It's all mine and YOU can't have it

I can kiss you butt if you kiss mine.

I can nominate you if you nominate me.

I can vote for you if you vote for me.

I can tell people about you if you tell them about me.

I can put a link to your blog if you put a link on your blog to me.

I can tell Jeremy that you think he's cute if you tell Adam that I think he's awesome.

Check Yes or No if you like-like me.

Bah!

There are legions of blog awards circling about like lost satelliets in the vast scope of the interwebs.

"Best of the Blogs"

"The Bloggies"

"The Blog Awards"

"Please Someone Love Me"

I made that last one up.

For all of these awards (except, of course, the last one), there are award sites. On the sites there are opportunities to vote for your favorites. On these sites there are blogs nominated in categories that range from funniest to best cat blog to best photo blog to best celebrity blog to freakiest blog to best sports blog to best personal blog to best corporate blog to best blog about the lint in your mother's clothes dryer and how it matches perfectly with the dream you had about the Magdalene and how she gave you her robe one cold afternoon and it was made of the same color cloth as the dryer lint from yesterday's load of towels which is really really freaky in a scary kinda awesome way.

I am shocked and saddened to report that this humble blog was not been nominated for any of the major awards, nor most of the minor ones either.

Not. A.One.

In fact, very very many of the blogs I read on a regular basis have not been nominated for any award at all EITHER.

This is an outrage of tremendous proportion, for the blogs I read are, naturally, the bestest ol' blogs in the whole darn world and are interesting and insightful and honest and humorous and snarky and tewwific in a fanstasticalgreat way. I MEAN it, y'all! You rock - and if you don't know who "you" are, or would like to know if you're a you, check out the sidebar or the comments sections of your own blogs. If you're there, or I am, then you're a "you." Make sense?

Then, after reading some of the really great stuff that's out on the interwebs, go take a look at some of the kee-RAP that's being nominated for an award at some of the blog award websites, and TELL ME that your stuff isn't at LEAST as good as what's out there being recognized as the "best of."

With approxiamtely a bajillion blogs out there from which to choose, HOW can this be fair? Did some team of crack blog-evaluators scan the globe for how each and every blog fit into each an every category, sifting through the filters and code words until all of our blogs were slotted into some category(ies) or another, at which point a second crack team of blog reviewers came through and READ each blog and RATED each blog and gave their considered opinion on each blog?

I submit that this is NOT what happened.

Instead, I subscribe the notion that Jane nominated Sally who had promised to nominate Jim if Jane would vote for him, which allowed Cassandra to vote for Joel because unless Sally was nominated she couldn't say a word because Alexander was mad as Jenny for not nominating him LAST year, and ohmygosh look at your shoes they're adorable. Totally!

Check Yes or No if you like-like me.

Y'all, just because YOU weren't nominated for any of these here really cool awards does NOT mean that I don't love and respect you. It does NOT mean that you mean any less to me that you don't have a zillion fans. In fact, it means MORE that you don't, because you keep on keepin on for the love of the thing, for the wee little societies we build or for the interests we have, or for the glee with which you write about things I'd never dream of in ways I couldn't think to begin to express them.

So, today I begin a new movement.

If ever I am nominated for a prestigious blog award, I will not accept. If pressed into accepting a nomination to be voted on, I will not vote, nor will I beg you to vote for me. If I DO vote (by some twist of Jim Beam that finds me lonely and crying over a lost opportunity for fame), I promise to vote again for someone famous so as to cancel out my vote for me. If I do happen to WIN, I promise to be sufficiently sheepish on the dais while accepting my award, for which I'll be wearing a gorgeous bias-cut silk gown that shows off my cleavage and hints at some totally smoking curves, because even if I didn't WANT the award, why show up looking like a schlub?

I promise all these things, for you.

Will YOU, for me?

Check yes or no.