Some time ago, in a vain and vanity-fuelled effort to dicky up my blog I added a label cloud widget in the sidebar. I regret now that I never thought of using my post labels for comic effect - being new to blogs when I jumped arse-first into this one I didn't realise that such playful use of labels was possible. I lack imagination.
It wasn't until I added the cloud that I saw people begin to use them as a way to navigate the blog. They'll google "how to hide peeling skin tan" (clothes?) or "nipples that could cut glass" (which oddly leads you to the same post) and then spend a half hour seeing what else I got up to. New visitors make like former lovers and always go straight for the sex and boys tags. People who know me in all my fleshly glory go looking for themselves, interested to see what light I have painted our relationship in (or if I have chosen to picture it here at all). The truly bored check out the tick borne encephalitis and poetry tags, and the paranoid search under shitheads. My highs and more frequently my lows are conveniently tagged for all to see, my mood swings laid bare in black and a colour HTML calls faf0e6. Because moods come in black and off-white.
More recently I've added a button to the sidebar that will bring you to a random post if clicked. I like this one much better, it's like flicking through an album of photographs only this time they weren't all taken at the one party. I suspect that in polite blogging society, admitting to reading back over your old posts in such an idle, indulgent way is a bit like masturbating in public. Fun, but not very socially acceptable. Originally intended as a diplomatic substitute for a best-of selection (I know which posts I like best, but as their author I am not objective enough to recognise quality from crap) I have found that the only one to make any use of it is me. I read over posts written when nobody but me read the blog and like a photograph, they conjure up the sights and smells of whatever was going on that day. Unlike my photographs, I am present in each of them. They don't allow so much for rose-tinted glasses, and they preserve moments that would otherwise have been lost to me as I wander open-mouthed through life, knocking over tables and spilling drinks.
It wasn't until I added the cloud that I saw people begin to use them as a way to navigate the blog. They'll google "how to hide peeling skin tan" (clothes?) or "nipples that could cut glass" (which oddly leads you to the same post) and then spend a half hour seeing what else I got up to. New visitors make like former lovers and always go straight for the sex and boys tags. People who know me in all my fleshly glory go looking for themselves, interested to see what light I have painted our relationship in (or if I have chosen to picture it here at all). The truly bored check out the tick borne encephalitis and poetry tags, and the paranoid search under shitheads. My highs and more frequently my lows are conveniently tagged for all to see, my mood swings laid bare in black and a colour HTML calls faf0e6. Because moods come in black and off-white.
More recently I've added a button to the sidebar that will bring you to a random post if clicked. I like this one much better, it's like flicking through an album of photographs only this time they weren't all taken at the one party. I suspect that in polite blogging society, admitting to reading back over your old posts in such an idle, indulgent way is a bit like masturbating in public. Fun, but not very socially acceptable. Originally intended as a diplomatic substitute for a best-of selection (I know which posts I like best, but as their author I am not objective enough to recognise quality from crap) I have found that the only one to make any use of it is me. I read over posts written when nobody but me read the blog and like a photograph, they conjure up the sights and smells of whatever was going on that day. Unlike my photographs, I am present in each of them. They don't allow so much for rose-tinted glasses, and they preserve moments that would otherwise have been lost to me as I wander open-mouthed through life, knocking over tables and spilling drinks.
