Yes, congratulations indeed, dear reader. Today is the day this little journal, this occasional scrawling, this community, this blessed plot, this realm, this blog turns three years old. A baby in human terms, prime time for horses, positively ancient in online years.
So I'm pulling a Time magazine and holding up a mirror to you guys - because, this sucker wouldn't still breathe without you. I'm not a writer who has to write or, shark-like, sink and die. I write to be read, and I prefer to provoke reaction, good and bad. Now, I haven't come up with the blog equivalent of Time's shiny mirror cover, so here's a screen shot from MyBlogLog, which shows the icons of a few of the regulars (great service, by the way). Take a look - that's the real anniversary right there, the real partners.
So, the numbers 652 posts and 4,462 comments. More than a post every other day, but less than one a day. Something like four a week.
That's been consistent here since the start. I'm not a complete blogger; I don't feel compelled to share every thought or publish every jot. I don't blog about my work, except very rarely. Same thing with my home life, except for now and again. I blog about my "third life" - the one that's neither home or the office, the one that's part virtual part real, part online conversation and part walk down the street.
That's why I've fallen into politics and media as the major topics here; I've been a media critic before, and I was a political reporter for a decade. I don't do these things now, but the interest - occasionally the passion - remain, and so when I write in the space between family and profession, these are most natural starting points.
Sports of course, dominated by the New York Mets. And culture, pop and otherwise. Lately, much of that has migrated to my own spin-off, the Jeffersons to this All in the Family, over at the gorgeous little newcritics.com (oh yeah, I love it there). And my travels - things I notice, conversations I overhear, people I meet, places I get to see. Some of that I share. Some of it I don't.
Back to those 4,462 comments - there are hundreds of thousands of words in there. Hundreds of people. Hundreds of conversations. Serious arguments. Real diversity. Plenty of bullshit.
The comments are why I still blog - this little community. Many of you have written almost as much as I have. Take the dynamic duo, for instance, Slappy and Tom K, each with well over 300 comments and tens of thousands of words. These guys have almost become synonymous with this blog. I've met people in the street, introduced myself, gotten to talking, moved onto blogging and had these new acquaintances exclaim: "How about that Slappy? Tom K sure does hate him!" Or vice versa.
In three years, I've written the equivalent of several books here. I've met dozens of people offline who I first encountered here. And I've made dozens of real online friendships. Further, I know there are a bunch of near-silent lurkers here, readers who lie in the weeds, rarely if ever leave a comment, but are real readers and take my ideas and links and posts with them into the world. I value them as well; can feel them there most days in the ghost-like pageview counts.
There will be weeks when this place goes silent. There will be times when I'll feel like packing it in. And then someone will drop a comment on something I've written - maybe an old post from two years ago they found on Google. And I'll smile. And think a little. And knock out another post. Thanks, and many happy returns.
