If I had the chance I'd ask the world to dance

It's 1:00 am on the last day of the year and I am sitting in front of the computer with Billy Idol (who is in fact MY age, I might point out) screaming in my ears and my wet clothes tossed all about my empty office (Damn I wish I had a camera with me).

After being gladfully indulged by a stray group of New Orleans musicians (and friends) holding court at Carol Doda's former haunt on Columbus, now a New Orleans refugee restaurant, I stepped out into the elements...

And got POUNDED by the rain!

But that's just fine with me. I just walked back from North Beach to SOMA in an absolutely torrential rain that feels like the exactly appropriate conclusion to this soggy, frustrating, confusing and lost year. I made not only the best of it... I made it a party! My very own get rid of 2005 personal party.

It began with circling (not once but twice) the giant Christmas tree in Union Square while singing the lyrics and performing the dance steps (to the best of my completely limited ability) of Singing in the Rain. I kept expecting a cop to come and stop me, but I was deliriously happy in my midnight solitude. When I closed my umbrella and splashed through the puddles in front of the taxicab I thought I might be pushing things, but nobody seemed to mind (or perhaps even notice)... so I skipped down Powell Street passed the cable car, across Market and down 4th. Once I tried to reopen my umbrella, but the elements were not having any of it.

Why worry...why fret? I just took three jumps into the puddle at Mission Street and spun my way home, drenched to the bone and singing at the top of my lungs.

So... for the last time in 2005...

When there's no one else in sight
In the crowded lonely night
Well there's nothin' to lose
and nothin' to prove...
I'll be dancin'with myself.

Happy New Year!