Girl Anachronicles

Yesterday I found a website that trumps all other nostalgia websites I’ve come to know so far:  I’m Remembering. It’s a blog built on a Tumblr engine, its theme is specifically 80s and 90s nostalgia. I Love the 80s never had it so good and so right. I found things in there that I had forgotten about in the longest while, and others that I remembered but I couldn’t find elsewhere on the web.

Some examples:

Sea-pony whose only power is to blow bubbles underwater, yay...

I owned this exact My Little Pony seahorse, with the clamshell stand that would never stick long enough to the bath tiles… goddamned doll also looked like it was always dirty. It had a blowhole to blow bubbles, but being the little motherfuckers we were, we used it as a squirt-horse instead.

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..he stares at you from his perch while you're sleeping..

This one came from nowhere. I suspect it was a hand-me-down toy, like many others we had – our youngest aunt was only 9 years older than me, not enough time to deem the toys obsolete and throw them away, so I inherited tons of them! I loved this Rowlf puppet so much that I salvaged him time and again from the trash bin and many charity collections, and is now probably slowly dying in a room in Mom’s house.

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..creepy little clown to live on your nightstand. Whose idea was that? ..

This was obviously a pre-”It” item. I barely even remembered him until I saw him in the imremembering.com site. Then it was like opening the memory floodgates: the lamp in its full glory, then how it came apart little by little, until at last the only thing that remained were those immortal plastic balloons.

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..plastic lasts forever..

I was amazed when I saw this pic. We had these exact two cups at home (among a myriad of other assorted plastic cutlery pieces, such as Transformers bowls and He Man dishes). I still keep a plastic Hello Kitty cup from that time. These things indeed last forever!!!

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...all it was missing was the alternative of an alien head.

This was another hand-me-down from my aunt, but boy, did I have fun with this! This was the one piece that got me drawing fashion designs as an occasional hobby. Of course, by the time it got to me, the color pencils were long gone, so I had to make do with a carbon stick.

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MUSIC! FUCK YEAH!

This was one fucking useful toy! I used it every day: I played the Read-along vinyls, I played my Rainbow Brite record, I played just about anything that would fit into that record player. I would play things time and again until I made my mother nauseous. I’d put on plays for the whole family – and would force them to watch, god forbid they turned away! I was such an attention whore when I was a kid … I dunno what happened…

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If only I had been able to shrink tiny enough to play IN this castle...

I almost went into tears when I saw this: my favorite toy ever! This castle was a Little People castle, but it eventually became the “anything goes as long as it fits” castle. This castle was under siege by the GI Joes, it became soon the reign of She-Ra and friends, He Man knocked at its drawbridge! Even the Thundercats visited every once in a while…

And as a bonus:

RUN AWAY!!!

Not a toy, but a fixture in our local McDonalds playground. This tree reminded me of a talking tree featured in one of my favorite local children’s show – Titi Chagua. Talking trees were this thing I adored and abhorred at the same time. It eventually turned into indisputable adoration, until I was at last transfixed by the Ents. I <3 talking trees.

So, if you’re already over 21 and like going on a nostalgia binge … http://imremembering.com

Sunday mornings are something you lose after you stop being a child: the carelessness, the feeling of freedom, the anticipation of a day filled with games and fun. Saturday mornings were cool too, but not in the same way: Saturdays were the days Mom would stuff you in the back seat  early in the afternoon and would take you shopping for groceries. Fun, but not the same kind (plus sometimes you’d get a good berating for having too much fun in the fruit section).

Ahhh, the time is ripe for mischief. Banana stand: have at you!

My Sunday mornings were all about Dad. I’d gently wake him up at 6 am – …let’s be honest, I poked away at him, starting at 5:45 am. He’d begrudgingly wake up (although he would never admit to being bothered by it) and he would make me breakfast. Breakfast by Dad was a special thing. Dad didn’t know how to cook – he still doesn’t, unless nuking a cordon bleu chicken breast counts – so the options were limited. But he got creative, I think he barely ever went with the cereal-and-milk option. The usual would be far more delicious: sweet bread rolls with butter spread, sliced salchichón, and sweet cold coffee w/milk. Unhealthy as hell, but completely addictive, to the point in which I’d be glad to have that breakfast again today.

I'm amazed my blood health turned out normal after years of this.

After placing the breakfast dish in front of me and gluing me to the TV set, Dad would go back to sleep a bit longer, until the cartoon block was finished near noon and I’d go back to poking him awake. After that, it was usually game time: Dad would fill up the kiddie pool with the garden hose, and I would tow out all the barbies, water games, rubber toys, and other waterproof items. After that, dad would play with me for hours at a time, until Mom called us in to eat lunch. Those were the days.

Photo alteration of the 80s led us to believe that the whole family would fit inside these pools... we feel we've been had.

All Sundays… Father’s days …

The FIFA World Cup… I remember the first time I was aware of this magnificent sporting event in 1998: I was hanging around in my house (I lived with Dad back then), and I suddenly heard a big commotion erupting from his room. This was unusual because my father and his wife are usually pretty quiet when left to their own. I popped my head in and saw them laying on their bed, side by side, with big grins and luminous eyes. I had to ask. What they answered: “¡La copa mundial, niña!”. I didn’t sit to watch in 1998, but I came around to doing this in 2002, and I was hooked. The rush from the crowd, the orgasmic celebration whenever a goal was made, the noise, the music, the cheering … it was like a huge party being celebrated around a sporting event… way more exciting than any other sporting event. Mind you, I’m no fan of sports, but I’m a fan of excitement, so this was attractive to me.

..and I will never forget Ronaldo's haircut. WTF, dude?!..

This year, the World Cup is being held in South Africa. All’s been excitement as it usually is with one small particular variation that’s caught the attention of everyone watching: the vuvuzela. The first instance I heard a mention of it was a complaint from one viewer who was way beyond annoyed by the constant sound of the vuvuzelas. Apparently, everyone and their mother has a vuvuzela at the World Cup, and everyone seems to be blowing their own at the same time. I wonder how many idiots have passed out from blowing their vuvuzelas too hard or too long. It also makes me happy that so many healthy lungs are running around in this globe.

Sopla ese cuerno, marafaca!

During the first match I was able to watch this year, I was wondering what the vuvuzela would sound like. I had heard it was a major disruption on the transmission, that it was an unbearable noise that couldn’t be put in the background. I waited for it … and I waited … and then I realized: “…wait, what’s that hum-drum noise on the background? Is that an airplane?” I watched a whole match without asking … and then it dawned on me: “Oh! The vuvuzelas!”

Best. Facebook. Group. Ever!

It wasn’t intolerable, it wasn’t painful to hear … it was just… like an airplane. And hey! I LOVE airplanes! I love the noise an airplane makes when they take off. So, it comes to bear that I also like the sound of vuvuzelas.

Today, I kept thinking about that, mainly because so many people keep making such a big deal out of the vuvuzelas. I realized that I tend to like these kinds of noise: engines, sirens (well, when I’m not trying to talk on the phone), airplanes, noise music, oscillators … vuvuzelas. What is it in my head that makes me like cacophony? I don’t know, but it even excites me at times. I guess it has something to do with the inner ear.

… and I have to admit that even the noise of gunfire, although knowing the dangers that it entails makes it all the more horrid to me. The beauty of the thunder, the terror of lightning.

Our first stray was a cat. It was around Christmas-time and I was probably no more than 6 years old. It was customary in the family – back then – to deck the living room in basking glory (that means putting up a huge-ass tree that barely fits through the doorway and throw the boxloads of new, old and inherited ornaments on it … then, as an afterthought, plant the nativity scene – all old and stinking of mold – underneath). My mom tells that this particular year a cat started coming around. It was a dark colored cat, clean and well kept. It looked more like a lost cat than a cat born on the streets. I used to put out a tiny saucer of milk for him and pet him (or her?) for a while.

Then, one day, my mother had the brightest idea of them all: bring the cat in! And then go out. Yes. Leave the feline unattended … with a huge-ass fir treeeeeeee!

You know where the tree ended up, right?

And you know where the cat went, right?

After that, the strays that appeared were only fed, not brought in. I remember this black pup that came every afternoon to get his customary buscuit. This wasn’t a stray, he was a neighbor’s dog, but I liked to think of him as partly mine anyway. That’s why his demise under the tires of a car was a bit more painful than it should’ve been. His absence after that was my first taste of what happens when something you love goes away.

All the while, we’d been proud family to a small pack of white poodles. My parents started off with two (male & female), to pair them off and get at least one litter of purebred white poodles. At one point, there were about 6 or 7 puppies running around the house (additional to momma and pappa poodle). I was a very happy toddler, I had the best playmates ever! What else could I ask for?

Fuck playing with other kids! Dogs are AWESOME!

Things changed: we moved, my parents got divorced, time passed… eventually only one dog remained from the vast empire of curls: Laika, the original female (a sort of Eve). Then I brought in Sasha, handpicked by my grandfather to be our next canine companion at home. Some years after that, I got my first true stray: Lucky.

Lucky was a black kitten. I found her under a tree, mewing her lungs off. I glimpsed her mother’s body squished in the middle of the road. I couldn’t resist. I knelt on the floor, opened my arms, and Lucky came home. I took her to the ved, fed her, cared for her, and all was fine until the day one of my family members left the door open. After that she never came back inside (mostly because my father’s boxer wouldn’t let her). I was later told that she was sighted alive and well, in the wilderness of our yard (which was pretty expansive), nursing a litter. I guess muy job was complete.

That was 1999 and, after that, I didn’t get a stray for the longest while.Pets came and went: 2nd and 3rd generation litters from the pets we already had, adoptions, hand-me-downs. I had the most tragic deaths in 2003 – my 4 dogs, Sasha included, died in a fire that destroyed everything I had. It took me a while longer to realize I hadn’t been the best pet caretaker. Two adoptions later – both resulting in handing them over to someone better suited for the job – I finally had my first era of my life without a pet. And lord, did it suck!

Eze and I got a hamster to fill that void. Medea was the cutest thing – totally tame, 0 hamster bites in her year of life. She died a terrible death: tumors killed her off slowly. It was a painful thing to watch and I cried her death for the longest you can cry a hamster death. After that, I was certain I was ready to care for a dog again.

A few years later, Caprica came. A friend called me one night to tell me that her kids’ tutor had found two puppies abandoned in a park nearby. I asked about the approximate age of the pups: I knew I didn’t have the time to bottle feed weeks-old puppies. I went there next day, committed to at least help the woman out to find a place that would take good care of the pups. When I arrived, she said someone else had already adopted the male pup. Only the female was left: a tiny tuft of hair and mange, dotted with the teeniest ticks, still smelling of mother’s milk. My first thought was that I wasn’t ready to take on this. Hell, that was my first, second and third thought, for the next 3 hours. I brought her into my car inside of a small cardboard box, and I set course toward Humacao, looking for a no-kill shelter I had heard about. As it turns out, no one in Humacao knew about the shelter, no one could point me in the right direction. I drove around, lost, for the next few hours, and the puppy was so well behaved, she only voiced discomfort once, as I proceeded to step out of the car in a gas station to ask for directions.

I remember she woke up when I stopped the car, looked at me, and yelped twice loudly, as if saying “What the hell is taking so long?”. I fell in love right there and then. A pup that could withstand hours riding around in a  car without crying or peeing on my seat was a special pup. She stayed. We named her Caprica, after the home planet in our favorite sci-fi series, BSG. She made our lives more complicated, more expensive, more difficult… but also, much more pleasant. She was our first child.

..she spent her first 3 months with that startled look on her face. I guess she wasn't expecting to be rescued..

After that, we were pretty content. We had a run-in with a stray dove: fed her for a few weeks – a very complicated thing to do – and eventually realized Eze’s father could do a better job at it, so we took her to his house, where a stray cat promptly killed her with a swift swipe of the paw. We also got a second stray dog, bigger than Caprica herself. We quickly took her to Eze’s parents’ home, but she apparently had a taste for freedom, and she ran away successfully on her second attempt.

A year and a half after Caprica came into our lives, we got our last stray.  I was driving to the supermarket on a Sunday morning, and the tiniest cat crossed the road right in front of my car. I saw another car pass over him, I remember I yelped “Noooo!” and stopped dead on my tracks. Thankfully, the pickup truck on the next lane took my cue and stopped too, ‘cuz when we came around, we found the cat clinging to their front tire. He was a mess of oil-ridden hair and eye secretions. I grabbed him, got him in my car and took him to the nearest vet, thinking that they would take him in. No luck, except the attendant was nice enough to give me a box to put the cat in. I kept him that night, bathed him and cleaned his eyes, with the idea to take him to the shelter the next day. The next day was a holiday. The cat stayed – to Eze’s chagrin. And after that, I had already named named him. He was definitely mine.

Thing about strays is: in my case, these animals have proved to be the most thankful critters, capable of infinite affection. They both came into my lives with a slew of diseases and conditions that have cost me more money than what I have, but it’s been worth it. I’m not sorry in the leastest bit of having taken them in. They were born on the streets, but they have become family, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Happiness is a bundle of fur and legs.

I fell in love back in 1992: Bram Stoker’s Dracula was released, and I became a fervorous fan immediately. I was awed by Gary Oldman’s performance as Dracula / Vlad Tepes, I swooned at the sexually charged tension in the film, Winona Ryder charmed me with her feverish portrayal of Mina, I even forgot to be bothered by Keanu Reeve’s unchangeable face of  “Whoa!”. Had they made a whole line of eyeliners / body glitter / rubber bracelets stamped with Dracula’s face and name, I would have been all over that shit (and broken my parents’ bank accounts).

I swear: I swooned for Gary in this getup. John Lennon shades included. LOL

The film also sparked an interest in all things vampire: books that ranged in quality from the classics (Bram Stoker’s Dracula itself) to the inane, fan-fiction-like dreg (I Am Dracula comes to mind), movies that gave way to other horror films (it started with Tale of a Vampire, but it gave way to other subgenres like zombies and demonic possessions), the best goth attire I could muster (which wasn’t much, given my budget and my permanent location on a tropical island), etc. Suffice it to say: I breathed, ate and lived on vampires. Big fan. BIG.

Then I outgrew that phase (sort of) and became interested in other things, but vampires held a special place in my heart.

Later came the onslaught that killed that little place in my heart: Underworld disenchanted me of the possibilities of bringing vampires to the modern world … Twilight simply did it in. Suddenly vampires were nothing to be feared or revered: they became sullen girls and moody teenagers with the odd craving for blood – a perfect ad for Hot Topic. The hordes of teenagers grasping at the shreds of the last XS-sized t-shirt of Edward Cullen were the nail on the coffin. Working at Hot Topic did no good to my perception of vampires as a literary figure of legend. Having Edward, Bella and Jacob peering out of the Twilight merchandise for hours at a time was nothing short of unnerving and nauseating.

..having to fold all the shirts every night and fix the merch display every 20 minutes didn't help either..

I eventually watched Twilight out of sheer morbid curiosity: that’s two hours I’ll never get back. It had its salvage points. They will never be enough to salvage the whole movie. Nor the series. Much less the book dynasty. Fuck you, Steph Meyer!

So it was with mild trepidation that I sat down to watch Let the Right One In, a 2008 film from Norway. From the get-go, you realize this is not the Teen Movie, Vampire® Edition crap that Twilight has been able to pull. The mood sets itself slowly on you: it’s dark and soft and gentle, yet terrible in all of its horror. Being a vampire here is not a matter of beauty, sexuality or glamour. The vampire in this story is a 12-year-old girl that travels around with an adult companion everyone believes to be her father (later on we realize he’s not). She’s not breathtakingly beautiful, nor does she prance around in stylish clothes and trendy accessories (yeah, Alix, I’m looking at you and your crappy crushed velvet choker, you stupid, vapid twat!). She’s a 12-year-old girl who got caught with this “disease”, a curse to bind her forever to a crippling hunger for living blood. She’s enlisted the help from an older lover / companion who kills and collects the blood for her so she won’t have to go out and get it herself. When he fails, she reacts like any child would: bratty, petulant, childish. There’s no infinite benevolence to her, just as there’s no abyss of evil in her soul. She’s just what she is: an eternal little girl.

Her counterpart in this movie is Oskar, a little kid who’s bullied constantly at school and has issues of his own at home. He’s got no friends at all, and has an intense desire to strike back at his tormentors. He is, by all means, a regular 12-year-old kid. When he meets vampire girl Eli, he finds in her the uncomparable comfort of kinship: someone who might understand, who seems like she’s been there, someone to keep him company. Their relationship evolves slowly and sweetly – nothing like the “Ooooh I can smell your twat from here! I wanna eat you!” stint from Edward Cullen. Keep your pants on boy! Just as slowly as the relationship evolves, Oskar starts suspecting Eli is a vampire through observation and clues from her odd lifestyle.

I swear this is the way it really went!

Another thing that caught my attention was the feeding process. At first Eli has her food delivered to her, but as her companion fails more and more often, she’s forced to get her food herself. I’ve seen a whole myriad of vampire attacks on screen: most of them are sexy and lustful, or macabre and cruel, maybe even funny. All of them have one thing in common: the vampire is mostly relentless and gains 100% satisfaction from sucking the lifeblood off another. Eli shares none of this with them: she’s overwhelmed time and again by the murder she’s committing. On one hand, she’s satisfying a hunger that, if left unbridled, affects her to the point of changing her physical appearance (the hungrier Eli is, the more sickly she becomes); on the other hand, she’s incredibly aware that she’s sinking her teeth into another life. The first kill scene is heart-wrenching at portraying this ambivalence. However, little by little, kill after kill, she becomes more comfortable with what she has to do.

Let the Right One In stayed with me long after the credits rolled. It had been a while since I had been haunted by a movie such as this. The film’s greatest value and strongest asset is that the figure of the vampire isn’t portrayed as a monster or as a sexual predator (much less as a high school heartthrob). Vampirism isn’t glamorized the way we’re used to see it; we see first and foremost the little girl in relation to the little boy – all that awkwardness of the first relationship, the sweetness, the intensity, – and then we see the vampire: a sickly girl who has no choice but to feed on others to keep herself alive. Human relations take a front seat in this film: leave the glitter to the idiots, the kids in LTROI will pull your heart through the wringer.

…and you may have noticed, but I couldn’t stop thinking of how crappy Twilight was in comparison. Wait, no, there is no comparison. Let the Right One In is a movie that will most likely prove to be a timeless classic. Twilight is like a shitty version of Sixteen Candles (all respect to Mr. Hughes), but with fangs … wait, no! Scratch that …