About a week or so ago, I became the unwitting recipient – although perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I was meritoriously tagged by fellow-blogger & maverick Go Go Bimbo – of an "a-ward", the Thinking Blogger Award. It's taken me this long to formulate a response that didn't begin with "It all started in a 5000-watt radio station in The rules of acceptance are simple enough:
1) If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2) Link to this post (in this case, Go Go Bimbo's) so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
I suddenly feel like I've been transported to the 70's and I'm Marlon Brando declining my Oscar but without the aid of an American Indian. My feelings about the “treatment of American Indians today by the film industry… and on television in movie re-runs” aside, I don't feel comfortable accepting this a-ward. It's not that I am not flattered because I am. Inordinately so. (Go Go Bimbo, your place in heaven is assured). It's just that I am unable to fulfill 50% of those aforesaid “simple” rules – which, in the great scheme of things, makes me more of a George C. Scott (who declined his Oscar because of his refusal to compete with his peers) than a Marlon Brando.
I don’t necessarily read blogs to be intellectually challenged. It’s not that blogs don’t make me think because sometimes they do. But sometimes they make me laugh and sometimes they piss me off. And sometimes they provide excellent recipes for eggplant and suggest alternate ways to the airport. But today’s True Confession – this from a person who can spend hours surfing the internet – is that I hardly read any blogs at all, and those I do read are listed in a sidebar for the world to see. How can I pick 5 writers from a list that has grown beyond just that, a list? This is no longer just an online group of peers but in many cases, a community of faceless friends. Couldn’t I just share this a-ward with those on my sidebar? (Oh right, I declined it).
Over the course of my bloggings, I may have mentioned that I’m a book reader. I prefer the tactile and olfactory pleasures that books offer. The thought that paper fleas might be infesting my bed every night doesn’t freak me out. Much. I simply don’t enjoy reading texts of any great length on a screen. Nor do I quite understand how anyone has the patience to read them, or for that matter, any of my garrulous harangues & whinefests. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not overwhelmingly grateful for the support I’ve received over these past months from my visitors – both regular and serendipitous (note how I refrained from calling them “irregular”) – those who comment (for weal or woe) on my blog, and those who refrain from calling me an asshole because they couldn’t be bothered or their mothers had once told them that if they didn’t have anything nice to say to say nothing at all.
Jeez – another longwinded post. Just to say thanks but no thanks. Really, I shouldn’t have to decline this award – it should be revoked.
*I shouldn't really have to explain this citation. If you don't recognize it, google it.
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