BTW

A few weeks ago, Monica ("Ramblings of a Crazy") was handing out awards like it was the Oscars or something. Which reminds me, the Oscars are on Sunday and Jon Stewart is hosting again. Yay. As per usual, I have seen very few of the nominated films, although I get snaps for having seen at least one film that wasn't animated or littered with teen wizards. Consequently, it would just be wrong to give my comprehensive list of Oscar picks. Suffice to say:

*Dame Judi Dench won't win anything this year and neither will Helen Mirren. Because they weren't nominated.

*Julie Christie will probably win Best Actress over Ellen Page but that's kinda too bad because even though I love me some Christie, Ms. Page gave an absolutely lovely performance in "Juno" and it would be awesome to see her win.

*I gotta think "Juno" will win best original screenplay. It can't win Best Picture because it was indie and smart and too funny. But at least give 'em the screenplay award.

*"Ratatouille" will win best animated feature because it really was a terrific movie. And I saw it.

*$5 bucks says that the last photo they show during the "In Memorium" bit is Heath Ledger.

Now back to Monica. She gave me some awards. I was deeply touched by this because Monica is pretty much the essence of cool and you'd think that my blog would be far too pedestrian for someone at her level of coolness. So yeah, getting an award from her is kinda like being asked to sit at the hip table in the lunchroom. So thanks for that, Monica.

The first award, which is way awesome, is supposed to be presented to 10 deserving women bloggers. For reasons known only to itself, Blogger won't let me plug in more than a few links per post so it'll be up to you to find the blogs over there on the right and check them out, if you haven't yet.

1) Nicole ("Living in a Second Language) is one of my best real life friends. The fact that she also writes a very lovely blog is just a bonus. Funny, introspective, clever...that's my girl.

2) Dana (Amazing "Grace in the City") writes oh, so charmingly about raising her family and building a church in New York City. One of the things I appreciate about her blog is that she's the kind of Christian who doesn't give the rest of us a bad name. To whit, her faith is deep and profound and sometimes she blows me away with her insight but she's not heavy and preachy and judgemental. Which is always refreshing.

3) Monica gets this one back. HA! Can't help it. The kid rocks. She turned me on to Belle and Sebastian. She watches Project Runway. She rides a bike. She lives in Chicago, one of the truly great cities of the world. There.

4) Kimberly Ann ("Nostalgic Homemaking"). Duh. She's fairly new to Blogtopia but it feels like she's been around forever. She mostly writes about food and housekeeping but with an altogether unique POV. And I bought some fake pearls from her that just rock my world.

5) Boodatude. The woman is insanely talented when it comes to things creative but her writing just slays me most times. Actually, I kinda hate her for that. No. I don't. Yeah, I do. "Hate" in a "I really admire your talent and envy it a bit but you're too charming not to love" sort of way.

6) Auld Hat ("The Voluptuary"). Shut up.

7) Speck ("Worms, Puppies, BBQ"), who seems to be blogging more regularly now. Which is a good thing for Blogtopia. Plus, this woman is whacked. Again, in a good way. The disembodied hand card she sent me for Christmas is coming out every year.

8) Brand new to me is Leah ("Circumstantial Serendipity"), who's been coming around here for a while and who I just got around to checking out. I like her. She's my kinda gal.

9)Greeny ("You Get What You Need") is someone I really hope to have cocktails with someday. She is also my kinda gal. She's one of those people who lives, on the surface, a fairly ordinary life but writes about it in a way that is compelling and fun and sometimes inspiring. Especially when it comes to gardening. Dang, if only.

10) My "City Mouse". Mostly because she's my mouse, but also because she's funny and she thinks and she's not afraid to be honest even when it's hard. She hasn't had the world's cushiest life and you'd think that would make her a hard, brittle person but she's really not. Plus, she doesn't care about spelling.

The other award, thankfully, only has to be passed out to 5 people because that was just exhausting, let me tell you. It's an award for niceness. Nice is way under-rated in the world and it's good to celebrate those who bother.

1) Rosie ("Rosemary's Attic"). Sweet as can be and she gave me a beautiful concertina for my birthday just because she couldn't make it out to my party to play "La vie en rose". I couldn't believe it. Still can't.

2) Hat. Shut up. I have my reasons. She's going to pft at this but I don't care.

3) Same thing with the Bitter One. We opened this coffee shop ("Here's the 90s") and I've been way too much of an absentee partner (although I'm really trying to improve that) and he has never once bitched me out for leaving him with the heavy lifting all these weeks. That's really nice. Especially since it probably goes against his nature. (No it doesn't. I know him. Ha. He's the sweetest thing ever but you didn't hear that from me. We must keep up the charade). Also, he's a really terrific uncle to The Child and he doesn't really have to do that, what with the whole not actually being related thing. But see, he's nice. (Shhhhhh).

4) Buck ("I Laugh, Therefore I Am") . Because you know what kinds of things he does? He does things like buy hard to find cordials on the web and then shares it. He moves out of his apartment for a week to let total strangers live in it. I'm telling you, he is n.i.c.e.

5) Mom ("The Best is Yet to Be"). It's funny that "Mom" is her blog name because when she leaves comments it always makes me think it's my mom until I remember that my mom is Dame Judi. But whenever she does leave a comment (and I've noticed this on the other blogs she frequents) she's always kind and generous and supportive...just like a good mom. I kinda think of her as the übermom of Blogtopia.

and I have to add a 6th, Dariush (as in "Dariush Alavi"). He lives in England and is a very talented writer. I felt pretty honored when we started corresponding. He loves good food and he cooks so we share recipes and stories about food but, as is sometimes the way with bloggy relationships, it has slowly moved out of the realm of the initial connection and into being friends. And who doesn't need a friend in England? Who cooks? Seriously. But he especially gets this nice award (which he has to share with his wife, the Divine L) because a month or so ago he was blogging about these books that he and L had found called Don'ts for Wives and Don'ts for Husbands and they sounded very amusing. I said something in my comment about needing to get my hands on copies and he promptly emailed and asked if he could please buy them for me. Which he then did and shipped Royal Mail (love the foreign postmarks, what?). And they are cute little books full of hysterically brilliant marital advice. Anyvows, point is that was a terribly nice thing for him to do.

As per usual, this handing out awards thing starts feeling funny because there are good reasons to give these awards to all the people on my blog roll. (Except the women blogger one because, well, hi...they aren't all women). Sometimes I think I should do what Sling ("Sling's Domain") does when he gets one and say, "Hey, if you're on the blog roll, consider yourself served".

Maybe next time.

Bestowing Honors

I suspect that it is very exciting to win things. I once put my business card in a drawing and won an Easter basket full of Godiva chocolate. That was pretty thrilling so I can only imagine how these folks (and personal heroes) must be feeling:

Doris Lessing, 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature

I'm particularly fond of Lessing's short stories because that's how I first discovered her and also because as hard as it is for me to write any sort of fiction at all (to the point of, you know, not even bothering), I am in awe of those who can create poignant, amusing, ironic or even somewhat twisted tales with an economy of language in a very few pages.

Al Gore, 2007 Nobel Peace Prize

Never mind that Al Gore has helped millions of regular people understand the problem of global warming or that he is a fiercely committed and passionate kinda guy. He is also really funny. I love me some funny guys.

(I detect a faint bee-like sound around this Nobel...that it will induce him into the Democratic race. Hello? Really? Why would he do that? Seriously. He's got a frakking Oscar and now a Nobel to place on his mantel. Why in the world would he want to be President of the United States now? He can do far more good in his current situation and I think he knows that.)

The Neighbor, most recent inductee into the Exalted Order of the Koihead.

Maker of Italian ice tea, sounding board, cheerleader, prayer partner, bringer- home- to- me- of- little- presents- just- because, Best Friend. I believe that merits a koihead. At least.

(For the record, she has been jet-setting entirely too much lately and if she doesn't stay put for a while I'm going to get seriously cranky).

Congratulations Doris, Al and Neighb. Well done. I salute you.

Drumroll Please

So the other day I was just minding my business, stopping in at assorted porches in the 'hood, when what should I discover but that my friend Horizon, she of the beautiful photographs and chocolate covered blog, had given me a shiny thing for my mantel.
' Strictly speaking, I don't think this blog is anywhere near as creative as some of those I visit regularly. But hey, a prezzie is a prezzie and I do not look a gift or any other sort of horse in the mouth. So thanks, Horizon.

I'm as down with the whole tag thing as the next blogger, but one of the nice things about this particular award is that it didn't come with any "and now pass it on to 412 bloggers" stuff. Which isn't to say that passing on kudos where they are due is not important, 'cause it is but sometimes I feel pressure to quick come up with appropriate recipients and all that. I like to give these things some thought.

In fact, in this case, I'm going to take my time, and dole this puppy out when the spirit moves. Which she is doing just at the moment. For while there are many creative bloggers in my midst, many far more creative than I, today I wish to single out my one, my only, my Poodle and not just because I big puffy ♥ him so.

He gets the Creative Blogger award because of all his little bits, like the ever popular Pop Music 101 or Instant Message Theatre.

Other reasons to give him this award:

3. His wickedly clever take on all things pop cultural.

4. His craftiness with banners, of which I myself have been a recipient.

5. He knows more code than I so can help me with stuff (which he has done. Often).

f. He came up with the idea of making Here's the 80s into a full-blown blog instead of just some little thing I did here on the weekends. Because, and I'm so serious about this, I don't think there is another place on the interwebs that has the scope and depth of 80s music, of all varieties and from multiple continents in one place. Added to which, of course, you get our brilliant analysis and terribly amusing banter. And I never would have thought to do that but he did.

The fact that he's one of my besties of all time, a good friend and a terrific uncle is just, you know, gravy. And while none of that necessarily speaks to his creativity, it does tell you that under all that bitter he's one fine, fine human bean.

And sure, I've got an ulterior motive. What with his work life changing significantly and all, he's made noises about how he won't be able to blog as frequently (to which I have repeatedly said "bah and bosh and pft") and I just want him to know that whether it's every day or a couple times a week, there are plenty of reasons to stop by his blog, which I do first thing every morning.

Love you, Poods.

Determination

I've been pulling together some stuff to submit to a local parenting magazine. At first I was really excited. I'm a parent and I can write. Then I started putting it off. I realized that it owes to the great Poetry Submission Debacle of 1980.

It's not so much an actual fear of rejection. That goes with the territory. There isn't a writer worth his or her salt that hasn't been rejected. J.K. Rowling springs to mind and she ended up doing ok for herself. No, it's more to do with being rejected cruelly, being told that I did it all wrong. I hate being wrong.

But then, last night, I was inspired by two things. First, The Spouse was talking about some reality show, "On the Lot" I think it's called. There's been a lot of buzz about it in the indie film community, with which he's connected, and his whole thing is that is not how you earn your chops. You get a gig, you do your best and try to be a reasonable person and then you get hired on something else. You have to be willing to be a grunt, you have to be willing to learn and eventually you manage to get somewhere.

As an example he cited our friend Norbert, who works in LA half of the year. Norbert doesn't go down to the union hall to see what's available. He calls the people he knows to see what they're doing and they hire him because he has a good reputation in the industry. That's how it works.

It made me think about how sparse my actual writing cred is but obviously, the only way to get more stuff on the resume is to work it. So there you go.

And then, because I'm still in mourning for "Gilmore girls" and don't yet know what to do with myself of a Tuesday evening, I watched most of the finale of "Dancing with the Stars". It's a really annoying program, btw, but I knew Apolo Ono was in the finals and I ♥ him.

He and his adorable partner Julieanne won, which means that now he has a shiny disco ball trophy to put next to his bronze, silver and gold Olympic medals. That in itself is a little silly, I know. But here's the thing: this is a 25 year old kid (just had his birthday yesterday, in fact) who has already accomplished some significant things. He could probably rest on his endorsements for the rest of his life. But he entered this silly competition, for whatever reasons, and then he put everything he had into it. He listened to and learned from his professional partner. He took the judges critique to heart and every week, from what I understand, he worked hard to be the best he could be. He was consistently described last night, by judges, other competitors and people who know him as "determined".

After winning he was asked how he felt and replied, "I feel amazing! You put your mind to something, you give 100 percent, sacrifice and dedication, anything is possible.”

It's such a basic formula that it seems naive but coming from someone who has proven the formula time and again, it had weight. And I thought, "100%. What would that look like?" Because, people, to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure that I've even managed 50%.

So there you go. I'm going to ship that stuff off and look for other stuff and keep plugging and who knows? Maybe I'll get a frakkin' disco ball myself someday.