Whoa Nelly

So there I was this morning. Minding my own business. Websurfing trying to avoid work. Checking out one of my multiple-per-day stops, the great ultra-progressive community blogs, My Left Wing, where I've been graced with front page rights, even though I've never been sure exactly why, and there it was.

The 2005 Koufax Best Post Nominations List.

A list 220 strong. Which has my name on it four times, for four separate blog posts that originated here but were cross-posted (and thus actually seen LOL) on MLW.

As I said on MLW today, Holy Shite.

Of course, if there was any correlation between blog traffic and writing recogniztion I'd be as obscure as I was this summer when I finally took the plunge, quietly yet fully accidentally stepped on someone else's active blog name, Ma'at's Feather. As of today, I'm just now just over 5,600 views of this tiny little baby blog, a number that to me would have been unfathomable considering I've never even told most of my real-life crew about this place, scarified about what they'd think or say ("Girl, are you CRAZY?????) in a world where publishing your words merely gives someone professional ammunition against you as an uppity Black woman forever.

But to see that somebody, somewhere, thought that not only was my work memorable, but that even a single writing was good enough to be in play for a Koufax nomination, I'd have never expected. But to see that someone thought that four different things I'd written were? Unimaginable beyond unimaginable.

I'm utterly humbled. I don't know whether to retire from blogging and go back to full-time lawyering now before I embarass myself, or if I'm supposed to keep blathering so someday someone is not cussing having wasted a nomination on an ex-blogger..........

There are some pretty extraordinary writers on the 2005 Koufax nomination list (and I don't include myself in that group even as the posts nominated were all pretty OK). They are writings from high-profile heavy hitters and the musings of those who are not high-profile, yet still blessed with intellect, rhetoric and spirit. I hope that folks take advantage of the link to the nominations above. At a minimum, folks should definitely read all the posts nominated from the following blogs, all of which are must-read favorites of mine, even if my blogroll is rather lagging at the moment because my 15 year old has not yet told me how much adding some more HTML is going to be (and she knows I am hosed without her):

My Left Wing,
DailyKOS,
Pam's House Blend,
Street Prophets
Shakespeare's Sister
Pandagon
Lawyers, Guns and Money and
Obsidian Wings.

You cannot go wrong checking out these blogs, or the nominated posts for these and all the other sites. I'm awed to be in the company of such writers as a Koufax co-nominee for Best Post of 2005.

Finally, while I know that there is absolutely no chance in hell that I would actually win, and almost no chance that I'll even advance beyond this initial round, I nonetheless owe a real thanks to whoever it was that actually nominated me. So here it is.

Thank you! Will you please be my editor? My typos are killing me and my eyes are going bad.

Oh, BTW, the four posts of mine that have been nominated for a Koufax are:

A Blast from the Racist Past
Making of a Martyr: Ms. Bunnatine Greenhouse
Reproductive Justice, Not Just Abortion, is What Really Matters
The Line in the Sand: Freedom vs. New America