happy new year!

We had our New Year's celebration 12 hours ago, but you guys in the US are having your snow. And you guys in Norway had yours, what, 6 hours ago? Anyhow, Happy New Year!   We were on the banks of the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok, we sort of crashed the party at the Peninsula hotel. We told them we'd buy ab otel of (overpriced) champagne and voila, we were in to the $400 a head party merely for the price of a bottle of hooch. We sat right along the river, outside, on a beautiful night.   And then the fireworks started. Holy shit, y'all. I have never, in my entire long life, seen fireworks like this. They were set off maybe 100 yards from us, from barges on the river, and each hotel set off their own firework show in tandem and in competition. It was like each hotel along the river was trying to show it had a bigger fireworks dick than the others. And boy did we appreciate it. 20 + minutes of sparkling booming explosions, it was like the finale of a normal show going on and on and on.   Am I a loser that I cried? I couldn't help it. It was so beautiful and it hit me that here I was, on the banks of a river in Bangkok freaking THAILAND, on New Year's Ever, having just gotten back from Bali and Mallaysia and Cambodia, and how fucking lucky am I to be here and experience this and who am I to deserve this much amazingness anyhow? So I cried. Rich was a bit confused, being surrounded by three crying women, all crying for different reasons (one because her husband died earlier this year and it's her first NYE without him (I cried a bit for her, too), one in sympathy and then me, just crying for life's rich pageantry). Rich just gamely drank and oohed and aahed.   Ok, so, one of the best NYE's ever. Definitely top three. (Bottom one being the NYE I got my appendix out.)   Gotta run, we are going to go to a see movie in a theatre where they also massage you during the movie (!!!) and you lie on chaises to watch it (we are seeing Australia) and then we are going to see a lady boy show. What a day this will be.