There's no accounting for taste...

First, the good news… last month, mkromd crossed the five thousand reader mark. It’s taken me two years and fifty-four posts, but I’ve done it. No, I mean that literally - over half of those hits were probably me visiting my own site. Sure, I selected Blogger’s, “Don’t track your own page views,” but I once put black electrical tape over the 12:00 that kept flashing on my VCR because it was the only way I could make the fucking thing stop blinking at me. So who knows?

Now for the bad news… which, interestingly enough, is connected to the good news AND last month’s post. One of those five thousand readers is one of my three closest friends in the world… and she had absolutely no idea that I was blogging… or that my karma ran over my dogma existed… even though I have written about her… ad nauseam. Yes. Really. Seriously though, in my defense, what the HELL are the odds of that happening?

Turns out they’re about 1 in 5248… give or take a few.

At any rate, before I can tell you why, I have to tell you this part of the story first... I’ve not always had the best of luck writing. In fact, in a previous life, I had another blog. It was also anonymous, but it wasn’t always kind, and people got hurt. Very hurt. As a result, I immediately killed the site, made three deeply sincere apologies in an attempt to make amends, and did some serious soul searching. Unfortunately, the damage was done, and it was irrevocable.

Afterwards, people encouraged me to blog, but I couldn’t. I honestly had nothing to say. Days turned into weeks which turned into months, and - no matter how much I wanted to write, nothing would come out but tears. Don’t get me wrong, I deserved it. I knew better. My father used to say, “A joke isn’t funny unless everyone in the room laughs.” Well, at some point, I forgot that, and getting even was more important than getting better… which was the whole reason that I started writing to begin with. It was therapy for me.

Then, one day, I had to get new tires, and it was a complete disaster, but it was funny. And, what started out as an e-mail to friends, rapidly devolved into the first post that I ever published on this blog. Too bad I failed to mention some of the people who got me from there to here:

DB, who encouraged me to write but reminded me to, “First do no harm."

My mother, who (even though I'm forty) said, “I don’t care if we debate, so long as you do what you’re told.”

My oldest friend, who told me, “No one can take your voice unless you give it to them willingly.”

A reader who once candidly posted, “My mom is dying of cancer. And, in a world of unfunny things, you made you made us laugh until we cried… the good kind of tears. Thank you.”

And Zoey, who wrote a million e-mails, sent a billion texts, did a zillion lunches, and drove a trillion miles – all the while saying, “Write!” To which I would simply reply, “Wrong.”

So what the hell does all of that have to do with the post, “Forty, it's not the new thirty they promised you. Thank God!” Well, everything. In the spirit of full disclosure, what I didn't tell you is that, after my divorce, I was so angry… and so lost… and so bitter… that I refused to do anything which required me to leave my couch let alone take the highroad. In fact, I’d probably still be hiding at home today, except that Zo staged an intervention. No really, it’s true. She e-mailed our other friends and bullied me into the very dinner that I wrote about last month. And, when I finally got to the restaurant, I had a panic attack that was so awful that she had to come to my car to get me, which wasn’t easy considering that I was lost and refusing to answer my phone. I’m not proud, but there you have it - the truth.

This is a woman stuck by me and not only propped me up but cheered me on... through everything, and a thousand times I wanted to say, “I’m blogging!” Instead, I always simply replied, “Wrong” when she said, “Write.” Well, Zo - though this post wasn't funny at all, it is sincere, and I am sorry. I’m glad you found it. I’m glad you read it. I hope you know how dearly I love you and – more than that - how deeply I appreciate you. With that, I'm heading to out West to ski. As always, the flights are ghetto but the fare was simply too good to pass up. I mean really... how bad could it be?