So two things happened out of the blue today:

1) I actually forgot how old I am.

2) I started a blog.

For years now, I've boggled at my husband's ability to absolutely, totally forget his age. When asked, he pauses, gets a confused look on his face and verbally asks himself how old he is. I've never understood, because like most females of the species, I've always known PRECISELY how old I am at any given moment, whether it was when I was adding "and a 1/2" or "and 3/4" to my age to make myself seem older (this rarely fools adults, I have learned ;) ), or when I turned 30, aware of how many days away from my 20's I'd fallen. Today, though, I didn't know.

I sat there, looking at the paper before me that asked this riddle...and I found myself asking, aloud, "How old am I?" I had to do math...and I had to recheck my math, because math is not my forte--I'll admit this fact freely.

As I write this, I realize--I guess--that I haven't known for a while now, because I haven't thought about it, obsessed about it or had to write it down in quite some time. How freeing! I have decided to continue forgetting how old I am, because it doesn't really matter, except when I have to fill out a form.

Now the blog thing is something even more of a wonder, because I hate the word. Hate the concept, for the most part--even more so after watching an absolutely, hideously bad Uma Thurman movie on an airplane this past January, in which she had a Buh-log. It sounds like gagging. Really. Keeping a blog has also always seemed indulgent to me. Though my resolve has been worn down, as of late, by my friend, Molly and various and sundry agents whom I've been following in my pursuit to get my mss represented.

Molly's blog is fun and whimsical and not gag-bloggy--it's preppy and clean and makes me want to be like her. It's like a nice note to the reader, and she takes the time to share about dogs, her new home and interior decorating forays, her husband who puts the proverbial stars in her eyes, jammin' on the Rock Band, recipes and sometimes me (blush) from across country. I've been trying to get Molly to join Facebook, and she says I've been the one to wear her down most, but she hasn't buckled yet. I guess her magic is quicker than mine.

Agents' blogs...I have learned much. I have learned who I would absolutely be pleased as snot to have represent my work and who...well, not so much. I have seen examples of query letter gold and query letter pandering, and hopefully I've taken the lesson accordingly. I've also learned that in this age of social networking, a blog is a nice companion to the writer attempting to make a go of the business; if nothing else, as a writing strengthener.

So I've succumbed to peer pressure, and I guess now I have to wonder if I would jump off a cliff if I saw the other kids doing it, because it all started with me saying I'd NEVER do Facebook ("never" turned into one step away from me needing anonymous meetings, really). Now, here I am with a blog (sometimes the status messages I want to write on FB would no way fit in the little square, so maybe this is the answer).

We'll see. This may be the only post, or I may get crazy-verbose. Right now, though, I feel like I'm writing an email to myself. Welcome to the experiment. (This means I have to proof read myself, doesn't it? Damn.)