Deep
down, I am a numbers person at heart. I like looking at a bunch of data, discerning
patterns, collecting facts. So when I got my six month report from Facebook, I
just had to play. One of the bits of data Facebook gathers is the location
(city, state, country) of people who have viewed your page. I was floored by
some of the numbers.
I
completely took out the data from my home state of NJ which was over 15K views
in 6 months, and NY and TX (both state were over 1K) because these three areas
are saturated with my family and friends, so as far as I’m concerned, the
numbers are skewed unfairly in those regions. I also took out PA, since it is
right next door, so it too was probably guilty of skewed numbers as well.
Here’s
where my surprise began – CA, where I know exactly 2 people, was just shy of
1K, half of which were from Los Angeles, Knoxville, TN – 316 views, Olympia,
WA – 224, Charleston, SC – 422, Raleigh, NC – 333, Hamilton, MT – 199, Fort
Gratiot, MI – 350, Chicago, IL – 633. I
think I have one friend in MI, one or two old classmates and one relative in NC,
and I visited TN last summer and chatted with the hotel staff about my books while
I was there. All told, 23K views of my FB author’s page in the past 6 months.
But
wait, it gets more bizarre. Those were just the domestic numbers. Add another
4K for foreign numbers, almost 1K of which was from London – yes just London,
not all of England. Again, I personally know exactly 2 people in all of
England. Mumbai, India – 358, Birsfelden, Basel-Stadt, Switzerland – 360, Hong
Kong – 278, Thunder Bay, ON, Canada – 322, plus another 400 from countries I
have never even heard of and doubt I would even be able to find on a map!
I
realize that was a WHOLE bunch of numbers and I have probably bored you to
tears with this post, but it blows my mind to think something I am writing –
me, a simple mom from central New Jersey – is being read all over the globe. It
is quite humbling and exciting all at the same time. Now if I could just figure
out how to convert these numbers to sales, I’d be all set.
On
a personal note, my daughter had a good first day at school. She was so proud
of herself because she didn’t get lost “even once”, and she was quite pleased
with her teachers. Let’s keep our fingers crossed it continues through the
year!
I
kidnapped my girlfriend Sharon, with only a five minute notice, and dragged her
to the airport with me. Don’t you just love having friends you can do that to??
My son and his girlfriend had a great trip. They met a father and son from England
who were visiting the US for the first time, and they hit it off so well, they
spent the entire weekend with them. They have even made plans on getting
together in the future.
It’s
funny, all of us have managed to meet people while on vacation who we continue
to remain friends with – Red and Rose, the couple we went to visit on the way
home from dropping my daughter off at college, for example. There’s also another
couple we met in St. Maarten who were on their honeymoon, Jim and Jen, who we
keep in contact with. I believe they just celebrated their 20th
wedding anniversary. Seven years ago, when we were in the Dominican Republic, a
pack of kids found each other on the first day, and they have all stay in
touch. It has been nice seeing pictures of them growing up. You never know when
or where you’ll find a friend.
OK, I have rambled on for more than
enough today. I hope you have a wonderful day, and happy writing!
Your Last Challenge was:
The first day of school…
Now all of that would be of the utmost
importance to a young child, but it was not what endeared her to me; already at
my young age, I knew some beautiful people were not very nice. What made me
love my first day was there were two kids who were very upset, Michael and
Debbie. They were standing on opposite sides of the room crying. They were
scared and did not want to be in kindergarten. Instead of Miss Payne just going
over to try to talk to them, she asked me if I would go and talk to Michael,
and she asked another boy, Jimmy, to go and talk to Debbie. Both Jimmy and I
were successful in calming down Debbie and Michael, and they joined the rest of
the class with no more fuss.
For this, I thought Miss Payne was
brilliant. She, an unknown big adult, did not approach the crying children and
scare them more, she sent other children so they could feel comfortable. The
other children (Jimmy and me) got to feel important, needed and on our very
first day were established as the two kids to go to if something was wrong; and she showed to the class, even though we were young, we could still do very
important things to help each other.
I stayed in that school system through
6th grade, and even after seven years, Jimmy and I remained the “go
to” kids when our classmates had a problem. It’s amazing how your very first
day can set the tone for your entire school career.
Your
Next Challenge is:
I remember where I was that day…
You have 10 minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong,
just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count and NO ONE is allowed to
criticize what someone else has written. Go.
I remember where I was the day Marilyn Monroe had died. Why was Marilyn so important to me? As a kid growing up not too far from Hollywood, movie stars were part and parcel of my life. At my first job, Fabulous Eddie’s, a Mexican fast food place, I met Steve Allen and his wife, Jane Meadows. I tutored Paul Picerni’s son. My girlfriend, Sharon’s mother was a stand in for Ester Williams. In the mountains behind my uncle’s grocery store in Calabasas, the Eastside Kids were filmed. I met Leo Gorsy and other cast members there. For my first two years of high school, I attended an all-girls Catholic school in Studio City, which was down the block from Republic Studios and across the street from Dupar’s Restaurant where high school kids and cast members from popular TV shows hung out.
ReplyDeleteI had been in New York the previous nine months and had come home to get away from this guy who wanted to marry me. I moved to Hollywood that summer not knowing that I would return to New York in the next few months and never live in California again.
I was waitressing in a coffee shop on Ventura Blvd that morning. Some of the customers arrived with newspapers. The headlines told the story. Marilyn Monroe was dead. Marilyn, who was the much photographed actress in all of the movie magazines, whose picture I had cut out and pasted into my scrapbooks. It was sobering and sad. How could someone like her die so young?
I think of that day occasionally. I see the coffee shop, the customers, the bright sun coming through the windows. Time stood still for that moment. I had no knowledge of drugs, depravity, cheating, or any other vices that I would come to know as my world expanded and I shed the protective mantle of being home. That day it was only disbelief.
WONDERFUL Joanne. Thank you so much for sharing!
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