Hi. How Are You? Who Are You?

The other day, when I was looking at stats to identify the blog's most popular posts, I also glanced at where returning visitors come from. Actually, over the past several months, I have used Feedjit off and on to see where my visitors hail from. (By the way, I myself don't like the idea of being watched, so I don't like to look too closely at my readers without their knowing. That's kind of creepy, don't you think?) Anyway, Feedjit just gives me a look at locations of readers. If it does give me any more info than that, I don't really know or care.

The only reason I even like knowing where readers come in from is that I'd like to sometimes post about things that might interest them instead of talking about myself all the time. Because I have the attention span of a toddler, even though I glance at my reader stats all the time, I remember those stats for about half a second. The good thing about that is, repeat visitors kind of stand out even in my memory.

It looks like I have some faithful readers out there from outside Paris, France, in Washington state and California and New York and down in Brisbane and Sydney. I get a lot of visitors from the UK. If I look closer at stats, I seem to attract the attention of more folks outside the US - at least enough for them to come back. Wonder what that means?

~shrug~

Blogger, Technorati, Feedjit... numbers, graphs and charts. I can give myself a major headache if i look too long at any of this stuff. What am I supposed to do with this information? No clue. I just found it interesting for about five minutes. And it made me want to know about the folks who come over and take a look at the blog. I'm so self-focused when write my posts, but, if I could talk to you guys, I'd want to know more about you.

So, all right then, I am talking to you, and I am very nosy:

• Where are you from & do you like it there or not? Why?
• Are you Android or Apple?
• What would you do if you could do anything and get paid for it?
• What's your favorite social network, if you have one? (G+, Facebook, Twitter....)
• Are you creative & how?
• Do you have a theme song? What is it?
• What's your zodiac sign?
• Are you part of a big family? Do you like that?
• What's your favorite song, book, quote...?
• What cycle of your life are you in right now? (Happy, sad, changing, learning...)

Of course, I have learned from experience that my readers tend to be shy. I get more direct emails than I do comments here and on G+. That's okay. If you do email, please remember to put the post title in the Subject line. Sometimes things go straight to my junk folder and I can't tell what's what.

Peace
--Free

Being Free is Almost 8 Years Old

Playing around with an app called Days Since, I realized that this blog is - at this very moment - 7 years, 9 months and 11 days old.

Dang.

Up to now I have published 702 posts (not including this one).

Wow.

Since I haven't published any of my fiction novels, this blog is the most of myself as a "writer" that I have put out for anyone to see. Here's to another 8 years of the blog. Until I do get a book ready to be published, here are the posts that people seem to like the most. Based on Blogger's stats, these have all gotten the most views. (To those of you who have posts regularly hitting in the thousands, let me just have my little moment here.)

• Bailey Quarters (2/23/09) 1280+
• The Wisdom of Children (3/29/09) 1130+
• The Devil is a Liar! (5/18/09) 5820+
• A Recipe: Hot Water Cornbread (5/30/09)
• Bust the Busy-ness (8/ 18/09)
• Strange & Beautiful Streets. Strange & Beautiful Life (7/30/10) 1570+
• Auld Lang Syne (12/26/10) 1460+
• The Fitting Room Blues (3/16/12)
• Old Loves. Old Love Songs (4/11/12) 
• **REVIEW** Pedi-Spin (6/18/12) 5300+
• **REVIEW** L'Oreal EverCreme (7/23/12)  2800+
• **REVIEW** Garnier Miracle Skin Perfector Oil-Free B.B. Cream (4/10/13)
• Cootie Catchers and Life (10/18/13)

If I wrote only to get a lot of visitors to the blog, I guess I would write more about kids, the devil and skin products! But I write to make myself think or laugh or wonder, and it's pretty cool when so many other people come over here to share it all with me.

Peace

--Free