I’ve had such a good time the past two days, it’s little wonder that I forgot to say. . . .

Happy Birthday to my Blog!

A year ago I began this blog. It started out as a silly sharing of funny teacher stories. It changed abruptly into a cry in the wilderness about injustice and the horrors that await us when people make unfair and untrue assumptions. And then, somehow, it turned into. . . me.

So, Happy Birthday, Blog. You’ve become a vital extension of my life, and I don’t know what I’d do without you.

Because of you, I’ve met and learned to love a lot of wonderful people, and I sincerely hope they all know how very glad I am to know them. When I look at my blogroll, I feel as though maybe, just maybe, the sun has begun to shine on me again, after a long, long feeling of being in the dark.

A ‘saying’ I’ve often heard is: “The only place you’ll find sympathy around here, is in the dictionary between ‘shit’ and ‘syphyllis.’ ” (Aristotle Onassis)

But I’ve discovered, this past year, that there are many places where a person can find sympathy. And friendship. And lively discussion, and debate, and sharing and advice, and awesome loving loyal people who allow us to peek through their windows and share little pieces of their lives.

And even more importantly, there are many places where a person can GIVE and SHARE these things.

Just because we don’t SEE each other, doesn’t mean we don’t KNOW each other. Because we do.

And it’s even better when we are privileged to actually meet someone we already felt we knew and liked immensely, just from reading a blog.

Several of us went to see this last night, and then we went here for some awesome Chinese food (and stayed till they practically had to sweep us out the door so they could lock it and go home), and then we went to my sister’s house and ate cookies and drank coffee and diet coke and freshly squeezed lemon juice and played movie trivia and decided once and for all which celebrities were hot and which were not. And why. Important decisions and discoveries were made, and a lot of talking, laughing, and opinionated statements flew around the room. One more night and we would have cured AIDS and done away with world hunger.

Well, THEIR statements were opinionated; mine were factual. Ahem.

The internet can be a beautiful place full of wonderful people. I’m glad I finally found you all. You have enriched me. I was barely alive. You rebuilt me. You made me better. Bigger. Stronger. Faster.

I am the King of Spain.

(references, anyone?)