I love you, too
Aww, Steph. I’m truly touched and honoured that you chose me as one of your five blogs of love – and said such nice things about me, too. Trouble is, I might go all self-conscious on you – see, now look, I’m blushing. It was easy when there were only the two of us here.
My other problem, besides crippling self-consciousness (seriously – I wrote and deleted that first paragraph about five times before I arrived at a version which didn’t sound sycophantic or moronic or both), is that I’m now honour-bound to nominate five other blogs for a link o’ love. This is a problem because I genuinely don’t read many other blogs – I follow and post on various forums, but apart from Steph’s little corner of the interwebs there are precious few places which make me say “ooh, good, you’ve updated.”
So I’m not going to follow the strict letter of the law in this. Here are the five places which make me go “ooh.”
1. In Other Words
Steph. Of course. It’s probably cheating to include her blog here (tigging your butcher and all that), but I really do love her writing, her honesty, her integrity, her humour (split-crotch jeans, anyone?) and the fact that she’s there, cheering me on in what has been a pretty up-and-down ride since I set up as a freelance proofreader/editor and started moaning about it here. She says we’re kindred spirits, and I believe that too. Cheers to you, my Canadian twin.
2. Kate’s Quilting (and other Fibre Arts) Blog
Inspirational Kate, a textile artist who combines blogging, motherhood, sewing, entertaining, getting her house decorated and lots of other stuff. Needlework is my current down-time obsession; I have at least three quilt projects on the go, all hand sewn, and one of them (a small one) even nearing completion. Reading Kate’s almost-daily posts and looking at her work is a bit like watching Nigella Lawson cook; I suspect I could probably create things approximating her works of art, given training and a few weeks without the kids, but in the meantime I return to my own rather humbler efforts and sigh.
3. xkcd
Not a blog, this one, but an online comic. (Told you I was bending the rules.) It updates three times a week and regularly makes me laugh out loud, although I suspect one might have to possess at least a basic grounding in maths and/or programming to appreciate some of the jokes fully. My partner T, who is an AI games programmer, sometimes prints the strips out and sticks them up in his office for general perusal.
4. Deanna Hoak
Editing, proofreading and blogging, all in one unfairly slim and beautiful package. Deanna is a freelance proofreader and editor specialising in SF and fantasy literature; her blog archive is a mine of information about editing, freelancing and the SF literary world, and her posts are also funny, smart and well-informed. She even commented here once.
5. Order of the Stick
Another online comic. (I know, I’m sorry.) A D&D RPG theme this time; over 600 pages so it’s a bit of an investment to get caught up, but it’s so worth it if you have ever played D&D in any of its incarnations. I think I might be Haley.
These are the places where I look forward to new installments; one morning I hit the jackpot because they’d all updated when I started my reader. Not much work got done in the Hawthorn home-office that morning, I can tell you. Thanks again, Steph – and if I’ve learnt anything today, it’s that I must read more blogs. (Actually, I also learnt that Mark Foster was gay, but that’s a whole different story…)
Oh now! You see? You have five, and I’m certainly not gonna call you on cheating, since it’s cheating with me.
I’ve checked out all of these you mentioned, and I can’t believe Hoak commented here; I emailed her, commented on her blog, did everything short of flying to her home, to get her attention. I mean. Where she’s at is where I thought I’d like to be, you know, fantasy and editing and all that jazz! But nothing. Sadly, not a word. So you, my friend, are quite special.
And that is not sarcasm. I totally enjoyed this post, as I do all your posts. Your style slays me. Truly it does. I think you’re one of the funniest bloggers I’ve read, and I do love your writing.
So, no, thank YOU. I always cheer when you’ve posted. I do. You can very easily make my day!
PS. A word of warning. I thought as you do: I needed to read more blogs. But now I’m telling you: beware. You think you have no time now…
Yeah, this whole blog-reading thing is a slippery slope. I now have Friar, BrettHead and Brett Legree in my reader – good job I’ve got no work in, really.
As for Ms Hoak – I think I wrote somewhere that she was “unfairly beautiful” and she thanked me for the compliment. We then exchanged a couple of World of Warcraft banalities, and that was that. Really.
And thanks, as always, for the cheerleading. I write as I think, and if that makes you laugh, well then so much the better.
You make me laugh, too – we’d have a great time sharing a bottle of wine or two…
Thank you for including me, Hawthorn. And I’ve written to Steph, since I missed her email before.
I was going to say, Deanna emailed me!
I agree on the bottle of wine, by the way!
Where are you, anyway? My sister is in the north, I think, around Yorkshire? but I have an aunt and uncle in Devon, as well. I think you’ve mentioned where you are, but I’ve forgotten. I suppose it will be a long time before I can board the plane England bound, but one day…wouldn’t it be cool?
Right now I’m on the south coast visiting my father-in-law near Brighton, but normally I’m in Derbyshire – neighbouring county to Yorkshire, so probably fairly close to your sister. Depends where she is, of course – Yorkshire’s a big place, relatively speaking, although I suspect that what I would term a long distance here in the UK would be fairly small potatoes to you in Canada. We’re a small island…
Let me know when your plane lands, and I’ll get the beers in. What’s your poison?
And Deanna – you’re welcome, and thanks for dropping by.
Oh, that would be so cool! Hmmm, to tell you the truth, I’m not much of a beer drinker. I do like cider, though, or something hard, with a little fire. Though I don’t drink much. I can’t. We were at a wedding this weekend and I had two shots and 3/4 of a bottle of Smirnoff Ice and I was through! My head was already spinning!
The irony is that now that we’ve gone bankrupt, it will only be a matter of a year or so before we can start thinking of actually taking a holiday. At least one of us (ME! I’m the one with the family overseas), anyway. Whereas before, a vacation was simply a pipe dream…
My sister is up in Gatenby, North Allerton, N. Yorkshire. Mean anything to you? I think they actually live on base, since her hubby is in the RAF. But it doesn’t sound as though you’re that far away! Oooh, we could do a walking tour!!