I’ve just turned 5000!

Maybe you’d like to hear more about our trip. You’re imagining the various disasters that have befallen us since I last wrote. But since we traded in our pukemobile, we can actually smell the ocean air while we drive. I’ve scored a few more of those great chili-hazelnut chocolate bars. Rocky start aside, this vacation is turning into one of our best ever. But I find it cruel when people brag about vacations to those who are not on one, so I’ll leave it at that.

Rather, I will tell you, with some pride, that there’s been a hubbub of activity on my blog lately. I have a few new keen followers who are catching up on old posts, and many lovely, supportive, and funny comments. These kinds of things are exciting for a blogger. In fact, I’ve just passed the 5000th view of my blog.

Just so you know, followers, however loyal you are, you don’t count toward my site views if you read the posts I email to you. Only people who go to my blog site count toward my stats. This is good for both of us, because then if you dump the emails I send you without reading them, I’ll never know and I won’t cry.

I can gather considerable information from my blog statistics page, including which country my readers are from-I had a Ghanian reader the other day!–how many people have viewed the blog, how many posts have been viewed, and the searches conducted to find the blog. And, often, but not always, the terms or phrases used in the search, if they are in English. I also get a daily listing of the specific blog posts that have read. But don’t worry, I can’t connect any of these stats to individual people and, unless you comment on a particular post, I do not know who’s been visiting.

What I have noticed, to my horror, is the number of times my homosexual hosiery posts, especially the one with “homosexual hosiery” in the title, have been found through an internet search. You know what I’m referring to here; I just don’t want to repeat the exact term or I will draw more potential foot fetishists to my blog. And I don’t want that.

My intention has always been to keep my blog G- rather than R-rated, but it’s true, I have raised some pretty racy topics over the year. Male genitalia, dirty (no not kinky, just not clean) homosexual hosiery, why even all the references to my sinful rampant happiness. (You do know what it means to be gay, don’t you? And, yes, I was born happy.) That’s why I don’t swear in my blog, as my dear new reader L. recently noted, even though I can be mighty cheeky in real life.

I have also learned that if I check off “Writing” as a post category, which I plan to do today, several bloggers who believe they are better writers than me will offer to help me improve my writing, for a fee. Hey, I wonder what would happen if I added “Humour” as a post category. Would a whole new group of bloggers offer to make me wittier? I’m not naive; I know they too would want me to pay. But could anyone really make me funnier? I think I’m hilarious already, although I never quite know if people are laughing with me or laughing at me. And, no, I don’t want to know.