Dear Lurker: A love letter

"Lurker" has such a negative connotation to it. I prefer the term "Friends without Comments", or FWOCs. As is often the case, yesterday I started out at a blog that I read on a regular basis, found a comment that peaked my curiosity, which lead me to numerous other sites. One of the blogs I went to was called Blog Around the World. It's a really cool site where fellow bloggers can get tips and share ideas. There's even a little button widget that you can paste on your sidebar. I considered putting it on here, but it seems that the target audience is female. And while I am a female and most certainly write from that perspective, I don't consider this a "women's blog". I hope it's not, anyway. Okay, that last post was not something many men could relate to, but I don't write too many of those. That post has, however, inspired me to re-write the lyrics to Kelly Clarkson's song "Beautiful Disaster" and devote my version to my new friend Beth. I'm calling it "Muffintop Disaster". (That STILL cracks me up!) But once again, I digress...

Anyhoo, here's where I was going with this: In researching this post, I found some blog articles that were centered around why people should comment on other people's blogs, how to get people to comment on your blog, yadda, yadda, yadda. If I'm being honest, I WOULD like more people to comment. Partly because it is a boost to my ego (a bad thing), and partly because I'm really curious who is reading and why. (Well, maybe not so much why. I'm not even sure why I WRITE some of the things here.) If you scroll waaaaay down to the bottom of HLAC, you will find a site hit counter and a cluster map. Now, the counter updates each time someone views my blog - even me - every time they check my blog. But, according to the FAQs on the cluster map feature, it only counts the hits from any particular html (or whatever it's called) in one 24 hour period. And while I think cluster map has some kinks in it (for instance, I know Mare checks in on a regular basis, but there's no dot in Nigeria), using my daft math skills, I figure even with my chatty girl blogger pals going back and forth on each other's blogs, there's still quite a few others reading and not commenting. Besides, with the exception of Mare, we're all here in the states. I have friends that have told me they read this blog, and I can see their dots on the map, but that doesn't explain all the dots in states where I don't know anyone or the dots in South America, Africa, Western Europe, Indonesia, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, et. al. Incidentally, Australia and New Zealand are the two places I most want to visit before I go to heaven. Although I'm sure Aussies probably want to kill us when we go over there sporting horrible Crocodile Dundee accents and saying things like, "Gooday mate!" Just as I'm sure Kiwis probably roll their eyes when a bunch of silly Americans come over there looking for Hobbits. I promise if I have the privilege of visiting "down under" I won't do that.....much. Yet again, I digress.

The point I was trying to make about 100 words ago is this: Whether you comment or not, I'm incredibly humbled and grateful that you would take the time to check in on me and my ramblings and rantings. I hope that I have provided a giggle or two; maybe even challenged you in one way or another. So, again -- thank you so very much. If you have any suggestions or ideas about the content of this blog, feel free to leave me a comment...(Hey, it was worth a shot.)

And speaking of being grateful, I am incredibly grateful to my blogger pal Angela, without whose help I would not be able insert hyperlink codes with such annoying frequency.