January 1, 1999

Omigod! Rick Springfield sweat on me! AND he spilled some of his beer on my shoulder. I don't think I'm ever going to shower again. Oops! Too late, I've already done that. Oh well, I'll just have to live with the memory. haha. Well, in case you haven't figured it out, I saw Rick Springfield in concert for New Year's Eve 1998. Actually, Chris and I went to Disney's Pleasure Island for the evening and saw Huey Lewis and the News, Sister Hazel and Rick Springfield. There was food, there was drink, there were fireworks and a confetti storm and oh boy were there people! I guess lots more people jumped on the retro bandwagon and decided that a good way to say goodbye to 1998 was to go see bands that we listened to in 1988. (Well, a bit earlier for Mr. Springfield, but you get the idea.) I'm sure there were lots of people there who weren't particularly interested in the bands, but just went because Disney happens to throw one heck of a party, but I enjoyed the show.

The festivities started at 8pm and lasted 'til 2am with 2 performances by each of the bands, so I got to catch all of them. Chris, however, was more entranced by the food. Imagine an all you can eat buffet of epic proportions. There were food stands set up all over Pleasure Island that had just about anything that you could care to eat. Shrimp, prime rib, turkey and dressing, pasta, you name it. And it was all delicious! Well, except for the beef empanadas. Those made me want to stick my head in the lake they were so dry. But, 1 bad item out of like 70 is pretty good. The desserts were heavenly too. We ate too much, we drank too much, but we had an incredible time. And Rick Springfield really did sweat on me. And about 20 other women in front of me. He fell backwards into the crowd and I got to touch his very sweaty head. The drink in his hand spilled down my shoulder at which point I excitedly turned to the woman next to me and screamed "Omigod! Rick Springfield sweat on me!" Of course, I was joking then, just was at the beginning of this entry. I would be much more excited if Rick Springfield, say, bought me a latte and sat down and talked to me about quantum physics or soemthing. But it's still fun to say. Omigod! Rick Springfield sweat on me. And I didn't even think I'd ever see him in concert.

However, I think the most amazing thing I saw was after the show. We tried to sneak out early to avoid the rush, but got waylaid by the coffee and dessert stands on the way out of the park. Having picked up some hot beverages to fortify ourselves (I don't drink coffee, but they had hot cocoa too.), we made our way through Downtown Disney towards the valet parking. We noticed that everyone else had thought to escape early too. We waited for the valet to bring the truck around and observed some men with women we could only assume were, er, escorts and then tried to make our way out of the parking lot. That was pretty futile since the person who designed the Downtown Disney area, specifically the parking lot is a complete moron. Who else would put only one entrance/exit for that many parking spaces? Keep in mind, that this one entrance/exit is supposed to serve the Pleasure Island park, Planet Hollywood, the Cirque du Soleil theatre, the AMC 24 movie theatres as well as the rest of the shops and restaurants in Downtown Disney. Needless to say we inched along. Fine. We inched along out of the parking lot, and then discovered that the road planning for the Disney Compound was done by the same person. Yup. One road in and out. Sigh. So we inched along there too and found ourselves behind a small white sedan with two women inside. Nothing out of the ordinary there . . . until we noticed that the woman in the passenger seat was beating the crap out of the driver. I mean, she was wailing on the poor girl. She was pulling hair, she was punching, she was slapping, and the whole time, the poor driver was trying to keep the car under control. Chris honked at them once to try and get the girl to stop beating her friend up as well as signal that traffic was now moving again and could they please put their death match on hold for a moment and just drive dammit. It worked for about a minute as they moved forward a few feet this time and the girl started up again. Now why someone would want to beat up their ride home is beyond me, but that's just me. I think they fought all the way out of the park and probably all the way home too. I feel sorry for the poor driver. If you saw that too emailme and let me know how you saw it. I'd be very interested to know.

So it's 1999 now and I don't have much in the way of resolutions. The last half of 1998 pretty much sucked for me so I think I'll just concentrate on trying not to be so miserable. Sounds pathetic, I know, but oh well. It's just that the beginning of 1998 started off to be what looked like a phenomenal year and then degenerated to lots of me moping around and feeling sorry for myself and being cranky with the people I care about most. Perhaps that's the cycle then, and it's coming back around so that I'll be jubilantly happy again for a while. If that's the case, then bring it on! I could definitely use some joy in my life right about now.