Okay, everyone is doubting my blog readership, and I will say this to you, check out my blog roll. I’m friends with several of those people in real life, and because I spent ten years in the Bay Area, I’ve participated a live sex show and had several boyfriends who said things like I thought it was prefectly normal to kiss that guy on the train, I feel perfectly comfortable asking people how many hits a day they get. In the Bay Area, the first thing every single person says upon entering an apartment — how much rent do you pay. Here’s my point: I get a fraction of the hits the people in my blog roll and my commenters get. A fraction. A small fraction.

I’ve not really participated in a live sex show. I have seen them, though. And I’ve still not had an STD. I do have an SUV, however, and in Portland that carries about the same social stigma.

Here’s how I explain it to my friends who get a lot of hits: I’m a blogger’s blogger. There are writers that great writers love, but the general population has yet to catch on. And I’m like that, but for blogging. Very popular bloggers read this blog, and I love them, but their masses have yet to make the leap, which is fine. There are only so many times I can open my email and find an angry missive about something I’ve written. If you must know, because I believe in total honesty in all things, yesterday I had 69 unique hits. And those 69 people love this blog, and I love them right back. So thank you 69-ers. You’re my favorite position.

Last night I went to see my friend and partner in crime, Frayn Masters perform with her group (well, there are two of them and I don’t know what that’s called) Eastland Academy. It was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in my life. I was crying, I was laughing so hard. They did this sketch where they were two teenage boys at their final high school party and feeling maudlin, except they were wearing unicorn horns. And their names were Cinnamon and something else I can’t remember. Anyway, I laughed for the entire sketch. I laughed through the dialog. And then I laughed harder. And I embarrassed the people around me, for sure, because I was laughing so hard.

And then I remembered how when I was in high school, I wanted to be an actor so badly. I wanted so much to be in a school play and I never got cast. And then, at sixteen, I knew the feeling of pure hate because I hated the drama teacher so very much. And I still might a little. I also hated my writing teacher because she gave me Fs, and I thought that was bullshit. And I had to walk out of her class a few times just because I was so pissed and because I was a teenager. For the record: my writing teacher and I have worked that shit out and I love her to bits. My drama teacher has yet to call to apologize for not casting me in David and Lisa. What the fuck? Just because you have a pert, blond deaf girl in the drama class doesn’t mean you can’t try a different person in the starring role of a pert, blond deaf girl. Think outside of the box, woman.

In any case, my desire to be an actor and then seeing my dear friend be such a good actor — and a funny one at that — made me think, I CAN DO THAT TOO! After the play we went out with (half) the cast for a drink. And several of her friends who I’ve never met went and because I was around people I didn’t know, and because I always try extra hard to contribute to the conversation around people I don’t know because I don’t want to be that person who just sits there and has nothing to say because in these situations, when the pastie is on the other breast, I always need to make conversation with the quiet person because I feel responsible for their quiet state AND I was thinking, I can be funny and project my voice and be funny and I WANT TO PERFORM! It led to my not saying the most appropriate or socially correct things. Like (apropos of nothing): “you cannot take a guy dancing because THAT SHIT CAN GO VERY WRONG.” And: “have you gotten married before, because I have, and I’d imagine that ACTING IN A PLAY is a lot like YOUR WEDDING DAY. Because SHIT goes by really fast and then you need to come down and after my wedding my husband and I sat on our living room floor and said, WHAT THE FUCK DID WE DO?”

The people who we were with were lovely and polite about the whole thing and I think were rather relieved when I said my goodbyes. I don’t blame them.

Here’s my point, and really, this is a message to Steve: maybe we can find some sort of microchip on Craigslist that can be placed in my brain so that when I leave the house there will be a filter between the brain and the mouth (or the outloud voice as Steve calls it) so I don’t regret conversations the morning after quite as deeply as I regret sexual encounters in my 20’s wherein the only comfort I have is the fact that I always used a condom. I need a conversational condom. Anyone know where I can pick one of those up?

And to Frayn Masters: You rocked the house, girlie! Thanks for being awesome. Sorry about the cookies. And the conversational train wreck. If we could have our meetings in the unicorn horns, I think we’d be ten times more successful. Think about it.