A funny thing happened at bath time Saturday night

I have long said that I generally assume my blog readership consists of my wife and my mother.

And I guess my dad and my mother-in-law, too, maybe.  That’s got to be about it, though, right?

Well, it turns out I was wrong.  I mean, I’ve known I was wrong about that for a while because the platform I use to decorate everything around here has this fancy stats package that tells me how many hits and visitors swing by Puddintopia on a given day.  That number, while certainly not breathtaking in it’s magnitude, is also not, well, four.

Fine.  So maybe the list of people who read my ramblings isn’t as tiny as I’d have you believe.  Still, the stats package gives me only cold, sterile numbers.  It’s not like those numbers equate to real people or anything. It’s probably all just automated Google processes looking for content or something.

I guess I can’t say that anymore.  Just as I was drying off The Attitude after bath time Saturday night, I got an email: somebody left a comment on one of last week’s posts.  Truth be told, that in and of itself made me happy like a schoolboy with a dump truck and a mud puddle.  Getting comments from people I haven’t acquainted myself with yet is almost as awesome as Christmas morning.

Even better, though, the comment wasn’t just a comment.  It was an award, of sorts.

The talented and amusing Shareen (whose posts I look forward to because A) like me, she’s trying to make it as a Real Writer(tm) in life and be) she always brings humor to even the crappiest of Life’s foul tricks) nominated my humble blog of the everyday for The Versatile Blogger Award.  Huzzah!

Okay, so it’s not actually an award.  It’s not like an Oscar or a Moon-man or anything.  I mean, sure, I might have a trophy made for the mantle.  That way my 5th grade Spelling Bee Champion trophy won’t be alone.  But, um, about the VBA, it’s actually more a way for one blogger to tell other bloggers that they’re cool without seeming all creepy and risking that unfortunate restraining order.

In order to play along, the rules say I have to post seven things about myself and nominate 15 other blogs.

Seven things are easy.  The only hard part there is making sure the seven things are things that aren’t going to make the Puddinette arch an eyebrow and say (in that dangerously challenging tone), “I can’t believe you posted that.”

Thus forewarned, let’s begin…

1. I hate ranch dressing.  It is a pox upon this earth and all of it – every last gawd-forsaken unnaturally emulsified creamy drop – should be tunneled to the core of the planet and left to suffer fiery ruin for all eternity.  *shakes fist*  *takes a deep breath*  Ahem.  Uh, too much?
2. I have four kids, but way back in the bachelor days of yore, I wasn’t really sure I’d ever have any.  It turns out I just needed to find the right person to have them with. Huzzah! then, for the Puddinette.  (Pause for audience to Awwwwwww)
3. The first time I recall writing something I was truly proud of was early in 5th grade. Just as summer started after the 4th, I fell off my bike (don’t ask how, I, um, assure you I wasn’t doing something spectacularly stupid or anything) and shattered my right elbow.  When school started again, for my “What I did on Summer Vacation” essay, I described the spinning of the world as I fell.  My teacher gave it an A+ and commented that the description was “vivid”. Everything I’ve written after has been an attempt to duplicate the feeling of that moment.
4. Speaking of writing, I have the handwriting of a narcoleptic manatee.  The last time I took a handwritten phone message for the Puddinette, she accused me of writing it in Sanskrit.
5. If I didn’t have to constantly concern myself with pedestrian issues such as feeding my children and keeping a roof over their heads, I would go back to college and never leave, and write fiction on the side.  Learning is my first best talent. And even if I can’t spend the rest of my adult life as a student acquiring useless PhDs like one might collect creepy little German figurines, I never want to stop learning.
6. Speaking of money being no object, when the kids have grown up and moved (read: been kicked) out, and I’ve made the F*&k You! money doing, um, something (pause for incredulous laughter), I’m spending 6 months in Scotland living in a quaint cottage someplace.  Preferably somewhere with a pub full of colorful locals and a moor you have to beware at night.
7. I have a…complicated…relationship with cheese.  In melted form, it’s the thing that binds us together and makes life worth living.  It’s one of the Three Magic Things that will improve any food (the others being lime and brown sugar).  However. In general, I will not eat un-melted cheese.  To me, its taste and texture when not warm and gooey are reminiscent of chewing pungent, foot-flavored rubber paste.

Now then, on to nominating others for the award.  Of course, me being, well, me, I’ll be bending the rules a smidge.  Because I’m a speshul snowflake like that, and have but 10 fingers upon which to count.  Here, then, are the 15 10 blogs I nominate for the VBA (and yes, that means you should check ’em out).

Descent Into Slushland – We’re both querying a novel; it’s a rough business. Misery loves company.

Bucket List Publications – I ❤ blogs that are, at the core, about really living life.

Growing Up in the Garden – Giving me faith that even my black thumb might one day grow tomatoes.

Blue Sky Daze – I mentioned the part about blogs that appreciate life, yes?

Bear Fruits – Ditto.

Today I Watched a Movie – One of my favorite blogs: a whole new way to review a movie

The Better Man Project – We should all try to be a Better Man. Well, unless you’re a lady, I guess.

Emmie Mears – She writes! She queries! She hearts Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She runs in preparation for the Zombie Apocalypse. How could I not like her blog?

Madame Croquette – I don’t know what she does to her pictures of food, but she could photograph a concrete block and make it look stunningly appetizing.

Rebekah Loper, Writer – Her blog led me through the arduous NaNoWriMo slog this year, one word-count-filled day at a time.

and finally,

Small Girl Adventures – There’s a recipe for every lesson in Life, and usually a story to be told through it.

Okay, fine, so it’s 11.  I never said I was good at math.

Thanks again to Shareen for the shout out, and I hope everyone has as much fun with this as I did.

Pud’n