105 Ways to Give a Book

Telling It Like It Is

I’m going to admit something embarrassing. More embarrassing then reading the Nannies novel by the pool where anyone could see me while my suit was quietly disintegrating? Yes, even more embarrassing than that.

Occasionally, I read my horoscope.

It’s not by design, you understand. I’ll be skimming through the Style page of the Washington Post and pausing at the Baby Blues cartoon (today’s cartoon is about the Internet, btw) and sometimes — sometimes, I tell you — my eyes drift over to the horoscopes and I read mine. It often happens, though, that when I do read, it seems particularly pertinent. It’s like fate. Today’s horoscope read:
Gemini (May 21-June 21)
In striving for the top position, it’s hard not to compare yourself to the other guy, but resist doing so. It’s more effective to stick to what you do best than it is to let yourself be swayed by what’s working for someone else.
So, what was I doing before I went upstairs to have lunch and skim the paper? I swear to you, I was looking at my Technorati rank. And it’s silly, because I don’t even really get the Technorati rank thing, because it’s based on links not page views. I’m just glad that my site is moving up in the list because more people are seeing what I have to say.

I check my Technorati links every day to see if someone new out there is linking to me, so I can give them a look. Statcounter is good for that too, though harder to sift through to sort the ones that linked to you from the ones where people got to you by clicking “next blog.” (Hint: if it’s a porn site or a site in Spanish, it was probably a “next blog” hit). But, today I went there kind of glum, because my favorite funny mom blog is closing up shop. Fluid Pudding is extremely funny and very real, and I will miss her posts. But in turning this back to me, let me mention that she got over a hundred comments on her post about leaving the blogosphere. I couldn’t get a hundred comments on a post if I danced naked before a webcam while burning an American flag. So, I’m a little bit jealous.

And then the horoscope jumps out at me today, and I am so awed by its timely appearance in my life that I am quitting blogging for good.







Just kidding, but I am going to get back to my blogging roots of seven months ago (wow, isn’t that like a lifetime ago?) and make sure I get a little more of me in the posts, some more stories, and more opinions. For today, I am going back to the pool in my new, non-melting bathing suit, and spending some of these last summer hours with the kids and the sun.
Category: 2 comments

2 comments:

Girl Detective said...

I quit reading horoscopes after an astrologer told me that I had a very bad pattern in my chart coming up. "Some people die under that conjunction," she said, then noticed my stricken look, and hurried to add, "but some people just get a toothache or something." I fretted up until the day came and went. Nothing happened. Except that I stopped reading my horoscope.

I very much enjoy your reviews and recommendations, and I absolutely LOVED your piece at The Edge of the Forest. It cured my paralysis about buying gifts for the SIX friends who have just had babies. I got the infants each a teether, and their older sibs each a Pigeon book. And if they're to be believed, not one already owned a Pigeon book.

Nancy said...

I've just started reading your blog, thanks to links on other blogs. I love the way you write, and the bathing suit story almost made me cry.