I must keep my holiday traditions alive since this was my first Christmas away from Wyoming, so I'm writing a New Year's Day post, our first of 2006, unless somebody else is weird enough to be writing on this thing and just posts it in another time zone or changes the post time. I realized I haven't blogged in nearly a month. I can't promise this will be a developing pattern, but you can only hope. So, as I always do, I must indulge a short and sentimental moment to remember the past year, for myself and maybe a little bit for you.
We had some weddings, not that I need to recount, but at this time last year there were no Kurbises or Burtons or Millers or Seversons or Douglases (did I get that one right?) or Manns, or the Johnsons, at least not with us (sorry if I forgot someone). Some of us had a significant other that is no longer a part of our lives (a year ago Lynnea was writing about her and Krista reading my girlfriend's blog, something Molly said I'm not supposed to read because it makes me depressed, and so I haven't since July). I guess I can't think of anybody that had a kid last year, except Gabe is ready to start off that category for this year. The rest of the newly-weds still have a wide berth to have a little one join their family. Some people returned to us from far away, and some people seemed to have left. I know I'm being vague and stupid, but I had a glass of sparkling cider after a beer after a root beer (don't drink beer after root beer because you remember how it doesn't taste good, or not right, or whatever). A year ago I had never worked at Quiznos. Lynnea wasn't a Crown prof. And I could go on and on like I used to, but we're not getting any younger, and there's probably not a lot of interest left in this thing. I mean, I was out of it enough to have be unaware that Sarah Bubna was in Socal with Ms. Fowler until just this morning. You learn a lot when you chat with a certain Krista Erickson. (Sorry to hear the surprise party wasn't so surprising, Lynnea - I made sure not to comment on it on here, not that Krista reads this anymore).
I dare you to try and imagine this year. Not in the John Lennon way, without religion and heaven and whatever else, but seriously try to put together even the next month in your mind. It's startling how fast we fly into the future with no headlights, at least nothing that says what's really out there (if I can speak without severe philosophical inquiries drawn from that last statement).
I don't know about you guys, but a lot of things didn't go the way I imagined when we were all still together. It may have just dawned on me lately that college is over. Hideous, I know, for here I sit with my Old Gym hoodie on, as I have slowly been shedding the wares of my college career, except there's nothing that beats a second East hoodie or a PAH print that nobody gets out here. Dr. Ratledge has a hundred new faces to concern himself with now, tuliweeds and all - I don't know if I even want to go back anymore. Everyone keeps asking when I'm going back to school, but I just don't have it in me anymore. This is what happens when a traditionalist loses the most stable one day of his calendar year.
It's a round about way of saying it, but Happy New Year, I guess. Don't think I'm down about things, but don't write me off as a kook just yet, either. Give me one more year when you occasionally check this thing that sees a comment or two on every other blog that may have days and weeks before and behind it without anything but silence, because I guess that's when we're all out living our lives like we're supposed to be, not being nosy or sappy on here like I'm being or have been. I'll quit while I'm ahead. So, Pearl Harbor sucks, and I miss you. Happy New Year.