Welcome, Judy!

I feel a bit remiss in not saying this sooner. You see, as of a week or so ago, I have a new person in that "following" section on the left side of my blog!

The connections that happen on blogs are kind of amazing. I was sitting with the proprietors of the "Tiz and Ass" and "Blake Hayes's Blog" blogs in Manhattan last weekend, and we were talking about how strange it is to know that people all over the world are reading things that we're writing.

Now, I must admit that I found out during the discussion that, in some languages, apparently "Tiz" is a bad word -- and not simply a nickname for the author. No surprise, in the parts of the world where that language is spoken, she has quite the following. Or, at least, a lot of one-time hits on her blog -- there's no way to know whether they come back when they find out it's not a soft-porn blog. Even so, though, her "where they're from" map is crazy-covered with dots from all over the world.

On the other hand, Blake's blog doesn't have a map on it yet (but we're working on talking him into it), but each time he posts an update about the hate crime he was involved in last fall in New York, he gets comments from all over the world. Can you imagine anyone hearing about that attack half-way around the world back in the pre-internet days? Or can you imagine a pre-internet world somehow opening up dialogue with people around the globe?

Of course, for most of the first year of my blog, I knew pretty much everyone who was reading it. Sure. I drop John Barrowman's name into the header from time to time and get huge spikes in my readership. And I sometimes send out my info to other people via networking sites resulting in jumps in readership numbers for a day or two. But even after almost 18 months, I know that I'm never going to have a readership as big as "Tiz and Ass" or "NajMania" or any of the food blogs I salivate over pretty much daily.

And, yet, in the past few weeks I've had a semi-anonymous comment or two left on here. And I even have a new "follower" named Judy (her photo is down on the left side), who showed up recently.

So, everyone, please join me in welcoming Judy to my/our world. I hope you enjoy your stay. Feel free to fill out a comment card (or the comment box, at least), and I may or may not respond. But, well, if you've been reading me for any length of time, you probably know that, already.

**And, if you like to read this blog, and want to show me that you enjoy it, why not set up your own little "following" tag so you can be in that column, too? That way you don't have to comment, but I'll still know you're there. Thanks!