Thanks and More than You Need to Know

Note: If you are subject to spells of boredom-induced vertigo, fatigue, twitching, hair pulling, nausea, or other related ills, consult your doctor before reading this post...



In finding the balance between work-writing (when I have it, which, thank God, I did over the last two weeks), creative writing, blog writing, blog reading and the rest of life, I am late, late, late in expressing my gratitude for awards that have been bestowed on Middle Passages recently. So, let’s get to it, shall we?




Thank you to Zoe at No Letters on My Keyboard. Zoe gave me the Prolific Blogger Award quite a while back, and since I’m less prolific then I used to be, I’m all the more appreciative. The rules state that I need to bestow this award onto seven other bloggers. Instead, I’m going to give you a link to one blog that I recently discovered via The Blood Red Pencil.

From what I can figure, this writer’s life could not be more different then mine, yet he sucks me in with humor, a dose of reality, and a humbling reminder that the world offers a lot more variety then that which I encounter in the little patch I inhabit. If you want a chuckle and an honest viewpoint, read Tracy Far.

Next, Robin at Your Daily Dose awarded me twice! Thank you Robin!

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For the Versatile Blogger, the rules are as follows:

1. Thank the person who gave you this award.
2. Share seven things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic!
4. Contact the bloggers you've picked and let them know about the award.

See the first paragraph above. I don’t have fifteen new bloggers to tag. So you are getting a few of my favorites: Tricia at Tailspinning, Yvonne at The Organic Writer and Tab at Through My Eyes.

Hmm, seven things about myself? Well, in case you were losing sleep at night in your quest to comprehend the multi-dimensional facets of moi…Oh, sorry. Not awake at night? Well, if at any time in the future you, say, have too much caffeine and need a snooze inducement, here’s a previous award post involving truths and lies that may convince your eyes to flutter gently into the quiet night.

Next, Robin bestowed the “Incredibly Prestigious Oh My Blog” Award upon me. Yikes! Take a look at the rules here:



1) Choose ONE of the following options:

(a) Get drunk and blog for 15 minutes straight, or for as long as you can focus.
(b) Write about your most embarrassing moment.
(c) Write a “Soundtrack of your childhood” post.
(d) Make your next blog a ‘vlog’/video blog.
(e) Take a picture of yourself first thing in the morning, and post it.

2) Pass the award on to at least three, but preferably more, awesome bloggers as yourself.

So, here’s the deal.

a) I like my wine on occasion (as in, red, every Saturday night), and I like my writing all the time…but the two together? I’m a lousy typist as it is, and, I live on the verge of maudlin every day. Alcohol and Middle Passages combined would convince my precious readers to make haste to delete my-more-than-here-to-for soap opera from their blog rolls. I’ll abstain, thanks.

c) Sound track? From my youth? Did I use the word maudlin above? Oh darn. OK then, the thesaurus offers “mawkish,” “sappy,” “slushy,” and “weepy” as alternatives.

Guess we’ll pass on my teenage music preferences too.

d) Vlog? Sorry. Not technologically proficient enough. Besides, you’d hear my squeaky voice and discover I sound like a ten-year-old. Telephone solicitors ask to speak to my mother. 'Nuff said.

e) Post a picture of me first thing in the morning? Oh, right. If I could, I’d hide from my husband first thing in the morning, and he, bless him, made certain promises to love me regardless of the fact that on a good day, I resemble Pee Wee Herman. On a bad day, one side of my hair is plastered to my head, and the other looks like it stumbled into lightening. Nope. No one sees me until after a shower, or if it’s a lazy day, after a head dunk in the sink. Bozo the clown has nothing on me first thing in the morning and his hair was orange.

So, that leaves, dum dee dee dum: b) My embarrassing moment.

This illustrious incident included:

A naïve, eighteen-year-old-college-freshman doing business as over-the-top-sensitive me

A stomach-lurching, hand-quivering, bordering-on-stalker-ish infatuation with a certain male upper-classman

A crowded campus cafeteria

A tray full of food

A puddle on the floor

My feet-skidding, arm-flailing, tray-up-ending splat at the foot of said upper-classman’s lunch table--

And applause.

If you would like to claim this award for yourself or others, be my guest. I’m not giving it anyone else though, because somewhere, deep down, an appalled eighteen-year-old-girl still resides…she spent an hour wailing in her room that day. Later she stalked to the river where she muttered curse words while throwing rocks at at the current before deciding that since the worst possible thing that could ever occur just had, she might as well get on with life.

Giving all due respect to teenage drama, if she learned that a disaster of such magnitude occurred to anyone else, she’d hand over a huge dose of empathy, and feel compelled to run back to the river on their behalf.

Thanks for the awards, Robin and Zoe.