A Few of My Favorite Things: 2010

I swear I wrote the bulk of this post on 12/31/10... I just kind of got overwhelmed and gave up.  But here it is, a day (or 4) late and a dollar short, I'm sure... my "End of Year Post."

I don't have the attention span for making "Top Ten" lists.  I'm also not otaku enough (to use a term recently brought to light by Patton Oswald in his controversial Wired article) to be able to make a masterful list.  I couldn't name my top ten anything without scraping the barrel for the last three or four.  So instead, I give you my "highlights" post-- the best of everything this year, big or small, local or personal, noteworthy or silly.

I'd be remiss if I didn't start out with the fact that 2010 was a relatively drama-free year for me (granted, there's still 21+hrs left).  I'd started to get a little too comfortable with the fact that I had become something of a crisis magnet.  Just in the past couple of years, I've had cancer, had my house destroyed by Hurricane Ike... if we go back as far as 2005, we've got Katrina and job loss and heartbreak and a move to a city I knew nothing about.  2010 was basically a piece of cake.  I had a surgery in February.  I had pneumonia this past fall.  A couple of deaths wrecked me.  Otherwise, we're good here at Casa Lou.  It wasn't a banner year, but it wasn't scary or deeply sad or traumatic. That's a win.

It's been a great year for Loueyville.  Man, I love this blog and the doors-- personal and "professional"-- it's opened for me.  I've said it before, and I will say it again, I'm sure: 80% of my life in Louisville-- the friends I've made and the cool ass things I've done are thanks to this blog and to my Twitter presence.  Although I didn't make any really close friends, I had a great time meeting one blog-follower/Twitter-friend each week during my Lenten Promise.  And I plan to repeat that promise again this year.  The blog/Twitter helped me take people I didn't know to shows at Actors Theater and the Kentucky Center.  It also allowed me to have my first ticket contest and treat two great couples to the Cirque Dreams Holidaze show at the Palace this winter.  I LOVE that Loueyville is featured on the home page of the Possibility City website; it makes me so proud.  This little labor of love is a huge blessing in my life, and it's been a highlight of 2010 to keep plugging away at it.

Speaking of the blog, I have to admit that perhaps the best thing that I have done in service to the blog is cover the HullabaLOU Festival at Churchill Downs.  I know the event lost a Bieberload of money, and I am so sorry that it will not be coming back next year (read my posts re: why I think they were wrong to throw in the towel), but I had a damned fine time at HullabaLOU.  Great performances, sometimes from unexpected talent.  Not to mention the fact that it was the first time that I felt like I was "big girl press" = free tickets, parking passes, buffets, access to performers (though I was too shy to pipe up during the press conferences).  A milestone, indeed.  And a good time in general.

That being said, I can't underestimate the impact that having press passes to all of the Humana Festival plays had on me. I was thrilled beyond thrilled to attend every single play during the Humana Festival run.  And actually, I've hit every Actors play this year save A Christmas Story, which I caught last year.  We are so lucky to have Actors.  I am insanely lucky to have people at Actors who view my blog as honest-to-goodness "press."  Likewise the Broadway Across America folks at the Kentucky Theater.  Who on God's green earth would have thought one of my theater highlights for the year would have been Legally Blonde?! But it was! So. Hugely. Fun.

I moved to my neighborhood, the Original Highlands, because it seemed like the best 'hood in the city.  And lo and behold, this place gets better every year.  Sure we lose a place or two (Barret Bar, I'm thinking of you!) but we gain so much more.  Papalino's and the Holy Grale have vastly improved my quality of life this year.

My New Year's wish for 2011 = Original Highland's Neighborhood Association, please back the eff off of great places like the Grale and the Monkey Wrench and let 'em have their 4am licenses.  It's embarrassing to put the brakes on quality businesses like these.

As I said, I can't do "top ten" lists, but I can tell you some of my favorites.

• Music-wise: My favorite album of 2010 is Trombone Shorty's Backatown.  Seriously, I dare you to listen to the first 60-seconds of the CD and NOT want to boogie. Im-possible!  Also: Cee-Lo Green's Ladykillers.  His "F++k You" is the song of the year, in my opinion.  
• Movie-wise: I see a lot of movies, and I know my tastes are strange.  But no movie really tweaked me this year.  Not one. Honestly, I think the best movie I saw in 2010 is How to Train Your Dragon.    
• TV-wise: I'm still madly in love with Modern Family and Parenthood.  But you can't ever go wrong with watching an episode of Castle or the Closer.  I have to admit, for the 2010 season, I'm just loving the heck out of Raising Grace.  Man, I miss LOST something awful.

Overall, 2010 was a pretty good year.  I'm not particularly sad to see it go, but I had a lot of great times. My Louisville family of friends is full of spectacularly smart, funny, nerdy people (yeah, I'm looking at you!), and I've enjoyed their company heaps this year.

Bonus favorite pop culture thing: The Man of My 2010 is Craig Ferguson. He's friends with the Mythbusters, he hosted Shark Week, and he put on a hell of a live show in Cincy this year.  He has a robot sidekick, for godssake!  You can have all the Team Coco you want; I am firmly in the camp of Team @CraigyFerg.  

And Bonus bonus favorite pop culture thing:  Nothing had made me smile and laugh as hard this year as Craig Ferguson's "Secretariat" schtick.  It never gets old.  Add a little Kristen Bell or Neil Patrick Harris to the mix, and it's sublime.  Watch here.  

Happy New Year, Louisvillagers.  Love you guys.  

xxoo Lou