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You know what the best part of my birthday was? YOU GUYS. It got so busy here that I went back and scoured GWT making sure I wasn't being hit by a bot swarm, but it was mostly just a steady pingpingping of people bouncing around through the archives all day long, and I could tell much of it was definitely keyword driven. So- thank you. What a pleasant surprise to watch all my all-time scare records being broken on my birthday. This is from statcounter, which is super conservative. (I'm still not clear why certain countries aren't even acknowledged in my statcounter, much less not counted, but I guess that's better than the people I see complaining of bot probs from those countries.) Since I don't monetize, I don't have to worry about click fraud, but I use that kind of thinking to keep an eye on real people vs bots.

That is why I so aggressively scour referrals. Are you guys real? No sense getting excited over numbers if it's auto-clicking.

Checked on a deeper GWT social network referral list yesterday and discovered I somehow got tied into twopcharts (I qualify for global), nuzzel (that one was pure Kai poster/Lexx fans and was near the bottom of the referral list), and someone using the darkwm.ru domain linking one post (also Lexx related) that got me one indexed referral, so I'm thinking someone grabbed the page in a private download, like I do with my Torch browser grabbing vids or something.

I could keep my eye on Russia for bots, but the hits are already slacking way off again this morning, so good night and sweet dreams. This was the last 24 hours. Russia is normally only a fifth of the total (again, assuming Lexx or other fandom visits if no verified bot behavior). Whatever the motivation, it's not significantly alarming. Since some of my material has been translated and fan pix salvaged and saved, I'm always happy to see Russia.

We didn't do a whole lot on my birthday. I didn't have cake or anything (I'm diabetic), and I very thankfully got a nap after a day out with Bunny and her brother because I'd had one of my boingy bouncing out of bed at 1 a.m. nights the day before and then popped back out of bed at 3 a.m. on my birthday. Anyway, this is the cuteness my birthday party leveled up to. This happened at Bass Pro. twitter - facebook - webapp Not paid to link those.


@bonenado picked up some hunting boots and jeans there (yes, on MY birthday), but I got these cute sox from Tractor Supply in Nixa. My birthday continues to be about footwear, lol.

This was the card he got me. It's so us.

This wasn't too shabby as far as birthdays go, either. It clicks out if you want to see more.

I 'live out loud', so I'm still finding my balance with private stuff, how much to share, when to share it. We kind of have a running gag in our morbid little family about people we care about dying or having funerals on Twink's birthday (that is Bunny's mama), but somehow sailed right past her birthday for once without anything awful happening, yay!

It's my turn for the jinx. And it got a little tense.

I don't say much about our real stuff, but I did share a post called interruptions a couple of years ago that got pretty personal. We'd gotten through a really tough Christmas, and I won't repeat any of all that stuff right here. It's out there if you care to go deeper. A few harder core lurkers know Twink spent a miserable and very frightening Christmas in a big hospital across the state several years ago, and after that I just stopped taking holidays seriously any more. One of the reasons my Lexx fansite boomed in 2006 was that I had to stay distracted during stuff that culminated into a Christmas tree never getting decorated. (Scroll down to the bottom of Why Lexx Is Personal to see my Twink.)

Given all that info I just linked, you might understand why I stepped back from being public on my own birthday when Twink's mama needed to go to hospital and have some tests run, and found out some pretty big stuff was going on. The question actually came up- What if she dies on your birthday? Two people asked me that. I'm sure more would have asked that if more had known what was going on. Part of family politics is damage control around gossip, and it's bad enough keeping stuff private in our own house, much less keeping it off facebook and phone calls and stuff. We protect ourselves and those we love with our silence.

I had a good think about that, and I realized very quickly that I would embrace it because I love my Twink. Can you imagine your mom sharing a death day with your stepmom's birthday? *wow* Her mom has been part of my life for a long time, and part of my whole marriage. I have learned more about myself through Twink and her mama than through anyone else on this earth. I have learned commitment, compassion, and some very deep love and forgiveness stuff, which is a biggie for aspienado. I've learned more about my humanity from them being in my life than from anyone else I've ever known. Many people have a problem letting go of their boundaries and embracing the more difficult challenges, but I've come through two decades of learning what family is really all about. Twink's mom is family to me by extension, and even though I'm relieved we're past the awkward morbid joke stage, I know now that I would never feel conflicted about it. What good would I be to Bunny's mama if I took something like that personally? I would be mortally embarrassed if anyone turned this into me selfishly feeling upstaged by an ex-wife, and I was horrified thinking how that would backwash onto Twink's feelings for the rest of our lives. I don't want to be awful, but I grew up with grownups around me being snotty about things like that, and I can't even imagine what I'd be like now if I'd never had these opportunities to learn to think differently about how I see the world.

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While I may not automatically believe in the inherent goodness of humanity, I don't believe people are naturally bad, either. Who we are and become has so much to do with the world around us, and we wouldn't be human if we didn't stumble and fall, sometimes quite a lot. Very quickly we could wind up in the dark alleys of choice, and from there into the extremes of victimization, but let's quickly divert into the eyes of a watcher, one who knows the dark well enough to see in it, but not so much to pry as to dabble with metaphorical ink. Perhaps pry + ink = pink.

One of my dreams last night took place in a Shoney's type restaurant buffet, except the food bar was a street drugs bar with an impressive spread of everything from cheap mail order xanax (your basic instant mashed potatoes) to high dollar cocktail blends (the savvier stir fries and lasagnas). Along this buffet all the people freely mixed, rich suits and smelly rags, heeled vixens and crippled homeless, prep and jock and lab students and downtrodden and cast off and drop out students. Everyone imaginable was there, getting along for show like people do at Christmas parties. No one is sinless in this. We are all part of this culture and all its subcultures.

And as it turns out, I did get a call on my birthday that someone else I'm actually related to really had died. You guys know I live for irony. So many hugs from my heart go out to you guys. I hope one day I can do so much more than blog.

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