Celebrating the Onset of the Madness

One year ago tomorrow, this blog was born. Yes.  That's right.  On May 29, 2009, I sat down in front of the computer and wrote a post called, "Erma Bombeck is My Hero."  Then, according to the time stamp, I wrote two other blog posts that same day.

I assure you, I did not.  (I only wrote one other one.)  I had not yet understood the miracle and mystery of how to make post dates and times work.  For that matter, I also failed to realize that my blog thought it was in a different time zone altogether, so the times it recorded usually equated to times when I was asleep.

For the record, let me interrupt myself right now to clear up one little thing.  I do not get up very early in the morning to get a post published for you by 7 AM.  If you have been reading for awhile, you know that I don't do mornings with dignity and grace, and while I might be outrageously funny to watch in the mornings, I don't have the coordination to string together a sentence, much less type it, for at least an hour.  As soon as I figured out the magic of "scheduling" a post so that I could write it one day and it would publish itself some other day while I was taking a shower or drinking coffee, or hiding from Toddler, well, life got good. 

Before I figured that little trick out?  Well ... what can I say?  It was a rough beginning.  In fact, I even attempted to complain about the little inequities of post times in my third post, "Computers Lie and Cheat."  Unfortunately for me, I failed to realize that the things I was complaining about would no longer be visible after a day or so, and no one would understand what I was talking about anyway.  Let's just say, when someone asks me to send over a post to reprint on their website ... Computers Lie and Cheat is never on the list.  Perhaps I really should remove it from the rolls, but honestly, I think it's a whole lot more fun to just poke fun at myself, don't you?  I mean, the post has its redeeming moments ... or maybe just one.  Anyway, it's history, and it reminds me that despite such brilliant pearls of non-wisdom and barely-funny, I'm still here, and the number of "you" that are actually claiming to read this blog has grown quite a bit.  At first I was just talking to a cousin, my mother, and a woman I met online who became my Follower before I even knew what a Follower was (and before I'd even published a post, I should add).  No, she didn't have that much faith in me.  She's just that nice of a person.

And now, there are people reading this blog I've never met, online or otherwise.

That's just cool.

I poked fun at myself and you laughed.  You even told your friends.

Some of you might not think that reaction is enough to celebrate.  If you were in my shoes, you might feel compelled to ask whether the readers were laughing "at" you or "with" you.  I make no such distinction.  I think that distinction is a lot like saying, "No offense."  Nothing changes, you just use different words to make yourself feel better.  I learned this from my family when I was very young.  I would do something stupid, or get confused and decide I wanted to contribute to the conversation anyway, and my whole family would laugh.  Of course, if I was trying to be serious and not make anyone laugh, I'd get all hurt and say, "Don't laugh at me!"  Inevitably, someone would say, "Oh, honey.  We aren't laughing at you.  We are laughing with you." 

I had a hard time figuring that one out because I was seldom laughing when they said it.  Once I even whined, "But I'm not laughing!"  Everyone only laughed harder.

Now, in hindsight, I admit the laughter was probably deserved, and I freely admit that my family had no malicious intent with their laughter (which is probably what they meant by laughing "with" me).  While I still have a low threshhold for looking foolish, I must also admit that the best weapon against people laughing at you is to first step up and laugh at yourself.  Without a doubt, I deserve it.

So, laugh with me, laugh at me.  It's your choice.  At least this time I'm laughing too.

Happy Blogaversary.