dear Erika...

I'm suffering from writer's block, people. It's excruciating. Although to be honest, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often. I lead a pretty boring and ordinary life, so sometimes I'm kind of amazed that I can come up with crap to ramble on about five days a week. Ha. (You can just nod and smile if you're secretly thinking maybe you should stop rambling so much...)

I whined about my lack-of-things-to-blog-about plight on Facebook this morning, because obviously that's a mature thing to do. I guess on some level I was hoping someone would pipe in with a great writing prompt that I could spring off of and write up something in the time that remains before my workday starts. Like "Erika, I've really been hoping you'd weigh in on what's going on in the Ukraine...your political opinions are so on point." (Are you impressed that I even know something is going on in the Ukraine? You can thank NPR for that.) Just kidding. More like "aren't you going to talk about what happened on the Bachelor this week?", which is something that is actually plausible. 

Thankfully, my pathetic plea for help worked!! Or, maybe. I mean, I'm writing, aren't I?

Susan suggested that I open up a Q&A. Go look and see it for yourself if you don't believe me. I've seen folks do these before, but never done it myself in my six-ish year blog career. Why? Because there's a high chance of failure, to be honest. WHAT IF NOBODY ASKS ANYTHING? But today there's no chance of that failure. Before I agreed to do this, I made Susan promise that if no one asked anything, she would take the burden upon herself to make up at least 10 different names/profiles and ask questions under them. SO! I'll get at least 10 questions, which seems like a successful Q&A, don't you agree? Ha!

So here we go, my first ask-me-anything Q&A. Susan suggested that I establish some ground rules. I mean, I'm a pretty open book, so feel free to ask whatever burning questions about me/Matt/Lola/infertility/adoption/gardening/makeup/life you may have. You should probably avoid questions about politics because let's be honest...that's going to make me have to go look it up, form an opinion, and like...that's just annoying. I hate politics. So do you (according to the reader survey). So let's not go there. And also...I mean, I have no idea what questions are actually burning on your hearts (if any), but if it's something too personal or too whatever...please don't hate me if I choose not to answer it. Let's pretend I have some standards when it comes to what I share publicly.

BUT. Here's another great idea. You may not know this, but I've always had a not-so-secret life goal of being a Dear Abby-esque advice columnist. I love answering questions (especially about topics I have no experience or knowledge about!!!) and solving problems. So feel free to also throw in your big life conundrums that you need help sorting out. Feel free to make up ridiculous scenarios if you don't actually have one! And if you do that, you should probably make up a name to go with it, too, like this:

Dear Erika,
  I accidentally doused myself in a men's cologne right before I left for work this morning. I didn't have time to change. Now I smell like a man (I am actually a woman) and I'm really self-conscious. What should I do?

Sincerely,
 Eau de Hombre

Obviously this is a scenario that I have some personal experience with (so my advice would be SUPER spot-on), but you get the idea.

So...let's do it. Assuming anyone actually has questions, I'll answer them in a future post (as opposed to in the comments or in an email) (unless your question is personal and you'd prefer that...just say so).

PS. If you ask how much I weigh, I'm going to lie. So sorry!