Thanks for Reading!

As 2011 gives way to 2012, I want to raise a glass of Veuve Clicquot (I’m saving the Dom for my birthday in a week) to toast you, my faithful/occasional/hostile readers. WordPress tells me that this here site got 130,000 views this year and SiteMeter tells me that the blog averaged about 7500 visits per month. These statistics might mean something to you, but I’m afraid I’m still so ignorant about the blogosphere that I have no idea what they signify–except that some of you are out there reading, and that’s all I need to know.

Your comments on the blog and your e-mails to me off it tell me that what I’m writing is doing some of you some good, even as it is annoying others, a few to extremes. Sorry about the annoying: I’d much rather you just be convinced of the shining rightness of my views and cheerfully join the side of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Failing that, however, I am sincerely grateful that you sound your disagreement with me forthrightly, even wittily, and I trust you feel you are being heard when you do. I have even been known to change my mind, or at least my tone, once in a while–although let’s not make a big thing about that or I’ll lose my blogger’s license.

This month marks the fifth anniversary for this weblog. Yes, you ought to celebrate by opening your own bottle (or can, or keg, or jug) and reading meditatively through the previous 300+ posts as a sure way to becoming wiser, better informed, and more spiritual–or, at least, soundly convinced that you’ll never, ever read this dreck again. (You won’t need to read all 300+ for that latter outcome, however.)

My sage wife thinks I spend too much time blogging, and I have indeed cut back some this past year. But it is a lot of fun interacting with you, I hope to interact with more (come on, lurkers, how about at least hitting the “Like” button or saying, “Yes, Professor Stackhouse, you have put the matter so pithily I have begun cross-stitching it on my pillowcase”–is that too much to ask?), I enjoy finding out what I think about things by writing on them, and it gives me the opportunity to sit down in a chair, an experience otherwise quite rare in my profession.

So onward, comrades, fellow travelers, sympathizers, and deadly nemeses! Here’s to continuing the conversation into 2012–unless Jesus returns tonight, in which case we’ll continue the conversation, yes, but in far more salubrious circumstances…