New Year’s Eve is like the rare ex-boyfriend with whom I’ve achieved genuine friendship—we have an okay time in each other’s company, but I don’t bother trying to look devastatingly beautiful around him anymore.
It’s a big step for me. I used to put enormous effort into having a good time on New Year’s Eve. I had to have the Best Night Ever?, ideally with plenty of witnesses and photo documentation.
And I was unwilling to admit defeat. My senior year of high school, my girlfriends and I went out to a nice prix fixe dinner. I wasn’t feeling too good after eating the lobster salad, but my then-boyfriend was throwing a party, and I was wearing my new, sequin shrug—remember when shrugs were a thing?—I was going to be seen. With increasing queasiness, I sweated it out until eleven, when my best friend had to take me home.
We stopped twice for me to puke along the side of the road.
By the time the ball dropped, I was Linda Blair in The Exorcist.
It got so bad, my mom took me to the ER.
Imagine you’re a seventeen-year-old girl sick to the point of passing out on New Year’s Eve, and then imagine trying to convince jaded ER docs that you aren’t drunk.
After initial skepticism and several blood tests, I was diagnosed with toxicity poisoning from a bad lobster. I almost wished it had been champagne.
But I achieved my wish of staying up all night—on IV fluids.
My sophomore year of college, my best friend took me as her plus-one to a fancy cocktail party her friends were throwing in New York City. We took the train in, got a hotel room (that our moms probably paid for), primped like it was prom, and headed out on one of the coldest New Year’s Eves in memory.
At twenty years old, we felt incredibly grown-up—we were in formal dresses with older boys in the big city, and I was utterly certain that this was the first night of our glamorous adult lives.
Plus, I’d recently broken up with my high-school sweetheart and the only boy I’d ever kissed, so I was determined to find new love on the most romantic night of the year.
Finding true love took longer than I expected.
Fast-forward to 3:30 A.M. the first morning of the New Year, the two of us shivering on the sidewalk, our legs frozen numb, but our feet on fire after hours in high heels. We were waiting much too politely as cab after cab went to different people.
So I improvised.
Unable to withstand the pain of my shoes a minute longer, I dug plastic bags out of the trash and tied them to my feet.
Hobbling in my bag slippers, we managed to hail an off-duty party bus and beg the driver to take us back to our hotel.
He took pity on us—it was the shoes.
But if that isn’t a dedication to having fun on NYE, I don’t know what is.
Over time, my desperate need to do the coolest and hippest thing has subsided. The invisible audience judging my social life has dispersed. And the resulting quiet makes it easier to focus on what I cherish every year.
Like last year, I spent the holiday with my best friend—the same girl who held my hair back and also helped me find clean takeout bags for my feet—only instead we celebrated by sitting on the couch in my mother’s house, giggling at our old high-school yearbooks.
It was one of my favorite New Year’s Eves.
This year, the most tantalizing invite I received was from a close friend throwing a “New Year’s Eve Stay-In” at his apartment.
A small group of friends in a room quiet enough to hear them talk? Sounds perfect.
I no longer need champagne and sequins to have a great night. The calmer celebrations may not yield the crazy stories or the false envy on Instagram, but my ego will survive. And my heart will be happy.
Happy New Year!
Lift and Separate
Lisa
Once again, you’ve come to the right place.
If you read this, you’re going to LOL.
But this time, I can’t take the credit.
Sometimes the world hands you an ace. All you have to do is set it down on the table and play.
I’m talking, of course, about the SmartBra.
Have you heard about this? If not, I’m here to tell you that at the recent consumer electronics show, a Canadian tech company introduced a smart bra, which is a bra that is smarter than you are.
Or at least smarter than your breasts.
Microsoft is reportedly developing a smart bra, too, and I’m sure the other tech companies will follow suit.
Or maybe bra.
If it creeps you out that the male-dominated tech industry is thinking about what’s under your shirt, raise your hand.
Just don’t raise it very fast.
They’re watching you jiggle.
Bottom line, the smartbras contain sensors that are supposed to record your “biometric data” and send it to an app on your mobile device.
It’s a fitbit for your breasts.
Or a fittit.
Sorry, I know that’s rude, but I couldn’t resist.
Like I said, the world handed me an ace.
Anyway, to stay on point, the biometric data it monitors is your heart rate and respiration rate, but Microsoft has taken that a step further. According to CNN, their smartbra is embedded with “psychological sensors that seek to monitor a woman’s heart activity to track her emotional moods and combat overeating.” In fact, their “sensors can signal the wearer’s smartphone, which then flash [sic] a warning message to help her step away from the fridge and make better diet decisions.”
Isn’t that a great idea?
It’s a bra that tells on you when you’re hitting the chocolate cake.
Forgive me if I’m not rushing out to buy one.
I already know when I’m being bad, and I don’t need to be nagged by my underwear.
By the way, the smart bra sells for $150.
If that price gives you a heart attack, the bra will know it.
Maybe the bra can call 911.
Maybe the bra can even drive you to the hospital.
Don’t slack, bra.
That’s for breasts.
The Canadian company says that wearable tech is the latest thing, and that it developed its smart bra because it had “a plethora of requests from eager women who wanted in on the action, too.”
Do you believe that?
I don’t.
On the contrary, I know a plethora of eager women who wish they didn’t have to wear a bra at all.
I also know a plethora of eager women who take their bra off the moment they hit the house.
Plus I know a plethora of eager women who skip the bra if they’re wearing a sweatshirt, sweater, or down vest.
Finally, I know a plethora of eager women who would never use the word plethora in a sentence.
Okay, maybe I’m talking about myself.
Frankly, I don’t want “in on the action” if the action means a bra that will tell the tristate area I’m pigging out.
However, I want “in on the action” if the action means Bradley Cooper.
And nobody needs a smart bra to monitor what would happen to my heart if Bradley Cooper were around.
By the way, researchers are not currently developing a pair of smart tighty-whities for men.
That’s too bad because I have a name for it.
SmartBalls.
But maybe men don’t need underwear with a sensor that detects their emotional changes.
They already have such a sensor.
In fact, they were born with it.
Too bad it doesn’t make any noise.
Like, woohooo!
The Off Switch