Another year (almost) bites the dust!

Here I am, sitting at home all by my pathetic self and will resort to watching the live telecast of the New Year celebration in Time Square, NYC when the clock strikes midnight. I just don't feel like going anywhere tonight. I hate the teeming drunken crowd in most of the bars and clubs tonight, especially the ones along Water Street and the Eastside (the yuppified-section of Milwaukee.) And that's not including the exorbitant cover that most of these places charge. I'm not paying $100 or even $50, just so I can have the privilege of being blanketed by hails of confettis, getting hugged by some alcohol-soaked 300-pound hairy men (unless if they are statuesque blondes with 34D cups and the ass to die for), and clinking champagne glasses with total strangers. Especially the clinking champagne glasses part since I don't drink. Well, I'd probably be clinking with a glass filled with Coke or Pepsi, if I do go to any of these places.

Anyway, I initially wanted to check out some of the bars on Riverwest (the "other" Eastside) since I'm sure it's less crowded there and the people are less obnoxious. Linneman's seems like a pretty cool place to hang out when the clock hits midnight since I love its laid-back, hippie-like atmosphere and I'm sure that there are going to be some local bands playing there tonight along with some local poets.

But then I decided to nix the idea of going out all together. Something's not right about this whole celebration when there are plenty of sufferings going on around the world. I keep thinking about the people who suffer so much in the recent catastrophe, and what the ushering of this new year means to them when everything they ever loved were snatched away from them by the cruelest of fate? What hope is there left for these devastated people other than to cling fast to their respective faiths and pray for a better tomorrow, if at all possible?

I'm not, by no means, looking forward to the new year with a bleak pessimistic view. What I'm trying to say is to take this moment to reflect on one's life, not just in itself but in relation to everyone and everything else in this world. The globalized world is getting smaller, so much so that the effect of anything that happens on one side the world will find its way to the other side without even diminishing the impact. Take the tsunami for example. The victims of this tragedy were not only the inhabitants of this region; in all, the victims comprised of more than sixty nationalities. Regardless of what happens around the world, the result still feels so much closer to home.