Roll Call and Random Rewards

Okay, so I'm dying to know.

Who are the 15.57 average people who visit my blog each day? Do I know them? Do they know me? Exactly how many lurkers do I have? And are they really average or are they of the extraordinary type?

There are many reasons that I want to know this:

1. Mere Curiosity. (And now I'm really curious as to why one must drop the "u" when changing curious to curiosity. Are there any other similar words? Oh, I suppose there's viscous. It becomes viscosity. So, why must the u go away? Hmm? And now I must wonder about the viscosity of my curiosity. Is it sticky, glutinous? Or will it flow away as soon as I finish this blog entry?)

2. Vanity. Of course there's vanity. Blogging is, by nature, a somewhat vain thing. Even when I try to convince myself otherwise, I always come back to the fact that it really does matter to me that someone is reading this thing, and hopefully liking it. So, yes, I sort of wonder who thinks the things I write are interesting enough to read.

3. Content Control. Now, this is the biggest reason. I did something somewhat, um, foolish perhaps. Last year I sent out our yearly Christmas letter to many, many people. And do you know what I decided would be a really good piece of information to include? Yep, you guessed it. The address to this blog. So anyone could be reading this. Aunts, uncles, cousins, ex-boyfriends... Really, who knows?

Oh, yeah, not me.

And sometimes I'm dying to dish. Not knowing who my readers/lurkers are has especially been a hindrance where Soap Opera Sunday is concerned. Like, what if I want to tell you all stories about my clueless junior year when I managed to alienate some of my very best friends? Or my senior year when I was so out-of-my-mind depressed that I could barely function but managed to keep a smiling face so none of my friends or family realized it, but still did enough self-destructive things that it was probably more obvious than I thought.

Now, don't get me wrong. As much as I know that sometimes it can make interesting reading, it's just not in my nature to say anything unkind or untrue. I've tried sometimes, in the interest of "juicing it up a bit". It never comes out right. I am naturally candid and generally kind.

And, I probably will still write the same stuff even if I know that certain people who were involved are reading. I think I'll just feel better about making the choice to write certain things with a consciousness that those who were there to witness it are reading along.

Does that make any sense? Anyone? Anyone?

So, here goes, the reason for this post that was intended to be short and sweet but has actually grown quite lengthy:

I'd love to have a roll call. If you read my blog this week, please leave me a little note saying "Hi! I'm here." And if I know you personally, just clue me in to that. Like if you're a Jared and you read my blog and you're not just some random Jared from Poughkeepsie then say so. "Hi, it's Jared. Yeah, THE Jared. You know, the one you once (innocently and ignorantly!) poured a bottle of urine on while he was in the bathtub?" You see what I mean?

If I don't know you outside of blogland, then just leave a link to your blog or use your blogger account to comment. You know how it works.

And if you don't know how it works, just look below this post. There is something that says "0 have something good to say". Click that. Type your comment in the box and follow the instructions. Voila!

Now we've gotten that out of the way, here's the random reward part.

After about 7-15 days, I'll have one of my cute children pull three names out of a hat and then I'll send each of those three people something.

The first name will receive an iTunes gift card.

The second name will receive, um, a book. I'm not sure which book, but I promise it will be good. Maybe I'll even let you choose the genre.

The third name will receive something random from my home. Again, I'm not sure what. Maybe it will be one of the kids toys that I'm dying to send away. Maybe a mix CD. Maybe a picture of my Aunt Margie. Won't that be fun?

So, please, comment. Let me know you're here and maybe you will be one of the lucky winners.