The world is supposed to end in less than a week and frankly, I’m not all that upset about it. In addition to my documented desire to never live through the apocalypse, if the world ends on December 21^st (and it won’t, but for the sake of me not writing about something topical and tragic, just go with this please), I’ll have spent my final months on earth doing exactly what I wanted. Sleeping late. Going for walks. Drinking beers. Hanging out with my friends in a city I love. Not working. Still not being broke.

I personally cannot think of a better time for a global apocalypse, and as long as zombies are not a factor (I know the Mayans didn’t mention them but still), I think I would calmly await the end of the world and view it as a relatively short period of unpleasantness followed by a nap that lasts forever. I’m sure those of you with things like children and bright futures are anxious about the end of the world, but for me it’s a big fat “whatever.”

Although it must really be the end of the world because I think I’m spending it at a solstice celebration at a nearby park. Just…hang on. The thing you need to know is that I live in a pretty hippie-centric part of the country to begin with, and that my neighborhood is a pretty hippie-centric part of the city. The Solstice Parade/Celebration/General Awareness people have an entire building dedicated to their touchy-feely art and parties, and it’s a vintage fire station on a main road, seriously it looks pretty cool. What I mean is that they’re given some respectability around here, and if you’re really interested, I encourage you to Google the Fremont Solstice Parade. It happens every summer solstice and people ride bikes naked. Like, in the middle of the day. Take that, Midwestern sensibilities!

Anyway, the solstice people are doing some gathering on Friday night at a nearby park. It’s a really small park but it’s nice and at the top of the hill that is our neighborhood, so when the weather is right, it afford views of the rest of Fremont, Ballard, Queen Anne, Puget Sound, and the Olympics. At night it’s a lot of twinkling lights below. So I know it’s hippies and weird of me, but it’s PRETTY, okay, and it’s something to do in case the world ends and I think I’ve lived enough of my life on the couch scrolling through Netflix documentaries. Also I’m going to buy a tall thermos and make boozy hot chocolate to share with Luke and Courtney because I am not dealing with the hippies all by myself.

In addition to the solstice thing, I spent 2012 doing the following:

– Sneaking a Year In Review into this blog before the year is over*
– Getting asked to be a bridesmaid
– Running my first 5K
– Drunkblogging Top Gun
– Finishing my ¾ sleeve
– Quitting a job I hated with all the fibers of my being
– Looking for a job I didn’t necessarily have to love but would still hopefully not give me heartburn every single day
– Moving to Seattle
– Getting published in my first national magazine
– Not winning the lottery
– Learning that the library lets you download books on your Kindle
– Figuring out the bus again
– Taking three months off to do whatever the fuck I wanted to do
– Getting a job! And income! And insurance! And dignity!

*I always talk about how I hate Year In Review posts and I still kind of do. I don’t usually keep track of stuff I did, and because I never title posts the way I should (ahem, in ways that make sense or provide an accurate expectation of subject matter), I can’t just go back through my archives unless I want to fall down a rabbit hole of reading old posts about why Kirk Cameron is terrible and how I still can’t get over Sidekicks.