xtcian

festival of ones and zeros

4/12/07

If you're not a fan of self-congratulation, solipsism, navel-gazing, narcissism or, for that matter, onanism, please look away now: this is where I'm going to try and pinpoint some excellent (and depressingly sub-par) moments on my own frickin' blog. In five years I have approximately 1,452 entries to choose from - I say approximately, because my family (and the occasional guest) have filled in when I was either too sick, too preoccupied, or in jail. More on that later.

For the first year or so, I blogged every goddamn day. I guess it was part of the healing process, and besides, I didn't know who was reading, so I didn't differentiate for the weekend. After a year, I dropped Sundays, then Saturdays. I know I said I'd blog less since this New Year, but almost every weekday, I feel an inexorable pull - or responsibility - and thus I rarely skip a day. Back when we were building dot-coms circa '95-'01, all research showed that a site that didn't change every day quickly atrophied, and I guess that's still in the back of my mind.

Anyway, on to the categories!

The Morrissey "I Can Laugh About it Now But at the Time It Was Terrible" Award: Getting thrown into Homeland Security detention at the Canadian border, October 2003. Coming home from an awesome weekend up in Prince Edward Island, Canada, the border patrol took one look at my car - and then me - and decided neither were up to any good. It didn't help that they searched my backpack and white powder fell out (it was baby powder for post-hoops games). My only way out of jail rested on one talent. Read for the thrilling conclusion!

The "My Wife Groaned About It All Day" Award for Silliest Entry: There's so many to choose from, including how I dealt with my third kidney stone, what happens when you accidentally snort three Extra-Strength Excedrin and Don Knotts vs. Hitler, but I think we can all agree that Ski New Orleans! pretty much wins in a landslide.

The "Pill-Popping Left-Wing Stooge" Award for the Commenter Showing the Least Amount of Class: Yep, you know him, you hate him. His initials used to be J.B., but severe agoraphobia made him use a variety of moronik monikers as the months passed. Sure, I get way worse in my inbox all the time, but our little friend from New England is so publically chunder-headed that even the conservatives avoid him at the virtual lunchtable.

The "That Insurance Job" Award for Most Loyal Commenter: All of you are fantastic, but truly LFMD has swum through thick and thin to be with us. Since this blog is firewalled from her work, I don't even know how she gets here. Honorable Mention goes to caveman, as our resident Id.

The Morrissey "Sun Shines Out of Our Behinds" Award for Tactless Entry: Well, there's the time that Tessa's stepmom got so mad at an entry she wouldn't give us Blakey's bow-front cabinet, but my dumbest foot-in-mouth moment came two years ago when I accidentally outed an old college friend before he could tell his own parents. Thankfully I was able to delete most of the entry before Google cached it, but it still made me look like the entitled, indelicate buffoon I was at 20.

The "Easiest Way to Get 37 Comments" Award for Salacious Topics: Religion and Global Warming. Nothing even comes close.

The "Easiest Way to Alienate Your Readership With the Opening Sentence" Award: "While Fedexing my urine to Chicago today..." from the awesome week-long adventure of having to collect my wee-wee for research, November 2002. Sample fun: "I'd go so far as to say I was the only guy lugging around a bucket of his day's pee in a backpack" (and it only gets worse from there).

The "Iceball Hurled at Ear" Award for Inspired Week of Bloviating: This set.

The "Stand Clear of the Closing Doors" Award for Botched Blog Book Deal: I had gotten a lot of work based on snippets of the blog, but none more than American Coastopia in 2004, after which two different publishing houses were interested in the book version. Not downing Mothers Little Helpers yet, I was slow to react, and when I submitted the proposal a month or so later, I was told the moment had passed and shown the door. I would still put that proposal up there with some of the best - maybe I'll post it here someday.

The "I Told You So, I Fucking Told You So" Award for Prognostication: Well, this prediction was pretty good from March 2003: "we do a thorough sweep of Iraq and come up with absolutely no weapons of mass destruction; Bush and his team are humiliated on the world stage. Americans begin to think he's a liar." But I think you have to give me credit for this from August 2004: "I have but one team left for all of my heart: the North Carolina Tar Heels, a university and sports team I love that just happens to be in the United States. You will have to pry my cold dead fingers off my replica of the 2005 NCAA Championship Trophy."

The "Dodgeball Thrown in 1976 That Hit My Balls in 2003" Award for Shit That Made Me Feel Bad: The vaguely-cruel rancor I got from a particular message board after I described my wedding in August 2003. These days I'm quite used to the deluge of vitriol that accompanies a public blog, but back then, I really let it get to me. It's all a big lesson in skin-thickening.

My Favorite Entry Award, Cerebral Division: The curious Parallelism of Generation X and Y, November 2005. Dime-store pop psychology at its most inexpensive. Also my fave blog title, but I don't think anyone reads those.

My Favorite Entry Award, Emotional Division: I suppose it's a tie between two important characters, one coming while the other was going. Lucy's birth in April 2005 is the most amazing thing I've ever known, and as for guest entries, I thought our dog Chopes was pretty heartbreaking as he left us nine months later.

The "Heavy Sigh That Says a Thousand Words" Award for Supportive Spouse: This chick.

The "She'll Probably Hate Me in Middle School" Award for Overanalyzed Progeny: This chick.

Best Picture: Man, this was hard. According to my FTP client, there are almost 2,000 pictures on this site. I mean, there's a cool wedding one and my odometer and a Pangea Brooklyn Greeting Card and a mystical pre-Katrina New Orleans and my cousins in the late '80s, but when it comes down to it, this girl keeps hogging the awards ceremony:

There's a lot more in the last five years that would be fun to pick apart, but there's only so much archivism any of us can tolerate in one sitting. If there's something in the back issues that you like, or something you said that was awesome, here's your chance to tell the world, yet again, that you are here!

And I thank you guys, as always, for reading. With my Celexa purring along as normal, and my self-indulgences nicely fed, I couldn't have gone on this long without the incredible commentary you bring into our house each day. I bow, omnidirectionally.

Posted by Ian Williams at April 12, 2007 11:03 PM