READING BETWEEN THE PINES

As much as I appreciate the blog awards I’ve been given, I’ve been remiss in responding in part because they each have a specific set of instructions, that when combined, are completely overwhelming.

I don’t think anyone really cares to read random facts about me (O.K., my fourth toe is actually shorter than my fifth on each foot, casting a weird, webbish shadow whenever I wear flip-flops), or wants to know about the best moment of my life (definitely now, writing this blog…which would lead you to believe that I’m a sad person, and in all honesty, is kind of a fake hook so you’ll keep going).

More important though, like everyone who blogs, I feel that the world needs to read my original content on a regular basis. Like, needs needs, in the same way I could use a daily I.V. that infuses caffeine directly into my soul.

But I don’t want to talk about myself. I wanna talk about Don Draper. With season five of Mad Men premiering this Sunday night, I thought it might be nice to save you the boredom of skimming fifty-two things you never wanted to know about me and instead create a brand new blogging award that has nothing to do with blogging, is ready and available to add to your site right now, or if you’re not a blogger, your Facebook page, or if you live in Uzbekistan and aren’t on Facebook? Well, maybe you could just carry it around or something.

Anyway, pretty much everyone qualifies for the award (see below). It doesn’t matter if you’re a blogger or a writer. I don’t even care if you know how to spell. The beauty of this award (besides Don Draper’s face), is that you don’t have to do anything except prepare yourself to field the millions of questions from Mad Men fanatics all over the world who covet what you’ve sort of not earned and link them back to me.  If you have to make a choice between the two? Just link back. Early and often. And mostly often.

How to Qualify for The Don Draper Award

You’re attracted to Don Draper.

You’re attracted to Don Draper and now find yourself out of a job.

You’re a secretary who’s attracted to Don Draper and now find yourself…a secretary.

You’re married to a psychotic person.

You’re divorced from a psycho but miss the tender, violent moments you used to share.

You grew up on a farm.

You grew up on a farm but somehow avoided 4:00 a.m. chores and are now a Hand Model.

You’re a fictional character.

You’re a real person who hates your life and pretends to be someone else.

You have a corner office at work.

You sleep in your corner office because you don’t want to go home to an empty apartment every night.

You sleep in your boss’s corner office because you have some weird fetish and like to smell the strangely intoxicating scent of his cigarettes, aftershave, and booze long after he’s gone home to his empty apartment.

You are Batman.

You aren’t Batman but you’re a mysterious person.

You aren’t mysterious but you wear your Batman costume to bed every night in your empty apartment.

You’re a successful partner in an advertising agency.

You’ve never succeeded in anything but you love watching commercials.

Your mother was a prostitute who died giving birth to you.

Your mother is a really nice person who embarrassed you as a kid because her ta-tas were always hanging out.

You like to fix men who are broken.

You like to fix men who are broken only to find that they’ve wiped out your entire savings account and you too are now….broke.

At the age of ten, your father was killed in some crazy electrical storm when a scared horse kicked him in the face.

Your father is still alive, but spends way too much time at the track.

Nobody, not even your wife, knows who you really are because you stole another soldier’s identity during the Korean War and now live under an alias.

You are a normal person, but loved Alias before it got cancelled and think Jennifer Garner is really, really hot when she’s not pregnant.

You love women.

Women love you.

You don’t really know what love is because you’re at the apex of a long-simmering identity crisis that stems back to your childhood, have no self-esteem, use and objectify women, find that success and money can’t fill the gaping hole left by your dead mother and abusive stepfather, and marry your secretary so you don’t have to sleep alone in your corner office every night or go home to an empty apartment.

And if the last reason is the one that qualifies you for The Don Draper Award? You might wanna go with the Hand Model thing and keep it to yourself because that’s some really heavy stuff.

In closing, I’d like to take a minute to thank all of the awesome bloggers who have thrown accolades my way that I don’t deserve. If you have time, please stop by and honor them with a Don Draper Award, linked directly back to me. Early and often. But mostly often.

(Blogs appear in the order that their owners bestowed awards on me. First-mover advantage is real.)

Paltry Meanderings of a Taller Than Average Woman

Sweet Mother

The Write Transition

Jumping in Mud Puddles

Retention

Morning Erection

Random Acts