Most reading badges are earned by hitting a number. Finish a set count of books in a year, read on a set number of days in a row, or log a book from a genre you have not tried, and the badge unlocks, usually within a few minutes. Streaks are the fussy ones. They generally reset at midnight in your account's time zone, they count a day only if you log pages or mark progress, and they do not forgive a missed day unless the site offers a freeze. If a badge has not appeared, check that the book is marked finished (not just "currently reading"), refresh the page, and give it a little while to catch up before assuming you did something wrong.
That is the useful part. What follows is my keeper's log, because the lighthouse service requires one, and because I have not yet figured out what else to do with the evenings.
Dusk. Lit the lamp. For anyone new here, this is a lighthouse, but it guards books, not ships. The rocks below are mostly paperbacks that have been left out in the rain, and the beam is there to warn people away from them. It is a perfectly good system. It has been running since 1997 and I have saved at least four copies of a very damp thriller.
Seven o'clock. Three visitors arrived at the base of the tower, out of breath, asking about badges. I called down that I had no badges. One of them called back up to ask whether I at least had a streak. I said I had a streak of nineteen years at this post with no days off. There was a long pause. Then they asked whether that unlocked anything. I said it unlocked a very good view of the lake.
Eight o'clock. I looked up the word "badge" in the tower's dictionary, which is the only book up here I trust. It says a badge is a small emblem worn to show you belong to something. I do not have an emblem. I do have a cardigan with a hole in the elbow, and a brass key that opens nothing, and a mug with a chip in it that I have decided to treat as a rank. I pinned the mug to my coat. It fell off. This is the closest I have come to an achievement system.
Nine o'clock. A man shouted up that his streak had reset. I said I was sorry. He asked what I was going to do about it. I looked at the lake for a while. The lake is very flat on Tuesdays and gives away nothing. I told him that a streak is just a promise you make to a day, and that days do not hold grudges, and that if he wanted a reward for showing up he could come in out of the wind and read for a while. He said he could not, he had to keep the streak alive. I told him that was exactly what it sounded like to be a lighthouse keeper, and he left, looking wounded, which seemed fair.
Eleven o'clock. Marigold came up the stairs with her tea. She has not blinked since the Clinton administration and she can look at a person for an hour without a sound. She looked at me, then at the lamp, then at the Ledger, then at me. I have never felt so thoroughly assessed. She wrote one word in the Ledger and left. I have not dared to read it. If it is a badge, I would like to keep not knowing for a bit.
Midnight. The beam went around. The lake took it without comment. I read four pages of a novel and put a bookmark in it, which I believe counts as the only thing a reader has ever needed to do. Nothing unlocked. No bell rang. The bookmark was just there, holding my place, exactly as quiet as it was before.
Small hours. Randy passed by on the rocks with a red wagon. He does not speak to me when he is on rounds but I know he knows my name, and I know he knows how long my streak actually is. It is nineteen years and three hundred and some days. I have never told anyone. He nodded at the tower as he went. I am choosing to count that.
If you climbed the rocks looking for an achievement, I cannot give you one, and I am sorry about the wind. If you want something that comes close, the reading challenge has a goal and a lot of mugs, and the whispers are a good place to stand if you need to be quietly acknowledged by something.
Authors are fragile organisms who have never once been awarded a badge for the thing they spent three years doing, so please buy a book. Read it past midnight, miss a day if you need to, and let the days forgive you. I will be up here with the lamp, keeping the paperbacks off the rocks.
Steadily,
Booktrovert #5782