Lurking sounds so weird. I'm a pretty regular lurker I suppose, but that blasted word just sounds perverted. I prefer... I don't know... "reader?" Isn't that what people are? We don't call people who read the NY Times "lurkers." Why am I referred to as a "lurker" when I'm just reading a public document? A lurker is a man who looks over a woman's shoulder to check out the cleave. A lurker is a man standing next to you at the urinal and tilts his head your way. (Yes, that's happened. I now go number 1 in stalls.) A lurker is a smelly guy on the subway who is trying to read the funny poem you are writing about him... a lurker is someone at the next table who is eyeballing your food as it arrives from the waiter's hands onto your table. So... maybe if you had a web cam switched on in your office while you typed or something... you could call me a lurker. But not if you are publishing your stuff on the world wide friggin web.
Essentially, by definition, a lurker poses some kind of threat to the lurkie. Maybe that happens sometimes, but not here. Read away, and never feel guilty. That's why its up here on the dadgum internet. If I didn't want to know what I thought, I'd write a letter to myself. Half the time I think "Lurker" is used by bloggers to get readers to comment so the blogger won't feel depressed because nobody is commenting.
That's all for now. Carry on.
(This paragraph was taken from a much longer blog. My new resolution is to write shorter blog entries. After writing a book or two, its been reeeeeeeal hard to cut these babies short. I mean, just look at how this parenthetical is growing. I can't stop myself. I wanna type type type.)
