#581: That Time 856 Germans Visited My Blog

I get this notification from WordPress:
“Your stats are booming! michaeljarmer
is getting a lot of views.” Of course,
I want to know more, so I visit my stats
and over the course of a few hours,
I have 249, then 380, moments later
567, and by the end of the day, 856,
all these visits originating from the same
European country: Germany.
Tom Waits was “big in Japan.”
Apparently, I am big with the Germans.
At least yesterday I was, sort of.
Every single one of these Germans
visits only one page, the home page,
and not a single one of them gives
me a “like” or a comment, not even
one single blessed “danke schön.”
I conclude pretty quickly that
these are not real Germans, but I did
allow myself for a few moments
a fantasy about being so popular
in Germany that I would need
to do a tour of the country, traveling
from German city to German city,
reading my blog entries to hundreds
of adoring readers, bi-lingual readers,
as they must be, as most Europeans are.
Those lovely Europeans. So often
lately, I have wished to be one of them.
Yesterday, I thought I’d have a chance;
today, the reality of about 20 visits
to the blog site by noon, all of them
from English speaking countries, most
of them from the United States,
has returned my head and my feet
once again to the ground.