Favorites (Post Number 200)

Picking the top posts from a year-plus worth of Elvis Sightings is an interesting exercise.

There are a couple of different possible metrics to use. We have, of course, the nominated favorites, what we might call "Readers' Choice." Then we have posts with the most comments, posts that actually made things happen in the real world, posts that get the most hits. And then (since I'm doing the writing, hee hee) we have my own favorites.

So here we go!

There were four posts that tied for the most comments, with 16 comments each:

• Favorite Place (Oct. 08) - about wanting my home to be Joy's therapists' favorite place to come work
  
• Not Alopecia -- Trichotillomania! (Apr. 09) - wherein I photographed Joy's emerging bald spot and asked for hair-pulling advice
  
• In Stunning Company (Apr. 09) - the following post, displaying glamorous buzzcuts, including Joy's
  
• Random Tuesday Thoughts (Apr. 09) - my first use of the Random Tuesday Thoughts meme

As far as posts that make things happen, I guess we don't always know what people do with our words after we put them out there. The action isn't always in the comments, either. My Nov. 08 post Complexity, which quoted and reflected on Tracy Kidder's book Mountains Beyond Mountains, got only one comment but inspired a friend to organize a discussion-group around the book at our congregation's annual winter retreat. My March 09 post ABLE Accounts and "A Bad Place" about the ABLE Accounts Act of 2009 generated some communication with legislators. I also hope that my product reviews have been useful; I know that I've gotten wonderful feedback on both situations and products when I've solicited advice.

The most-frequently-viewed posts, due primarily to Google image hits, are the Stunning Company one (between Tyra Banks, Natalie Porter, Demi Moore, and Joy, it's Demi who gets the most searches) and my 5th post ever, on Linear Nevus Sebaceous Syndrome. The LNSS post also generated a contact that is this close to making a substantial real-world contribution. I will let you know when the project goes live!

Then we have the nominated favorites. I suppose it's a good thing that some commenters couldn't limit themselves to one...

• My Sense of Sensory Issues was BRatK's nomination
  
• ARatK added Ritardando and Joy! by Joyce Carol Thomas
  
• Rhemashope nominated n of 1, or the Myth of Fingerprints; Joyful Autism; and Listening With All My Heart.

But the Number One nominee (several enthusiastic votes), and also a personal favorite of mine, to which I have referred again and again, the acrobatic metaphor for how I generally live my life, is of course: Spin, Spin, Spin. The JoyFamily spinning plate act has no need to go on tour -- this blog invites you all right into the midst of it.

Runners-up for my personal favorites include:

• Extended Metaphor -- in which I compare Joy's trajectory(ies) to the workings of a mixer-board
  
• What Is Happening In Her Head? -- one of my earliest bloggy pieces about Joy, first posted on another site before Elvis Sightings existed
  
• Maybe. - a Zen take on a few of the many reversals in our Joy-journey
  
• and, Photo Wednesday: Wild Woman Edition - because BRatK dared me to prove that I ate fire!

Hmmm. Guess I went a few over ten, huh? Oh well. Who sets the rules around here, anyway?