Thursday, March 23, 2006

Happy Blogiversary

Three years ago today, I posted my first entry on this blog. I had been sending occasional essays to a select group of friends and acquaintances for some time prior to March '03, and began to think something like a blog would be more efficient. Plus, it had the potential of reaching a wider audience.

As I've mentioned before, the title of this blog was inspired by the Talking Heads song, "Life During Wartime", from their album Fear of Music. I probably free-associated to that song title because the United States had officially invaded Iraq a few days earlier, and I was dating Elsie.

The subtitle of this blog, "Chevaux de Bataille and Random Quotidian Thoughts," was inspired in two ways. "Chevaux de bataille" had been a featured word in the Word-a-day e-mail list; it roughly translates as "hobby horse". Since I was primarily ranting against the B*sh administration and its policies at the time, it seemed appropriate to acknowledge I was riding a particlar hobby horse.

But I was also, in one way or another, observing my everyday life, with occasional reports or photographs shared from things Elsie and I had done together. This was a record of ordinary dailyness, of the "quotidian".

Since then, I have focused on primarily three "hobby horses" — religion, politics, and poetry (not nesessarily in that order).

This past year, I joined the RevGalBlogPals webring, and have noticed a marked increase in my hit-rate.

In preparation for this anniversary, I have been reviewing my entries for the past year. Surprisingly, I still like much of what I wrote.

Those of you with memories that stretch back at least a month may recall that I set myself the goal of posting entry number 1500 today. Since this is entry 1480, I have fallen short of that goal.

I predicatably got a case of writer's block almost as soon as I set myself that goal. And though I threatened to "pad" with more photographs or with recycled journal material, I couldn't bring myself to do it. The closest I came to padding was with "The Story of the Lost Son," which I had originally written in June 1980; and the five-part poem I posted last Friday (I posted each part as a separate entry).

I am slightly disappointed that I fell ~20 entries short of my goal. Yet, I am glad I tried.

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