In the spirit of all good, navel-gazing reporters everywhere, it is time for us to present to you, dear reader, an arbitrary list of items that have made us laugh, cringe or cry in 2011.

On Wednesday, my colleague Warren Rojas spit out his top five HOH reads. So today I step up to share mine. As an added bonus, I’ve decided to highlight a lesson gleaned from each piece, because HOH is nothing if not an educational tool.

Neda’s Top Five:

1. Wherein a Senator was concerned his manhood would be called into question because of his small dog and that dog’s silly name.

What we learned: If a man’s masculinity cannot to stand up to a small dog with a silly name, then he has bigger issues named Warren.

2. Wherein several offices insisted they had a big ball, but only one office had the biggest ball of them all.

What we all learned: There are offices that are really insecure about the size of their ball.

3. Wherein a freshman Congressman insisted he was a newbie after his decades-long career as a Hill staffer.

What we learned: Congressional Quarterly’s floor video, transcripts and Congressional profiles are our secret weapon of awesome.

4. Wherein a story we are working on changes as we are working on it, thus giving us time to discover the first political action committee in history forgotten by a Congressman. What we learned: How to get people to donate to HOH.

5. Wherein Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.) staffer’s 10-gallon fish tank took down a burglar and the perp decided the correct course of action, after bleeding all over the office, was to walk down the street to a bar for a couple shots. What we learned: What Rojas was doing before coming to HOH.

In a rare moment of seriousness: Thank you, dear readers, for hanging with us over the past year. Thank you for your tips. Thank you for keeping us honest. Thank you for encouraging us on the days we are considering going back to waiting tables.

Have a happy, happy New Year! And … do let us know if anything HOH-worthy goes down.