The Year Of Living Bloggerly.

NOTE: This is longer than I had planned and far more boring. But it is sincere, and something I had to get off my chest. Scroll, read, ignore, whatever. It's the freakin' blogosphere, baby!

Today, I mark my first year as a blogger. I had been tooling around the political Internet from 2000 as the Presidential race was heating up. I can't remember what lead me to begin reading the blogs, but I think that it came out of finding all sorts of web sites for political magazines from The New Republic to National Review that got me going. I can't be certain, but I think that when I found The Corner I was on my way to being hooked. I had read NR off and on for years, wanting to know how the conservative mind worked (I had no real need to understand the liberal mind because I lived inside one every day) but when I started to see what was being written about, off-the-cuff at the site, I realized that not all conservatives had boards up their butts.

I still didn't trust that conservatives could actually think (and some recent activity is making we wonder all over again) but I was open to seeing what arguments were being proffered for this privileged governor who was suddenly everybody's golden boy. Confession time: I was insanely hoping for a Bradley-McCain race and when Gore and Bush got their nods, I was wondering how I could vote for either one. I had never considered voting Republican in my life but Gore didn't do it for me. Eventually I held my nose and voted like I always had.

The election fiasco started me wondering about my party and my country. The Market had gone through some turmoil the prior summer, the Cole had been attacked in October and I was looking for some way to get myself deeper into a thinking politics. The Internet allowed me to do that.

All through 2001 I was finding and reading new sites, following links, printing out articles to read on the bus ride home from work. Mostly I kept to politics and market sites with the occasional stop at the new real-time scoring for the Grand Slam tennis tournaments.

Eventually I made my way to blog Shangri-la, commonly referred to as Instapundit. I had no idea what I was looking at (he was still on blogspot, I think) but soon Glenn lead me to Stephen Green (my blogfather) and Andrew Sullivan and James Lileks.

Then came September 11 and blogs became for me both a conduit of thought and information and a sort of tacit community that I locked on to. I found Charles Johnson and Roger L. Simon, two liberals who were expressing exactly what I was feeling about what had happened to us. Still, I was a reader, not a writer. I wouldn't even comment because I was following most of the blogs from my work computer and I was paranoid.

It wasn't until I left Morgan Stanley that I thought that maybe I should start a blog. But I didn't. I continued to read more and more blogs (this is starting to sound a little like I should be talking some Bill W. talk) and with the 2004 election, I was now commenting, mostly on Vodkapundit and Donkey Rising.

Election night 2004 turned me into a blogger. I read Stephen Green and the Corner all day and into the night, commenting, even getting an email to Jonah Goldberg up at The Corner.

On November 14 I signed up for a free trial to TypePad, set up a rudimentary site and posted my first pathetic entry.

It has been one of the most difficult years, personally, for me. My new job turned sour and I had become more or less paralyzed by illness (which nobody can explain to me yet). I have struggled to make my way at a time in my life that I thought would be more settled. The world has become even more topsy-turvy than I thought possible. Through it all, however, this blog has provided me with a forum and opening to others I didn't think possible.

I had intended to do this for a year and see where it got me. I had always wanted to be a writer and I thought that certainly someone would recognize how brilliant I was and offer me a job. Simple wishes, giant dreams. It hasn't gone that way, but still, I can't give this up.

Through blogging I have not only found a way to express myself, but I have been exposed to the influences of others and this has kept me from retreating into a cocoon of self-pity, doubt, aggrandizement and egoism. The cross-fertilization that happens in the blogosphere is a good thing for Democracy and I am grateful for the opportunity to have my little plot of cyber-real estate.

Thanks are in order for this year. If I miss anybody, please forgive me, or make a comment and tell me what a jerk I am.

Thanks, Maggie for being among the first to comment and for sticking around (what the hell happened to Hal?).

Thanks, Glenn for handing me an early Instalanche and for continuing to point traffic my way.

Thanks, Dean Esmay for being the first blogger to put me on his blogroll. Dean has been a hero of mine since I first found him.

Thanks to The Truth Laid Bear for helping me through the early blogging fiascoes and for riding his coat tails in the Spirit of America blogger challenge.

Thanks to Rob Mayer at Publius and Stephen at The Politburo Diktat for perfect work and for allowing me to jump on from time to time to your superior blogs.

Thanks, Peter and Discoshaman for chaperoning me through the Orange Revolution and its aftermath.

Thanks to Joe Gandelman for bringing me back to my center and for linking.

Thanks to Vavoom, who made his presence known and no matter what, won't give up on me.

Thanks Jack and Dave for inspiring me to think before I react and for writing so beautifully.

Thanks to Pennywit and Mike O'Connor for sticking this blog on their aggregators.

Thanks also to the Happy Capitalist, The Watcher of Weasels, The Laughing Wolf, Instapunk, Sortapundit, Norm Geras, Laurence Simon and all those other bloggers that have thrown traffic my way.

Thanks to Jack Kelly for putting this blog in print for the first time and to my friend Richard Chesnoff for giving me my first interview and for still talking to me.

Thanks, mom and olderbro for reading and still talking to me.

And thanks to my friends who read this from the start and continue to do so. Especially to Joe, you know who you are, who has stood by me and kept me standing when I wanted to keel over. You're the best.

And finally, to my readers, thank you and please, please stay. I am way too needy to deal with any abandonment.

I've decided to continue blogging for the time being and promise that I will always try to make this blog and my writing better and stronger. Thanks, everyone, for being around and helping make this a labor of love. 

Comments

[Vavoom]

Happy Anniversary, Daniel! This is a fantastic blog. It's no wonder you've attracted a wonderful community of readers and contributors.

[mom]

You know I ALWAYS talk-but you are welcome anyway.

[Maggie]

What ever happened to Hal?

HE GOT OUT WHILE THE GETTIN WAS GOOD!

The rest of us got "stuck" here, no, not "Stuck on Stupid" but stuck with your unusual perspective on things, your deep passion, (especially for Sherry, Music and the Arts), your questioning of the pablum spit out so easily on the Internet, and for your very unique caring which cuts through all the boundaries on humanity that are so often used to describe "diversity".

Plus I think YOU hold the record on researching your posts and providing more links that only other blogger I've yet to read!

Congrats, good buddy.

[Robert Mayer]

Love you Daniel (in a, er, manly way)! And congratulations! If you're ever in Boston, you know, I'll take you out clubbing ;)

[sigmazrn]

Congratulations from all of us at Instapunk on your first year of blogging. May the next year bring you relief from your personal woes and more fun in the blogosphere.

[Daniel]

Thanks, guys.

Getting support from you is a big shot in the arm!