My word, if Chris is posting tumbleweed pictures, I obviously need to do something. So I'll tell you about my night last night. Normally on Wednesday night, I find myself hanging out with a "home community", pretty much just a bunch of us from my church listening to Velvet Elvis or having a truly random potluck and watching our friend's 16-month-old speak better sign language than the rest of us. But, that's a normal Wednesday night, and last night was not normal. I opted to go to a dance. I had just received an e-mail about this dance yesterday afternoon, and I felt more like dancing than hanging out with people, so I headed out a little before 9. Yep, the dance was supposed to start at 9, and I sat in my car until I watched the first people walk in around 9:30. And when I walked in, we totalled five distinct persons. So I asked a girl to dance (three girls, two guys, and I am considered one of the guys in this case for those of you wondering), and it turned out she owned the place we were dancing at and she was leaving for Mexico the next day, and she was the cause of the random dance. I thanked her and tried to dance my best, but I'm not the greatest dancer, so the song ended with me just a little relieved. The one girl that was not dancing that first dance came up to me and asked me to dance. So I did. It's rather impolite not to. And we danced for about an hour, me with this girl named Crystal, and this other guy (picture M. Night Shamalyan meets Gumbie with really weird shoes [they're black and look like those running shoes with the middle part of the sole cut out]) still dancing with the other girl, and the owner just sitting behind a computer, apparently putting together a playlist of songs for the four of us to dance to. The girl I danced with was cute, and nice, and good at blues dancing, but swing wasn't her forte, so my knees hit hers from time to time and my toes found hers in the non-footsie sort of way. Not my worst night of dancing ever, but still , four people dancing, one DJ, in a small dance hall that seemed gigantic when it wasn't crowded... I finally gave up on there being an actual dance by 10:30 and went home to bed.
(Tumbleweed)picturethat!

Today I logged onto this blog, and this is all I saw... I think that the tumble weed is the universal sign for NOBODY IS AROUND!

The crown blog silent? What's next? Hillary Clinton as President?

Look what I did! It seems I made a boy! Gabe, you might be able to make girls in pairs, but me, I can make a boy! Better luck next time!
Chris

This is a holiday tradition of sorts. Me writing on New Year's, that is. I looked back on last year's post, and it was depressing, so I'll try not to be depressing this year. A year before that was just stupid. I'm trying to get better. I don't know if anybody notices. The life of a maturing writer - nothing like my life. So, what happened this year, besides Saddam Hussein being executed (didn't see that one coming three or four years ago).
Not as many weddings or new children, I guess. Now we have a set of Wakefields, a couple of Bjerkases (I know not many of you were as close to Justin as me, but I have the wedding invitation on my fridge, so I thought it should be added), a Mrs. Bubek, and a small army of Gabe's offspring. Lynnea has an MA, I have a real job, Duerkop has a new job after his not so perfect election (politics are so strange). My last two college roommate bachelors are set to be married in the following year. We're expecting a little Folkestead here sometime, and I will be an uncle by summertime it seems. Next year looks to be a bigger deal than this one. I mean, who knows how many 18-year-old Australians are in your future? They always make things fun for a very short while.
As I always have trouble doing, I'll try to just say it simply - Happy New Year.