Favorite toys in a house full of girls

(This is not a picture of me. I was blonde. But you get the idea.)
1. My first real doll was a Cabbage Patch Kid with nothing but a little tuft of yarn on the top of her head. I named her Amy after my next door neighbor. Apparently Amy had a brother, and since I [...]

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Toys, sorry it’s last minute everybody

1. The constant motion machine at the mall where penguins would get lifted up to the top of an icey slide, and then they would slide down to the bottom of the steps where they would get lifted up agian.  I remember it was right next to the fudge shop where the fudge makers would [...]

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Three Toys

1.) The Bat Cave: Although the Bat Cave was meaningless without the stockpile of superhero action figures to inhabit it (and wage combat in it), it was this stage that made the action what it was. It was a realm that was padded from the external tumult. I often imagined shrinking myself down to action [...]

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toys

1. The  G.I. Joe action figure (not to be confused with a doll) was my favorite toy as a child. They were far larger than all the other toy figurines and had posable arms legs and even fingers. My most fond memory of the G.I. Joe was making him fly around my room. For some [...]

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Alien

#1 Since 6th grade my honorary teddy bear has been a squat, bright green, three-eyed Alien.  He’s uncomfortable to cuddle with owing to his hard head and antenna (and his awkward habit of lighting up and talking when you press his stomach).  As part of the cast of Toy Story, he symbolizes my relationship with [...]

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Top Three Toys

1.  When I was young I was given a lot of Godzilla paraphernalia.  This included one six inch tall Godzilla replica that was a gift given to me by my Nana when I was down in Florida on vacation.  I spent every waking hour with that beast.  I wore it down.  The plastic thighs chaffed [...]

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Things I Like To Play With

  
1.  The first toy I can remember was an E.T. stuffed animal that had fuzzy maalox-colored skin.  Its arms were always crossed over its belly, and it kind of looked like Buddha.  I used to do role-plays with it.  I’d make the Extra Terrestrial fight its brother Jafar, the Disnified Saudi Arabian terrorist, and E.T. [...]

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Forgotten Toys

1. I screamed and wailed in the Dominick’s until my mom bought me the Valentine’s Doll sitting above the produce. A few hours after I got it, I forgot my former desperation and discarded her in the crack between my bed and the wall.
2. When I was in elementary school, my dad bought me a [...]

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Top Threes: Toys

(Listing my top three toys has made me realize that I will probably not make a very good mother.)
1. The Baby Furby – The most ungodly thing I have ever owned. Looking at it now frightens the shit out of me, and I can still remember its voice, mechanical, but like a baby’s. I’m not [...]

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Top Fives: Linchpins

A Chronological History of A Few Seemingly Unremarkable Instances
5. I remember when I was five and at Disney World for the first time. I would return twice more, at 11 and 18 years old, but that trip was the one I remember. I remember walking into a Coca-Cola souvenir shop and running my hands over [...]

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Those pins o’ mine

I still do not have a set order for these events of mine because I’m still going through my memory.  Forgive me if they do not appear in chronological order.  My memory seems to deal in random assortments of images that really have the same importance in any age.
I was in the wave pool of [...]

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A Few Linchpins

 
 
1)      When I was about three years old, we lived in a house with two rows of trees in the backyard.  I stopped in the middle of the path and stared up at the leaves.
2)      The first time I remember going into a grocery store I rode on my dad’s shoulders through the sliding glass [...]

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Smee, I’ve just had an epiphany

I interpreted lynchpins as vivid recollections associated with epiphanies – moments of double consciousness – rather than just vibrant, vital memories… I also think that many moments have the potential to be lynchpins, but it’s a decision (whether immediate or gradual) that cements them as such. Not necessarily a direct decision about that moment and [...]

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a few linchpins

1. The February I was in second grade, I got really sick. At the same time, my grandfather was dying. I was in my parents’ room one morning when the phone rang. My dad knew right away who it was–his mother, telling us that my grandfather had passed. An hour later I was in the [...]

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“You will remember this”

1.) When I was four I left a penny resting on top of the lamp bulb in my room all day, thinking that it would melt. Right before bed I checked, and seeing that it hadn’t, I picked it up and screamed.
2.) When I was eight or nine I realized why I got so excited [...]

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Clothespins

5. The moment i suddenly realized i was on the ground after being punched in the face by my ex girlfriend’s ex boyfriend. I stood up and thought it was raining. It was raining… blood.
 
4. The moment i realized the car would not restart after pulling over on the Ohio turnpike. I was driving to [...]

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Linchpins

1.  Still lived in Baltimore so probably anywhere from 2-4 years old.  Family friend John Pegan coming over and I had been anticipating it so much because I loved him because he always tickled me and he walked in the doorway and flashed me this huge smile and I completely broke down and started sobbing.
2. [...]

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Interrogation, April, Skeleton, Swastika, The Wrong Way

My life is a wheel, and here are its linchpins:
1.  I’ve never been more scared than when my Afghan kindergarten teacher screamed in my face, “WERE YOU THE ONE WHO TORE DOWN THE ALPHABET POSTER?!?!?!”  I was not the one.
2.  standing in the corner of the den at home when I was eight in early [...]

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Environmental Dilemma

On the shower stalls and soap dispensers in the bathroom in my dorm, there are stickers strongly encouraging students to save water.  They claim, presumably in accuracy, that we only have 1% of the world’s water available for our use.  They list tips on how to do your part and conserve water. 
Normally I am all [...]

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Mac attack!

 In the computer world there are two main camps. There is the majority of the world who are loyal Microsoft Windows and the small but growing few who choose a Mac. If the war started before i came to college, i would of proudly led the legions of the Microsoft army against the small band [...]

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High Fidelity

In every relationship I’ve ever allowed myself, I have never indulged in the luxury of proximity. I don’t mean the term in its literal sense, of course. I’m talking about the kind of proximity that accompanies brutal honesty and a willingness to break down a person’s exterior. The kind that is tempered with its share [...]

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My Bird Problem

Three to four days a week I wake to her hot breath coming in irregular waves and moistening my neck, her mascara caked beneath her eyes like a tragic clown. Her sleeping smells and sounds come with the unpleasant brightness of the early afternoon sun. She turns, pulling the blankets off my back, leaving me [...]

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the best part of waking up is coffee in my cup

I have recently come to terms with an addiction that has taken over my life. There is no way around it–I have a coffee-drinking problem.
I never thought I’d be one of those people that can’t function in the morning until they’ve had their steaming hot cup o’ joe. Like many people, I started drinking coffee [...]

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___ Fiction

Talk about guilty pleasures: the first section I head to in the bookstore is Teen Fiction (or Fiction, if I think I’m being tailed).  And as an English major (and a bit of a feminist), I don’t necessarily agree with the brand of fiction being marketed to teenagers, particularly teenage girls.  I allow myself to [...]

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I Can’t Stop Singing

I grew up making fun of people who can’t sing.  I ran with a crowd of vocalizers, and we had vocalizing parties and if you can’t hit an A full voice you could go join the dodgeball team or paint papier-maché bats for the halloween parade.  Vibrato was a must.  Gotta have it.  Manipulatable vibrato.
Today, [...]

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My Lord of the Rings Problem

Someone wrote previously that they found the Lord of the Rings to be a work of cinematic art. I couldn’t agree more with every word in their entry. When I was in eighth grade The Fellowship of the Ring came out. I was happily surrounded by a pack of wild nerds in [...]

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