Dear Frank,

I noticed something curious at the bottom of one of my blog posts today and had to tell you about it. It was the article rating. It said 4.5 stars. Pausing there, I imagined a person hovering, moving right then left, thinking this through, then thoughtfully coloring in the 4 and then a half-star. But wait! 4.5 was an average! Duh.

Therefore, here are my thoughts on the matter. There are two groups of readers of FranklyJane: The Five-Star former cheerleaders and the Four-Star HOA board members. The Five-Star folks are generous, sweet, and unencumbered. They read my post, (the one about settling in to watch a perfectly innocent movie only to be confronted by an FBI Anti-Piracy warning) and they grin and say, Well, that was fun! Jane is so entertaining! and choose five stars without hesitation.

Four-Star people, however, are a more discerning lot. They adjust the papers on their clipboard. They clear the throat, furrow their brow, adjust their reading glasses and commence to thinking about the task at hand, saying, I laughed, yes, well, a chuckle. I did not laugh enough to justify a full commitment.

No iced tea shot through the nose. No stomach hurt from guffaws. No falling into the wall with a shriek on the inhale. No reflexive spouse-slap. They may even have thought, Funny, yes, but she could have tightened the ending.

And so, with care and restraint, they tapped 4 stars. I picture them having nodded to themselves, satisfied with their impeccable judgment, believing they’d struck the perfect tone between encouragement and editorial restraint. They set the phone down gently or lowered the lid to their laptop afterward, like someone who has just done a small but important civic duty.

But, here’s what going on for me: these two groups create a number (4.5) which has me living in a permanent state of near triumph, right there in the middle between failure and success. I feel unmoored, undone, and downright incomplete. Here I am: Just reliably entertaining, generally competent, and occasionally delightful. Always one laugh short of legend. (yawn).

Oh well. In the end, I have decided to take the 4.5 stars as a compliment. It suggests engagement. It suggests someone cared enough to think. And it suggests my writing landed between semi-pleasurable and almost transcendent, which feels about right for a story involving a blanket, a remote, and imaginary federal consequences. I’m good with that!  

Frank: Love to you, my 5 star friend,

Jane

P.S. Hold Your Horses!! I looked again, Frank, and it turns out it’s not 4.5 stars – it’s actually a 4.7!  This implies I’m even two-tenths better than I realized!  

Here’s the scene: on one side of the line we have five cheerleaders jumping up and down with their pom-poms, and on the other side are four of those HOA board members staring straight ahead while their .7 member leaps mid-air in a state of indecision. We’re all waiting for him to land. 

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