Top Whatever Lists

2012! It's almost over. This year was seriously a great one for me. I don't actually have any problems, which I try not to gloat about (because who wants to hear about how someone else doesn't have any problems? Oh, you? Let's talk!) but I just want to say that I don't take it for granted. My job is the best, my friends are incredible, my husband is super tolerant of my bullshit and is super funny, and I put in place my self-imposed fake "happiness project" which basically involved seeing live music again. And it all added up to a great year. And I've been doing my thang, and meeting some new people, reconnecting with some old friends, and it has made me intensely happy.  2012. Yes, I love you.

So,  I've made some "end of year" lists because any tradition that involves lists is one I can get behind.

TV 
I have not really watched much tv in my adult life, but this year I've been doing some serious catching up and duh!? Tv is much better than it used to be and everyone was right.


5. Boardwalk Empire - terrible characters (seriously, everyone is a bad guy?) but Prohibition era shit gets me and it is exciting to see what people will do when they are solid, selfish evil. Richard Harrow!
4. Girls - celebrating being fucked up and unsuccessful! So honest it makes me cringe.
3. Dexter - I'm not even fully caught up on this show but it's just so smooooth. I even really like the opening credits.  I never thought I could fall in love with a serial killer.
2. Game of Thrones - I avoided this show because I've never really been into fantasy, suspense or you know, dragons.  But I learned that I'm a big nerd and I love it. I named our groundhog Daenerys Targaryen, and that is why I no longer hate wildlife.
1. Homeland - Maybe this is just because I watched both full seasons in 3 days, but I guess that speaks volumes. I literally danced around and made up a song when Brad agreed that we should never go to bed and stay up and watch them all.  I also love Claire Danes and her superhuman facial expressions and this made my day (actually it made me ignore the people I was at the bar with and stare at my phone for 15 minutes, cause I'm polite like that).

2013 - I am looking forward to watching Breaking Bad, Mad Men and Downton Abbey (hopefully losing months of my life watching it all in a row), the return of Game of Thrones. Anyone have them on DVD?


Movies
No, I'm not talking about movies this year. 


Music
I used the very scientific method of choosing my favorite bands of 2012 by looking at my play count, not my heart.  Because I'm heartless.

7. The Tallest Man on Earth - quick, folky, poetic and somewhat nonsensical, it's a feast for mine ears. I like to listen to it when I run, but I'm a weirdo about running music.
6. Dr. Dog - Their newest album, Be The Void, is great and I've spent more time this year exploring their back catalog. No tour dates around here at this time, wah. Crossing my fingers for this summer.
5. Good Old War - Early 2012 saw a serious GOW addiction and a few really fun shows.
4. The Civil Wars - I am not usually a big fan of a female voice (with Ali Wadsworth and Leslie Feist being the main exceptions for many moons) but Joy Williams has one of those voices that stabs me straight in the heart and makes the back of my neck tingle. Chills. I know this is from last year.
3. Toy Soldiers - I think I may have seen them more than any other band this year. Their live shows are high-energy fun times. Plus, they come to Lancaster a LOT, which brings me lots of joy!

2. Jack White - a perennial favorite. Blunderbuss delivers. I've still never seen JW live, sigh.

1. The Districts - Best find of the year, hands down. I found that I have listened to one song 108 times. People have been making fun of me for liking them so much, but I have no shame and make no apologies.  I've seen them live 6 times in the past 3 months and can't wait to see them again. Their singer, a 17 year-old kid that you might want to take home in your pocket, has another one of those chills-down-the-spine voices, but big and strong when it should be. 

Looking forward to in 2013:  The Toy Soldiers new album, conversion of Tellus360 into a cool, new music venue for my friendly town, lots of Districts shows before they move to the big city or go on tour far, far away from here.

Things I didn't like in 2012

This list is not going to make any sense, because some of this shit isn't even from 2012.
5. The Wire - Brad and I tried to watch this and totally couldn't get into it. I KNOW?! Da fuck? Everyone says this show is the shit and I couldn't even make myself pay attention. Tell me if I should keep trying. I watched 9 episodes of season 1 so far.
4. Photo sessions - I quit them. I love the people and catching up with people was actually really fulfilling, but it all just became too much with work, school and my laziness. Maybe I will do them again, but for now, I'm happy just taking pictures of bands and parties and editing when I feel like it (or when I'm drunk. It's actually fun for me to drunk edit, what a loser). I don't actually "not like" them, I was just feeling overwhelmed and am incredibly relieved to have some real days off. 
3. Twilight, The Hobbit, get the fuck out of here.
2. My braces - another thing I don't really hate but will be happy to be rid of! Though I will miss asking people if I have food in my teeth when I have a shitton of food in my teeth and being immature (jk, immaturity for life.)
1. Semi-automatic weapons. Any weapons, really.

Things I liked in 2012

5 -  My job. I know. Obnoxious. But my co-workers are awesome and my students are seriously great this year and I cannot believe how lucky I am to have found something I like and am good at that gives me money and liberal time off. 
4 - Twitter.  I know. You might think I'm lame-o, but there are a lot of funny people on there.If you do it Jocelyn Plums, Josh Gondelman and Brendan OHare make me laugh so much and it is odd/awesome that some people's exact skill set is consistently making funny, inappropriate jokes at 140 characters or less, but it works. I'm way less productive because now I have way less time for boredom!
3 - My new house - We now have reliable heat, central air conditioning, a monster yard for super parties, a killer 80's basement with my precious jukebox, Lititz is really a perfect little town and I'm all "Kumbaya, in the middle of our street, our house".
2 - Seeing my friends all the time. There have been years where I would only see people every month or two and that SUCKS. Due to showers, bachelorettes, weddings, 30th birthdays, etc... I've spent more time with my friends this year than any year in recent memory and I've loved it. I also decided that I do not care at all about the drive to Philly because it's a great excuse to buy a new album and listen to it alone, on repeat if needed, and quench my thirst for something new. I enjoy the drive (except that time when I lost my car in south philly and me and rose had to walk around looking for it playing Dude, Where's my Car, and then there was flooding on all the on-ramps to the highways so I drove around in the city for two hours before I could get out. That was just last week but it was awful!)
1 - My pretend happiness project. My word to the wise (Shouldn't it be "word from the wise"? or maybe "Word to the unwise"?) is to think about the thing that makes you happiest, (art, music, writing or RPG or remote control cars or something) and figure out why you're not doing it (I mean, if you're not doing it). My favorite, favorite thing -boating- well, I don't have a boat or the money to do that so it was pretty clear why it wasn't happening. But after that, what I love and makes me giddy is live music. There was no good reason I wasn't doing it, other than no one around me was doing it and I wasn't putting in the effort to find the bands I wanted to go see and just going. So I changed it, and couldn't be happier about that. I will make no apologies about making the effort to do the thing that makes me happy, cause I only have this one life, ya know? As long as the thing you want to do isn't serial killing or crystal meth, I guess. My theory doesn't work for everyone.
Blastoff - You.

Any suggestions for things I should watch, listen to, do, etc... ?  Me and a friend have a new secret (not really secret) internet project in the works and someday I'll let you in on it. It's gonna be good. We have some work ahead of us! Happy 2013 and thanks for reading all this!