Challenge (And Nomination) Accepted!

I feel like I’m still in floaties, splashing around on in the shallow end of the blogsphere pool (just to prove it: I keep wanting to call it blog-O-sphere instead. You have to admit, that does sound more lyrical than Blog. Sphere. Seriously, blogsphere sounds like the noises my cat makes when something unpleasant is about to come out of her. But I digress). I’ve been doing it for less than a month and I still am not entirely adept at even the most basic things such as arranging my homepage, or including links and sidebars and those sorts of things. I need an IEP for my technology.  

I still look admiringly at the bloggers in the deep pool and wonder when I might be capable/accomplished enough to venture over to the deep side. Someday, I think. Someday. And then just yesterday, I’ll be a fleck-feathered turkey if my dear friend (and, dare I say, blogging mentor) Anna at THE SILENT ISLE didn’t give me the equivalent of a water pistol squirt across the buoy barrier. It was an encouragement, an affirmation, and a challenge. She signaled to me that I am not only ready to come on into the deep end, but that I have been there all along. Yes, I may still be doing the high panic paddle but I am afloat, doggone it! 

She nominated me for (my very first!) blogger award.

“The Sunshine Award is an award given by bloggers to other bloggers. The receivers of the Sunshine Award are bloggers who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogsphere.”

I am honored, I am pleased, I am tickled, and I am ready for the challenge of doing right by the spirit of the award. Undoubtedly the nomination is a little bit premature and speaks perhaps more to my potential than to the scant fruits of my efforts thus far, but bless her heart, Anna knows how to motivate a girl to succeed.

One of the conditions of the award is to share seven (7) facts about myself and then nominate other blogs. So here goes. (Let’s pretend we have already gotten past the part of the acceptance speech that drags on and on about how thankful I am to all those who have made this moment possible, and how much my friends and my family’s support mean to me, etc.etc while I look admiringly at my award, which I suppose has been printed out on glossy paper in vibrant color.)

1) I am ridiculously pleased to be left-handed. It’s like I have automatic membership into an exclusive club that allows me to bask in a sense of elitism that I have neither earned nor deserve but am more than happy to assume. I am attuned to left-handedness wherever I see it. I keep an extensive mental list of famous left-handers throughout history, just in case one of them should come up in conversation: 

    eg:   Napoleon Dynamite is my favorite movie. 

           Did you know Napoleon the emperor was left-handed? 

     or:

            I think my car needs new brakes. 

            Henry Ford. Another lefty! 

If I see a person on TV or the movies, I will lean over and whisper to Gina in a triumphant voice, ‘Look! She’s left-handed.’  I admit my unbridled zeal is probably one of my less charming qualities. At least Gina probably thinks so. But then she would, wouldn’t she. Poor thing is a righty.

2) I can ride a unicycle. It took me a very long time to master it, and I still can’t ride backwards, but I can go off-road pretty well. I used to ride my unicycle to classes when I was in college because I was a shameless show-off but I had no idea how ridiculous one looks actually riding a unicycle. It’s hard not to get all bunched up in the crotch. My advisor in college could also ride a unicycle and on my last day of college, we rode around the quad.

3) Facebook makes me go fetal. I am not a social butterfly anyway, but something about that site makes me break out in a cold sweat and want to crawl under a rock to die. But apparently Facebook is already becoming passé to the kids these days, which makes me happy. Of course, it is being replaced by newer, hipper sites and through other means of “networking” that are probably just as horrifying. I was listening to an NPR talk show about this very subject yesterday. The show discussed the instantaneousness we demand in our communication and information these days and the newest zippiest ways of hooking into it all. I was listening to it on my ipod touch. This is technology. Then it occurred to me that I was listening to it the day after it aired, as a podcast. This is irony.

4) I take Halloween very seriously. At least the dressing up part. Not to be scary, but to be in costume. While I am not often caught dead in a dress in my real life, I am more than happy to don one as a costume because part of the beauty of dressing up is letting a drastically different persona take a moment in the spotlight. As RuPaul says, you are born naked. The rest is drag. My everyday drag is practical and reflective of who I predominantly am. But every so often another persona wants to bust loose and be free. 

Hedwig from Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Marie Antoinette and Axel von Ferson make a lovely couple, don't you think?

5) I burned my house down. I had bought a modest and poorly insulated, 1930’s pre-fab cottage that I referred to as my McHovel. At first I had romantic notions of renovating it and converting it into something livable, but quickly saw the folly of that decision and realized the best course of action was to get rid of it and put something else up. I went to the fire department to get the permits to raze the building and the fire chief looked up from the paperwork and said, “You own that house?” 
And I said, "Yes," and he said, “I’ve had my eye on that place as a training exercise for the fire academy. If you want to tear it down, you think you might let us use it for that instead?” 
 “Wait, you want to burn down my house?” I said. 
“Well, yes.” 
"Wow. Cool."  And I signed a release saying I wouldn’t sue my town for burning my house down. In case you are wondering, it is a great way to meet the neighbors. Kids and parents turned out for the event, the boyscouts showed up to sell Christmas wreaths. It was a good time.
 

6) I cut my own hair. I started cutting my own hair when I was a park ranger up in Maine. I  actually ventured into the lone hairdresser in Millinocket to see if I could get an appointment and the pinch faced blue haired bitty who was manning the joint looked me up and down skeptically and with a grudging sigh allowed as how she might be able to fit me in sometime five days from then. The place was completely deserted. So I walked out, went to KMart, bought scissors and had a stab at it (literally, at times.) myself. Luckily, I’m not a demanding client. Every ‘do comes out a little differently and I’ve had some real doozies. But it’s hair. It will grow out.

7) I am supremely afraid of heights because when I am near a high edge, I feel an overwhelming urge to hurl myself over the side. Not because I have a secret death wish, but because I am so curious about whether I am actually ballsy enough to do it. And frankly, I am impulsive enough that I don’t really trust myself not to. On the other hand, I am equally terrified of heights even if I'm behind a big thick piece of glass or something. I mean, how can I know that the glass won’t shatter from me leaning on it and send me hurling down to my death? No matter how irrational it may be, I don’t trust that safety measures will actually be safe. Which is probably why I have the desire to throw myself over the edge. For the sense of control.

Okay, now I have to nominate other blogs. I love the spirit of nominating blogs that haven’t already been nominated. Unfortunately, I am still so new to this world that I don’t know very many blogs, and so I am afraid there will be double dipped sites.

Anna at The Silent Isle. Seriously, I wouldn’t be blogging if not for her and

Karen at The Wordshop

Also:

Amy at Addled

Kate at Nested

Kristi at The Winged Pen

Allie at Hyperbole and a Half

Vihart