Love Note to My Readers

One of the biggest debates in keeping an online journal is for whom exactly you are writing. Do you, as the writer, post the entries to entertain an audience, or is it a place to record personal triumphs and setbacks?

I've posed this question to myself many times. My primary reason for having this page is to vent and express my feelings, but I feel very priveleged and honored to have folks that read this page and have taken an interest in the mundane goings-on in my life. I never expected to have thousands of adoring groupies, and I doubt that I ever will, but it blows me away when I hear from someone I've never met that has been keeping up with my exploits.

I've had complete strangers write to debate presidential elections with me. I've had people check in, worried about my broken toe, sharing my sorrow in the loss of my cat. Hell, one of my fellow bloggers (yes, GeekMan, I'm talking 'bout you) showed more concern over my questionable sanity and well-being last summer than some people that I'd known for 10 years.

And it's times like those that simply amaze me. I get my Sitemeter stats on Friday mornings and realize that people that I've never met in countries that I've never been to have been reading about my daily exploits. Yeah, my numbers aren't anywhere close to massive. I never expected them to be. But I also didn't expect to be read in 9 different time zones this week.

And I know that a page hit doesn't necessarily equal an avid reader. It could just as well be a person who was looking for something else, and stumbled across my page because the search engine gods decided to be kind to my page. They could have taken one look at my post, thought "What the hell is THIS?" and gone on to the next return on Google. Or maybe they stuck around. Who knows?

My latest source of amazement has been the response I received about Blogathon 2002. I had feared that I wouldn't have the required three sponsors by the Saturday deadline, so I had started the ball rolling by sponsoring myself. I figured that I would con my mother and Zappagirl into pledging and then I'd be fine.

Here it is, Friday, and I have six sponsors. Mom and Zappagirl chipped in, Paisley added a bid, and Monkey (one of Zappagirl's coworkers) jumped into the fray yesterday. I've met this guy twice, and he's supporting me. How cool is that?

Oh, the latest update on Blogathon... Zappagirl has decided to play as well, blogging for SPCA Cincinnati with Rants from the Queen City, and starting a new page called For My Aunt Charlotte benefitting the American Cancer Society. Since she has two computers networked together at her house, I'll be heading up to her house for a 24 hour session of tag-team blogging. She's talking about inviting people from her job up that night for drinks. We're trying to figure out a way to upload any pictures we take with the digital camera so we can keep a photo journal of this as well. Much coffee will be brewed. Bad 80s music will be played. Wine may possibly enter the picture at some point. We will probably smoke entirely too much. There may be costume changes involved. (I'm still debating over whether I should wear my tiara.) Wacky hijinks will ensue.

Of course, the question of what to write about for 24 hours still remains. I'm sure many ideas will come to us spontaneously, and I'll be packing The Book of Questions or something like that for moments when we get stumped. I had another idea, but I'll need the help of my readers....

(This is the audience participation section. Your help is greatly encouraged and apreciated.)

It's been a while since I've asked folks to introduce themselves to me, and I'm curious to know about who's out there reading. If you have the time, drop me a line and tell me about yourself. Nothing too specific, who you are (alias if you prefer one), where you're from, how you stumbled across my page. If you have your own site or something you feel like pimping, then pimp away. And if you feel like posing a question or subject to be covered in the mad posting of Blogathon, ask away. I'll do my best to answer what I get to the best of my ability.

Just think, now's your chance to ask me anything you've ever wanted! And since I'll be more hopped up on caffeine than usual, the answers might be pretty surreal. If you're not ready to stand up and introduce yourself, don't worry. You rock all the same.

I'm going over to Zappagirl's for a Blogathon preliminary planning session tonight after working at the Cincinnati Pops performance at Riverbend tonight. (My mother also works for the Zoo, and has asked me to help pass out ADOPT information before the show starts. So if you happen to be at Riverbend tonight and you see a redhead in a Zoo shirt who looks like she really needs a nap, it's probably me. Stop and say hello.) More news as it develops....