Warning: saccharine and sentimental post ahead. Read at your own risk

The husband is now on a cleaning rampage through the house yet again. I feel guilty because I've only folded a few sweaters and he's going at it fullstop. I hate cleaning.

He drives me crazy sometimes, but I love him.

Right after I met him and we decided we were hopelessly in love and I came up from Barcelona to see him and visit Stockholm for the first time, I bought him an antique netsuke - one of those elaborately carved Japanese buttons, this particular one had two old men standing arm in arm. And I wrote a poem to go with it.

The netsuke and the poem still sit on the nightstand next to his side of the bed. And it's all clean now, after his cleaning rampage.

Netsuke

Once on a time
men lived lives so uncontainable,
they were immortalized
after a fashion:
sent to the skies
by some jealous god or another,
as if it were an honor;
Pollux and Castor,
say, side by side,
burning up for each other,
but the black space between them impassable,
so unbearably cold,
so impossibly wide.

You and I, well,
we are at least
as deserving of immortality.
But I would choose
nothing like a star.
No, we should be something
intimate, domestic, graspable;
something to be held
in the palm of the hand.
After all, we are
quite containable.

A button?
Yes, we could be a button
of the Japanese sort,
a netsuke, you and me,
two old men carved
from the same piece of tiny ivory,
the dye almost rubbed
from all but our smiles.

Take it, my love,
this button,
warm it in the palm of your hand.
We are hardly immortal,
you and me.
But this button,
we can aspire to be the smiling,
bald, thick, flower-bedecked
old men who hold one another
forever,
on this button.

Aren't the first throes of love heroic?

I know I should be embarrassed to show anyone this poem. But I'm secretly rather proud of it.

The Swedish phrase for the day is min stora kärlek. It means my true love.

- by Francis S.

The week that was, was too much. And it's given me a hangover.

On Tuesday we had a colleague of the husband's - the divorcée - over for dinner. After an unpleasant meeting at work, I rounded off the day with beers with fellow managers and we sat and bitched and laughed. Then I ran home and frantically whipped up something out of thin air, and the divorcée was an hour late and arrived while the husband was downstairs yakking it up with the neighbors and I was stuck entertaining her. She's a little tightly wound, the divorcée, and she has the thickest of Skånska accents. I'm lucky to understand a quarter of what she says. It was not my favorite kind of entertaining.

On Wednesday, the husband had a board meeting in our dining room from 6:30 p.m. to midnight. I sat in the living room eating sushi while the fashionistas smoked pack after pack of cigarettes, drank wine and came to not a single conclusion about anything. At least I didn't have to participate, well, not much anyway - they did haul me in from time to time to ask my opinion about this or that, but only if it had nothing to do with fashion.

On Thursday, we had another one of those damned 30th birthday parties to go to. I ask you, what kind of person has a Thursday night bash for eighty people at some new club, complete with booze and buffet and the Swedish equivalent of a Broadway star live on stage belting out song after song (but doing a great job at it with no irony lost on the guests, who loved watching one gay man singing "No Woman No Cry" to another gay man)? It was fun, but please, not on a Thursday. I'm still recovering from all the cigarettes I smoked.

Then Friday came, the day I was dreading. Because I had to have five one-on-one meetings in Swedish with the five people for whom I am their new boss (there must be a less awkward way of writing that, I'm just too damned lazy to bother to fix it). So Friday morning I walked down the island of Södermalm, and took a ferry over to the other side of the channel at Hammarby. I walked into the office where my new employees are working. I went to the meetings and all was well and good. But it made my head hurt, and I had no time for lunch. I took the ferry back and on the way the husband called. He was at the neighbors, chatting it up. And silently, I cursed him because I just wanted one night to call our own.

But it all came out in the wash. We ended up with the neighbors and our friend M. the television producer, eating dreadful Swedish food, husmanskost - food of the people is how I translate it in my head: Macaroni in white sauce (no cheese, that would add too much flavor) and falukorv, a sausage that resembles an oversized and obscene hotdog both in looks and taste. It was satisfying. And we inadvertantly put on a little show for the neighbor across the way, who had earlier commented obliquely to the husband about our parties with people rolling, er, cigarettes. I wonder what she thinks of the part when we got out the handcuffs - the real thing! - and the 10 different pairs of glasses the husband and I own.

But oh, I need to recover from it all.

The Swedish word for the day is äntligen ensam. It means alone at last.

- by Francis S.

I have been reminded of my dereliction in describing exactly how to pronounce all the fascinating and useful Swedish words and phrases posted here. This is the second time in six months, so I figured people must be dying to know exactly how to say all those strange words.

While an actual phonetic transcription might be interesting to linguists, it is undoubtedly useless to us native-English speaking masses.

So, here's how I would phonetically transcribe the language:

A - either the short ah before double consonants (long consonants), or long awh before short consonants (sure, you say, I know exactly what you mean by short and long consonants, and I really care that ah stands for the short A and awh for the long A, and I also understand why you have an h at the end of awh and that that means it is more or less a pure vowel and I also understand completely what you mean by pure vowel).

B - same as English.

C - Only found in words that come from other languages really, and like in English can be a K or an S sound.

D - same as English.

E - this one is all over the place, it can be the old schwa, it can be a dipthong (it's a lie, I think, that Swedish doesn't have dipthongs) sort of like ee´-ah-uh, it can be eh, definitely not hard to pronounce but nearly impossible to get right, the only way to really learn it is by hearing how it works in each word.

F - same as English.

G - same as English before an A, O, U or Å; but before an E, I, Y, Ä or Ö it is pronounced more or less like a y; it's like in English before consonants, except when at the end of words such as berg or borg, where it sort of disappears as you almost make a y sound but don't really; the other consonant exception is when it comes before an N, such as in barnvagn - baby carriage - the combination of gn becomes like ngn. Finally, it sometimes doesn't follow these rules at all.

H - same as English.

I - sounds like ee, sort of, but in Stockholm at least, some people say it very far back in the throat and it sounds, well, kind of gargly. I can't possibly describe this and I can only pronounce it this way in one word, musik. God only knows why I can give it that upper-class Stockholm gargle in that one word.

J - sounds mostly like a y, but sometimes more like an sh only with your lips more rounded and with a lot more h and blowing in it.

K - follows the G rules somewhat in that it's like the English K before A, O, U or Å, but before an E, I, Y, Ä or Ö it sounds like an sh; then there are all sorts of other horrible subtle variations on the sh when the K is in combination with J or S or SJ; I cannot possibly describe these subtle variations accurately, but suffice it to say that if you don't do them properly you are in great danger of not being understood. And finally, K often doesn't follow the rules - such as in the word människa - which means human or person - in which the K is like an sh instead of a hard K... this is because the word comes from the German word mensch and so they've kept the German pronunciation even though it breaks the normal rules of Swedish pronunciation. Or so I've been told when I asked why this was so damned hard to get these K's right.

L - same as English.

M - same as English.

N - same as English.

O - more or less like English, a long O is like oo in gooey and a short O like augh.

P - same as English.

Q - like an English K, usually paired with a V and pronounced like KV.

R - more or less like English, but usually softer and occasionally more rolling. The English R is probably the most difficult habit to get rid of if one happens to be a native English speaker.

S - like English when preceding a vowel, except in Stockholm at least (but not in Skåne, for example) it becomes an sh after an R - this can be in a word that contains the two letters, such as Lars or it can be in two separate words, such as jag tänker så här; but sometimes they don't do it, such as in vi för se - we shall see - and I've never figured out any kind of rule for when they do the sh and when they don't. Before certain consonants, S also sounds like the soft K - when it is paired with K or J, or TJ, or KJ - and it sounds slightly different with each and I can't possibly describe the differences. S in one of these combinations was the most difficult letter for me to pronounce, hands down.

T - same as English, only usually softer. Also a few strange exceptions. See S.

U - short U sounds more or less like oo in wood, long U is like the French U or the German Ü, an exaggerated ew.

V and W - the same V sound as in English, the letters are basically interchangeable; Swedes have trouble sometimes remembering which is which in English and can say wery instead of very, but they are very aware that they can make this mistake and usually correct themselves.

X - same as English.

Y - except for in a very few foreign words like Yankee or yogurt, Y is only a vowel and is more or less pronounced like a long U, except with even more rounded lips - I never get this right.

Z - like an English S.

Å - sort of like oah in Noah, except the ah is much less obvious, more of an afterthought.

Ä - basically follows the rules for E.

Ö - like the German Ö. Kind of like a schwa but with very rounded lips.

- by Francis S.

The boys and girls of Millbrook
Are on the train from New York,
Wearing new hats,
Shooting the shit,
Deep in the heart of Dutchess County bounty.

I have now gotten to the state where I must listen to Rufus Wainwright's song "Millbrook" right before going to sleep. For some reason, the song conjures for me images of idyllic and halcyon days, and it calms me so that I fall smoothly asleep without the usual sweaty thrashing about and tossing and turning.

What's especially strange is that I only really like classical music. And my beloved little brother gave me this CD sometime not too long after I moved to Sweden, but I only just pulled it out last week when cleaning up the living room.

Rufus Wainwright is undoubtedly the sexiest man living (aside from the husband). Oh, that voice.

The Swedish phrase for the day is sov så gott. It means sleep well.

- by Francis S.

My boss just told me not to stay so late working, she's worried about me. I didn't enlighten her to the fact that I am not working but surfing.

I think I'm getting way too much of my news - English-language news at least - purely from people's blogs.

It's a micronews world.

And, it's probably not the best way to keep up with what's happening in the world. (And I can't even keep up with all the blogs that I want to keep up with.)

The Swedish word for the day is skamlig. It means shameful.

- by Francis S.

Fadime Sahindal was buried yesterday after a funeral in Uppsala Cathedral attended by thousands, including Crown Princess Victoria and various politicians such as the leader of the Folkpartiet, the Minister for Integration and the Speaker of Parliament. Archbishop Hammar led the service.

Fadime Sahindal wasn't famous. That is, not until she was murdered by her father for shaming the family name by dating the wrong guy. Her murder has caused an uproar in Sweden, adding fire to the debate of what to do about invandrare - immigrants, of which I am one, albeit one that is welcomed. Sahindal's family was Kurdish, although she was raised in Sweden. But obviously her family had held onto some, er, traditions from Turkey.

So Swedes are now asking themselves what they expect from immigrants, which is a difficult question for a country that since World War II has - out of guilt at being neutral during the war and letting the Nazis march through Sweden to get to Norway, I suspect - had strong policies encouraging immigration, particularly from war-torn parts of the world. But economically speaking, Sweden no longer needs these immigrants, which it did until the '90s. So there's a lot of tension around immigrants, yet people don't seem to want to go the way of Denmark. They just seem to want to do the right thing, whatever that may be.

The Swedish phrase for the day is utanför. It means outside.

- by Francis S.

Have I completely lost touch with my Americanness, or does the wording in this description of the Citizen Corps sound, er, Orwellian to you?

The Citizen Corps will harness the power of citizens to help prepare their local communities for the threats of terrorism. The Citizen Corps will be a locally-driven initiative managed by the newly created Citizen Preparedness Councils (Councils), supported at the state level by Governors, and coordinated nationally by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

(link courtesy yami, who sounds just as creeped out by it as I am.)

The Swedish word for the day is farligt. It means dangerous.

- by Francis S.

As we sat at dinner last night with our neighbors, L. the chef and her boyfriend the guitarist, I wondered how to describe the scene in such a way to convey this golden age in all its luxury. To make one long to taste the salad with endive and blood oranges - oh, the food we have on our tables from all the corners of this round earth - to make one yearn to sit on wooden chairs of perfect white geometry and the thinnest of stainless steel, surrounded by candles burning in old rusting filigree cages from Marrakesh. To make one wish to converse effortlessly about God and war and hating to wash the dishes. What it is to sate a refined palate with a refined palette in a candlelit apartment above a narrow street on one of the islands that make up the city of Stockholm.

It all feels so everyday, and yet we are impossibly, embarrassingly rich.

Will all this sound as romantic to someone born today as Gertrude Stein's descriptions of buying food in Paris during the '20s sounds to me?

The Swedish word for the day is svartsjuk. It means jealous.

- by Francis S.

Today's milestone: leading my first meeting in Swedish. With all the new members of my team, no less, some of whom I don't even know. I survived.

Now off to a big party celebrating the company's purchase of another company.

(Sometimes it seems that work is all workplay and no workwork. Which is not to say that these parties are fun, precisely.)

The Swedish word for the day is lederskap. It means leadership.

- by Francis S.

The husband is attending a meeting about telephone services at this very moment. One of his clients got him all hot and bothered about a new telephone operator in Sweden with really cheap rates. The hitch is that you're supposed to sign up for the service and then try to sell it to your friends, who should sell it to their friends and the more you sell the more you make and the cheaper the rates will be.

"My friend isn't even working anymore, all she does is sell telephone services!" the client exclaimed.

Apparently they've never heard of Amway in Sweden. And Swedes are so addicted to mobile phones - not to mention regular phones - and rates are so expensive that they're willing to try anything to lower their payments. My poor innocent husband. I wonder how long it will take for the government to shut the thing down.

I told the husband that under no circumstances is he to agree to or sign anything.

The Swedish word for the day is blåögd. It literally translates to blue-eyed, but it means naive.

- by Francis S.

Yes, Peter, it is very, very cool to smoke. And it is especially cool in America because people are so smugly self-righteous about not smoking. I remember visiting my sister in Minneapolis right after I moved back from Barcelona (you can smoke even in department stores there!) and before I moved to Stockholm (you can't smoke in department stores, but at least no one seems to think that smokers make Jesus weep). I was sitting on a 15-foot-long bench in a park and at the other end was a woman who gave me a sour look.

"Can you please move, the smoke is really irritating me," she said.

Uh-huh. The smoke was bothering her outside, 15 feet away.

I repeat, smoking cigarettes is way cool.

The Swedish word for the day is lögnare. It means liar.

- by Francis S.

When I was in the third grade, my teacher, Mrs. Provus, read Pippi Longstocking aloud to us in her whisky-and-cigarette tenor voice, a couple pages every day until we finished. I liked the book well enough, and I even read it myself when I was in the fourth grade. But it was never one of my favorites. And in Sweden, the Pippi Longstocking books are not the favorite Astrid Lindgren books either. The husband, for instance, prefers Bröderna Lejonhjärta, a story which has been described to me as the tale of a boy who sacrifices his life for his younger brother. It apparently makes children weep uncontrollably. No wonder it's so popular here, but nearly unknown elsewhere. I guess I should try and read it.

Sweden's most beloved author died today. Her death is above-the-fold front-page news. I take that back, a huge picture of her is the onlything above the fold. In every newspaper in Sweden.

So, remember that awful Pippi Longstocking song from the movie? Or maybe you're too young to remember. Anyway, it sounds a lot better in Swedish:

Här kommer Pippi Långstrump,
tjolahopp tjolahej tjolahoppsan-sa
Här kommer Pippi Långstrump,
ja här kommer faktisk jag.

Har du sett min apa,
min söta fina lilla apa.
Har du sett Herr Nilson,
ja han  heter faktisk så.
Har du sett min villa,
min Villa Villekullavilla
Vill å vill du veta,
varför villan heter så ?

Jo, för där bor ju Pippi Långstrump
tjolahopp tjolahej tjolahoppsan-sa
där bor ju Pippi Långstrump,
ja, där bor faktisk jag.

Det är inta illa,
Jag har apa häst och villa,
En kappsäck full med pengar
Är det också bra att ha.
Kom nu, alle vänner,
Varenda kotte som jag känner,
Nu skal vi leva loppan,
Tjolahej tjolahoppsan-sa

Här kommer Pippi Långstrump,
tjolahopp tjolahej tjolahoppsan-sa
Här kommer Pippi Långstrump,
ja här kommer faktisk jag.

- by Francis S.

I've been paranoid about writing about food ever since I read a nasty diatribe from a prominent member of the Ex-Ex-Weblogger Ministeries, complaining about how blogging has become too precious and full of breakfast, lunch and dinner menus. It's sometimes difficult to hold back on talking gastronomy, since preparing a suitable meal is my chief therapy these days. It's hard not to mention last night's chicken fricasseed in a classic vinegar, onion and cream sauce, and the lime mousse for dessert - oh so buttery and tart.

The friends from London are in town again. Dinner was a success. We ended up talking about Egypt and how Sharm al-Sheikh was a sleepy one-road village ten years ago and now there are 90 huge resorts being built there.

"Isn't it great?" the Egyptians said to my husband and C., the photographer, when they were there last year on a photo shoot.

No, C. and the husband thought, it is not great. But for the Egyptians, it's the surest way to protect their territory in the Sinai against their worries about Israeli agression: If they build it up, it will be a lot harder to destroy. And no doubt, it brings in cash to the country as well.

"It's like Thailand," said N., the Wallpaper* editor. "It's horrible now, all built up. Did you know Ao Nang is just awful now?"

Which was a little sad to hear. The husband and I became engaged on a beach near Ao Nang. I would hardly have called it unspoiled - there was a huge new resort being built on one of the beaches - but it certainly felt removed a bit from civilization. It was easy to find a beach where one could feel alone, visited only by a woman arriving in an afternoon boat laden with bottled water and freshly cut pineapple, carefully prepared in such a way it could be eaten by hand without getting all sticky. And the funky little hotel we stayed at - cheap but full of charm, with small bougainvillea-covered courtyards with odd sets of steps going here and there, a cafe overlooking the beach - is no longer about the only thing on the road, according to N. (or little, from looking at the website.)

Yet, despite it sounding much less attractive to go there, I would think that places like Thailand or Egypt mostly benefit from tourism, despite the obvious problems caused by hordes of pasty-white garbage-strewing, mai-tai swilling, suntan lotion-slathered Europeans and Americans. So, complaining about these countries becoming spoiled is, well, the opinion of the spoiled and privileged.

The Swedish word for the day is stranden. It means the beach.

- by Francis S.

Isn't it odd that the queer contingent is the only minority group with its own category in the Bloggies, that is, unless you consider Europeans as a minority group. It seems that the gay ghetto is the only segregated neighborhood on the Web. (I know, I know - I hate the term "gay ghetto" too, it's so very Tales of the City; but it worked really well for my little metaphor so I just bit the bullet and used it anyway.)

Is this a good or a bad thing?

- by Francis S.

Last night's party was, as expected, a combination of the two. That is, with some awful tedious and/or embarrassing parts, and with some awfully fun parts. There were the usual endless speeches, the usual singing routine by five of the birthday girl's best friends singing along with their own words to some bad Swedish pop song, the usual guests raucously drunk and insulting the hired help before the main course had been served. There were games intended to humiliate the honoree (everyone had a green "yes" card and a red "no" card at their place, and were asked at one point to vote on whether a series of things were true about the birthday girl - everything from whether she'd lived in Australia, to whether she owned a dildo.)

Did I have a good time? Better than I expected.

Was I glad that we were the first to leave, about 45 minutes after the dancing started? Oh, yes.

The Swedish phrase for the day is vi ses. It means see you later or we'll be in touch, more or less.

- by Francis S.

Damnation. The husband and I have another Swedish 30th birthday party extravaganza to attend. At least we don't have to pay 500 crowns just to attend, which is the usual arrangement for these things. And, it's only a sit-down dinner for 80 people somewhere out in Lidingö, in the near suburbs.

The last 30th birthday party we went to was 500 kilometers away and we had to stay at an expensive hotel with a hundred other partygoers. Worse, after I had gone up to bed - I can't keep up with the Swedes when it comes to vodka tonics and bottomless bottles of red wine and I hate the way that once you're married, Swedish etiquette dictates that you can't sit together and I always end up next to some 75-year-old widow who lived in New Jersey sometime in the '60s and has all sorts of frightening anecdotes about America - the husband had gotten into a big row at 4 a.m. with one of the birthday boy's friends who had made a drunken speech that included a phrase along the lines of "we used to be tough when we were young but now we go out and eat shrimp and act all gay." The husband was very displeased at the implication that there is something wrong with eating shrimp and with being gay. Apparently, when he pointed this out to the inebriated speechgiver, things heated up a bit followed by a calamitous chill that stopped the festivities cold.

The next morning, there was an air of discomfort everywhere, stinking up the place. But I was happy, and very proud of the husband.

The Swedish word for the day is hård. It means tough.

- by Francis S.

It's time for A Night at the Opera - the ticket is a Christmas present from A., the former model. We're going alone, since the husband doesn't particularly care for opera. Best of all, it's perhaps my favorite - certainly the one I know best: The Magic Flute. Utterly idiotic storyline, boundlessly sublime music.

An interesting bit of opera trivia about the Swedish Royal Opera - it was founded by Gustav III, who is the subject of Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera; the plot of that opera originally was about the murder of the King at a masked ball, although due to political unrest in Europe at the time of the opera's composition, the libretto was changed so that it takes place in colonial America instead of Sweden. Which is interesting that people seemed to think it was fine to have it take place in a backwater second-tier wannabe country. Oh how times have changed.

The Swedish word for the day is sångare. It means singer.

- by Francis S.

So the boss asked me last weekend at dinner, "Why did you get married by a priest?"

Which is an interesting question. The husband, who was raised in a cult that masquerades as a scary quasi-Christian denomination, is very down on organized religion of any sort.

Me, I was raised by deeply religious parents who are nonetheless probably further to the left than I am on the political spectrum. Which isn't to say they're Marxists, but they're pretty damned liberal for Americans. My parents also allowed my brothers and sister and I a certain amount of dissent: while we all had to go to communicants' class, for example, none of us caved in and actually joined the church. Despite this personal ambivalence, the right kind of church feels pretty comfortable to me - one light on the theology, heavy on the spiritualism and strict about having only top-notch music. In fact, not too many churches fit the bill. And yet, I kind of like church and I would even consider myself a non-Jew for Jesus... he was a good guy but I wouldn't say he was any more divine than the rest of us, even if he did have some good ideas and a great marketing machine.

So, I got married by a priest because I wanted my marriage to not just be about the legalities of being a couple - and I'm not knocking them, the legalities are necessary - but I wanted the marriage to be about declaring one's love publicly in a profound ritual that has lasted over time because the words are fraught with meaning and they are beautiful, patriarchy or no patriarchy. I have no doubt that for a homosexualist like myself, such a marriage ceremony also takes on fresh meaning when it occurs between two men.

And so, in front of 130 people, we got married by a priest who oversaw the ritual and despite having known us for only a short time, gave it great depth and feeling, setting the tone for the wedding itself, and for the marriage. Everyone seemed drunk with joy, and I don't think it was merely my own happiness.

As for the husband, well, he wanted to get married by a priest simply to show respect to my parents. But he's never regretted it, not ever.

The Swedish word for the day is, of course, äktenskap. It means marriage.

- by Francis S.

K., the husband and I had dinner with my boss, the CEO, last night, a dinner that lasted until 3:30 a.m. and feels as if it consisted of about a pack too many cigarettes.

We talked about religion - "why did you get married by a priest" asked my boss - and the world, inevitably lapsing into a discussion about war, with an eventual segue into the topic of life. It was at this point that the husband made the observation that a life of 90 years consists of 30,000 days.

How is it that 30,000 days sounds so damned short?

The Swedish word for the day is samtal. It means conversation.

- by Francis S.

welcome to the My Way Blog Awards™ for 2001

If I’d known so many people were going to vote, I never would have created these damn My Way Blog Awards™. But, create them I did, and I felt obligated to tally up the votes, even if almost no one offered any bribes or cast brown-nosing votes for, well, me (I did get voted Weakest Link as a defensive move though).

There were some clear winners in terms of favorite category, as opposed to favorite nominees: People were most fond of voting for Best Porn Star Potential, proving that we are all obsessed with sex. Which is why I created the category to begin with. (Oh, and there was a clear winner in that category, too.)

People definitely had a least favorite category as well – Weakest Link. As Jackie of Surblimity put it “That’s mean, I can’t vote for that.” Apparently plenty of other people thought it was mean as well – less than half of all voters nominated a blog in this category. I guess we can all just get along. Or something like that. Of course some people didn’t have any trouble pointing out, er, the shortcomings of some bloggers: “Whinge, whinge, whinge, please try saying something interesting. Please?” or “He's not as funny as he thinks he is. And he hardly ever updates. Oh, and his site is ugly-looking.” Or how about “Ewww... look at the feeble attempt at video humor on the 3rd of Jan!!” or “How can we miss you if you won’t go away?” There was also a lament for the long absence of The Everlasting Blogstalker by someone who voted for him “not because I don't love him, but because he hasn’t posted in over two months. Maybe this would wake him up.”

There were some other unusual weather phenomena that rose to the surface. For instance, some people had very strong feelings for one member of a couple while having very strong feelings against the other member. And then, wham, the next voter had the opposite feelings - for the very same couple.

Interestingly enough, in most of the categories there was a clear people’s choice and I felt no need to do any ballot-tampering. In most of the categories. However, I did feel the need to add a few additional categories to cover some, er, poverty in thinking when it came to the original creation of the awards.

So, without further ado, may we have the envelope please…

My Way Blog Award™ best sylvia plath impersonation

So Sylvia Plath was a little neurotic – she was still a great writer. Apparently her closest latter-day incarnation in the blogging world is Jeff the Tin Man of Tinmanic. He's neurotic all right, but he’s a lot tougher than old Sylvia. I'd give him a testimonial - a heart-shaped watch on a chain of popcorn - if I could. Hurray for the Tinman.

My Way Blog Award™ "izzy fosco" ted hughes memorial prize

A corollary award that goes hand in hand with the Sylvia Plath Award, this prize is awarded to the blogger who has caused the most neurosis, as opposed to the blogger who is neurotic him or herself. I think Izzy Fosco would like this to be awarded to Melinda of Reality Sandwiches. I’m not sure that she’s actually caused much drama, and she is definitely neurotic herself. But, like Ted Hughes, she is a survivor. And who knows, she may become poet laureate of the U.K. one of these days. She’s certainly an excellent writer. And she makes a mean tofurkey.

My Way Blog Award™ best i-mom

I originally vowed to tamper with the ballots in this category, but then my own Mommy Dearest of choice actually received the most votes in this category. Now that’s what I call noetic justice. Congratulations, Aaron, Sacramento’s own 8leggeddj, you are not just my favorite, but everyone’s favorite I-Mom. As one voter put it, “He's as warm as a tray of freshly baked cookies.” (And, well, he did get at least one nomination as Best Porn Star Potential, so maybe he’s a mom in a rentboy’s body.)

My Way Blog Award™ best i-dad

All those religious right organizations have undertaken lots of very scientific research that shows that two parents are best, one of each sex of course. So I thought I’d better add an i-Pop category, just to be on the side of God. So, make room for Daddy, I mean Tinka (she may not have gotten the most i-Mom votes, but as Rasmus said, "she would hate me for doing this. Besides, she does have certain Momish qualitites. She will hate me even more for that." She was definitely a contender, competing against the likes of the only real celebrity nomination, Rupaul, who definitely sounds like he would make a great mom slash dad.)

My Way Blog Award™ best porn star potential

Okay, Jonno, you win hands down. And you didn’t even have to give me a marker for that courtesy fuck you promised. You, in fact, received the most votes of all for any category. Apparently everyone wants a lot more, uh, explicit writing on your part and definitely more pictures of the graphic sort. “Mmmm. Hump-a-licious,” according to one voter. Now get out there and live up to your award, you cyberstud, you.


The “Fluffer” certificates of merit are awarded by the judges to those porn aspirants who deserve special mention for individual performances that have helped to increase our appreciation of the important role sex plays in making the Internet profitable.

My Way Blog Award™ "fluffer" certificate of merit

Yami of Green/Gabbro wins a “Fluffer” certificate of merit for her frank discussions of her hair fetish and her constant inadvertent references to scroti. Keep up the obsessions, yami.

My Way Blog Award™ "fluffer" certificate of merit

Nancy of the World of Jill Matrix wins a “Fluffer” certificate of merit for her product endorsement of, uh, Swiff. Despite the controversy behind the actual product (is it nice or nasty?), her stunning nude testimonial is the kind of thing we need to see more of.

My Way Blog Award™ "fluffer" certificate of merit

Finally, Tek of dubliminal.net wins a “Fluffer” certificate of merit for the graphic and unexpurgated posting of his private parts.

My Way Blog Award™ weakest link

Hmm. No one could agree on which single person is not holding his or her weight, is past his or her sell-by date, is far beyond his or her 15 minutes of fame. So I wrote the names on little pieces of paper, put them in a hat, closed my eyes and randomly chose the winner. Oddly enough,the winner doesn’t seem to have a blog that I’m aware of, but he does have trouble with pretzels that make him choke, faint and hit his head, resulting in huge bruises below the eye. Let’s just leave it at that.

My Way Blog Award™ best in show

I love this category. This is where I found at least one completely new blog – a.fire.inside - that I’ve since found rather addictive. Plus, a few of the winners in other categories – Jonno, Tinmanic, Melinda, Tinka, and Nancy, to name a few - made appearances here. And some of my regular addictions also made appearances – David of Swish Cottage and Peter of secret kings, for example. But the bloggers who got the most votes were those bi-coastal, bi-polar but not bi-sexual (at least not that I've noticed) wonders of the blogging world, Choire and Philo. They have such nice, shiny coats and a spring in their walk, their tails are always held high and they almost never bite… they are the Best in Show.

Francis Strand, Chief Judge, My Way Blog Awards™