2/20/2007

Party of One

I'm prone to casual bouts of blog traffic paranoia in which I wonder what I have or haven't done to piss everyone off. For the most part, people are still commenting which is great because I live for comments. These are dull times you see. When your swinging single friends send group emails to ask what everyone is up to and you can only muster, "Uh, I went on a walk today." or "P. quite likes to eat pureed swede.", you know your life is hardly as thrilling as you would like it to be. At least comments and traffic lead me to think that I'm vastly more popular and entertaining than I really am.

I'm not being melodramatic children, the traffic here suuuuuuuuuuuucks. I have felt that since having P. my brain has slowly been drained through an invisible straw, so crap are my posts. I want to be witty and clever! I want to be brilliant and always hilarious like Alexa. Bitch. No lie, the number of people who bother to stop by anymore is similar to what it was when I first started blogging. That's even with padded stats courtesy of searches such as, "school doctor take off your panties" and "fucky mother". I wish I was kidding when I say that the latter search is one which leads lost and confused souls to my blog rather often. There is also a preoccupation with Elizabeth Hasselbeck, mainly concerning her fertility or the fact that she sucks. That's not a judgment call on my part, it just seems that a lot of Americans think she sucks and need to commisserate with someone else, hoping that by googling the expression they will be united with thousands of like-minded individuals.

The lack of traffic may also be due to me not commenting on others' blogs. To that I say, I want to comment desperately but Typepad have it in for me and still will not allow me to comment. I never realised that many of the blogs I read are hosted by Typepad, and they seem to have no interest whatsoever in helping me remedy this situation. Do they not care that it is affecting my popularity? For fuck's sake. I need love Typepad, I need love. Don't deprive me of it please.

Anyway, enough navel-gazing and whining. I'll update you on The Dude's Man Flu status. I'm pleased to read that many of you do not have partners afflicted with this, because it has been the bane of my existence in the past few days. You don't know how lucky you are. The chicken soup was only temporary relief for him, as he soon submitted to his illness again. He took Friday off work, and naturally he slept in due to being so very, very unwell. I was expected to get up with P. at 6.45am and carry on with my wifely and motherly duties as normal. Of course I was still sick with my cold, but mystery man illness trumps severe cold any day, right?

Despite the apex of his sickness being nausea, he still was hesitant to eat much of anything. He started to feel a bit better at one stage and said, "I think I might try to eat a bowl of porridge.", as if he'd been throwing up the contents of his stomach for days on end. How does someone not throw up at all and still moan that they don't know if their body can handle certain foods? Jesus.

I realised I made an error in my last post regarding the male pain threshold. I said that men are "pussies", when in fact that's going against everything I'm saying. I'm sure that designation was created by men, and as we know it alludes to men possessing the supposed physical weaknesses of women. I hate to subscribe to this cliche, but I do really doubt that many men could withstand childbirth (for instance) without much histrionics and carrying on. The Dude would require a month's bedrest, resistence of all food in case his poor, fragile body couldn't handle the sustinence, and constant assurance that he wasn't going to die. Oh, the drama.

The Dude has since recovered fully, even though it was clearly touch and go for awhile. Me, I'm still congested and blowing my nose all the time, but here I am, composing a blog post. I'm such a champ.

In an effort to getting my traffic back up to reasonable proportions I'm going to try something innovative - posting more than once every three weeks! Yep, I'm going to go for at least once or twice a week, maybe even three? Who am I kidding, I don't have that much to say. I already know what my next blog post will be about, and I plan on addressing some of your fabulous comments from the SAHM/working mom post. How exciting for us all.

17 comments:

DD said...

My dear Pru, don't you know that it's "Quality, not Quantity"? (barring my ass, of course)

Maybe pictures of YOUR phenomonal ass would drive some traffic? ...TO your site, not away, silly!

And I'm so sending a request right now to Typepad about your little problem...oh...I'll need your IP address to do so. Give it to me! (humbly I ask b/c I really don't know if you want to comment on my blog or not)

Briar said...

I am planning to switch to wordpress soon and then you can comment. And any sort of promise to write more, true or not, will lure me a bit more often. I do have a tendency to visit the blogs that update frequently when I just have a moment.

Anonymous said...

What is swede? I am assuming you don't mean actual Swedish person--is it some wonky British name for apples or something?

Good luck with posting more often. I keep meaning to do that, but I am terribly lazy. I hope you have more luck than I have, because I love it when you post, and for the record, I think you are always hilarious and delightful yourself.

Anonymous said...

I too am curious about the swede thing. I consider m]y=self fairly conversant in Brit food-speak, 'but I mu;st admit I am stu\mped!\
\
As for wusSY hUSba'nds\, I thnmine gets a spe=cial lprilze f.or th=i weekendl.=He did get quite sick, poor thing, [==butthen los\most of y sympathy when, a mere 4 -hours afte-r he took -s\c,
ke informed me that he needed to go to the ER because he was "so dehydrated."
e/riN"

BTW, I am suffering neither stroke nor seizure while typing this; instead, I have the ]====as=sis=ance= of young Andrew, who is cackling with delight as he "helps" me to type. I thought I'd leave it like this as a cautionary tale of the age to come!

Anonymous said...

You know, I think people* read more when there is more of a PLOT--TTC, pregnant, etc. So you'll have to get pg again, or TTC, or something.
*by "people" I refer to my own blogreading habits.
But I do read your blog religiously and in fact just wrote a post inspired by your SAHM post, and in fact NOTED that I was inspired by that post, and LINKED to it, but of course you won't be able to comment on said post b/c my blog is on Typepad.
xxoo

Anonymous said...

Oh, now you're just a selfish bitch who's looking for attention. I bet you don't even BREAST FEED your own child do you? GOD.

For the record, I don't use typepad, so you'd better get to commenting, bitch.

Or you know, maybe you should get preggers again, and that will give you more to talk about.

I just made myself cringe.

Anonymous said...

I read through bloglines, so unless I click through to comment, I won't show up in the stats. There are probably lots of people like me. Millions even!

Anonymous said...

Oh the Man Flu - no doubt the most heinous of all illnesses. When the kiddos were 3 weeks old, they came down with RSV and both J and I were also sick. I had medical professionals telling me to rest since I was still recovering from childbirth and yet he was the one napping all damn day. I was close to drafting divorce papers. So glad to hear he's recovered - such a relief!!

Cass said...

Add me to the bloglines-reading infrequent-commenter pool. Sorry about that.

What's with men, anyway? I'm the one up and down all night, and HE'S the one taking naps. Geez.

Anonymous said...

"The Dude has since recovered fully, even though it was clearly touch and go for awhile."

Ho ho, you are the smartassiest smartass on earth!

And Pru and I had the "What the fuck is swede?" conversation yesterday. Evidently, my American friends, swede is better known on this side of the world as rutabegas.

Thalia said...

Pru, I'll be here to the bitter end, no matter how often you do or don't post. The posts about the dude totally repay my effort. Hilarious!

millie said...

If men gave birth then scheduled c-sections with lots of drugs would be mandatory. On the plus side there would be at least a 6 month paternity leave.

What's up with the swede thing, btw?

Can you comment anon on typepad? Just curious.

Anonymous said...

I'd comment more if you weren't so fucking clever. Your brilliant writing intimidates moi. Really-- you're one of my favorites. Now just be a tad less insightful and funny and I may comment again soon.

I will have you know that Mr Limbo is in the throes of Man Flu right now. Poor Little Limbo is putting up w. an ear infection, a nasty cough, acid reflux that must now go untreated until his ear infection clears up and unrelenting diaherria... all with a giant smile on his face. Mr L can't seem to make it through the day without saying something totally fist clenching and idiotic-- like, "LL must have gotten that from me." It's all I can do not to pull his hair and scream, "You're not congested, you don't have mud butt, your ear doesn't hurt. Newsflash asshole, you're not SICK!"

Well I feel better now.

Anonymous said...

We all wish we were as talented as Alexa. She gives me writer's envy like you wouldn't believe. Sigh...

So Typepad won't let you comment? That must be why you've stopped leaving me clever and acerbic responses. ;-P

Unknown said...

of course it *is* quality over quantity, and I really enjoy your writing, but as someone with the same angst now and then, and also with the same prediliction for posting infrequently, I can tell you what I have observed. traffic definitely increases with more posting (despite recent essays to the contrary) and commenting, and lots of it--it's whoring, but it works (and actually, it's lots of fun, but time-consuming). Actually, I am actually working on a research paper on the role of commenting with women's blogs. SO there you go. put that in your pipe and post it. Ha!


and HAHA I know what a swede is. I have no clue of 'merican equivalent, though. Rutabaga? (just googled, and YES) Isn't it ironic that in a space of a week a Brit in the U/S posts on rutabaga, and a U.S. in Brit posts on swedes.

Kristi said...

It's amazing the brain drain that occurs once you have a kid, isn't it? I am 100% convinced that I am at a minimum 33% more dumb than I was before I had Isabella. I don't feel smart or witty or even interesting anymore. Blah-the mommy blues, I guess.

I look forward to more frequent posts from you, though, because you "get it." The mommy thing? It. Is. Hard.

Major Bedhead said...

Man Flu. Perfect description. They get sick, the fucking world ends. We get sick, well, that's just too bad. Keep doing everything anyway, and by the way, bring me some chicken soup, while you're at it.

I also feel like my brain has had all the smarts sucked out of it lately. I don't know if it's winter or lack of sleep or a combination of both, but it's really annoying.

I read you thru bloglines, too, so I'm also affecting your stats. But I do read.