Statcounter

A few weeks after I started my blog, I linked it to Statcounter. After briefly and shamelessly promoting myself on a handful of craigslist boards in select (what I deemed suitably "sophisticated") cities, I was curious if anyone was actually reading it. (This was before I figured out that the way to be read was to read.)

Since I barely passed "Educational Statistics" back in grad school, it's not surprising I have difficulty interpreting the data in any meaningful way.

Suffice to say, my blog has not yet taken the world by storm. And as I bloggle on, I'm increasingly grateful for that. As much as I want to be read, I don't want to be "outed" (for professional, not personal, reasons).

When Statcounter revealed a "returning" reader in a suburb a few miles east of mine had found me by searching "bbw" and "esl", I panicked a bit. I removed my personal pictures and tags that referred to my profession. So far that's been a lone occurrence.

Although I am a numerical moron, I am visual, so I enjoy looking at charts, graphs, and maps. I get a little thrill seeing my flag planted in Nigeria or Poland. They don't stick around, of course; they're looking for porn ("come in my hair," "blow job," "hot fat sex"). They must be pretty disappointed to find such salacious topics subjected to such dark, verbose analysis.

One (non)reader in Vietnam found my essay on pubic shaving by looking for "hair cut."

God, I love the crazy keyword indexing. I love it the way only someone who came of age before Al Gore invented the internet could love it.

Then I started to explore some of the features of blogger.com. I discovered, serendipitously, how to search other people's profiles based on common interests. Who knew there were so many other Will Oldham fans? (Personally, I don't know a one.) Who else lists Jane Eyre as her favorite novel of all time? (A lot of born-again Christians and a Muslim convert do.) Did anyone else share my enthusiasm for "Grindhouse" (75% of it, anyway)? Any women, that is? And if so, how smart were they?

Like I said, I don't know what to make of all this information. It has the curiously paradoxical effect of making me feel both more and less connected to the world. But it's a great way to waste a few minutes on a dull, overcast Saturday morning, while I try to summon the energy to get out my weed-whacker and give my old yard the what-for.