Dad Blogger Link Bait- The List You Wish You Were On

It is well past the witching hour and I haven’t yet sent out my usual tweet about Twitter Vampires. Rumor has it that some of the dads that attended Mom 2.0 are still out trolling bars and or roaming the 9th ward. The bigger rumor is that there is going to be another attempt to put together a dad blogger convention of some sort. Don’t know why but this all makes me think of  The Devil Went Down To Georgia.

The devil went down to Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal.
He was in a bind ‘cos he was way behind: he was willin’ to make a deal.
When he came across this young man sawin’ on a fiddle and playin’ it hot.
And the devil jumped upon a hickory stump and said: “Boy let me tell you what:
“I bet you didn’t know it, but I’m a fiddle player too.
“And if you’d care to take a dare, I’ll make a bet with you.
“Now you play a pretty good fiddle, boy, but give the devil his due:
“I bet a fiddle of gold against your soul, ‘cos I think I’m better than you.”
The boy said: “My name’s Johnny and it might be a sin,
“But I’ll take your bet, your gonna regret, ‘cos I’m the best that’s ever been.”

Now I won’t ask how many of you started singing and or dancing along to that song because everyone knows that a true dad blogger is a sucker for such things. Just as most of us as are suckers for lists. If it wasn’t so damn late and I didn’t feel so damn lazy I would link to Dadcentric and Backpacking Dad’s lists- you know that ones about the best and sexiest dad bloggers.

Those were solid responses to the Top 25 dad blogger contest being run by Circle of Moms. You know the same contest where they had to announce that someone or “ones” had used technology to rig the voting. Yep, someone was so intent at winning a meaningless popularity contest they tried to cheat their way to victory. I guess that they must be Patriot fans, you know that whole spygate thing.

Anyway I signed up for the same contest and for a short time even had a badge/link on my sidebar. I did it because I figured that it couldn’t hurt to find another way to try and promote the blog. Figured that more exposure would be good and that I could use that to continue to build things around here.

And then I got tired of giving up that much space to a contest like that. Got tired of it because I heard through the grapevine that a few bloggers were talking crap about me. They hadn’t heard of me and assumed that I was new. Got irritated because I have been blogging  for far longer- not to mention that their oldest kid is in diapers and I have one heading towards middle school.

So I decided that unless we could meet in person and use a ruler to prove who has a bigger penis there was no point in engaging in a silly pissing contest. Did I mention that in high school they called me tripod? It is because I carried a camera everywhere. Really, get your damn minds out of the gutter.

But what it really did was serve as a reminder of a bunch of things:

1) Life is really freaking complicated right now. If I removed all boundaries from my blogging I would write a tale that would make heads spin. Some of you would cry and offer help and others would try to rouse the rest of the villagers and burn down my castle. Complicated contradictions I tell you.

2) These complicated contradictions are wearing me out. There are moments where I feel like I have an anaconda coiled around my waist, a tiger taking swipes at my head and a horde of angry gnomes attacking me. And then there are times where I laugh because my left hand has the snake by the throat and the sword in my right hand is handily holding off the tiger and gnomes.

3) I love blogging and the stupidity of caring about this sort of nonsense destroys that love. My best writing comes from not giving a damn about the readers. My best writing comes from sharing stories about parenting and telling tales that could be part of the books that I want to write. My best writing comes from sharing my tragedies and triumphs without regard for anything but the truth as I see it.

That truth as I see it is important. The people who are part of some of these stories might disagree with what I have written. Their recollection might differ from mine and I am ok with that. This is not a scholarly work or a historical document that is going to change the world if it is inaccurate in places. It is a blog. It is a collections of thoughts, feelings and ideas.

Two days ago I told my son that I don’t care what most people think of me. I told him that there is a short list of people who have influence upon my self esteem. If you aren’t on that list than I am unlikely to be interested in whether you like or dislike me. It doesn’t mean that I don’t prefer that people like me. Life is better that way. People who like you are more likely to work with you and that is important.

But I am not going to change my style or engage in shenanigans that aren’t things I would do anyway. I am still going to write about beating up Santa and turning the Easter Bunny into rabbit stew. I am still going to share stories about hard questions that my daughter/son ask and write fiction. I am going to ramble and post more frequently than six bloggers put together because that is how I like to do it.

And with that I am going to end this walk through the weeds.

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