"What fresh Hell is this?"

That's how Dorothy Parker reportedly answered her phone and exactly how I feel these days when I look at my statcounter. Someone has been scrutinizing the archives for references to my job.

It's not unusual for someone to read a lot of the archival material when s/he first finds a blog, especially if it's the middle of the night. Someone like that is showing up a lot in the statistics now, but that reader initially came to the blog via my profile which indicates that the individual noticed a comment I made on another blog, clicked on my link and landed over here. While I occasionally wonder what someone would find interesting enough to visit more than once a day, I'm not suspicious.

Repeatedly searching through the archives is another story. When somebody spends a couple of hours reading ancient posts for a few days in a row, then searches for the names of characters from work I mentioned in a post just after Obama got elected, then somebody else shows up the same evening the names were discovered -- well, let's just say it looks a lot like someone in Florida had an assignment to see if I was talking about work, found the names and gave them to someone in New York who then proceeded to also search the archives.

Fortunately, anything I said here was already common knowledge in real life over at work. Once I deleted the posts, the New Yorker quit searching, but apparently the person in Florida continues to monitor my activities. It's disconcerting.

Anytime someone has searched the archives before, it's been for their own personal reasons. Over Christmas vacation, someone was obsessing over the archives from a Blackberry. Drove me nuts because I couldn't imagine that anyone would read that much unless s/he knew me personally. It could have been someone who got a Blackberry for Hanukkah or Christmas and was stuck at Grandma's with nothing to do but read blogs all night on a Blackberry - which had to be an uncomfortable way to read anything at all. Did they have no books or TV? For a while I thought it was The Narcissist looking to read something about himself. Part of the reason I was so intent on seeing him in January was because I had to find out if he had gotten a Blackberry. He had not, and I was left with a mystery. Eventually, the Blackberry searched "ShatAKing" and the mystery was solved. Any way you look at it, I was tacky about ShatAKing, and even though I maintain that he deserved everything he got, you can't blame the man for checking out the source of exposure.

This new mystery is more difficult because the searchers are well aware of my true identity and, while I suppose it's possible that they are friendly and are more interested in what I had to say about certain individuals than using anything against me, there's no way to know who is Friend or Foe in this instance. I can't really do anything about it either - besides deleting the posts - but that's done and I'm still being frequently monitored. Maybe that's a good thing because I won't get worked up and spill my guts about my job on the internet which might have happened.

Nevertheless, it's still a drag to check my stats and see six page loads from the Verizon user in Florida since I went to bed last night. And I look at my colleagues differently because I'm wondering where the searchers got wind of Menopausal Stoners and how all this is going to bite me in the ass -- even though everything is done under a pseudonym and I never used any real names or referenced the school in any way shape or form. I am careful that way not so much because I worry about anyone's reputation or legal retribution but because I don't want a real live stalker hanging walking around the West Side looking for Menopausal Stoner World Headquarters.

Only a couple of folks knew I even had a blog - but we all know loose lips sink ships.
I wish I were The Unsinkable Molly Brown.