Comments? Anyone? Anyone At All?

For a long, long time, it seemed as if four to six people, max, were visiting my blog on a regular basis--my daughers Jul thumbscre.ws, Caer Coenister Caer's Donut Dungeon and Junket Mischievous Junket, a sweet lady with amazing spirit, Jo, at Tangled Me and maybe an occasional curious relative or two. Anyway, it was just the daughters and the sweet lady who were commenting, but that was OK 'cause I was just doing it as an exercise in reading/thinking/speaking/writing to preserve gray matter as I trudge inexorably toward my senior years.

Then Caer mentioned casually one day that she could track visitors to her blog with the aid of a site meter. She could tell how many people visited her blog and how they got there (search engine, referred from another site, wandered in by apparent mistake) and get quite a lot of free statistical information regarding the ebb and flow around her site. Seemed like a good idea at the time, so I signed up fer free and was able to track the four people who visited my blog regularly and the one or two random strangers who stumbled in about once a month looking for lyrics to Willie Nelson songs.

When Jul went through her separation from mr. thumbscre.ws and Caer broke up messily with exBf, a flurry of readership on their sites ensued. Jul's blog had been gaining a wide audience based solely on her astounding writing skills, and Caer's sweet/funny/aching tales of obsessive love gone feral started bringing in visitors like Free Can of Soda Day at WalMart. Junket and I watched our site meters in amazement as more and more people clicked over to our blogs from the links to us on Jul and Caer's sites.

Our statistics tore through the envelope and began orbiting the earth when Jul's estranged husband's mistress inexplicably decided to comment on her husband-stealing expertise on the site of a popular blogger friend of Jul's (So Close: Would You Look Away, 05 Sept 2006). Comments from Jul's friends who were visiting the friend's site tore Miss Mistress apart like a careless capybara in an alligator-infested swamp. Co-Blogger Friend put up a second posting a few days later, following Steve Irwin's death, (So Close: Following Your Heart. A Question, 08 Sept 2006), and the carnage continued. Over 100 more commentors continued to rip the hapless mistress to shreds, and the site meters on all of the Related Gals' sites contined to spin out of control.

Since that time, things have settled down a lot. Caer took down her blog due to complications involving exBf's sharing knowledge of her site with people who really shouldn't have been exposed to it, Jul forged on with her adventures in wicked good writing, singlehood and peaceful co-existence with her soon-to-be ex for the sake of their child, and Junket and I watched our stats shrivel daily.

Now, Junket is an amazing writer on her own, and she will undoubtedly find her own level and own group of friends with her dark, poetic observations. But I cannot imagine this particular blog, Priscilla's Ramblings About Her Pet Rats and ShopRite Coupons, will ever again enjoy an audience of more than three daughters, one or two online friends and the occasional Willie Nelson fan.

*sound of wolves howling in the darkness*

But that's OK; the more I write, the more often I have to use thesaurus. com. And I have to keep up with the basic html. That should keep the old gray matter jiggling.

*sound of tumbleweeds rustling*

This is a better way to spend time than if I were watching soap operas on t.v. or gossiping about nothing on the telephone for hours on end. Or obsessing about my memory loss. Or about the cats' hairball problems.

Comments? Anyone? Anyone At All?

*sound of an acorn hitting the shed*

OK... nevermind.