Auld Lang Syne

And so, I sit here, mildly sloshed after a party, unable to sleep, and no one to amuse with my clumsy typing, writing one of the very, very few Dear Diary posts that have ever touched this blog.

What a time it was and what a time it was. And yes, for me, it was pretty much the Year of the Blog.

I'd been blogging through the previous year, yes, to my wee li'l audience of friends and people I spammed with my links.

And that all changed after December the 27th. Those hectic days over late December and January, as we worked the South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami blog and Tsunami Help wiki. The times after that, with collaborations like MumbaiHelp and Cloudburst Mumbai, then Katrina Help, and then Quake Help. Plus social experiments like Indi3, We The Media and CSF II. It got me more well-known than I ever wanted to be. Well, not quite true - let me put it another way. I would have given my eye teeth to see my name in the Guardian, BBC and BoingBoing before that time. But not, dear god, not on the back of human suffering.

But I think I'll raise a metaphorical glass anyway (had enough of the real stuff for the night, thank you), to the people I met this year, thanks to blogs and online networking. Some of them I have never actually met in the flesh, by the way, but I'm pretty sure we'll have much to talk about if we do bump into each other some time. As I hope we do.

So, fiery Rohit, and wise Dina, and calm, cool, ever-reliable Bala and Constantin, and bubbly Neha, and untiring Angelo, and brilliant Rudy and Anna-Lisa and Nancy and Paola and Pim and the inspiring, courageous Sanjaya, Isuru and Mahangu, and Megha, my precioussss, who I have plagued through many a template, and all those others who were part of tsunamihelp, this one's for you. It was a privilege.
And, also, through those other calamitous times, Amit, Dilip, Uma, Harini, Patrix, Suhail, Chandrachoodan, Yazad, a glass raised to you too. And also Jai, Samit, Shivam, J.A.P., Sonia, jaygee, Ranj, Priyanka, Prem, Ram, Nancy, and everyone at Caferati and the others in my Bloglines feeds who make the day begin.

I wouldn't have touched minds with all of you if it wasn't for blogs, yours and mine, and I am thankful that I did.

And of course, friendships that originated elsewhere, but found a facet in blogs too: Nilanjana, Annie, Manjula, Manisha, Lee; the glass would be less full without you.

(hic)

Tomorrow, I shall link. Now, I shall sleep before I get toooo soppy.