I'm part of the .002% - I've won a major award!

File this under odd news. This week I was contacted by a woman who told me that I was to receive a diamond jubilee medal. Sorry, Diamond Jubilee Medal. What for? Because of my commitment to promoting Canadian lit to fellow Canadians and the world at large. Well, I'll be.

My first reaction, I'll admit, wasn't one of great honour. I'm a pretty steadfast anti-monarchist (no, I didn't rush out to see Will and Kate when they visited last year) and there were 60,000 of those babies up for grabs-- more than the mintage of some commemorative coins.

I was still going to go and get it, don't get me wrong, but I've had to do some fancy knot-tying in my morals to convince myself I wasn't a hypocrite. Here's how I managed. I discovered that the nomination came from a close friend of mine (who is a monarchist, by the way, proving we can all grow together in a spirit of harmony and peace). He felt what I was doing with my blog was worth recognition and so it would have been pretty ungrateful for me to decline. I joked that I would show up in a Sex Pistols t-shirt but in the end settled for a tie. But again, all for my friend. Right.

I also decided that while I don't like all the pomp and circumstance surrounding the royals— as a former catering staff I once refused to serve Adrienne Clarkson's table because I wouldn't bow to her— I kind of like the Diamond Jubilee Medal. I know of course that it was merely an attempt to keep the Queen relevant, but the idea of Canadians celebrating in each others' accomplishments is nice. Something we should have been doing without the Queen, but nice nonetheless. (We'll ignore all those controversial nominations for the sake of this post.)

According to the speech that was read for me, I was honoured for the Canadian Book Challenge, my blog in general, my contributions to Canadian lit discussions, and my appearance on CBC's Canada Reads... um, what? I think they must have meant when I was a panelist for the National Post's Canada Also Reads, but close enough.

Here's a few poor quality photos that even Instagram couldn't shiny up:

Accepting my medal from premier Bob McLeod

With the premier and my MLA, Wendy Bisaro

I wasn't the only one?! (A full list of the Yellowknifers who received a medal yesterday can be found here.)

Must be a better way to add that baby to the blog banner

Making peace

The heft of my hypocrisy

Smile!

Okay, my friend made me take this one. I swear!