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Interest Haiku #6: Weird Hats
Weird Hats --
Distinguished shark fool
Everyone knows the weird hat guy
Bold heady statement
It's been a while since I did an Interest Haiku. I knew I was on weird hats and wanted to take a picture of me wearing each of my hats. Unfortunately, I've had better uses of my time for the past month, so words will have to suffice for now. But![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mlechan can have a chance to continue our haikualog in the comments section. I encourage other users to start their own Interest Haiku series. It's fun!
As a kid I was a sports geek. I played touch football and Little League and all the rest, but I wasn't especially good. I was a sports geek, not a jock. The position I played best was statistician. Following the Major League Baseball playoffs in 1985, I was excited because there were two bird teams vying for the World Series -- the Blue Jays and the Cardinals. I decided that I wanted both of them to get there, and if they did I wouldn't care who won. As it turned out, the Royals beat the Blue Jays (and subsequently the Cardinals), so I was serendipitously made a long-term Cardinals fan. (Even though I don't follow baseball much anymore, I still root equally for the Cards and the Rockies.) For Halloween of 1987, I was a Cardinals player -- at a baseball card shop we picked up a jersey and a fitted cap which was significantly too large for my head. For the next few years, that hat was inseparable from my head -- except when I was wearing a hat for my Little League team. The hat was loved so much that the sweatband all but came out.
I'm not sure which was my first unusual hat. In 1990 my family took a trip on the scenic Cumbress and Toltec railway and the boys picked up railroad engineer hats (the black white and grey striped numbers), but that's still essentially a ballcap. At some point in middle school, I received a reversible colorful Guatemalan skull cap and my famous winter-warm shark hat. My mom found the former; I selected the latter at Gart Bros. Noticing a trend, my mom not too long thereafter gave me a reversible hat with a brim and a yin-yang skullcap. During my freshmen year of high school, I was in a combined production of Medea and Camelot. I'd seen a wizard's hat on the hat cart on the Pearl St. Mall, but by the time I stopped by to pick it up (so that I'd have it, after lending it to Merlin) someone else had acquired it. But a few months later I got a sleek conical blue hat with stars and moons. I wore that and the shark hat for much of my sophomore year. Matt Sturtz and I developed a little game -- I'd steal some of his fries, he'd grab my hat and stuff it down a hole in the floor. The wizard hat thus cannot stand all the way up anymore and the shark lost an eye. (The other I brushed off several years later.) For my birthday that year I got a brown and orange corduroy floppy jester's cap. I wore that hat during Peace Jam when I met the Dalai Lama. He liked it, reached up, and jingled the bells as I shook his hand. That hat seems to have disappeared after an initiation this May which saddens me greatly -- it was perhaps my favorite hat. That summer at the Colorado Ren Fest, I picked up a velvety beretish hat. This hat has performed well when I needed to look distinguished -- or at least not wear a shark on my head. At some point in High School, my dad recorded Scott Kirby in Columbia, MO and brought back a OSFA Cardinals hat, to replace the Velveteen Bunny of a hat I'd worn in my youth. I like the Cards hat in part because it's got a bill, so it keeps the sun and rain out of my eyes; its tightness can keep my brain focused when working late; and when someone sees me wearing it, they do a double-take, exclaiming "Trevor! That's an odd hat for you!" I think the only interesting hat I got as a high school senior was my graduation cap, which I've worn on occasion since that event.
In August of 1999, my parents traveled to Santa Fe to watch Dialogs of the Carmelites for their 30th Wedding Anniversary. They brought me back a wide-brimmed black hat. Not a cowboy hat, more of a gambler's hat. It's great for dressing up in all black and looking like a shady character. During my sophomore year in college, I was eating lunch at Farrand and a girl came over and said "I have a hat I never wear that I need to give you, but I'm going to Vegas this afternoon. Give me your phone number." I did, but shortly thereafter my phone stopped working for a few weeks. Later in the year, as I exited Crosman after working on a group project, she spotted me and took me upstairs and gave me a green beanie with round frog eyes and a string smile. Total strangers giving me hats; it doesn't get much better than that. My girlfriend junior year had two foldable/formable warm bell-shaped hats and gave me one. It's pretty neat. During senior year, my parents gave me an odd fleece colored tube with dred-like fabric at the top. It's rather difficult to describe. During the following summer, I stopped by The Ritz and picked up a top hat, "Because what am I doing without a top hat?" Aside from the fact that I look like Abe Lincoln in it, the hat makes a rather dashing statement. I wore it at the Tau Beta Pi national convention and got lots of compliments; I've also lounged around the house in nothing but a pair of shorts and a top hat, just for my own private social commentary. This summer I made several acquisitions. At the Ren Fest I picked up a Robin Hood hat (complete with giant plume that got stuck in my backpack zipper a few weeks later). To replace my lost jester's hat I acquired a new one, at McGuckin's Hardware of all places. I don't like this one as much -- it's tighter and not adjustable; the arms are stuffed rather than fluffy. At Dragonfest I picked up a rasta hat; for some reason the ones I'd tried on before didn't fit all of my hair, but this one doesn't have a problem. Last month, while wandering through the CU Bookstore, I found a rack full of odd hats. (I've got a picture I'll post.) I grabbed a warm spiky red/orange/green/black soft hat marked as $8.99 (or $7.99?). When the cashier scanned it it came up as $4.99, I think. So the nifty keen hat, plus a μ-ziq album on sale for 75% off, came to about $8. I'll call that a good deal. Finally, my mom picked up a black witches' hat before Halloween in case she couldn't construct a Welsh hat out of construction paper.
So, I think that's all of the unusual hats I've got. I have, of course, worn other odd things on my head, from stuffed animals to licorice containers, but those are the things which properly classify as hats.
For those who don't know me well, hats are my most distinguishing feature. As I started college, I inserted "weird hats" into my .signature (along with things like computer science, eclectic philosophy, and wits) in the hopes it would help people identify me when meeting face-to-face for the first time. That hope has succeeded amazingly well. Whenever my dad meets someone from CU, the conversation proceeds as follows: "You go to CU? I'll bet you know my son." "Well, it's a big campus, I probably don't..." "Trust me, you probably know him. Long hair, beard, wears a shark hat..." "Oh yeah! I know that guy!" I'm able to make absurdist social commentary merely by walking around. Yet I often forget that I look abnormal (due to my lack of 3rd-person self-image). I tend to forget that I'm wearing a shark on my head and that's pretty weird. But I do get a nice warm feeling inside whenever a little kid gets on the bus or walks by on the sidewalk and tugs on his mom's arm pointing at me.
Distinguished shark fool
Everyone knows the weird hat guy
Bold heady statement
It's been a while since I did an Interest Haiku. I knew I was on weird hats and wanted to take a picture of me wearing each of my hats. Unfortunately, I've had better uses of my time for the past month, so words will have to suffice for now. But
mlechan can have a chance to continue our haikualog in the comments section. I encourage other users to start their own Interest Haiku series. It's fun!As a kid I was a sports geek. I played touch football and Little League and all the rest, but I wasn't especially good. I was a sports geek, not a jock. The position I played best was statistician. Following the Major League Baseball playoffs in 1985, I was excited because there were two bird teams vying for the World Series -- the Blue Jays and the Cardinals. I decided that I wanted both of them to get there, and if they did I wouldn't care who won. As it turned out, the Royals beat the Blue Jays (and subsequently the Cardinals), so I was serendipitously made a long-term Cardinals fan. (Even though I don't follow baseball much anymore, I still root equally for the Cards and the Rockies.) For Halloween of 1987, I was a Cardinals player -- at a baseball card shop we picked up a jersey and a fitted cap which was significantly too large for my head. For the next few years, that hat was inseparable from my head -- except when I was wearing a hat for my Little League team. The hat was loved so much that the sweatband all but came out.
I'm not sure which was my first unusual hat. In 1990 my family took a trip on the scenic Cumbress and Toltec railway and the boys picked up railroad engineer hats (the black white and grey striped numbers), but that's still essentially a ballcap. At some point in middle school, I received a reversible colorful Guatemalan skull cap and my famous winter-warm shark hat. My mom found the former; I selected the latter at Gart Bros. Noticing a trend, my mom not too long thereafter gave me a reversible hat with a brim and a yin-yang skullcap. During my freshmen year of high school, I was in a combined production of Medea and Camelot. I'd seen a wizard's hat on the hat cart on the Pearl St. Mall, but by the time I stopped by to pick it up (so that I'd have it, after lending it to Merlin) someone else had acquired it. But a few months later I got a sleek conical blue hat with stars and moons. I wore that and the shark hat for much of my sophomore year. Matt Sturtz and I developed a little game -- I'd steal some of his fries, he'd grab my hat and stuff it down a hole in the floor. The wizard hat thus cannot stand all the way up anymore and the shark lost an eye. (The other I brushed off several years later.) For my birthday that year I got a brown and orange corduroy floppy jester's cap. I wore that hat during Peace Jam when I met the Dalai Lama. He liked it, reached up, and jingled the bells as I shook his hand. That hat seems to have disappeared after an initiation this May which saddens me greatly -- it was perhaps my favorite hat. That summer at the Colorado Ren Fest, I picked up a velvety beretish hat. This hat has performed well when I needed to look distinguished -- or at least not wear a shark on my head. At some point in High School, my dad recorded Scott Kirby in Columbia, MO and brought back a OSFA Cardinals hat, to replace the Velveteen Bunny of a hat I'd worn in my youth. I like the Cards hat in part because it's got a bill, so it keeps the sun and rain out of my eyes; its tightness can keep my brain focused when working late; and when someone sees me wearing it, they do a double-take, exclaiming "Trevor! That's an odd hat for you!" I think the only interesting hat I got as a high school senior was my graduation cap, which I've worn on occasion since that event.
In August of 1999, my parents traveled to Santa Fe to watch Dialogs of the Carmelites for their 30th Wedding Anniversary. They brought me back a wide-brimmed black hat. Not a cowboy hat, more of a gambler's hat. It's great for dressing up in all black and looking like a shady character. During my sophomore year in college, I was eating lunch at Farrand and a girl came over and said "I have a hat I never wear that I need to give you, but I'm going to Vegas this afternoon. Give me your phone number." I did, but shortly thereafter my phone stopped working for a few weeks. Later in the year, as I exited Crosman after working on a group project, she spotted me and took me upstairs and gave me a green beanie with round frog eyes and a string smile. Total strangers giving me hats; it doesn't get much better than that. My girlfriend junior year had two foldable/formable warm bell-shaped hats and gave me one. It's pretty neat. During senior year, my parents gave me an odd fleece colored tube with dred-like fabric at the top. It's rather difficult to describe. During the following summer, I stopped by The Ritz and picked up a top hat, "Because what am I doing without a top hat?" Aside from the fact that I look like Abe Lincoln in it, the hat makes a rather dashing statement. I wore it at the Tau Beta Pi national convention and got lots of compliments; I've also lounged around the house in nothing but a pair of shorts and a top hat, just for my own private social commentary. This summer I made several acquisitions. At the Ren Fest I picked up a Robin Hood hat (complete with giant plume that got stuck in my backpack zipper a few weeks later). To replace my lost jester's hat I acquired a new one, at McGuckin's Hardware of all places. I don't like this one as much -- it's tighter and not adjustable; the arms are stuffed rather than fluffy. At Dragonfest I picked up a rasta hat; for some reason the ones I'd tried on before didn't fit all of my hair, but this one doesn't have a problem. Last month, while wandering through the CU Bookstore, I found a rack full of odd hats. (I've got a picture I'll post.) I grabbed a warm spiky red/orange/green/black soft hat marked as $8.99 (or $7.99?). When the cashier scanned it it came up as $4.99, I think. So the nifty keen hat, plus a μ-ziq album on sale for 75% off, came to about $8. I'll call that a good deal. Finally, my mom picked up a black witches' hat before Halloween in case she couldn't construct a Welsh hat out of construction paper.
So, I think that's all of the unusual hats I've got. I have, of course, worn other odd things on my head, from stuffed animals to licorice containers, but those are the things which properly classify as hats.
For those who don't know me well, hats are my most distinguishing feature. As I started college, I inserted "weird hats" into my .signature (along with things like computer science, eclectic philosophy, and wits) in the hopes it would help people identify me when meeting face-to-face for the first time. That hope has succeeded amazingly well. Whenever my dad meets someone from CU, the conversation proceeds as follows: "You go to CU? I'll bet you know my son." "Well, it's a big campus, I probably don't..." "Trust me, you probably know him. Long hair, beard, wears a shark hat..." "Oh yeah! I know that guy!" I'm able to make absurdist social commentary merely by walking around. Yet I often forget that I look abnormal (due to my lack of 3rd-person self-image). I tend to forget that I'm wearing a shark on my head and that's pretty weird. But I do get a nice warm feeling inside whenever a little kid gets on the bus or walks by on the sidewalk and tugs on his mom's arm pointing at me.
no subject
Haiku #6: Used bookstores
Distinctive scent of bindings
Second-hand treasure
Your and my mutual love of hats was one of the first things I remember cementing the beginnings of our relationship-- When I called my mother to wish her a happy 4th of July from Perry-Mansfield, and she said that "Kakita Emily" had received a postcard (she knew about the conundrum, I had been pondering it aloud for over a month... You Clever Duck!) and she read me the name at the bottom, the first thing I thought was "hat." And then I slowly fell for you while I was in Steamboat and you in England.
I wondered the entire time how you somehow knew the best way to capture my attention, my affection, and my interest. Later, you told me it was because you were too afraid to talk to me in person, but I don't think that is entirely it... Surely the boy who wore a wizard hat to school wouldn't be afraid to talk to a girl... *wink* I think somewhere a part of you knew exactly how to approach me to show me you were serious. And to also give me no hope of saying anything but yes. I couldn't have refused then, I was far too drawn in. I am so glad you did. *hug*
Re: Haiku #6: Used bookstores
Welcome to the Enigma of Flwyd. I could address several hundred people without preparation and not sweat a bit, but I was quite afraid of talking to people one-on-one... even if it was just a phone call to ask how long a store stayed open.
Maybe my subconscious clued me into you as a person to fall in love with because I could ask you out without talking to you...
the first thing I thought was "hat."
It really is a good hashing function :-)