My 9 Best of 2004 List

9) The F train. Is like your first car. It doesn’t matter how beat up it gets (very), you still have irrational love. You name it (Kermit) and you call it dependable even when it breaks down every other day. This is the F train. The F train is also like a (my) freshman dorm. It’s totally acceptable, lots of fun even, and you don’t think you’re getting a bum deal on a day to day basis. Until you go to another dorm and see kids are living in enormous rooms with lake views and private bathrooms while you share a 10 by 10 concrete cell and the bathroom with 24 barbarians. This is the F train. It breaks down a lot. It never comes at night. It only comes every 10 minutes during rush hour, which is fine, until you see that the 6 comes every 2. But I’m attached to it. Even when the B and D trains made themselves available to me, I still felt partial to the F. Grand Street is no Delancey. The F helped me read dozens of books this year by giving me quality time in the station with the Mexican windpipe player. And the Chinese harmonica guy, who plays Edelweiss over and over and over. This year the F train got me everywhere I needed to go.

8) TV. I didn’t have one for most of the year. I did not have a television for an entire year. Holy Shit. I, me, soap-opera watching, trash TV-sometimes-champion, sometimes-apologist, went cold turkey and it was like the best decision ever. Somehow I managed to stay current on all TV goings on without having to waste any time watching it (except for One Tree Hill, since abandoned, and The O.C.). That’s quite a reflection on the explosive state of media commentary (if you can call it that) and my unflagging interest in television shows I have never seen. Pretty people captivate me. Not having a TV directly correlates with me not being a lazy ass, me reading a lot, me getting out of my house, and me not being really depressed. Thank God I have one now.

7) Optimism. For which, as it turned out, there was no cause. It all ended really shitty, and really painfully, but for those months there, when everyone was energized and positive and hopeful, it felt good. The comedown was a bitch, but the feeling I had looking at the first exit polls was, really, one of the happiest moments of my year.

6) The O.C. I think I’ve talked about The O.C more this year than I have ever talked about any TV show ever. And I talk about TV a lot. This season hasn’t been up to par, mostly because they’ve let Adam Brody take over the show (good things come in small packages people), but last season’s second half was also in the ’04. I got the DVD for Chanukah and became sleep deprived for the next week. Lately I’ve been thinking about how the show would be so much better if Mischa Barton wasn’t the worst actress ever, and its been blowing my mind because that shit is already so good.

5) Coffee. When we started this year together I was still trying to change you. I just couldn’t accept your bitterness. I did everything in my power to lessen it. Lots of milk, lots of sugar. But as our year together went on, I realized your bitterness is what makes you special, and trying to alter you, to cover up for your weaknesses, has less to do with you than it does my own unsophisticated palate. Your bitterness is what makes you you, and I couldn’t have done without you this year. When we started I made the mistake of favoring sweetness over complexity. I was wrong and for that I apologize. Coffee, it will never happen again: I love you just the way you are. Plus a little milk.

4) The Notebook. Was my favorite movie of the year. Suck it tastemakers. I saw a lot of movies and not one came close to making me as shamelessly giddy as this one. I can’t stand the old people. I checked my cell phone for messages when they came on. I left before the film was over, because it was just 10 more minutes of them dying. I hated half this movie and it was still best. If I was 13 there would be pictures of Ryan Gosling on my binder. He and Rachel McAdams have chemistry; something I thought didn’t count for much until this movie reminded me that it can. This movie should be bad, but the two of them won’t let it, delivering lines like “Tell me I’m a bird” so you don’t notice how stupid they are until the bus ride home.

3) Joan Didion.

2) Freeness. I talk about free food often, and this was a good year for free food, thanks in large part to the restaurant, Zach, my mother, movie premieres, and leftovers. But this was not just the year of free food. This was the year of free stuff. I scored a dozen books at Time Out this summer. I’ve snagged like 7 DVD sets and seen a dozen free films because of Variety. Moments ago I got a free bottle of Kiehl’s grapefruit lotion. And then there’s the library (see below) that provided me with films and books the whole year long. This entry could also be titled, mooching, scamming, poverty, but then the emphasis would have been on me, and not the objects I consume. I avoid the spotlight at all costs.

1) New York Public Library. So like there’s this organization that has a great new distribution scheme. They have every book and most movies you’d ever want and you go online and order them. Then they email you when your requests have arrived at the store near your house. You can keep a book for 3 weeks and the movie for 1, but if you decide you want either for longer, you just go online and request them for longer. And it’s all free.
If I was a rich lady, one day- on both counts, it’d be my charity of choice. It works. People use it. People love it. The library is an encapsulation of all that’s good about New York City: lots of different kinds of people excited and interested and learning in a cozy place with free internet. The best.