Reaching The Pinnacle

Tuesday, second day of the work week when we look with relish at a past Monday and longing toward an approaching weekend. I basically envision myself climbing this steep cliff, hands bloodied, nails broken, gasping for breath and stretching to grasp the pinnacle of Wednesday and drag myself over the top so I can roll down the gentle, grassy slope to Friday evening.

I'm contemplating how on earth I can skip Wednesday and just get right to that slope.

Whatever. Week is not half done but I am.

I noticed the ticker at the bottom says I've topped 20,000. What? No trumpets? No parade? No ticker tape? No balloons, streamers, or cheers? Well.

Still, I like seeing stats. One thing I noticed right away was that my post from 2008 "A Little Bit of Gun History" had hits. This may seem random but if it does you live in a cave. I actually didn't remember writing it and had to do read it. I found it interesting but then questioned my sources. Really.

It has been a horrendous week for the people of Connecticut. And probably for most of the nation. I've avoided all news but a minimum number of articles reporting it. I'm not watching videos, tributes, and reading interviews with survivors. I have a six year old grand-daughter. I can't be dragged into the hell these parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and siblings are living. I simply can't. I see a shinning, smiling face with sparkling eyes of a bubbling little girl that holds my heart in her hands. I am totally incapable of dealing with this horror because her face is superimposed at every mention of this horrible disaster. The promise of Christmas has been obliterated for the survivors and there is no fixing it. I can only pray for them, pray for us all.

I still have no tree up. No decorations, either. I moved things around over the weekend with the help of my sons. We put the freezer in the garage. I am amazed at how much of a relief that was! I need it but it is such a nuisance to have in the house. I still have to clean out a closet for David. I'm planning on doing that this week. Unfortunately, the events of the weekend left me almost completely unable to move on Sunday. I pushed hard Thursday through Saturday to get this done, not stopping for much of anything. The price was pain that is not on any scale. I could barely walk at all Sunday and movement of any kind was misery. 

I bought stuff for our Christmas dinner. Thankfully, I have the weekend to prepare so it shouldn't be such a rush. I have to put up any decorations soon or I might as well not bother.

May I be perfectly honest? I really, really, really do not like holidays anymore. Truly. Even though I enjoy Sarah's excitement and pleasure I truly find them unbearably painful and tedious. I don't have anything to celebrate. I'm thankful for my family and my home and my job every day of the year but the memories I have of holidays are all bad and getting through November to February is just very hard.  

We don't even bother much with gifts anymore. I mean, I usually give the boys their gift in the form of money weeks before the holiday, at their request. They buy what they want. No one but my aunt generally buys me anything, maybe my sister who lives here, but other than that, I don't unwrap a thing. There is no one special for me to buy for but Sarah and I do that all the time anyway. So, in essence I'm putting myself through a grinder for nothing. It is very disheartening when all the things that sparkled and shone in your life is pretty much tarnished and rusted out and you no longer feel important to anyone. 

And with that, I'll stop. I have an hour to get my work done. It isn't enough. But tomorrow I will reach that pinnacle, Wednesday. I'll bandage the hands and drift down the hill... one hopes, to the weekend when I'll be off four days, work one and be off another four days. For that, I am truly thankful.

All In the Numbers

I like statistics. Not calculating them but I like reading things that tell me what percentage of something did something, does something, was something and as a result something happened. You can write a story with statistics.

For example, I was looking at my dashboard and they have a lot of statistics there. They haven't always had the setup they have now but gradually it has been improved upon. Anyway, I can remember for several years not much happened on my stat board. The  numbers would slide up one by one. Telling me someone or something came by. I was up around 10,000 as of 2010, I think. They don't have a long term record that I can see but I think that's right.

Last year I changed my NaNoWriMo profile and pointed people here. Honestly, I didn't think people read my NaNo profile. Really. Why would they? But suddenly, those numbers were moving up in double digit segments. By the end of the year it was in excess of 11,000. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know bots make the numbers rise. I've been doing this awhile, thanks. But they're not the only thing that raise the count. If I  delve below the surface, I can see where people and things are coming from and they were coming from my profile on NaNo. Every entry that says NaNoWriMo in the link is from that profile. And there were a several.

Today I looked and in two years I've had more hits than in at least three years before 2010! I'm now on my way to 17,000. I expect to hit that number before the end of next week.

Let's see. I changed my bio on NaNo. The numbers went up. I began linking to my FB page. The numbers moved faster. I linked my posts to my G+ stream. The numbers really started to click. And now, Multiply is closing and I've directed people from there with a link. The numbers moved a bit faster AND I went from 4 followers to 20, most of those all new people. I placed a link on Blogster and gained a couple more. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know some are still bots. I don't care. Those bots are feeding themselves on  my posts and carrying them elsewhere to distribute to potential people  who, one hopes, will in turn come to enjoy my blog.  Someone doing a search on something will get a hit on my blog...they might come by. I might make a new acquaintance, gain a new follower, start a new conversation.

That's a good story.