You’d think that this whole blog page should be called My $.02, since that’s pretty much what every blog I read is…just people sharing their daily stories or opinions or recipes or product reviews.

But it isn’t.  It’s AtLeastIHaveAFrigginGlass because no matter what life throws my way, good or bad.  Glass half full or half empty…at least I have a friggin’ glass.

Now, that’s an optimistic turn for ya.

So, here’s my two cents.

Penny 1:

People I know personally – and a couple of direct messages – have picked up on a recent theme of me exploring dating again and made mention of the fact that they totally think I should date again.

Nice to have my life decisions affirmed, it is.

Over the last few – maybe six? – I’ve quickly begun to second guess the wisdom of that declaration.  Hearing people tell me to “go for it” keeps the old chin up when I start to think maybe becoming a Log Cabin Republican would be less exasperating.

But, seriously, I think “trying” might be putting too much effort into process.  It does it seem take two to tango, and I’m meeting a lot of guys with two left feet or who are really just into break dancing.  I’ll give you a moment wrap your mind around how break dancing works against the tango in my dating analogy.

I recently quit one dating app and jumped to another.  Last night, before bed.  

I woke up this morning to the learning experience of knowing what 17 fuzzy profile pictures guys’ junk looks like.  So, I guess that’s good news if any of them are congressmen.  Somehow I doubt that’s the reality here.

Seriously, though, how can you not have a clear headshot and the photos of the areas around your taint are better than my grandmother’s glamour shot?

Selfie-porn, people.  That’s what America has to offer.  

That’s fine.  When the most decent guy I’ve met was an in person chance encounter, maybe analog is the way to go.  I mean, his only problem was working too much – same – and not being able to directly say, “I’m in a five year relationship with someone who moved halfway across the country to be with me”.

Oh, look at that.  That wasn’t so hard.

One thing I did learn, that I’m trying to decide whether it’s practical or jaded, is to only commit $20 to a first date or two.

It keeps the date to a meet and greet type thing, getting you into real life with someone without getting you stuck at a table for an hour with Quasimodo if that end up being the reason for the poor quality profile pic.

Tabling that for now, because all it’s really providing me is blog subject matter and I doubt I could keep up.

Which is a good transition to Penny 2:

I just published blogs seven days in a row, which is a personal record for me.  That’s 10 of the last 11 days, too.  Plus one for this entry.  So, yay me.

That’s about 10,000 words in seven days.  I’m proud of that because I talked myself out of participating in NaNoWriMothid past November simply because I was traveling and that made my month only three weeks in which to scribble/tap out 50,000 words.

Man, I had an idea and everything.

But this past week has both exhausted me and proven to me that I can do this.  I’d estimate that about 5% of my comments and DMs – such as they are – involve suggesting that I write a book.  I’d enjoy that, methinks.  It’s not the writing part that intimidates me, it’s the “What next?” factor.  I could probably crack out a couple different drafts in 2018, that’s hardly putting James Patterson in any danger. The larger question remains then what?  

Does anyone know any agents or publishers?  

Is there a Publishing for Dummies?

There are people I know who have self-published.  I get mixed reviews from them. They allegedly earn more but suffer the consequences of limited distribution.  Plus, if I wrote a book, I think my vanity requires a physical book over simply an e-book.

I have one friend who has had several children’s books published but the last time we spoke about it, the data she had had publishers looking for very specific genres and author profiles.

If I wanted to deal with people disqualifying me based on arbitrary criteria, I’d date.