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Look, internet: I don’t want to sound like an asshole here, but this has pretty much been the best year of my life. Judging from my site stats, I know you like me best when I’m reeling from a broken heart or crippled with self doubt, so I’m sorry, but 2004 was the best it’s ever been, hands down. I got a job, I got my bed, I got published for the first time, I got sort of married, I got my skull ring, I started actually flossing every day… I’ll refrain from the more personal highlights, but this year started out fine, had a brief detour into the crappyish in April, picked up in May, and then took a turn for the totally awesome around August that has yet to relent. Based on this, I fully expect to spend every single day of 2005 eating solid gold white babies and going to second base with Owen Wilson, because everyone knows that once things start to go your way, they never stop. Right, history?

Okay, let’s do this!

Best of, 2004 Edition

Best albums I bought this year:

Drive By Truckers, The Dirty South: If this album doesn’t make you want to pull over to the side of the road and fuck in the mud, you should go check yourself into the hospital because clearly you’re dead inside.

Loretta Lynn, Van Lear Rose: God, I want to be 70 years old and wear a big white cotillion dress and sing about having a whiskey-fueled one night stand with Jack White at a dive bar in Portland. Minus the Jack White part. No, maybe just once, but you'd have to really up the whiskey part.

The Hold Steady, Almost Killed Me: They’re not kidding. But in a good way.

The Arcade Fire, Funeral: Blah blah go read what everyone else said but seriously, so good. One of those albums whose lyrics make you wish you had a richer inner life somehow.

Best movie I saw this year: Crap, I don’t know. I saw some good movies this year, and I really liked a lot of them, but I don’t think I really fell in love with any of them, including Eternal Sunshine or Life Aquatic. I’m going to have to go with Coal Miner’s Daughter as the best movie I saw in 2004, because when Liz brought it home, I don’t think anyone in our apartment did anything but watch and then try to talk like that movie for two weeks solid. If I don’t meet my husband by him furiously outbidding someone on a pie or picnic basket I made, I don’t even want to get married.

Best book I read this year: The New York MTA and having a regular job did wonders for my reading this year. I’m a big reader to begin with, but I think that due to my daily commute, I read more books in 2004 than I’ve ever read in all the previous years combined. I started to make a list a few minutes ago and after two pages I had to quit. I think the two I enjoyed reading the most were Lincoln by Gore Vidal, and Pastoralia by George Saunders.

Best show I attended this year: Again, this is hard. The Pixies are the obvious answer, but seeing Wilco in October was probably the next best. I’m seeing them again tonight with the Flaming Lips and Sleater Kinney, so I can’t really answer this question yet.

Best kiss I received this year: I’m omitting this category for 2004 in the interest of privacy and people not going to jail. However, to make up for it, I will tell you that for the first time in my life, I had a kiss that makes me want to scrape my tongue and burn my clothing whenever I remember it.

Motto for 2005: Last year’s motto, "Don't Let No One Get You Down," seemed to work out pretty well, so I think I’ll pick it up for another year.

Goals for 2005: Send out at least 5 postcards a month, read every book on my list of Neglected Classics, make out with whoever writes the Dos and Don’ts for Vice magazine, and seriously, I can’t believe I’m 27 years old and have never done that thing where you stick your head inside a lion’s mouth. What the fuck.

Happy New Year, all. Please continue not letting no one get you down.