What’s a gift you gave yourself this year that has kept on giving? Blank notebooks and pens. Even when I have writer’s block, there’s still something magical and therapeutic about backing away from the computer and putting an actual pen to paper.

Did you meet someone you used to only know from her blog? Senior year of college, I had an inkling to work for a magazine in South Africa. In the midst of my research, I came across Bridget McNulty’s blog. I followed her for quite awhile before finally sending her a note, because more often than not, the things she was writing about were the same things I was pondering. When she came to New York in May to promote her book Strange Nervous Laughter, she suggested meeting up. I about peed my pants.

When our lunch date finally arrived, I wore one of my favorite dresses, a light blue button-down with pockets and a sash at the waist. I told my then-boss (hi Amy!) that I had a dermatologist appointment during lunch and might be gone a little longer. I felt like sneaking out of school as I met Bridget and her friend Dan in the West Village at a little French restaurant called Cafe Henri.

The rest of the afternoon flew by, partially because I was a bit starstruck and still giddy from meeting someone I’d found online who wrote interesting things. I continue to be envious of Bridget, as she and her fiance are traveling the world now. You can catch their adventures over at The Sweet Life.

What advertisement made you think this year? Now that I’m unemployed, I sometimes turn on the TV in the afternoon for background noise while I’m organizing or making lunch. I never knew how many different TV court shows were on the air now. For the record, divorce court is actually pretty entertaining. The episode I caught involved a woman claiming that her soon-to-be-ex, Mr. Norwood, wasn’t nice to her dog. Mr. Norwood claimed his woman treated the dog better than him. Verdict: She definitely did, making steak for the dog but not her husband, and making Mr. Norwood sit in the back of the car because the dog’s car seat was in the front. Yes. Dog car seat. Because apparently the previous dog died when Mr. Norwood was driving and the dog flew out.

ANYWAY, the kinds of commercials that come on during the day are pretty ridiculous, much like TV court shows, and the one that left me flabbergasted was for the Liberator.

There are so many things wrong with this. Like washing a catheter and being afraid to talk to strangers. I am in no way saying that this was the best advertisement of 2009 — far from it. But it’s the most memorable, and shocking. People like this actually exist. And other people think they make good spokespersons. Whoa.

December 13 What’s the best change you made to the place you live?

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I have a love/hate relationship with my room. I love being in my room, surrounded by books and cards and pictures. I hate that I have a diagonal wall, and it’s hit or miss whether a nail will go through or just force the unknown materials to crumble to the ground. It makes decorating and positioning things difficult. So for the first, oh, nine months that I lived in the place, I just didn’t try. My walls were empty. It was a little depressing.

After I saw a blog post with a new spin on the clothesline concept, I bought some thin wire and more clothespins than I knew what to do with and hung cards and photos on one wall. Better in theory, because my cards weighed the wire down, and the clothespins wouldn’t stand up straight and looked freakishly large compared to the cards. So I abandoned that idea and returned to the Jacky Carter decorating staple: cork board squares, which I use to tack up notes, post cards, autographs (Hello, Hillary Clinton), hand drawn comics, photos, prints, cards…

But before I left to travel this fall, I took down everything on my walls and packed up everything in my room to store in my closest (which is in the living room…that’s how crazy New York is! As if the diagonal wall wasn’t enough) while another girl sublet my room. It was a pain, but coming back from such a life-changing trip felt like the perfect time to rethink how I wanted to decorate my room.

The big change I made, which really isn’t that big at all, was to take all the clutter and crap and toiletries off my dresser and put them in the top drawer instead. I downsized my pj collection to make room and put my socks in a basket. Now the top of my dresser is clean. I can’t tell you what a refreshing feeling that is — to have space and openness after two and a half years of make up mess.

Then I rearranged the contents of my bookshelf, transporting three small piles of books to my dresser and propping a “Keep Calm and Carry On” print on top of the books. Dudes. It was like “Extreme Makeover Home Edition” came in and Ty Pennington screamed “Moooooooove…thaaaaaat…buuuuuuussssss!” That’s the happiness I felt by that tiny little change. Which I think was more indicative of a shift in thinking and perspective after my trip. Of looking at the same stuff in my life, but just in a different way. I’ve managed to let some papers and a tad of clutter come back to the top of the dresser, but my “Keep Calm” reminder stays on top, so that’s just what I do…carry on.