Entering extended psychosis

How did you get here?

One of the more hidden parts of my professional past is about five years of working in marketing communications, the most soul-sucking job I ever had. But one thing the work did was instill a curiosity in me about how a particular piece of communication finds its audience or how the audience finds it.

This is true for my blog, as you might imagine. I'm curious about how people find their way to this little itty bitty, insignificant corner of the Internet. So one of the things I do is monitor the types of Internet searches -- from the likes of Google and Yahoo! and whatever -- that result in surfers actually arriving at my blog. (Also, I'm pleased to note that when you Google "extended psychosis," this quaint little blog is at the top of the list. Perhaps I should sell ads for the makers of Seroquel and other anti-psychotic meds, huh?)

But I digress.

Although I can't identify individual readers, I can tell what corner of the world they're in when they link to extended psychosis, and I can see the actual words they used in their queries. The results fascinate me, even though I can't make any conclusions about their significance.

I'll just share what I know. Aside from "extended psychosis," the following are the most common Internet searches that get you to UCM's little la-la land:

Fresh boobs: I get more hits off of people Googling this phrase than just about any other. There are some variants: "fried boobs," "fresh bathing boobs" and "sunscreen boobs" will eventually get you here, as well. Curiously, most of these hits come from Islamic countries, mainly Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Every once in a while, someone from the States or, say, Ireland, will land here via that road. But what I wonder is: No matter who you are or what you believe, what in the hell are "fresh boobs"?

If you're one of those visitor, please post a comment below and explain yourself. I'm just ... curious.

Rejected by Peace Corps: That's kind of a sad thing, isn't it? So many people out in the world are Googling "rejected by Peace Corps" that I feel bad for them. Of course, I get a lot of hits off regular old "Peace Corps," too, but feelings of rejection seem to dominate what gets you here. Saddest of all was the one visitor who arrived at my blog by Googling "Peace Corps depression." Not surprisingly, most of those folks come from the United States.

Insane sex toys: Yes, this would be the third most common string of words that bring you to extended psychosis. Some searches land readers at my home page, but others take them to specific entries. The entry that gets hit by "insane sex toys" also gets lots of hits for searches that include "infamous couples" and "insane sex."

Leschmaniasis: So far, there's nothing especially pleasing about any of the search strings that will turn up my blog. But the one that I feel worst about is all those readers -- there are enough to surprise me -- who end up linking to my blog when they're looking for something about leschmaniasis. Of course, they *do* find something about leschmaniasis, but I can't imagine it's what they wanted.

For the record, leschmaniasis is a really nasty infection of some sort, a parasite or something carried in ticks that hang out on sloths. Or something like that. All I know is that you can get it from handling sloths and that it can lay dormant in your body for months before you start having these wounds just opening up hither and yon on your skin, festering and oozing with puss. Very nasty. And that you have to take really hideous antibiotics for a terribly long time to get rid of it. So you know what that means, right? DO. NOT. TOUCH. THE. SLOTHS. (Easier said than done, I should note, if you happen to visit certain "artisan" markets in Iquitos, Peru, or if you happen to get hijacked on the way to a butterfly farm in the Amazon and taken to the Casa del Serpiente. Been there, done that. On both accounts. And I can report this: Sloths have sharp nails and can squeeze the shit outta your hand. Even the babies.)

This concludes a really informal, potentially terribly incorrect public service announcement about leschmaniasis. Just in case you've Googled it and ended up here. I didn't want you to feel ripped off.

And, just for the sake of illustrating how capricious Internet search engines can be, here are some terms, aside from the ones already listed, that resulted in readers visiting extended psychosis today:

staying alone in a cabin by the lake
psychosis and the want to be left alone
sexy+hip check
inverted heirarchies
leave journalism

I've considered writing a little tidbit about these searches for some time, but I would like to share with you the search today that finally prompted me to do so. In terms of searches, this one kind of trips me out a little, but I'm not sure why:

graduate school+breast size+cancer+correlation

I got more than than 44,000 hits when I typed in that search just to see what turns up. I went through a few pages and did not find extended psychosis anywhere near the top -- thankfully -- but I also quickly lose interest in most Internet searches. Someone had to wade through a bunch of stuff before they found me. And yet they did.

Well.

For whatever reason, so did you.

If you're one of my regulars, thanks for reading. But if you're one of those random searchers, all I can say is: I'm sorry, man. I hope the psychosis doesn't last too long. But I can assure you: Reading this is *not* the cure.