Exposure

Any anonymous blogger will tell you that staying anonymous isn't a way of avoiding the truth, but rather it allows a much greater freedom to tell a very full truth. I could never write about myself the way I do if I used the everyday name that people associate with me. For the most part, everyone's names have been changed here, but essentially everything else about them has remained intact in my writing.

There are only four people who know me in person who know that I am the author of this blog. As far as I can tell, only one of them reads it, and only occasionally at that. The fact that anyone reads this blog at all amazes and delights me. My head is a very lonely place, but if anyone wants to take a peek at what's going on in there, it's always nice to have help with the processing.

When I started this blog in 2007, a couple of people found it almost immediately. I was stunned, having expected to blog in virtual solitude indefinitely. This turn of events made me curious about how many people might be taking a look at the Brainucopia, so I installed a hit counter that let me see exactly how many times my blog was accessed. And that was that. For years.

What I didn't know for a very long time was that the hit counter actually collected all sorts of data, both fascinating and inane, about the traffic on my blog. In all honesty, the only statistics I ever take a look at are the one that tells me the general geographic location of readers (and some of you are fibbing in your Blogger profiles about that) and how visitors ended up here. I can see if someone came via a Google search, and if so, what they were looking for. Most likely, it was a picture of Yoda meditating.

I can also see if someone came here directly with no referring link and no Google search. These are the visits that capture my attention because it means coming here was the visitor's intention all along. You there, in Pinellas Park, I thought you lived in Clearwater. And did you know my mom lives in Pinellas Park? You there, in the Sonoran Desert, you always tell me when you've been here, but I would figure it out anyway, except when you use your other modem which puts you a couple of states away.

Here's where my heart catches in my throat and I panic a little: It's when I see that someone who lives in my same city has typed Brainucopia.blogspot.com into his or her browser, but I have no idea who that person is.

Have I been found out? Did someone I work with or someone I know find out that May has a blog filled with painful honesty and unflinching observations that may tell unflattering truths about barely-disguised associates? Are they telling other people? The first couple of times this happened, I stopped writing and started obsessing.

It happened again yesterday. Someone from my city visited the blog directly and stayed for some time. Quite some time. This prompted me to look at the boring stats I never think about: device and browser. Who are you, Android user in my city? How did you find me? Why are you here? I hope you don't know me. Did you tell other people? There were 99 page loads on this blog today instead of the usual half-dozen. Someone was doing some reading. Page after page of it. If people who know me--apart from the four who were invited--find out I write this blog, I'll have to shut it down. I can't risk exposure.

That would be a shame for all of the people who want to know my thoughts on subclinical shingles, 45 Mercy Street, The Handmaid's Tale, and pictures of Yoda levitating.