By the time December rolls around, it’s hard to remember November, much less January or February. The daily grind of modern life—experienced 140 characters at a time—is biased toward the present, the more immediate the better. You remember how much you hated those D.C. cab color schemes (unless something else has squeezed into that mental space in the week since they came out); you probably forgot about the push in January to make wheelchair-accessible taxis.

 That’s where our Annotated Guide to 2012 comes in. The year-in-review pieces in national magazines will be filled with the 47 percent and “You didn’t build that” and Carly Rae Jepsen and Apple Maps. But you also spent the last year wondering if people would stop asking whether D.C. is hip (they wouldn’t), whether Mike Daisey’s return to Woolly Mammoth would be in disgrace or triumph (both), if the Wizards would improve this season over last (nope), and whether the D.C. Council could ever learn to stop worrying and love Uber (yes, but only after thousands of emails). You mourned Chuck Brown and Lawrence Guyot and Jimmy “Junebug” Jackson, you elected David Grosso, you listened to Fat Trel, you saw “Song 1.” You didn’t call your neighborhood SoMo (we hope), but you did call your football team playoff-bound (well, we hope).

 So before 2012 retreats into the memory hole, here’s a chance to take a final look back at all that stuff and more. Did we leave anything out? Probably. But don’t worry—a few weeks from now, you’ll barely remember it. —Mike Madden