This is how you know you are a true Rockin' Blogger

First, a blogger who you bow down to her for her giftedness, poise, clever humor and kind ways, political rabble-rousing and poignant personal insights, hands you the Rockin' Blogger trophy.

Second, you smile, curtsy and thank God, the scads of people crowded around laptops and clamoring to read your next post your one lovely and occasionally-employed faithful reader (thanks, mom), and the people in the balcony (can people cheer from some kind of virtual balcony...outside Second Life, that is?) and your agent, pimp or fabulous friends across the country who send you emails that say, "I am bossy and I say you must blog this."

Next, you do a little happy dance, or as much as you can in clicky-clicky shoes after years of doing more dancing to the Fruit Salad Salsa than anything with an uh-uh-uhhhh groove that drives you and twelve grrrlfriends to the closest platform/counter top/keg stand. The happy and dancing are firmly rooted in annihilating the bullshit that you would have just been happy to be nominated. Oh, and that the Rockin' Blogger award perfectly matches the decor and so no rearranging or designer hiring will need to be done to accommodate it in your sidebar.

Fourth, you get home, change out of your red carpet finery and into the comfort of yoga pants still well-shaped by your body print, and prepare to share your award with the world. Or at least that one reader.

Then, you stare at your laptop for fifteen solid minutes, trying to figure out how the hell to get that award on your blog without the benefit of an X-acto knife and spray adhesive.  Following this torment, you fire off eight to ten pleading emails to anyone who might listen and respond with kindergarten-level instructions on how to make the pretty badge appear easily.

Next up, the waiting. The breaks to play Scrabulous with seven strangers and your pastor on Facebook, interrupted only by ten to twelve flips over to check any possible email response in between plays.

Finally, the instructions come from someone benevolent and blissfully techied-out. This is followed by a surge of excitement that indeed, you can and will get this mothah after all. Tiny pause to curtsy to reflection of self in laptop screen, then many more minutes trying to work out the "simple" instructions like some God-awful algebra-trig midterm problem (Merciful Isis, please send Lil E a math tutor and the small fortune it will cost to keep her employ as long as necessary for grades, confidence and mama-sanity).

Add to that a rallying cry of you-can-do-eet-ness and many, many irritating attempts to manage, configure, publish, check and republish the fucking award. Curse the instructions. Curse the award. Curse the giver of the award. Curse its adorable pinkness which demands its presence on the blog in the first place. Curse your own rockin'-ness.

And then, by the good graces of the sometimes-forgiving internets and the energies of all the other Rockin' Bloggers out there, something works and the bad grrrl makes it up on the sidebar. You have no idea what you actually did to make the difference and get it there, but baby, it is there. Like a bright and shining beacon. Like a wink and a smile. Like an Oscar above the crappy black and white TV with four channel reception.

You refresh once, twice, three times, just to make sure you aren't dreaming up your success. Just to make sure it stays. You aren't and it does.

And you know what? None of that work and frustration matters. Because that little pink sweetness is just one small reminder of the women you admire, the writers you connect to and the blog that you have that is, like you, right where it needs to be.

Up next, I share the love with my own nominations (and a nice little swag bag with the steps to put that badge up) or the Rockin' Blogger award.

Comments

[zoe]

Girl, I can't even figure out how to make a header. So now I covet my tiara even more!

[Glennia]

I had the same problem with the code thing. I think mine links to nowhere. Oh well. You rock, badge skilz or no.