bubbly for three years of bubbly blogging

three years of blogging, originally uploaded by gorgeoux.

It all started quietly on this day three years ago. It doesn't seem to stop. The holiday that got me in the blogging mood happened not far away from where I'm sitting now, in Calella and Barcelona, and it all comes back to the beach today. Funny enough, the photo of the gorgeous Russian that was half of my first post has recently become my most viewed image on Flickr.

On the first year I celebrated much on my own, and then incidentally with... family, though I had launched an open invitation to cause some serious racket. It turned up my readers weren't as ballsy as I; I see now why that makes perfect sense. Last year, the call was better received, if only because I was briefly back in Romania and asking for beers (I ended up buying) on the popular terrace of La Motoare. Some came to bid farewell, while others came in spite of driving all the way from a concert in Austria.

At the end, I took my love and my sister for apple Martinis at Benihana because it's one of the few places in Bucharest that gets a cocktail right. Previously, gobbing mici and French fries, I had joked about how this year it was all gonna be done at the Notting Hill Carnival, should anyone want to join me. Meanwhile plans changed a few times and here I am, overlooking Barcelona from a terrace, smelling the sea, hearing the cruisers in the harbour, guessing what fish someone fries nearby and generally having a swell time.

The celebration was as humble as a bottle of cava on the beach, though I press on at the moment with a royal sloe gin tonic—cava enabled, biensure. I found the day rather appropriate. Three years is anything but a matusalemic age, though the blog is now old enough to be allowed a new class of toys, that come apart in small bits and that the kid finally understands not to swallow.

There was no need for a big riot. There was a need, however, to choose as a partner in crime; perhaps the best outcome of blogging ever? My love. I asked him why the blog matters, and whether cheezy and cheeky have become less apparent lately, which is my perception. He waved the latter and said that it's mattered all along due to my drive for honesty and insisting to be different. On a second level, because more people should be inspired and helped to run their own lifestreams out here, in the open.

I think that's been done to some degree already. I also think you're likely to see the much touted changes in a few months. If nothing else, what changed immensely during this adventure is that my Sunday evenings are much lighter and shinier, cava sparkled or not, and that my photos are getting better and better (though I couldn't find a proper Russian today). Now I just need to move to a chair that doesn't square my arse this much, and keep telling you stories that move me. Noroc!

Update, September 8th 2008: Not to forget the pragmatic side of blogging entirely, what this fun occupation brought me in its third year is pure joy: my second own camera!

Update, September 8th 2008: Not to forget the pragmatic side of blogging entirely, what this fun occupation brought me in its third year is pure joy: my second own camera!