The challenge of being a personal blogger is keeping it that way. I enjoy the added challenge of building my site and traffic and seeing it grow. I understand that most people are going to be lurkers, I don't comment on every single post or blog I stop at after all. So having a web counter gives you that little boost to see that it's not just yourself and a few friends reading your blog.

But, once you get traffic others want to benefit from it. People seem to expect they have every right to perch like a cow bird on my blog. I don't understand their attitude. It seems very arrogant to think I should want them here. I don't.

I get at least 2 or 3 emails each week from someone "writing for a client" or themselves telling me what a great favour they can do for me by putting ads on my site. Do you see ads on my site? Other than the one text ad thing which says I will make $1.91 eventually, there aren't any ads here. I could understand their attitude that I would want their ads if I was running an ad farm. But, I'm not. So clue in and try another blog.

What really really does peeve me, far more, are those who want to be my friend. Do you even know my name? No. How can you be my friend when you know nothing about me. You wouldn't miss me if I was hit by a bus an hour from now. The only impact my absense would have is the worth of having a link to my blog traffic. So peeve off and befriend some rock or something. I only want to be friends with people who at least have the interest in making a return visit and actually reading some of my blabbering.

I use my Technorati list for blogs _ I _ read. Yes, me, not you. I do not use it as a way of trading links. I do not expect anyone on that list to link back to me. It is nice if they do, I don't check into it. That list is for me. It is a list for me. Hope that helps some of those people who think they are my friends and should be added to my blogroll because we are such great friends. I don't trade links on my blogroll. Of course, it would be nice if any of those friends would read this. They won't. They don't read blogs they just use them.

Anyway, that is my little rant except for one last point.

The problem with having a personal blog and the ego to find traffic is that you put time and energy into promoting it and don't always have time and energy to post to it. Kind of silly. I aim to post each day but some days I am cheating to get content. I would prefer all my posts to be real blog entries and geeky looking stick figure drawings. But, I work, I have laundry and I like to sleep at least once every 24 hours or so. Some days a cheat is all I can do. But, I try to make them interesting cheats, not just another cheap cheat. :)

So there are my thoughts about blogging today. It's not easy being a personal blogger in a world of monetizing mania. But I'm not forgetting what I liked about blogging in the first place and I'm sticking to being a personal blogger, with pride in creating for myself and those who wander in for a look.

I’m job hunting. Some people I know actually enjoy this. But, those are the same people that seem to lead a charmed life, where things just fall in their lap and one co-incidence leads to a great opportunity. Then there’s me. For me job hunting is one closed door after another and another and another. Seldom do I even hear back from a human being. I dread the whole thing. Of course, those people I know try to understand and give me great encouraging words about how there are so many opportunities and to remember what a great worker I am and how someone like myself is just what a company is looking for. If they would actually notice me.

It’s dragging along. I look at the popular job search sites. I look at local sites with job listings. Sometimes I read them and just disqualify myself. Some I read and just think they sound so pompous asking for university education to man a call centre phone. Then there are those which I think I’d be great for. I send off my resume, tailored to fit. I write a nice cover letter and wait… still waiting, yet not really rushing to check email each morning any more.

It’s enough to make you dislike those people with their charmed lives. Those charmed people who get raises just cause they asked for one. Those people who have their dream jobs each time they get hired, and they always get hired after just a few interviews. It almost makes you want to give up, if you really had a choice about the whole employment thing. But, someone has to ask if you want fries with that… might as well be me.

Last night I gave the personals on Craigslist another try. This morning I had the following in my email inbox.

hi there just wanted to say i am thinknig you are prob. a pretty cool woman...just a bit of advice.... do u really think any guy would end up being a person who either read all that or even cares....its more like the 50 reasons why yo will never get married....sorry hun just thought u would appreciate it ... i can spell and who knows maybe you would like being up north in front of a fire after a great dinner and some wine ..then again maybe thats reason 34 why u wanna be alone who knows... ciao james

Pretty vicious little backhanded compliment post. It's strange that someone would take the time to post something like that to a complete stranger. It could be a very upsetting post. (In my case it's a bit stupid cause I said in my ad that I was divorced, therefor, "never" getting married doesn't apply to me).

I had also written that I was discouraged with dating. Maybe that made me a bigger, easier target for a guy like this, someone who just wants to hurt people. These kind of people look for the easy targets.

Anyway, if that is the caliber of man out there I'm much happier and better off staying single.

PS- This is my original post to Craigslist. I don't think I was asking all that much, far from 50 things.

Coffee Date in the Beaches

Brunette, blue eyed, 5'4", plus sized woman. To keep it short and simple and upfront. I do not want to meet men who are married or a lot younger than I am. I would like to find a guy to meet for coffee, have a conversation with and make plans for a second get together if we have fun. Please be someone who can have a conversation, have something to talk about, have things you are interested in.

I'm not hard to please. I'd like a guy taller than I am. I work as a writer so really sloppy spelling, punctuation and grammar bug me. General things like good grooming are expected. Although I'm not very dressy myself I love a man in a suit, there's just something about that crisp, clean cut look. Suits are not required but I won't run screaming if you show up in one. Be warned I am not a card carrying member of the lipstick of the month club, I just like being me, naked face and all.

I like urban exploration (looking around abandoned buildings and farm houses, etc.), writing, reading (science fiction, horror and mysteries if they are interesting and not gruesome, and non-fiction). I'm teaching myself web design and cartooning, slowly. I have been known to make my own ASCII art. Someone interested in Paganism would be nice but not essential. (I don't worship the devil or talk to ghosts, it's a nature religion). I enjoy sewing, crochet and quilting, not very often but I do like them. I like art, culture and history too.

This is probably too long now. I've been feeling discouraged about meeting someone but I am an optimistic type of person. I smile often and easily. It would be great to meet a man who has things in common with me but I'm not looking for a male clone of myself. I really enjoy conversation and hearing about new ideas and opinions.

I do have a photo but I'm not adding it here. Too many people look at this as a catalogue and forget the people posting here are real.

I took my post down from the personals. I don't need to set myself up for people who want to be nasty. Let them find a dog to kick, an old lady to push into traffic or whatever it is people like that do when they are away from the easy pickings on Craigslist.

This came from Skye (an online friend) who was tagged with this kind of touchy feely thing.

Tell me 1 piece of information about yourself that I really should never know.

I'm not wearing any underwear right now.

Tell me 2 colors that you would never ever ever wear.

Puke green and puke yellow. I wear every colour so this was a silly question.

Tell me 3 things that you love to eat.

Cheesecake, ice cream and barely cooked steak.

Tell me 4 things that you would never ever serve to a guest at your dinner table.

Crawling caterpillars, cow eyes, plastic furniture or human beings (not living ones anyway).

Tell me 5 things that you keep forgetting to buy from the supermarket.

Nothing I can think of, I usually make a list ahead of time.

Tell me 6 things about the autumn that you love.

• It's cool after summer which is too hot.
• I like the way Autumn is spelled, so many people forget how to spell words with silent letters.
• Leaves, all the colours: green, red, burgundy, yellow, gold, orange and so on.
• Kids go back to school and we have the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) not to mention all the Fall Fairs and Festivals in towns all over Ontario.
• Someone said October is a lucky/ good month for me. I'm not sure why.
• My nephew and my sister both have birthdays in the Fall and it's the time for Halloween!

Tell me 7 things that you value about your family.

This is way too complicated and mushy/ fluffy.

Tell me 8 things that you like to watch on TV.

• Some of the commercials are good. I like watching a guy I knew from school appear on various commercials, he's in one for Rogers now.
• Dust and dust bunnies. I just don't clean around there as often as I should. But they are kind of interesting and don't you almost hate to destroy their little dusty empires?
• I used to watch the Gilmore Girls. I haven't seen it for years now.
• Sometimes I watch Medium or Ghost Whisperer but they are about ghosts and that's a bit touchy with me. I don't enjoy being scared and I do believe in ghosts.
• I watch YTV (the TV station) when my nephew is visiting. Some of those shows are actually good. I don't look for them when he's not here though.
• I watch Canadian Idol when it comes on.
• I have begun watching Deal or No Deal.
• I like watching a lot of science fiction but when you live with someone who really doesn't like it you tend to miss a lot more than you see.

Tell me 9 things that you loved about school.

I barely remember school. I liked walking to and from school, kids miss that these days. I liked most of the classes: history, literature, geography, English. I came to enjoy exams and tests once I realized they were as much fun as those personality tests I am still addicted to online. That's about it. I had some friends but most of the time I was a loner. I dropped out of high school a few times.

Tell me 10 of the little things that you love about life.

• It's always there. No matter what the last hour was like or how busy yesterday was, the next day always comes - as long as you wake up for it.
• There are endless things to learn and explore. It's like living in an encyclopedia.
• It comes in a great range of colours.
• Rain, rocks, nature in general. Storms and weather in general.
• Plants, nothing can be too terrible if you can go outside or look out a window or your kitchen table even and see a plant growing. I'm a closet tree hugger.
• Being able to use my body. Just having fingers, legs, eyes... it's really amazing and we should not forget or take any of it for granted.
• A smile. One smile has a huge amount of power. Not everyone really has this figured out. Some go around in a grump all the time, I feel sorry for them.
• Humour, any kind of humour that is really funny and clever but not the kind that hurts or cuts up other people.
• People, sometimes I think I'd like to have the world to myself but in reality the world would be far different and missing so many things if there weren't other people around. It's not the famous people who count its the everyday people who deliver your newspaper, cook your eggs the way you like and drive the bus who really make the world go around.
• Just being here at all. It's such a miracle that each of us were ever born. Think about all the combinations of people who built up to your creation. If anyone had done something differently you wouldn't have been born. Some other warm body would be living your life, or many no one at all. Give thanks to your ancestors. Not just the sex part (I know a lot of people will think that's all there is to it).

You would be surprised how many times I have heard that in reference to myself.

It seems that things which I consider doing and then think, "why not?" Make other people cringe in horror and give me the evil eye and back away, quickly even.

Sometimes it makes me feel I must be a mutant freak. But, all the reasons they come up with for not doing whatever it was just never occured to me. Besides, most of them seem like things I could cope with, if they came up.

Did anyone else get on Noah's Ark under the category of mutant freak? Raise your cloven hooves please.