Navel-Gazing at Its Finest: A 2012 Year-In-Review Round-Up

Sunday, December 30, 2012


It feels more than a little bit masturbatory to do a top 10 year-in-review roundup of my own blog, but I've seen some other bloggers do it, & as a reader, I liked them a lot. Thus, I've compiled a rundown for you of some of my favorites from the past year, awarded arbitrary superlatives at my discretion. 

My all-time most popular posts continue to be the one about the time I met a porn star at my birthday dinner (2008) & the one about my showdown with JDate (2009), but all things considered, 2012 hasn't been a bad year for the blog.

Most Popular
"10 Things That People Who Work From Home Don't Want You To Say To Them" seems to have really resonated with a lot of folks who work from home like me, & hopefully it taught a few things to those of you who don't. Now, any time someone says one of these things to me, I send them the link to this post.

Most Unexpectedly Wise 
Sometimes I surprise myself! In "All Atwitter About Online Happiness," I talked about why I'd been avoiding Twitter & expounded on a revelation: that we just shouldn't follow people who we wouldn't like in real life, or at least that we "stop trying to mold people’s personalities into our own expectations of what makes someone follow-worthy."

Best Biblical Reference
A number of negative theater interactions inspired me to pen "The 10 Commandments of Movie-Going," instructions for polite being a polite attendee of the cinema. It inspired much debate about clapping in movie theaters, as practice I still vehemently oppose.

Most Cathartic
On the seventh anniversary of his funeral, I finally told the story of the days after my ex-boyfriend Dave died, aptly titled "Mercy Medical" after a song by his favorite band, Brandtson.

Best Political Rant
This post, "Stop Being Polite & Start Being Real," began as a Facebook status update, but my real-life friends liked it so much that I decided to share it more broadly by turning it into a quick post here. Love it or hate it, it pretty perfectly describes my sociopolitical attitude.


Most Emotionally Taxing
In "Words for Times When There Are No Words," written in February, I admitted to myself - & my mom admitted to me - that my grandmother was likely to die of the lung cancer she'd been diagnosed with just three months before. She passed away just two months later, & I was honored - but devastated - to give a eulogy for her.

Most Thankful To Those Who Will Never Know My Gratitude
Upon moving to New Jersey, I found myself in NYC a lot, especially as my office is located there, & sometimes I like not working from home. "It Takes a Village (to Get Into the City)," especially when your sense of direction is as shoddy as mine. Luckily, New Yorkers aren't as rude as the stereotypes claim they are!

Most Absurd Analogy
I think I must've been drunk when I brainstormed "An Analogy With Elephants & Stuff My Cat Has in Common With Patty Hearst" because it's truly ridiculous. But also, in my humble opinion, really funny.

Smartest Move
When I got to New Jersey, I had a few embarrassing run-ins with my building's maintenance man. In "The Importance of Befriending the Maintenance Man," I waxed poetic about this vital friendship. This post also inspired the Harvard Crimson to talk some light smack about me.

Most Nerve-Wracking to Press "Publish" On
A decade after I began college, I was still nervous as hell to share "Odd Girl Out: On Being Weird and Sad in College." You never know who's reading, who will be offended, who will return to accuse you of being a loser for writing something like this a full 10 years after it happened.

And there you have it, the 10 I like best, or that you seem to like best. Here's to a 2013 filled with many more stories to tell. I hope you'll stick around!

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