I'm Ambivalent About Blog Awards

Is it just me, or has this year gone by twice as fast as normal? I have no idea how it's the middle of July. It feels like May at the most. I worry that sort of feeling means I'm not a kid anymore. I actually have quite a bit of anecdotal evidence that I'm not a kid anymore. For instance, I'm not sure when it happened, but all of a sudden I like Fleetwood Mac. And the other day at work, I had to hold something away from me to read it.

I think there was supposed to be a point to that, but I don't remember what it was. Sorry.

This post has a point, though, and here it is: I'm ambivalent about blog awards.

I used to covet them, because I didn't have one. So I made my own. He lives in my sidebar. His name is Captain Cluck and he's yours for the taking (assuming you are interested in having a picture of a zoo chicken in your blog's sidebar).

Then someone gave me a blog award, and I was happy. I felt ... oh, validated, I suppose, and appreciated. I posted about it and felt good about things because finally I had an actual blog award, and that was that.

Then someone else gave me a blog award, and I felt like kind of a jerk. Because I don't think anyone wants to read a blog all about how amazing someone thinks she is. But on the other hand, it's nice of people to give them out, and I don't want to be ungrateful. I don't want someone to say, "Hey, Jill, here's a blog award!" and have my response be, "Oh, hey, that's nice, but everyone already knows how big my ego is - I have SO MANY other blog awards, I'm not even going to bother with this one."

So I would like to say both I'm sorry, and thank you, for my newest blog awards. They are courtesy of mom/birth mom/surrogate mom blogger Tanya, who writes here: (click).





(If I were cleverer/less restless I would put the pictures next to each other instead of one above the other, but it was one of Those Days at work, so one above the other it is.)

As you can see, I am apparently both versatile and lovely, neither of which are words I think I have ever used to describe myself or my blog, but at least Tanya thinks so. See, I'm not being braggy or obnoxious. I'm giving someone else's opinion of me, or rather my blog, and it happens to be a good one. So that's less obnoxious, right?

Right?

Thanks, Tanya :)

I think I'm supposed to nominate other people but I never do. Is that obnoxious? Should I nominate people? I just don't want anyone to feel left out; that's my problem. If I nominate other blogs it's like saying I think those blogs are better than the other blogs I read, and I have a hard time choosing favorites. (I have a hard time choosing things in general. I have only two kinds of cereal in the house for this very reason.)

I may nominate someone later on, but as I said, this was one of Those Days at work. I think there is a disruption in the space-time continuum at my library. I swear I worked at least 15 hours today.

I digress. The other thing I'm supposed to do is mention seven things about myself. Because, you know, I don't talk about myself enough as it is. Let's do four and call it even.

1) My personal motto is a Jewish proverb: Man plans, God laughs.

Story of my life.

2) I once had a fleck of oregano lodged in my right tonsil. Have I mentioned that before? It seems like I may have but I don't remember.

3) I once concluded a story about a nativity made of white chocolate by saying, "I ate the baby Jesus last." (I have decided that if I ever write my memoirs, that phrase will be the title.)

4) This isn't about me specifically but rather librarians in general (not that I am a librarian; that honorific requires an advanced degree). When people find out I work in a library, they always have some story, and then they say, kind of jokingly, "I bet you guys talk about customers all the time," and they end with a nervous laugh, clearly hoping to be disabused of that notion.

So I'm sorry to say that yes, we do talk about you. We talk about you a LOT. We talk about the stupid questions you ask, and the excuses you give for lost books, and the ridiculous things you say to us. Some of us even write these things down and are planning both a blog and a book about them.

We spend hours talking about you. So be nice, turn your books in, pay your fines, and don't ask how we're doing alphabetical order these days.