#183

#183, Irishtown, Dublin

It's official: my Quixotic quest to bring you 365 numbers in 365 days has reached its mid-way point. I searched earnestly for a 182 1/2 to commemorate this milestone with perfect mathematical precision, but that messed with my sense of symmetry and anyway, there weren't any. So let's slice it at 183 and call it even.

With milestones come inevitable questions, such as: Why start a mad project like this in the first place? (A: Because, like Everest hacked into hundreds of pieces and scattered across dozens of cities, it's there.) What will the next half of the year look like? (A: Still workin' on it.) And, perhaps most interestingly: What to do after hitting 365? After all, as a novelist, I'm a long-distance runner writer. I'm in things for the long haul. But I've grown rather fond of the immediacy of these daily dispatches and exchanges. It's a nice break. It reminds me that I'm more than a mad scientist toiling and cackling maniacally in a a castle populated only by dust mites, messy manuscript pages, and cobwebs. A romantic role which, by the way, I quite relish.

I like writing about place, memory, and space. I like photographing my cities. I like the challenge of a good project. And while I'm perfectly content to let the project end at 365 as planned, I also feel the enthusiast's restlessness. The mad desire to globe-trot in search of some inconsequential thing, a piece of architecture or a forgotten plaque: ghost signs, ampersands, writers' residences, wrought iron bootscrapers. Something. Anything.

Rather than tax my own brain cells, which are still a bit sun-dried from Italy, I thought I'd open this question to you, dear readers. After all, you're the ones following along and helping to feed the obsession. After the bell tolls on 365, what next? Keep going or start all over again? Go in order? Out of sequence? Or is it time to venture into the unknown? Time to pack it in? I have plenty of ideas, of course, but I'm curious to see what feeds you as well as me. Tell me what you've enjoyed. Tell me what you'd like to see more of. Be as hare-brained, serious, whimsical or as obvious as you'd like. My obsessions tend to have strange and unpredictable onsets, so who knows what will happen next. But I value your two centses, my pretties. Indulge me a little &7 mid-semester report. Won't you?

And one last note to those out there who simply like lurking, thanks for reading, too. I do this primarily for myself, but it's gratifying to know that these pictures and stories exist now in a space that -- like the numbers I discover -- are there for whoever happens to come across them. Not everyone will notice them, and fewer still will care, but I share for the sake of those who take pleasure in those small moments of discovery. Of not just looking, but really seeing. Thanks for making this such a worthwhile endeavor.

And so. Time to raise a glass, take a breath, and look fearlessly forward. Bring on the next 183!