One

2x3x7 turns one year old today.

*cue stirring music and montage of black and white newsreels*

Exactly one year ago, on the stroke of the midnight hour in some time zone or the other, I made a tryst with destiny. Destiny may claim that it wasn't a tryst and that we just happened to meet at a party where we had mutual friends, but she's just trying to be coy.

I had a dream. Ich bin ein Blogger. I would write blogposts on the beaches, I would write blogposts in the fields. I would hold to the truth only if it was self-evident. I would not be amused.

It was a big step for me personally, though a minor flexing of toes for Mankind.

***

Writing birthday posts for blogs, is, of course, a well-formalised art.

Step 1: You start by being all self-deprecating and humble.

I'd like to thank all the people who read this blog regularly. All 1.264 of you. I, of course, am just a modest little blip in a firmament of stars burning as bright as Blake's tigers.

You may now jump to the comments section and tell me how I'm being too modest and I'm actually so great and how much you love me. (I know you're out there, I've seen you on sitemeter).

Well? I'm waiting.

Oh, come on. You read this blog. You KNOW I'm insecure and needy.

Right. That's more like it.

Step 2: Next, you wax nostalgic about your original vision for the blog. And how you think you've fared with it.

I started 2x3x7 with two aspirations, both negative.

1) I did not want to be classified - slotted into one category or the other. I did not want it to be a lit blog, or a personal blog or a humour blog, or a blog that linked to other blogs / MSM articles. I wanted it to be none of those things and all of them.

2) I did not want to take myself too seriously.

I'd like to think I've done okay on the first. I've slipped up a few times on the second, but I'm trying. Really, I am.

Step 3: Next, you talk about the ways in which blogging has surprised you. The things you didn't expect. The things you found out about yourself, etc.

More navel gazing. What fun.

The thing I didn't anticipate when I started blogging (aside from the complete lack of eligible women beating down my door to mate with me) was how demanding blogging would be. It's as though someone gave you a magic lamp that you could rub and have a genie pop up to do whatever you wished, but if you wished for the wrong thing (or asked for it in the wrong way) the genie would tell you so, in no uncertain terms and in the voice of your 5th grade geography teacher. It's scary how much blogging has taken over my life. There are days when I feel like my life is a squealing piglet being slowly swallowed by the boa constrictor of this blog.

Ah, well. It wasn't that much of a life anyway.

Step 4 (optional): Talk about all the wacky searches that have led people to your blog.

The three most searched for things that led to this blog:

1) Bakke vs. the University of California
2) Puff the Magic Dragon
3) Platonic / asexual relationships

So basically, all I've achieved in the last year is give the impression that I'm a) a lawyer b) a dope-fiend and c) impotent. (none of this is true, btw.)

No wonder the path to my door remains unbeaten.

Step 5: Make resolutions for what you're going to change going forward.

Ah, this is the fun part. let's see:

1. I shall try not to use footnotes [1]

2. I shall not bandy words with people in the comments section. I shall be calm and Buddha-like. I shall not react to people who are total #$%*ing morons and don't understand the brilliant things I'm saying and can't figure out, though I've said it repeatedly, in plain english, and it's obvious to begin with, that all I meant to say was that a) it isn't...oh, dear.

3. I will carefully scna each post for typos

3b. I shall not mix up its and it's. Thats just silly.

4. I shall finally resolve this whole white font on black background business.

5. I shall write more posts about the Universe - which has the lowest count among all my categories. (Humour tops the list with 78 posts. Clearly, I've been living up to my name)

6. I shall travel more so I have more posts about my travels to put up (see what I mean about my blog taking control of my life.)

7. I shall try to write stories that do not focus on how life is a meaningless hoax, relationships invariably end badly and we are all trapped in a world where purposeful action is impossible, even though all this is inherently true (as shall be explained in all these Universe posts I'm going to write - see point 5 above).

8. I shall pay close and grateful attention to all the feedback I get through your comments.

9. I shall pay no heed whatsoever to what you're saying in the comments section - I'm a free spirit who writes for self-affirmation and not to pander to the tastes of you readers.

10a. I shall try and respond to every comment I get

10b. I shall not check the blog every 20 minutes to see if I have any new comments to respond to.

Step 6: Close with a few cliched metaphors about how it's been such a spectacular journey, such a roller-coaster ride, etc.

Well, folks, the last year has been a real roller-coaster ride. (Oh, wait, I hate roller-coasters - they make my nauseous)

Well, folks, the last year has been an incredible journey. (What kind of journey though? I get motion-sick in cars and sea-sick on boats. And trains wobble too much. Dammit, there must be some mode of travel that I like. Ah yes)

Well, folks, the last year has been an amazing transatlantic flight. (Hmmm. )

Look, it's been fun, okay. There. I said it.

When I started this blog on 24th June 2005, it was because my life was a joke and I had nothing better to do with it. 365 days and 429 posts later, it's still a joke. But now it's a joke that other people get. That's what I call sharing. That's what I call personal growth.

Step 7 (as afterthought): Invite comments

Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Wishes? Curses? Magic Spells? Brickbats? WMDs? Home videos of your toothless 5 year old singing Heppy Birday To Djou? Inspiring Quotes from Great Men? Offers of intercourse? Suicide tips? Certificate for a lobotomy? Mastercard?

[1] Except where absolutely essential, of course.