Grateful thanks on the last night of the old year

Last year I was in my office, writing a conference paper. And we were still mourning Lucas North. So there is progress!

I had four invitations this year, including a wedding of someone in my new town, a mass gathering with researcher friends at a hotel on a convenient, centrally located interstate highway, and two invites from people in my hometown who knew I was home. But I think it’s time for a quiet, contemplative New Year. We’re supposed to get snow. I’m going to venture out and see if I can find some “fancy” cheese for fondue. Put that in quotations marks because, of course, all that the average European buys in cheese this particular week is wonderful, flavorful Swiss cheese, perhaps grated in advance by the cheesemonger. Or else cheese for raclette. Mmmm, memories of St Sylvestres past. I should be able to get some Gruyère and Emmentaler, but the price is likely to stun me. I’ll also have to dig out the fondue pot my parents got as a wedding present back in the day. If I don’t find that stuff, I’ll make scalloped potatoes and venison chops with broccoli on the side and some nice pie for dessert. My parents never go out on New Years’ Eve and are usually in bed by nine anyway. If all works well, I’ll ring in the New Year in blessed silence, looking out the window at the trees, covered with snow. Or, if there’s no snow, standing on the back porch, looking up at the stars.

Tanni Tanni’s beautiful wallpaper, via RAFrenzy.

Anyway.

What I really want to say today is “thanks.”

Thanks to the delightful Richard Armitage, of course. And there’ll be more about that in the next year, naturally. The plan for this blog after October 2010 was to continue it until the premiere of the first installment of The Hobbit. Circumstances allowing, I plan to stick with that, although I admit that a little voice in my head wonders whether that will be long enough.

I feel a bit the need to say an elegiac thanks now, though, because I have a suspicion that we’re about to get overrun. Hits on this blog have declined from the absolute peaks on the premiere of Captain America and the trailer for The Hobbit, but they’re holding at a noticeably higher level than before. I’m having a hard time keeping even with comments the way I would like and I don’t anticipate it will get easier. Welcome, lurkers; welcome, casual visitors. The signs in the air say general (i.e., non-fan) interest in Armitage is growing. Peter Jackson is a master of publicity, and I don’t think that he’s going to have jacked us up, step by tantalizing step, for all of 2011 — only to abandon us in 2012. @Rob, our local marketing expert, has noted that most of a movie budget goes to marketing and promotion. We’re going to meet a lot of new people this year as they jump on the bandwagon. And this time, next year, we’re going to be reeling in what is likely to be for us an unparalleled wave of publicity and pictures. It’s already occurred to me that there’s no way Richard Armitage will manage a Christmas message next year unless he writes it in August. He’s going to have to appear at all the premieres in the different cities; he’s going to have to be interviewed; he’s going to have be photographed. So what seems like a crazy amount of publicity from our perspective is going to require a crazy amount of work — over and above the hard work that will already have gone into filming — on his part, too.

Richard Armitage, I wish you all the strength you can muster. But also, all the joy you can bear. You amply deserve whatever good things come your way, and I’ll be cheering for you all along. I hope you find time to grin at least a few times where I can see a picture of it!

But just as importantly, I feel a strong need to say thanks to everyone in this loose association of people I’ve been calling Armitageworld. I’m grateful for the work of the people who maintain the big fan sites, and probably don’t say that enough. RichardArmitageOnline; RichardArmitageNet.com; Richard Armitage Central come to mind immediately. I don’t know how I’d ever have gotten started without you all, or how I’d keep going. You do a tremendous amount of work. Even though I don’t often read the discussion boards, I’m grateful you guys are there, I know you go through a lot of work, and I know that a lot of people find friends there. And, finally, I’m grateful for the society of bloggers (see sidebar — I’m not going to call you all out, because I don’t want to omit anyone) that seems to broaden just a little bit every week, and I probably don’t say that, enough, either, or leave nearly as many comments as I should. On many mornings in the last few years I thought, “I know I’ll have something to look forward today on one of those blogs,” and that got me moving.

But as long as I’m opening the gratitude floodgate here, let me admit to this:

The fact that people wanted to read this blog, wanted to comment, wanted to be friends, wanted to participate vicariously in my escapades, was something I never anticipated having happen. I started blogging to vent my fear that I was going crazy. It was naive of me not to realize that there was already a developed Armitageworld out there, but finding it and living in it has been one of the biggest joys of the last two years.

I never thought that a blog that was started as a coping mechanism would develop such a large regular readership, made up of people I’d never met.

I never thought, when I was trying to find some piece of information, that people I’d never met would offer me links and teach me how to use software to obtain the media files I was looking for.

I never thought, when I was struggling in my job or my in my life or with my parents, that people I’d never met would reach out to console me or make a suggestion or offer their prayers.

I never thought that some of those people I’d never met would become so adept at reading me that they’d drop me notes to make sure everything was all right based on a single phrase I wrote.

I never thought I’d make a fan vid for people I’d never met.

I never thought, when I had a charitable impulse, that four other women I’d never met would spontaneously join the challenge and several hundred others would leave a comment to support it.

OK, let’s admit, I never thought I’d actually meet people whom I’d never met because of doing this!

I never thought that people I’d never met would drop me messages or leave comments to share their own life experiences and reassure me that I would come out on the other side.

I never thought, when I was trying to make a career decision in a limited time frame, that people I’d never met would email me their phone numbers and tell me to call if I needed to talk about it.

I’d never thought, when I didn’t write for a few days, that people I’d never met would drop me messages to say how much they’d missed the blog.

So let me say, whether you’re one of the women who’s sort of become an informal pastor to me in the last two years, or you never say anything but you’re praying for me; whether you’re a regular commentator, or just lurk; whether you’ve consented to be interviewed; whether you write some of the wonderful fanfic I love to read or make vids or art or even little plastic figures; whether you dropped a comment to generate a donation, or you made a donation yourself; whether you prefer squee or would rather read analysis; whether you loved John Bateman or you hated him; whether you read every day or just every now and then; whether you love the blog or only read it because it enrages you — thank you for having been there, thank you for being there now. Thank you for all the energy you expend to make Armitageworld such a pleasant place to live.

Come to think of it: I guess maybe I have met you, now.

***

Thanks, and best wishes for 2012. ‘nen guten Rutsch to my Germanophone friends. I’ll be on the road again, the next two days, reading intermittently.

Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield. My cap. Can’t wait for 2012!

~ by Servetus on December 31, 2011.