Childhood Lost

A couple days ago I asked Paul if he was going to see Disney Pixar’s Brave with me. He replied, “Ughh no. That’s for kids.” Yes. Kids and 24 year old girls named Lily. Childhood goes by so quickly and all the fun stuff you do when you’re young is frowned upon when you’re older. Why is that? Why can’t childhood last forever? Why do we have to grow up and clean things and pay taxes and pretend to care about politics and the earth and other people? Childhood was such a selfish time. Maybe that’s why I miss it.

I remember my first taste of people making me feel bad for unleashing my inner child was during my first year of college in Utah. It was October and my friends and I wanted to go trick or treating. So we did. We got a lot of weird looks from parents and children that we passed on the street. I distinctly remembering a woman asking us, “Aren’t you a little old to be trick or treating?” We said uhhh no? She then said, “Are you going to go sit on Santa’s lap too?” You know what lady? WHAT IF I AM? Just because you’re an old skank, doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the holidays!

I take the kids I babysit to McDonald’s more than the average person should eat there. It’s turning into Supersize Me. Which I’m totes okay with. Every so often I have to help one of them get into the Play Place. It’s usually the youngest who can’t reach the top step or something like that. I’ll look around the room, trying to suppress my desire to climb to the top and go down the slide over and over. I would no doubt be king of the castle and everyone else would be my dirty rascals. I’ve given into temptation a couple of times. Some of the parents smile and some look the other way. Yeah, they better look the other way or else they’re gonna get a milkshake straight to the face.

I also experience the same hate/jealousy around vacation time. My family has been going to Disney World since I was a wee lass. I remember in high school and college people would ask me where I was going for Spring Break. I wouldn’t say Miami or Cabo or LA. I would tell them I was going to Disney World. I could tell they thought I was lame, but you know what? There are probably more adults visiting Disney World than kids. And maybe I enjoy getting an autograph from my favorite Disney characters every so often. And seeing fireworks every night. And walking down Main Street USA. Whatevs.

Paul and I had Netflix for a bit. It was okay but the selection of movies wasn’t superb. One day while Paul was at work, I was checking out Netflix and I saw that they had episodes of Rugrats available! Without batting an eye I ordered one episode and re-lived a bit of my childhood. When Paul came home from work he said, “I know what you’ve been doing.” I looked at him like he was a psycho. Then he said “How was Rugrats?” How did he know?!?! I guess Netflix had sent him an email that said, “Hope you enjoyed your viewing of Rugrats!” We canceled our Netflix subscription after that.

People are always going to judge you when you do things to make yourself happy. Don’t listen to them! Like philosopher/songstress Natasha Bedingfield said, Release your inhibitions! If you want to reminisce and feel like a kid again, you should. I got fro-yo two nights ago and covered it in rainbow sprinkles like I was 5 years old because I don’t care what anyone thinks. Be happy, have fun, be yourself.

The Song That Never Ends

You know what I do to really depress myself? List all of the things that I’ll have to do for the rest of my life. It can be the most miniscule task, but it will still cause me distress to think about.

Some moms complain about how they’ve made a million school lunches for their kids. Yeah, I’m not talking about stuff like that. School lunches end. You really only have to make them for 5 or 6 years. If your kid is eating a packed lunch in middle school or high school, chances are they have no friends. So shut up about school lunches. Plus, making lunch is awesome. Anything to do with food is great.

Here are some examples of things that I will be doing for the rest of my life:

Bathing. No matter how many times you bathe a week, you will never be clean forever.  I know it doesn’t take up much time, and it’s often relaxing, but imagine how much extra time we would have if we didn’t have to ever clean ourselves. Tons of time! We wouldn’t have to invest in soaps or shampoos or blow dryers because we wouldn’t have any need for them. And think about all the water we would be saving! I think I just figured out how to obtain world peace. YOU’RE WELCOME, EARTH.

Cleaning/laundry/dishes/etc. It wasn’t until I lived on my own that I realized cleaning is the worst. I love organizing things. Cleaning on the other hand, not so much. It’s great when you’ve finished cleaning and your house looks spick and span until you realize that you have to do it all again next week. You’ll never escape the cycle of cleaning. You have to do it  FOR-EV-ER. I’ve found a shortcut around not having to do dishes. All you have to do is avoid using them. Good luck with that. Unless your body can sustain itself on chips and soda like mine.

You know those dwarves are gonna mess up the cottage again.

Working out/dieting. This has to be the most depressing. No matter how much you work out and eat healthy, you’ll gain weight if you stop. I wish there was a point where your body was like, “Sweet, I think I got the hang of this. I’ll take it from here.” If you’ve been at a good weight and then gained the pounds back, you know how hard it is to get back to your skinny point. It’s rough. Bodies are dumb.

Buying gas/food/toiletries. This sucks. Unless you’re an extreme coupon-er and have a stock pile of goods in your basement, I’m guessing you’re like me and have to buy this stuff over and over. You couldn’t really stock pile gas though, could you? Well, you could, but you’d have to put it in those weird containers and they freak me out. Gas shouldn’t be portable. It should only come out of gas stations. I know it has to be transported to the gas stations, but it would be more magical if the gas just happened to come out of the ground wherever the stations where. Wtf am I talking about anymore?

A gas station was eventually placed right on top of that spot.

Making money. Someone in your family has to go to work everyday. It might not be you, but there is some way you’ve acquired money. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a sum of money that you eventually made that would be enough? Enough in the sense that you’d never have to work again. I guess this happens to some people. But if that happened to everyone, then we’d all have the same amount of money and it would kind of be like a commune where everyone has the same stuff. Which has always been an attractive way of living in my eyes. Maybe I should move to Russia? I would wear one of those cool hats and learn to do that crazy dance and drink vodka all the time. I probably wouldn’t do any of those things. Unless they included crying myself to sleep every night.

Hopefully everyone wants to kill themselves now.

Lot’s o’ love!

Analyzing Snow White and The Huntsman

Last night I saw Snow White and The Huntsman (or SWATH). It had the right amount of fairytale feeling, enough action to keep you going, and at least one of the Hemsworth brothers.

I would definitely recommend this movie. It had a Pan’s Labyrinth kind of feel to it which I really liked. The acting was well done. Kristen Stewart was likable which is a large feat for her. I was a bit distracted by her mouth because she’s what I like to call, long in the tooth. But besides that, she was really good. The storyline is a clever and realistic take on the well-known fairy tale. Throughout the movie I was semi distracted during certain scenes. Here are some of my observations.

At the beginning of the movie it’s obvious that Snow White’s mother, Queen Eleanor, loves her. Snow White is a happy child and is a kind person with a good heart. In fact, her mother tells her how beautiful her heart is and touches her daughter’s chest. I would’ve been like, “Umm mom? Can you not touch my prepubescent boobs? I know where my heart is. Thanks.”

Charlize Theron plays Ravenna, the evil queen that takes over Snow White’s father’s kingdom. I’m guessing she’s named after the ravens that she randomly morphs into during the film. Don’t even try to tell me that no birds were harmed in the making of this movie because there was some cray cray bird shite going on. I’m sorry but I was seriously waiting for Charlize to start strutting around the room and then look into the camera and say “J’adore Dior” and then go back to being Ravenna. I, for one, would’ve appreciated it.

One thing that you learn in the movie is that England during the 14th century is basically a world of mud. Like, mud is everywhere. Everyone is covered in it. All of the character’s fingernails are dirty, even the Queen had grungy nails. So let me get this straight. You can turn yourself into a flock of birds but you can’t clean your nails? Priorities, Ravenna. J’adore Dior!

The Seven Dwarves made me nauseous more than anything. All of their teeth were rotten and each and every one of them looked smelly. None of them had loveable characteristics like the ones from the Disney classic. Except one dwarf was blind. That’s kind of cute, right? I kept thinking that one of them really looked like Nick Frost. Turns out it was Nick Frost. Couldn’t they get actual dwarves?  If they could do it with hundreds fourteen Oompa Loompas in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, surely the makers of SWATH could find at least 7 real dwarves. Note: Do dwarves really exist or should I be referring to them as little people?

There were also a lot of conveniences in the movie. After Snow White escaped from the castle, there was a white horse just chillin on the beach. Hmm that’s handy. The team that’s tracking Snow White picks up her tracks pretty easily by smelling the ground and the trees, etc. Like, don’t pretend for a minute that humans have an innate sense of smell. There’s no way you could smell anyone by sniffing some dirt. Also, when Snow White’s in battle, she and her army are pelted by arrows and she’s unharmed the entire time. There’s literally a shower of arrows and not one hits you? How is she all of a sudden the best knight around?

Did pony tails even exist back then?

And lastly, Ravenna’s relationship with her brother is a weird one at best. Her albino brother, Finn, is basically her slave. He does whatever he’s told and helps her rule the kingdom ruthlessly. I find this slightly unbelievable since my brother will barely even fetch me a can of soda. Their relationship is taken to a new level of creepy when Finn watches her take a random milk/paint/wax bath.

J’adore……

Hopefully this doesn’t stray you from seeing the movie. It’s actually very entertaining and beautifully done. I’m just unable to fully appreciate something until I make fun of it.