Man in Tuxedo: Hey Mike.

Mike Schramm: Um, hi?

Man in Tuxedo: How’s it going?

MS: Umm, fine? How’s it going with you?

MIT: Just fine. What’s new?

MS: Oh, not much. Been an interesting week, but you know, can’t complain. Listen, don’t take this the wrong way. But who are you? And why are you here on the site?

MIT: You don’t remember me, do you?

MS: Erm. No, I don’t.

HH: My name’s Horace.

MS: Okay.

HH: Horace Higgenbotham.

MS: Wow. Horace? Higg — Higgenbother?

HH: HiggenbothAM. I’ve been here before.

MS: That name does sound kind of familiar, but I don’t remem — wait. I know you. You were here when we had that little party. You’re the announcer guy, from the 550th post!

HH: That’s me.

MS: Oh, wow, man! Long time no see! How’ve you been? Wow, you were here a long time ago — that was back when this blog was pretty much it! That was back before… Wow, that was back before any of it.

HH: I know.

MS: Wow, man. So what, you’ve just been hanging around here in your tuxedo?

HH: Oh no. You don’t remember? I’m a figment of your imagination. You gave me this name, just because you thought it sounded silly. I’ve been with you the whole time. And you already know that lately, I’ve been showing back up in your head again. You’re remembering back to the days when you were only writing here, for yourself, not for money or visitors, but just for the fun of it. Back then, you had a blog that nobody read, that wasn’t your job, that was just a way to relax, to untangle all of the strings in your head at the end of the day. I know — I was there.

MS: Well yeah, but man, things have changed since then. I wrote that post back in my dingy little mouse-infected room in Chicago. I’m in LA now! I always wanted this, and now I’ve got it! And visitors — man, I still don’t have any visitors on this site, but you should see some of the blogs I’ve worked on. Thousands, millions of visitors! It’s big stuff!

HH: Sounds like.

MS: Sometimes too big to really comprehend, actually. How do you comprehend what hundreds of thousands of people think individually about what you write, about what comes out of whatever’s bouncing around in your head? How can you expect what they’ll think about it, or even try to sort it all out when you get pages and pages of comments and feedback? It’s amazing how things have changed. Back then, I didn’t hear anything from anyone, and these days, I get more of it than I can keep up with. What a journey. I can’t believe you’ve been here the whole time!

HH: Well, sure you do. Remember, you made me up. You’re even writing this now. That’s what we said in the post before — everyone reading this knows that everything I say is what you’re really saying. When I speak, it’s you talking.

MS: I guess so. I mean, that doesn’t make much sense, but I guess it’s all true.

HH: That could probably be said about most of the things that you write.

MS: Nice. Glad to see you haven’t given up on undercutting me. But why are you here now?

HH: Last time I was here, we talked about public and private personas. You said that blogging was an act with a dichotomy at its core: it’s a set of private thoughts placed in a public place. Everyone who writes in a medium designed to be read by others (blogs included) can write about whatever they want, can be as private as they want to about what they’re writing, but it’s essentially a public act. You’re using me as an outside figure, but I’m saying what you’re thinking privately.

MS: Deep.

HH: You’ve been thinking about all of that stuff again lately, which is why I’m back here. Only now, it’s different, because your writing actually is public.

MS: It’s not that public. People may care about the things I’m writing about, but they don’t care that much about me.

HH: I think there are more people who care than you realize. And now you’ve started writing again here, and even though you’re diving back into that private stash of thoughts, that public persona has a much bigger part of the dichotomy than it did before.

MS: It’s true. The silly stuff I wrote here way back when was only for me, and I think that was part of the fun of it. As long as I amused myself, it didn’t matter. But it still doesn’t, right? This site is still mine. Am I suddenly more worried about how my writing will be received just because it actually is being received?

HH: I wish I could help. But I don’t have answers for you.

MS: Because I don’t have answers for myself.

HH: Pretty much. But I can tell you that it is different. Maybe that’s one thing you can do in your writing here day to day: figure out why.

MS: I guess. It’s good to see you, man. Brings me right back to the old days. What happened to that crowd that you had with you?

HH: Oh, they were just here for the anniversary thing. It was your 550th post, we were celebrating. Back then, your permalinks had post numbers in them, and every day, you’d be able to see how many posts you’d done on the site. You don’t even know how many posts you have here now, do you?

MS: No, I guess not. I changed the permalinks a while back. I stopped counting. Once I got past a certain number, I don’t know if it even really mattered to me any more. Back then, everything I’d written was here and numbered on this site. But now, I’ve written so many things in different places, there’s no way to number them all. Maybe that’s part of what’s different.

HH: Maybe.

MS: But hey listen, we can’t just have you sitting around here all the time. You should come out there with me. Maybe I can mention you in a tweet or something, use you in a blog post out there! I think people would really like it. That celebration thing was funny! We had some good patter, man.

HH: Thanks, but I don’t think so. It’s that public/private thing, remember? I think I’ll stick to the private side. And you probably wouldn’t say this yourself, but you like keeping some things out of the public arena. You share a lot, but there are some things you would rather not share with other people.

MS: All right. But hey, let’s not wait another five years, dude. Let’s do this again sometime. It’s great to see you, you know?

HH: I’ll be here whenever you think of me. Good night, everybody!

MS: Good night? Oh right, that’s how you — I mean I. How I finished the first one. I get it. Good night, everybody.