Monthly Archives: January 2011

Topsy Turvy Freaky

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It’s weird the things that can frighten me now that I’m an adult.

I’m not talking about real horrors that could rob me of my sheltered life: terminal illness, family tragedies, natural disasters, Chinese organ thieves. That stuff, I can handle.

I’m not even freaked by “usual” weird stuff.

Clowns, for example. Maybe it’s due to my own brush with “clown culture” — more about that another day, perhaps — but I actually like clowns.

We used to watch Bozo the Clown on WGN every morning. (The Grand Prize Game was like Who Wants to be a Millionaire? for kids. Greed and avarice served with a side of Archway Cookies.)

Topsy Turvy dolls, however? Ugh.

Ignoring the obvious racial connotations of the above doll for a moment, can you understand the creepy?

[Shiver.]

The church I grew up in had a couple of topsy turvy dolls in the nursery. As I recall, they were not racially, er, “mixed,” but brunette on one side and blond on the other. I also remember I liked playing with them. Or at least making sure that shameful blond side was decently hidden.  (Yes, I harbor latent anti-blond resentments. Sue me.)

Somehow, over the last thirty years, I’ve come to detest these innocent dollies. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the expanded understanding of human anatomy that comes with adulthood. Or one too many conjoined twins documentaries on TLC.

Whatever. Topsy turvy dolls give me the willies.

Lest you misunderstand, I am not an advocate on anatomically-correct dolls for children. I think Barbie is just swell as she is — hinges, smooth mammaries and all.

But there is something about the-legs-become-the-arms-and-the-arms-become-the-legs-and-suddenly-there’s-another-head-down-there-where-no-head-should-ever-be-on-a-doll that just plain creeps me out.

I’m sure some people find it cute and endearing.

And they’re wrong. Gravely wrong.

Something about it’s just indecent. And a little predatory. Like Aliens or something.

“I have triumphed over you. Now I will absorb you and assimilate your lifeforce…”

The only time this kind of scene is appropriate is childbirth. And I still don’t want to see it. That’s why I pay an obstetrician.

But this is a doll. A doll. For little girls.

Why is there another head? Why????


Andy? What are you doing down there?

I think I’m going to throw up.

The PW Connection

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I think almost any gal who’s started a blog over the last few years has flirted with the fantasy of becoming “The Next Pioneer Woman.”

I am under no such illusions.

There are some similarities between PW and me. When she refers to a trip into the “Big City,” she means the city where I live. Black Heels & Tractor Wheels reads a lot like my own (unwritten) love story — if you subtract cows, Chicago, Mike, linguini with clam sauce and pretty much everything else that makes it endearing and hilarious.

But that’s where the similarities end.

PW is, as we all know, very photogenic. She has a lovely, sweet voice that I’m sure is incapable of bellowing threats at her children or shrieking obscenities when she stubs her toe on a door jamb.

I, on the other hand? Surly. Lazy. Misanthropic. Crass.

Disturbed. Dark.

Sweetness and light? Not so much.

But on this fifth anniversary of my twenty-ninth birthday, I am happy to report that I’ve forged a special, er… relationship with Pioneer Woman.

We have a great give-and-take. She gives me an Amazon Giftcard and I take a ridiculously giddy thrill in becoming a bonafide search term on her website.

(Please don’t tell me I’m pathetic. You already know how morose I was about my ill-fated brush with Joni Webb. And this actually came with money attached, so I think I have a right to be coasting on good-feelings for a couple days.)

In October 2010, I managed to eke out a “W” on PW’s Word Nerd Quiz. And got a massive hit of Amazon crack to feed my book/tech addiction.

Then last night, I happened upon PW’s Big Fat Movie Line Quiz. Although it had been open for more than an hour already (her quizzes are usually speed drills and I only won the Word Nerd because I knew every one of the answers without having to look up anything), I gave it a whirl. Because you know how much I adore movies.

And I’ll be darned. More Amazon crack.

Happy Birthday to me!

If I had a job, I’d probably be quitting to play blog sweeps full-time. But even if I never win another thing, I am now “immortalized” on the PW website.

Does it make me a creepy blog stalker if I think that’s kinda cool? As long as I don’t write her and ask for a lock of hair to weave into mine or a calf-nut to pray over or something else weird? Because I promise: I won’t do that.

PW, I swear my admiration is purely un-creepy and nonthreatening. I promise, I’m a very normal person.

Dark, yes. Disturbed, yes.

Surly, lazy, misanthropic, and crass? Okay, fine.

But mostly normal other than those completely harmless flaws.

Normal. I swear.

P.S. Okay, who am I really kidding here anyway?

Language Warning

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Mother trucker. Spit. Son of a pitcher.

Stupid comment function. Or unfunction, as the case may be.

Thanks to my ongoing and seemingly insoluble troubles with the comment function of this blog — which I have still failed to replicate, despite hundreds of attempts — I missed a comment today that I will never get back.

A comment from one Joni Webb.

That’s right.

Joni.

Webb.

Joni Webb of Cote de Texas.

Cote de Texas: Joni's gorgeous design for her daughter's bedroom

Cote de Texas was probably the first design blog I ever read and — probably the reason I’m still reading design blogs with a dedication tantamount to obsession. Joni “introduced” me to Layla Palmer and Brooke Gianetti. Her Top Ten Design Elements series is responsible for my conversion to curtains. Her posts on Belgian design are the reason my keyboard has drool-stains on it. Oh, and then there’s the Sally Wheat kitchen phenomenon. Don’t even get me started.

Yes, Joni Webb.

You see, yesterday I left a comment to her post about a reader’s renovation on a foreclosed home in Houston.

She tried to leave a comment on my blog. My blog.

Tried.

And the mother trucking blog failed to accept her comment.

I don’t have a lot of brushes with celebrities — I met Amy Grant buying donuts in a Florida grocery store at 7 AM one summer — so this kind of thing cuts me to the quick.

I could have had a bonafide Joni Webb comment on my blog. Alas, ’twas not to be.

Instead, she sent me an email — I’m thinking about framing it — responding to my comment and (gulp!) complimenting me on my destination blinds.

Of course, the magic was tempered by the knowledge that I have no clue how I’m going to resolve my Bermuda Triangle issue with comments on this blog. WordPress is a free blogging platform (God bless ‘em!) but I keep hoping to find someone to whom I can pay actual cash money to find and fix the problem. Hello? Anyone? Please, exploit me. I’m getting desperate.

In the meantime, I’ve removed “email required” from the comment form, just in case it’s the culprit, which will probably mean lots and lots of

but better that than zero comments. It’s awful lonely out here in Blogland. I need the feedback.

On that note, please take this as my personal invitation to comment early and often. Your comment doesn’t even have to be relevant. Favorite song lyrics? Sure. Next week’s grocery list? Why not?

If, in the course of posting your preparation method for Blowfish Sashimi, you should have trouble in leaving your comment, please take a mo’ to email me and let me know. There’s also a hefty bounty on any screenshots that help me identify the problem.

Until then, I will try to tantalize you with frequent and compelling posts that will leave you powerless to avoid commenting. (Or at least emailing me if your comments fail. Which they seem almost sure to do.)

Dang it.

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