Tag Archives: vintage me

Just Life, The Zebra, Throwback Thursday

My Thursday was a Thursday so I’m inventing Throwback Friday.

BY bonnie

Me. In the 80’s. Not in a poodle skirt, but rocking the hell out of my Alice dress and flip flops.

When I was a little girl, I was fascinated with the 1950’s. I think all of America still is, to be honest. But particularly in the 1980’s I remember a significant amount of 50’s themed things – 50’s day at school, watching Grease at sleepovers, 50’s diners, Barbie even had a 57 Chevy. The same era a Sonic drive-in opened up briefly in town. I made a personal goal to drive there in a 57 Chevy of my own someday while wearing a poodle skirt. And then Sonic closed only a few months later and basically ruined everything. Also I got bored of the idea. But mostly it’s their fault.

Someday you should ask me about how I also planned to have my sweet sixteen birthday on this one floating castle that turned out to be the kind of party boat that’s not really apprioriate for kids. The world conspired againt my childhood dreams.

My mom was born in 1950 and so the 1950’s were her decade in the same way the 1980’s are mine. 30 years apart, each. And, just as the 50’s did in my childhood, the 80’s are making a comeback now (god help us all).

But the thing is that the 1950’s were FOREVER ago when I was a kid, but the 1980’s were basically just a few weeks ago if you ask me now.

Is this how it was for my mom? Did the 50’s feel like last week to her when I was obsessed with them? Do my own kids think the 1980’s are a million years ago? For research I asked them and I got insightful answers such as, “The 80’s were like 100 years ago, right?” and “You mean people from the 50’s are still alive?” Ah, youth.

It’s not news to say that time is relative and that it gets shorter as you get older, but I still can’t wrap my brain around it. This year it’ll be 20 years since Kurt Cobain died (the marker by which I organize everything in my lifetime). But it feels like just a couple of years ago.

As Einstein once said about time, “What the hell man?”

The Zebra

Why a short attention span makes things more confusing.

BY bonnie

I’ve been told I have an incredible memory. I mean, I can’t remember which of my kids did what when, but I can remember all the lyrics to the Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen song. (I’m 8 years postpartum now, at what age will pregnancy brain go away?) So while the last decade or so has been a blur, I have fairly vivid memories of my childhood, all the way down to my toddler years. The funny thing about this is that, now that I’m a parent, certain things make way more sense. I don’t know if some of my misunderstandings were due to my short attention span, or if it’s just hard being a kid, but things were damn confusing when I was little.

Instance #1
I was two or just about two when my family moved to Denver for about six months. I have both memories of winter and summer. My mom and I went outside and collected a bucket of snow and huddled on the couch together eating it and watching The Young and the Restless. What? That’s a normal childhood. In the summer I remember having a stand off with my dad about pool safety. He maintained that I sit in a floatie or I don’t get in the pool. I argued that screw that I wanted in the water of my own accordthankyouverymuch. I don’t remember the outcome, but I’m guessing that he probably won.

But there was this one day when there was a rainbow out the back window. We lived on the second or maybe third floor, I don’t know, and one of the back rooms – I guess it was my parents’ bedroom because it was not the room with my changing table – had a window that looked out over the parking lot. I remember being at this window with my dad and him trying to help me find the rainbow. The directions were utterly complex. First I had to look to the left and find the tree, and then I had to look next to the tree. Then I had to find our car and look above it and to the side. Then I had to look at that building in the distance and, finally I was able to find the rainbow. I remember thinking it was such a convoluted path to the rainbow and I was in awe that anyone was ever able to find them.

Not the actual rainbow being blogged about. Like we we had the luxury to use film to take frivolous photos of city rainbows back in the dark ages in 1980. Pft.

There came a time with my own children when something similar occurred. I don’t even remember what exactly. But suddenly, 25 years later, it clicked in my brain. The path to the rainbow wasn’t complex, it was that he was trying different tactics to help me find it. Each time I had to look for a landmark was a completely separate attempt, not one long set of instructions.

I’m a little slow. Thank god I’m cute.

Instance #2
When I was in kindergarten we got kittens. They were Siamese and I named them Brother and Sister because they were a brother and sister. (I’m slow and also terrible at naming things.) Before we got all the way home, though, I changed Brother’s name to Booties because he had, you know, booties. (Really. I sucked at naming things.)

Not the actual kittens. Not actually even a kitten.

Anyway, with kittens comes a litter box, and with a litter box comes germs. My actual memory is of my mom telling me, “If you touch litter you’ll have to go to the bathroom.” I assumed, naturally, that litter has magical or scientific properties that fill your bladder and make you have to pee right that second. Once, while my mom wasn’t looking, I snuck to the litter box and tested the warning (with clean litter. come on. I wasn’t stupid). AND IT WORKED. I TOTALLY HAD TO PEE RIGHT THAT SECOND.

Psychology is cool.

Years later I finally reasoned that what she probably actually told me was something along the lines of, “Don’t touch the litter box or you’ll have to go to the bathroom and wash your hands.”

I have a reeeeeeeeally short attention span. Like. Shorter than a sentence.

Instance #3
One of these instances is not entirely like the others. Hint: It’s this instance.

After Denver we moved to England. Only for like a couple of weeks (what? that’s normal), but I have memories there as well. I remember my bedroom being all set up with my bedspread and the curtains my grandma had made. I remember riding in a taxi cab and they had these tiny seats just for me that faced backwards and IT WAS THE COOLEST THING EVER. I remember being hungry and wandering alone into a darkened kitchen, opening the refrigerator to a bright portal of light and sustenance, and finding absolutely nothing illuminated except for one head of cauliflower. Which was disgusting. I remember that the car was all backwards with the drivey bits being on the wrong side. Some of these memories are probably more accurate than other memories.

I also remember the basic floorplan of the house. I remember where the kitchen was, I remember the hallway, I remember where the bedrooms were. Here’s my basic memory, omitting those areas I have totally no memory of:

A couple of years ago I was going through my mom’s papers and I found the letter she’d written to family back here describing things. She’d included a map of the house:

I see she makes no mention whatsoever of an empty refrigerator. Gross overlook, if you ask me. Of course, one might say that I forgot that there even was a dining room. One might be totally right. One might counter that who cares about dining rooms, especially when the only thing to eat is cauliflower. But otherwise I’m impressed that I so clearly remembered a house I stayed in for so brief a time when I was 2 1/2 years old. Clearly my memory is my superpower. I mean. Unless you want me to tell you things that happened last week.

It’s funny now looking back at my childhood the things that have become clearer now that I’ve had kids. I know that remembering how I saw things helps me sometimes when I parent my kids, and helps me understand where they are coming from, just as much as parenting them helps me click certain facts into place about my own history. My children’s futures help me solve the mysteries of my own past. In these cases just memories of simple events, but I think the statement can be applied broadly to our whole selves as well.

At the very least, it’s a chance to get out the old family photos and reminisce about how cute I was.

Cute and peeing in the back of the car. Like you do.

Holidays, Just Life, Wheel of the year

Independence Day

BY bonnie

I think I might be dating myself if I say that I always have this desire to shorten the holiday’s name to ID4. I might be dating myself, but I think the actual phrase I’m looking for is “I might be a total nerd.” But I have legitimate reasons for this:

1. I’m lazy and “Independence Day” is long.
2. “Independence” is one of those words I have a hard time spelling for some reason. It always comes out “independance”. Maybe cause it makes me want to dance? (Answer: NO.)
3. Jeff Goldblum was super hot in that movie.

Actually, now that I type that out, I wonder if anyone even remembers that the movie was nicknamed ID4 when it came out. I remember this vividly because it was my first summer working at the movie theatre and that Fourth of July I spent 9 hours straight working without any breaks at all (because my bosses were all, “Labor laws? We laugh in the face of labor laws! *whipcrack* You! Work like it’s 1894!”) and the line for Independence Day stretched twice around the mall. Srsly. Life was so hard in 1996. Without the option to buy your tickets online ahead of time or 4 different theaters totaling 106 different screens within three miles to choose from. I remember having customers who didn’t understand what ATM cards were and thought that “up to $40 cash back” meant they might win money.

I digress. The point is that we had bacon-wrapped hot dogs and Cokes to celebrate our country’s birth. We also saw a 3D movie, had cupcakes, played with glow sticks, watched fireworks, and wore our stars and stripes Chucks (well, I did) like good Americans. It was, overall, a pretty awesome day.

(There are fireworks in that picture. They’re just so tiny it looks like people standing with their heads on fire.)

7 Days, The Zebra, This is a Woman

Reasons to Work Out (7 Days: Day 6)

BY bonnie

I’ve been working at this body image thing for awhile now. Probably since I was first told I was fat, around eight years old (and a couple of years ago I came across some pictures of me as a kid, and you guys? I was a skinny little thing at that age. The fuck with people telling me I was fat? STABBY STABBY STABBY).

Me as a child, not fat:

I didn’t know how to sort it out at that age, but my brain was screaming out that they were wrong. I struggled with knowing what the actual factual truth was, and still feeling less worthy of being a human because of how I thought I looked. It’s evolved a lot in the last 27ish years, and I know much better now how to love myself than I used to. And, yet, I keep finding these new layers, and each time I get to that level I feel like I have all the work yet to do. It is both energizing and exhausting.

Recently as I was leaving the gym, proud of myself for having worked hard, I thought to myself, “Even if I always stay fat, at least I’ll be fit.”

And then a little voice, from the back of my brain bravely spoke up and repeated a line I’d already read and nodded furiously in agreement with in many a fat acceptance blog.

But. So what if you’re not fit?

Because I am still holding onto that desperate need to be accepted and respected by everyone always.

And, yes, I know how unrealistic that is. But it’s my core operating system. It’s a bullshit core operating system, but it takes a lot of work and a lifetime to reprogram a core operating system.

So the thing hit me: I’m still working out for other people. I may have detached the weight loss itself from my exercise routines, but apparently only with the catch that I have to at least be in good shape. Cause that’ll show ’em.

Here’s a list of things I thought I liked about working out, but it turns out, none of these things are about me at all:
~Not being out of breath when I have to climb a flight of stairs around people who might think I’m just a fat fatty.
~Not being out of breath when I run and play with my kids. So strangers at the park won’t judge me.
~Going to the gym regularly to prove that some people are just fat no matter how much they exercise.
~Secretly wanting to be at least a little bit less fat. To show them.

Dear Me,
It’s not their business. Ignore them. You’re awesome.
Love,
Me

So here’s a list of things I actually do love about working out:

~Lifting weights and watching myself grow stronger.
~Doing harder cardio and watching myself grow stronger.
~Getting all sweaty and gross. No, really. I love that.
~Being able to do the more strenuous hikes without my head feeling like it’s trying to explode for lack of oxygen.
~Feeling good overall. Happier, more awake, less foggy. Regular exercise does this for me.

I’m going to keep those in mind and I’m going to do my best to live by them, to keep me motivated to exercise for me.

I’ve been a member of this gym now for almost a year and, while I certainly haven’t gone regularly, I’ve avoided that perfectionist attitude of, “well, I haven’t gone for a few weeks now so I just give up and when my contract is up I’ll cancel.” Instead I just go when I can, or sometimes just when I do.

And so what if I don’t? Well, now I know – on a conscious level, at least – that it won’t make me a failure.

I don’t have to be fit any more than I have to be thin. My personal value doesn’t rest upon size or fitness. It doesn’t rest on my health. It also doesn’t rest upon beauty, or intelligence, or sense of humor. I am valuable because I am a person. End. of. story.

(7 Days is a quarterly self-portrait group project I have taken part in for the last sixish years. One selfie a day for a week.)