Hello? Is there anybody out there? Just nod if you can hear me...

To a certain extent, posting to this blog has been an exercise in futility. I haven't gotten many comments at all, and frankly, I had to go fishing for those. But I will nonetheless continue to post, because I find some satisfaction in putting my sh!t out there for all the world to see - if only it were interested. You know, this is part of the reason why I haven't gotten too badly steamed up about things like the Patriot Act's provision allowing the Department of Homeland Security access to my library records and/or credit card records. I can pretty safely say that the DHS has *absolutely no interest whatsoever* in me. I'm a middle-class married mom with a full-time job who pays her taxes on time and goes to bed before 10PM most nights. My library records reveal nothing other than that I owe a couple bucks in late fees for forgetting to bring back "Hippos Go Berserk!" on time. My credit card records reveal an unfortunate tendency to purchase cheap costume jewelry on overstock.com. And not only does DHS have no interest in me, but I also wouldn't much care if it bothered to pull all of this scintillating personal data. To a certain extent, I feel like those who protest madly these provisions of the Patriot Act doth perhaps protest too much. I know, an unforgivable sentiment from a Northeast liberal lawyer whose best friend is the state ACLU's Civil Libertarian of the Year. But I also have no problem having my bag searched should I choose to ride the T, or being patted down at the airport should I choose to fly. If I wanted total privacy in every aspect of my life, I would stay at home with no Internet service and no library or credit card, and refrain from ever taking any public transportation ever. If by sacrificing my right to conceal my utter banality from government scrutiny, I can protect myself or others from an explosive demise, so be it.

Wow, what an utter and unexpected digression from my lead-in sentence. What I actually meant to say is, I don't think anyone's actually reading my blog, so for me to keep posting is an exercise in futility. But I nonetheless enjoy it, much as I enjoy buying my weekly Powerball ticket. In fact, just to really drive home the fruitlessness of this entire exercise, I've added a hit counter to the bottom of my page. It will continue to tell me how often I've come back and looked at my own blog. And if, by some chance, billions of Internet folks are actually coming here and reading my deepest thoughts without leaving a comment, I'll at least have the satisfaction of knowing I'm not quite shouting into the void.

Coffee's on!