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I get a lot of mail from people I don’t know very well (or at all). The subjects are all over the place. Some people write to say they enjoy reading what I write. A few send me nasty messages. One woman was writing love messages about me on her blog and then sending me links. A flight attendant based in Philadelphia wrote to say that she didn’t agree with me about anything politically, but she had fallen in love with me from reading anyway.

A surprisingly large number of people make personal observations about me, based on what they read here and what they see of me on my open Facebook page. I got two messages over the weekend, though, that were sort of thesis and antithesis.

“I love reading what you post because you’re always so happy and nice to everybody,” one woman wrote, in part. “You’re smart and tough, but I can tell you’re really happy and love the world.”

Interesting.

“I’m thinking this inbox is a bit overdue,” a man wrote. “You seem angry lately. I actually prefer angry David vs. disinterested David … angry David remains rational in his anger.”

Both messages had additional content, but these parts stuck out to me. One person sees me as happy. Another person sees me as angry. Which is true? And what could account for people coming to such strongly different conclusions?

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It was May 13, 2011 when this site went live for the first time. I didn’t know what I wanted it to be — and I sometimes still don’t know — but I want to thank everybody who’s read and contributed at any point along the way. You know who you are. I appreciate you.

In those 24 months, I’ve had visitors from 182 countries. I’ve had more than a quarter of a million unique visitors. I really do appreciate all of them. I’ve been surprised — well, shocked is a more appropriate word — that this kind of traffic is possible for one random guy with some decidedly out-of-the-mainstream opinions.

I’ve enjoyed spending time with you, and I look forward to spending more time with you in the future. Maybe I’ll eventually even start making the monkeys work again. You never know.

Thanks for being here, everybody. And a special thanks for the few who leave comments. Whether we agree or not, I appreciate a crowd that’s more likely to think and discuss than to shout and scream.

I hate Mother’s Day and I hate Father’s Day. For many people, they’re sweet and nostalgic days to remember and appreciate parents who meant a lot to them. For me, they’re nothing but emotional turmoil and regret.

If you look in the dictionary next to the phrase “dysfunctional family,” there’s a picture of my family. There were five of us. In addition to my parents, I had two younger sisters. We were born just two years apart, so we were like three little stair steps. (That’s me with my mother around the time of my second birthday.)

My mother was very intelligent, artistic, funny and sensitive. She was a free spirit who didn’t even hear the drumbeat of the rest of the world as she marched to her own. She was oblivious to anything except following her own heart. In college, she had been selected as one of the “beauties” for the yearbook — back in the days when they used to do that — at the teachers’ college where she and my father both went to school. She was wildly popular and widely loved.

My mother was too sensitive to be married to my father. I didn’t understand it at the time, but his strict and controlling nature drove her to a mental breakdown. They were nothing alike in temperament or habits or much of anything else, but he insisted that his way was right about everything. He pushed and manipulated and controlled and cajoled to force her to be exactly what he was.

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