Raging Lovelies–On the Occasion that You Need Early Lily Trivia

Dear Lily June,

I looked up the word “lovely” today. It can mean “attractive or beautiful, especially in a graceful way.” It can mean “very good or likeable.” It can mean “very pleasing.” It’s also, apparently, an “unincorporated community” in Martin County, Kentucky. If you were going to throw a rock at which of these definitions most paralleled with your mother, I think you’d be more likely to strike Kentucky than anything else.

Or maybe I’m like my earworm for the day, the Lovely Rita of Beatles fame, who, though sarcastically beloved, looks just slightly like an old, military man:

Once, feeling very deep in middle school and deciding to describe my own penchant for pessimism and negativity, I wrote the following (ridiculous!) haiku autobiography:

I don’t use the words

‘exquisite’ or ‘spectacu-

lar’ very often.

Lovely, I feel like, may as well have been tacked right in. It’s one of those words that, unless I’m feeling snarktastic, rarely enters my vocabulary. To date, in fact, I think the only time I can remember saying the word out loud is when I used to teach creative writing classes at the University of Alabama, and I got a pack of students who followed me from course to course. They were a pack of passionate, sarcastic little shavers, and I referred to them affectionately as my “Raging Lovelies.”

So imagine my surprise when, a cool three months ago, someone somewhere (thought I forgot, didn’t you Shay-lon?) called this blog lovely.

Ta-Da! Extraordinarily lovely badge taken from capturedwanderlust.

It makes sense, of course, only because she wasn’t calling ME, your cantankerous old mother, lovely but rather, the place where I celebrate and commemorate the best moments of YOU, Lily June. So, as you’re currently incredibly busy snuggling next to your father in your “oh-buh” (robe, sans the -r, which you can’t pronounce yet) and daydreaming about the best possible thing you can think of–a doggie emerging from inside of a pumpkin (aka “pumba”)–I’m happy to accept the award on your behalf.

***

The Rules:

• Thank the blogger who nominated you and link back to them (Oh, hello again, Shay-lon. Lily June and I thank you!)
• Share 7 facts about yourself. (See below.)
• Nominate at least 10 bloggers you admire and contact them to let them know. (See below below.)

Facts about YOU, Lily June at 17 months:

1. You reside in Muncie (pronounced Mun-see), Indiana, a town so “lovely” the college locals have dubbed it FUNCIE in a way that I’m sure is not ironic. At all.

Jim Davis, creator of Garfield, hails from here. It explains a lot about the life of Jon Arbuckle.

2. Though your mother is a cat person, you wholeheartedly favor dogs (pronounced daaaaaawwwww-Gie). This is a new development–so new, in fact, that Santa may have accidentally procured a lot of presents pertaining to your old favorite, ducks. Forgive him, Lily June. He’s an old, doddering fool.

3. You and I have started throwing 30 second dance parties, a la Grey’s Anatomy. Seems to ward off biting, tantrums, and an abysmal future of rhythmlessness.

4. You are officially, at my date of writing this, 528 days (and some 15 hours) old. According to some (mad) scientists, listening to the 528 Hz frequency can actually repair DNA damage and miraculously clean oil spills. So there you go, kiddo. There you go.

5. You call every beverage milk (pronounced “malk”). Plain water. Flavored water. Actual milk. I recognize this phenomenon, as where your parents once lived in the South, waiters called every beverage “Coke.” What flavor Coke do you want? they’d ask. Mountain Dew, you’d respond. And you’d get Mountain Dew. Seriously.

6. While you’ll try anything, your favorite food is unquestionably mac and cheese. When I  want you to eat your veggies? I mix them in with mac and cheese. It’s all mac and cheese to you.

7. Your favorite way to play at the park is to pick up the ball your dad and I kick or throw back and forth to one another and run away with it. It’s like Monkey in the Middle, only reversed, and the Monkey is more like the Hamburglar stealing a quarter pounder. Now THAT’S lovely.

And The Nominees Are…

1. Bonnywood Manor–I don’t want to oversell this, so I’ll just say this is THE FUNNIEST BLOG I’VE EVER READ IN MY LIFE. Simple as that.
2. Elle Thinks–Authors of the world, take note: The Pulitzer is outmoded. You should now all be competing for a good Elle review.
3. My Journey through the Best Presidential Biographies–If you’ve written a presidential biography, though, Stephen Floyd is the name to know…and to impress.
4. Crone–I literally only just discovered this blog, but the writing is completely spelling-binding. This is going to become one of my favorites in short order.
5. The PostModerate–Here’s another blogger I hope will come out of hiding. I don’t always agree with him, but I respect the hell out of his approach to politics.
6. Maelancholy–They say that brevity is the soul of wit. Suffice it to say, Mae can be quite brief. Quite brief indeed.
7. Perpetually Autistic–The newest from a woman-called-jack, a staunch and articulate advocate for those with bipolar disorder and those on the spectrum.
8. A Momma’s View–You ever read one of those blogs and think, I should be spending WAY more time here? This is that blog for me. I just haven’t gotten there yet.
9. Flingo–I might repeat #8, only it seems she hasn’t written much lately. Maybe this award will coax her out of hiding?
10. Becoming Unstuck–Pocket-sized poems and prose that often pack quite a punch. What Dickinson might read if she were on the blogosphere.

May you all feel as lovely, and beloved, as you truly are!

***

Picture Credits:

• By Alistair Paterson Dave Keeshan Petra – Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/alpat/5399696664, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40422548
• https://capturedwanderlust.com/2014/10/26/lovely-blog-award-nomination-acceptance/
• By http://maps.bpl.org – Muncie, IndianaUploaded by tm, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27808093