Proof positive that the universe (& its blogospheric doppelganger) works in mysterious ways: Lesbian Dad is a finalist for Best LGBT Blog in the 11th Annual Weblog Awards!
(Thank you, nominators & finalist selector folks!)Â You may vote here (one per carbon-based lifeform!), if you feel so moved (click the category name to get zipped to the LGBT blogs, or scroll waaaaaay down). And if you’ve got time for a chit-chat about the whole thing, read on!
For folks new to this blog and actually doing research on which to base their votes, might I direct you to this About page? And this Best of page? And if you like origin stories, here’s mine, at least as it pertains to and helps explain the vantage point of this blog.
Now: I was going to do a jaunty little pro/con list, basically trying to make the case why any or all of the other blogs up for Best LGBT Blog this year are more deserving of praise and recognition. Â You know, followed by the caveat that I’ll still have to vote for this one, undeserving though I may be tempted to think it is, since all those therapy dollars have to be good for something, least of which ought to be an ability on my part to check the impulse for self-criticism. (Therapy doesn’t put a dent in the propensity for circular logic, though! Ha!)
Then I thought I’d  list a few of the other blogs I think are noteworthy. Not because I fancy myself a “social influencer” or what have you but, when time permits, I prefer to be sporting and a gent, and it’s neat to participate in this community.
Then I got to thinking, as I usually do, about the larger context of all of this bloggery. I’ve had occasion, recently, to revisit Scott Rosenberg’s fascinating Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters. In light of that far-reaching history and analysis of this medium and its (dis-, mal-, and overflowing table of-)contents, any few short words on the topic of a year’s collection of noteworthy blogs feels like haiku.
The above three paragraphs serve as well as anything can to demonstrate how easy it is for me to think myself into not writing a word.Perfectionist writer types: sound familiar to ya?
I will now valiantly try to boil down a few thoughts on ye olde weblog award topic, knowing that incompleteness and inadequacy is inevitable (particularly in the mind of the perfectionista). Â Aha! If I number them & keep it to six, in honor of the number of years I’ve been at this. Â I’m hoping this arbitrary device will enable me to get this here post up before I have to scoop the youngins from school! Â With way more doodoo than ado, and no further of it, here are my half-dozen accompanying thoughts:
- I’m hugely humbled by even being nominated, much less finalist’ed, for any sort of award.Particularly when I know I speak to and from a small slice of the community that constitute my blog’s “beat” (LGBT / parenting).
- Many of these weblog awards dealies are funny things. Randomized, popularity or volume-of-readership contests, less than starchy, well-vetted meritocracies.  I posted my aghastness at last year’s Bloggie nom here; posted a list of blogs I felt were way worthier of note that year here; way back at the outset of this blog’s public life, I posted about the wackiness of the Weblog Awards process in December 2006, here.
- Fortunately, this year’s fellow finalists for the Best LGBT Blog category are way more frequently updated, much more TLC’ed for of late, more highly trafficked, more widely cast, topically and more multiply authored. Â So I am no longer worrying myself about the burden of representation and earning the due. I will still be heart-warmed by your voterly support, but fully expect to applaud any of the other four finalists, who are:
- Dorothy Surrenders (lord I love her; lord she’s smart; lord she keeps at it, week in & out; if Ms. Parker were alive she would put down her Martini and applaud the wit)
- Queerty (look at that volume of content! political, cultural, you name it! they’re on my short list of news sites to tour, after Pam, Bil et al., Joe, & that guy I keep thinking of as Towelroad — pronounced like “Vowel Road,” which I know it’s not — oo! and [later note, sheepishly] David)
- After Ellen (what need be said? it’s the Dinah Shore Weekend splashed all over one humungous website) and
- Effing Dykes (a plucky, zingy gal blog that’s also up for Best Whole Entire Blog, so at least I can feel okay about trying to draw a vote from her)
- Over this past year, I never did quite figure out how to gracefully write through an ongoing and fairly significant real-life emotional challenge (none of which, I happily and hastily note, entails heartache or heartbreak within the immediate family, but my emotional shoelaces have been tied in tight knots off and on for a good year, suffice to say), so the result, blog-wise, has been a drop in post volume that has been way notable to me, if not to regular readers (again: my apologies). This gets chalked up in the “Occupational Hazards of Non-fiction Personal Narrative Writer” column.
- While we’re at it, after those nasty cranky overseas extremist chaps hi-jacked this blog for that long weekend in December, I never could figure out how to clean up the HTML completely, so there’s been a formatting hiccup RIGHT THERE ON THE TOP OF THE MAIN COLUMN ON THE FRONT PAGE, fer crikey’s sakes. While the family still doesn’t have discretionary funding for cleaning up my errant HTML, I am going to break a piggy bank and try to pay someone to scrub that, for the special occasion of these awards-voting weeks. If anyone knows of a good WordPress mechanic, do tell, by the way.
- As to this year’s other Bloggies finalists: I can only vouch for blogs I’ve read and admired, so I’ll just say that I myself personally am going to happily vote for
- Her Bad Mother for Best Canadian Weblog, since Catherine Connors writes so courageously and well about such a range of important things.
- Women in Planetary Science for Best Science Weblog, since “astronomer/ astronaut” is among my daughter’s professional aspirations).
- I’m too stumped for Best Political Weblog, since I read several of the finalists regularly (argh!).
- Chookooloonks for Best Photography of a Weblog, since Karon Walrond’s vision extends so far into and beyond her photography and I’m a whole-hearted booster of both.
- The Blogess for Most Humorous Weblog, since it is; read it, you’ll see; also for Best Writing of a Weblog, because I’m  not up for that category (*cough!*).
- Finslippy for Lifetime Achievement, since she’s a helluva writer and humorist, and even though she’s still young (!), her blog apparently isn’t. Â I hope an honor like this doesn’t feel like one of those Academy Award lifetime achievement things that are like the parting gift for nonagenarian thespians.
- Effing Dykes for Best Weblog of the Year, especially so I don’t feel bad stumping for Best LGBT one. Â Hey, I’m trying to be honest here. Also, she’s a hoot.
Thank you for reading, either just this post, or this whole blog dealie, for any amount of the going on six years it’s been puttering along. Your company has made it all exceedingly worthwhile.
This weblog is being featured in Five Star Friday – http://www.schmutzie.com/fivestarfriday/2011/2/3/five-star-fridays-136th-edition-is-brought-to-you-by-rudyard.html