A year of narcissism

enrevanche has been around for exactly one year.

Our first post, on September 4, 2004, was nothing more than a stake in the ground: okay, so I've got a blog; what the hell do I do with it now?

483 posts later (that's an average of 1.3 posts per day, for those of you keeping score at home) I still don't know the answer to that question. But I'm going to keep on embarrassing myself in public until I figure it out.

In one year of blogging, enrevanche has built a small but devoted (and clearly deeply disturbed) reading audience.

We've clawed our way from Insignificant Microbe status to Adorable Little Rodent in the TTLB Ecosystem (currently on the cusp of Marsupialism), and Technorati tells me that 82 sites are currently linking to us.

(I know that these numbers wouldn't even be statistical noise on a bad day for Glenn Reynolds, but for a Carolina boy sitting in his little Greenwich Village apartment bloviating about current affairs and posting pictures of his kittycat, they kinda floor me. I thank you, one and all, for sharing this little venture with me, and I hope that you continue to keep your expectations low so that I may continue to live up to them.)

The graph below (don't you love graphs?) shows our steadily increasing readership. (The spike in April of 2005 happened because one of my posts got linked by MSNBC; see below.)

A little bumpy, but the trendline is clearly upwards.

At any rate. We're here, we're queer (though not in the usual sense of that term these days), get used to it.

I thought that I'd point out a few posts from the last year that seemed significant to me. Typically, these have been the most linked-to or most commented-on posts, though comments weren't always made publically; I've published my name and e-mail address from the beginning, and this has led to some interesting private conversations (including some e-chats with other Barry Campbells.)

Let's do this again a year from now.

The list:

• Weapon of Mouse Destruction (October 29, 2004)
  The post that introduced the world to Mister Gato.
  


• The Barbecue Fad in New York City (December 2, 2004)
  Resonated deeply with fellow Southern expats.
  


• Aaaaaaaaaaaagh! (January 22, 2005)
  A cri de coeur after James Dobson declared a fatwa against Spongebob Squarepants.
  


• Get Sick, Go Bankrupt: An American Tale (February 5, 2005)
  Drew a ton of comments at Blogcritics.
  
  
• Get A Living Will. Now. (March 23, 2005)
  My sole comment on the Terri Schiavo case; hundreds of people have found this post through Google and AskJeeves, and it's the closest I ever expect to come to "service journalism."
  


• Carnival of the Cats #55 (April 10, 2005)
  The single most popular post in the history of the blog. Linked by MSNBC, this spiked our traffic for two weeks, and seemed to bring at least a few new readers who stayed.
  


• Sunday in the Park with Chows (April 17, 2005)
  I introduce my readers to Dorian, later featured in the podcast.


• The MRE Gourmet (May 21, 2005)
  In which I chow down on some fine shelf-stable cuisine, thanks to friend Chap. With pictures and audio.
  
  
• Father's Day at the Nursing Home (June 19, 2005)
  Unfortunately, makes a pair with "DNR" below.
  


• Big Brother Is Watching Your Blood Sugar (July 27, 2005)
  In which I tell a whole host of New York City officials where to get off.
  


• DNR (August 7, 2005)
  I love you, Dad.
  
  
• Celebrating Life. Also Indian Food. (August 23, 2005)
  One of the nicest things you can say to your wife is, "Gosh, honey, I'm so glad you didn't die."