we still don't have any new year's plans yet. last year we went off on our own to norfolk where we befriended a rag-tag group of attractive hicks just before the stroke of east coast midnight, but this year i think we had expected that at least one of our few groups of friends would have *something* going on. alas, i guess we were wrong, unless everybody's throwing parties and nobody wants us around. this is always a possibility. i think the cheese and i will probably end up taking advantage of a nearby hotel; they're offering dinner, drinks, dancing, karaoke, a hotel room, and a champagne brunch all of the nominal fee of 90 bucks per couple. singletons are clearly not allowed.

most of my new year's have been rather dull, consisting of tv with friends or parties with people i barely knew, being the tag-a-long of either my cousin or some other random friend. one new year was spent at a location that would, a few months later, become the scene of a near-deadly crime, an off-kilter brother-in-law firing a gun at the homeowner, his wife, and his two small children. the homeowner got shot in the chest but pulled through with the steady medication of alcohol and cigarettes. what a trooper, this guy. he's got a hole in his lungs, but, hey, he had just bought a carton of smokes the week before. he'd be damned before he let *that* purchase go to waste.

oh, and there was that one new year's with carole and her friends at a bar on cicero. i had just started dating a rather infamous creature, and the stroke of midnight went by with me sitting in a stairwell talking to him on my cell phone. see, he couldn't come out because he had a paper due, so instead he wasted an hour on the phone with me when i should have been boozing it up in the bar. oh, the decisions we make. he later showed up at 2 am, and we drove around town for a bit before finally parking in the super kmart lot and making out like rabbits on speed. i thought this was a great sign for the year ahead; i was certain this infamous creature would be the one. a few weeks later, i was not so sure. it took halfway into the year until i was absolutely positive, though, and then, twelve months later at the next new year's eve, i was kissing the cheese at the stroke of midnight, my new boyfriend, the one that would propose a year and a half later.

oh, the difference a year can make.

in my last year of high school, on the night of '97 becoming '98, i remember flipping out at midnight for no reason whatsoever. a lot of high school and the couple of years following it is a blur in my mind; i think subconsciously, i have done this on purpose simply because i didn't like who i was back then. i don't hold with a lot of the choices i made, with a lot of the things that i did and felt. who was that strange girl with the odd outlook on life? i choose not to associate with her too much. anyhow, all i remember is bursting into tears that year, having no hope for '98 or any of the years following it, and then, after a lengthy period of depression mixed with desperation mixed with the occasional decent hair day, i got on with it.

i think, on my own level, i was mildly disappointed when y2k turned out to be no big deal. what was i going to do with all that bottled water and extra batteries?

2004 is becoming 2005. time to start planning my wedding, time to plan another vacation, time to turn 25 and see if it affects my car insurance. time to yet again announce, "this will be the year of jackie," but underneath know that the past two years have been the year of jackie, and just hope this lucky streak of mine continues.