Third Time's a Charm

Can you believe it? I have been nominated for a third award! Thank you, Sausage Mechanic! I am truly honored to be selected by bloggers I admire so much to receive awards I may not deserve, after my holiday hiatus from blogging... then again, the nominations rolled in before I took such a long break.

And I have yet to post the obligatory holiday review post, complete with photos of the ginger bear cookies and the power rangers who took over my home on Christmas Day. Well, that stuff can wait, there's an award at issue here!

This is the award:

I'm glad my attorney status did not automatically exclude me from consideration for this award. I know many people erroneously believe attorneys as a group are dishonest.

And here are the rules that came with this award:

• List 10 honest things about yourself - and make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep!

• pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you feel embody the spirit of the Honest Scrap

Because as an attorney I feel confident that it is within my power to amend award rules here on my blog, and because I just gave that other fantastic award to 5 bloggers yesterday, I am changing the "7" to a "5". I am also deleting the requirements that those 5 bloggers write anything at all or pass the award on to any specified number of bloggers, although of course they are welcome to write 10 honest things (or 3 or 100 or whatever) and may pass it along if, and to whoever, they wish. So , in summary, the new rules are as follows:

1. Follow the original rules if you like, or these amended rules if you prefer.
2. Post the award on your site if you want to.
3. Write some honest things about yourself if you want to. Make them interesting even if you have to dig deep.
4. Pass the award along if you want to, to any number of other bloggers from 1 to 10.

(Leave it to a lawyer to turn 2 rules into 4 while trying to "simplify" things... Ay yi yi.)

Here are 10 honest things about me. Note that I was careful not to duplicate the six random things I had to disclose for that meme thing that Fancy Schmancy tagged me with back in November. I hope they are interesting.

1. There was a boy in my fourth grade class who was friendly and nice enough, but was a little odd. OK, a lot odd. He worshipped "Batman," sang weird songs to himself at recess (including the "Batman" theme song), picked his nose when he thought no one was looking (at least he didn't eat the boogers), and wore bell-bottom jeans with funky patterns on them. Everyone teased him. For a long time I was nice to him because he wasn't a mean kid or anything, just odd. But then people started teasing me for being nice to him, so I started ignoring him. For Valentine's Day, we exchanged cards with the other kids in the class. I had those little cards that have cartoon characters on them and say things like "Bee Mine" and "You're Special." We were supposed to give a card to every other kid in the class, so I felt I had to give this boy a card, but I was afraid to give him a card because I didn't want anyone to think I liked him (like on "The Simpsons" when Lisa gives Ralph Wiggum the "Choo-Choo-Choose Me" card, and then he thinks she is in love with him....). I agonized over which card I could give him that wouldn't mean I actually liked him. In the end, I gave him the "Be My Valentine" card, but wrote the word "DON'T" in big letters before the "Be My Valentine." Because there was no enforcement of the "give everyone a card rule," he didn't get very many cards. But I was the only one who gave him a mean Valentine instead of a nice one. He cried. I felt terrible. I hope it didn't scar him for life.

2. I love to debate, and I love to win an argument. This is probably what drove me to attend law school. I know that it is best to avoid lawyerly techniques such as cross-examination, citing rules and statutes, and arguing by analogy to past cases when having a minor disagreement with one's spouse. But sometimes I can't help myself and I do it anyway.

3. I love to drive. I especially love to drive fast. I probably should have been a race car driver instead of a lawyer but when I was growing up, NASCAR didn't have many female stars. Within two years of getting my license, I had to find a new insurer (a "high risk" insurer) because I got too many speeding tickets. I have slowed down a bit now that I am a mom and a responsible attorney and all that. I rarely get tickets any more. But I am undoubtedly one of those drivers who annoy the crap out of you when they pass you on the right and/or tailgate you when you are going the speed limit -- or (dammit!) sometimes even when you are exceeding the speed limit. This is because you are driving too slowly in the left lane -- or perhaps you are even speeding in the left lane, but you are directly beside a car that is going the exact same speed in the right lane, and I want to go around you so I can happily exceed the speed limit by at least 5-10 mph and see nothing but open road in front of me. I don't like looking at your sorry taillights any more than you like seeing my freaking front grill in your mirror. So get out of my way, and then you won't have to be annoyed with me. I promise to smile and wave and say "Thank you!" as I pass you.

4. My favorite job ever was driving a bus in college. Even though buses don't go very fast, they were still fun to drive. I took great pride in driving safely and smoothly so that my passengers would have a pleasant ride. I drove the most hours (top of the seniority board!) and earned the most safety awards (9!) of all the drivers while I was there. I never got into accidents or got speeding tickets while driving the bus.

5. I never knew what a "camel toe" was until about 3 months ago when my husband explained it to me, while laughing so hard at my ignorance that he almost cried.

6. I never knew how to hit a baseball (or softball) until my husband taught me several years ago. I feared company (or neighborhood) softball games because I would always strike out, and I looked ridiculous besides. My husband didn't laugh at me for that one. He took me to the batting cage and he was a very patient and good teacher, and now my softball skills rival the best of the pathetically-bad and out-of-shape middle-aged softball players in the neighborhood!

7. I always thought I would not want children. The kids I babysat for when I was a teen were loud, whiny, boring, demanding, time-consuming and annoying (in my opinion; I'm sure their parents loved them very much) with no redeeming qualities that I could discern. Then when I turned 30 I began to think it might -- maybe -- be ok to have just one child. Then I had my daughter, and I immediately wished I had started this child-raising project when I was 22 so I could have had ten children. Kids are so cool! They are so fun! They are so cute! (And yes, they are sometimes loud, whiny, boring, demanding, time-consuming, and annoying, but oh-so-worth it!!) Ah, well, it's probably better for Mother Earth and society in general that I only have 2 little ones.

8. When I was a kid, my mom was working on getting her Ph.D. in psychology. She used me as a subject to practice giving various tests such as the Rorschach ("ink blot") test and IQ tests and so forth. Her friends used me as a practice subject, too, so I took some of the tests several times. I had a lot of fun tormenting the test-givers with that ink-blot test. I'd think the ink blot looked like a butterfly or a flower (or just a stupid symmetrical blob of ink!), but I'd say it looked like "two dogs doing it with a rat brain" or "a psychotic man," or "a blood-stained shirt." I had fun with those word-association tests, too. They'd say "pencil," and a normal response might be something like "write" or "paper." I'd reply with something like "insane asylum" or "race car" in an attempt to skew their results. I think my mom was actually worried about me for a while, but then she caught on to my game.

9. When I was a kid, I told my Mom I wanted to be Jewish. My friend Jennifer Goldstein was Jewish and she got tons of presents every day for 8 days for Hannukah (or however we're supposed to spell it these days), as opposed to just one day of lots of presents that our family got for Christmas. My Mom explained that what I really wanted, apparently, was to be rich and/or spoiled, and that even if we were Jewish, I wouldn't get that many presents for that many days. When I was in college (majoring in Religious Studies and dating a Jewish guy), I learned what a beautiful, tradition- and symbolism-rich, and family- and community-oriented culture / religion it really is, and then I wanted to be Jewish again, but for different reasons. I never did convert, though. (My boyfriend didn't want me to because he liked Christmas better for some reason. I think he said something about "better decorations" and "more presents"....)

10. Even though I am married to a wonderful guy and have two wonderful kids who love me a lot and I have a ton of very caring friends, I am secretly terrified that I will grow old and become very ill and have no one to care for me and will end up all alone in some horrible state-run nursing home with inadequate care, bored out of my skull with nothing but "Alf" reruns on the television 24/7, and getting bedsores and crying out repeatedly and fruitlessly for pain medication. I might deserve this fate after the way I treated that poor boy in fourth grade, but I hope it doesn't happen anyway.

Aaack, that was much longer than I intended. Sorry about that. Here are the five wonderfully honest bloggers who I believe have also earned this award, who have not already received it (to the best of my knowledge), and who I think might appreciate it:

1. The Grandpa, over at The Word Mechanic blog. He writes great poetry and offers an honest and refreshing perspective on life.

2. Moe Berg, over at the Simon Metz blog. He's a recent discovery (for me anyway). There's both comedy and tragedy in his blog. And even though he admits he's not "Moe Berg" or "Simon Metz," his heartfelt writing will quickly convince you he's telling the honest truth about everything, even if the names have been changed.

3. Tova Darling, at The Secret Life of Tova Darling. After her pole-dancing confession and with her "Totally Awkward Tuesdays" she's got the "honesty" award all wrapped up.

4. Kim Ayres, at Ramblings of the Bearded One. I tagged him recently with that bus story virus. He apparently decided not to participate, but I'm ok with that. I still love his blog and I think you will, too. Perhaps he'll appreciate an "honesty" award all the way from Arizona, U.S.A., with an optional writing assignment, more than he appreciated being given just a random writing assignment from a chick he'd never heard of until that day.

5. Talullah, at Skadooshed. Another of my recent discoveries. She doesn't write too frequently, but when she does she is entertaining, thoughtful, provocative, fun, deep, and -- oh, yes, honest. Check her out.

As always, there are lots more wonderful bloggers out there who deserve to win. I am completely crazy to reduce the number of winners from 7 to 5 for this award (and from 8 to 5 for yesterday's). Believe me, it's not that I can't think of more folks who deserve an award. It's just that half the bloggers I know and comment on have already won these awards (or have declared their blogs a "no award zone"), and besides, I have to save a few bloggers on my list who might care about winning an award from me, just in case I ever win another one. (Hey, don't laugh, it could happen....). After all, I can't keep giving awards to the same bloggers every time, now can I? Plus, like I said yesterday, all you have to do is click on the little links over on the side there, if you want to read all the blogs I love. We don't need an award for that, now do we?

Thanks to all of you for writing such great stuff.

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