Kicking bad habits

The title of this post doesn't refer to any of the usual vices: drinking, drugs, gambling or smoking.  In fact, with the exception of the first one, I don't indulge at all.

OK, in a stretch you could probably count my caffeine monkey as a drug problem, but really... that's it.  Honest.

No, I'm talking about a veeeeery bad habit... arguably the worst habit in which a blogger/journaler can indulge:  Stats.

I used to check my site statistics a maximum of once... maybe twice a week.  On more than a few occasions a month would go by before I'd think to take a peek at who had stopped by or linked to treppenwitz. 

Now don't get me wrong, looking at one's statistics and referrer logs can be very helpful.  You get to see where your traffic is coming from and who is linking to you... both very good indicators of who your audience is.  I think most of us in the blogging/journaling dodge come to a realization at some point that our audience chooses us... and not the other way around.  Once this happens, a writer either goes with the flow or continues writing for an audience that isn't really there.

Since I started this thing without any solid expectations, I was pleased to find that anyone at all was interested in reading the crap that fell out of my head on a regular basis. 

But still, I considered the stats to be more instructive than a pat on the back.  They gave me a sense of which posts were resonating with the regular readers... and which ones weren't.  So I continued to check them, but only intermittently.

But then the summer's war happened... and posts that wouldn't have registered with most of my regular readers were being read on the air by talk show hosts, and I suddenly felt like a Jr. high plain-jane on her first Monday morning at school with her new boobs.  Attention?  Oh my yes!

The result was that I became addicted to all that extra attention... and to checking my stats.

Here, let me show you a picture.  I think even those of you with the kind of rudimentary math education I enjoyed (think 'math for poets') may just manage to spot the summer's war in the following graph:

For a couple of years now I had been plodding along... doing whatever it is I do... steady and reliable every month.  And then suddenly, Bam!  I was like a crack addict who cared more about the high than about work, family, friends. 

Once you've tasted that first high of momentary recognition, it's really, really hard to go back to being a daddy-blogger whose oeuvre is heavily weighted in favor of stories about dog poop, three-year-olds peeing and grappling with cultural mis-steps.

But I'm trying... I really am. 

I've written about a dozen times in the past that I consider myself particularly ill-suited for political writing... and it now seems that I'm even less adept at tackling the 'comparative religion' beat.

[All together now:  YA THINK?!]

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that it's taking me a little longer than I'd hoped to re-find my voice in the wake of all that shouting last summer. 

Thanks for not bailing on me.