Who are you?

Now and then I check the statistics page of my blog. OK, nearly every day. Some days I get just a few hits: I’m sure this can be blamed somehow on the weather. Other days, my blog registers frequent hits from all over the world: mostly New Zealand and the U.S., but also a surprising number from countries like Turkey, Brazil, Germany, Malaysia, Russia.

I know I have a few faithful followers – thanks, Mom – but who are all the others who sporadically read my tragicomic blog? Yes, you – who are you? On this point, the statistics are mute. However, it is possible to at least find out how some people – whether they become regular readers or not – may have stumbled upon my blog, by taking a look at the Google or Yahoo search words they used to get there.

Because of my freelance proofreading work, I’m also guilty of searching the web for some very odd phrases. Yesterday, for example, I googled the phrase “three mace of cinnabar” and found not one but two sites with these exact words. But I’d like to meet the person who happed upon my blog last week by typing in the search words “Now I’m toothless”. I think we might have a lot in common. But whoever it was who googled “picture of old toothless and glasses” surely wouldn’t have found my blog picture suitable to their cut-and-paste needs. I don’t wear glasses.

It’s no surprise that in the last couple weeks my blog has received hits through searches for literary agent “Michael Harriot”. Since last year's blog post about querying him with my memoir, I’ve had 56 hits from aspiring writers seeking his contact details. I wonder if any of them has had luck with him. The closer I’ve come to agent Michael Harriot is cozying up next to him on the Google search page. Sorry, Michael, that I appear before you do. I’m confident that when you bag your thirteenth New York Times bestseller, you’ll move up to the first slot.

Who is that linguistic soulmate of mine who typed in “Beautiful Italian words”? I hope you weren't disappointed that I wrote about ugly Italian words instead. I’m curious about the reasons someone had for looking up the “know my chicken phrase”: do you too have an Italian friend who literally translates conosco i miei polli into English, thinking it makes sense? Thank you to whomever drifted to my blog by means of the search words “How did I learned Italian”. You might also like my blog post called “How did I learn English?” OK, for this scathing punch line, I deserve your wrath and now fear you. But not nearly as much as I fear the individual who was looking last week for “John ghotti nieces”. I don’t know anything. I have no idea who you’re talking about.

I’m dying of curiosity to know who found me last week by searching for “Flip flop girl chapters 10 –14” and “can i try a puff”. Apologies to the not one but two fishermen who accidentally reached my blog while looking for information about “drop shot pesca”.

To those of you this week searching for “Phrases to compliment someone casually”, “Cool phrases to say casually” and “Cool new phrases”, I say, Just be yourself.

Even if you’ve just stumbled across this blog today, incredibly you’ve read this far. That makes you privy to my innermost thoughts as I write tonight in my pyjamas from snow-powdered New Zealand. So, if I can ask for a moment more of your time and you don’t mind leaving a comment: who are you? And also to those who I did not beg to join my blog in order to boost my number of followers, to those of you who are not my sister-in-law or my husband but still enjoy reading my blog now and then from all over the globe, I ask: who are you?