The Gift that Keeps on Giving


Wherein Our Heroine Recognizes Reciprocity.
I get the darndest e-mails these days. People actually read this site. You - there on the other side of the screen. You're actually reading this. Amazing. Though most mornings it feels like I'm stuffing a message in a bottle and throwing it out to sea, this is not the case.

Even more incredible to me is that most of the e-mails I get are complimentary. I do know that that will fall away if/when more strangers start reading, and that will be a day I look forward to. WoT? is still pretty much a family affair, though we have gone from almost 100% readers connecting via a Mac to only about 46%. It's truly sad when your passion for readership overrides your passion for compliments and your passion for your minority computing platform.

Because the URL has passed from hand to hand, I have received wonderful e-mails from people I have not heard from in years and I have entered into deeper dialogue with people I thought I knew very well. Essays that I was unsatisfied with touched some, and essays I was pleased with fell flat with others. One friend can't stand my "Victorian Headers," while another finds them to be an interesting lead-in, a tantalizing clue to what the essay will be about.

The most surprising revelation of all is that some of the warm, cozy essays have culled more positive response than the funny, snarky ones (though The Third Bird Carnival is still the people's choice, I believe). It's more fun to write the snarky ones. There is a feeling of jaded, cafe cynicism, of preaching to the converted. I don't have to put myself out there at all - it's my brain talking and not my heart. On the days when something like, "Can You Tell Me How to Get..." or "Welcome to the Year of the Wood Monkey" go out, it's because I haven't got a fully-realized intellectual idea to play with.

Only then is my busy head quiet enough to let my heart get a word in edgewise - like today. So thank you to all who read. I could probably do it without you, but it wouldn't be any fun at all.
Posted: Friday - March 12, 2004 at 08:24 AM         | |

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