Happy New Year, homos! Ah, the new year — a whole new start. Take a deep breath. Can you smell that? No, not that. That’s the garbage can. That. The smell of a fresh new beginning. A clean slate. A tabula rasa. Hey, doesn’t that sound like a lesbian band? Four lezzies with handwoven hats and shoes made of hemp. I love them. I think they’re on tour with Kate Clinton. Tabula Rasa appearing tonight featuring their hit songs, “You Can’t Say That!” “Me And My Dreamcatcher” and everyone’s fave chart-topper, “My Cat Ate My Birkenstock.”
See? Now why did I have to go to a Birkenstock place, so early in the year? The funny thing about a column is people can hiss and I can’t hear. It’s very freeing!
I’m not a huge fan of the hiss and siss. It’s usually not the most laugh-riot people who hiss or siss. I was hissed at once onstage and I was like… [long pause… then in a monotone], “You’ve got to be kidding….”
Actually I once saw Sandra Bernhard at a theatre in New York and she said something onstage and some gal hissed her and she was like, “Don’t you SISS me!” I was scared. And thrilled, all at the same time.
Anyway, back to the new year…. SISS! See, you never know when you’ve offended someone. So sorry.
It’s a whole new year. A chance to leave behind everything embarrassing and become a whole new you. Did you try those ass-crack jeans? Glo by J Lo? Did you make eyes at a stranger in the bar and after a minute discover it was a mirror? No one needs to know. That was yesterday!
Did you go on a date and were so bored you closed-mouth yawned and got busted when your nostrils overflared? Hey, it’s happened to us all. It’s now officially old news.
Did you become prime minister, put on so much weight with those beady eyes and that clown nose that you started to suddenly begin to look like WC Fields’s meaner nephew, got broken up with by your male lover Peter MacKay and on top of that have your motion to reintroduce marriage as only between a man and a woman get defeated in Parliament? Hey, it’s a whole new year! In which you’ll move on to a whole new job.
The point is: It’s all new. The refresh button has been pushed, the sorbet has been served, it’s time for a whole new deal. Maybe it’s the year of no looking back. No matter what, it’s all about the good that’s to come. For those with a Botox tendency, nothing is more youthful than looking forward and nothing is more softening than optimism.
Just keep on moving. Like if you’re walking in a mall and the lube you just bought falls out of your Shoppers Drug Mart bag, just keep moving, my friend! Don’t look down. Don’t look back. If you hear, “Sir? Did you drop something?” that’s your cue to run like the wind. You go, Flo Jo! Run like a preteen shoplifter with a sweater full of glow-in-the-dark nail polish.
On a nongay aside, and as a slight digression: could the bags from Shoppers Drug Mart be any thinner and more revealing of what’s inside? They’re so translucent they’re almost completely clear. A clear plastic bag with a logo is not what you want protecting your drug store issues. Isn’t that the one type of store you would think might provide a teeny bit of discretion with their baggery? I always pray I don’t run into someone I know after I’ve been to the Shoppers Drug Mart. Or almost worse than that, I won’t see someone I know who’s just been in themselves. “Hi Patty, how’s it going?” as you’re greeted by the “Hello!” of yeast infection treatment peeking through a bag.
But it’s a new year. And I couldn’t be more excited. Goodbye, the past!
There are many things from 2006 that we never need to see again. And thank heavens for that. I tell you one thing I’ve left behind, and that is star gossip. The fun is over. Now it’s Koo Koo Bananas.
It’s like when I used to waitress at the Rivoli back in the 1980s, I was sitting on the patio on a stool, not serving people probably, and I looked across the street and there was a sign that said, “Coming soon, Legs Beautiful Hosiery.” I was like, “Okay, Queen St is over.” It’s just different when the masses move in.
Let’s create some value, have some fun and make 2007 the best year ever. Why not?
And if you’re going to Shoppers, bring a tote.
Why you can trust Xtra
