"The Year of Yes"

I have to admit that part of the inspiration for this blog came from two things - the film Julie & Julia, and a book called "The Year of Yes" by Maria Dahvana Headley.

My parents have always encouraged me to develop the things that I am good at - and I think, to be honest, that the only honest-to-goodness God-given ability that I possess is writing. I love to write, have always loved it, and I think that I am pretty good at it. Do I think I am the best I could be? No, because I don't do it often enough. But when I do sit down and put pen to paper, or in the case of the last 7 or 8 years, fingers to keys, it is almost therapeutic. I purge feelings that I might typically keep bottled up through my writing, and sometimes I even come up with solutions to my own problems. So that brings me to blogging - it's like a live diary that you can share and receive feedback about, usually from strangers - and something about that is very appealing to me.
If you haven't seen Julie & Julia, it's essentially the true story of a woman who decided to cook her way through Julia Child's French cookbook and blog about it. 524 recipes, one year - and by the end of the year she felt like she had really accomplished something, and not to mention, learned how to cook. I loved the idea of a blog with a purpose - a project, and not just ramblings about what you did that day, what you ate, what shows you're watching. While I think blogs like that also have merit, I think one with a focus might be good for me.
"The Year of Yes" is a memoir of sorts that a girlfriend recommended I read because for a while, she seemed to be angry at me for being overly picky and not giving guys - guys who she thought were great but who I thought were ridiculous - enough of a chance before pitching them. The point of the book is that the writer wanted to find the love of her life, so she decided to date every single man who hit on her or asked her out for a year - cabbies, handymen, older guys, younger guys, whoever. While she did end up on some terrible dates, she also met the man she ended up marrying.

While I don't necessarily want to be in a relationship, I will admit that I am speaking as someone who has never truly been in love. I am not entirely closed off to the possibility that I may one day, or even through this process, meet an amazing guy who sweeps me off my feet and makes me question what I was thinking throughout my twenties. However, I believe this to be a slim possibility, but in the interest of keeping true to my new "project," I will do what Maria Dahvana Headley did, and go out with every man who asks me and then blog about it here. For one year.

God help me.