a great year.

I rang in 2004 in a parking lot, waiting in line for a party I had already been in, but it was now too crowded to re-enter. Inside the party I heard people counting down 6! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! Yeah! I looked at my watch and realized that they were more than three minutes early, just cause some drunk guy decided to start counting down, loudly.

The parties I did attend that night were pretty damn good though. One room had live bands and a trampoline. Nostalgic and dangerous, that's how I like to do it. The secondary party which functioned like an UN tent for 2003 refugees was actually more fun than the main bash. They were playing oxymoronic 80s-funk-techno that had the place jumping. Even the too cool for school pretty boys were boppin their heads, with their lacquered-down-in-the-front-dyed-black-spiky-in-the-back-hair-dos bouncing out of time with the beat.

So how do you feel about me now? I was living it up. Check these stats baby: Two parties in a hip part of LA, one was huge with a trampoline and bands (2 cool points), the other more laid back with a DJ (3 cool points), I spent the final ticks in a parking lot (minus 2 points), I kissed a cute stranger on the cheek (plus 1), and kissed an ugly one on the lips (minus 3), the party had hardly any mesh trucker hats (plus 1), but did have those plenty of those stupid 80's glam rock haircuts (minus 1), which I made fun of to my advantage (plus 1), I only had two drinks (minus 2), I was the designated driver (plus 3), and then I wrote all about it in my blog (minus 8). So what do you think? Do I pass the New Year's cool test?