Happy New Spears!

2011 has flown the coup, but not without leaving plenty of stray feathers by which to remember it. A new year comes with a chance to start fresh, make changes in our lives and resolutions we won't keep after January 7. I resolve to finish this post before that date.

Every year, there are countless events throughout the world that catch us by surprise and make us ponder our own existence and the finality of life on earth. The return of Britney Spears in full force after a short hiatus clearly made the most timeless impression, because I dare you to get the chorus of "I Wanna Go" out of your head. Now I wanna go too, wherever the hell it is.

Britney gave us her first single, "Hold It Against Me," in January to help keep us warm through the winter. Not only did her usual provacative lyrics get our hearts racing and legs moving, she also gave us something to ponder. If I said I want your body now, would you hold it against me? Think about it and get back to me - I know it got me questioning my own values. Then came the highly-anticipated music video. After numerous cruel teasers, giving us two second flashes of Britney's stilleto or extensions, the full video changed scenes and angles too quickly to ever get a full look at Britney. Is she dancing, or are my retinas bleeding? Regardless, it changed my vision forever.

As if we didn't have enough to contemplate with the timeless question in that first single, Brit's next gem threw the topics of global awareness and the end of days into a dance beat. The Mayans predicted the end of the world would come this year, but Spears is dancing it off and suggesting we all do the same. Thank the sun god that she found a solution to ride out doomsday - I haven't heard about any scientist solving this fatal prophecy. Just keep dancing until 2013, then we can catch our breaths - problem solved.

Of course the critics can bark that she sounds like a robot, she didn't pen any tracks on the Femme Fatale album and she doesn't have the body of her 20-year-old self. To that I say that she is part superhuman, she probably lost her pen that day and she is a 30-year-old mother of two (Yes, that last part is just incomprehensible on multiple levels). But in the year before she hit that milestone of 30, Britney brought us more than just a top-notch dance album. She got back to the gym, touched up her roots and extensions, put on her dancing shoes and sparkly bras/tops (whatever you'd like to call them) and went on the road with her Femme Fatale gems. The songs weren't bad, either.

She finished globe trotting just before turning into a thirty-year-old pumpkin and Britney engagement ringed her way into the new year. With such a busy 2011 and a rock on her finger, 2012 may be a quiet one for Britney. But even a quiet year will be better than the year shaved her head and used an umbrella as a weapon. So thank you, Britney, for a hell of a year. I will keep dancing till the world ends, and with Sarah Palin out of the presidential race, that at least shouldn't be 2012.