I am currently between two big trips.  The first came this past week.  I went up to New York to take part in the In the Know Film Festival.  You can currently go over to the sight and watch the three films, and they’ll soon have up the webcast that went out live on Thursday night.  I think I remembered to tuck my hair behind my ear.  After I sat back down, I started panicking, trying to remember if I did it.  I get sort of a deer-in-headlights thing going when I get up in front of people to speak.

It was actually a very cool event and I was lucky to get to watch all the films.  Two of them made me very weepy.  The finalists were all there, so I got to talk with them afterward.  Before each film was shown, the finalist got to get up and speak and for the second one, the couple said happy birthday to their child at home who was turning two.  During the film, there was a line where they said that if she wasn’t pregnant by the time her child’s second birthday rolled around, she was returning to IVF.  And it was moving to be there for that shrug, that cusp when you know what you have to head back in and do.

Seriously, I look like a random child who has wandered into this picture.  Why am I so damn short?  This is a picture of all the finalists and judges.  Barb Collura, the head of Resolve is over towards the right.  And the two doctors, Dr. Stillman and Dr. Hummel are on either side.  And David Stern from EMD Serono is in the back.

Oh my G-d, the man next to me is bending over and I STILL don’t even come up to his shoulder.  This is me with the finalists.

Plus, I got to spend the night with Magpie, who is so much fun.  We met at BlogHer this summer.  She told me all these great stories about ballet that I brought home to the ChickieNob.  It was nice to have a friend there.

The next trip is much bigger.  I’m flying out to Chicago to film this amazing documentary for PBS.  I’m really only there for a few hours.  Early the next morning, I fly to Detroit to visit a friend and do a reading.  And then it’s back home again.

I used to be fantastic at travel.  I would pick up and go…anywhere.  Everywhere.  It didn’t matter if I didn’t speak the language.  I would learn a few phrases before I left and then start picking up the new language in a matter of minutes after landing.  I traveled with friends or I’d travel by myself or I’d go over with friends and then split up for the day and do my own thing.  And it never phased me.  One time, I was looking for the Kiku Mistu and I couldn’t find it, but I met up with a random American woman who was in the same neighbourhood looking for underwear because she had lost all of hers (and it didn’t even occur to me to ask her how this happened) and I brought her back to our apartment at the top of Las Ramblas and we went out with her for the next two nights.

And as I’ve already said, nothing phased me.

And now, I am a terrible traveler.  If my brother hadn’t been with me in New York, I wouldn’t have eaten.  I would have gone back to the room after the event and sat there cross-legged on the bed until it was time to go to sleep rather than simply stepping outside and grabbing dinner in a restaurant.  I’ve become a nervous traveler who is often so overwhelmed with Herculean tasks such as tracking down coffee that I give up and go to sleep instead.  I’m not a nervous traveler when I’m with Josh; I’m just a nervous traveler when I’m alone.

Has anyone else changed like this over time?

When I was in Oslo, Norway, I went to two sites for the two different Vigeland brothers.  The first was the famous Vigeland sculpture park, which is filled with these gorgeous, rounded, granite statues depicting beautiful scenes of parents cuddling children, lovers embracing, and people dancing.  There is a piece called the monolith that consists of 121 granite people climbing over each other as they reach towards the sky.  The park is beautiful and someone told me that Gustav Vigeland is buried on the grounds.

A little bit outside the city is his younger brother’s mausoleum.  Where people can go to the park all day long, the mausoleum is only open for a few hours every week.  It’s hard to find and few get to see it.  It is this dark room and you need to bow down to enter the tiny doorway.  His ashes are above the door and there is this feeling of bitterness, making each person bow to him though he never got the recognition when he was alive that his older brother got as an artist.

The story is that the two brothers stopped speaking to one another when Gustav claimed that Emanuel was mooching off his vision.  I sort of prefer Emanuel’s art to Gustav’s.  I mean, I love Vigeland park and spent a lot of time crocheting there, but Emanuel takes risks that Gustav never took.  And entering the mausoleum is a sensory experience.  Sound hangs in the air so every movement you make is audibly recorded and remembered.

The mausoleum walls are covered with paintings and they convey all of the emotions missing from his brother’s work.  Babies are simply born and cuddled in Gustav Vigeland’s artistic vision.  In Emanuel’s, they are dead or raw and bleeding from childbirth or climbing over one another with disregard for anyone else.  The embraces aren’t loving and gentle.  They are frantic, anxious.  Lovers are gripping each other in ecstasy, skeletons are having sex, and in every painting and sculpture, there is all of the anguish of life coupled with the carnal realities that also make it beautiful.

Emanuel sometimes feels a little more real.

I told the story of these two spaces to Josh as he drove me to the train.  I wasn’t sure why I was thinking about them except that they represent how I react to travel as of late.  I think my earlier years were very Gustavian, beautiful and soaring and seeing all the good around me in new experiences.  And travel as of late has been a little more Emanuelian, noticing the fleeting safety in life in both the physical and emotional sense.

The only other way that I can describe it is that there are two cats.  One is fluffy and white and clean and purring and wants to sit on your lap and be stroked.  And the other has three legs and the hair is matted and there’s dried blood on his tail BUT he also shits gold.  I think we can all see the immediate good in the first cat, but the second cat has his good points too.

I don’t think it is necessarily a terrible thing that I am complete immobilized emotionally from travel.  I think it speaks to how much I love my home, how much I love Josh and the twins, how much I hate to be apart from them.

I got off the train (and the story of the two men sitting behind me talking about their cat child–“the little fellow”–will need to wait for another day because this post is getting too damn long) and my mum picked me up with the twins.  We swung by the food store and then I spent the afternoon making vegetable stock from scratch, turning it into butternut squash soup and potatoes dauphinoise.  I cleaned up the house and played legos and we read Shel Silverstein poetry.  And I thought to myself, “this is what I do really well.”

I may not travel much anymore alone, I may not pick up random strangers off the street and go bar hopping with them.  I don’t randomly choose a country and take off for a few weeks.  But I am really good at being at home.  Though I don’t shit gold.  Yet.

Picture a swank hotel inhabited by the most gorgeous guests in the world.  A tattooed model-like man lounges shirtless in the hallway to get better cell phone reception.  Every woman is dressed in identical knee-high black boots with three-inch heels.  Even the man at the front desk is metrosexualed within an inch of his life, with stylishly tousled hair and manicured stubble.

Oh, and then there’s me, Dumpy McDumperstein, sitting in the lobby wearing clogs and cords so I can use the free Internet access.

I picked up my computer in the room and told my brother that I was going to go downstairs and sit in the lounge so I could write the Roundup.  “Like that?” he said, sort of dubiously.  He mentioned the fact that I’m not really dressed for the bar area.  That I might stick out a bit.  Except here’s the thing–even though one of these things is wholly unlike all the others, no one is looking at me.  Literally, it’s like they catch a glimpse of my Earth shoes out of the corner of their eye and they will themselves not to look at the blight on the lobby.

Feeling all kinds of classy right now.

*******

I came up with the most brilliant idea ever while I was on the train.  When people ask me where all my ideas come from, I tell them two places–driving and the shower.  That’s where I think of everything.  So a train, where it’s essentially driving, but with all need to pay attention to the road removed meant that my brain was on overdrive.

So, what if the Creme de la Creme was blogosphere-wide?  I knew I couldn’t write that many blurbs, so it won’t be exactly the same, but think of the Creme on a much wider scale with bridges being build between communities.  So, the Creme is only for us, but the Golden Haiku is for EVERYONE, including us.  Anyone in the ALI community can (and should) do both lists, which will post a few weeks apart.  People outside the ALI community can only do the Golden Haiku list.  Please spread the word to blogs you read outside of the ALI community.

Thank goodness for long trips.

*******

If you live in or near Detroit, I’ll be reading there next Sunday (the 15th).  The reading is at 10 a.m. in West Bloomfield.  Please let me know if you’ll be there.

*******

The Weekly What If: (before I ask this what if, Josh wants all of you to know that he came up with it AND it was thought-up under the threat of violence.  I told him I would punch him in the ass if he didn’t tell me one).  Built on the idea of the new show, Flash Forward, if given the opportunity to see two minutes of your future, would you take it (remember, it could bring you peace, or it could bring you absolute misery for the time leading up to it) and what day specifically would you want to see yourself on?

*******

And now, the blogs…

Babymaking 101 has a post about why she dislikes Halloween.  It’s not the reasons you’re thinking of and you’ll need to read the story in order to learn what made her hate the holiday.  It’s a personal story, but I think I’ll remember it every Halloween.

Sunnywithachanceof has a post about remembering to breathe.  It is a moving post about her relationship with her husband, about hurt and forgiveness and learning how to move forward.  She writes, “He can’t understand why I would forgive him. Why I would continue loving him. He is part of my little miracles. He helped make them breathe with me.”  I was moved to tears from her words.

Weebles Wobblog has a post about a parenting after adoption moment that will make you bow down to her brilliance.  It is literally the epitome of great parenting, where she helps her child move through tough emotions, keeps perspective for herself, and emerges out the other side with all parties unscathed.  It is a must read–not just for those parenting after adoption, but has great lessons on when (and how) not to take words to heart.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled has a post about the life outside her front door.  She writes, “It really hit me then: there was a whole world out there that, until that point — sheltered as we were in our cozy, childless cocoon — we really weren’t aware existed. (Dimly, perhaps, but not in a real, tangible way.) A world beyond our grasp, beyond our comprehension.”  It is the end of the post that will make you hold your breath as you consider all the possibilities unlived and how the simple shifting of hours can open up insights into other worlds.

The roundup to the Roundup: I am really tacky.  I thought up a new project.  Answer Josh’s Weekly What If.  And lots of great blogs to read.

Before we start, please read through this whole long post because there are some small details you need to follow in order to have this run smoothly.

Those in the adoption/loss/infertility community know that I’ve created the Creme de la Creme list for the past four years, a compilation of a single post from every participating blog.  As I’ve said before, the impulse behind this list are the ubiquitous award ceremonies that crawl out of their hiding spaces usually around December or January. Awards are nice–it’s good to honour someone and mark big accomplishments. But we all have a best post tucked into our archives. We all have words that have moved another person or ideas that have kicked off a series of musings. Bloggers are writers and all of us deserve to be celebrated.

As I sat on a train recently, I thought about how cool it would be if this were a blogosphere-wide project where all could participate and become exposed to other corners of the blogosphere.  Where book bloggers could meet political bloggers and cooking bloggers could meet deaf bloggers and we could also catch a small glimpse into each other’s worlds.

So the birth of the Golden Haiku, a blogosphere-wide project collecting a single, great post from each participating blog.  This project is open to every single blogger in the world–from those who just started writing to those who have four years under their blogging belt.  For every type of subject matter, for every type of person, from gay men living in Kansas to elderly women living in New York City to mothers in London and political activists in the Middle East.  Literally everyone.  Broken down into small, bite-sized categories for easy navigation.

Here is what you need to do if you want to participate.

• Read through your archives from 2009.
• Pick your favourite post–the one that you think gives people a taste of your blog.  Don’t get hung up on the word “best.”  It’s the one that you’d be really bummed if you ever lost.  Think of it this way–it’s like picking out clothes for a party.  You want to look your best, but we all know that life doesn’t hinge on one outfit.  Just go with the one you like.
• Submit it by filling out this form.  Please pay attention to the directions on the form.  Pretty please.  If you don’t follow the guidelines, I will delete your entry and then you just waste both our times.
• Part of filling out the form (which you’ll see when you click over) is that you need to describe your post in up to 17 words.  If you put more than 17, I will delete from the end of the blurb to get to 17 words.  So your blurb will look funny and everyone will know that you didn’t follow directions.
• Sit back and relax and wait for the list to be posted on January 15th.  And then read to your heart’s content.

Other FAQ-like things:

Why is it named the Golden Haiku?

Because the key point is that the description of each blog post is seventeen words (or up to 17 words).  Sort of like a haiku.  And they’re the best post of the year from each blog–a gold medal sort of post.  And because haikus are a brief look at a complex object or moment and blog posts are small gasps in the larger literary breath.  And because I liked it, damn it.  Can’t you just roll with the name?

What do you hope to accomplish with this?

There are so many possibilities for this project.  For someone wishing to know more about a certain area of the blogosphere, this will serve as a doorway into that world and hopefully build understanding between communities.  For someone new to blogging, it will be a chance to find other blogs writing about the same topic.  And like a red wine reduction, it will be distilled into an intense taste of each blog–a great post rather than the wild-card-and-possibly-mundane post currently at the top of the blog when a person starts reading a new site.  By providing blurbs, you will be able to scan the list quickly and possibly find that as much as you thought you had no interest in a certain area, that there actually are blog posts you want to read on a certain topic.  Yes, I’m essentially creating an index to the blogopshere, but it’s also a snapshot of the year, a meal of great posts.

I’m having a hard time visualizing this.  What will it look like?

There will be a main post that will serve as a portal to all other rooms.  The room will contain a clickable map to the blogosphere, so people can jump straight to a certain category.  Each category will be contained on a single page with links to all the posts and blogs within it.  Each category may be organized into smaller subsections as well.  Because there will be too many posts to contain on one page, this will make the list organized and readable.  It will be easy to find the types of posts you’re looking to read.  I also hope that people will jump over to read categories they never had considered reading before.

What is the deadline?

To ensure that your post is part of the list when it goes up on January 15th, please submit your link by December 30th 11 p.m. (EST).  Anything that comes in after that will be added, but it will go up when I have a moment to add it.  I will continue to update the list until March 1, 2010.  After that The Golden Haiku will be closed for 2009 posts.  I will hold this again next year for 2010 posts and it will open again in November.

How many posts can I submit?

One, just one, and only one.  Do not submit two and put them in two different categories.  I will be scanning the list for duplicates.  If I see this, I will delete out all entries and you will be banned from the list.  The exception is when you have two separate blogs.  The project is one post per blog (so a blogger who writes in three spaces can actually have three posts–one from each space).

Can I switch my post?

Nope–once it is on the list, you can remove your post, but you can’t switch it out for another one.  The reason is that a lot of work goes into compiling these lists and once I do the work, I don’t want to redo it.  So you can drop out of the project altogether, but you can’t change.

I don’t fit in any category, what do I do?

Well, there’s a catch-all category, so you obviously could go there.  I apologize that the list is somewhat limited.  I went with large umbrella categories.  I am not willing to add new categories this year, but there will be a call for categories for next year at the end of this project, so you can make sure they’re on the list then.

Tell me more about the blurb I have to write.

You can use your 17 words any way you wish.  You can write out a sentence or two.  You can write 17 key words.  Essentially, this is a tiny taste to entice the person to click over to your post.  You can’t use bolding or all-caps to get someone’s attention–you need to use your words to make the person interested in reading your whole post.  You do have to write a blurb.  Any submission without a blurb will not be added to the list.  You do not have to use all 17 words, but you can’t go over that amount.  Blurbs over 17 words (and therefore submissions) will not be added.

I just started my blog in October. Can I participate?

As long as you’ve had one post in 2009, you can participate. Even if you didn’t start your blog until October 2009. Just choose your best from the last two months.

My blog is password protected. Can I participate?

If your blog is password protected and you want to participate, choose your blog entry and create a free blog at Blogger or WordPress and post that single entry. Then submit that link to the list. I can’t link to password protected blogs.

I’m already participating in the Creme de la Creme, can I do this too? or Hey, what is this Creme de la Creme thing?

Yes, they are two separate projects, so you can do both.  You can use the same post or you can submit two different posts to the two different lists.  The two categories that probably best fit your situation are either “of body or mind” or “parenting and family.”

The Creme de la Creme list is solely for those in the infertility/adoption/loss community.  If you don’t fit that description, you can’t submit to that list.

Hey, I’m not on The Golden Haiku!  Why didn’t you add me?

Everyone needs to submit their own post.  If you didn’t submit it, I didn’t add it.  If you are not on the list and you submitted one, you didn’t follow directions or it didn’t fit the loose guidelines (see below), so I deleted it.  If you have a blogger you love and you want to make sure they’re included on the list, go nudge them into submitting by suggesting a post you think they should add to the list.

What can’t be submitted?

Okay, so I say that the list is open to everyone, but there are a few types of things I won’t include in this project in order to make for comfortable reading for the largest amount of people.  So I won’t include posts that are overtly commercial, essentially selling a product or service.  I won’t include hate speech of any kind–whether it’s directed at a single person or a larger group.  No porn.  You must be over 18 to participate (high school blogs will not be included this year).  Posts do need to be in English–apologies to those writing in another language.  Cursing is fine, sexuality is fine–truly, almost anything goes.  I’m just looking to not have readers squirming with discomfort or feel as if they’re being sold something.

I love this project!  What can I do to help?

You can spread the word by Twittering about it, making it your Facebook status, blogging about it, emailing friends about it, or adding the badge (get the code here) to your sidebar to encourage others to join along.

My question wasn’t answered here.

Sorry about that.  I’m pretty friendly and willing to answer more questions as long as they truly weren’t answered in this post.  What I can’t do is take suggestions for this current Golden Haiku, though I will be sending out a call for suggestions at the end of this project so please hold your suggestions for that time.  So if you have something to ask, send me an email.

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

A few days before Halloween, the twins and I decorated a pumpkin we named Gordo the Quintops, mostly (but not entirely) because Gordo has five eyes.

He was lovingly covered in letter stickers and feathers and sequins, with a few random shells from the ocean last summer.  Gordo was not placed outside because pumpkins covered in sequins are not fond of the rain.  Instead, he resides in our front hallway so that he is the first thing you see when you step inside the house.

My heart wasn’t into Halloween this year, but we took the twins around to a few houses for trick-or-treating.  Before we left the house, they were concerned because I wasn’t wearing a costume so I quickly made a third eye for myself and slapped it on my forehead and went as a triops.

What is a triops, you ask?  It is a prehistoric shrimp with three eyes.  The ChickieNob drew this lovely drawing of a triops for you so you could get a sense of its greatness.  Please ignore the fact that the ChickieNob’s triops looks like an alien and not like a miniature horseshoe crab as it states on the Wikipedia page.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (Important: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name. Links not going to a Show and Tell post will be deleted). The list is open from now until late Friday night and a new one is posted every week.

Updated: The Creme de la Creme is now up.  I will still take posts and update it until March 1st.

For the fourth year running, it is November and time to kick off the Creme de la Creme list for 2009. If you’re unfamiliar with the project, read on to understand.  If you’ve participated in years past, you know how much fun the list is when its revealed on January 1st. So, I hereby declare the Creme de la Creme list open.

I know this is loooooong, but please read this whole post before submitting your entry.  Things have changed this year and if you don’t follow the directions, this won’t run smoothly and I promise, this post probably answers any question you might have.

If you didn’t read or participate in this list in 2006 or in 2007 or in 2008, the impulse behind this list are the ubiquitous award ceremonies that crawl out of their hiding spaces usually around December or January. Awards are nice–it’s good to honour someone and mark big accomplishments. But we all have a best post tucked into our archives. We all have words that have moved another person or ideas that have kicked off a series of musings. Bloggers are writers and all of us deserve to be celebrated.

And we’re doing just that.

This is the way it works. If you want to participate, read through your archives and choose a favourite post. You can leave all sorts of comments below telling me how fantastic I am, but fill out the form to send in your submission (do not leave it in the comments section–the point of this list is also the surprise of seeing the choices revealed on a single day). If you post your link below, I will delete it. Again, feel free to leave love comments below–in fact, please do leave love comments below–but not your submission for the list. Let’s keep it a surprise until the list is ready to go up.

You can only choose one entry. You cannot be modest. Everyone has a best post. There is no such thing as a boring blog. Even if you don’t think you have any readers because you’ve never received a comment, you have a best post. The one that you felt really good about when you hit publish. The one that would be the post you’d put forward if an editor called you tomorrow and said, “I have this great writing job for you that will pay a million dollars an hour. You just need to submit one blog entry to get this job so we can check your writing style.”

Even if you just found my blog because you read about the Creme de la Creme on another person’s blog, you are not only welcome to submit; you are encouraged. It is the best posts of 2009 for the ALI community and that community includes anyone who writes about infertility, adoption, pregnancy loss, stillbirth, neonatal death, assisted reproduction, pregnancy after infertility or loss, and every related topic–from living child-free after infertility to parenting after infertility. Everyone on the blogroll (or could be on the blogroll) is welcome to participate. Really, you don’t need to be a regular reader of my blog to join in. It’s open to everyone in the ALI blogosphere. I can’t say this in more ways than that. Which means you don’t need to write me a note asking if it’s okay to participate. The answer is yes. Okay?

Actually, it’s not only “yes;” it’s “please do.”

The list will be posted January 1st and I promise that you will use up a good portion of the beginning of the year reading through the most stunning posts you’ve ever seen. We had over 220 posts last year and I’d really like to top that this year. My goal is all 2000+ blogs currently on the blogroll, but barring that, let’s aim for over 300. Which means that not only do you have to participate if you’re reading this, but you need to spread the word and get other bloggers to participate (more on that below). Link to this post, send out a note to other bloggers you like, and suggest favourite posts to bloggers from this past year.

Um…other FAQ-like things:

How many posts can I submit?

You can only submit one. Please don’t submit two and ask me to choose. Submit one.

How will I know that you received my entry?

I will send out a mass email once a day to all of the people who submitted their entry. I use the “bcc” line on the email so that people don’t see each other’s email address. The only drawback is that these emails sometimes go into spam filters. Therefore, once you submit, check your email and spam filter for a day or two. If you don’t hear from me, send me an email if you’re concerned that it didn’t go through. I hate being impersonal like that, but the list took a long time to put together last year hence why I’m starting even earlier this year.

I sent in a post last week but I just wrote one that I love more! Can I switch my submission?

The short answer is no. The reason is that I write up the blurbs that appear next to each entry. This takes a lot of time. When you change your post, I have to write another blurb. Therefore, think carefully. But get your post in early so it’s high up on the list. But take your time picking it so you’re positive it’s the one you want on the list. But don’t give this too much thought…

If you just submitted it an hour earlier and realized you sent the wrong link, email me quickly so I can change it. Once I write the blurb, it’s set. I mean, you can pull your blog from the list, but you can’t submit a different link.

How do I know which one is my best?

Think of this list in sort of the same vein as those “Best American Short Story”-type collections except that it’s blog entries and everyone in the blogosphere should be represented with a link. The idea of the creme de la creme is not to put out there “the best” by someone else’s definition of “best.” It’s to put out the entry that means the most to you. Everyone has a best entry from 2009. It’s the one you would cry about if it was ever eaten by your computer. Even if it’s only meaningful to you.

I’m having a lot of trouble choosing my best one.

Why don’t you give a few choices to a friend and get their opinion? Don’t get hung up on the word “best.” It’s more about presenting a small taste of your blog. A lot of people read the list each January and it’s a chance for them to get to know your blog in one post. The goal, of course, is not only to honour every blog, but to also introduce everyone. Think of it like a cocktail party. You certainly think about what you wear, but everything doesn’t hinge on this one outfit.

I want to submit a post about my dog/favourite recipe/vacation in Hawaii. So…er…it’s not about adoption/infertility/loss. Can I? Or I want to submit a post but it has pictures of my baby in it. Do you think this is okay for an IF list?

Well, this list is sort of a pu-pu platter of the ALI community. Therefore, if your post is about your ski trip last winter, it doesn’t really show any emotion, thought, or event flitting through the community. Still, people have submitted off-topic posts in the past. If you have any part of the post that if ALI-related, all the better though.

The second question is a sensitivity one. Personally, I think that babies are part of the community and territory. The reality is that we’re all working towards parenthood or were once working towards parenthood. And children are included in that. I try to always mention in my blurb if it’s about a baby or if there are photos so people are given a heads up before they click over. So, yes, send posts that have photos in it and I will make sure that people know the gist of the post before they click over if they’re in a sensitive space.

I’m a man. Can I participate?

Are you part of the ALI community? Then didn’t you read above? EVERYONE is invited to participate. Male, female, young, old, married, single, gay, straight, everyone everyone everyone.

I’m a meerkat. Can I participate?

Er…a meerkat with a blog? An infertile meerkat with a blog? I guess…I mean…I did say everyone…

I just started my blog in October. Can I participate?

As long as you’ve had one post in 2009, you can participate. Even if you didn’t start your blog until October 2009. Just choose your best from the last two months.

My blog is password protected. Can I participate?

If your blog is password protected and you want to participate, choose your blog entry and create a free blog at Blogger or WordPress and post that single entry. Then send me the link so I can place it on the list. I can’t link to password protected blogs.

When is the deadline for getting in my submission (and this has changed since last year so pay attention)?

To ensure that you’re on the list on January 1st, please fill out the form by December 15th. If you submit after December 15, you will be on the list, but you will probably go up after people have started reading on January 1st.

The 2009 list doesn’t technically close until March 1, 2010. This is obviously a change from last year.  Instead of being able to submit through the whole year, you can submit to this list for the first two months of the next year and then the list closes.  The reality is that almost everyone had submitted by March in the last few years, and it’s difficult to keep going back and checking on the old sign-up list.  So if you are reading this after March 1 and you’re really upset, I’m sorry, but I promise the list will be back next year for 2010 posts.

So, just to reiterate–(1) if you submit before December 15th, you will be on the list on January 1st. (2) If you submit between December 16th and 31st, you may be on the list January 1st, but more likely, you’ll be on some point after January 1st.  (3) If you submit between January 1st and March 1st, you’ll go up on the list as soon as possible.  And then the list is closed until next year when the new one opens.

Can you post another link to the form right now because I’ve decided to submit.

Sure, here’s another link to the form. Just fill it out and hit send and it will go into the Creme de la Creme spreadsheet.

If you don’t want to participate, do nothing. With the Creme de la Creme List, I never add a blog or highlight a post unless the author has sent it to me. Therefore, no hurt feelings. If your post isn’t on the list, it’s because you haven’t sent one. If you see someone missing from the list after it is posted, go bug them and tell them to submit a post. But don’t send me a note asking me to add them without their permission. I really would like this post to be what the author believes is their best post, but if you are feeling shy and can’t choose, enlist a friend to help you narrow it down and choose your best work.

Lastly, there is another section of the list that needs your help: blogs that closed in 2009. These are blogs that closed entirely–the person stopped blogging and said specifically that they were not going to post any longer–not blogs that went password protected or the person moved their blog to a new space. If you read a blog that closed during 2009, please send me the title of the blog. It doesn’t matter if it was read by one person or read by 5000 people, all blogs should be honoured and recognized. And all blogs stand on the same plateau here.

Spread the word with the following button on a post or your sidebar to encourage others to send a link:

The code for adding the link to your blog can be found here.

Everyone has a best post. It is your personal best. It is not best by any other standard. Stop comparing yourself. Stop feeling shy. Stop thinking it’s immodest to toot your own horn when I’ve told you to toot your own horn. Start reading through your archives. Reflect on the year. And then send me a link for the list.

Wheew. Sorry about that last part. But everyone in the blogosphere should be represented and honoured.