hogglestock

 
First the two awards:

Too long ago, Amanda over at The Blog Jar gave me this award:

Which I only remembered because recently Matt at A Guy’s Moleskine Notebook gave me this award:

Now, the Tale of the Naughty Blogger:

I never followed up on the responsibilities of winning an award with Amanda months ago, and I can tell already I am probably never going to get around to living up to the expectations of Matt’s award. My reasons could probably be summarized in one word (laziness), but they also have more than a casual relationship with my twin quirks (mental defects) of not wanting anyone to tell me what to do, and fear of rejection. So rather than play by the rules of the respective awards, I am just going to tell you what I like about each Awarder. This means I am not going to tag others for either award (that is where the fear of rejection comes in…). The tagging part also troubles me because there are sooo many blogs that I love I don’t like choosing and from time to time I do recognize other blogs on My Porch in relation to a specific topic.

Amanda at The Blog Jar
Not only do I love Amanda because she reads interesting fiction with a focus on the classics, but also because she really tells it like it is. On books and on life you always get an honest take on things with a lot of natural, unforced humor. I also find her enthusiasm for life—even when things aren’t going perfectly for her—refreshing. And she has creativity in her bones. Here is the bridal bouquet she made for herself for her recent wedding:

I know it is easy in the blogosphere to assign probably inaccurate personalities to people you have never met, but Amanda strikes me as someone who I would love to sit and have a cocoa with (I hate coffee) and we would end up laughing our heads off.

Matt at A Guy’s Moleskine Notebook
Right off the bat I was drawn to Matt’s blog because I love Moleskine notebooks of every shape and size. I think I probably have about seven of them around here. In fact, I can see three of them from where I am sitting right now. I have this dream that I will fill them with interesting and artistic things. The only problem is that these days most of my interesting things are memorialized on this blog or in some other digital form. And I have terrible handwriting so it feels like I am defiling the lovely Moleskine products. Matt on the other hand has amazing handwriting (and that avocado sandwich looks good as well):

Beyond the title of Matt’s blog I am impressed with its organization and his book review rating system: [Read/Skim/Toss] and [Buy/Borrow]. But none of that would matter if I didn’t enjoy his point of view and the fact that we have some reading interests in common including Forster, Waugh, Isherwood and GLBT fiction, which, frankly for me at least is really just G. I’ve read a bit of L in my life but I have never read any B or T that I know of. Many of the popular G he has been reading lately is stuff I read a long time ago, so it is great to get reacquainted with them. And then of course there is classic G which Forster, Waugh, and Isherwood would all fit into to various degrees. (I think Waugh’s uber-Catholicism was a big ol’ pile of repressed homosexuality, but that is a topic for another post.)

So hopefully my Awarders Matt and Amanda won’t mind that this Awardee couldn’t play by the rules.