Over on the left-hand side of my blog, there's a little counter that keeps track of how many posts I've written per month. You've probably noticed it. It has the post titles of every post from the current month and the number of posts per month for each past month of the current year. Finally, it lists the number of posts per year for each past year. Now, since the numbers all rolled over to 10, the number 353 has been staring at me from next to the year 2009. The obvious significance is that I wrote three-hundred fifty-three posts during the last calendar year. And yet, something about that number has stuck with me. Since January 1, I've looked at it and wondered what significance lay there beyond the obvious. I knew the number 353 meant something to me, either something from my past, something out of a book I'd read, some long-lost pop culture reference that has stuck with me through the years, SOMETHING. I won't say it's bugged me to the point where I've lost any sleep over the matter, but it has at the very least been a mild annoyance as I've tried to remember why exactly 353 sticks out in my brain.
Tonight, I figured it out. The school district I grew up in was USD 353.
Yup, that's it. I'm not going to lie, I'm a little disappointed.
