#jeperz

So, this is the last post for Heycoolplates.com. Hey! We’ve reached the end.

This 60-day project became a 90-day project, and today is the 90th day. Can you believe it? Friend Alex cannot and sent me this plate today to tell me so.

I know. I can’t believe it either. This plate from friend Alan puts it well.... 

Vanity plates are a strange thing. When we get vanity plates, we transform an ordinary thing into a statement. Or a performance. If the last three months have shown anything, it’s the range of performances and statements. Vanity plates hit on nearly every topic that can come to mind, and in our constant surprise and amusement at them, they show how we all think differently. The game even goes meta, as this plate from friend Ashley shows so well...

Turning this interest into a hobby was a long time coming for me. Four years ago, I did a few themed posts and then a Vanity Plate Week, all collections of photos. These were fun times but a sideshow. I gave up plate posts for a good while afterward. But couldn’t quit them entirely. I saw the below plate on the walk to work a couple years ago, on the walk to my digital job, and had to take a picture. This photo sat in my photos folder untouched, but it still popped up in searches and file browsing from time to time. Always looming was a question -- how far could wacky plate photos go, digitally? Could they be a whole blog?

So, this Tumblr happened. And I almost killed it five minutes after launching it. I called Lori in a panic. It was too public. I’m not a very public person. I test hard on the introverted end of INFP-land. Two minutes into the blog, I was asking three minutes later, why had I tweeted and Facebooked the link? Anxiety anxiety. I couldn’t find a design I liked. I’d spent too much timing copying over my old plate photos and indexing them. But most of all, I think, I was worried no one would send any photos. No one would read the blog. No one would like it. This plate from Lindsay pretty much captured my fears. I’d put myself out There, on this weird little project, and maybe no one would be There.

Lori talked me off the blog ledge. I added the time limit to the project. With that change, things got better. First, a few of my plate correspondents from the old days got going again. Just as valuably, a few other folks I didn’t know as well -- and certainly didn’t know their weird plate interests -- leapt in too. Vanity plates were weird, yes. But for you, for me, they resonated in our lives. Strangely. But honestly. The commonplace asserting itself in our brains.

You all surprised me from there. People started hunting! Eyes peeled, cameras at the ready -- or were quick with a link whenever a loved one got a good one. You all made me happy to know you. You all make me happy every day, but seeing you in the minor-but-real thrill of the chase and the capture was exciting and strange and lovable.  

You all were... well, this action plus emotion from Lindsay. And nobody got hurt! That I know of. No plate was worth ridiculousness. But every good plate was worth a little care. A tiny salute to the driver of the car you were photographing. 

When we’re driving, I’ve always thought, the activity saves us from certain road boredom, which friend Melissa captures here. If just for a moment. 

The plates that consciously looked outward, like this one from Lori, were the best. Are the best. Will be the best going forward, especially when there is no plate-blogging happening here but we’re still looking for reasons to smile.

Some vanity plates are about vanity, I’m sure. But I don’t think most are. Not anymore. They’re too permanent a statement to be ego-driven, en masse. I think this plate from friend Everett gets more at their intentions. We acquire vanity plates to make other people happy. Or think. Or question. We use them to engage strangers and welcome them, for a second, into our lives.

Vanity plates are a moment-based and truly human exercise in, literally and figuratively... from friend Beau’s friend Laura...

This blog intended to catch those moments, for you and for me. I hope it did so.

The blog was originally supposed to be 60 days, but as we approached that point, you all had sent in too many plates to stop. This plate from friend Ellen, basically. The backlog was weeks long! I could hardly keep them all straight.

So -- thank you to friend Tom for this plate -- on your submissions by Tumblr, email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, text message, the blog kept going.

But I wanted this blog to be temporary for a reason. From friend Everett:

Vanity plates are marvelously evocative little elements in our modern world. But the world consists of so many such things, and they’re each waiting for our attention. Or, more accurately, we’re waiting for our attention to discover them. 

We don’t know we’re waiting for such a find, most of the time. Far more likely, we feel swept up in a stream. Taking a picture of a good plate or even noticing one in line of our vision is, I think, one way to slow down the rush of the water. 

And finding other ways of slowing the rush or otherwise keeping a head above water interests me. You too? Because I think the stream may keep sweeping.

Or to put it another way, in this plate from Lori, one should seek...

Or to put it one last way, in this plate from friend Karen, one should avoid...

... because trying to collect all the cool plates in the world is a certain kind of flying too close to the sun. The small, colorful, metal sun. 

Besides! Spring, as this plate from friend Ashley possibly notes, is here.

And baseball season starts here tomorrow! “WERTH5″ says this plate from friend Melissa, and I’ll be sitting in the ballpark in, hopefully, the warm sun.

Might the blog ever come back? This plate from friend Emily answers that. Not soon. Someday. Who knows, though! Maybe next I’ll send my plates to YOU.

I’ll continue to blog on my other site, Greetings from Evanston, Ill. I’ve been lackadaisical during the run of Hey Cool Plates. And a bit before then. But still. Whether through there or elsewhere, I hope you all stay in touch some way.

So, thank you. You all deserve this plate from friend Melissa.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for your friendship, friend A and friend B and friend C. Thank you for taking pictures of cool plates and sending them my way. Particularly in this moment, thank you to friend Jeff N for sending this plate.