1524.
At first, I thought my friend Billie was celebrating the year of Mexico City's re-founding. Or the year Verrazzano failed to claim Manhattan for Francis I and raise the culinary standards of the Big Apple.
But I was wrong.
She was observing her six years of blogging with her 1524th post. Says she: "I can't believe that I could have found 1524 things to blog about."
I have long had a soft spot in my heart for Billie. When I took the risk of publishing a series of posts on drug policy, she included a link to my blog in one of her posts. And my readership grew.
I knew I had been blogging for just over three years. But I had no idea how many posts that meant. It turns out to be 1075.
That was after I indulged in a bit of, what the government would call, "seasonal adjusting."
I looked through my post list and found several dusty drafts that never saw the light of day. Stillborn. And as sad as any miscarriage.
At one point they held such high hope. The very essence of wit or clever observation. But in gestation something went horribly wrong.
A pithy quotation from my favorite living novelist. A tale of cultural clashes. An ironic photograph.
Each ended up on the cutting room floor. Or, more aptly, was assigned to the electronic equivalent of Limbo.
Here's an example.
Take a look at the photograph at the top of this post, It appears to be pregnant with juxtapositions.
When I first saw the church apparently perched atop the Pemex station, I thought of all sorts of clever options. What drivers really worship. Or something about the true foundations of the Mexican church.
But neither of those quite worked.
After all, it is the Mexican state, not the Mexican church, that derives its wealth from oil. And the pope and the Mexican state are not even allowed to stay in the same hotel, let alone the same bed. Or, so says the 1917 constitution.
You see the problem.
So, the photograph sat in my draft box along with the Scott Turow quotation, the tourist confused about why Mexicans call cheese "queso," and several other post wannabes.
Who knows why they didn't work out? I suspect most were doomed from conception.
But that question is no easier to answer than other mysteries of life.
Why does the smell of oranges remind us of Christmas?
Why does the laughter of women make our souls cozily warm?
Why do the French think Jerry Lewis is a comic genius?
All I know is, this blogging business is great fun. And I am pleased to have met bloggers like Billie on this very interesting road.
