Trouble Brewing in Little Ohio

This is my brain after too many hours on the internet.

I started down in the bottom left hand corner looking for something.  Not sure what now.  And I got lost somewhere in the middle.

I think I wanted to find a blog directory.  Then I got distracted by Facebook.  Then I looked at social work jobs.  Had a panic attack.  Then I tried to find writing jobs, but I found a recipe I liked.  Now my head hurts.

As you can tell, I don't have an Ohio topic today, unless it's about a local blogger who went beeeeezerk and set fire to her laptop.

My topic for the day is about the elephant in the middle of the room.

This one is outside, but it's hard to find a picture of one sitting in the middle of an actual room.

I've been walking around this elephant for too long.  I don't dust him so it's even worse than you might think.

I am having a blogging melt down.  A "Come to Jesus" meeting with myself.

I have been asking myself "Why?"  Why am I spending so much time blogging?  Why have I decided to drive all around my county and surrounding counties looking for that offbeat place, that quirky old guy, that giant ball of string?

I don't think I've ever used so many question marks in one post!  There, I used an exclamation point.

Here's what I'm getting at and I'm looking to you all, my blogging friends, to provide some insight.  We blog, we take pictures, we comment on other blogs, we try to be creative and witty....and.  This is where my wheels come off.

In reality, the only people who read blogs are other bloggers.  We love each other.  It's one big humongous love fest.  It's pen pals on steroids.  I do love that part of it.  I love hearing from you.  If it wasn't for you, I'd have nothing but emails about penis enlargement or fortunes waiting for me in Nigeria.

The problem is, I'd actually like to make some money as a writer.  I always have.  I've been doing a superior job at procrastinating for 40 years.  Back before the internet, my excuse was, "Who in the world would print the snippy, sarcastic essays of a frustrated Ohio woman?"  Erma Bombeck already had a corner on that market, although I am her darker twin.

I'm throwing in a nature picture just to add some interest.

So I had renewed hope when the internet bloomed from the middle of Al Gore's forehead.   There was writing everywhere.  It just spilled off the monitor.

You didn't need a publisher anymore to get your message out.  My goodness....you could start your own blog!  And people did in droves...in stampedes...in landslides...in obscene amounts.

People are writing about their new shoes, blind dates, bad in-laws, hang nails, cures for warts...Do I really care?  To be fair, I only follow blogs that speak to me.  If you're on my list, you're my peeps and I'll follow you to the gates of Hell.  Not through the gates.  Just up to the them and then I'm running the other way.

The only people making money are the scam artists who sell us books about blogging or who have their own blogs about blogging.  They tell us how to drive traffic to our blogs, they design new templates for our blogs, they conduct workshops for blogging, and blah, blah, blah.  I have spent countless hours lost in this maze.

Blogging helped me get through my Yellowstone adventure.  I knew you were out there rooting for me.  Ultimately my blog got me in a lot of trouble at work.  It seems that not everyone thinks I'm funny.

I'm asking you all for input before I commit blogger hari kari.

Damn...I accidentally published this post and I'm not done.  Bear with me.

One more thing that gives me a mental wedgie.  Have you been to one of those sites like Helium.com?  I'm not even giving the link because it sucks.  Thousands of sad people write articles so that other sad people can read them and rate them.  If you write ten articles a day and rate another ten articles a day, you can earn 50 cents an article.

It becomes an obsession like any addiction.  Thousands of people sitting at their laptops checking to see if their article has been rated.  Did they make it to number one this week?  Are they sitting on top of the manure pile?  They even have a poetry section.  And all of the poems rhyme.  Shudder.

I haven't decided what to do.  I need a big group hug, then a slap, then a big dish of ice cream with chocolate syrup.  That always makes me feel better.  There's a novel floating around in my brain.  Should I just hunker down and work on that?  Would you all forget about me? 

Oh lordy...here come the question marks again.  Time for me to go.