Babydoll

I played with dolls until I was 14. If I didn't think I'd be commited for it I might continue to play with them. It's one part of the prospect of my, hopefully, being a parent in the future that I really get excited about: I can play with toys again!!!!" Though I am a little bummed that I will not get to have my own toys. Darned sharing! Hmph!

Part of what may have hindered my evolution out of make believe and into more mature interests may have been the homeschooling. After 4 years of playing sick and crying and doing just about anything to get out of going to school my parents thought it might be wise to pull my sister Carly and I out of public school and start teaching us at home.

Homeschooling is weird. It's one of those things that you hear about as a kid and you just imagine the most wonderful freedom! But it actually ends up playing out more like communism. Power trips, underhanded dealings, less freedom and worse than that: no escape from the homelife! You think at first: Its amazing! No more school!

The problem with home schooling, or one of many, is that if you are already a bit odd you will go deeper and deeper into a state of bizarreness that will make the possibility of ever assimilating in polite society seem farther and farther from your realm.

My parents did little to no lesson planning. I mean, my mom could barely find her keys much less organize lessons for us children consistantly. And my father, he would get involved here and there when a subject interested him or if he just wanted to punish us with an onslaught of math. Most of it was math he couldn't even do but he became very pissed and worried that our mother was not teaching us the hard stuff enough. He loved to crack the whip now and then and it seemed to be motivated by nothing more than a feeling of losing control or maybe boredom. I can empathize with it more today than I could as a child. Being an adult you can get very frustrated by life and your lack of control. As a result you might sometimes become a tyrant or a big bitch! I will often become difficult and very stubborn with Joel when I have these little moments. I'm so lucky he puts up with me, though not without an allusion to my "time of the month" thrown in here and there.

Anyway, homeschooling was a big hot mess! There was really no structure or schedule and little by little it became just my sister and I and our parents living daily life.

For Carly and I daily life meant immersing ourselves into a fantasy world. We were the gods of all our dollies. Very often they would develop their own personalities and traits and tastes. When you think about it it's kind of like multiple personality disorder with a mask on. How will I deal will life? Oh, I know! I will let THIS person deal with it!
So this is sort of a "to be continued."
Over the next few I will throw in a blog here and there that introduces some of these "personalities" I grew up with. My childhood buddies. Sometimes the blog will be written by them. Others entries will be about them. Stay tuned. ;)