Wow. I loved the response to my last post. Thank you so much for opening your doors long enough to let me peek inside. You gave me so much insight into the reasons NOT to blog that it made me think about why the hell I do.

I started because my niece tried to explain the importance of a blog audience. I didn’t really understand so I started one of my own. I, of course, get it now. But that only really explains why I started.

In theory I am not a candidate to offer up a lot about myself. Perhaps this Ronald Searle classic says it best:

CAPTION: Unusually repulsive cat startled by a gesture of affection

Why I keep posting:

- My peers in Dog Patch mostly want to chat about the halibut run or the best price on chainsaw gnomes. I know little about either so I have not managed to land a local friend.

- You guys are guinea pigs. I have developed a voice at your expense. I needed to break 40 years of ad speak in order to remember how to create sentences with both verbs and nouns. Not that I always use them. But it’s nice to find them again.

- I’m afraid of being forgotten. As I ease out of employment, that world will go on without me. Until I ease into a new career as author, this world has no idea who the hell I am. I don’t want to get lost in between the two. So I blog.

- Being rejected by agents gets me down. Your ‘atta girls’ keep me at it.

- When the Mister was in such sorry shape for so long, I wanted people to talk to who didn’t have to sit in the same room and feel like crap and wish to hell they could think of anything to say. Better my invisible friends should feel like crap. You can always just turn me off.

- Life is depressing if you only see the big picture. Looking the wrong way through the telescope let’s me focus on the funny, the absurd and sometimes the sad. That’s as philosophical as I get these days.

- The blog can be a pain in the ass. It’s like a lover that wants more of your time than you can give it. But the times you share are worth it.

Why I read your blogs:

- I read for ideas. Things I too can post about. Or personality quirks I can give to characters in my books. Viewpoints that — while wrong — are different than my own.

- Since so many of you found me through Sundry, I imagine my age is closer to your crazy Aunt Alice who wanders around in the attic and sometimes gets lost in there. Your blogs represent a connection to a younger generation that I don’t have otherwise, what with having no fruit of the womb and all.

- My banner photo has comfy furniture and ice tea for a nice chat. I feel that way about sitting down with you. But I can turn you off whenever I want.

Like right this moment. I’ll see you next week after my writer’s conference here on the back nine, or in your own neighborhood.