Collections

What do you collect?  Oh, and don't say nothing, because everyone collects something, even if it is just awesome memories.  I've never been a fan of collecting anything that takes up too much room.  I noticed as a kid that collections quickly digress into clutter before too long.  (At least on a kid-size budget)  But I still enjoy collecting.

I usually go for list-related items, like a license plate from every state in the country if we're on a road trip.  (Rhode Island is worth pulling over at the next food-exit to celebrate.)  Reading all the Newbery Award winners (gave that one up when the award went weird), or reading a book set in every country of the world.  When I was ten, I started coloring in a map of the United States every time I visited a new state.  Aiprort layovers counted.  Fly-overs did not.  I still have that map somewhere.  

So I've stumbled across the next little random thing I want to collect: blog hits from around the world.  Blogger gives stats about what countries the page visits come from, and in this first month, I have been surprised to see some international places on the list.

Now I know and you know that there is nobody in the Ukraine who went looking for my blog and even read one word of it.  But the stats said that someone, even briefly, stumbled onto my page in the Ukraine.

And I feel ten again, wanting a map to color. What a cheap and easy diversion!  What a silly little pleasure.  It's like virtual stamp-collecting.  Somehow, these international visitors left a digital calling card, and I say if it brightens my day that it is from a country I probably will never get to visit in person, then bravo.  A few of my words crossed the ocean, crossed language and culture and found themselves on a screen in Poland.  Or Germany.  Or Hong Kong.  By mistake.  For a second.

I don't mind.  It makes for a beautifully speckled little map.