mindi's confession: my very own stalker

now that confession booth is closed, i thought i would post my own confession:




so, about 2 months after i started blogging, i set up sitemeter on my account. it's a tracking system that will tell you who's on your blog in real time, which blogs referred to you, how many visitors, which cities they came from, etc.

i like to pop on several times a day to check out my blog's action (she gets around, you know) and check to see if anybody from antartica might be visiting that day.

but as i would get on each time, i noticed that there was somebody that was always, and i mean ALWAYS on my blog from goshen, indiana. and for 30 or 40 minutes at a time. sometimes a few hours.

i had no idea that i was so big in goshen! i imagined that i had a large following there, perhaps at a university or (dare i might dream?) the local bowling alley. i could picture them just enjoying my oh-so-witty bloggy style so incredibly much that perhaps they might just ask me to be grand marshal in their 4th of july parade. or at the very least, judge a beauty pageant. (i'd be SO good at that!)

but then, as EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. i would log on and see the same ip address in 'goshen, indiana' on my site, i started to get nervous.

i'd always joked about wanting my very own stalker, but i was starting to sweat. maybe this WAS the proverbial and mythical internet wack-job who was obsessed with my good looks and even gooder-looking children. they would increasingly step up their stalking until they snapped and came for me in the night. in the rain. when all the power was out. and there were no phone lines. and i had just stepped out of the shower.

i knew that my friends and family would all shake their heads and say, "WE TOLD HER SO. WE TRIED TO WARN HER. SHE DIDN'T LISTEN. SHE SHOULD HAVE GONE PRIVATE."

i even tried calling them out publicly after a hater comment that i was SURE they published. i told them i KNEW WHERE THEY WERE--GOSHENINDIANAGOSHENINDIANAGOSHENINDIANA--but, still, they persisted.

so, finally, i got up the courage to call infowest (my internet provider) about it:

mindi: "yes, my blog is 'word to your mother'--perhaps you've heard of it?"

tech: (silence.........................crickets chirping............)

mindi: "ummm, so anyway.....what do i do?"

tech: "ma'am? this ip address you gave me? in goshen, indiana? yeah, it's YOURS. YOUR OWN COMPUTER ADDRESS. FROM YOUR HOUSE."

i almost expected for him to then scream, "THE CALL IS COMING FROM UPSTAIRS!!!!! WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN???"


well, HELL.

i was stalking myself. and it apparently was a full-time job.

for whatever reason, my computer service was routed through goshen and it was my own computer i was worried about.


mindi: 0
internet: 1