Blog awards are like syphilis.

I got a blog award this week, one of those acts of kindness that originates with one blogger, then gets spread to five friends, who then spread it to five more friends, and next thing you know, it's moving through the Internet like a social disease.  Except nicer and without the embarrassing phone call and need for penicillin later.

It's always great when a fellow blogger takes the trouble to say, "Hey.  You there.  You're cool."  But here's what's extra bonus-great about this particular blog award:  Kage gave it to me.

Ever read a blog belonging to one of your own readers and wonder, "How could this person, with this life, and these interests, be remotely interested in my lame little dog-and-pony show?"

That's me and Kage.

I don't know her personally, but her blog is an awesome trip into a rockstar life that I will never know.  It's called Sex, Sequins and Sociopaths.  That should tell you something awesome about her right there. When you read her posts, you discover that she is many things:  a kick-ass chick.  A wild child.  A stripper.  A woman obsessed with Henry Rollins' nipples (and with getting into his pants).  Someone who may or may not be into bondage.  A girl who takes no prisoners, and doesn't censor herself one iota on her blog.

While Kage is out crowd-diving at concerts every night (as I like to imagine), I'm yelling at my kid for the fiftieth time to brush her teeth before bedtime.

I'm pretty sure this woman could eat me for breakfast.  And yet she's incredibly nice to me, and is a particularly funny and welcome commenter on this site.

And she's generously given me this LOL Award:

I have no idea where this award originated, but I accept it and place it on my blog's mantle.  I appreciate it a little extra because it's coming from someone so different from me.  This is why I love the blogosphere itself: it provides a way for me to sort-of know people with lives far removed from mine.  People who are way cooler than me.

As with most of these award dealies, there are obligations.  This one requires me to share seven things about myself that readers may not know, and foist this award upon seven other bloggers.

So quickly.  Seven Previously Unknown Didactic Pirate Fun Facts:

1)  I used to perform stand-up comedy.  I did pretty good.  I never bombed, which is part of why I quit.  The longer you perform stand-up and don't bomb, the more scared you become of the possibility of bombing, and the more intense the stomach ulcers.  I loved doing it once I was up there with a mic in my hand, but every second of that day leading up to a seven-minute set was torture.  So I quit.  Stand-up comedy is, however, what enabled me to meet my SaucyWench wife.  That's a story for another post.

2)  The first concert I ever went to was David Bowie, Mile High stadium in Denver, 1987.  The Glass Spider tour.  I was 16, we had great seats, and I thought I was soooooo cool.

3)  On the first night I went out with Saucy (back in 1996), we went to a bar downtown where a transvestite licked my neck and asked me to go home with him/her.  I said, "Sorry, sounds great, but see that girl over there?  (pointing at Saucy) Uh... she and I are engaged."

4)  Until I was 19, I was the World's Skinniest Human.  Skinny-ass kid.  I could've been in medical journals.  I started lifting weights in college to impress some girl I had a crush on.  It didn't work,  she didn't notice, but I bulked up anyway and twenty years later, exercise is one of the only things in the world that can get my brain to stop spinning, make my always high stress-level sink a couple notches.  If I don't exercise five days a week, I get real, real cranky.  According to Saucy.

5)  Like a lot of bloggers, I write fiction.  I've had stuff published in places.  I also have drawers full of tiny rejection slips.  Each time I get one of those, I still take it completely personally, even though I cavalierly tell others it's just "part of the process."

6)  I like to sing classical music.  I'm in a choir of 10-12 people where I get to do that.

7)  I'm not actually a pirate.  Ssh.

I hereby foist bestow this award to the following seven blogs.  I hate this part, because I always forget someone awesome.  One thing I thought I would do, though: I give a lot of my attention to mom and dad blogs since that's the cyber neighborhood in which I dwell, but I read a lot of other ones too.  So these are some blogs that I originally discovered outside the parent blogger clique, all of which made me spew liquid out of my nose at some point recently (Kage is ineligible, since she gave me this syphilis in the first place):

CYNICISM 101
Doc Cynicism took a break from posting for a while, but I think he's back in the saddle.  He's a teacher like me, but funnier.  I'm glad I don't know his name, because if I were to compare our reviews on ratemyprofessor.com, it would just make me feel bad about myself.  A funny, funny guy.  I'm hoping if I give him this award, he'll post more often.  Peer pressure!

STEAM ME UP, KID
This woman probably doesn't need any more blog awards, but ah well.  Steam Me Up has been making people laugh long before I fenced off my tiny corner of the blogosphere. She's ridiculously, effortlessly funny.  You're probably already following her.

THE MONSTER APATHY/THE ROARING DORK
Meet Kurt.  He runs two blogs, and they're both over-the-top funny.  The Monster Apathy is the main one.  I'm one of his lurkers.  I never comment, because I'm not funny enough to leave a footprint over there.

YO MAMA'S BLOG
Another wickedly funny chick.  When I read her recountings of conversations with her husband, it makes me and my wife seem so boring by comparison.

WAIT IN THE VAN
If you follow me, you probably already follow Kristine.  I'm hoping to meet her in person if the comes to my home town for BlogHer this summer.  I want to find out if she's as lovably neurotic as she seems to be.  I'm pretty sure she is.

THINK.STEW
Smart blog by a quick-witted, funny guy.  He turns the English language into his own personal playground, and I'm always entertained when I visit.

CALLING PEOPLE NAMES
Kage, you'll love this girl.  I've adopted her as my little sister (without her consent): she's another butt-kickin', take-no-prisoners chick who bares it all about her love life, her family, her work, all of it.  And a great writer.

NAKED CUPCAKES
Yea, I added an eighth.  Because I'm the boss, that's why.  This is another blogger who doesn't need yet another award, but I can't not give it to her.  I suspect she's a deeply, deeply twisted soul.  But I don't want her to get better, because I like reading her stuff too much.


There were other blogs in contention, but it turns out many of them have already received this badge (I'm talkin' to you, Moooooog35 and Vinny C.)

Okey doke.  Now go meet these people.  And thanks again, Kage.