I'd Like To Thank The Academy
Welcome everyone. Today is the day after my 1 Year Blog Anniversary. There are lots of funny, funny names for this auspicious occasion made by various smashings-together of the words "blog", "anniversary" and "birthday" like blogthday or blogiversary, but I don't want to use them, mostly for the rational and sophisticated reason that I don't like them.

I've learned a lot since my first posting. Many many lessons have been taken in, some easily, thoughtfully, respectfully, others more reluctantly, only after some force and with no small amount of lube. Intellectual lube, I mean. Don't be gross.

For instance right now I'm learning that being annoyed by lingering sickness and taking nasty antibiotics that make you feel more nauseous than a vegan on the Ted Nugent Home Tour might not constitute the best mood to write self-celebratory blogposts.

But since this is going to be all about me and I hesitate to let myself down, I will soldier on. I know it seems like it's just for me, but think about it: in the bargain, you all get fresh Bucket. So eventually everybody wins.

I have had my crack writing staff breaking down and analyzing 12 months' worth of posts and comments, categorizing and cross-listing, referencing and collating, taking my words and making some kind of rational sense of it all, using sophisticated statistical models to take a rational step back so as not to be dazzled or mesmerized by the lush everyday poetry of my magic words. They were instructed to approach their task with an eye toward the overarching, to find a rhythm in the chaos by looking at the larger picture as a whole over what the French Annales school would call the "longue durée". But then I remembered that I never did get around to teach the Guatemalans who live in my attic to speak (let alone read) English. So for the most part the effort was a bust. But it did remind me to feed them, which was lucky. Another week or two and things might have turned... unfortunate.

Some facts and numbers:

First Post: July 9, 2004, aptly titled "I have no idea what I'm doing"

First Appearance of the Narcissus Scale: July 13, 2004 (though it originally appeared as "the Narcissism Scale" July 11, 2004)

First Paris Hilton Reference: July 11, 2004 (it's possible I've gone to that well one too many times)

First Comment: July 12, 2004 by "Ex-Rite Aid Wench" whose blog disappeared shortly thereafter.

First Commenter Who Bothered To Stick Around: July 14, 2004; the lovely and talented Rita, my once great mentor and Internet Tour Guide whom I have since surpassed in every conceivable category, so long as we are not counting web design, social awkwardness and basic human potential.

Total Number Of Posts To Date: 336

Total Number Of Comments To Date: A large number that I will choose to characterize here as a "fuckload"

Number of Uses of the Word "Fuckload": 1

Most Frequent Commenter: Probably either SJ or MPH. I suppose I could count, but I have to sleep some time.

Number of People Who Read This Blog Who Know Me In Real Life: 4 (that I know of)

Search Engine Search-strings That Have Been Frequent Referrers to the Bucket: scrotum weights, Vietnamese hookers, tamale steaming buckets, "cherry pops", Brad Pitt's dick

I could go on and on making up categories and their insignificant answers, but you and I both no that won't do any good. Unless... ooh, unless there's ever a Blogger version of Trivial Pursuit that comes out and the Bucket is one of the categories. Then you'd all come begging, wouldn't you?

As I went back and re-read some of my really old stuff, for all the expected floundering, I was really suprised at the consistency of tone I've been able to keep up right from the beginning. Nearly every post is in some way winking, shrugging, forgettably insincere, imprudently meta with regards to blogging in general, dismissive, always looking for cheap laughs rather than real insight. If I had to cram the whole thing into a single-word nutshell, I guess it would have to be "asshole".

That's not self-pity or false modesty people, I'm proud of my asshole-ish tendencies. It keeps this whole lurching behemoth of a blog slippery and loose, skimming along the treacherous surface. Everyone knows what the alternative would be: toil, friction, burnout.

Besides the Narcissus Scale, this blog started out with another numerical index for the first three weeks or so that measured the "Estimated Days Until Blogger Burnout". I think the existence of that running tally shows me two things: 1) not all allegedly comedic devices are necessarily funny in retrospect, especially when the motivation for their creation was crude pre-emptive self-defense against the potentially negative feedback from people I'd never met before and 2) I realized straight from the beginning that if I started pouring my heart out and talking about my real life 6 days a week, we never would have made it to the 1 Year Blog Anniversary Mega Spectacularo. Making shit up might be harder sometimes, but I never feel like I want to kill myself when I'm done.

Besides, there are days and days and days where literally nothing out of the ordinary happens in my actual life. It's safer just to make shit up. If I tried to make a sincere effort at this, the Bucket would have been empty months ago. Who knows, in desperation for something to post, I may have been tempted to go out and buy a cat. As much as I've enjoyed our time together thus far, Bucketeers, I don't like you that much. I don't like the people I actually know that much.

Regrets? I've had a few. Mostly the 6-days-a-week precedent I set early on. Youthful enthusiasm... it will ruin you every time.

Anyways. Thanks for your (continued) patronage. Sorry this post sucked by most modern Mega Spectacularo standards. I blame the antibiotics side effects. It's hard to concentrate when your urethra's on fire.



[The Narcissus Scale has been given the day off as its presence here today would be completely and entirely redundant]

Pops
- posted by Pops @ 10:23 PM