You like me. You really...Oh. Wait.

People all over the infertile blog world are talking about the Big Bad Blog Awards over at The Aitch's. (See sidebar for précis.)  Being the retiring sort, naturally I haven't wanted to call attention to myself, but my agent tells me  if I don't step out and say at least a few words, my next booking will be as a fluffer on a Little Giant Ladder spot.

A Quick and Ever-So-Neutral Guide to the Entire Affair

1. Blogger complains about blog awards in general, posts own humorous list of categories.

2. Commenters encourage blogger to select winners.

3. Blogger creates password-protected category on her blog, requiring registration and warning applicants that if they are not approved for registration, it may be because they are being discussed.

4. Blogger posts winners in password-protected entry.

5. Commenters add their own nominations.

6. Information is leaked to several of the winners, some of whom are hurt by the personal nature of the comments, some of whom post about the matter on their own blogs.

7. Discord ensues.

8. Various explanations are tendered.

9. Gracious attempts to move on are made.

10. Julie picks up a fungo bat and circles the dead horse speculatively, considering angles, then lands a blow that would make a blindfolded kindergarten piñata-whacker suffering from a disorienting inner ear infection proud, and lurches off tipsily to the Little Giant set.

Although my customary modesty makes me reluctant to boast, I wouldn't want those who were kind enough to vote for me to think me ungrateful, so I will admit, in my exquisitely self-effacing way — you know: pretty blush, shy smile, appealing moue of girlish pleasure — that even among a field of such staggering talent, true legends of our craft, I managed to bring home a title or two.

Me.  Me!  I know!  Listen, I didn't think I'd win.  I didn't even have a speech written!  Therefore I stood at the podium and leaked long ropes of drool onto the microphone for my allotted 45 seconds until the theme music cut me off and I was manhandled into the wings by a grim-faced spangle-wearing Amazon whose only directive was to make sure I didn't do a drunken lurch into the orchestra pit.

Damn, those girls are strong.

I regret being so tongue-tied at the ceremony, so star-struck, so thoroughly tranq'd that the whole left side of my face looked like it belonged in either The Persistence of Memory or a Death Valley wax museum.  (Note to publicist: Slurred speech, vertiginous lurch, and viscous cascade of saliva can all be easily explained.  Tell press I was not inebriated in the slightest, despite the yeasty reek coming off me in waves.  That yeast was female trouble, and the tumble I took on the red carpet that revealed my big cotton underpants was because...I know. I got it: I had a goddamn stroke.  A stroke that will in no way jeopardize my participation in that ladder gig, by the way.  So can I please get some fucking sympathy?)

Ahem.  Pardon me.  Where was I?  Fluffer...saliva...tongue...oh!  Yes!  Tongue-tied!  Yes.  I regret that I wasn't able to give my gracious thanks at the ceremony.  I would like to do so now.

Please allow me to voice my gratitude, members of the academy, for tapping me as the winner in the category...

Blog where the blogger thinks they are hot shit and they so totally aren't

Listen, it was an honor just to be nominated, so imagine my surprise when I actually won!  Oh, I know I sometimes think I'm excrementally lukewarm. I confess I even have moments, delusional moments, wild flights of fancy during which I imagine I am the fecal equivalent of roiling, seething magma.  But to learn that I'm not?  Well, I am floored.  Gobsmacked.  Scraped into a specimen cup and dropped off at the lab no more than an hour after evacuation, as a matter of fact.  Thank you.  Thank you, voters.  Thank you, Mom and Dad.  Thank you, Jesus.  And thank you, merciful wizened naturopath who does my weekly high colonics, because I asked Paul but he flat-out refused.  I mean, good God, is chivalry dead?

Moving on!

Blog where you are so sick of their know-it-all attitude that you feel someone needs to just put them in their place

I am completely choked up, and hyperventilating to boot.  I...I can hardly speak, I'm so moved.  But I will labor mightily to push just a scant...few...words of appreciative thanks out through the frenetic spasms of my larynx:

That up there is a goddamned split infinitive. 

Now although it is probably not becoming for me, having the privilege of winning when so very few were even nominated, to do so, I must take exception to my inclusion in the final category:

Blog where all the commenters kiss their ass

I am deeply disappointed to see the good people who comment on my blog called ass-kissers.  The people who have supported me in my darkest moments.  The people who have shown me the greatest kindness I've ever known.  The people who make me laugh, make me think, make me strong.  The people who help me through every single day.  Ass-kissers?  No.

God, no.  Everyone knows that we on this blog are crack-lickers.

And that is all I have to say about this year's Big Bad Blog Awards.  Oh, except to ask whether you think I can still return the gown I bought to wear to the ceremony.  I only spilled a little bit of Mad Dog on it.

You know.  When I had that stroke.