Blog Blues...No, Make That Green

So I thought I'd spruce up Life in A-Town for the season by changing my color scheme, from winter-blue to spring-green. I fiddled around in backstage-Blogger and ended up picking a new template altogether. I snickered at myself when I momentarily questioned the wisdom of this “marketing move”—as though my throngs of readers might be seriously thrown off by the jarring change of appearance.

The truth is (online confession #672), part of me secretly hopes this blog might get me noticed as a humorous writer/essayist/memoir maven—the next Anne Lamott or Eat, Pray, Love lady. (I had to look her up—it’s Elizabeth Gilbert…that was my first guess, but then I thought maybe I’d been watching too many Little House on the Prairie reruns and was thinking of Melissa Gilbert/Laura Ingalls Wilder’s actor-sister—the one who played the part of Roseanne Barr’s sardonic teenage daughter…but no, that’s Sara Gilbert. You see how my cerebral filing system fails me—thank God for Google!)

I realize there are…well, actually, I don’t know how many blogs exist on the Web World-Wide, but I do know, intellectually, that the chances of my ramblings being recognized as any cuter, cleverer or more marketable than anyone else’s is less likely than winning the lottery. And speaking of The Lottery, wishing to become a famous author might be a little like the classic short story by that title (one of the few assigned readings I actually completed in high school): Turning a cherished hobby into a professional obligation often results in the unnecessary death of an otherwise healthy part of a person’s life. Creativity is killed by compulsion; exposure eradicates enjoyment. Maybe writing for fun is the best way to go.

But back to my blog makeover…and my ego. When I changed the template from “Tic Tac Blue” to “Thisaway Green” (and subsequently “Rounders 4”), I apparently undid my Google Analytics code, the Web widget that tells me how many people have looked at Life in A-Town from day to day. Most days, I can count on 7 to 12 views. On days when I post a new entry, it might hit a “high” of 15-17. When I’m bold enough to incorporate the blog address into my Facebook status update, it basically doubles my readership—from, say, 16, to 32. These are obviously not New York Times Best Seller numbers. But I check almost every morning…OK, OK, every morning. And I like to think I’m summoning some smiles to my friends’ faces.

Two days ago, my Frumpy and Fabulous post celebrating Scottish songstress Susan Boyle brought an audience of 34 to my blog (humble indeed compared to Ms. Boyle’s new-found fame, but it was a “good day” for me). Next day—yesterday—down to zero! zip! nada! no visitors whatever to my trying-to-be-humble home online. I’m hoping to chalk it up to the Google Analytics glitch. Wish me luck (that is, if you’re out there) while I try to figure out how to reinstall the HTML mumbo-jumbo necessary to keep those numbers climbing.....