Today is smoke-free day 332, and I'm just now realizing that a good bloggy pal that I met along my Chantix and quitting smoking journey, MamaFlo, was kind enough awhile back to do a very kind thing. It turns out, as I now know in a round about way, that she very kindly nominated me for a couple of Blogger's Choice Awards. In particular, these clickable and votable ones:
Before I beg my small handful of readers to vote for me in both categories (to keep it balanced 'cause that's how I am - but only if you feel that way, of course), can I tell you about the only other time in my ENTIRE life when I was nominated for ANYTHING?
Excellent. Story time it is.
I'll start in the middle and not make it as long as it could be, though I may expound another day because expounding is my favorite.
I was basically a stoner and an even-worse-stoner-wanna-be (not sure why I wanted to be - OK, really I do know, but that's a whole other-nother story). I was like this through the end of junior high and first while in high school. Those days I wore black clothes and blacker eyeliner and drank Nyquil (nasty) for a buzz in the event that I was grounded exclusively to an upstairs bedroom far from the extensive "open bar" located in our family room (and steps from what I insisted I have as my regular bedroom - coincidence?). Back then I wrote suicide poems on the backs of napkins at the Denny's while out way past curfew on school nights and in between drinking bottomless coffee and chain-smoking Marlboro Reds (before K, one of "the crew," introduced me to menthols). Then a series of events happened that convinced me that I had a problem (or three), so I got smart, stopped screwing up my life (mostly), and basically started becoming an entirely different person.
(Some day I will that story. I'm not ready yet. It doesn't turn out
quite as you might expect or even as I expected. But it's my story.)
Fast forward to Senior Year.
I was minding my own business all full of myself as a super sober and recently turned 18 years old "adult" when I was notified that I'd been nominated for a Best of and Most Likely category for the yearbook. At some point later (perhaps even minutes later?), I was told that I needed to show up at the planter (or whatever we called that huge area with plants - pretty sure it was called "the planter" - if not, should have been) for a picture with the male counterpart for the same category, but I still had no clue what category. I was fairly unpopular (which was actually an improvement from every year prior, believe it or don't), so I found it hard to believe anyone would nominate me for anything.
On that walk to the planter, I considered what category it might be and was sure that whatever it was, it was related to the changes I'd made. That expectation is why it was kind of like whatever is the milder version of a kick in stomach that I had my picture taken with a popular party boy as the pair voted...
Most Likely to Live the Longest
In other words, it was a joke. We weren't. Either of us. Neither of us were likely to live longest, according to our judgmental peers. He thought it was party on totally excellent (!) (dude) (!), while I wasn't quite as thrilled. It was a big deal to me that I'd cleaned up my act in so many ways, but apparently those doing the voting couldn't see the changes through my chain-smoking haze. I wasn't terribly upset or anything, just kind of disappointed, I guess, that the one time I'd been both nominated for and voted as something, it was something like that (even if they were onto something considering it took me until almost a year ago to quit smoking for what I hope is the last time).
OK, so that was longer than I intended, even leaving out huge chunks full of meaningful teen drama. The point I wanted to make is just that I am honored to finally be nominated for something not as the butt of a joke but as something good and happy and nice and awesome like these awards. Regardless of my chances of actually winning (nil), I'd get a real kick out of receiving any votes by anyone so inclined (though I'll still love you if you don't. just not as much. i jest. i'll always love you. and your hair looks crazy beautiful the way you parted it today, btw.)
So that you don't have to scroll all the bloody way back to the damn top, here they are again because I'm always looking out for you:
Weekly Winners, hosted by Lotus.
mwah! 
