Channeling Sally Field
You like me! You really, really like me!
Well, some of you do. Nancy "I am a bicyle seat" Firedrake doesn't. Elly doesn't. Ceej doesn't. That guy who sent me all the nasty email defending Deb's husband doesn't. The gay fellow who kept pestering me to "Show me the ham!" on my webcam doesn't, not since I showed him the ham -- but not the ham he had in mind. So, yes, there are those folks out there who don't like me, but that's to be expected; you're bound to come across loons anywhere you go, especially on the internet. Especially if you like to tweak them as I do. But I'm not going to let these intellectually challenged few bring me down because...
You like me! You really, really like me!!!
Yesterday was a red letter day for the 'stake. I was mentioned in not one but two of my favorite journals, and in a complimentary fashion, too. Deb named me as one of her web crushes and Lizzie bestowed an award on me. Pardon me while I preen with pride for a moment.
I was particularly gratified to read Deb's comments because I did a little bit of a hatchet job on her husband in here awhile back. I wasn't trying to be meanspirited, but as I go back and read over it it does come across a bit harsh. I stand by what I said, but I think I might have been a little more diplomatic in saying it. So even though she and I have corresponded about it and she said she wasn't offended, I still wondered if maybe she was anyway. I'm glad to see that she's not, and I'm doubly glad to find out that I'm one of her favorites because she's one of mine. Unrequited admiration can be a bitch, after all, so it's nice not to suffer it for a change.
And then there's the award from Lizzie, the Eminently Pretentious DJR Memorial Award, where I was feted as Best Journal That I Can't Seem To Categorize At The Moment. What can I say? I'm speechless.
Yeah, right. Me, speechless? Could I ever be so? Sure, I might not update here for days or even weeks on end, but when I do I always have something to say, even when I have nothing to say. I regularly go on for 500 to 1000 words on just about any subject, from why I want to dream about Gerri Halliwell to having a bad day, so finding myself speechless isn't something that happens every day, if ever. Instead, let's say I'm working on my false modesty.
Receiving awards for this page has never been very important to me. In fact, it's a little important to me that I don't receive them because I think they're pretty silly for the most part, at least for me. If I had a handful of awards I feel like they'd make it look as if I'm trying to curry favor, like I'm trolling for approval a la that world class award whore Elly. Even worse, I'd feel that I'd set a standard for myself that I had to meet. With a pocket full o' awards looking over my shoulder (And never you mind where that pocket is that allows its contents to look over my shoulder, said the hunchback) I'd be weighing each and every word as I write my entries, trying to live up to the excellence I'd once somehow managed to attain, never sure how I did it in the first place and convinced I could never do it again. I don't need that kind of pressure, babe. I crumble just going for daily entries. A daily entry that's as good or better than one that accidentally got an award? Fuhgedabboudit.
But Lizzie's award is different. It's Eminently Pretentious, which is an anti-standard in itself. It's from Lizzie, who's one of my favorite online people, even though we've never met. And it's a Memorial Award, which reminds me of an annual party we used to hold in the Journalism Department back in college.
There was a guy, Fred Bronner, in the history of my college who, legend had it, was a major league doofus. One of the frats decided to fuck with the guy and asked him to pledge. He did, and during one of their hazing rituals they took him and a bunch of his fellow pledges into the distant mountains, where they dumped them at the side of the road wearing only their shoes and underwear and carrying only two dimes. The pledges were to walk down the mountain to the payphone 5 or 6 miles away and call the frat house for a ride back. Fred's fellows thought he was a doof, too, so they left him behind. Fred ended up walking off a cliff and dying. His parents, the legend has it, weren't terribly broken up about it. I forget the exact quote, but his dad is reputed to have said something along the lines of "Well, Fred always was a doofus. He's better off dead."
Horrible story, right? Right. But... College fans of Hunter S. Thompson, as my friends and I were, are cynical people to begin with, and we were in training for journalism, which is a cynical field in itself, so we were boning up extra hard on our cynicism. We were cynical to the nth degree and the Fred Bronner story was right up our alley. Dark, pathetic, twisted, tragic. We loved it. We embraced it. And we started throwing a party on the date of his reputed death: The 1st (2nd, 3rd, etc.) Annual Fred Bronner Memorial Party. Let me tell you, those were some hedonistic parties. Journalism students, Thompson wannabes, burgeoning alcoholics and borderline personalities coupled with sex, drugs, alcohol, loud music, destruction of property, drunken brawls, camaraderie... It was great. I loved those parties. And lest you think too badly of us, keep in mind that these parties were thrown in Fred's honor. Many toasts were drunk to his effigy and his Name was kept Holy. Personally, I think he would have been proud. But maybe not, because he was, after all, a doof.
But I digress, as I am ever wont to do. The point I'm slipping away from is that Lizzie's award is All Right With Me. It holds the right qualities and invokes the right memories and so I'll wear it with pride. And I'm just so damned happy to learn that...
You like me! You really, really like me!!!
