December 31, 1999

What will the New Year bring?

The other night, while at a party at the Gramercy Park home of the beautiful young Manhattan socialite Antonia Antonopoulos, I participated in my first psychic reading. Guillaume, a fat, gay, French psychic, was the man of the hour.

For $50 we each got a half-hour reading. "I predict that lots of money will fly out of my wallet and down the drain," a clear voice in my head uttered repeatedly. But everyone else was shelling out the cash, so I gave in to peer pressure and consented to learn my future.

"You’re going to be an alcoholic."

"One of your closest male friends will come on to you."

"You will break up with the girl you are seeing, even though she is great for you."

"You will suffer from chronic back pain for the rest of your life."

"You will have bladder problems."

"You will endure long bouts of impotence."

"You will live a long, but mostly unhappy life."

"You will go through women like a hungry man goes through raisins." (I still don’t get that simile.)

"You will get a book published this year, but it will only bring you more misery."

"Jesus Christ," I replied after a long silence. "You told everyone else they would be healthy, wealthy, and wise. Don’t you have anything good to say about my future?"

Just then, the beeper on Guillaume’s watch signaled that our thirty minutes were up.

"Well," he said quickly while shifting his round body forward so he could reach the cracker and cheese tray between us, "of course you can change all these things. On the other hand, a lot of famous writers live long, dark, alcoholic, unhappy lives. You can take comfort from that." Then he stuffed his face with brie. "Who’s next?" Guillaume grunted as cracker crumbs flew from his mouth.

Here’s hoping your New Year (and your life) will be the opposite of mine!

Broadway Jim Sosnicky