Yesterday's comments included some questions about how I blog, work and Bubbles, so I thought I'd give ya'll an idea of what it's like on this end of the blogosphere.
Honeysuckle Rose suggested that I show my blog addy to Bubbles in hopes that she'd get a freakin' clue. Honey.. it would take way more than my site to show her the light. Believe me.
Actually, that's sort of how Hidden Mahala was born. When I started I had another blog that I loved, a sort of Mountain Gypsy themed site with the same sort of stories, shameless ass kissing of self-Googling celebrities (yes, I drooled over Craig Ferguson back then too) and stories from the Asylum. Back then, Thelma and Louise, Lulu and the gang all had different (and funnier) names and I was just a tad bit less stealthy with searchable information. When Bubbles came to work here, everything changed.
I'd always thought the world of Bubbles so when she overheard me and Lulu talking about my blog and insisted that I let her see, I wasn't that worried. I made her swear not to tell anyone and explained.. at length.. why it was important that she not show it to anyone local. When I say this is a tiny town, I am not exaggerating. The population is around 600. That's not 600K.. that's 600 people. Information flows though this place like wildfire. The last thing I needed was say.. Thelma getting hold of it, seeing how her hubby is the ONE police officer in town.
You can see how this would be a problem.
Anywho, so I gave in and shared the addy and she swore no one else would see it. The next day she came in, hollering at the top of her lungs about how ding-dang funny I was and how Bubbahubby laughed til' he had tears. I was horrified Thelma or Louise would hear her carrying on and ask what the commotion was about, but then I realized what she'd said..
Bubbahubby?
THE MOUTH OF THE SOUTH???
I started watching my stats like half starved junk yard dog. I was getting more hits from ip addys that could be local. This soon spread to the private server from the Big City hospital. Bubbles' Bubbahubby is a paramedic, so I knew he was spreading the word.
I'll admit, I was kinda flattered that people enjoyed what I wrote, but I started censoring myself out of fear and soon the funny sort of died.
It came at a really bad time. I had just been contacted by a producer from a show on one of the major networks about some stuff I'd written and here I had to start all over with a whole new blog, new identity.. everything. I couldn't even call the town I lived in by the same name, because although Bubbles isn't a computer whiz, I'd spent a good two hours showing her the wonders of Google and I had to be careful not to use any names she might remember from the old site.
It's not easy promoting a blog, trying to raise your search engine rankings while keeping it away from everyone you know.
Anywho, I need to run for now. Tomorrow I'll answer BetteJo's question:
"How DO you get away with writing all this - nobody at work knows? Or wouldn't Bubbles and Thelma know how to use the interwebs?"
This week is almost licked. Later Taters!
10 comments:
Bubbles needs a muzzle. Gadzooks.
I can relate to your problems - small town, gossip and the like. Where I live is also a very small village -back in the boondocks, etc. I am far from anonymous on my blog too. I started out with my name on it, began by mentioning my family's names as well and various and sundry other things. Which is good but yes, also bad too. Because I do a lot of family tree stuff, plus local history research and used to write articles about local history too, I wanted to be easily found -ok, that's the good part. The bad though is that I can't be too snarky in my posts then either. Some things that some folks don't know about me -but would find as interesting fodder if they knew - I can't mention at all -which is a bummer cause it leaves some good stuff as unpublishable the way things are now. I did -back in the fall though - lose it one day after a certain party in town here who is related to someone in my house (who is not by blood related to me) had said some very upsetting things about my son and I posted a diatribe on her actions. All that resulted in her stalking my blog for a while but according to my stats, I don't see her nosing around here anymore so I guess she lost interest in me, in my son, etc. Now I just have the stalker from Germany who is looking for information apparently about my son. Go figure!
But also, in your case, if you were to be more public, I doubt seriously that it would work in a positive manner with respect to your co-workers. Would probably only piss them off, perhaps get you into a world of issue maybe even akin to those that happened to "Dooce" -the lady in Utah who writes the big really popular blog. You do a great job at telling stories and still keeping a low enough profile too that enables you to continue and I'd hate to see you go into a self-imposed exile, of sorts, again.
I'm pretty sure I remember the old blog and it was hilarious. Too bad you had to shut it down.
NONE of my relatives know about my blog. My husband, my step-daughter, four friends , and me. That's it.
If my family knew half of what I wrote, I'd be screwed. Blah.
I don't blame you a bit. Not.One.Iota.
I have several readers at the day job who enjoy what I write. And I could care less about blog ratings. I do it for memememememe!
Oh what a drag - to have to abandon a successful site because of big mouths.
I hope you'll tell us about the producer and all that too. It just gets better and better ...
Hey - is that why it's "Hidden" Mahala?
I definitely want to hear about the producer! But yeah, that's why I moved to semi-big city... more anonymity, although I keep saying our city is the biggest small town in America. Crazy.
Who cares what you say about your co-workers because in the end, when you become rich and famous and CF's assistant, we'll all still follow you around and wait for your next hilarious post! I've been a fan since day ONE. :-)
I remeber the old blog too, those were the days, when we were somehoe naive enough to belive it wouldn't matter....and then I almost lost my job too! Ugh. Hey ho, we live and learn and stealth blogging seems a necessary evil, if restriciting!
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