"Who, who, who, who? I really wanna know." The Who, 1978
Headquartered as I am in the Seattle area for a few weeks -- and slightly discombobulated due to the drastic change of pretty much everything -- I was fairly astonished to discover it was Thursday, the day I write my weekly post to publish on Friday.
I’ve written from Seattle before, but now the old house is sold and closed (as of today!), and I haven’t yet had time this trip for any adventures to tell you about. But there is something I’ve been wanting to write a bit about, and that is this mystery of writing a weekly column.
That’s what this really is, I think. The idea of writing a column has intrigued me all my adult life. A column in a newspaper was what I always had in mind. It never happened. Then along came the internet and weblogs and suddenly there was a way to do it.
I like this forum. I like not having an editor looking over my shoulder, being free to write about whatever I feel like, free to add photos when I want, to be serious or silly or something in between.
I suppose one of the similarities between writing this and writing for any print publication is that one seldom knows who is reading. How can one know? These days, there are fancy, nosy internet programs that track readers, but they’re expensive and more than I care to download right now. I do have something provided by Typepad, though. It's called "Stats".
I have to tell you how strange, how otherworldly it is to open the “Stats” window on my Typepad dashboard and see what I am able, and unable, to see.
The Typepad stats are less than elementary. Even so, every day I see how many people have visited this blog. I can see how many page views I’ve had since I started writing it sixteen months ago. I can tell whether I was bookmarked as “San Pancho Vida”, or whether someone bookmarked a particular article or photo that they use as their gateway. I don't have a clue who that person is, however.
I see Google or Bing searches for “San Pancho Vida” or “Candice’s San Pancho blog”, but I can’t tell who entered the search. One time I saw a google for “concrete block” (from Google Russian!) that led the seeker to my blog; there have been others, equally as goofy, several in Arabic or Farsi or some other alphabet entirely unknown to me. One or two of those have actually been a search for San Pancho Vida. Explain that.
I can tell when a reader has come to me through another website: Life's a Beach or San Pancho Weather or Rollybrook or Mexconnect. But again, I can’t tell who you are, whether it’s your first or fiftieth visit.
I can often get a peek at which posts a visitor visited. Other times, there are annoying hash marks that tell me nothing at all, except that Someone visited Some Page.
What I never can see are names and faces. I can’t tell who is visiting for forty-eight minutes in the wee hours of the morning, who is catching up by clicking through the archives index, who read every single Tracy Guadalupe entry as instructed (I mean, requested) in a recent post.
It’s surreal. I want to know who you are, where you are, what you are doing up at 3:37 a.m. I want to hear from you. What are you doing? Why are you reading?
Of course, some of you correspond regularly. Many of you who do, I have met on Mexico travels or on other Mexico websites. Others are old friends who delight me by reading each Friday post. I thank you and love you for reading. I cherish your funny and perceptive comments.
I’d really like to know who you are, the couple who came into Panchito’s asking for me while I was in Tonalá. From the Portland area? Somewhere in Oregon, I think. You told Nicole you read these posts regularly. Write to me.
How about you, the woman who built a house in San Blas, who found José Orozco’s website here and went shopping with him in Tonalá? I want to know about your house, how your shopping trip went, and about building and living in San Blas.
How about others of you, who read this for whatever reason? Will you write?
You can comment at the bottom of any post by clicking on “Comment”. You’ll have to put in your email address (to prevent bad guys from getting in), but those addresses are never published. Comments end up in my email box and I publish them from there.
Or you can click on “About” up in the right corner and email me directly at sanpanchovida@seanet.com.
I hope you’ll do one or the other.
And if you don’t, that’s okay, too. I’ll continue to notice you in that other cyber-dimension, on the hazy stats page where at least I can tell I’ve had a visitor. And I’ll thank you for coming by.
Thank you.
Gretchen asked me once if I were going to discontinue this blog after construction ended. I assured her that it had become a habit that I thoroughly enjoy. Also, I’m pretty sure construction never ends; and I see Casa Luz de Luna as a launching pad for travels, adventures, and discovering stories. So I’ll keep writing as long as you read.
xo
Candice
♡ ✍ ♡
Life's A Beach Beck's heartfelt and colorful blog, full of good humor, fabulous photos, and delicious details of her life and travels.
San Pancho Weather Curt’s website is more than just weather, with news, stories and photos too. We who live in the area make a habit of visiting. Especially those of us who need to know the moment of highest humidity, the overnight low, how this month’s rain compares to a year ago. Like me, for instance.
Rollybrook How does Rolly cram so much useful information about living in Mexico and moving to Mexico and managing in Mexico into a website that remains readable and navigable? Must be quantum mechanics…
Mexconnect A big, rich, elegant site with information, articles and forums about all things Mexico.
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