The countdown has started
Fifty-nine hours and a handful of minutes until my first-stage flight to FFM lifts off Tuesday morning. I have purchased three kilos of candies (nothing too unhealthy) and a few CDs, and sent out e-mails offering to attempt to bring in duty-free booze. There remains an enormous amount to be done, not least cleaning up this pigsty to the point where my plants' babysitter need not wear a biohazard suit to protect herself. (I greatly admire the courage of Lioness and Savtadotty in posting photographic evidence of their alleged untidiness, however regarding the untidinesses themselves I can only say: amateurs!)
Spent the day (when not reading the fine-print on bags of candy) saying goodbye to my regular visitees in various places around town, a sweet but sad occasion. At times I seem to myself to be a fish swimming in a sea of affection, and feel humbled and unworthy and very grateful.
In other news a new record has been set: 96 page-views yesterday! The odd thing is, I have no idea why. I look at my blog's statistics every once in a while, and am always surprised by the results. There is no correlation I can see between what or how often I write and how often people read: there are weeks when I blog every day (few of them, I admit!) but don't get over 150 page-views for the week, and others when I blog only twice but get seventy page-views or more each day.
On the other hand these numerical oddities are significant insignificant, readership is actually quite stable, "small but perfectly formed" as we like to say. A few minutes with Excel reveals that page-views, returning readers and first-time readers are all within one standard deviation for all but one quarter-year since I started tracking statistics. In other words, I probably already have as many readers as I shall ever have. The thought is somehow vaguely comforting.
In other other news I hid (commented out) the two previous paragraphs on re-reading, because I was disturbed by the "disconnect" between Udge propounding on readership, and me talking to my friends who drop in here. I would personally find it so distanced as to be almost offensive, were I here as a reader not writer-and-editor. The tone of the section is wrong, but I just don't have time to rewrite it. Please accept my apologies.
I un-commented the section when I discovered that the post display when when writing a comment, reveals the hidden paragraphs. Duh. Must report this as a bug.
posted by Udge @ 21:53
10 Comments:
My pre-trip anxiety has already started on your behalf! And I don't know whether to be comforted or insulted, having my untidiness classified as that of an amateur. I'm not really trying hard, it's true, but what does this mean?
The comparison was was meant to be consoling (to you) and provoking of action (me). Your machsan is quite impressive, that's true, but I am quietly confident that my general sprawlfulness can top your single room ;-)
Thanks for sharing the burden of pre-trip anxiety, there's enough to go around.
I'm not really trying hard, it's true, but what does this mean?
Oh dear, I didn't mean what did you mean? I meant how shall I proceed now that you've given me a new, even more serious dilemma: do I try harder to make a better (i.e. more professional) mess, or do I try harder to have a neat room? I suppose either would be just as good, since the pictured squalor is a result of not trying anything.
Forgive me, but what/where is FFM?
Savtadotty: yes, it could go either way :-)
Anxious: sorry, my bad. There should have been a tag on that. FFM is the airport code for Frankfurt am Main, Lufthansa's main European hub, where I switch planes coming and going.
Oh, everyone understands that there's your readers and then the abstract "readership," which get and should get different treatment, even if the second set contains the first. You're fretting too much :-)
Gute Reise!
You're fretting too much
story of my life :-|
At this stage in the preparations, I always find myself saying "I'll be glad when the holiday's over" and I can get back to the normal everyday stresses.
Are you going to be able to blog while on holiday? I'm excited for your trip and know that you'll have a wonderful time.
Are the airlines allowing carry-on items again? I've lost touch with the news. I know that we were to a point where it was hard to even bring a book or a bottle of water on the flight.
While I believe that you may feel you are a pro at messiness, I fear challenging you because that may feed the need for photos of my disaster areas.
Heh. I bet I have you all beat. Seriously. You know those houses you see on the news every once in awhile, the ones called the garbage houses? That's what I grew up in. And, while in no means that bad, am horrible at cleaning. Even the word makes me cringe.
I am so excited for you! 8 days to go! Woo!
Honestly, with you it depends on how much time I have and how long your posts are. For me, it seems readership goes up every time I mention the word sex.
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