There’s no Globe magazine today, hence, no column. Which means it’s the perfect time to do that lazy-writer gambit of “Top Posts from the Previous Year.”

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas, however you observed or did not observe it. We saw “Sherlock Holmes,” which I absolutely adored, and went for Chinese food, at which I had to be the one person who didn’t put her entree on the lazy susan, but hoarded it all to myself, which I hated to do. Because of my recent illnesses, I’m on a fair number of dietary restrictions right now (some permanent, some temporary). The food chapter of my book was one of my favorite ones to write, and I’ll be writing more here about food and courtesy and identity and priorities.

But for now, the top posts of 2009:

The lady who objected to popcorn at the movies.

A letter from someone who considers herself “unlikeable.” Folks, we helped this woman. She wrote me later and told me so. Y’all did some good here, you really, really did.

I’ve gotten to do so many things I want to do in life, but I have always wanted to be a casting director. My ideas for some great, unexpected casting. (Come on, Bill Clinton as Billy Flynn in “Chicago”? Are you telling me that wouldn’t be freaking awesome?) Feel free to add your own ideas in comments!

Do you look like you think you ought to? I don’t. I wouldn’t cast me to play me.

Etiquette for laid-off friends.

What does “wasting time” mean?

How advice columns work (and what makes for a good question).

An explanation of the Jewish High Holidays.

Dealing with a chronic illness.

Metaphors, cognition, and why I couldn’t get a cab in Brooklyn.

Writing isn’t a thing you do, it’s how you do it.

Thoughts on Aspergers … and some more.

Why what is hurtful isn’t always rude, and vice versa.

Is narcissism the new humility?

Marine etiquette and communication styles.

What’s your real job?

If there are any topics you’d like me to write about in the coming weeks or months, leave ‘em in comments! (That’s if you just want to hear me muse, of course. Specific etiquette questions should be sent to missconduct@globe.com.)

I woke up this morning to a rather long, and surprising, comment in this blog’s comment queue, in response to my post a few weeks ago about Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony tickets being on sale. (And there are still good seats left!)

The theme of this year’s Igs is “Risk,” and the ceremony will kick off with a pre-show “Risk Cabaret” featuring songs by the “Penny-Wise Guys,” who will be “presenting juicy cabaret songs about risk, reward, and Bernie Madoff.”

What’s not to like?

Quite a bit, as far as our commenter is concerned. (He also posted his comment on his blog — which otherwise appears to be entirely dedicated to examining the difference between reading on paper and reading on a computer screen — here, and here, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find his objections popping up elsewhere over the next few days, either.)

Mr. Bloom is concerned that our mockery of Bernie Madoff will add fuel to the fire of anti-Semitism, you see:

Why not pay tribute to Mr Sanford [sic] or Danny Pang of Taiwan, and other world ponzi schemers? Why focus just on the Jewish guy? Of course, there is no antisemitic intention on the part of the Ig Nobel people, they are Jewish people themselves. But by putting on this “SHOW” about Bernie Madoff, who is a known Jewish man among hundreds of antisemitic bloggers around the world — just google “antisemitism + Bernie Madoff” and you will see — the organizers of this show risk– RISK – creating MORE antisemitism online and in newspaper comment sections when the news of this SHOW comes out in the media, worldwide. Oi.

Now, if we were planning to do a cabaret called, say, “Bernie Madoff: 21st Century Shylock” in which a hook-nosed, yarmulke-clad Madoff danced around to a parody of Cyndi Lauper entitled “Jews Just Wanna Have Gelt,” yes, I could see grounds for concern. But we’re not doing that, nor does Mr. Bloom have any reason whatsoever to believe that we are.

When a member of our in-group — our race, our religion, our profession, our political party — does wrong, should we call them out with appropriate mockery or punishment? Or should we sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn’t happen because “he’s one of ours”?

Which course of action do you really think will lead to more stereotyping? And leaving that question aside — because there are, in fact, more important questions in the world than “But what will the goyim/whites/Yankees fans/Democrats/customers think of us” — which is the right thing to do?

I know what I think is the right thing, and it’s what my husband is doing. (Of course, if Mr. Bloom is right and Mr. Improbable does get a reputation as a terrible anti-Semite, I’ll at least be spared the awkward annual conversation with my synagogue’s dues committee about why I claim “single” instead of “family” membership.)

Comments open. Repetitive comments will be deleted.

I love you guys.

No, I’m not drunk, thanks for asking. It’s six in the morning, for heaven’s sake!

But I’m really enjoying this blog, and I thought I would tell you.

Someday, I hope my blog makes it big, and I can get money from advertisers, and win awards, and all that. Right now I’m not even looking at the stats. I know I don’t have that many readers yet. And I want that to change.

But still … the blog will also change if and when that happens. I’ll have to moderate more aggressively, and the tone will become more general. Right now, you’re all regulars, and we have our little in-jokes about Spock and the Golden Rod Rainbow Stripe Shawl Sweater Shrug Cardigan, and I read the comments because they are fun and insightful, not because I have to wade in and play disciplinarian.

I want this blog to be a big success. But do you know what it feels like, right now?

It feels like when you’re going to throw a big party, and you ask a couple of friends to come early to help you set up. And you’re all sitting there, in your party clothes, with the food all laid out, waiting for the greater horde of guests to arrive. And wondering who will come, and grabbing a couple of pretzels, and having the kinds of in-depth conversations and private jokes that you won’t be able to once the party starts. You’re hanging out, enjoying not having to worry about who might be drinking too much, or who might be feeling left out, or who might be starting a political argument that could get nasty.

Waiting for the real party to begin, and thinking, at the same time, that maybe the real party is now.

Thank you for helping set up my party. Thank you for letting me just be a friend for a while, before I have to play hostess.

A post on Salon’s Broadsheet that brings together several themes we’ve been talking about of late: Facebook, narcissism, parents v. nonparents (this came up on Wednesday’s chat a bit):

What happens when the Mommy Wars and online oversharing collide? Well, if STFU, Parents is any indication, the answer involves a seemingly endless supply of Facebook status updates involving bodily fluids. The blog chronicles some of parents’ (and mostly mothers’) most disgusting and narcissistic posts.

…

Unsurprisingly, STFU, Parents has already awakened the ire of moms and dads who don’t see the humor in the site. “You know what?” writes a woman named Miriam in an e-mail posted on the blog. “If people don’t like parenting updates on facebook, they should unfriend that person and get the fuck over it.” She goes on to call the anonymous blogger a “bigot” and wonders whether “STFU blacks” and “STFU gays” are on the way.

I’m not sure that accusations of anti-parent bias address the real problem. More to the point, good luck trying to explain to your college-aged daughter why she shouldn’t post pictures of herself vomiting on Facebook when you already did, sixteen years ago.

… I’m always saying it. Because it’s not enough to know the right thing to do (ethics) and the socially appropriate way of doing it (etiquette). It’s also important to be able to arrange the environment so that people do the correct thing without having to think about it too much (engineering).

The tricky bit with engineering is that it influences people’s behavior far more than they are consciously aware of. Here‘s a fun article by Malcolm Gladwell about how stores are engineered to take advantage of people’s natural movement patterns. (Read it. You want to know about butt-brush theory, you really do.) No one is immune to good engineering–obviously, you can set out for a day at the mall with a vow to spend only $20 and stick to that, no one is saying you can’t. But there’s an awfully good chance that you’ll blow your allotted $20 in a well-engineered store. And that your butt will have remained unbrushed.

I’m thinking of this now because I realize I’ve fallen prey to good engineering myself! When I asked you all to talk to me about comments policies, one of the things I asked was whether or not you liked it when the blogger also left comments. Silly me! I thought this was a matter of policy. I had actually convinced myself that on the boston.com blog, I had a philosophical rationale for not leaving comments: that I wanted this to be your space, and wanted you to feel as though the teacher had left the room, and you were free to talk amongst yourselves with minimal policing. This was my laissez-faire blog-comments policy, so I thought.

Well, hah hah on me. Turns out I only wasn’t commenting over there because the blog software is klugey! It’s easy to comment on this blog … so I do. So much for my grand philosophy of Why The Blogger Shouldn’t Comment.

That’s a thing to keep in mind. Not only do we respond to good engineering like running water following the path of least resistance–we tell ourselves stories attributing our reasons to internal psychological factors. I do this and I study this kind of self-delusion for a living. It amuses me, but it also brought me up short, to see how prone to this post-facto theorizing and storytelling I am.