Before I get to the full-frontal exposition (and it’s not what you think, which will relieve most of you but will disappoint a few), I must make a few confessions.
One: I’ve been a very bad boy. (This will not surprise most of you but will surprise a few.) Over the last several months, I’ve been nominated for a number of blogging awards. As standard practice, I usually (but politely) opt out of such things and carry on with my life. But several of the folks proffered such clever and interesting nomination posts that I succumbed to the siren call and commented that I would “put something together soon”. (Most of you will immediately realize this is a flat-out lie on my part, as I am so haphazard when it comes to follow-through on promised posts, but a few of you might still retain faith in my integrity.) Still and all, I kept a list of those bloggers with whom I had signed a pre-nup.
Two: I have since lost that list. I don’t know what the hell I did with it. I’m sure that, at the time I placed this sacred document in whatever place it now rests, I rested assured that I would instantly recall the placement. This proved to be one of the many fallacies I tell myself. (Many of you will be familiar with this annoying Displaced Parchment Paradox, but a few of my more youthful readers will not, as they’ve never had the experience of writing on an actual piece of paper, having been handed a personal laptop when they shot out of the womb.) End of story, I am now fumbling in the dark with how I should handle this situation. (Many of you will recall this was the same sensation you experienced during your first sexual encounter, but a few of you will deny that you ever fumbled anything, which means you probably voted for Trump.)
Three: I was just freshly nominated by the lovely Lisa at “All About Life”, this time for the Sunshine Blogger Award. (Lisa is now item number one on the new list I have started, a list that I predict will be lost by this weekend, based on my pathetic track record.) This nomination reminded me of my ongoing blogger-supportive failure, but it also gives me an opening to right my wrongs, which we will now do, thus ending this extremely-long intro that probably wasn’t necessary.
First, I am resurrecting one of the few blog posts where I actually participated in a blogger award. There has been considerable editing, but I’ve added some commentary to get us over the rough bits that are no longer all that exciting. Here we go…
[Cue symphony orchestra to begin playing the overture, with a melody akin to something one would hear during the opening scenes of a nature documentary about how beavers build a dam or some such.]
The Premise: [Okay, it didn’t take us long to get to a redaction. This section involved me paying tribute to the person who nominated me for a Liebster Award. But this person is no longer blogging, and she hasn’t done so for quite a while. Some of you will fully understand why someone would stop blogging, but a few of you are still fresh to the game and haven’t hit that point where it sinks in that constant blogging can tear at your soul. Keep the faith and keep writing.]
The Hesitation: Things like this make me a little squirmy. While I understand that the purpose behind these various “awards” which are lobbed about in the blogging community is to help bloggers grow readership, they are, by default, a bit exclusionary. If I nominate 11 blogs that I like, what does that say to the hundreds of other blogs I follow that I don’t ding with a ping? We’ve all been there. We see one of our blogging friends post that they’ve been nominated for one of these follower-boosting awards, and we excitedly scroll through the list of their nominees. Only to find that not only did we not get a shout-out, we don’t know anything about the other people nominated. The message is painful, especially if you thought the nominated blogger was someone who would surely give you a high-five, and they didn’t.
In a sense, it’s the equivalent of being back in junior-high, where we were first learning how to navigate the complications of social interaction. (Elementary school doesn’t count, at least not for my generation. Those primary years in public school were mainly a whirlwind of figuring out where you classroom might be, where the all-important bathrooms were located, and whether or not you had enough paste in your cache of school supplies to adequately sculpt a decoupage bobble-head of George Washington. We had no concept that we should rank our friends. We only knew that we had friends.) It was secondary school where I learned that people expected you to make choices.
I don’t like picking my favorites. I want everybody to win.
The Reality: Sometimes we take a tiny thing and make it much bigger than it really should be. (I am fully certified in this particular skill, because my mind never shuts off and I lay awake at night, bandying about the pros and cons of everything I should be considering. Some people can check off a box with relative ease; I wonder why the box was created and why there needs to be checking. Why are there labels? Why are there rules of worthiness? Shouldn’t we all just pass the mashed potatoes when someone asks for them, and assume that the potatoes will be passed to us when we need them? There doesn’t need to be a checklist of who is worthy of the potatoes.)
On the flip side, I have been contemplating for some time that I should do a blog roll, wherein I trumpet the blogs that I really like. Doing so means that I have to make choices, cutting and balancing my options (and therefore my friends), something that is anathema to me. But I suppose that I should get in the spirit of things, accept the fact that social-networking is the new “picking teams for Red Rover on the playground”, and just go with it.
Editor: “Do you have any idea how your neurotic issues are turning a simple blog post into some Greek Tragedy that is blown all out of proportion?”
Me: “I’m guessing that you were always picked in the first rounds of Red Rover and you never had to be the single leftover who had to sit on the sidelines and hope for another day when somebody might actually call your name.”
Editor: “Oh. I didn’t realize that there were people who were left out in that game. Are you sure you were playing it right?”
Me: “And both of those concepts are exactly my points.”
Anyway, (a word that “writing experts” say we should never use to start a paragraph and therefore I do so as often as possible), I decided to take the plunge this time around. I still feel a bit of unease in doing this, but at the same time I know what it’s like to put your heart into a blog post, shove it out into the world, and then tumbleweeds blow by and no one reads the damn thing. So, maybe, I can help somebody out. Let the shenanigans begin…
[This is where I listed the rules for the Liebster Award. We’ve all seen them, and even though I tossed in some absurd commentary, we’re already running a bit long and this is where some of the secondary actors get left on the cutting-room floor.]
The 11 Questions Asked of Me:
[A few of these hit the dustbin for this post. For example, I woefully made boastful but erroneous comments about the 2016 Presidential election. We don’t need to revisit that pain again.]
1. “What is your favorite book and/or movie?”
I can’t answer this one with a finite choice. There are so many books and movies that are favorites, but for very different reasons. I think I’ll take the easy way out and simply refer you to a post of mine: 51 Things about 49 Movies
2. “Who has been the biggest influence in your life?”
Anyone I’ve ever met who knows the pain of being different, and yet still remains true to themselves.
3. “Where do you hope to be in 5 years time?”
In a place where I can do what I want, when I want to do it, and my best friends are there with me.
4. “Describe your ideal Autumn.”
It’s Halloween, every day.
5. “Describe yourself in 5 words.”
Passionate, Accepting, Yearning, Dreaming, Inspired
6. “What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?”
I’m still waiting for that moment.
7. “Zombie attack or alien invasion, if one had to happen, which would you prefer?”
I survived growing up gay in Oklahoma. I think I can handle either one of these situations with experience and jazz-hands.
10. “Do you have any regrets for 2018?”
Many. This is what makes us human. Well, most of us, anyway.
11. “What did you want to be when you were little?”
The one who actually got to make the decisions instead of the one who had to deal with the ineptitude.
11 Random Facts about Myself (Wherein I get a bit more serious about things than I usually do):
1. In my youth, I would go into my bedroom closet, shut the door, turn off the light, and then use a flashlight to read Stephen King novels. This upped the creepy factor for me, and I loved it. (I also used this same method to play with my Lite-Brite, but I soon lost all the little colorful pegs and that avenue became pointless. I stayed with the Stephen thing, though. Well, at least the reading part. I came out of that closet a long time ago.)
2. In that same youth, I lived across the street from another boy named Brian, who was slightly younger. We were known as Big Brian and Little Brian by the other neighborhood urchins. (You know, back in the day when kids actually played outside and you had to use your imagination to entertain yourself and not an online password.) I choose to believe that the “Big Brian” moniker was an acknowledgement of my seniority and not the fact that I was a bit portly as a child.
3. I could spend a lifetime in a second-hand bookstore, wandering the aisles, looking for treasures.
4. I wrote my first book when I was 12, banged out on a crappy typewriter that somebody, I no longer recall who, shoved in my direction as a diversion to keep me occupied. This glowing example of literature was lost many decades ago. I really would like to read that thing now…
5. My concept of ideal fashion involves jeans and a worn-out t-shirt. I’ve never been interested in the packaging, only in the contents.
6. I was voted “Most Likely to Succeed” in my senior year of high school. Such innocence, then, even on my own part. The hope and the promise, diluted by time. Still, I have embers that will never go out…
7. I love falling asleep to the ocean waves rolling in, incessantly. I don’t get to do this very often, but maybe, someday…
8. If someone asked me to pick my favorite life moment, I couldn’t do it. We are a composite of fleeting images, trickling through our fingers, and it is impossible to point at one thing and say “there, that was it…”
9. I am grateful for people who understand that they are not the only person in the world who matters. I am mystified by the sheer number of people who cannot grasp this concept.
10. Every time I hear the Cat Steven’s song “Father and Son” the relevancy in my own life is overwhelming. (“I have to go…”)
11. There is something about sitting on my patio, alone, late at night, hearing the wind rustle the branches of the nearby trees that speaks to a part of me that I cannot explain.
[This is where I posited 11 questions for the people I nominated. Since Lisa is now the only one on the list, I’m not going to subject her to such an intense spotlight.]
[And this is where I listed my 11 nominees. Some of them have never forgiven me for doing so, and I’m not going to stir that pot again.]
[By the way, if you’d like to see the entire original post without all the Nixon-tape erasures, you can click here.]
[And then we have a wrap-it-up section, one filled with mea culpas. I apologize to the people I nominated. I apologize to the people I didn’t. I apologize to all the readers who might feel inordinately compelled to click on all the links. Essentially, it’s a frenzy of self-flagellation. The whole section is a little sad, really, but it does remind me that sometimes I try too hard to make everybody else happy. Always be kind, but first and foremost you should be kind to yourself.]
[We end things with one of my typical sign-offs, wherein I proffer the softer side of my humanity to counteract the possible harshness of my previous words.]
Cheers,
Big Brian (The Boy Who Read in the Dark, Looking for Light)
P.S. If you are wondering why I used such a severe pic of myself for this post, let me try to explain. Those who know me well fully understand that this is my generic expression for every situation in my life, from complete euphoria (“We’re going drinking on Bourbon Street!”) to utter defeat (“The toilet is clogged again and I don’t have the strength to deal with it”). I chose this pic to emphasize the fact that first impressions are rarely what they seem, and we should always dig deeper to get to the heart of the matter…
Second, (yes, there is a list in action, even if said list has been sublimated by my incessant ramblings), I will now proceed to raise high to the sun the bloggers who have recently (or even distantly) nominated me for various blogging awards.
- Lisa at “All About Life”
And, yeah, that’s it. (We’ve discussed why, scroll back.) So, if you’d like to see this list grow, and hopefully some of you will, although a few of you won’t, please sound off in the comments. Let me know if you are one of the folks spurned by my ungracious ineptitude, with a link to the post wherein I gave you a promise ring and did not follow through. I will then add the link to the list so Lisa isn’t so lonely and undeservedly forlorn. A few of you will do so, most of you will not.
And now I’m off to find that damn original list. It’s a little late for such, but I’m a bit of a completionist. Most of you will laugh at that, but a few of you will nod in understanding…
Update, several hours and a breakfast burrito later…
I found the list! Well, sort of. I ran across an index card upon which I had scribbled several blogger names. (I used this card to later start the official and more-current list that is now missing.) I then went to those blogs, searched (when the option was available, it sometimes wasn’t, might want to check into that, folks) and scrolled until I found the nomination posts. (I am including all this mundane detail as an example of how incredibly anal I can be about certain things. My friends and family members often weep over this annoying attribute.)
Anyway (there’s that evil word again), here’s the rest of the semi-formal list. With most of these entries, the first link leads to the nomination post and the second link to the blog home page. Please do some clicking if you have the time:
2. Kelly at “Kelly Griffiths”
4. Gwyneth at “The Lockwood Echo”
5. Maanini at “A Fresh Outlook”
6. Melanie at “Sparks from a Combustible Mind”
7. Jane at “The Planet According to Dom”
Okay, then. I think I’m finally done with this long-ass trip to Gilligan’s Island. It still feels like I’m leaving out some folks, which means that I probably am, so please remind me in the comments if you did not receive your complimentary coconut.
And now I’m headed back to the kitchen. That first breakfast burrito just wasn’t enough. (Are they ever?)
Cheers.
Categories: Blogging
Bonnywood Manor 
Read it. Loved it! Happy to know that we share a love for Stephen King (scared myself shitless in my youth with his novels) and jeans and a t-shirt (nothing’s changed there). Thanks for exposing yourself Brian 😉
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I’m glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for being the one who finally convinced me to get my act together and share a bit. And I still might get around to answering your questions, as many of them were intriguing, but it’s best not to get too-excited on my follow through… 😉
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I understand, it’s always best to keep something in reserve 😉
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So wonderful to read all of your sides here, serious, funny, witty, brilliant etc. pyou know I’m enamored by you. I have been through four accounts now. 😛
Thank you,
Just
Thank you ❤️
I always love your face 🤗
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And thank you for sticking with me through all the twists and turns. We may not chat anywhere near as much as I would like to do, but I have valued our friendship and love hearing from you…
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I think about that too, the times we’d share a little bit with each other. I always felt a different level of sincerity and connection with you. I don’t forget. ❤️
I love sticky twists and turns! 😛
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Wonderful post. I’d say you are well and truly off the award hook now.
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Thanks, Peggy. I should be free and clear for at least a year before I start getting little twinges of guilt… 😉
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I love this post, I love the answers you gave to the questions, I love your “random facts,” and I love the explanation you gave for your photo. I don’t judge photos or packages either (or at least I try to be as aware of that type of judging as I can, which of course is another type of judging … )
I was also recently nominated for an award, and I always say no for mostly the same reasons that you gave. But because it’s a chance to publicise other (usually newer) blogs, I do a reblog so that they are passed along. Anyway, thanks for your list. I am already following a couple of them (thanks to you) and will check out the others. 🙂
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So you liked the post a little bit? 😉 I actually had fun cobbling this together and, truth be told, I do like answering the questions that come with “blogging awards” (as long as they are interesting), it’s just the rest of the responsibilities that come with blogging awards that I’m not too excited about. But now you have me wondering if maybe I should work work on an award that breaks most of the traditional rules and is a bit less intimidating. Hmm. My gears are turning…
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I did like it, yes. 🙂
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fun to know more about you, brian –
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And it’s always fun to read your posts, where your compassion is always evident and rich…
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I love your resting bitch face.
Also, love that you didn’t rename your nominees because it’s true I’ve not entirely forgiven you, but this way I’m guaranteed to stay on top. 😉
Anyway, love ya!
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The RBF has been perfected over many decades. I even got extra college credit for my independent study of such… 😉
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That was a semi-serious blog for you. I learned something about you and mostly that is that you don’t like talking about yourself. Your posts are wild, and include clever innuendo. (I hope I spelled that right, it sounds like something a proctologist will chant just before a prostrate exam. Oh well, I will leave the clever, and funny writing to you. 🙂
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I do get serious from time to time, although it’s not my natural inclination and I fight the power by covering the truth bombs in humor syrup. Now, your innuendo/proctologist reference. I’ll confess right up front that I’ll probably steal that… 😉
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What an utter delight to spend a little time in your company, getting to know you better. I love reading these Q&A posts, although – like you – I rarely participate in them myself. Also, I really like the photo, actually. Very dashing.
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I have to be honest here and say that I would love to spend time in your company, with purely platonic intentions in mind. You are refreshingly clever and witty and one just knows that hoisting a pint with you would be a sublime adventure. (And thank you for the dashing bit. I now feel like I could swashbuckle with the best of them, saving whoever needed saving on a pirate ship bound for the Caribbean. Assuming that there was a physical therapist on hand, post-swashbuckling…)
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I have to say, I feel exactly the same, I think we would get along marvellously and have the absolute best time chatting, laughing and maybe even plotting. Your humour and wit exactly hits the spot for me and I can only hope that fate one day allows us that pint (or several!)
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I’ve been away from the blogging community for a while and still suffering (sulking) over the loss of the Community Pool and Friday Forum, but you’ve reinstated my faith in bloggers and the support and entertainment they bring to others. You’ve inspired me to get out there again and re-connect. And huge thanks for the nomination!
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I did notice that things were a wee bit sparse when I visited your site to collect the proper URLs, but I do hope you remain inspired and join us in our valiant effort to make the world better with our little stories. I enjoy your writing, and I hope to see more. Best of luck!
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Yes, I really do need a kick up the backside! I have so many stories to tell, and lots of drafts of posts left unfinished and unloved, I really should get around to finishing them. My mantra should be “publish and be damned!”
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Handled with style and panache, perfectly poised and now you can breathe a little easier and not walk around with the albatross of guilt around your neck. Oh. And. It was, of course, lovely to learn more about you. I was called Fatty at school …. I’d have preferred Big, I think 😉
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Oh, I got the “fatty” moniker quite a bit as well. (Children are admirably honest in some respects, but that honesty is often cruel, intentional or not.) Me mum tried to soften the blows by coloring me as “husky”, but I never did care for the sound of that word. In the end, though, it made the eventual successes even sweeter…
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We were simply podgy little cygnets waiting for our moment to reveal our true swan-ness. This is an unassailable truth.
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Early on in my blogging years I was nominated for a few awards, and the follow-up was painful. I finally resorted to simply nominating anyone who cared to participate – so I didn’t stop the process from continuing. I hope. I am relieved that the awards are not circulating as often as they seemed to be back in that day.
From one person to another whose resting face is pure bitch, I’ve enjoyed your words of wisdom – or were they rumination?
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The award frenzy seems to ebb and flow, at least from my perspective. I can go for many months with nary a nomination for squat (which greatly relieves me, if you haven’t noticed), but then here comes a tsunami and I feel compelled to respond in kind. (And I should, at least to some degree, ergo this post.) As for the bitchiness of my resting face, I think I’ve earned it, what with all the whys and wherefores encountered along my journey, leading to the probable falsehood that my ruminating wisdom has any whiff of merit… 😉
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Painful, honest and poignant. Glad you explained why you used this picture, because even though we’ve never met, I’ve always visualized you differently. Had to go to the 51-49 blog since I’m a movie nut. I’d forgotten about the kiss thing in Deathtrap in the film. Worked props and setting on the play and can’t remember that happening. Maybe the director cut it? It was during the 70s but many of our members were out even then. Still tramping through Paris with your family. What a hoot.
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It’s interesting that you would visualize me differently. Then again, a collection of words and thoughts, no matter how expository, can’t fully address the physicality behind those words. On a related note, I have a post buried somewhere in the archives that babbles about staring at author photos on the backs of my favorite books, with those images coloring my reflections on what type of person they really are. It doesn’t matter, and shouldn’t, but a face with the name still alters our view…
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I guess it’s because I sensed something whimsical about the photo you use for this blog, under the “street” sign. Although I have no interest in going to Texas, I’d get myself to go to a conference if I knew you were attending. There are too many Republicans in TX. It’s bad enough some of my dearest friends and four brothers are. Perhaps it’s better I just stay at home, my butt and waistline getting chunky from sitting in front of a computer all day.
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This is wonderful and worth the wait! I’ve been anxiously waiting to hear more about the man behind the hilarity. I’ve been a terrible blogger lately, but I blame it on three weeks of homelessness and therefore WiFi-lessness. I’m settled in and should be back at it soon. I look forward to laughing at your posts.
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It’s very good to hear from you. I know that you’ve been through a lot lately, based on what I could glean from your site, but I didn’t want to pry. (Personally, I’m the type who withdraws when I’m going through a rough patch and I prefer to be let alone, so I don’t push in situations like this.) Hope things are going much better for you now…
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Things are better. Thank you! I too usually hole up when things are bad, but I figured I might die anyway, so might as well be relational. 🙂
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Nicely done 🙂 I find awards a mixed bag. I utterly respect the spirit of them and feel genuine gratitude for being nominated, so I always acknowledge them one way or another. I struggle with answering questions, unless I can deflect a personal question with humour. I also struggle with then nominating others. That bit is easy but I have sleepless nights over those I leave out. I love that you lost your list then found it again! And technically, I didn’t nominate you for an award, I just mentioned that I thought you were a bit brilliant 😉
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I’m in complete agreement with you, all the pros and cons of should we or shouldn’t we. But I eventually tip to the perspective of doing what we can to help each other out. Sure, I’d like to get 4 million hits every time I post. But it’s much more satisfying to see ALL of my writer friends get hits every time they share. Pay it forward, every time…
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I was briefly M.I.A and was wandering around trying to find America. I found some of it and now am grumpy that I can’t find more of it, perhaps by driving the whole Route 66 in a small motorhome, taking all the damned time I want doing it and perhaps finding whatever it is that I’m looking for. Long ass reason I didn’t respond promptly. Turns out that Wi-Fi and ‘signal’ are hard to keep in Montana and surrounding environs, unless you go to a city (which, having seen Helena, Missoula and others) are big TOWNS, not cities, which may be the freakin; POINT. So I had no real contact with a cyber world up there. Also too much to do and see. But. Having now read this blog, I’m astonished to have made the short list. Because I was the kid who didn’t get picked for Red Rover (or whatever team sport there was going) or got picked LAST. I have issues with teams and picking of said members of teams. Some scars don’t heal properly. And I hate sports, so why use that metaphor? I’m not certain except for the fact that I drove 13 hours one way and 13 more yesterday and I’m a little um, stoned (feeling, not actually. Although…hm)…Thank you Brian. You are a gentleman and a scholar clearly. *MWAH*
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I’ve always had an obsession with one day travelling the entirety of Route 66, most likely inspired by the fact that I grew up next to a section of it. The segment that runs through Tulsa is still “intact”, although the road goes by other names now. There still used to be highway signs along said road in my youth; I have no idea if they still exist. Trouble is, as I found out in later years and made semi-serious attempts at planning such a journey, there are many segments that are no longer in existence. You can use newer highways to “somewhat” follow the original path, but there are many now-remote chunks that are simply gone forever. I still, sort of want to do it, but I’m held back by the thought that the experience is not going to be what I thought it would be or what it once was. A metaphor for many aspects of life, yes?
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Aw. 😦 I have had that fantasy trip planned forever (in my head) and now you say it’s not possible and that Rt 66 or chunks of it are gone? Well there’s a lesson in there somewhere about procrastination and worrying more about the expense and not so much the experience. How sad. I guess America really is ‘gone’.
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Don’t let the dream go just yet. It’s still doable, just not quite the full experience that it used to be…
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There is a great chunk of it through OK, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California, isn’t there? Maybe that’s the trip I should take this winter. My joints and bones have informed me that icy and cold isn’t going to work for them. The pain is incredible and I can’t move around very well at all when those conditions apply. As my Pops would have said “Time to take your foot in your hand and get steppin’.”
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hahaha . . . too funny . . . hiccup . . . loved #8 . . .I can relate to so much! I check lists to make sure I NOT on them. That says a lot about my character.
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Yep, we’re on the same page. I appreciate the nod, but not the expected follow-through… 😉
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