How many people out there have blogs? One, two, three...okay, ten. Well, let me ask you this: do your search stats scare you? Because every week I receive an email from Ligit, the company responsible for my search box on the right, and it tells me how people find my blog and what they look for once they're here. Most of the time I can't bring myself to read it because, let's face it, weirdos live on the Internet. While I enjoy writing and having a blog, the idea that weirdos (and non-weirdos) are finding it and searching it...man, I'd kind of rather not know about that.
One Ligit feature I'm not nuts about is the word cloud, or whatever you call it, that evolves when people do a search. Whenever you type in something like ice cream or murderer, those words pop up in the cloud. Other readers come along later and look at the cloud, see something juicy like murderer, and they click on it. Everytime they click it, it gets bigger. Every once in a while, I'll check that sidebar and be somewhat alarmed to find
MURDERER
a few inches below my photo.
(No one has searched for murderer. Yet.)
So in an attempt to help out people who are searching for information related to this blog, I'm presenting my second list of popular searches, along with explanations and/or advice. I did the first one, which you can read to find out about tampons, cookies, and my personal favorite, infertility, about a year ago.
Ugh, maybe this will have to become an annual thing...?
1. How Jeff and I met.
I've covered this several times already, but in case you're new to the blog and don't want to sift through the old stuff, we met on Match.com about four and a half years ago, fell in love quickly, and were married about six months later. Online dating: it works!
2. Sugar cookies.
The recipe you're looking for is here. I make them for Christmas, various birthdays, Bun's vets, and a couple of little girls. They are daughters of friends and have come to expect them when we stop by. They're a lot of work, make no mistake, but sometimes I'm in the mood for a project like this. Yeah, it's not a recipe. It's a project.
3. Poof/Emily.
Lots of my readers are fans of my sister Emily, whom I've called Poof for over 20 years. She has an incredibly popular YouTube channel where she reviews makeup and demonstrates how to use it. Whenever she mentions me, I get a spike in readers. Yay for the Poof Bump! I write about her all the time, and I hope her viewers find what they're looking for when they search for her here.
4. Louis C.K.
Over the past 24 hours, somebody has been searching multiple times for comedian Louis C.K. here, typing his name as many ways as he or she can, and coming up empty-handed. I'm sure I have mentioned him on at least a few occasions, but Ligit can't seem to find anything. Strange. Well, person who is looking for Louis C.K., I would just like to say that I think Louie is the funniest comedian in the business, and I am in awe of him. I love his show on FX and am on his mailing list. I gleefully purchase everything he puts out there. One day after I had a breast cancer biopsy, I watched his comedy specials, and he turned my existential terror appointment* frown upside-down. Maybe that's why I'm such a big fan.
* "Existential terror appointment" is an expression coined by my pal Melinda. She, like Louie, has red hair and is one of the funniest people walking the planet.
5. Weight diet.
Do you want to know my weight? Sorry, that ain't nobody's business but my own. The dress I'm wearing today is a size M, which suggests that I am a medium-sized woman, in case that helps.
6. Buttermilk.
Sure! I like buttermilk and get excited when it's an ingredient in a recipe. I don't really understand buttermilk, so it makes that recipe seem experimental. Everything I've put buttermilk in has turned out great, for what it's worth.
7. Altessa.
I have no idea what this is and have never written about it. Here is a picture I found while searching for Altessa on Google. It is a neighborhood in Las Vegas with tiny trees. 'Sup, Altessa?
8. Alissa Joie.
I'm clueless regarding this search as well, but here is a kinda-close image search result. Are you searching for Angelina Jolie, reader? If so, your spelling is atrocious. Angelina Jolie is a glamorous movie star with many children. I hope this helps.
9. True Blood.
Sorry, but I don't watch this show. I have no reason for this, other than the fact that I don't have HBO, am not into 21st Century vampires, and watch too many other shows already.
10. Various misspelled food items.
Hungry people who can't spell, please click on your misspelled item of choice below. It will take you to the recipe/item I think you want.
Mokey bread, chicken tetrazinne, siracha, lil smokird, fritatta.
(I've never made a frittata. I don't like the texture around the edges.)
And finally, here's the reason I decided to do another Popular Searches entry.
11. Pregnant.
As with Infertile, my readers clicked on this so many times that it became uncomfortably huge, forcing me to add it to the list of searches I don't want visible in the word cloud. I'm not pregnant, and I don't like the thought of people seeing that giant word next to my face and jumping to conclusions. It also reminds me of something I can't be and have been sad about in the past. I think I did a good job of explaining this here and here and would like to posit the idea that maybe a woman can be valued for things beyond those that come out of her uterus. I kind of like the things that come out of my hand.
Oh wait, there's one more.
12. Ugly ginger boy with blonde highlights.
My painting of little Owen turned up on someone's general Internet image search for the above. It was a number of pages down. I'm guessing that in the blog I wrote about the painting, I used the words highlights, blonde, boy, and possibly ginger somewhere, and that was good enough for Google. I will have you know that Owen is one of the most adorable little boys in the world. I met him a couple of months ago at my opening in Jacksonville. A cousin of Mabel, he's a little bigger now but still in that darling tot phase, and he tackled me with a giant hug. His hair is mesmerizingly red now. He's the kind of beautiful child people openly gape at and way cuter than the mean weirdo searching the Internet for ugly ginger boys.
I'd like to apologize to anyone who clicked my name and read my unfunny tearjerker eulogy about Robin Gibb. I promise this won't happen again. At least not until Stevie Nicks kicks it. And she will most certainly surely bury us all.
Posted by: Melinda | June 04, 2012 at 08:25 PM
I am a barber, and I love this paintng! :-) - Clayton
Posted by: Clayton Cooper | March 05, 2013 at 01:09 PM