Hilary Moon Murphy

The Pests of Hmm!

I have asked for nagging and I have asked for e-mail. And you have delivered. My friend Joseph once commented:

I suppose that I should accept by now that anything I write to you might wind up on your web page.

He's right. If you send me mail and it amuses me, it may go in this journal on a slow news day. I will not quote stuff without permission when your e-mail contains information of a personal nature, but otherwise it's all fair game. Just so that you know.

"Do you think that if you print your letters no one will notice that you didn't write anything yesterday?" My Muse has landed his full elephantine bulk on Andy's rolltop desk.

"I had a good excuse! Cassie did not get to bed until late..."

"Hmmph. If you had time to check your site statistics and your Clix rating, surely you had time to write. In that time you could have written a paragraph. Perhaps two."

I must hang my head in shame. Ganpati is right. I did check out both my own personal site statistics and my clix count yesterday. I'm hopeless, aren't I?

So far, the results of my little Clix experiment have been interesting. Fourteen of you clicked my lame-o-meter in the last two days, putting me in the top fifth of the rankings. Thank you! Of course, tonight the Clix counter resets, and I suspect that I shall start sinking like a stone this next week as the novelty of it all wears off.

The real question is, has Clix brought me any new readers? Maybe. I had a curious spike in hits yesterday. There were 70 hits on my main page (as opposed to my normal 50 or so) and then mini-spikes throughout my website on the same day. I had 10 hits each on the following:

• my Clarion Resource page;
• my Random Facts page;
• my Journal Index;
• my Publications page;
• my Photo Index.

"Once you drop off the top 250 list completely," Ganpati says, "I suggest you stop obsessing over this and get back to your real writing. By the way, where did Andy put all his snacks? All he has left are some stale chips."

"I think my husband is getting better at hiding the good stuff."

"Hmmmph." Ganpati has left, but the chips are still here. Apparently they didn't meet his high gustatory standards.

However, I recognize that Ganpati is right. The Clix experiment will end for me once this journal drops off the top 250 list, which should happen soon after journal 251 registers for Clix. My days with two lame-o-meters to worry about are numbered.

So why is this entry called "The Pests of Hmm"? I have to thank my friend J. Simon for that. When I asked him if I could quote him in a fan mail section, he responded:

"Fan" mail? I'm sorry to tell you that I don't consider myself a fan of yours, as I dislike the entire "one celebrity showing herself to the masses" mentality of journals, bulk e-lists, etc. I'm not writing to tell you how great you are -- I think I've already covered that in the past ;) -- but to communicate with you. Call it pest mail or something. Anyway, sure you can quote me, unless it's the part where I confess my avid pokemon fetish. Anything but that is okay. Oh, and the locations of the bodies. Please don't publish that. Thank you!

A valid point. Thank you, J. for setting me straight. And as you can see, the secret of your Pokemon fetish is safe with me. So if any of you decide to write to me, remember that you're not a fan. You're a pest. It's nice to have so many pests out there. :)

Here some of the other things my pests wrote. Nicky said:

I originally found you just before you went to Clarion - I can't remember how, exactly, but that was when I first got hooked on web journals. I read all the Clarion journals at the time and found them so inspiring - and I was amazed that you could go through that while being pregnant too. Then you disappeared for ages. I'd check the bookmark every now and then, and caught your entry from last year. Then I rediscovered you last week through the webrats page, when Jen said she was doing a dare and listed the other participants. There was a Hilary, and I wondered if it was you... and it was!

I also found your entry about your muse inspiring. And Ganpati-Baba is so funny. I was laughing out loud yesterday reading about him :-)

Nicky is right. I did disappear for ages and ages. I'm glad that she and some of my other readers managed to find me again. As a preventive measure against future disappearances, I have started a Notify List. Since I personally despise bulk mail, I plan to use it only for HUGE news -- like a novel sale -- or as a way of notifying people should this journal undergo another large hiatus. If you want to join, that's cool with me. Just don't expect to receive much mail from it.

Eve writes:

Your journal impresses me. I guess what keeps me from doing that sort of thing is that my (handwritten) journal tends to be where I feel free to say things i wouldn't want anyone else to read, or at least would want strict control over who read (like stuff about the job I used to have, which I hated and decided to quit long before I told anyone I was going to...). Having it all publically consumable would be a bit of a feat.

Eve's comment is really germane to the question of what is an online journal. Is it like a real paper diary, for one's innermost thoughts and secrets? Some people treat their online journals that way. I realize that I treat my journal more like a daily editorial column. Let's face it, folks, everything does not go in here. I share what I can, but I leave the rest unsaid.

And here's one from Rob H., who has a daughter that was born the same day as Cassie:

Wow, that's sort of cool and weird, the whole birthday thing. Now if I read that your child is walking or talking, I can feel legitimately like a failure since they are the same age. Last night at dinner, we saw a little boy that was born two days after Schuyler who was huge, and walking. This little boy looked at her and say "hi!" The parents looked at us like she was retarded.

I am taking a walk through your site now, and so far I like it very much!

Ah yes. The parental compulsion to compare one's offspring with those of other people. Even if we know how silly it is, we still fall prey to it. I admit that the comparison game is one of the many reasons that I read Rob's excellent journal, The Book of Rob. (There are other reasons to read it, like its incredible wit and off-beat humor. The Book of Rob is so popular that God does guest entries just to get the exposure.) It's fun seeing Rob's irreverent take on parenthood and, well, everything else.

Now that you've given me fedback on my journal as a whole, here are some responses to specific entries:

Hypocrisy, thy Name is Hilary

From J.:

Since I read your journal today, I will congratulate you on writing. Yay! And write s'more, goldarnit!

Here, have some replacement M&Ms:

mm mm mm mm mm

From Frank:

I followed your journal to the ranking site; cool! I feel sure you'll rise swiftly though the ranks. If you want, I can probably rig things so that the entire complement of Olemiss PCs hit your site a few hundred times a second. Think of the fame! The praise! The charges filed!

Okay, so that's a bad idea.

And now, let's nag Hilary.

WHAT IS THY WORD COUNT? HATH THY THEME NO SUBPLOTS? IS THAT A SUPERFLUOUS ADJECTIVE I SEE?

Almost forgot -- someone filled my empty coffee cup with M$Ms this morning. Now who could that be?

Dear Cassie

From Rob V:

I checked in on your journal from library computer. That's a great letter to Cassie you wrote. I haven't read the famous Dec. 27th entry yet, but I must admit, I did read "Busted."

You asked for the mutual nagging society to do its thing. So, from me: Go Hilary, go! Write your 700 words today AND tomorrow. Come on, I dare you.

Busted!

From Joseph:

That bit on your web page of "Chez Mama" had me laughing my head off.

From Ben:

I thought it was funny too, until I remembered the part about bonding, and Cassie's trustful gaze. That *is* beautiful.

Actually, what is really beautiful is getting feedback like this. Wow! Thanks again to all of you who wrote.

The January Web Rat Name Your Own Dare! (700 Words a Day on Fire of Genius) Pre-Dare Dare Total Yesterday 14,498 4319 0 Other Dare Participants: Anne | Jennifer | Jim | Karina | Marti | Rob | Sam | Trey

So back to the dare. Today I'm profiling Marti. She's my hero. She's juggling four kids, an undergraduate degree, and her writing and somehow managing to do it all. She's also making progress on her other goal, which is to get healthier. Way to go, Marti. You put me to shame.

As Ganpati pointed out, my total yesterday was nada. At this point, I should have 7000 words written, so I'm nearly 3000 behind.

Nagging season is officially open.

Hmm