Blogging is slogging

This blog, my first and only, came into existence on Christmas Eve, 2006. That first post was an unannotated replay of someone else's work, but I had been so taken with that piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education about Intelligent Design and why scientists should not be so mystified by its persistence that I wanted to make a record of it for my own reference, if nothing else. Subsequent posts, the majority about my original thoughts and experiences, followed so quickly  that I managed four before 2006 ended. I've averaged about 45 posts a year since then. Some are brief observations or links to interesting material elsewhere on the web, but I also treat some subjects in such detail that they have to be serialized. In addition it's very important to me to illustrate my posts with photos, mine or borrowed as need be. It's a form of public diary, and I do greatly appreciate it when I know others have read and enjoyed a post. Or, when others read and feel strongly that a post barks up the wrong tree. I've had only one troll, named Fiddledeedee, who objected so strongly to my post recommending that foot-binding in historic China not be celebrated, that he or she left comment after comment (several of which have been deleted, because they were obnoxiously repetitive) shaming me because of my unwillingness to allow cultural relativism to outweigh my objection to the celebration of that highly harmful, crippling tradition in the name of feminine beauty. In fact I enjoyed remaining calm as Fiddledeedee sweated harder and harder to make the case not only that my message was wrong but that I was a terrible person, especially for deleting some of their vitriol. I was not unsettled by his/her conclusions about my character, nor did I give up my stance on the issue.

Speaking of visitors to Amusing Musings, readers will doubtless note a little badge just above my photo on the left called SiteMeter. This fun little device tells me a little bit about who's come calling. Well more than 98% of visitors are Google and other search engines updating the searchable content on my blog. That's fine, because sometimes I get visitors who search on a particular subject I've written about, and I am rewarded they find what they seek. Once in a very great while someone will leave an interesting comment, and even more rarely engage in direct correspondence with me. That's really rewarding when it occurs, because they bring information to me that I lacked, or sometimes I can provide something meaningful to them.

But very oddly, the specific search term that most often leads people to my blog is "dollar bill." They come to my post of October 31, 2012, about the mystery of an old one dollar bill I found in my mother's things with "October 31, 1945" hand-written on it in ink in two places. And sometimes there are hits on searches for "October 31, 1945." When I found the bill, I too searched on that date but turned up nothing distinctive or that would have obvious significance for my mother, or her mother, whose writing I think it is. While I can imagine why people might be interested in finding an image of a dollar bill on the Web, why they too search that date is another mystery that I may never solve.

I also look for blogs of others that are interesting, intellectually entertaining, instructive, funny, wry, or just charmingly written even if the topics aren't earth-shaking (after all, how many of my musings are of global importance?). There are indeed some appealing blogs for the finding out there, and I'm always heartened to come across one, often only to realize that the most recent post is a year, or two, or three old. Blogging is slogging, and even chatty people with lively intellects and interests that intersect with my own are liable to abandon ship after a while.

But here I am, more than seven years later, still at it, perhaps a little less devotedly, but with ideas and stories and plans and photos and adventures still to share.