1 January 2000

It’s 2AM in San Francisco. The world did not end. The lights are on and the cable works. The web did not fail. I’ve sent and receieved email. There were no major riots. For a Friday night, it’s strangely calm and quiet South of Market, even though the bars have just dismissed their New Year’s Eve crowds into the streets.

Apparently, this “millenium bash” was one of the calmest New Year’s Eve celebrations in San Francisco history.

For my part, Dan picked me up at 7:30. We then grabbed Steve and Jamie and took the back rodas to a house near Geary and Masonic for dinner with some friends. We watched the celebration at Times Square. As we talked, we realized we’d all been watching the live coverage of the events worldwide all day. At this point, we gave up on all traces of urban sophistication and pretension (pretense?).

After dinner, we all drove back to Steve’s house on Potrero Hill to bring in the new year and watch the fireworks over the bay. It was all very low-key, we were seven nicely agreeable individuals, and Steve and I (the only two drinkers of the bunch) couldn’t even manage to kill off one bottle of champagne. We did have streamers and balloons (five of which are now in my living room) and cookies and bread and cheese.

We laughed at the sparse turnout for all of San Francisco’s “official” celebrations. I occasionally looked out the window to make sure than South of Market wasn’t on fire. It wasn’t.

In fact as we drove through the remarkably sedate Mission district and onto Folsom Street on the way home, I noticed that the crowds on the street were pretty small even for a normal Friday night. I think people were terrified. Or just tired of all the hype.

All in all, it was a damn fine New Year’s Eve. When I got home, I turned off all the lights I’d left on, emailed my mom to let her know I was still alive and now I’m going to bed.

The traditional collards and black-eyed peas will be served tomorrow afternoon, although Safeway was sold out of fresh greens. All in all, I’d say that this shortage may suggest that there’s hope for the Bay Area after all. Or at least a hell of a lot of Southern transplants.

That said, happy New Year to you all!