An Award Goes to John's Head

Today I'm flattered to accept the "Creative Genius Blogger Award." This was cooked up by Deanna Schrayer and has been disseminating around the internet. Rachel Blackbirdsong, Linda Watsila and Stephen Book have all bestowed it upon me. This cannot be an accident. Rather, all three knew the others would give it to me and wanted to co-verify my staggering talent. Their redundancy would be humbling to a lesser being. Fortunately, I am only a greater one - one describable as, perhaps, a "creative genius." Yes.

The typical rules of this blog game are to pass the award on to several more people. In this case, it seems folly. Surely no one can be as worthy of this as me, and therefore passing it on will offend the recipients with what can only be interpreted as sarcasm. Now yes, I could say Hayao Miyazaki or Guillermo Del Toro are creative geniuses and this would be true. But I would be saying it as though they were my peers. There are great novelists and classical composers, and then there is the man who writes dialogues about choking on a glass of water in front of his nephews. These men would be mortified if I were to pretend they had yet reached my breathless artistic heights. I fear if I pass this on to anyone that they will destroy themselves in a sudden spiral of existential angst at even a cursory comparison drawn between themselves and my ouvre.

Because I am to a degree a prescriptionist, I cannot receive this award without sending it back out into the world. But I must stress that everyone listed here should take the award with the utmost half-heartedness. Do not seriously compare yourself, your works, or your ultimate world value to mine. It will crush you. For the sake of your life and my humanity, please only glance at the following list. If you see your first name, then it is already too late. Please, if you see the first letter of your first name, let this be enough and get away from the computer as quickly as possible.

1. Danielle La Paglia. A well-read and perfectly decent writer with generally symmetrical body features. Based on statistics I made up a short while ago, the vast majority of men and free-thinking women would sleep with her, experiencing minimal regret afterward.

2. Tony Noland. He is one of my favorite #fridayflash writ-- No, I must hold back for his sake. Ahem. Tony Noland is a passable human being by someone's standards. Society can ask no more.

3. Michael Solender, usually known around these parts as Mr. Solender, is one of the few souls to attempt daily posting. It is an immortal feat and thus he sometimes succumbs to farming daily spaces out to guest writers. Doubtless his greatest act in life has been to frequently choose to request I be that guest writer. God save the Solenders.

This concludes the blog-humping portion of this post. However, there is one vital thing that still needs reckoning.

I am taking this opportunity to declare war upon anyone who did not grant this award upon me. Clearly you hate me and resent my work, and thus must be dealt with. Brutally. If you're uncertain as to whether my dark fleets will arrive at your door tomorrow morning, prepared to slaughter you and rejoice in the lamentations of your women, give your blog a cursory glance. Has it given out this award to "John Wiswell?" It doesn't matter if you haven't gotten the award yet and can't give it. That's hardly an excuse to avoid praising so important a man. Possibly you can invent your own award and give it to me before my privateers arrive. It will not avert the brunt of their wrath, but may deflect some miscellaneous property damage.