I checked my blog stats and set my phone on the coffee table. The stats weren’t all that important since I had started my blog for fun, and I’m not all that worried about how many people read it.
I went back to watching Dancing with the Stars. Well, actually my wife was watching Dancing with the Stars, I just happened to be in the same room.
I checked my blog stats again which is odd because I started my blog for fun. Nothing had changed in the two minutes since I had last checked my stats. I set the phone back on the coffee table.
My eyes were getting heavy and I was just about to fade into my Dancing with the Stars nap when my phone lit up with some sort of a notification. I couldn’t quite tell if it was a WordPress icon.
‘I stared at my blog checker aka my phone. It smoldered…’ Illustration by Josh Quick.
Instinctively I started to reach for the phone to see what the notification was, but then I stopped and reminded myself that I had started my blog for fun and I’m not all that worried about how many people read it. I could check it later. I went back to napping with Dancing with the Stars.
I couldn’t doze. I thought about my blog post from yesterday, a post that I was particularly proud of. Who in the world wouldn’t want to follow a blog that offered posts like that one? I had even included some new strategic tag words that were sure to attract a whole new demographic of reader.
It occurred to me that I was fretting over my blog again… even though I wasn’t all that worried about how many people read it.
‘Stop it! Just stop it,’ I thought to myself.
‘Stop what?’ My wife asked.
Apparently I had also said it out loud.
‘Are you obsessing about that blog again?’ My wife asked.
‘NO! I started that blog for fun and I’m not worried about who reads it.’
Just then, the commercial with the Sloth playing Pictionary came on the television, and caught my attention. I began to giggle as the animal slowly drew a single line down the middle of the drawing paper. My wife rolled her eyes about me still laughing at a commercial I had seen a hundred times. The players in the commercial guessed unsuccessfully at what the Sloth was trying to draw until the timer dinged.
‘It was a tandem bicycle,’ said the Pictionary player in the commercial for the hundredth time.
I laughed even harder as I reached for my phone… but then I stopped mid-reach. I remembered that I wasn’t checking my stats because I had started my blog for fun etc. etc.. I sat motionless. My hand was partially outstretched towards the place where my phone sat on the coffee table. I hated the thought of obsessing about my obsession over something, especially my blog which I had started for fun and wasn’t obsessed about at all.
As I sat with my arm still partially outstretched, my phone lit up again, only this time, my slightly more-forward posture allowed me to see that indeed it was a WordPress notification.
My eyes widened.
That made one WordPress notification for sure, and the possibility existed that the first time my phone lit up might have been another WordPress notification. I stared at my blog checker aka my phone. It smoldered with the prospect of blogging fame and fortune.
My hand moved ever so slightly closer to the coffee table. But then I stopped and reminded myself that I had started my blog for… OH SCREW IT! I grabbed the phone. I had to know.
It might be a notification telling me that I had a new follower! Maybe two new followers!
Maybe it was a blog award notification!! Who knows, it could be a notification telling me that Ellen Degeneres had mentioned my blog on her show and I was in the midst of a new follower tidal wave!
MAYBE MY BLOG WAS JUST NOMINATED FOR THE NOBEL PRIZE!!!!!!!!
Frantically, I unlocked my screen. The little red circle told me that I had one new WordPress notification (sigh, I was hoping for two or more). I opened the WordPress app to find that someone had liked the comment I had made made in response to their comment.
Sigh.
‘People liking my comment is a good thing,’ I told myself. Of course having Ellen Degeneres mention my blog on her show or winning the Nobel prize is much better but fortunately, I had started my blog just for fun and was not worried about how many people read it. Otherwise, I might be constantly checking my blog stats and worrying about my blog.
A previous version of this article was originally published here on Feb. 27, 2016.
John Ziegler is a career tree trimmer who likes to write in his spare time. He authored the self-published Single Family Asylum and maintains a blog of the same name. He draws inspiration for his writing from his wife and two daughters.