Best of 2007: Listmania!

Ah, 2007.

As the year draws to a close, I, a mere 10 minute drive from all the action in Times Square, sit here in my pajamas. I am fine with this. Partially because I have no desire to see Ryan Seacrest or Hannah Montana up close, but it also goes deeper than that.

You see, I have spent years making the trek uptown/downtown (depending upon where I was living at the time) to see the ball drop, and alternating between freezing my ass off and having it fondled by drunken tourists. (In their defense, Times Square tends to be pretty crowded on New Year’s Eve, so they might only have been trying to pickpocket me, not grab my bum outright.) Years spent flitting from party to party, and drunkenly searching in vain for a cab that will let you squeeze in 7 people, only to give up and take the subway on THE WORST POSSIBLE NIGHT OF THE YEAR TO TAKE A SUBWAY. (Two words: Public vomiting.) Years of pressure to go out and have a goodtimebecauseit’sNewYear’s! YOU’REINNEWYORKCITYANDYOUMUSTHAVEFUNATALLCOSTSOHMAHGAHHHH! Yes, even if it’s sleeting! And a man who is either an actual pimp or is just dressed like one keeps grinning at you and your friends and calling you his “Cherry Babies!” (I still don’t even know what that means, six years later. I mean, I have my theories, of course, but I don’t want to think about them.)

All of this to say that, honestly? New Year’s Eve isn’t my favorite night of the year. Which is why, when our plans fell through, we found ourselves perfectly content to stay home tonight. I still felt like I should make some concession to the day (er, night), and so, I present to you my very own “Big in ’07: Top Fives” list; some things I absolutely loved during the past year. (Note: They didn’t necessarily all come out within the past year; I just heard/read/saw them for the first time then.)

The Five Songs That Made My Year

I’d started to write individual assessments of each, but they were all pretty much the same: “Gorgeous music, clever lyrics, download it now…” you get the idea.

“The Funeral” – Band of Horses

“Intervention” – The Arcade Fire

“Fake Palindromes” – Andrew Bird

“Anyone Else But You – Michael Cera & Ellen Page (Juno soundtrack)

“Keepsake” – State Radio

(On a wholly different note, the award for “Song that made me want to kill myself, and then my husband, once I found out he liked it” goes to “Hey There Delilah.” GAH.)

Five Books I Read and Loved

Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith & J.B. Mackinnon -- The title is pretty self-explanatory, but all the same: I found it to be educational without being preachy, enlightening, honest and improbably entertaining.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini -- Do I even need to say anything? Beautiful book; I may be in the minority here, but I think it was even better than The Kite Runner.

Silver by Norma Fox Mazer -- Okay, so this was one of my favorites when I was in elementary school. I found it again in a box of old books of mine at my parents’ house, so I “rediscovered” it in 2007…hence its inclusion on this here list.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls -- I was on a bit of a memoir kick this year. I occasionally found myself getting truly annoyed with the behavior of some of the people in this riveting story. I was, however, impressed by just that: The author/protagonist’s ability to paint such real characters that they evoked a real reaction (Albeit a negative one) from me.

Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things by Charles Panati -- I can’t believe I’ve never mentioned this before, but I’m a huge, huge trivia lover, and consequently, I’m a wealth of useless information. This book further fueled my bank of arcane data. Next stop: Jeopardy!

Five Movies I Adored

The critics do a far better job than me of explaining why these movies were great; I’ll just give it to you straight:

Juno

Across the Universe

Knocked Up

Superbad

The Departed (Or as we call it in the Metalia household, “The DePAHted.” Oh, Matt Damon. You can’t bust out with your “hahdcawr” Boston accent and expect me not to play along, now can you?)

My (Own) Favorite Pictures

Now, I fancy myself a photographer BY NO MEANS. These were just my five (okay, six) favorite moments I was lucky enough to have captured on film within the past year.

Thus concludes my “Big in ‘07” List. And with that…happy 2008! Hope the coming year is filled with great things for you all.