Day 120: Psycho Analysis

When I started this blog project, I called it a gift to myself. By me, for me. If others happen to read and enjoy it, great. If not, who cares? I’m writing for me! I promised myself I would not obsess about what other people think about it.

I totally lied.

Since starting, I have become virtually consumed by whether or not people are reading it and if they like it. Up until Day 120, the only way I could tell was if there were comments left behind.

Checking comments on the blog has replaced checking my phone for a text message from a guy that I like. Instead of kicking that crazy, unfulfilling habit altogether, I've just replaced it with a different psycho behavior. That's healthy, right? Only when a boy doesn't text message me, I can safely assume he doesn't like me. When no one comments on the blog, a whole list of assumptions abound. Was the entry poorly written? Not funny? Stupid? Or worse, offensive? Sometimes I'll log into my email just to make sure there isn't a message waiting for me from my mom or dad saying, "You've really crossed the line with this one."

I can usually assume which entries are going to incite a reaction from readers. When I am most reflective and most transparent about my feelings (during the Polar Bear Plunge and Changing Relationship), readers usually relate, share their own stories and extend their sympathy and well wishes.

The downright ridiculous ones always get a large response too, which is completely understandable. Who doesn’t like to see me make a fool of myself Dating in the Dark, Slap 100 strangers high-five or learn how to Play the Banjo?

Other times, though, the entries that garnered heavy response seem completely random. When I made gingerbread and dropped it off at the fire station on Days 71-72 , I wasn't expecting a conversation about whether or not the fireman who answered the door was Jewish.

Likewise, electing health insurance seemed like a pretty lame Day 45 to me, but people really wanted to talk about their own health insurance and FSA's.

And though I definitely didn't expect it, I was pleased when the Pro-Gmail brigade came out in high numbers commenting on the blog (and on Facebook) on Day 27 when I succumbed to the pressure and changed email addresses. Thanks for proving my point and your loserness, Gmailers. Well done.

There are several that didn’t get the response that I expected or wanted. At. All. The Haunted House, for example. By far one of the most emotionally draining experiences, not to mention some of my best writing. Only two responses? Weird.

So, as if the emotional turmoil of checking the blog comments wasn’t enough, my friend Carrie (of the Wedding Crash and Crossfit challenges), mentioned something called Google Analytics. “You must install this on your blog if you haven’t already,” she said, shortly after I began my journey.

Obviously, at that point, I had not. I was still reading “Blogging for Dummies.” Google Analytics? Come again?

Google Analytics is a tracking tool that can be installed on a blog and used, I presume, if someone wanted to show potential advertisers how much traffic their site is getting. Carrie passed along explicit instructions on how to install Google Analytics on Project 29 to 30. Four months and five tries later, with the help of my friend Emily, on Day 120, I finally installed it correctly as the thing I've never done before.

The lapse in time that it took from her telling me about the tracking system and me successfully installing it turned out to be a blessing, because now, thanks to Google Analytics, in addition to obsessing myself with writing the blog, checking the comments on the blog, I've kicked my obsession with this project into another gear.

At midnight every night, the site updates my report and lets me know how many total page views the blog has had that day, which pages were most read, and what cities and states are reading it the most.

I can also see how much time visitors are spending on the site, how many of the visitors are new ones, and the Bounce Rate.

If I was a site seeking revenue from advertisers, the Bounce Rate would matter (that's the length of time someone stays on the page versus "bouncing" to another), but I just want people to log on to it and read it. In big numbers. From every country.

Is that to much to ask?

The map with a country, state, and city breakdown is my favorite. I like maps in general, but the Google Analytics map allows me to see where the page views are coming from.

As of Wednesday, February 17th, Georgia is leading the state count, with 1,030 page views since January 25. South Carolina is in second place with 588 page views. No big surprise with either of these since I live in Georgia and I grew up in South Carolina.

Rounding out the top five are Florida, New York, and California (I think California would've been ahead of New York, but Elizabeth is out of the country this week). I was aware, I thought, of who was reading my blog and where they were from, but I'm fascinated that people in states and countries where I thought I knew no one (Montana, Arizona, Iowa, Missouri, Pakistan) have visited Project 29 to 30.

That's right, someone in Pakistan read it. Once. Well, there is a good chance they clicked on it accidentally, but Pakistan is shaded on my Google Analytics, which thrills me in ways I am embarrassed to admit.

Shout out to all of my other international friends in the UK, Spain, Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, France, Costa Rica, South Korea, Phillipines, Hong Kong and Sweden. Keep on reading and pass along the good news to everyone you know.

Most of referrals to my site have come from Facebook or Google (people Google me!). Other blog friends have sent traffic from their blogs to mine, so I feel it only appropriate to return the favor. Lindsey (77 referrals) www.nicholsfamilytree.blogspot.com/, Nicole (36 referrals) http://www.nicoleklane.blogspot.com/, Emily (30 referrals) http://www.emilysnewsroom.blogspot.com/.

There are so many things that Google Analytics can do and tell you about who is looking at your blog, but I think I've probably demonstrated the level of psychoness that I have gone, so I'll stop.

If you would like to install it on your blog, I can put you in touch with my friend Emily because let's be honest, I have no idea how to do it. I have set a goal to try and get 1000 page views per week. I'm averaging about 103 page views per day (usually 120 on the weekdays, 60 on the weekends), so I need to get around 50 more views per day to achieve that goal.

I'd also like to be able to shade every state on the map, so if you know anyone in Maine, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Indiana, Minnesota, North or South Dakota, Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska, Nevada, New Mexico, Kansas or Oklahoma, help a girl out.

"Tweet this mother out," as my friend Lauren always says.

In all honesty, I am truly humbled and flattered that anyone would take 5 minutes out of their day to support me in this quest to do something I've never done before and help me navigate my year from age 29 to 30.

At the end of the day, I did do this project for myself and if all of you stopped reading it, I'd like to think I'd still do it anyway. Regardless of when you joined me on this journey, I want you to recognize that I've tried to make the blog as entertaining and inclusive as possible, even referencing and linking to past blogs so that there is always proper context on the more recent challenges and all the characters in my life.

Yeah right, get serious, it is also the most shameless and obvious ploy to get page views and if you’re still reading, I sincerely apologize (but not really) for subjecting you to it.

I just want people to like me!!! And I want more page views!!! And comments!!!

Day 114: Crossfit to be Tied

After she got back from her honeymoon, my friend Carrie, whose wedding I crashed back on Day 49, started emailing me about accompanying her and husband Whit to one of their Crossfit classes. She had mentioned it to me before their wedding, but after the first of the year we were finally able to settle on a date.

Day 114's thing I've never done before was to attend a Crossfit class.

I love new workout experiences for the blog because it allows me to check "physical activity" and "blog assignment" off my daily list of things to do at the same time.

Carrie warned me that the class was early, and it was. I left my house at 5:30am to get there at 6am. It was still dark outside. She did not warn me that the gym was right behind a Chik-fil-A restaurant. What a cruel joke it is, I thought, to drive away from working out smelling fried chicken biscuits.

Carrie reads the blog regularly and knows what other workouts I've participated in. She said, after Day 56, that kickboxing was going to feel like a walk in the park after doing Crossfit.

No offense to my kickboxing friends, but Carrie was right. Crossfit is no joke.

According to the Crossfit website (which I should've read before I went, but did not), their exercise program focuses on high intensity and functional movements. Carrie explained to me that every day the work out is different.

The Crossfit gym reminded me of a no-frills high school weight room. Cement brick walls, a lot of mismatched equipment, even wipe boards with names, weights and times on them.

The instructor told us to run a couple of laps around the parking lot while he wrote down a handful of exercises on one of the wipe boards. When we were done running, he explained what he had written, and then told us to get started. There wasn't a great deal of instruction, and we were sort of left to complete three sets at our own pace. I looked to Carrie and Whit, who further explained what I was supposed to be doing.

During the warm-up, which didn't at all feel like a warm-up, I started to think Carrie and Whit were mad at me for crashing their wedding and this was their way of getting back at me. We were doing crab walks across the full length of the floor, kettle ball swings, pull ups (seriously, I hadn't done a pull up since completing the Presidential Physical Fitness test in elementary school). It was hard. Really hard.

While finishing the warm-up, the instructor wrote new exercises on the board. Once everyone was finished, he explained that today's workout would consist of three sets of three exercises. Lunges, forward jumps and then sprints. He said we could stay inside the gym, or we could go outside to complete it. I opted to go outside.

The movements weren't, by themselves, difficult. Doing three sets of them in succession was, however. About midway through the "real" workout, I started thinking that they weren't mad at me, Carrie and Whit hate me and they are enjoying watching me suffer. My lunges were extremely wobbly towards the end, my forward jumps were like spastic bunny hops. Sprinting for me was more like jogging and it felt like my legs were just flopping around independent from the rest of my body. I look like I'm crying in some of these pictures, but I was not. The real pain came later.

As some of the more stellar athletes were completing their three sets, the would run into the gym yelling, "Time!" At first I thought they were showing off, which I found annoying, but then I realized everyone was doing it because the instructor was timing to see how long it took to complete the exercise.

I had to get the full experience, so when I finished my last sprint, I also yelled "Time!" It was probably more like a strained whisper at that point, but good enough for the instructor to hear and write down my time. I forgot to write down what it was exactly, but I think I finished in about 20 minutes or so. Not anywhere close to first, but not last either.

In any situation where someone invites me to their gym or to their exercise routine, my biggest goal is to not embarrass them or myself. I think I handled myself pretty well. Carrie and Whit still talked to me after it was over, too, so I think we're all still friends.

At the end of the workout, we stood around talking to one of Carrie and Whit's fellow Crossfitters. Carrie explained to her that I have a blog and that I'm trying to do something that I've never done before every single day for one year.

The friendly girl smiled and nodded her head and then paused.

"Wait," she said, "I heard about your blog this weekend."

I first thought she was mistaken and that there was probably someone else with a blog similar to mine. But she went on to say that heard about my blog during a girls' weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina. And then we made the connection. My college friend Katherine had also been on this girls' weekend and told everyone around it. It's a small world, especially in the blogosphere.

I'm forever grateful to Katherine and all of my friends who continue to tell their friends about my experiment. It's flattering and exciting to get new readers.

I'm also grateful for this class, which was definitely the jump start I needed to get going in 2010. I may do a little more stretching after the next class because I had difficulty walking for five days after Day 114. I was sore in places I didn't know existed. I need to work out like this more often.

I hesitate to say Crossfit is fun. What's fun about crabwalking at 6am? But I was done with working out by 7am, which was awesome. And it was fun to hang out with Carrie and Whit in a non-crashing their wedding kind of way. If they'll have me, I willl definitely return to Crossfit.

Or maybe we can find some other way to hang out.

Day 49: Wedding Crasher

A couple of weeks after starting the blog, I received an email from a girl from my hometown named Carrie.

"Love your blog," it read, "you should start a food fight as something you've never done before."

Love. It.

I hope she won't be offended by this, but I'm not really sure what Carrie is to me. I wouldn't be so bold as to call us friends, because we really don't keep in touch or ever see each other. To call her an acquaintance seems cold and not quite right. She's more than that. To say she's just some girl from my hometown implies that we once knew each other but have since had a falling out and that's not the case either.

Her first email kicked off an exhange between us, and she revealed she also had a blog that she hasn't yet had the guts to promote. Well, I love promotion, so her blog is: http://www.woodwardwayward.blogspot.com/. You know what, now that I'm thinking about it, I consider anyone that reads my blog a friend, so Carrie and I are friends. There. I said it.

One of the last emails that I got from Carrie came in when I was on my trip to California and Boston. It read, "Ever crashed a wedding? I know one on November 14th that's pretty low risk!"
I had to read it twice to completely understand. Did this girl just tell me to crash her wedding?

Hmmmm...My mind went to (where else?) the movie Wedding Crashers. Two dudes, making up aliases and going to weddings they aren't invited to to meet girls and hook-up. Ok, so this wouldn't be exactly like that. I'd have to go as myself, I would know other people there and the bride has thrown it out there, so it's not a full-on crash, but I liked the blog potential.

I shared this email with my friends who were invited to the wedding and were staying with me for the weekend. "Should I really crash her wedding?"

"Heck ya!" they both said, "Awesome."

With full support from those with an actual invite, I made Day 49's thing I've never done before crash a wedding.

I told my friend Katy what I was doing. She looked confused and said, "You go to weddings all the time. Why would you go to one that you weren't invited to?"

It's true. Like a lot of people in their twenties, I have made a second career out of weddings. I have become a professional wedding guest and bridesmaid, attending more than 60 weddings since college (at the request of a co-worker, I actually counted them) and have been a bridesmaid 12 times.

So Katy's inquiry was valid. Why, after finally having a weekend off, would you want to go to another wedding? This was going to be different, though. Dangerous. Well, not really, the bride told me to come. But still, having been to so many weddings that I was invited to, I'll know exactly what to do and how to act.

Carrie's wedding day arrived and it was beautiful. "A perfect day to crash a wedding!" I said to Mark and Jen.

In the days and weeks leading up to the wedding, I really wasn't nervous about pulling this off. But when we were getting ready, I started to get nervous. What if Carrie was just kidding about me crashing her wedding? What if she freaks when she sees me show up?

Mark and Jen assured me it was fine and it was going to be fun and a great opportunity for the blog. Plus, we all decided that a wedding ceremony is just like a church service. That's all it is. I'm just going to church, on a Saturday night. So what if there is a girl in a white dress standing up in front? No biggie. This was a big wedding/church service. There is a good chance Carrie and her husband won't even know I'm there.

The ceremony was lovely and I surveyed the crowd and saw several familiar faces from my hometown. I even saw a couple that was at my brother's wedding back in September. I was feeling good about just laying low, blending in and not revealing to anyone that I wasn't actually invited. A great plan, until the pastor invited everyone forward for communion, a practice that would require walking in front of the entire congregation and the bride and groom.

Sorry if it is sacrilege to say this about communion, but shit.

We filed out of our pew and began our approach to the altar and I felt like everyone's eyes were boring into the back of my head. "Who is this girl?!" I could hear them whispering. "She does NOT belong here!"

We made it to the altar and it wasn't long before I made eye contact with Carrie. Her eyes widened and a huge smile appeared on her face. I think she was genuinely surprised (or shocked or horrified) that I actually came. She nudged her fiance and whispered something into his ear. Not sure what, exactly, but in my head, I imagined it was something like, "Whit, please tell security that there is a wedding crasher who will be making her way to our reception soon. Have them ready to take her down."

But Whit smiled too, so maybe this was going to be ok. So much for laying low, though.

The wedding was a success and it was on to the second half of the evening, the reception at the beautiful Piedmont Driving Club on Piedmont Park. Shockingly, in the 60+ weddings I've been to, I hadn't ever been to a reception there.

I thought that after making eye contact with the bride and groom and receiving approving smiles that I would feel like I was home free, but as we're pulling up to the valet, I had another sick feeling. I shared it with the group.

"What if this reception is a sit-down dinner?"

I pictured us all walking in and Mark and Jen finding their place cards and ditching me with nowhere to sit. I told them that if that happened, I would walk to a friend's apartment, which was right down the street. But they were as much a part of this experience as I was, so they said if that was the case, we could share the two seats between the three of us. One person would just have to be up walking around at all times. That would likely garner strange reactions from the other people seated at their table, but it was a risk we were all willing to take.

We walked into reception, which was gorgeous, and I was relieved that there were no signs of seating cards or numbered tables. Safe again!

The reception was fantastic and I was ready to take advantage of all that it had to offer. Mark, Jen, our other friend Myles and I found a table and set up camp. From there we had access to the delicious food and the photo book (that's right, this reception had a photo booth).

We eventually moved closer to the dance floor to enjoy the band. We even got a bonus performance by the groom and his band. I felt safe on the dance floor and tried to stay huddled to my friends. I only left twice: one time to get wedding cake, and another time to talk someone.

She was the girl that was at my brother's wedding. She said, "So how do you know Carrie?"

This made me nervous, so I just started rambling, "Well, Carrie and I actually knew each other in high school. She went to Chapin, I went to Irmo. . ." and then I just decided to tell her, "but I actually wasn't invited," I went on. "She told me to come with Mark and Jen. They're staying at my house."

She smiled reluctantly and then I watched her quickly scan the room, presumably to figure out a way she could make her getaway. We'd already been talking for a while and she must've been worried that people might associate her with the wedding crasher.

Before we parted ways, she said, "Yeah, Matt and I were wondering what you were doing here."

Ouch.

I guess that's the tricky part about crashing a wedding where you actually know some of the guests. If there is any question as to your relationship to the bride or groom, chances are it's going to be brought up in conversation. I think I might've been better off just going to a complete stranger's wedding and not conversed with anyone.

I returned to Mark, Jen and Myles, who not only didn't mind being with the wedding crasher, I think they enjoyed it. And we rarely left the dance floor all night. In fact, it was the dance floor where I came face to face with the bride.

Carrie, like all brides, had been like a pinball bouncing from one group to the next, and while there were several invited guests who were waiting to talk to her, I couldn't miss my chance to tell her, "You look beautiful! Thanks for not calling security!"

She said she couldn't believe that I actually came, but she loved it. Or at least she said she did. She was so cool, I looked at the leftover crab claws and considered starting that food fight she had suggested. Knock out two of her ideas in one night. I figured it best to not push my luck, though.

Congratulations Carrie and Whit! You throw a great party. It couldn't have been more fun if I was actually invited.