"It's like a virtual stage," said Getz, who recently took that show, and her laptop, on the road and into the homes of her readers.

Getz, 42, left her Swarthmore house for a solo trek across the country on March 25. For five weeks, she ate dozens of McMuffin sandwiches, drove more than 10,000 miles across 28 states, met with more than 260 writers, and stayed on the couches or in the guest rooms of gay men, mothers, political junkies, a devout Mormon, a cattle rancher's wife, and other fans.

"I felt like there wasn't going to be one place I could go and meet these people, unless I set out to do it," Getz said.

So why did the readers take in Getz - or Bossy, as she is known to them?

"Oh, gosh. Because I thought she was totally cool," said Angie McDonald, a 39-year-old blogger from Seattle.

Pat Dunnigan, a 45-year-old freelance journalist from a Chicago suburb, said she felt as if she knew Getz before she met her.

"I guess just from reading her Web site - and this may be a key to her appeal - I felt like, 'Oh, she's going to be fun,' " Dunnigan said. She joked that other readers probably had the same expectation as hers: "She's going to be my new best friend."

The site, www.iambossy.com, averages about 220,000 hits a month, Getz said. Fans are drawn to her wit - often sarcastic, silly and self-deprecating.

"She has a very unique writing style. She's got a voice that you could recognize from a hundred miles away," said Dunnigan, who posts her own essays and stories at http://suburbankamikaze.com.

Getz had been working with a writing partner, trying to get some screenplays and TV pilots picked up, when she started the blog about two years ago as her first solo venture.

"I've really been looking for a home," Getz said.

She posts when she has time away from her job as a freelance interior painter. "It's a great platform for combining photography and graphics and storytelling," Getz said. "And it's like one-stop shopping."

In a video, she digitally edited pictures of herself and actor John Cusack together as the '80s song "Hold Me Now" played in the background. She made a parody of Tom Cruise's most recent interview with Oprah, using photos of plastic dolls.

She also has created poems about her struggle painting house shutters, photo essays about her son's search for a college, and satires with titles such as "Things Mom Said When Wall Street Had A Party In The House And Broke All The Lamps."

She dubbed the cross-country voyage "Bossy's Excellent Road Trip," asked readers to host her, set up a donation jar for fans to pay for gas and other traveling expenses, and acquired corporate sponsorship. Saturn provided five cars from its eco-friendly line.

"I was just honored by everyone's generosity," Getz said.

She and her hosts shared some trepidation before the visit. Jason Shelton, 39, who lives in a Los Angeles suburb, posted nine worst-case scenarios on his Web site, www.jason-thejasonshow.blogspot.com.

"What if Bossy is an ax murderer?" he wrote. "What if she's a thief and she steals all of the family jewels?" And finally, what if she just didn't like him?

Fortunately for all, Getz connected with her hosts quickly.

"It was amazingly immediate, like when you see an old friend," Getz said, asserting that there is an intimacy between writers and readers of a blog.

"You really put yourself out there. I don't know what the blurred lines are that allow you to do that. . . . It felt like people I've known forever."

In Seattle, the halfway point in Getz's journey, she and McDonald met with about 12 other bloggers at a restaurant. She held similar events in 25 cities, including Washington, Tallahassee, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Chicago and Cleveland.

"It was fun to talk shop," said McDonald, who writes at www.alladither.com.

McDonald had never met the other writers before, either, but she now has plans for a second get-together. "It's kind of neat how blogging expands your universe beyond people whom you would usually meet. And Bossy was kind of the antithesis of that," McDonald said.

Getz returned home April 27. The following Tuesday, she was working to reconnect with everyone she had missed during the trip.

"Because Bossy is so hopelessly out of touch," she wrote, "she has this Tuesday Challenge: Tell Bossy in exactly ten words what's been going on in your life."

Within two days, 301 people responded.