choosing utopia

I have a lot of thoughts. This video is a little long. It’s also possible that these are the effects of the extra cup of coffee I had today. But really I think it’s that I truly have a lot of thoughts that are all over the place about all of this.

It’s another thing about social media — it asks that we distill our thoughts into one sentence. A hot take. So many of my thoughts are messy. Now that I’m not thinking in tweets and Instagram captions anymore, my brain is so happy to romp and play in the fields of unstructured nuance.

Although I realize this might be annoying to you, watching this long video. Alas.

So I’ll tell you that I did not have a Barbie when I was little. My friend Katherine had Barbies and they seemed fine. We made food for them in tiny pink plastic bowls. The food was Fun Dip powder mixed with water. We called it granuella. That sounded like something Barbie would eat.

Katherine had many cool accessories for her Barbies, besides the tiny bowls. She had a pink plastic toilet that flushed, and I thought it was the coolest thing. I was deeply impressed by this toilet.

In the 70s it seemed totally normal to have a toilet that was essentially as high as your ankles. It’s why we all have back pain now.

It probably says something about me that, when handed a Barbie, I was most interested in feeding her and insuring her healthy digestion. Hey, Barbie, I made you a flax smoothie.

Also I don’t know why we had all this extra Fun Dip hanging around.

I did not have Barbies but I did have the Sunshine Family. Steve, Stella, and Baby¹ Sunshine were a flat-footed family who had craft store. My dog ate half of Steve’s leg. Katherine and I said he lost it in “the war.” I got a replacement Steve and so war-ravaged Steve became the evil twin.

I have no memory of there being Sunshine grandparents, but apparently they were an option too. For doing background chores.

I did not have to worry about the Sunshine Family’s meals or digestion. They probably ate fiber all day long. Too much fiber, even. They could have used some granuella occasionally, as a treat.

1. I have just this second learned that their names were technically Steve, Stephie, and Sweets. Something deep inside me remembers this. I also have the sense that I knew that Sweets was a terrible name, that even Baby was better than Sweets.