Near Outage by Search Engine

Damn that search engine with the "G" as its first letter! It is going to be the thing that "outs" my blogging life to family and friends in the end. I just KNOW IT!

While at dinner the other night, my sister-in-law blurts out,

"Hey! Have you guys ever " ___led" yourself?"

I tried to not let every bit of color wash from my face as I nonchalantly said,

"Oh yeah. Tons of times. Why?"

"OH, well I searched for everyone in the family's names. It's really funny what you might find."

My mind began racing. Was she hinting to me that she'd found my blog? Was there any way this blog could be tied to my real name? No, no, I've taken all the necessary precautions. Surely not.

Then, a cloud of doubt settled over me like the one that perhaps lands upon a college girl with a missed period and one instance of unprotected sex with someone entirely not acceptable. Well, there was just the ONE time...I thought.

Quickly, I piped up,

"Yeah, some high school swimmer's name comes up when you
search on mine."

"Yeah," she laughed and knowingly added, "I know."

After we got back home, my curiosity and uncertainty bubbled back up again. I searched on my own name and scanned the results. There was the swimmer's name, some business executive in another part of the country, and there...on the very last link of hits near the very bottom...there was the hit that might have been my undoing.

Many months ago, I'd gotten published on a parenting weblog and, in a blonde moment, I'd given a description of myself with my full name as well as a link to this blog. After I'd hit send on the article, I'd regretted adding the last sentence with my blog link. But, I didn't think I'd get published anyway, and I vowed not to do that again with any freelancing--I'd either use my real name only, or my blog name and that was it. And, wouldn't you know, it did end up getting published.

It isn't that I care that much or write that many scathing things about family and friends. I guess I wouldn't care if they read some of what I write about. In fact, the trend in the blogging world these days seems to be purposely "outing" yourself or at least including a picture of yourself on your blog.

But, part of what I love about this is feeling a bit anonymous. This allows me to whine, rant, get "catty" or say whatever I think without having to sensor myself for fear of hurting feelings or coming across negative to certain friends and family. And, that would all change if this family member found my site. I love her dearly, but I could just see how this might go down.

(the phone rings)

"Hello?"

"Are YOU OK? Do you need me to take the kids? Do you need a vacation?"

"Um, what? What are you talking about?"

"Well, I'm just concerned about you lately. Have you seen a doctor about your mood swings? It could be hormones. Or perhaps a therapist would help? Oh, and I DEFINITELY think you shouldn't volunteer to teach VBS at your church next summer, OK?"

"And, another thing, you seem to be very preoccupied with your relationship with your bunco group and it is really not very healthy. Oh, and the water in Galveston is just fine...really! Tons of people swim in it every day..."

"Grrrrr, it's the blasted blog again, isn't it? SIGH..."

In fact, I'll just come right out and ask here that if she does ever read this that she just not tell me about it at all. Let me live in denial for as long as possible, please. And, don't worry, I'm am COMPLETELY stable and non-psychotic. Really, I am fine!

In the end, I decided to check and see if my site had been hit by her IP address. Sure enough, there it was. Luckily, it showed she'd been to my site for "0 seconds." I think that this means that the search engine did find the link to my site, but she did not click on it in the search results.

As I breathed a sigh of relief, I thought...it is only a matter of time until someone finds it. Until that time though, this MomCat will keep on blogging!"