This entry is for Pony, who is four years old on this glorious day of March 29, 2005. Adina and I are almost in-laws. Nutshell Kingdom, however, is Pony's progeny.
For some reason, it's really important to me to draw a distinction between Adina and Pony. They are both charming and lovely, but a blog is not a person and this fact gives me comfort when the Nutshell is bad or I am lost in my own personal, unwritten dramas. I hope and guess the same is true for Adina.
The fact is, without Pony, there would have been no Nutshell Kingdom, at least not anything like its present form. I wouldn't even have known how to begin, what a blog should sound like, what it should say. Pony changed that for me.
If you look back at my early entries (please don't), its painfully obvious that Nutshell was just a pale imitation (and therefore sincere flattery). Pony set a standard for me (and I suppose more than just me) until I found my own voice. It was so everyday and so interesting at the same time. As a reader, I have been drawn into the world of Pony again and again. I've never been to Toronto, but I've seen it. I see it everyday.
I doubt the real Toronto would hold a candle to Pony's Toronto. Pony's Toronto sparkles at night and sounds like a piano bar wafting onto the street. It smells like curry and Russian tea. Pony gives us a Toronto that is modest, but never poor; cold but never bitter. It's as if winter in Toronto involves nothing more than a cozy hat and mittens, Pony supplies the Cherry Chapstick.
I have many friends outside of the robot world who check into the website from time to time to see what's going on in the Nutshell. Time and time again, they tell me that just stop in when bored at work, see if there's anything funny, read Pony. They ALL read Pony.
