Today’s blog has been on my mind to write for some time. Let me start by apologizing in advance for any offense caused, or choking hazards if you drink liquids while reading it.

Because today we are introspectively rolling through the search terms by which people have found this blog. They are….. interesting.

Some make sense, some are even quite complimentary–deliberately or not. There are multiple variations of “cute fuzzy kittens with big eyes.” Thank you; we accept full credit for creating the world’s most well-read adoptable cat ring by fostering shelter kitties here at the bookstore. (That’s Owen Meany in the infant stages, on the left there.)

And for complimentary, let’s try: nice little bookstore in the world; sweet little bookstore SW VA; well-managed bookstore; beautiful lil bookstore; famous people Big Stone Gap; and excellence bookshop management techniques. Aw shucks. We’d like to thank all the little search engines that made this moment possible.

From here the trail slips into some odd yet understandable sidebars–most of which can be laid at the feet of my sisters-in-crime, the Guerrilla Grammar Girls. (This is a quasi-spiritual organization of women determined to clean up poor grammar wherever we find it through the use of red felt-tip pins and copious amounts of alcohol.) They are the ones who outlined the body and posted the Rusell Crowe singing crap in my new basement writing retreat–instigating search terms “visiting crime scenes” and “hiding bodies in basement” and even “creative uses for cornstarch.” Thanks, gal pals! Elissa, the photographer and dachshund rescuer among us, can claim “paraplegic dog cart races,”  while “her and her grammar” credit is mutual to the gang. All quite understandable if somewhat garbled connections, and tres amusant, as we say in Big Stone.

But then…. oh, then:

redhead Wendy porn Murfreesboro? (I deny EVERYTHING!)

Preorder jug puppy ??!!

Burtnti big ass?????!!!!!!!

Games of nooking down trees (I suppose trees would support nooks as opposed to printed books, if one thinks about it)

I met a sweet lady from course (Wendy glowers darkly)

don’t worry pee books

megalomania (harumph)

female Santa with gun (Dafuq?)

old but not valuable (Jack says this is about him and he resents it)

armatures sexo

gap bunny slippers

two countries divided by a single stone (Oh, right; Wise and Big Stone Gap)

Wendy Welch nose

and about 50 different searches for “fulton ave books, Evansville, Indiana” (Those of you who have read Little Bookstore or the blog’s “Booking Down the Road Trip” will get that one.)

Words fail me. Apparently, search engines also fail us. Imagine the disappointment of all those gentleman callers to Fulton Ave when their search pulls up this blog full of cute kitties.

Yes, from here we could devolve into a pun war that would set search engines ringing across the country, but let’s just leave it with one final picture–also taken, by Elissa–and have a good Friday, all.