Sunday, October 14, 2012

Acknowledgements

When I began this blog over five years ago, Mr. Mountain Dew and I debated how many total page loads it would take for me to become famous. He guessed in the five-digits; I guessed in the sevens. I’ll split the difference with Mr. Mountain Dew from a digits perspective (as opposed to the value of those digits) and consider myself famous now that Both Nuts has reached 100,000 hits.

StatCounter dashboard for tracking blogger hits

I have so many people to thank.

I’d like to thank my literary agent, K, for sticking with me for six-and-a-half years. I used to be a nag, complaining about all her edits and thinking my submitted draft was worthy of the National Book Award for Nonfiction. My business etiquette has thankfully improved and I now only contact her for pleasant reasons. I began Both Nuts based on K’s suggestion, and I enjoy improving its appearance and writing new stories even more than the groupies and other accompaniments. An average blog becomes stagnant after three months, but I’ll update mine for life.

I’d like to thank PingPongGirl and Hamburgers for editing most of my blog stories in the early years, not to mention my book’s first and second drafts, respectively. I compensated them with gift cards, belated complimentary copies of Twice, and a lifelong resume booster. In other words, if the value of their editing accrued interest then I’d owe them my firstborn. I might as well sign over ownership of my frozen sperm now. They could even take over cryobank payments from my parents (an awkward future blog story about that is inevitable).

I'd like to thank Mike Reda for designing my blog a couple years ago. Before then I had developed my blog header with a free trial of Adobe Fireworks. I'm hoping remnants of that have been wiped clean of the World Wide Web forever.

Though I create a blocking cookie so I don’t pad my own blog stats, I’d like to thank my dad for being responsible for 20-50% of the total hits. He subscribes via email but still checks the website each morning in case anyone commented. I receive a few comments a year.

I’d like to thank my readers from around the world who find Both Nuts through endlessly amusing search engine queries. My all-time favorite is “I love the cock inside me, my true story.” Of my blog’s recent keyword activity, I like the person from Athens, Georgia, who Googled “kelly kapowski cock,” and the Iranian who Googled “male feet lick.”

My first blog story encouraged my parents to never discuss the content of my book or blog, and they more or less have withheld from initiating awkward discussion. I’d like to thank them for their past and continued inhibition.

I’d like to thank my blog’s biggest fan (besides my family): a lovely young woman located in the Middle East, who checks in almost every day. She told me that she appreciates how approachable I am, and that one of her family members passed away from cancer.

I’d like to thank anyone who has ever written about or linked to Both Nuts, notably Sarah Kogod of The Washington Post and Iva Scoch who randomly found and linked to my blog for her Newsweek article. They’re the reason this blog briefly reached a PageRank of 4, possibly why my book was published, and unlikely why both my testicles are still intact.

I’d like to thank all my groupies for maintaining my normalcy and never bothering me in public. My life is so uninterrupted that it’s like I’m not even famous.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have been awol because I finally submitted my PhD, moved to a new place, and have been traveling so I only just saw this post. Soooo touched to have received a mention here... I am assuming it is me because, well, I *am* lovely ;D Seriously, though, as always, thanks for your awesome blog! (Raine)

Benjamin Rubenstein said...

I'm glad you could recognize yourself (yes, I was referring to you)! Congratulations on all your life-building experiences and I can only hope your travels took you to my hometown, Manassas VA, a galaxy landmark.