1800

It seems purely impossible to me: This is DawnReader post #1800. Eighteen hundred. One thousand eight hundred. How can this have happened? It seems just the other day that I decided to start this blog, and (stealing its name from the title of the first chapter of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield) wrote the first post, "I Am Born." (Link to that post on January 6, 2012.)

In that initial post, I talk about why I picked "DawnReader," my reading habits, my teaching career, my family. And I ended that post with this: Be patient: I'm starting slowly here, trying to figure out what to put on this site.  What to say.  I hope I'll be what I've always been: informed, annoying, entertaining, annoying, and annoying.

I'm sure I've accomplished three of these things (all starting with the letter a). And I'm still trying to figure out what to put on this site.

Anyway, it's been my custom when I arrive at each new "hundred" to take a look and see how many people have been visiting the site. So, I'm going to look right now ... [PAUSE]

... 320,075. That works out to about 178 hits/day--though I'm very aware (as a closer look at the stats confirms) that the numbers go up, sometimes dramatically so, when I write about political issues--which I don't really do all that often.

But as I've said before, I'm not really concerned about the number of hits; I do it for myself--to get it down while I still can. (The same reason, sort of, that I still exercise regularly--keep doing it until I can't.)

As my posting has evolved over the years (five!), I've come to use M-W-F to post installments of the latest publication I'm working on. Rough drafts. (And I do emphasize the word rough!) Currently, it's a long, rambling memoir about my ten-year pursuit of Mary Shelley, a volume I've titled Frankenstein Sundae in honor of a great sundae I had at Castle Frankenstein (Burg Frankenstein) in Germany, overlooking the Rhine (in the far distance) in 1999. And, of course, the pursuit itself has been like a sundae for me.

On Sunday (!), I do "Sunday Sundries," a sort of potpourri of brief entries about what I'm reading, seeing at the movies and on TV, what Joyce and I have been doing, and, of course, a regular feature--The AOTW, a weekly award to the person(s) earning by behavior the A part of the AOTW.

That leaves T-Th-Sat, when I've been posting pieces on all sorts of things--family history, education issues, politics (not all that much), oddities that I've noticed (or have occurred), dreams, my cancer battles, whatever. Sundries, really.

I have to say that I'm still enjoying this--otherwise, of course, I would stop. Most days I look forward to it, and I have not missed all that many days--travel, illness, and depression are the principal reasons for not doing my homework. (I have no dog to eat it, no dog, in other words, to blame.)

I sometimes smile when I think what would have happened (and how I would have felt) if someone had assigned me the writing of 1800 blog posts. Ha! Ha! No way!

Way.

Because here we are, and tomorrow I'll start off toward 1900 and hope that my health and my energy (and whatever) will allow me to get there. I mean, I gotta make 2000, don't I?


**In Coincidence Land--This week, Joyce posted our 1800th book for sale on the site (ABE), where we're selling books from our personal library--now called DJ Dooldebug Books. Check them out here: LINK TO SITE.