I have long been intrigued by whatever program generates the “possibly relatedlinks” that show up on our blogs and our myspace pages. Most of the links that pop up on my myspace homepage are for acting classes and Shakespeare festivals, and I can see how a computer program that is scanning the information I’ve included in my interests would detect a common theme of “Shakespeare nerd” and then try to point me to websites in this family. I enjoy checking out the types of websites that this mysterious link generator thinks my friends would be interested based on the information in their profiles as they are, often accurate yet bizarre.

But last week, a “possibly related link” showed up on my blog that stopped me in my tracks:

I want a baby so badly it hurts.

(As a side note: I would include this link in my blog, but it is no longer appearing on my page and, I could write a weeks worth of blogs detailing what would happen if my boyfriend found “I want a baby so badly it hurts” in the recent searches on his laptop)

Where were we? Oh yes,

I want a baby so badly it hurts.

I stared at the page in disbelief, asking my computer, how do you know that?? I haven’t blogged about wanting a baby. I haven’t blogged about babies at all! I suddenly felt like I was a character in one of those futuristic thrillers where the government knows everything about you, and the computer was not generating “possibly related links” but actually reading my mind.

Maybe Chris was right when he suggested last Friday that pregnancy was in the water in our small Los Angeles suburb (to which I replied, “I need to drink more water.”) Maybe the giant banner outside the new Bellini store that reads The Babies are Coming is actually a warning and it isn’t the government hacking into my brain and posting these links on my blog, but an army of mind-reading babies from outer space.

But whether it’s a computer program or a mind-reading baby, if whatever is doing this has the power to look into my soul, shouldn’t it know that I’m not readyfor a baby? Why can’t it be nice like the myspace link generator and just try to send me to acting class or the Oregon Shakespeare Festival? And what if the psychic alien infants have taken over myspace as well, serving to explain why today’s link on my homepage reads: Cate Blanchett has Baby?

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