5.27.2010

I Gracelessly Accept: Hibernian Homme Awards Me with the Beautiful Blogger Award

Hibernian Homme, one of my favorite places to stop and chat awhile, has awarded me with the Beautiful Blogger Award -- rules stipulate that I tell you seven things about me that you may not already know.

I look something like this guy in an Hermes ad, but less dramatic. And I also emerged from the prairie, entire:



I share one trait with Michael Jackson.



Rhythm? Uh, no. No, it's not a penchant for asymmetrical glitterwear or an interest in Disney -- I have vitiligo, a disorder that causes depigmentation of the skin. Luckily, I've lived most of my life with only a pair of dime-sized white spots on my feet, in the form of a polka dot on each side of my ankles. When I was a kid, I realized the resemblance to the scar on Achilles, and it stopped bothering me.



I have way too many tchotkes. I can't help myself! But they're all so good. And I really don't dust enough ... wait, this is getting too confessional. Ah, well. I know I'm not alone in my slovenly housekeeping, right? Right?



(Note: dust)

And three anecdotes from childhood:

1. I was removed from Miss Gabor's kindergarten class one morning after drawing anatomically correct men and women picking flowers in a field, nude. Other artistic gems of the period: after being asked to decorate the class bulletin board, I produced a large composition of weeping men and women, also nude, in collage of construction paper. And to this day my mother keeps, carefully fitted into a drawer full of jewelry, a portrait I did of her head literally exploding in anger. She looks like a fire cracker or a comet. Childhood is such a volatile time.

2. My father read me The Secret Garden about seven million times, including once on a very long train trip, where we rented the caboose cabin, with beds that popped from walls and its own tiny bath. I'll never forget him reading to me in the observation car, set with glass walls, and the prairie sailing by.

3. When I was very small, just outside my bedroom (which had walls upholstered in a thick canvas in a horizontal orange stripe, with matching campaign chairs, natch) my parents kept a large cage full of house finches. How I loved those finches -- they would build nests from millet, have young and teach them how to fly. It was amazing. We had a whole colony. My dad built the cage as a present for my mother when they were first married and moved to Chicago.

When drunk, I have an odd penchant for acrobatics, alla Holiday:



I'm quite happy with my life, but if I had to live in celluloid, subject to a flickering silver light, I would choose to spend eternity here, in Jules et Jim:



Was ever anything more delicious?

8 comments:

P.Gaye Tapp at Little Augury said...

Jules et Jim, Hibernian Homme, all so charming,as is this beautiful post, a wonderful childhood, likely spent shedding your clothes about the house. Children are so smart-they love to do that. pgt

hand pecked debb said...

I love that rabbit head. Something incredibly beautiful about a pottery that can show it's age with the cracks it accumulates.

Carmen said...

Remember our sleepover at Miss Gabor's? The 80's were so care free.

Nick Heywood said...

Carmen,

Yes! I do remember that night. I remember there was a park next to her house, and we spent a lot of time collecting cassette tape reels that were scattered all over the place, thinking they were so beautiful.

Do you remember Miss Butler? I remembered yesterday that her boyfriend would usually hang out in the back of class, and she never really did much teaching, just chatting with him. And then he proposed! In class! My little 1st grade heart could barely handle it.

But I'm so pleased you remember our night at Miss Gabor's.

Carmen said...

I remember attempting to ride a toy spring horse backwards because I saw it on a movie. Of course I fell off and I was really embarrassed.

I had Miss Johnson for first grade. She was harsh. Definitely no boyfriends hanging around our class.

I still ride my bike passed Oscar Mayer and think about the smell of the kindergarten room. It smelled like sour milk. I also remember watching Harold Washington's funeral.

DM said...

Oh Nick, these are above and beyond! We have many similarites! I drew racy pictures of centaurs and centaur maidens in 1st grade. The accompanying stories would always end in divorce and suicide.

Victoria Thorne said...

this is just absolutely the best, and the bit about your acrobats/Holiday is perfectly magnificent...

Anonymous said...

I'd love to see what he sees below.

-Zane of ontario honey

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Thanks for commenting on Nick Haus! I look forward to seeing what you have to say. Unfortunately, I had to stop taking Anonymous comments -- too much spam, too much vituperative. Come out from behind the curtain, ye nasty Anonymous! Everyone else, please, I love to hear from you.

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