Awards and Blogging

This afternoon, after completing a few errands, I did something I rarely do in Amsterdam (but it's something I did quite a lot in NYC), I stopped for a snack and cup of coffee. There aren't a lot of places to do that here, but there's one place that has a tuna fish salad on a bagel with red onions and capers that is not only overpriced, but also really good. While I was there, a woman I used to know walked in. We'd been in a writing group together. We sat and talked for a while about writing and life. It was really refreshing. She gave me an unintentional (or maybe intentional) kick in the pants, which she always seems to do. This accidental meeting made it feel like I really live here and I really have connections. It's one of those things that doesn't happen as often as it should. It happened in NYC, but my life doesn't really work that way here. In NYC, I lived on near avenue where I'd see a lot of people. Here, I don't.

That reminded me of Lou and her post "awarding" me and Alex with the "Let's Be Friends Award." The award says:

“These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to bloggers who must choose more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

I'm flattered and I can't imagine anyone I would like to be listed with - or with whom this is more appropriate - than Alex. Alex and I met through blogging and now we're real (read: face-to-face) friends. She walked up to me at a knitting event a few years ago and said, "You're Andy in Amsterdam." (Anyone who does that, dear readers, is immediately on my favorite people list.)

Lou and I met through some course of events - probably Ravelry. I'm sure she stuck her (metaphorical) hand out first. That's how she is. She takes life lightly, which I like. We read each other's blogs and comment. It's nice to know you're not blogging into a vacuum. Amazing how this Internet thing works. I never would have guessed it would have come to this. So I'm giving it back to Lou. She's worth a look and a read. She's got an interesting take on things.

And in the spirit of this award, I'd like to point to three people, one of whom I know very well already and two who I have never met in person. The first one is my sister, Kathy, whose blog is called What's Going on Now. Getting to know her through her blog has been really wonderful. She writes about whatever is going on in her suburban Texan life. She doesn't knit, but she's honest, which is nice. She's grown into a very interesting person, a nice mix of values we grew up with and others that she's collected along the way.

AmpuTeeHee has the bi-line "because being an amputee is often quite funny." How can you not love that? She's a knitter, but she mostly writes about whatever is going on in her life with incredible honesty. Last year she posted every day, inspiring me to do a lot more posting than I had been doing. I like her take on life. If you're going to peak in on people's lives, they should be the interesting ones, right?

Napkin Please is a blog written by a guy named John K. He is not the most frequent blogger, but he's usually got something up that's interesting and he's got a lot of stuff up that's well worth rifling through, like a funny uncle's attic. I like him. Take a look.

The whole idea of getting to know people online is a strange idea to people who never do it, or to whom it's a new idea. This blogging is interesting too - both doing it and reading it. I read something the other day that I found both insulting and funny. It said, "Keyboard + Narcissism = Blog." It's not as simple as that, but then again, the person who wrote that was obviously not a blogger. I enjoy it. I'll keep doing it, as I hope the rest of these folks will too.