I Blog, Therefore I Am...Two!

I think I've figured out why I've been so snarky lately. It's the Terrible Twos! In a shocking display of commitment and sticktoitiveness, the Dept. of Nance celebrates its two-year anniversary this week. Two years ago, almost to the day, I claimed my tiny piece of the Internets and posted this. And I sat back and waited. In my laughable naivete, I was unaware of how it all worked and honestly thought that readers would just find and read my blog and post comments galore and I would be happily read and enjoyed by people all over.

Um, duh.

And I also thought that I would have a neverending wellspring of things to write about with wit and wisdom and that I would post every single day. Wasn't I always thinking and opining about something? And wouldn't I be more than thrilled to have a forum in which to air my personal and political views about, oh--everything?

Sigh.

Luckily, I am a student at heart and if the written word exists on the subject, I will read every single syllable of it as many times as is necessary to make it part of my personal knowledge base. Little by little, I researched and read and visited other blogs and became part of the blogging community that began to build around me.

Some bloggers are "niche bloggers." They're food bloggers or mommy bloggers or political bloggers. Honestly, I'm not real sure what I am. One blogger who links to me categorizes me as a "culture critic." I kind of like that. It gives me lots of wiggle room. Sort of a wide berth to move around in. One of my colleagues offered "social satirist." I'm not sure if what I write is always strictly satire. I do like to exploit the irony in everyday situations. I am a little Seinfeldian in that; I am sort of an observational humorist in a lot of what I choose to write about. I'm not sure if I even have to be categorized, do I?

I know a few bloggers who are a little upset that they've kind of plateaued. They've not increased their page hits or their comment counts, no matter what they've done in the past year or so. One or two have taken a hiatus to rethink their blogs, and to perhaps decide whether or not to even continue blogging. I guess I can understand that. It all depends upon why you got into it, I suppose. Sure, I'd love to increase my hits and my comment count. I'd love to suddenly explode with new readers and have lively discussions among my commenters. I'd love it if, suddenly, The NBC Nightly News contacted me about my Tie Reports, or CNN picked up one of my posts about, say...bad fashion or cows in the press, or I had hits on the caliber of Neil at Citizen of the Month, or the mother of all blogging, you-know-who (rhymes with juice), but honestly, I'm doing pretty okay. Could a few of my lurkers come out and just post a comment and say, "hey, I usually lurk, but wanted to let you know I read you"? yeah. Would I be ecstatic with an average of 25 comments? yeah. But I'm pretty happy.

Finally, I think I'm going to have to quit being such a procrastinator and overall fraidy cat and make the Final Last Leap to "New Blogger." I've been resisting the change because I will totally lose all my sidebar changes and have to redo every little single thing. It will take a ton of picky work and likely be an entire afternoon. I have to copy/paste/save every little thing before the move, and I'm frankly scared to death. I hate change. But there are some cool things available on New Blogger that I'd like to do, and also, once the change is made, future revisions will be much easier. Wish me luck.

Oh, and the cake is for everyone. Enjoy. Happy Anniversary to me!

Last Year at The Dept. of Nance: The Alaskan Adventure Part VI