The first line of the first post of each month for 2011
January – “It was ridiculously nice out, with temps in the mid-40s I had to grab my camera and head to a local state park in search of photo opportunities.” From Day 1/365 – Walk in the Park, which happens to contain links to some naughtier content 
February – “Monday morning I awoke bright and early, earlier than my usual time, so I headed into work early” from Day 32/365 Early Morning
March – “Okay I know that’s stating the obvious to many of us, but this post just reaffirms it for me.” Dan Savage is a genius
April – “Day 86 Her New Thong – Isn’t it nice? Of course, there is a matching bra, maybe you’ll see that someday” Project 365 Days 86-92 Featuring Veronica. For a little while I experimented with just 1 photo post per week, this particular week contained several photos of my lovely wife. Ultimately the once-per-week photo post strategy didn’t work for me and I returned to daily posting of photos.
May – “Absent motivation (and time) to write a real blog post, you get a brain-dump instead…” from one of many Apropos of Nothing posts I’ve written over the year. It’s interesting reading that one in particular and the stuff about the temp job assignment I had and my relationship with Katie at the time.
June – “I bought these last summer in Texas, it’s nice that’s finally warm enough to wear them on a regular basis again” Day 150 Teva. Me relaxing on the hammock, a frequent sight if you follow me on Twitter and look at the photos I post on my Mobypicture account!
July – “Apparently a number of you were wondering just how I managed to take this weeks Wanton Wednesday photo.” The Secret Revealed and an Outtake
August – “A woman I follow on Twitter posted something a few days ago asking about condoms and size.” Swing Shift Volume 46 – Condoms and Size. We’ve only written one more Swing Shift since then, we should resume that series, those were fun to write.
September – “Thursday night we’re taking the kids and going to the Patriots-Giants preseason football game at Gillette Stadium.” Day 244 – Now THAT’s a lens! I rented a $2400 lens for a week, it was kinda big!
October – “Things That Are Difficult to Say When Drunk:” When You’re Drunk, a tongue-in-cheek post and a comic at the end.
November -”1. What sexual act arouses you the most? For that matter, what nonsexual act arouses you the most?” TMI Tuesday – Let’s Talk About Sex. TMI Tuesday was re-born this past year (some people may remember the old version hosted by Vixen and Professor Fate (I think!)) and I started regularly participating again.
December – “I found this on PetaPixel, “The Beauty of a Second” is a competition where people submit videos of what they perceive as “beauty”, but with a catch- each video clip can only be 1 second long.” One Second of Beauty, an inspiring collection of clips that I couldn’t resist sharing.
What will 2012 bring? Come back tomorrow and see! Veronica and I are heading to a swingers party tonight, I’m pretty sure we’ll have something fun to share
Why I Comment
Because there’s an interesting discussion that I feel I have something to add to
Because I want to lend some support or encouragement
Because there’s really no good reason at all, but I felt like it anyway
Or even because she looks really good naked and I want to encourage her photo sharing
Don’t tell me that you’re surprised by that!
But you know why I don’t comment? Because of some “blogger etiquette” that compels me to comment on someone’s blog for the sole reason that they commented on mine.
Yesterday I remarked on twitter “Wow based on blog stats & (lack of) comments, you really don’t care when naughtiness is implied instead of explicit for #WantonWednesday”. It wasn’t meant as a gripe about lack of comments, it was meant as more a reflection of what kind of content is likely to generate comments, though I can see how it might be misinterpreted. That’s okay though.
It turns out that my tweet was a conversation starter, leading someone else to make the “blogger etiquette” comment.
Am I guilty of doing that in the past? Yes, no doubt, but it didn’t take me long to realize how the game was played. There were people who sat back waiting for comments, then whoever commented would get the “courtesy” of a comment in return. There were the equally meaningless “nice photo” comments as well.
I understand, commenting is part of self-advertising. You’ve started a blog and you’d like to develop a readership, so you visit (or have already been visiting) bloggers with similar interests. You hope that people will wonder who you are and visit your blog to find out, and that they’ll like what they see and stick around.
I don’t know about other blogs, but I looked at my stats and in the history of this blog (and it’s wordpress.com predecessor) only about 1% of visitors will leave a comment. “Lurkers” are a fact of blogging life.
Leave a comment if you’d like, or don’t, it’s okay either way.
But if you’re commenting only because you’re expecting me to reciprocate, please don’t.
There are a lot of reason why I may leave a comment, but a sense of obligation isn’t one of them.