Through this blog, I got to know a lot of crazy people who likes me for who I am, which is kind of ironic because I am staying anonymous on the Internet with this “persona”, therefore technically they don’t really know WHO I am. Even more ironic, and I am not sure if you put an irony on top of another irony whether that makes it NOT an irony any more or whether it just means I am a lousy writer, is that this anonymity affords me to be honest, free to be who I am. Really, I am just wary of people at work finding out how emotionally unstable I really am since I do try to keep a professional demeanor in the corporate world. So the mask is the real person.

God. I am so witty. So philosophical. So pretentious. I totally scream: Woody Allen Fan! And indeed, I am, my friend. I am.

Nancy over at If Evolution Really Works gave me the above “I HEART your blog” award. I am just going to assume the “heart” means “love” and not because she cries so hard when she reads my blog that her heart starts bleeding or something… It is really tempting to neglect to tell you that the award went to lots of other people, not just me. BUT Nancy made the “award ceremony” in SUCH a creative way, and many of the other blogs that she mentioned (including her own of course) I also adore and am secretly plotting to imitate a la Single White Female,(only that out of these three things, two of them don’t apply to me, but we will deal with that issue later…), THAT I consider it a crime to not tell you about the post in which she gave the award to me, and many many other blogs worth checking out.

I know there are English Teachers amongst you. You know who you are. I am sorry if you are screaming inside your head right now.You can flog me for botching the English language in the above paragraph when we see each other in person. Or you can zap me through the Internet.

This award comes with NO string attached, hence I don’t get to talk about myself. *sad*

I am going to pass the “I Heart Your Blog” Award onto a few wonderful bloggers whose writings help them deal with whatever life has thrown in their ways, and along the way, I get to share a glimpse of their lives and, even better, their interpretations of those moments captured through their writings.

Overly Obsessed with Minutiae is something unique. Stream of consciousness prose. First-person narration directed towards an unseen, mysterious, recipient. Heartbreakingly beautiful at times. The paragraph that got me:

“I tell her no, and she smiles and says That’s good, because I don’t think there is actually anything else that I could offer you! And this is how I feel about myself, now, all the time. I don’t think there is actually anything at all that I can offer you, or anyone.”

(From “Bloodless“)

The Sky Is Falling is a brand new blog, just started this month, in time for NaBloPoMo. Ever since I chanced upon it through the NaBloPoMo Randomizer, I have been religiously reading it every day. I don’t want to take words from her mouth, but you can learn more about her here. The thing that attracted me to her blog right away is her About Me description:

“I’ll tell you who I’m not: Kaiser Sose. Spartacus. Your father.” Perfect.

The post that got me hooked was “Not Included: Suzanne Vega’s ‘Luka’, Fetal Position“. You had me at Suzanne Vega.

Worn Ragged: Mommies on the Edge has a PhD in “medieval gynecology” (I am still not sure whether that is a stand-in for her real major. In the end, I had to admit that you almost need to be there in order to know that it exists…)  You will know that she is a great writer: satirical in a way so subtle, so dry, that if you don’t pay attention, you will miss it because it is at the same time sweet, by reading what I consider one of her best posts, Voodoo.

Our Little Peanut is a new mom’s conversation with her miracle baby. Miracle in the literal sense since she survived ovarian cancer and after almost all infertility doctors gave up on her upon hearing that she only had one chemo-treated ovary left, she found out she was pregnant. The reason why I point this out is because, without this backstory, it is hard to understand imagine the joy she now takes in every little thing involving the baby. Even at the most frenzied moments a new mom would certainly face, she manages to show, indeed, that every baby in itself is a miracle. I wish I knew better when my kids were babies to just enjoy their babyhood. Instead I was always wishing them to grow up faster. Faster. Now I live through her dialogs with baby Kai vicariously. Except of course, when poop is involved.

NathanRising also documents a new mom’s life with a baby. I sometimes wonder whether we would have turned out to be different mothers if we had the Internet, especially the blogs, to help keep us sane when our children were babies. And speaking of poop… Jen has no qualms in describing poop accidents. I appreciate her not romanticizing motherhood: poop is a common, and important, subject in any household with a newborn. Say it like it is. And you take the stinks with the sweetness wholesale.

* Or, so late at night. I started writing this post at 6 am this morning. It is 11:58 pm now. Same effect though. Still can’t think of a witty title. Witty is overrated anyway.

** Please: if your blog/style is not the kind for you to acknowledge the award on it, please do not stress. My purpose of mentioning your blog in this post is my way of letting you know, even some of you may not even read this, that you have a fan lurking in the cyber space, to say Thank You. That’s all. Let me borrow what Mrs. Blogalot*** says: “You just can’t keep a good blog down!” Or to yourself.

*** I am waiting for the creation of an award called “Women I would Run Away With” to honor thee.