I've been doing this two years today. That's two years down the drain, gone forever.

Will you be very disappointed if I don't create a slide show to mark the occasion?

I think I'll also maintain my policy of not giving blogging advice, and not reposting old stuff. That last is as much in my interests as yours, because I can't stand to look at it. Seriously. Some people look back over their annual output and feel pleased at the improvements they've made along the way.

I look back and shriek, because I'm actually getting worse at this the longer I do it. At the rate I'm, ha ha, progressing, I figure maybe three more years, tops, and I'll be reduced to posting Mariah Carey lyrics.

Misspelled.

I am going to violate my not-writing-about-What-I've-Learned policy, though, because that at least I can keep short. It amounts to this:

I don't know how not to suck, but I do know that if you go into this with the goal of making people like you, you've already set yourself up for a no-win. See, the people who refuse to like you will think of you as hypersensitive, and the people who do like you will nonetheless think of you as a toady. You'll get stuck between "Oh, she freaks out at the least little criticism," and "Oh, you can get her to say any damn nice thing about you for the price of a link." Then, there's a good chance you'll kind of despise yourself.

(Unless you really are a toady, of course--in which case, keep on toadyin'.)

That's really all I've got out of it--that sometimes I have to grit my teeth and say what I want rather than what will please. This is harder for me to do than you probably know. Don't get me wrong--I don't think of myself as some great Wielder of Truth here. I don't kid myself. It's just a dumb blog, and not a very successful one at that. But sometimes I have to kick myself into writing something I know is only going to earn me, yes, more kicking.

Some system.

Anyway, thanks a lot to all of you who've been here since back when and even those of you who haven't--the ones who leave me cheerful comments on even the stupidest stuff I come up with, you I love especially. That's the other thing I guess I've learnt from blogging:

Most people out there are vastly nicer than I am.

And that can be kind of encouraging and inspiring to me, actually.

Posted by Ilyka at July 28, 2005 11:56 PM in navel gazing | TrackBack