Tag: dolls

Thinking about my dolls (and for once, not in that Neely O’Hara way)

Today, Mark G. Harris (whose name I need to change in my cell phone to “That NC Stud”) posted a picture of this action figure:

I know, right? I mean, not only is he layered (hot) but he has fab hair. What I want to know is, WHY CAN’T MATTEL DO GOOD HAIR FOR MAN DOLLS? Let me give you some examples of poor Ken through the years.

poor Ken and poor Ken’s poor friends through the years

Merry Christmas

1992 Holiday Barbie and her date, a current-day Ted Danson, or maybe Peter Graves, or he could be The Albino from Foul Play, want to wish you the merriest of Christmases.

I may be a few posts short of a LiveJournal for a while, and not very present in comments, but I’ll still be reading. So do NOT make rude remarks about my age, find sneaky ways to force me to listen to “In the Ghetto,” shirk Sugar Monday post duties, make up stories about snow demons, or try to get away with that “reindeer can’t fly” nonsense. Voodoo dolls are just a phone call to Greg away [stern look].

Christmas Eve

Those who have husbands or fathers–is it not a tradition that men will be out shopping on Christmas Eve? When I worked retail, Christmas Eve was almost all male customers, and Christmas Eve shopping has generally been true of the men in my life. It cracks me up. Tom and I agreed not to buy each other anything big this year, since our home improvements are the gifts we are giving ourselves. But of course, I’m always picking up things here and there for him. So he decided to look at my Amazon wish list and get an idea or two of things he could get me while he’s out running errands (and trust me, running errands is already a HUGE gift to me because he’s doing some of mine).

Now knowing what he was up to, when I got a box from my Secret Santa from his family, I thought I’d best open it, just in case… And sure enough, almost everything on my wish list was in the box. So I called Tom and began naming items. Somehow, he missed hearing me say the ONE item that he was holding in his hand as he stood in line to pay. Only later, during our second or third phone call, did I go through the list again because I’d found something else in the box. This time, he heard what he’d already bought. BACK TO BORDERS. (I can think of far worse fates than another trip to a bookstore, though maybe not on Christmas Eve…)

Meanwhile, one of the errands he ran early this morning was picking up a gift card for our mail carrier. You’re not supposed to gift them with cash, so we go the gift card route. When the aforementioned package was delivered, a DIFFERENT mail carrier snagged the envelope off the mailbox. I was all distressed, wondering if our mail carrier would get his gift. The dogs alerted me later that he was walking by–why do dogs hate mail men?–so I dashed out faster than a reindeer FLIES and he hollered at me from the house next door, “THANK YOU!” Apparently, the other mail carrier gave him the card. That made me so happy–not only that he got his gift, but that his coworker was honorable.

When I watched Elizabeth II’s 1957 Christmas address last night, I was struck by her mention of the age of cynicism. Who knew this was a topic fifty years ago, just as it is today. I remember watching Carol Burnett’s interview on Inside the Actor’s Studio years ago when she said her least favorite word is “cynicism.” I immediately adopted it as my least favorite word, too. I think cynicism is demoralizing and crippling. The reason that I do often sound Pollyanna-ish is because I don’t want to ever become cynical. I like believing in things like the magic of the universe and the goodness of people and that in time, all things will come out the way they should and will be okay.

So what I wish for all the people I care about is that this season, and the coming year, brings them a little less cynicism and a little more hope. And I also wish redleatherbound a happy birthday!


In green velvet, 1991 Holiday Barbie with Jamal

Belated Saturday post

I’m a bad LJer, hardly posting and barely able to comment on anyone’s blogs or journals, though I am reading you (other than anyone’s fiction, because I usually can’t/won’t/don’t read other people’s unpublished fiction, but especially not when I’m writing). If you think I’m being a slacker online, you should see my unanswered e-mail, my pile of unpaid bills, and my house.

Today they started pulling up the various layers of flooring that have gone down in the kitchen over the past 80 years. And then they stopped, because way down underneath it all are materials that could be asbestos. So now they’ll do the floor a different way. I don’t care as long as the workmanship is good and it looks good. But because they’ve gotten down to some old wood, I think the house has a funky smell. No one else seems to smell it, but I do. I’ll be very glad when this part is done.

They also pulled off all my cabinet doors and–sorry, Lindsey–my cabinets do NOT look like the Container Store Fairy came in and organized them.

You know, there was a time that I was a really good housekeeper.

And then I wasn’t.

I’m starting to wonder what I AM good at.

To divert us all from my flaws…

Hey! Look!