October Clips: Will Work for Tickets

Remember that bit in Shakespeare in Love about losing one’s wife at the theater? My family might have felt that way last month, when I did a fair bit of reviewing both here on the blog and for publications. But I also wrote about law and family and my other usual topics. Details after the fold.

Arts Reviews

In case some of you darling readers might be interested in attending, I’ll start off with a link to my review of the all-female production of Coriolanus at 12th Avenue Arts on Capitol Hill because tonight and tomorrow are the last performances of a creative and well-handled interpretation of one of Shakespeare’s less famous but more timely plays.

Another ongoing production I reviewed is Disney’s Newsies at Village Theatre in Issaquah (and later, in Everett). I have a love/hate thing going on with musical theater, but Village is one of my favorite local theaters and I tip towards the ‘love’ side for this production.

In October, I also attended the Barber of Seville at Seattle Opera (twice! I still need to write up the second one, when I brought my kids).

October is Iceland Season, thanks to Taste of Iceland and KEXP. I went to the the Reykjavik Calling concert, the laser show, and a preview of the tasting event.

Legal Topics

It wasn’t all tickets and roses, though, and I did some work for bread.

I wrote about the federal government’s attack on the Affordable Care Act and what Washington State electeds are doing to defend it.

I found some resources to help small business recover after natural disasters, and when Amazon imposed a new returns policy on small businesses, I wrote about that and then looked at whether partnering with Amazon is generally a good deal for small businesses.

I wrote a guide for first-time apartment hunters on how to avoid scammers, and reported on the Washington state’s well-intentioned but legally questionable cyberstalking law.

On the lighter – or should I say darker – side, in honor of Halloween I looked into how to sell a haunted house.

Parenting Topics

Speaking of holidays, I put together a holiday gift guide for technology-loving kids, and a bucket list of fun things to do in the winter-time in Puget Sound. For people just entering the parenting fray, I came up with some suggestions for “babymoon” getaways. (Funny note: I submitted that piece in January, so some babies that were conceived while I was researching that article were born before it published.)

Crooked Road Blog

I hardly ever refer to my blog by name. I usually just say “my personal blog,” and the URL is actually just my name “gemmadeealexander.” Does that mean Crooked Road is not a good name? Or should I start actually using it?

Anyway, I published 14 posts in October, up from an average 10 the rest of the year, and traffic predictably grew – Yay!

Top performing posts were:

My Favorite Opera – The Barber of Seville

Stank Baby

Tasting Iceland, Naturally

Fun Searches:

There were some fun searches this month, too.

• jason schwartzman iceland – Two things I like, but I don’t think I’ve ever united them in a post before – except this one, but that’s stretching.
• amazon – Wow. SEO is mysterious.
• read novels tittles gemma – I really hope the typo in this one means that someone was searching for “titles” of novels I read, and not for novels I read about “titties.”
• asgeir trausti’s girlfriend – Asgeir is the gift that keeps on giving. I should blog about him more. Turn this into a fan site. Except I still haven’t gotten around to listening to the whole new album (even though I do still listen to the first one on the regular).

Interesting Viewers:

The usual suspects showed up in the list of countries where readers accessed the blog: USA, Canada, Iceland, and now Germany. But I had a few visitors from Thailand and Vietnam, which I don’t remember happening before. I wish I could see which posts they looked at. I’m trying to decide whether to upgrade my WordPress.com account to gain access to Google Analytics, or whether to switch to self-hosting a WordPress.org site. Everything you read about blogging says you should go wp.org, but upgrading sounds easier.