Bloggin

Things People search for that Wind Them Up Here


WordPress has this neat feature that allows you to see the search terms that people have used to find your blog. Most of the time, they are pretty bland. Today I found the following:

 

Married sex blog – like my husband would let me write that kind of a blog. Hard as it may be to believe after some of my posts of late. I am leashed on this particular topic. Innuendo good. Details bad.

 

Married couples sex games – again, the gag order is in place, but I can say one thing. Games, toys, and visual aids aren’t on the menu in our house. We haven’t been married THAT long.

 

All women do it – Laundry? Dishes? Maxing out the credit card? Turning their heads and spitting?

 

Toilet seat heightener – Huh? So this is where my preoccupation with clean washrooms has gotten me? I think you might be looking for Johnny Virgil at 15 Minute Lunch.

 

Fletching – Ewww. I am sorry I ever learned about this let alone mentioned it. Once. In a post long, long ago. ‘Nuff said.

 

The funeral of Terry Fox – after the fall I spent dealing with my daughter’s pre-occupation with death and Terry Fox, I hope I never hear his name again. Unfortunately he is a Canadian holiday of sorts and I can look forward to many more years of him.

 

Tanja ywbb – this kind of thing always makes me nervous. It’s creepy when someone is looking for someone you know. I once saw a search term that said “Rob’s wife Annie’s blog” and could only imagine which of my husband’s widda stalkers admirers from the YWBB might be hunting us down now that we no longer visit post or visit there. Rob had quite the virtual group of admirers though I can’t say too much because half of my unsolicited private messages there came from widowers (the other half were typically from people telling me to shut up and go away).

 

How does Angelina Jolie stay thing? – Well, I know that when I was scary skinny it was because I didn’t eat. Not eating is a proven path to the kind of gaunt look that scares children and small animals away (mostly because they are afraid the skeletal individual might eat them).

 

Public Urination – I get this as a search term a lot. I think I might have indulged my own fascination with this a bit too much when I first arrived in Canada, but honest to god these people up here will pee anywhere.

 

Sex – quite a number of people troll the WordPress blogs for anything about sex. They aren’t even specific. If it talks about sex in even the most clinical wikipedia way, they want to know about it. My husband gets quite a chuckle out of the pieces I write about he and I and sex. He says “I wondered how long you could resist bragging.” Bragging? Well, okay. I am bragging. I have a lot to brag about frankly, but on the off chance my mother might read this some day – I will refrain from being graphic.

 

Penis exercises – Okay, I have been TMI but WTF? When have I ever mentioned anything about penis’s needing to exercise? Beyond the obvious, can a penis exercise? If anyone knows, do enlighten the rest of us.

 

Lisa Parker- Her name rolls in the credits of the Viggo Mortensen film, Eastern Promises. I wrote a piece that referenced her after seeing her name in the credits when Rob and I saw the film. I can’t even count the number of times that piece has been read and people are still finding it when looking her up. An odd memorial, in my opinion.

 

SouthStory rejection – Southstory is an on line literary magazine. They must reject a hell of a lot of writers because this term comes up about every day or two. I think I will beat them to the chase and just not submit work there at all.

 

YWBB – This comes up from time to time. Not sure why they would end up here instead of the site itself. Since I have given up reading the board (3 wks now – yeah me!), I don’t know if they are looking for the board or stories I have written about it and I have written a few – positive and negative. For the record, it was the place where I was destined to meet Rob and therefore worthwhile but I would caution anyone who goes there to take the advice with a grain of salt and remember that it is best to consult with and live among people in real time when you are dealing with grief issues.

 

Skinny female celebs – Can’t say whether this is a positive search or not but I will go out on a limb and assume that someone was just being creepy and looking for photos. Of scary looking famous people who are starving themselves to an early grave. Now there is a hobby.

 

Letters from lovers – This could be a sweet romantic thing. Some young person looking for inspiration before penning his or her own emoticon expressions of “let’s hang out” via a text message, or it could be someone looking for porn. Since this is the Internet, it could go either way.

Blogging Etiquette: The In’s and Out’s of Linking


I discovered today that Uncle Keith over at A Riot is an Ugly Thing linked me in his blogroll. I almost danced around my office. I love it when I get linked. I feel validated. As if blogging were a real form of writing that carries some weight in terms of the writing profession overall. I know that is not true. Most real employed writers cast disdainful glances over the tops of their specs or down their long pointy noses at we rebels who take the publishing thing into our own hands and blog. Still, Uncle Keith writes a witty blog and it’s an honor to be linked to it.

 

Because I was pondering links today, not just due to Uncle Keith, I did a tag search of the topic. I wondered what others thought about links and linking. I know since discovering my Technorati listing that links help one build something called “authority” which simply means the number of legitimate links a blog has to other sites. This authority is responsible for one’s ranking among a shitload of other blogs. Not a technically or politically correct way of putting it, but there are millions of blogs out there. There are more blogs than newspapers or magazines. They outnumber radio and television stations too, I bet. And they reach millions of people, or they could if millions of people where interested in being reached. Some have tens of thousands of views a day and I find that my mind buckles and my soul starts looking for the nearest bed to crawl under at the thought of that. I nearly had a panic attack the day I provoked the few hundred Angelina fans into checking out a tongue in cheek titled piece I wrote about women and unrealistic beauty expectations not long ago. Though my husband knows me better than I know myself and insists that I would “learn to deal” should I ever become a consumable blogging flavor, there is a shy fat girl in me always who would need smelling salts daily if that should ever happen.

 

Most of my links are informational ones. I have sites and literary magazines listed for my own use and for any writers who stumble across here hoping to find publishing opportunities for fiction or poetry or whatever. I have the widow blogs (which I recently discovered is a term that at least on of them takes issue with but misses the point that I label them for the convenience of those searching for information and not because I feel that the people who write these blogs are one dimensional. I am/always was far more than just that one event in my life). And then there are the links to sites that are just darn good reads. Funny. Thought provoking. Interactive. Writing should be all those things and more. Some are blogs my husband loves to read to me. Johnny Virgil for instance is even more funny when he reads it aloud to me than when I read it myself. Same holds true of Pulp at Gil Meche. There are others that I found and read when I have time to catch up, which isn’t daily but I do set aside time to read and I really try to comment because that is something about blogging that is so very important. More than people realize. Here is a writing medium that begs for audience participation and readers should respond. It’s kind of their job, in my opinion.

 

Which brings me to a blog I stumbled on today. The entry was about linking to sites that don’t return the favor. Now, I don’t advocate linking blogs simply to get linked. Unless you are providing a list for information purposes only it’s better that you read or have a some sort of cyber acquaintanceship with the blog or blogger. I link people because I know them from somewhere else. Like Konnie at It’s Cheaper Than Therapy. She and I go back to BabyCenter when we were trying to conceive and posting on the message boards there. Many of the widow links are connections from the YWBB whose posts I read and blogs I found on that particular journey in my life. One of my biggest referrers from there is Tanja. A Dutch ex-pat in the U.S. who is a wonderful writer and is working on her teacher’s certification. She is a keen observer. The blog post I read today talked about bloggers who snub you despite your being a reader/commenter of long-standing. I have had my share of that. I have linked people who do not have me linked in return. It hurts frankly but just because you have found something in another’s blog that speaks to you doesn’t mean that the blogger will take to you in kind. We can speak to each other without being heard in return. And too there are instances where a certain blogger has a particular theme to their blog with links that reflect that, and your blog simply doesn’t fit in.

 

The blog universe, just like the real world of social interaction we all learned about back in our high school days, is full of clichés and in crowds that we all can’t have membership in. Some of us will be popular and cool and some of us will still be geeks even in our own ethereal worlds. Not fair, but who said we were building a more equitable place to dwell here on the ‘Net? I try to remember that it’s not all personal despite the sometimes cozy feeling we get when we read and comment and are responded to in turn.

It’s Like Anakin Going to the Dark Side


My husband has become a blogger. It was inevitable. I am his evil twin after all. Still it’s a bit like watching Anakin Skywalker trodding that fine line between the light and dark side of the force. Blogging is an addictive thing when you think you have something to say. Even if you don’t have anything of import to say, it can be a mighty tempting way to exercise your opinion and speaking as an opinionated person, there is nothing more dangerous than giving us a platform or a highhorse from which to speak and/or tumble off onto our beans. Still I think you should do me the favor of checking out his blog. He is my beta reader (when I am patient enough to wait for him to get home to read my pieces and if you are counting my spelling errors – you know that isn’t always often) and a very good writer. He is a big back story person though – so be forewarned. And enjoy.