Almost Ten Years a Bloggin'

Wow! My blogpage counter whirled past 500,000 hits in January and I didn't even witness it. I never imagined having that many readers, ever. I know that people are reading my blog, I just don't know who my audience is—whether they're avid readers, or merely flybys. About the only thing I do know is what people are reading.

I added the blog counter in 2010, I would imagine that I didn't have all that many visits during the first two years, perhaps 40-50,000. But it's 517,056, right now, and whirring up. It boggles the senses. My most popular post, The Viking-Irish Redhead Gene Myth 3/23/2009, has garnered 87,113 hits. Does anybody actually read it, or do they just click on it? Gratified to see Mill Valley's Unknown Museum and the Gluers Junk Art move up to fourth position. The art movement was important, and there was very little about it on the internet.

I've been blogging for nearly ten years. I began blogging in 2008, though I founded the blog in January of  2007, I let it lay fallow for a year. I was a slow adopter. To be fair, I really didn't begin blogging until August, 20, 2008, so I guess this is a bit of a preamble.

Since ca. 2015, I've been actively filling in the backstory timeline, posting work from the early years. (Groan.) I've still got a long way to go, as I am gleaning old journals. I'm branching out to include prose—and especially my travel journals.

Right now I'm focusing on the John Oliver Simon years (1985-89). Not that there were that many solid years, as I ran far from him when things went south, but he continued to influence my life and we finally buried the hatched, to become deep friends again.

My goal is have at least 52 posts a year, some years' worth of material is rather slim on content (especially 2005 and 2006), but most years are robust.

Because I've given myself permission to also post freewrites, vs. polished poems, I'm beginning to see crossover connections between posts (and also anchoring the actual date some of the early writing was written.) Matrix. Matrices? Who knew my Tengo Dinero piece had its roots in a CPITS workshop on Marge Piercy's Charm for Attracting Wild Money?

I still hold a vague hope that some of those early corrupted files where I lost vast swaths of work, will resurface, at least in draft form as I glean my old journals.

Thank you Guy Kawasaki for getting me into this mess. It's been a fascinating journey. LITERRATA or Veritas and the art of Memoir.

Happy blogaversery!
Sort of.

NB In case you're wondering why I even bother posting all these blog milestones, it's so I can keep track, and it's a way to measure my progress. Otherwise, I despair. It becomes a morass, and when self-doubt kicks in, it becomes a raft, and a memory aid. And as an added bonus: a timeline!

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