U is for Um
I just looked at my blog statistics. 94 people checked my blog yesterday.* But who are these people? Few leave “likes” or messages. I do not understand the blogging world. I am in it only reluctantly. Someday when I have a book to promote I may promote the blog more, but I am not very enthusiastic about doing all the things you’re supposed to do to be a writer these days. I won’t join Twitter. I have my limits.
This anonymous reading is gratifying and mysterious. Hello, anonymous readers! Feel free to leave a like, or a message, or even a didn’t like.
Um. Searching for an Edward Gorey image for my last entry led me into his world, which is a lovely sort of macabre. I’m glad eccentrics exist.
Every March, Smith College holds a bulb show in its greenhouses, just when we are thirsting for color at the end of winter. They put it all together this year, but closed down a day or two after opening because of the pandemic. They put together a virtual tour, but what I missed was the intense smell of daffodils and hyacinth the overwhelms you when you first walk into that greenhouse.
Anyway, one year there was an Edward Gorey theme, with lots of black and white backdrops to the bright colors of tulips and daffodils. Black curtains and even a black pond, with the tiny hands of a drowning nurse peeked out. The juxtaposition of Gorey sketches and lush flowers seemed incongruous, but was strangely satisfying, like Gorey’s work itself. Google wanted to tell me a lot about Gorey, but I resisted. I don’t want to be an expert on Gorey. Just as I don’t care about knowing all the names of the flowers in the bulb show. I just want to take it in.
*Oh wait. I just looked at the weird little charts on my blog stats page. There were only four visitors, but 94 VIEWS of my many blog entries. Someone read a lot of Alice Knox Eaton yesterday. I hope you enjoyed! My busiest day was Day 1 of this blog challenge, with 42 visitors.
aliceinbloggingland 
Your blog is a highlight of April and a special pleasure this year. The alphabetical scheme helps me be sure I don’t miss an entry.
Thank you so much! We need virtual connection so much right now!
During my time at Oberlin, a boy gave me an Edward Gorey book as a gift. And he inscribed the title page with startling claims about the effect of my magnificence on his heart and mind. I brought the book home for winter break, to rural West Virginia, where the book and the inscription baffled a number of folks! I hadn’t thought of Edward Gorey in many years. His work is an acquired-and-then-discarded taste.
I was one of those readers (I didn’t need to read that many posts, though, since I’ve pretty much kept up with it all along). They used to use Gorey illustrations for the PBS mystery series, did they?
I don’t know! Thank you for reading.