That Sunshine Blogger Award Told Me My Writing Is Poop

Illustrated with Part #Who-Knows-How-Many of the How Funky Is Your Chicken images. 

A Major Award!

I saw my name tagged in the blogosphere a few weeks ago by a blogger I really enjoy reading whose site is called @MyGenXerLife. I like his stuff because it’s different: he starts by reminiscing about something personal, yes, but then he connects it to lyrics/melody/a memory associated with a certain song. I’m often along for the ride, despite him being a guy not a lot like me, some kind of executive in California, as far as I can tell. I connect with him through his connection with certain songs, which is very cool. 

He tagged me when he “nominated” me a for a blogging award. Dude! Fabulous! My name will be listed with good bloggers, and maybe I’ll even win! 

No. 

This is worse than me winning that lamp that looks like a leg in that Christmas movie my mother-ex-law has on all day on Christmas. After a little searching, I figure out that there is no winning. That’s because there is no actual award. It’s just a chain mail situation.

If you’ve been nominated, then you post the award’s logo on your blog, answer some bloggity questions about yourself, then nominate 11 other bloggers for the “award.” What, do I also need to stand in a dark bathroom and say Bloody Mary into the mirror 11 times?  

I am truly honored that this guy thought of me when he had to list 11 bloggers, but, dude, I’m not a part of the blogging world. I don’t even follow 11 bloggers. (Okay, I checked and I do, but I don’t read them all.) This is related to some weird thing I learned as a blogger that you probably already know, so skip ahead.

Unclaimed Property

Seven years ago when I started this blog, I started following a few other Airstreaming fulltimers on their blogs, then a few fulltimers with other kinds of rigs, and then I stumbled upon my blogging mentor, Midwest Mark, who doesn’t do any of that but does write well. I asked his opinion about other good writers, and I learned instantly that it’s all an incestuous ring out there. If you follow someone, they follow you back, and soon you’re a part of this huge circle of people who know way more about each other than strangers should know.  It’s like the beginning days of the internet, all over again. 

Or, it is for me, who’s just now learning about how blogging works. After seven years of it. I am a slow learner. 

As much as I enjoy reading good writing, this is not my gig. I like to write my blog, and I sometimes read other bloggers, but, generally, I spend my reading time on books. If I were still working in an office and had down time where it would look good if I were staring at my computer screen, maybe I’d read more bloggers. But I try to limit screen time, and really I always have. (Some of you are cracking up right now, I know. I am on social media more than the average bear. But less than the average blogger, apparently.)

Suicide What?

There’s one guy I read who isn’t in this small circle, so I have no idea how I found him. His blog is called SuicideSqueeze, which, however offensive, is also compelling. I ignored him for a while, seeing as how my sister had a practice of trying to kill herself, then writing notes or calling friends to blame her current state on me, then coming close but not succeeding.

A funny thing’s going on in my life right now that ties into both bloggers. Midwest Mark posted about an ad campaign he once wrote for that encourages people to search their state’s government website for unclaimed property they may not realize is dangling out there in their names.  I’ve had this on my to-do list for years, and, finally, now that I have a desk and access to my paper files without having to lift up the mattress in the Airstream, I got to it finding out about my own unclaimed property.  

Turns out, if I list all the states I’ve lived in (6), all the names my sister and mom had thanks to marriages and changed minds (5) and all the states they’ve lived in under each name (9), I had a lot of searching. Which turned up a lot of unclaimed property.  Mostly it was items like a $17 refund from the electric company that never found its way to whoever moved out of state.

But, the state where Kim lived when she and Katherine had the hardest time medically (and where Kim tried to kill herself the most) had two hits in my search that look especially fruitful: one listed as $800-$899 from a hospital, and one listed only as “$1,000 or over” from a pulmonary medical group. I’m guessing Kim paid out-of-pocket, and then her insurance came through later and never found her. 

In Tracy’s parlance, that’s real money right there, so I dug out all the necessary paperwork, like death certificates and wills, scanned it all, and signed a bunch of forms and sat back and waited.  A bunch came back to me as needing better proof that I am the rightful owner of whatever is due to Kim, so I had to dig even farther, including emailing the estate’s probate attorney in San Francisco, who emailed me right back that day with what i needed, can you believe that? If you ever need an estate attorney in California, I recommend her. 

Back to my connection, though. I found the sheriff’s coroner’s report for Kim’s death in my paperwork, and I thought maybe that would be handy, so I reread it. The coverpage is what you would expect: a form letter (but personally considerate) warning that the contents upset and disturb most people who look at them, so maybe: don’t.  I already had, years ago, so I dug in again. 

There were narratives by the officers who found Kim, along with gruesome descriptions and body-part drawings and such, but what actually disturbed me was the list of drugs that killed her. It’s a long list, but damnit the top two items are drugs that I now take. And, I take them in large doses. DAMN.  

Now, I don’t know the math to compare the amounts found in her bloodstream to the amounts I take, but my guess is there’s a very safely huge descrepancy.  Still, I don’t like my list of drugs being even on the same page as the list of drugs that killed my sister.  

This brings me back to the blogger, @SuicideSqueeze.  I recently commented on one of his entries, that I enjoyed reading that one at face value. (Normally, I do enjoy reading his writing on the surface, but other info is being conveyed as well; you just have to work to get to it. It’s like a verbal puzzle, sometimes, and the answer you come around to is related to monkeys writing Shakespeare or somesuch.) He said that that was a rare written-off-the-cuff post because normally he spends a lot of time on each entry. I responded that my stuff is the opposite, sadly. 

What I want to say in my blog is like ideas I’m digesting in my body, like food. I digest them, and then they pile up in my intestines waiting to be released into the world. I write it all very quickly, then, like a dog who’s pooped in a dog park, I run away from it as fast as I can. You know perfectly well that I don’t spend even the barest amount of time editing this stuff or proofing it. I hit “publish,” then close my iPad as fast as I can and don’t look back. I don’t even get to responding to comments until days later because I definitely don’t want to revisit those already-digested ideas. 

So, thank you, @SuicideSqueeze, for helping me regard my writing as shitting. For that, you get my one and only Sunshine Blogger Award nomination.  

And thank you, Midwest Mark, for turning me on to possibly $3k in money I didn’t know was mine. If I do end up with it, you can bet I’m putting it in my fund for buying a winter place in South Texas so I don’t have to spend another full winter here in Wisconsin, ever again.