We are ten years old. We are in fourth grade. We need new corduroys and school supplies.

Ten years ago this weekend, Holden and Tena and pie and I decided we'd had a stellar time guestblogging over at the Crack Den while Atrios was off, I dunno, becoming famous and respectable, and we'd set up shop here at this web site that I had that was basically some password-protected Buffy fanfiction and ranting about people who don't turn their radios down at the drive-thru window at Taco Bell. 

Those were, of course, good and awful times. Awful: We didn't have to look far to chronicle the malfeasance of the Bush administration, gay people couldn't get married just about anywhere, John Kerry was about to lose the election, and there were perhaps a couple hundred liberal political blogs up against a mass media narrative dictating that the president was epic and everything was fine.

Good: The 2004 election felt like a big fat party a lot of the time, and a good fight the rest of the time, and there's nothing I love more than a fight that feels like a party. Dissent had begun to have a voice, however small. Plus, there were perhaps a couple hundred liberal political blogs, so we could basically love everyone in this bar. 

(I basically still love everyone in this bar.)

I don't know what I expected to happen ten years from then. I didn't think about whether we'd still be here. I just thought that there was a here, and people seemed to like it, so we laid down some shag carpeting in the crack van and fueled that sucker up. 

(That carpet smells like goat vomit now, TOMMY.)

In preparation for this glorious anniversary of ours, I've been putting together an anthology of the best and most favoritest posts we've done, and in doing so I've read basically all our archives going back to August 2004. We were not as good as I thought we were, but in some cases we were better, and we managed to do some real work at a time when everybody who writes here has a day job or two, or is looking for a day job or two, or is otherwise somehow in a position where it would be totally acceptable to curl up underneath the quilts and not come out.

I'm proud of what we've built and it would be nothing without all our readers who come here every day. I'm so grateful to all of you, and I hope you've found something of value here. If you have, I hope you'll contribute to the drive. We didn't do one last year, because I was distracted by twenty things including the baby, and this one's our tin anniversary. Hallmark suggests you give us a lunch box full of popcorn. The Paypal button up there might be easier. 

In the coming year? I'm hoping this anthology finds a publisher home, and we will be moving to a newer, shinier, spiffier site that looks more like the Internet of this decade (minus the pop-up ads and frequent requests for customer feedback). 

Oh, and Friday night? Friday is our CRACK VAN BIRTHDAY PARTY, BITCHES. Old-timey Happy Kerry Photos, ponies, punch3 kitten chainsaw, re-posting Jude's gumbo recipe, and a very special message to all of you from our newest van passenger, callsign Kick. 

Give if you can. Party whether you can or not. 

A.