You know that point you reach when you have been on holidays for far too long and you realize you wasted a good month or so of your life on Facebook or playing Word Bubbles? The point is usually woefully close to the return of uni/work and is undoubtedly accompanied by the feelings of guilt and gluttony (my second favourite of the deadly seven, after Sloth...)
I reached that point about two days ago. To cure my feelings of guilt and gluttony (The post-holiday GGs as I would now like to call them) I made myself a Bucket List, or as I am calling it, My August Rush.
My August Rush is a list of all the things I would like to accomplish by the end of the month (The August month, obviously. Not the July month...) Why am i sharing this with you, the people? You the internet?* Because this GG has got to go, from my bedroom, from my life, and from yours too! There's lessons to be had! Fun to share, time better used than on Facebook!
So I challenge y'all (yeah, I said 'y'all...jealous?) to jump on this bendy little bandwagon with me and make your own August Rush!
Right...enough soapboxing (I would like to think that 'soapboxing' is a bit of a mixture of lecturing, dropping the soap and punching, all at once), here it is...
My August Rush
A list of 31 things to do in 31 days
1. Walk 100kms (not all at once! yikes!)
2. Have a dinner party
3. Write four poems (hopefully lewd and not the least bit publishable)
4. Write a song
5. Write four narrative-related somethings
6. Eat no fast food (with an exception of the 24 hours surrounding Sleazeball)
7. Read a book on the BBC Classics List
8. Listen to a new show
9. Learn to make lasagne
10. Go on a hiking/walking/Jane adventure (note: Jane will accompany me on said adventure. jane herself is not the adventure...or...)
11. Make someone a care package
12. Randomly give balloons to someone
13. Bake a loaf of Gluten Free bread
14. Send at least 5 letters
15. Visit a friend in Melbourne
16. Clean my room every week
17. Get up before 8am every day for a week
18. Read a Marvel Comic
19. Learn 100 words in Auslan
20. Make a bet for money
21. Have a bath every week (for relaxation purposes. Not for hygiene)
22. Have a tea party
23. Have a craftanoon
24. Change the lyrics to a song in 'Nine' (hopefully to something lewd and unpublishable)
25. Read at least 5 plays
26. Go to a yoga class
27. Go to a pilates class
28. Watch a film in another language
29. Learn Pi to 50 digits (because I'm just that cool!)
30. Walk to uni
31. Blog about this list (Ha! Already started that one! bazinga!)
So there you go! This is my Uptempo Bandwagon (It's not really...I'm looking for that word that means doing things by your own steam...but 'uptempo' is the only word popping into my brain...curse you, malapropisms!!
Go ahead, make your own! (you can make my day while you're at it, if you like!)
:-)
*I'm so sorry. But I had to...
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
That Obligatory Insipid Inspirational Blog Post
We interrupt your scheduled viewing for this brief (well...when are blog posts ever brief, really?) announcement.
I am growing a backbone.
I'm not sure if I'm a believer in fate. I'm a bit of a fence sitter, I suppose you could say. Sometimes things happen for a reason and sometimes things just happen. Sometimes you win the lottery and sometimes you step out of your house into a pile of doggy doo.
And sometimes your body decides to break up with you.
My body and I have been going through a tough divorce since 2007, when I got a really bad bout of glandular fever (which was not helped by the fact that I was doing a show at the time and the producers would not put my understudy on stage. Sometimes, it doesn't do well to grin and bear it. People REALLY don't understand how sick you are) Anyway, in the June/July holidays of 2007, my body had an affair with Mono. A short affair, but one that would continue to have devastating effects to our relationship.
Mono kept knocking at my body's door while I went to work, sneaking in and changing the sheets so that I wouldn't find any trace of my body's infidelity when I got home. In the end, unable to find the glandular fever, thanks to its tricksy cleaning up ability (CSI should have been on the case, I swear the damned thing had superior crime-scene sweeping skills) I went into a whole lot of ouchy, pokey needle tests, eventuating in a couple of radioactive trips to the hospital to sweep through my middle east in search of concealed WMDs in the form of lymphoma.
Luckily, as it turned out, there were no such WMDs in my body. (Although my brother had prepared me for cancer by taking me hat shopping and assuring me that like Delta Goodrem, I too could make a career out of bald-girl singing) Just glandular fever. A mutated strain, apparently, that snuck in while I was hard at work and fucked my body just as hard. Pleasant imagery, no?
Fast forward a year or so (it was just after our second-honeymoon phase of the relationship; the make-up sex was beautiful) and once again, it was apparent that my body was being unfaithful. Squishy knee, an old girlfriend injury of my body (it was a long story involving year 12 camp, a WWII truck and my inability to inform people of my injuries, just in case that meant I, in turn, had to ask for help...) turned up on my doorstep, bringing with her a strange and seemingly unrelated case of coeliacs disease. They camped in my temple for a while (I can use temple as a metaphor here, right? My body is a temple and so on? Well, my body is more like government housing, but that's beside the point...) bringing with them new and interesting symptoms as the year (well, two years, actually) progressed.
The interesting symptoms have a name, apparently, as I have come to learn. Fibromyalgia. Look it up. It's like ramalamadingdong or Hakuna Matata. Means absolute diddly-squat, but it's the diagnosis you get when you're tired, ouchy, can't feel your feet and aren't pregnant. (and let me tell you, I am definitely not pregnant)
So here I am, second year of university in a city 2000km away from the only people I can complain to all the time without worrying that I'm annoying them (Oh, I know that I am annoying them, but I just don't have to worry about it. They're family. They can't escape me!), stuck with a knee that dislocates every two weeks, purple feet that have no feeling, hips that click, a back that is so knotted that it's difficult to tell where the bones are, ouchy joints, black fingers, a flailing left arm, permanently swollen tonsils and a stomach that doesn't like wheat, red meat or milk.
So, in total Plato style, we're getting a divorce. (Ok, not total Plato style...he didn't mean it quite like I mean it, but my still...my mind and my body are parting. And I want alimony!)
Anyway, to come back to the fate and doggy doo part of the blog post (and the inspirational bit, I suppose...I can't imagine a history of my illness has been particularly inspirational to anyone) I have been trying to come to terms with my exciting array of disorders with varying levels of success. The main problem being that I really don't like to talk about myself. ('That's not possible!' I hear you say. 'You're Bekki Adams. You talk till the cows come home'. Fact. But not about me, and more specifically, not about the things I don't like about me) Instead, I like to project myself onto others, and not in that Mandy Moore 'A Walk to Remember' kind of way either. I make craft. I like craft. Craft is my zen place.
(I'm going to post a lot more blog entries about craft and all the things I have made, but that's for laterz.)
I've lost my point again. Oh, right. Somehow, in the last few years, I've lost my nerve. I don't talk to people about what I need, or what I want from people. I've lost the ability to say no and that ability to ask. Ask for favours, ask for opinions, ask for help...
All, in all, I lost my backbone.
And then, I did. Literally.
After the semester of physical hell, going from ouch-land to tear-town and back again, I finally allowed myself to settle down and rest for the holidays. I lasted a day. One day, before disaster struck in the name of my backbone.
I slipped two discs in my back on the first day of holidays.
Now, as I said before, I don't really know how I feel about fate. I'm not sure if all things happen for a reason. But I'm pretty sure this happened for a reason.
The wife (She's not really my wife, for anyone who doesn't know her, but she may as well be) and I were watching 'Under the Tuscan Sun' last night, after a beautiful day in Melbourne) and suddenly it hit me, when the bird pooped on Diane Lane and the old Italian lady started yelling "Segno! Segno!" My life, by means of injury (really, the only way it speaks to me anymore) was giving me my own segno. The segno in the film was my own segno. I need to grow back my backbone.
There were other segnos in the last few days. We went to see 'City of Angels' yesterday (ps: well done, VCA, jolly good show and all that!!!) and I was nearly brought to tears by 'You Can Always Count On Me' (the tears were not exactly spontaneous music theatre tears. More like spontaneous codeine tears, but still...I was moved...)
If you need a gal
To go without sal'ry and work too hard
You can always count on me
The kind of a pal
Who'd sneak you a file past the prison guard
Loyal to the "nth" degree
Ok, so I've never snuck a file to a prison guard exactly, but you know...I'm spineless when it comes to that kind of stuff. I once wrote a friend's essay in return for nutella on toast (and the toast wasn't even gluten-free!) I have absolutely no ability to say no, even if the cost to me is completely above and beyond the gain to the other person. Backbone. Need. I. A.
Segno Numero Tre (I'm counting Segno Uno as Segno Segno and Segno Due as Segno City of Angels) was a Doctor Who quiz. Yes, I know, now I'm reading too much into things, but bear with me! (Raaarr...) The question in question was "If you could change one thing in your life, you would..." and the answers to choose from were beautiful, ranging from 'be happy' to 'not be afraid to love' (don't get me started on that one :-D ) and all the lovely things in between. And what did I choose? 'Ask Twice'. Out of everything I want from life, I want to be able to ask twice. Actually, in most cases, I want to be able to ask once, but seriously...that's what I want? In short...yes.
So here I am. Physically unable to do anything much for myself. I have no choice now but to ask. I have to ask for help with everything. Getting out of my car, cleaning my room, opening the oven...luckily I have my wife, who I know would do anything for me (as she knows I would for her) but she has never been the problem. I have to learn to ask now. I have to explain to people what's wrong with me. Not everything, but when I drop my keys and can't pick them up, I have to ask whoever is next to me to pick them up for me, and then explain why.
My body needs to grow its backbone. And in doing so, is forcing the rest of me.
You know how sometimes, relationships go through that tough phase where one person tries to make the other one better by sending them to school, or by putting them in difficult situations to prove that they are strong enough to get through them? I think that's what's happening here. My body is making my soul grow a backbone.
Maybe we don't need that divorce after all. Just some severe marriage counseling.
To that end, (cue in the inspirational part of the blog) I am hereby growing myself an emotional backbone. I will...
1. Not be afraid to say no. Just because someone needs something, doesn't mean I have to be the one to do it. Particularly if the other person can do it themselves and is only asking me because they know I will do it for them. I shalt not fall prey to manipulative persons. I am allowed to put myself first. It doesn't make me a horrible human. It just makes me human.
2. Not be afraid to ask. Just because I'm going to start saying no, doesn't mean everyone else is going to say no all the time. And I don't have to feel bad about it. If someone asks whether I need to use them as a crutch (note crutch, not crotch) I can say yes and not feel bad that I am using them. And not just with my back. Sometimes I need help. Sometimes I need to talk. Sometimes I need hugs. And asking for them doesn't make me weak or manipulative. It makes me human
3. Accept offers. If someone wants to drive me somewhere, say yes! If someone wants to do something nice, say yes. If I'm not saying yes all the time for other people's benefit, I should at least use the word for my own. People are kind. In the last week, people other than just my wife have made beautiful offers to make my life easier. Say yes. It doesn't make me weak. It doesn't make me indebted to them. It makes me human! (and it means I can craft them a present later! Woohood!)
4. Ask twice. And know that when the answer is still 'no' that it is not something I can control. And move on.
So that's it. I'm growing a backbone. I'm learning to be my own woman and I'm not letting people walk over me. And I'm not letting me walk all over me either
...which is handy, really, because at the moment, I can't walk at all...
I am growing a backbone.
I'm not sure if I'm a believer in fate. I'm a bit of a fence sitter, I suppose you could say. Sometimes things happen for a reason and sometimes things just happen. Sometimes you win the lottery and sometimes you step out of your house into a pile of doggy doo.
And sometimes your body decides to break up with you.
My body and I have been going through a tough divorce since 2007, when I got a really bad bout of glandular fever (which was not helped by the fact that I was doing a show at the time and the producers would not put my understudy on stage. Sometimes, it doesn't do well to grin and bear it. People REALLY don't understand how sick you are) Anyway, in the June/July holidays of 2007, my body had an affair with Mono. A short affair, but one that would continue to have devastating effects to our relationship.
Mono kept knocking at my body's door while I went to work, sneaking in and changing the sheets so that I wouldn't find any trace of my body's infidelity when I got home. In the end, unable to find the glandular fever, thanks to its tricksy cleaning up ability (CSI should have been on the case, I swear the damned thing had superior crime-scene sweeping skills) I went into a whole lot of ouchy, pokey needle tests, eventuating in a couple of radioactive trips to the hospital to sweep through my middle east in search of concealed WMDs in the form of lymphoma.
Luckily, as it turned out, there were no such WMDs in my body. (Although my brother had prepared me for cancer by taking me hat shopping and assuring me that like Delta Goodrem, I too could make a career out of bald-girl singing) Just glandular fever. A mutated strain, apparently, that snuck in while I was hard at work and fucked my body just as hard. Pleasant imagery, no?
Fast forward a year or so (it was just after our second-honeymoon phase of the relationship; the make-up sex was beautiful) and once again, it was apparent that my body was being unfaithful. Squishy knee, an old girlfriend injury of my body (it was a long story involving year 12 camp, a WWII truck and my inability to inform people of my injuries, just in case that meant I, in turn, had to ask for help...) turned up on my doorstep, bringing with her a strange and seemingly unrelated case of coeliacs disease. They camped in my temple for a while (I can use temple as a metaphor here, right? My body is a temple and so on? Well, my body is more like government housing, but that's beside the point...) bringing with them new and interesting symptoms as the year (well, two years, actually) progressed.
The interesting symptoms have a name, apparently, as I have come to learn. Fibromyalgia. Look it up. It's like ramalamadingdong or Hakuna Matata. Means absolute diddly-squat, but it's the diagnosis you get when you're tired, ouchy, can't feel your feet and aren't pregnant. (and let me tell you, I am definitely not pregnant)
So here I am, second year of university in a city 2000km away from the only people I can complain to all the time without worrying that I'm annoying them (Oh, I know that I am annoying them, but I just don't have to worry about it. They're family. They can't escape me!), stuck with a knee that dislocates every two weeks, purple feet that have no feeling, hips that click, a back that is so knotted that it's difficult to tell where the bones are, ouchy joints, black fingers, a flailing left arm, permanently swollen tonsils and a stomach that doesn't like wheat, red meat or milk.
So, in total Plato style, we're getting a divorce. (Ok, not total Plato style...he didn't mean it quite like I mean it, but my still...my mind and my body are parting. And I want alimony!)
Anyway, to come back to the fate and doggy doo part of the blog post (and the inspirational bit, I suppose...I can't imagine a history of my illness has been particularly inspirational to anyone) I have been trying to come to terms with my exciting array of disorders with varying levels of success. The main problem being that I really don't like to talk about myself. ('That's not possible!' I hear you say. 'You're Bekki Adams. You talk till the cows come home'. Fact. But not about me, and more specifically, not about the things I don't like about me) Instead, I like to project myself onto others, and not in that Mandy Moore 'A Walk to Remember' kind of way either. I make craft. I like craft. Craft is my zen place.
(I'm going to post a lot more blog entries about craft and all the things I have made, but that's for laterz.)
I've lost my point again. Oh, right. Somehow, in the last few years, I've lost my nerve. I don't talk to people about what I need, or what I want from people. I've lost the ability to say no and that ability to ask. Ask for favours, ask for opinions, ask for help...
All, in all, I lost my backbone.
And then, I did. Literally.
After the semester of physical hell, going from ouch-land to tear-town and back again, I finally allowed myself to settle down and rest for the holidays. I lasted a day. One day, before disaster struck in the name of my backbone.
I slipped two discs in my back on the first day of holidays.
Now, as I said before, I don't really know how I feel about fate. I'm not sure if all things happen for a reason. But I'm pretty sure this happened for a reason.
The wife (She's not really my wife, for anyone who doesn't know her, but she may as well be) and I were watching 'Under the Tuscan Sun' last night, after a beautiful day in Melbourne) and suddenly it hit me, when the bird pooped on Diane Lane and the old Italian lady started yelling "Segno! Segno!" My life, by means of injury (really, the only way it speaks to me anymore) was giving me my own segno. The segno in the film was my own segno. I need to grow back my backbone.
There were other segnos in the last few days. We went to see 'City of Angels' yesterday (ps: well done, VCA, jolly good show and all that!!!) and I was nearly brought to tears by 'You Can Always Count On Me' (the tears were not exactly spontaneous music theatre tears. More like spontaneous codeine tears, but still...I was moved...)
If you need a gal
To go without sal'ry and work too hard
You can always count on me
The kind of a pal
Who'd sneak you a file past the prison guard
Loyal to the "nth" degree
Ok, so I've never snuck a file to a prison guard exactly, but you know...I'm spineless when it comes to that kind of stuff. I once wrote a friend's essay in return for nutella on toast (and the toast wasn't even gluten-free!) I have absolutely no ability to say no, even if the cost to me is completely above and beyond the gain to the other person. Backbone. Need. I. A.
Segno Numero Tre (I'm counting Segno Uno as Segno Segno and Segno Due as Segno City of Angels) was a Doctor Who quiz. Yes, I know, now I'm reading too much into things, but bear with me! (Raaarr...) The question in question was "If you could change one thing in your life, you would..." and the answers to choose from were beautiful, ranging from 'be happy' to 'not be afraid to love' (don't get me started on that one :-D ) and all the lovely things in between. And what did I choose? 'Ask Twice'. Out of everything I want from life, I want to be able to ask twice. Actually, in most cases, I want to be able to ask once, but seriously...that's what I want? In short...yes.
So here I am. Physically unable to do anything much for myself. I have no choice now but to ask. I have to ask for help with everything. Getting out of my car, cleaning my room, opening the oven...luckily I have my wife, who I know would do anything for me (as she knows I would for her) but she has never been the problem. I have to learn to ask now. I have to explain to people what's wrong with me. Not everything, but when I drop my keys and can't pick them up, I have to ask whoever is next to me to pick them up for me, and then explain why.
My body needs to grow its backbone. And in doing so, is forcing the rest of me.
You know how sometimes, relationships go through that tough phase where one person tries to make the other one better by sending them to school, or by putting them in difficult situations to prove that they are strong enough to get through them? I think that's what's happening here. My body is making my soul grow a backbone.
Maybe we don't need that divorce after all. Just some severe marriage counseling.
To that end, (cue in the inspirational part of the blog) I am hereby growing myself an emotional backbone. I will...
1. Not be afraid to say no. Just because someone needs something, doesn't mean I have to be the one to do it. Particularly if the other person can do it themselves and is only asking me because they know I will do it for them. I shalt not fall prey to manipulative persons. I am allowed to put myself first. It doesn't make me a horrible human. It just makes me human.
2. Not be afraid to ask. Just because I'm going to start saying no, doesn't mean everyone else is going to say no all the time. And I don't have to feel bad about it. If someone asks whether I need to use them as a crutch (note crutch, not crotch) I can say yes and not feel bad that I am using them. And not just with my back. Sometimes I need help. Sometimes I need to talk. Sometimes I need hugs. And asking for them doesn't make me weak or manipulative. It makes me human
3. Accept offers. If someone wants to drive me somewhere, say yes! If someone wants to do something nice, say yes. If I'm not saying yes all the time for other people's benefit, I should at least use the word for my own. People are kind. In the last week, people other than just my wife have made beautiful offers to make my life easier. Say yes. It doesn't make me weak. It doesn't make me indebted to them. It makes me human! (and it means I can craft them a present later! Woohood!)
4. Ask twice. And know that when the answer is still 'no' that it is not something I can control. And move on.
So that's it. I'm growing a backbone. I'm learning to be my own woman and I'm not letting people walk over me. And I'm not letting me walk all over me either
...which is handy, really, because at the moment, I can't walk at all...
Monday, May 24, 2010
Childhood Conditioning and the Rise of the Ranga
Do you ever have one of those moments where you realize that your childhood has conditioned you in a certain way to believe something that you later discover isn't true?
Take the icecream truck for instance. For as long as I can remember, the sound of those dinging bells or Greensleeves has always meant one thing and one thing only; The Bring Out Your Dead Van. Now, to most children, these sounds unmistakeably signal the possibility of icecream. But for my brothers and I there was only the Bring Out Your Dead Van.
Those avid Monty Python lovers among you would know exactly what I am refering to; the scene in Monty Python's The Holy Grail, where a filthy man pushing an equally filthy cart strolls through the town gonging a bell and shouting "Bring out your dead!" The people in the town present their plague-ridden kin and load them onto the cart to be taken away for burial.
For the first ten years of my life, I was conditioned to believe that that was the gonging sound I heard every now and then on a hot summer's day. Not icecream, but the gonging of the Bring Out Your Dead Van, trundling along my street looking for dead civilians to cart away.
My parents thought this was a bit of a laugh. We weren't the richest of families and to be honest, it was a great way of sidestepping the old "Mum, can I have an icecream? Pleeeeeease?" that most parents had to put up with upon the gonging of the icecream van. In fact, to most parents, I'm sure the icecream van really was something of a Bring Out Your Dead Van, or "Bring out your paycheck" at least...which to some, really is the same thing.
But boy were my parents sneaky. How amusing they must have found it, that all three of their little conditioned minions shouted "bring out your dead!" before promptly running away every time the icecream van showed up. Clever indeed. Until of course we poor guinea pigs discovered the truth.
I was ten and spending the day at my best friend Elle's house, when the icecream van showed up. "Bring out your dead!" I shouted and promptly ran away. My childhood BFF laughed at me and asked what on earth I was doing. How did she not know? Had her parents not explained to her what that van was?
In short...yes they had. But they, unlike my sneaky parents, had explained the truth of that van, and on more than once occasion bought her icecream from it. Imagine my surprise! Instead of plague victims there was dessert? It was a day of miracles. And then, just to rub the salt in (not to mention the sugar) they bought me an icecream.
As you can imagine, my parents never heard the end of it.
But it got me thinking. Just how much of our childhood is conditioned in that way? We are brought up to think so many things are normal, when in fact, they are just the opposite.
Which brings me to rangas. Gingers. Redheads.
I'm turning 21 in less than two weeks, and for my party in my new home, I decided to go retro and celebrate the tv characters that affected my childhood. So, I snooped around the internet, looking for the perfect 90s cartoon character to dress up as, and what did I find?
Rangas. Hundreds of them.
You would think that in a world where redheads represent less than 10 percent of the population (I am totally making this statistic up, but it's got to be close) children's tv would reflect it. Wrong. Completely and utterly wrong! In fact, gingernuts seem to dominate children's tv. Let me give yo ua small list off the top of my head.
Postman Pat
Madeline
Pepper-Ann
Tintin
Wheeler from Captain Planet
Pippy Long Stocking
Wilma Flintstone
The Little Mermaid
Jane Jetson
Daphne from Scooby Doo
Yosemite Sam
Strawberry Shortcake
Chuckie Finster
Eliza Thornberry
Kim Possible
Dexter
The redheaded PowerPuff Girl
Do you see the trend here? The percentage of redheads on children's tv far outweighs the actual percentage of redheads in society. Why? In my opinion, childhood conditioning. You see, if the population of fictional gingers was proportionate to reality, children might just see redheads for what they really are. A minority. A scourge. A plague, even. But because there are so many right there in front of us on the television, we are conditioned to believe that they are normal human beings like the rest of us. It isn't until highschool that we learn the truth and promptly make fun of them, as is our right and responsibility.
So, that being said, I put this to the television writers and producers of the noughties era. Allow regular children to grow and develop untarnished by your subliminal messages. Only then will the gingers at last be defeated and carted off from this earth in a Bring Out Your Dead Van.
Take the icecream truck for instance. For as long as I can remember, the sound of those dinging bells or Greensleeves has always meant one thing and one thing only; The Bring Out Your Dead Van. Now, to most children, these sounds unmistakeably signal the possibility of icecream. But for my brothers and I there was only the Bring Out Your Dead Van.
Those avid Monty Python lovers among you would know exactly what I am refering to; the scene in Monty Python's The Holy Grail, where a filthy man pushing an equally filthy cart strolls through the town gonging a bell and shouting "Bring out your dead!" The people in the town present their plague-ridden kin and load them onto the cart to be taken away for burial.
For the first ten years of my life, I was conditioned to believe that that was the gonging sound I heard every now and then on a hot summer's day. Not icecream, but the gonging of the Bring Out Your Dead Van, trundling along my street looking for dead civilians to cart away.
My parents thought this was a bit of a laugh. We weren't the richest of families and to be honest, it was a great way of sidestepping the old "Mum, can I have an icecream? Pleeeeeease?" that most parents had to put up with upon the gonging of the icecream van. In fact, to most parents, I'm sure the icecream van really was something of a Bring Out Your Dead Van, or "Bring out your paycheck" at least...which to some, really is the same thing.
But boy were my parents sneaky. How amusing they must have found it, that all three of their little conditioned minions shouted "bring out your dead!" before promptly running away every time the icecream van showed up. Clever indeed. Until of course we poor guinea pigs discovered the truth.
I was ten and spending the day at my best friend Elle's house, when the icecream van showed up. "Bring out your dead!" I shouted and promptly ran away. My childhood BFF laughed at me and asked what on earth I was doing. How did she not know? Had her parents not explained to her what that van was?
In short...yes they had. But they, unlike my sneaky parents, had explained the truth of that van, and on more than once occasion bought her icecream from it. Imagine my surprise! Instead of plague victims there was dessert? It was a day of miracles. And then, just to rub the salt in (not to mention the sugar) they bought me an icecream.
As you can imagine, my parents never heard the end of it.
But it got me thinking. Just how much of our childhood is conditioned in that way? We are brought up to think so many things are normal, when in fact, they are just the opposite.
Which brings me to rangas. Gingers. Redheads.
I'm turning 21 in less than two weeks, and for my party in my new home, I decided to go retro and celebrate the tv characters that affected my childhood. So, I snooped around the internet, looking for the perfect 90s cartoon character to dress up as, and what did I find?
Rangas. Hundreds of them.
You would think that in a world where redheads represent less than 10 percent of the population (I am totally making this statistic up, but it's got to be close) children's tv would reflect it. Wrong. Completely and utterly wrong! In fact, gingernuts seem to dominate children's tv. Let me give yo ua small list off the top of my head.
Postman Pat
Madeline
Pepper-Ann
Tintin
Wheeler from Captain Planet
Pippy Long Stocking
Wilma Flintstone
The Little Mermaid
Jane Jetson
Daphne from Scooby Doo
Yosemite Sam
Strawberry Shortcake
Chuckie Finster
Eliza Thornberry
Kim Possible
Dexter
The redheaded PowerPuff Girl
Do you see the trend here? The percentage of redheads on children's tv far outweighs the actual percentage of redheads in society. Why? In my opinion, childhood conditioning. You see, if the population of fictional gingers was proportionate to reality, children might just see redheads for what they really are. A minority. A scourge. A plague, even. But because there are so many right there in front of us on the television, we are conditioned to believe that they are normal human beings like the rest of us. It isn't until highschool that we learn the truth and promptly make fun of them, as is our right and responsibility.
So, that being said, I put this to the television writers and producers of the noughties era. Allow regular children to grow and develop untarnished by your subliminal messages. Only then will the gingers at last be defeated and carted off from this earth in a Bring Out Your Dead Van.
Friday, May 21, 2010
It has occured to me throughout my life that I commonly misplace things. Slippers, shoes, friends, words...
The things I seem to misplace (or misuse, to be precise) the most are words. You know those cliched TV characters who misuse cliches? Like Ziva from NCIS? The ones that always mix up sayings and then get humorously reprimanded by their offsider, fow whom English was their first language? Well, that's me. (The Israeli one, not the hot American one)
Sometime during my life, I seem to have developed an affliction whereby I mix up metaphors, cliches, fashion senses...
Take this blog for instance. I think, had I named it correctly, it would have been called "One Shot Full Stop". One shot, as in with a gun. But no...One Stop Full Stop. That doesn't even make sense. Particularly with my overuse of ellipses...there is absolutely no chance that there will be only one stop in any blog entry written by me, nor that it will be a full stop.
So, in case you were wondering, that's how my blog came to be named. The misplacement of words, not to mention my brain.
I have also been known to say, cheap as pie, easy as chips, one foul swoop, for all intensive purposes...the list seriously just goes on. And now, without a Kaitlin Oliver, Julianne Clinch or Ben Adams in my life as a constant reminder that correct use of English is not only cool but also sexy (we may need to cut out Ben for that last adjective), how am I ever to reach the peak of Supreme Grammardom?
I can but try. I must but try. I must finish straightening my hair...
The things I seem to misplace (or misuse, to be precise) the most are words. You know those cliched TV characters who misuse cliches? Like Ziva from NCIS? The ones that always mix up sayings and then get humorously reprimanded by their offsider, fow whom English was their first language? Well, that's me. (The Israeli one, not the hot American one)
Sometime during my life, I seem to have developed an affliction whereby I mix up metaphors, cliches, fashion senses...
Take this blog for instance. I think, had I named it correctly, it would have been called "One Shot Full Stop". One shot, as in with a gun. But no...One Stop Full Stop. That doesn't even make sense. Particularly with my overuse of ellipses...there is absolutely no chance that there will be only one stop in any blog entry written by me, nor that it will be a full stop.
So, in case you were wondering, that's how my blog came to be named. The misplacement of words, not to mention my brain.
I have also been known to say, cheap as pie, easy as chips, one foul swoop, for all intensive purposes...the list seriously just goes on. And now, without a Kaitlin Oliver, Julianne Clinch or Ben Adams in my life as a constant reminder that correct use of English is not only cool but also sexy (we may need to cut out Ben for that last adjective), how am I ever to reach the peak of Supreme Grammardom?
I can but try. I must but try. I must finish straightening my hair...
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