I planned to post this at a companion blog, The Daily Write, but decided to integrate these “journal” posts with my writing about books.
March 23, 2024
A gloomy, cold Saturday. Napped, read a little, and then looked at my THINGS. I identify with Henry James’s characters, ergo I must have THINGS. I have no THINGS, except Mom’s and my mother-in-law’s.
A big chunky beer stein decorated with fat German drinkers (mom-in-law’s), three tiny floral-print china vases (mom-in-law’s), a three-tiered oak shelf for displaying chunky beer stein and vases (Mom’s), a framed painting of cats in the style of “American Gothic” (Mom’s, in the basement), and a 50th-anniversary Barbie that allegedly lights up and twirls if you add batteries to the base (Mom’s, in the basement, still in the box).
Mom was quite the Barbie fan. She gave Barbies to her grandchildren, though their parents were prim and disapproving. And she did hang on to what I call my Second Generation Barbies. When I was 10 (?) Mattel invited us to turn in our Barbie heads at Osco’s (the plastic heads popped off ) in return for new Barbie dolls. Really, pony-tail Barbie and bubble-cut Barbie with their slanty eyes were more fun than the bland all-American dolls that replaced them.
The last time I played with Barbie (age 10 or 11), my best friend and I did it in an ironic spirit. We dressed up Barbie as Queen Guinevere, sang something from Camelot, and then hanged Barbie’s sister Skipper from the proscenium arch of the Barbie Little Theater. Skipper may have played Mordred, but it was more likely a fed-up feminist rejection of the Barbie dynasty.
That said, I am not Mrs. Gereth in The Spoils of Poynton.
I have no THINGS!
