I think last night was the best New Year’s Eve I’ve ever had. Everything just came together wonderfully – we were at a friend’s apartment with several good friends, some other interesting people to complete the mix, various alcoholic concoctions, fried cheese, and a big hi-def widescreen TV on which we watched poor Dick Clark struggle to speak post-stroke (it was so sad) and Mariah Carey struggle to sing while her enormous breasts tried to take over the proceedings. The Breasts That Ate Times Square. Has she always had those things?

There was also a detour to Anderson Cooper on CNN, of course.

The party was bookended by two rides on the A train, each with drunken revelers. Ordinarily they would have been irritating, but there was something cinematic about it last night – the couple making out in the seats at the end of the car, the guy wearing the paper top hat with “Happy New Year” printed across it.

And, not to gloat, but at the end of the night, it’s great to go home with someone you love.

While we were riding the train up to the party last night, I remarked to Matt that I can remember what I’ve done on every New Year’s Eve since 1987. I now realize that it’s a little sketchy in the late 80s, but here’s the list:

Ringing in 1986 (age 13): I remember seeing Young Sherlock Holmes with my family, although that might or might not have been on New Year’s Eve.

1987: My brother and I and two of our friends hung out upstairs while my parents’ threw a New Year’s party downstairs. Earlier that night my family saw Little Shop of Horrors at the movies.

1988: Our house, with my family, after having seen a movie earlier that night that I can’t remember.

1989: A hotel in Hong Kong with my family. (We’d moved to Japan several months before.)

1990: A hotel in Cairns, Australia with my family. Welcome to the 1990s.

1991: A hotel in Phuket, Thailand with my family.

1992: My parents’ house, with my family, after having seen Father of the Bride earlier that night; our first “normal” New Year’s after moving back from overseas.

1993: Times Square, or actually 50th Street (a few blocks north of Times Square), with my high school friends, whom I hadn’t seen since graduating a year and a half earlier.

1994: Amsterdam with my family. The streets were crazy.

1995: A party with my best friend and some of his friends at someone’s house in New Jersey. This party had the Ziti Incident. I had to drive three people home in someone else’s car, and someone was holding a big aluminum-foil tray of ziti that spilled over in the car.

1996: My parents’ friends’ house. Very few people, all of them middle-aged. Yawn.

1997: A hotel in Jamaica with my family.

1998: A party with the same best friend and at the same house as for 1995. We all rang in the new year in the basement with plastic cups of champagne.

1999: Alone. I’d met a fun guy that night, but at midnight I was in my car by myself, stopped at the side of the road in the hills of suburban New Jersey, my radio tuned to Z100. Prince’s “1999” was playing. I looked out at the Manhattan skyline 15 miles east and could see fireworks. It was a bummer of a New Year’s Eve.

2000: A milliennium party at my parents’ house.

2001: The day after a big blizzard, I spontaneously went down to central NJ and celebrated at a gay bar with my friend Mitch and some of his friends. Someone got handsy with me. It was fun.

2002: Party at a big loft in Soho owned by a friend of Mike and Dan.

2003: Same as 2002.

2004: Matt and I hung out at his place and watched the ball drop on TV. Matt had returned from Tennessee the day before and it was nice to be together. Very low-key.

2005: Same as 2004, because Matt and I were both recovering from the flu.

2006: Last night, obviously.

Happy New Year!