Dear E.S.B., (identity protected,) I was kind of floored when you chose to go into statistics professionally, instead of lifeguarding, which seemed like such a natural fit for someone so pretty, with an unusual talent for not squinting. It must be the long, thick Swenson lashes. Oops! Anyway, I was thinking about you, because I have finally seen the appeal of statistical data, at least as it applies to my own blog analytics. I have nothing like the intimacy with my readership that, say, Facebook has with all of us, but I do know that I’m about to cross the 1600-view threshold. Real blogs–the kind with photographs, ads, and sincerity–get this kind of traffic in a week. Still, it thrills me, though I would never admit it. I wanted to get a 1600 on my SATs, once upon a time, only I didn’t care about statistics yet, and that was a problem, or several, maybe, and the answer wasn’t always B.

I was thinking about holding another blog-wide contest, to commemorate the 1600^th view. Two problems: 1.) WordPress will not tell me with enough specificity who’s reading it. 2.) What if the winning viewer turned out to be someone I didn’t know in real life, and the prize, cookies? Would that person even want to eat them? Maybe the prize should have been something inedible—I mean–not a food prize. A chance to be mentioned on the blog? Wow, who is getting a big head?