Samuel Snoek-Brown has graciously nominated me for a Blogger Reader Appreciation Award. While this, like the Versatile Blogger award, and many others, is one of those awards that we bloggers use to pat each other on the back, I just don’t think there’s enough of that going around generally speaking, so I’m going to take this pat on the back thankyouverymuch, and pass it on.
(Like Kendall at thisisnotthatblog said on Twitter one day — this day needs more high fives.)
He acknowledged my blog by saying it was “Snark done right,” and I had a moment of pause where I thought, Really? Snarky? But yeah, I’ll admit it; I can be a little snarky. At least, despite the fact that this might be a blatant display of self-indulgence and/or bad manners, well, at least I’m executing correctly. He also finished off the compliment with this:
“The posts here almost always crack me up. This is snark done right, people. But when they don’t crack me up, it’s because blogger “sheriji” has said something numbingly profound. Seriously, I love this blog.”
Wow. Numbingly profound. That has to be one of the nicest things anyone has ever said.
To accept the award, I have to follow these rules:
1. When I pass it on, I provide a link to his post, and thank the blogger who nominated me.
Thanks Samuel!!!
2. Answer 10 questions within my own blog.
My Favorite Color
All of them. Seriously. This is not a cop-out. Which color I “prefer” depends on the day or my mood or whether it’s something I want to paint on my walls (really deep, interesting colors, or a sunny Tuscan yellow), wear (autumn colors, browns, forest greens, gray, burgundy), or drink coffee out of it (red, or blue, or lime green, or purple, or. . . you get the idea). Plus did you hear that 75% of people prefer blue? So that pretty much rules that one out. . .
My favorite animal to include in a story?
I’ve never written a story with an animal in it, but my favorite animal in a story is the Porcupine named Fluffy. Just because Porcupines. Aren’t. Fluffy.
If I had to write an animal in a story, it would have to be a giraffe or a rhinocerous. Puppy dogs and bears get way too much press already, and I’m always rooting for the underdog (see My Favorite Color).
My favorite non-alcoholic drink while writing?
(Buzzkill.)(Literally) Fine. Coffee. I do love coffee.
Printed books or e-books?
I can’t decide. I love the convenience of e-books and that I can “buy” a sample of every book I ever read a good review of so that I don’t forget about them when it’s time to actually buy a book, but I won’t take my tablet to the beach or in the tub, and it’s not as much fun to mark up and I certainly can’t share it with my Husband because then we’re both wanting the tablet at the same time, so not all that convenient I guess.
Harrumph. Do I have to choose?
My favorite writer(s) now?
I can’t get enough of Merwin, Jane Kenyon, or Dorianne Laux for poetry. I just loved Light in August (Faulkner), but find a lot of his fiction quite challenging. Was really sad when Penelope Lively’s Moon Tiger was all read to the end. Am always watching for Safran-Foer to publish another book, and read every story by Alice Munro the moment I see it.
Your favorite writer(s) ten years ago?
Can’t remember back that far. I do know that there are never enough good books in a stack next to my bed for me to read, so please recommend recommend recommend!
Your favorite poet Classic & Current?
Ooh, I answered that one already. Merwin, Kenyon, Laux; and, of course, Shakespeare.
Your favorite time of day to write?
When I don’t feel like I’m ignoring/neglecting anybody else to do so. Depends completely on the circumstances of the day.
What is your passion when it comes to your writing?
It’s funny, I had decided not to read S S-B’s answers so as not to be influenced (besides being kind of bummed that he stole my favorite color answer), but what he wrote really struck home with me. Especially: “I’ve discovered I’m obsessed with home and community. Not really with domestic life or human society, but with the ways in which home becomes the greatest source of conflict and why people so often fail to connect with each other and yet keep trying, desperately reaching out for one another with the same hands they use to push people away.”
I started the blog because I wanted to talk to people, no, I wanted to talk with people. (I love the comments, and the conversations I get into with other bloggers [sorry oldblack, I think I hijacked “Anne” just a wee bit].) I find that if I make a conscious effort to read other blogs, and the newspaper, and keep up with my New Yorker’s, etc., etc., I have a lot more to think about and a lot more to say. I, too, am always looking for connection. Facebook and Twitter just wasn’t doing it for me because there wasn’t enough room to really write something, to really say something. I’m also always looking for the right thing to say so I can figure out what I actually think or feel. It’s probably a very inefficient way to communicate with myself forcryingoutloud, but there it is. The fact that there are almost 200 of you out there who have signed up to read this stuff regularly is just fun. It does help me feel like maybe, just maybe, I’m okay too.
3. Nominate other blogs that I find a joy to read. (Ten is recommended, but I’m going to go with the presumption that the joy part is more important than the number, so I may have fewer, I may have more.)
4. Provide links to these nominated blogs and kindly let the recipients know that they have been nominated.
Redamancy Lit — quotes beautiful writing in all forms. Am sad when she’s gone for stretches now and then.
This is Not That Blog — Short and sweet, often more about the pictures than the words, but Kendall puts things in such a particular way that it not only must be me, but makes me laugh out loud almost every single time. I only wish she posted more often.
Rage Against the Minivan — I don’t always agree with her, although I usually do; but she writes about stuff, and posts writings by other writers, that always gives me something to think about. We need more bloggers like this — issues regarding women, families, raising children, society and its influences both good and bad, etc. etc. Great stuff.
(Sidebar: I was just going through the list of blogs I read regularly and I got completely sidetracked by Louis CK. Here:
watch?v=ey4WSb-BVDQ&feature=fvst
Misfits Miscellany — poems. A couple of them mine, but most not, because that would be weird, and well, impossible, and then it would just be my blog.
Quieter Elephant — a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, but all about life and our reactions to it. Plus I always want to know, quieter than what?
Oldblack — he doesn’t post real often, and the posts are usually pretty short, and he claims to be both dark AND boring, but he is very interested in the conversation, so I find myself checking in with him regularly, and he with me. Listens with his head, and his heart.
5. Include the award logo within your own blog post.
Can I follow instructions or what?
Just Sayin' 
Very well deserved. And I believe that it was Edison, who, when asked about his persistent writing, replied, “to find out what I’m thinking.” So there you go.
Nicely done sheriji! And thanks for passing on the nomination too…
Thanks, Sheriji, appreciate the nomination. I’m still deciding on how to include awards without them interfering with the flow of the poetry posts. But it’s nice to be nominated. I’ll be back to reading blogs, yours and QE’s included, sometime around the tenth, when I have my old net connection back.
Well deserved award to you, Sheriji. I suspect there are lots of people who are like me and who appreciate the fact that your blog covers quite a bit of ground. We like the fact that you reveal many aspects of yourself, and we like and appreciate those many aspects. I read your blog and think “Wouldn’t Sheriji be a great person to sit down with regularly over a cup of coffee?” You sound like a person who would be great to spend time with, and indeed, that’s what I do.
Thank you! 😀
I would love to have a cup of coffee with you! Don’t know if I could be on a plane for 24 hours though. Maybe if I were sufficiently medicated and nobody minded me doing yoga in the aisles (I did that on the way to Italy, actually; no one seemed to mind).
Hi Sheriji….this is a rather delayed comment! You wrote: “I just loved Light in August (Faulkner), but find a lot of his fiction quite challenging. ”
After reading this I put “Light in August” on my ‘to be read’ list. I found a copy in my local library, and this morning I finished reading it. At the time I first read your blog post, I just noted this as “Sheriji’s favorite book”. Now I re-read your post and underline the word ‘challenging’. I found this book very challenging, but not for the same reasons as you, I suspect. I found it difficult to read in many ways – I don’t think my intellect and background knowledge is good enough to “get” this book. Even his style of long convoluted sentences was difficult for me. Many times I would read a section, and then ask myself “What on earth was that about?”, and I’d re-read it and still have trouble working out what he was saying. I get these sorts of feelings when I read poetry sometimes, and in some ways his writing seemed almost poetic at times…images and phrases, rather logical sentences. You know what I mean? I actually find it quite hard to identify why I found it such heavy going.
I am glad I’ve read it, because that experience has told me something about you; and because it seems to be widely regarded as a ‘classic’. However, I’m wondering if you could elaborate on the sense in which you find Faulkner’s work “challenging”? Do you share any of my responses (even a little bit)?
I actually found “Light in August” to be one of the most accessible of Faulkner’s books, at least of the one’s I’ve tried to read. I could follow each of the story lines, each character was clear in my mind, as was the ability to tell who was talking/thinking/acting when. I also really liked “As I Lay Dying,” (although the circumstances and hopelessness of the characters were a little hard to take), but sometimes had to stop and kind of reconstruct who was which and which was who — like reading The Brothers Karamazov without keeping a name key in the front cover. Leaves of Grass on the other hand, just forms a big ????? in my mind every time I try.
I do find his writing to be very poetic; maybe that’s part of why I liked it. Sometimes about the mood it casts, or how the words themselves sound, as much as what it means. (I tease Husband with Billy Collins’ words sometimes, regarding reading poetry — that some people want to tie the poem to a chair and beat it with a piece of garden hose until it tells us what it means, when he’d rather we let it nose around in our minds a bit, like a mouse in our pocket.)
Hmmmm…..interesting. Thanks. I think I just have to accept that certain elements the the literary fiction canon are not for me. (I’ve had several attempts at The Brothers Karamazov!)
I found that if I kept a list of the names of the characters and all of their variations it was much easier to follow. It’s actually a really good book.
Sheriji, I’ve had this original ‘appreciation’ post sitting in my google reader waiting for me to respond ever since you posted way back more than 3 weeks ago. I just want to say that I’m appreciative of your appreciation. Very much so. But it’s also very hard for me to deal with being appreciated, for reasons which are hard for me to understand, let alone explain. “ok, it’s no big deal“, you’re probably saying. Mmmm…maybe. Bigness is very much in the eye of the beholder.
Or maybe you’re just like most people, who don’t believe that they actually deserve most of the good stuff that happens to them. Of course, sadly, they often believe that they do, however, deserve the crappy stuff that happens to them.
The “notgoodenough” voices in our heads are usually the loudest voices we hear. Some try to drown them out by devoting a lot of energy into proving how much less worthy everybody else is, but most just go along with heads down, feeling like we’re faking it while (quietly! quietly!) celebrating getting away with it while at the same time quite sure that we will be found out at any moment.
Or maybe it’s just me.