Funny, you don't look 500!

This is it. A very important day in the world of Dress your Family in Corduroy and Denim. A milestone in www.jt1970.blogspot.com. Yes, my dear readers, we have reached it:

500 posts.

500 posts on a blog started 6 years ago. 500 posts on a blog started on a late night whim, when I am sure I thought I'd lose interest right away and pull the whole thing.

Through frantic, daily posts, to detached, once a month posts, it's still here, for better or for worse. While many I have followed have disappeared for one reason or another, for some reason, I can't quit this. 500 posts.

So, when I realized last week that the big 5-oh-oh was creeping up, I tried to think of an over the top way to celebrate. After much thought, this is what I am doing for you, dear reader:

YOU ARE GETTING A CAR! AND YOU ARE GETTING A CAR! AND YOU ARE GETTING A CAR! AND YOU TOO, WAY IN THE BACK! JUST GO DOWN TO YOUR LOCAL KIA DEALERSHIP, AND PICK OUT WHATEVER MODEL YOU LIKE (EXCEPT THE SORENTO - THEY ARE EXCLUDED FROM THE DEAL). JUST TELL THEM JT FROM JT1970.BLOGSPOT.COM SENT YOU, (AND fill out the credit application with the nice dude in a suit - if your credit isn't perfect, or if you are over-extendeded, feel free to go over to Ford, who will approve anyone - and just finance your car over 84 months. Your payments will be so low, it will really FEEL like I did indeed give you the car for free).

Anyway, glad I could help.

So, I am thinking about the past 6 years. A few posts ago, Rox reposted her own first few blog posts, from the same year. This prompted me to go back and look at my first few posts again. And while I thought they'd be cringe-worthy, they actually weren't. However, what really got me was how.. shocked.. I was when I read them. I didn't exactly understand just HOW crazy time flies in 6 years. 6 years ago, at the beginning of this blog, I was a father of two girls, with a wife who was all of 5 weeks pregnant. I had a dog and a cat. I worked for one institution. My kids were 4 and two, I think.

While much hasn't changed in some sense, much has. I have doubled the number of kids I have, to 3 girls and a boy. The dog and cat who I am sure I blogged about way too much? The dog died later that year, after being run over, in August 2005, as Hurricane Katrina hit, and George Bush showed he really didn't care about Black people, as Kanye said. I cried for days, as death was still new to me. The cat? Got run over at the age of 13 this summer. I cried for a few hours and moved on.

So, since then, my immediate family has doubled. I now have a son, who is more fun that I could have ever imagined. And I have 3 growing girls, who are still Daddy's girls.

But I've lost my parents. Whatever the fuck I talked about for the first 3 years must have been trivial. Losing my mom, sorta suddenly 3 summers ago has changed my world forever. And since this coincided with my dad going into a home (with Alzheimer's), I was basically orphaned at once. And it shows. The first three years were most likely trivial talk. The last three? Probably not that much fun. But life is a work in progress. While I tend to blog when I am feeling particularly orphaned, it sounds like that is all I think about. And that's not true. But the thing is, this place is just a good venting sounding board. So I guess I need this place. I sort of obsess with how others deal with parental death. I am now ok much of the time, but you see here the moments when I become unglued. I am more than what I write. But what I write is indeed a reflection of one of the multi-faceted faces I wear each day.

So, I've gained 2 kids, lost in different ways 2 parents. Right now i have 2 sisters going nutty. I have gained 2 dogs and a cat. I changed jobs. I've lost and gained the same 40 lbs over and over. Right now, I am hopeful it will stay off. I've started to appreciate exercise.

I've lost some friends. I've realized that people come and go. I'm probably more even-keeled than I was 6 years ago, and more unglued in other ways than I was back then.

I've lost my closest Aunt. I've held on to her memory, and in writing her eulogy (which I didn't get ANY credit for) I realized just how important she was to me.

I've continued to love Joni and Stevie. I've had the opportunity to see James Taylor, my fave male singer, and had him reply to my shout out song request. I've fallen in love with Chelsea Handler's writing, God help us all.

I've had a vasectomy, which I never thought I'd do. And it's completely made my sex life infinitely better.

I've grown a beard.

I still look 22.

I bleached my teeth. And stopped when they got sensitive.

I kinda learned to bite my tongue, although not always.

I've driven from Northern Canada to California the past two summers, once planned, the other not planned. With 4 kids. I am now infected with a wanderlust and a love of America that is totally nuts. As I tell everyone, I'd move to Utah in a snap if it wasn't for the Mormons.

I've also become obsessed with Mormons. But that's a whole other story.

Oh, I could go on and on, but I won't bore you. But what I am trying to say is that for the past 6 years, I've cherished this space. I admit, that when I started, I think that I was obsessed with trying to get Rosie O'Donnell to comment on my blog - we all tried to do that. I was commenting on Rosie's blog all the time and stirring up shit, and she never commented on mine, but she DID, twice, answer my questions. Once, she was bitching about money and I said something like "gee, not having to have both parents work, and having a frigging VAN would be nice with money" and she answered "well, yeah... yada yada" and again, later, she answered my question about favorite Joni songs. Anyway, it was Rosie's blog that inspired me, and indeed, if you look at my first few posts, you will see I told my oldest friend Margo about the new pregnancy in our family on Ro's blog. So than you Rosie, for all of this. I have to say, I didnt really watch The View. I didn't get all that bullshit "Yellow" talk of yours. But it's because of you that I started writing here, so here's to you, Mrs. Robinson (I did tell you once that you looked hot in Exit to Eden - I am sure that's why you didn't ever comment to me - it was the straw that broke the camel's back). But anyway, if nothing else, I "met" one of my closest friends from your blog, who read my comments and checked my blog out, and 6 years later, I feel closer to her than I do to many "real life" people. Technology is a fascinating thing, hey?

So for those who still read here, thank you. My commenters are few, but I know from my site meter that there are these odd pockets of people reading. So thank you all.

I am a work in progress. I know nothing. But I will pretend I do. I can't believe an attention whore like me has kept all of this private. Somehow I have. After the first few weeks, I thought "well, that was funny, I should tell Steve and Tina." But I never did. And I am glad there is a little bit of privacy out there with some of you so I can just.... be.

Anyway, thanks for being there. I don't have Oprah money to buy you a car or take you to Australia, or to show you how Gail and I tool around the world together. But I hope you like what you get. And if you don't? Let me refrain a favourite Eddie Murphy quip: Goonie Goo-goo, bitch!

xo

JT