My first online New Year was I think 93 to 94 or maybe 94 to 95, when we had Compuserv and had heard about a free chat forum called TownHall and my brothers, father, and myself all spent time there in various capacities. (Come to think of it, I'm not quite certain my brothers did spend too much time there, but maybe they did..) My father mostly hung under the radar there and made friends somehow in a completely different circle, as a strong Democrat and too passive to engage in the debates. It was a Republican chat group mostly, and the posting forums included all the main debate categories as well as humor and general chatter and such. I did very much enjoy the humor postings and actually printed out a bunch that I still have to this day. Some of them ended up being ironically relevant to my life in ways I would have never imagined, because I just thought they were funny in general before, but after joining up and moving to Jax, I was unpacking (after my time in the barracks) and came across the folder of humor printouts. I found a post of humorous items from actual military evaluations (such as: "At 6 feet 8 inches, he stands head and shoulders above his peers") that was funny at the time but was so much more hilarious for me after I was getting my own evaluations and could picture writing these things on them.

Anyway, New Year's came, and I remember sitting in the chat room with people from all over the world, off and on for hours that day/night, ringing in the New Year in Hong Kong with Grace, and in Europe, and in every time zone in America, right down to Alaska and Hawaii. It was something magical, beautiful, unifying. I have never forgotten that experience. I have had a few other New Years' online since and they were all echoes of that first for me. I have since mostly moved into not-so-on-line celebrations despite the fact that most of my closest, longest-time friends are in the online category and that now that I'm overseas, most of my communication with anyone and everyone is as well... but it took some doing to try to find something like a ball drop at midnight in our time zone being broadcasted on anything here, and they were about to show something and switched to the Bhutto Assassination videos instead, which is a great way to change years, isn't it? So that was disappointing, but then they did show fireworks afterwards, though I think I was the only one watching.

It's impressive and communal to be part of a world with worldwide celebrations through a long timeframe so that we can all be together in them even very far away.

(Speaking of time, some of us dressed semi-formal for last night's party, and I hope to have some pictures soon to post... the nailpolish I wore to match my dress is called Time, which I figured was just that much more appropriate.)