Huh, I'm so used to seeing that, it didn't occur to me that it would strike someone as weird. But yeah, I get that.

My main reason for doing these is that I love having them to look back on (and if it weren't for the LJ community, I wouldn't do them). But I have to admit it does give me a little thrill when I find that people have voted for mine. There's a more frequent poster to the community, spryng whose photography is better than everyone else's by leaps and bounds... but there are so many good stories in people's days, and I especially like the ones from faraway countries and climates. The thing about the voting is that it gives the reader a little push to read these *now* and not "when I have some down time," and it gives the poster an added impetus to try harder to tell the story well (or tell it at all).