No, not that one.
I’m talking about the apparent exodus from my blog.
After peaking (not peeking, and I want to make that perfectly clear) at 92 followers, the total dropped to 91 last week and to 90 this morning.
So this is it, then. The beginning of The Long Goodbye.
It is painful...
...and so unnecessary...
...but it is what it is.
I wish things could have been different.
Was it something I said?
Was it something I did?
In the words of a writer named Daniel O’Brien (in “Robert Altman: Hollywood Survivor”), The Long Goodbye is “a study of a moral and decent man cast adrift in a selfish, self-obsessed society where lives can be thrown away without a backward glance ... and any notions of friendship and loyalty are meaningless.”
Kind of like me and my erstwhile blogging friends.
That’s okay. I don’t care. As Alice said at the end of her long journey, “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!”
But the impending demise will take awhile yet. At the rate it’s going, if I lose one follower each week and add no new ones, I will be speaking into thin air around the end of 2013.
If a blog falls in the forest and no one is there to hear, does it make a sound?
At least I can begin planning now for my future.
I’m going to take up curling while there’s still time.
I lost four followers in about a week, and I hadn't even put a new post up, and I can't see how my last post could have offended anyone, but what do I know? When I write a post that I'm just sure will run people off, I invariably GAIN followers. Beats me what goes on with people, but there is a curse of having a great many followers who actually visit your blog. Namely, you can't visit all of their blogs unless you want to devote your life to blogging. So, I'm okay with losing followers because it's not like they're paying me, and it does make my life a little more streamlined. I'm really only saddened when the person who leaves is someone who seemed to care about me. When that happens, I try to get them back, and I usually succeed, yet it's not the same as before because I always anticipate them leaving again when I write along the same vein of whatever they objected to that made them leave the first time.
ReplyDeleteI haven't found a "receive comments" button on any of the blogs I've visited lately. I hardly think that all those bloggers decided to dispense with one, so I guess it's some kind of a glitch. Anyway, I can't sign on to receive comments, so I have to remember to keep checking back.
Bob,take heart; it's not you! Google Friend Connect is no longer available on non-blogger blogs and I suspect that some of the people who have left didn't want to or are unaware that they have been removed, but simply have the wrong sort of blog set-up to support you.x
ReplyDeleteApparently, it started being phased in on March 1, which is why you are noticing it now...
ReplyDeleteIt's not the quantity of regular readers you should think about but the quality! However, if you are desperate to get your numbers up I suggest you become a naturist forthwith and post pictures of yourself and your naturist friends camping in the Chattahoochee National Forest. The more nubile young ladies the better.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry. I'm sure it will get better if you don't pick it.
ReplyDeleteAll, thanks for commenting about my plight. I might say that I found your answers, taken together as a whole, laconic, platonic, specific, terrific, sophomoric, peripatetic, magnetic, pathetic, and even esoteric, except that I actually found them frightful, downright spiteful, truly insightful, and all in all most delightful.
ReplyDeleteDo not ask me which are which.
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ReplyDeleteThank you, Elizabeth, for your comment. For the record, I count you among the terrific, insightful, delightful crowd.
ReplyDeleteAny reader who wants to read my blog is welcome here. Any one who wants to cause problems or sow discord is not.
I am disappointed that Google has decided to push everyone in the direction of Blogger and penalize the ones who don't comply.
Thank you,Bob. Terrific, insightful and delightful...you are obviously a man of true discernment!
ReplyDeleteYes, I must confess that I miss the smiling faces of you and my other followers greeting me when I open up my blog. Ah well...presumably it's progress of some sort. x
These gizmos do do some strange things. Like the Live Traffic Feed which says I'm visiting from Blackburn, Lancashire, which I'm not. Perhaps Google is having a bad day too and misplaced two of your followers.
ReplyDeleteShooting Parrots, the Live Traffic Feed isn't saying you're from Blackburn, Lancashire, it's saying your server (as in "Hi, my name is Trixie, and I'll be your server this evening") is in Blackburn, Lancashire. At least, I think that's what it's saying.
ReplyDeleteOh, dear, I think it might be my fault that your total dropped to 90. I decided to retire from following blogs. "Good-bye" need not be said, as I continue to faithfully read many blogs, yours included.
ReplyDeleteJeannelle of Iowa (not to be confused with Eleanor of Aquitaine), I'm sorry to lose you as a "follower" but I'm happy you're not really going away. You and Pat - an Arkansas Stamper were two of my earliest readers. Pat's blog is now private and by invitation only. I can't imagine what caused her to limit the access. But I'm glad you are still around!
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, I attended Men's Curling at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and loved it. Far more action-packed and strategic than TV would have you believe.
ReplyDeleteBut I do hope we won't have to lose your educational blog, even if it's to the proud sport of curling...
Not to worry, Light Expectations. My blog isn't going anywhere anytime soon (knock on wood, Lord willing, and the creeks don't rise). I'm not really taking up curling; that was just supposed to be an amusing ending line in my post. Besides, curling takes three people and there probably aren't two other persons in the entire state of Georgia who could leave their UGA or Georgia Tech football or their NASCAR race or their azalea growing long enough to learn curling. I'm just sayin'....
ReplyDelete