Friday Mental Massage: 1,000

When I posted Hope, still yesterday, I did so in a hurry. As mentioned several times here, I’m one week into a grueling work project that has required two 24-hour shifts and several other 14-16 hour sits at the computer. It’s a silly amount of work and, to the subset of people who care about such things, pretty important.

So, the five minutes I took to put up my annual September 11th post mean I didn’t look at the old Rapid Eye Reality dashboard here again after that until late last night. That’s when I noticed that yesterday’s post was Rapid Eye Reality’s 1,000th post.

I am not prolific. I blog when I want to or when I have to. This blog started off as a little experiment in self discovery just before 9/11. It’s gone through many a change over the years. And I’ll be honest, I love this little piece of web real estate. So, this is the 1,001st post on Rapid Eye Reality. No matter whether Google ever finds love for me again, I’m going to keep writing here.

I’ve read back over several years of archives and picked out the genesis of several running themes. The writing isn’t that fantastic, but it will give you some idea why I am the blogger I am today. Or something like that.

Rapid Eye Reality first post–The entire concept behind this blog at its outset was to record my night’s dream and compare it to the reality of the next day. While I still think that’s a halfway neat concept, it’s a bit restrictive. I mean, the dream I had last night was that my wife was encouraging me to get reacquainted with my steamiest high school fling. The reality, I can only assume, would be far different.

–The first reference to 1931 Juniper Circle–My friends still poke fun at me that this blog was nothing more than an excuse to wax nostalgic about my college years. That link was one of the first of many time I used the House That Love Built as a jumping off point for a post.

Alis Ben Johns and why I’m nuts–Over the years here, you’ve seen me dip into crime coverage from time to time. This post was one of the first to explain why.

Acute adrenaline addiction–The first time I mentioned my most serious vice–being caught up right in the middle of a police foot chase where people started shooting. Looking back, the post doesn’t make much sense on its own. Regardless, it was the first step in my 12 Step program. Accepting you have adrenaline addiction is the hardest part.

The first parental paranoia–Though this post came a full year before my wife got pregnant, it was the first indicator that I was going to be a pretty damned paranoid daddy.

The birth of a suburban warrior–Over the years, I’ve told many stories about my inability to conquer the suburban jungle. This was one of the first times I revealed my lack of competence.

The first post about my dad–Among the top three life-changing things that’s happened since I started this blog was when my dad nearly died (the other two were the birth of my son and finding a new line of work). This was the first post I wrote after it happened.

How Wil Wheaton changed my life–This has become sort of a joke, as since then Wil has become a friend and kicks me in the junk when I give him full credit for turning me into a professional blogger (such as it is). Still, this is the post I wrote to explain how my current professional life got started.

>My favorite Rapid Eye Reality post–Though written for a sad reason, I think this post means more to me than any other on this blog. I wrote it in a coffee shop while I waited to pick up my dog from the vet.