Shame On You, Cinderella

So yesterday was an icy cold day yesterday in the Midwest, and I spent the day doing what any civilized child-minded person would do on such a day: I watched Disney movies with my Rockstar’s Daughter. ABC Family has become my newest favorite cable channel.
After re-aquainting myself with the story of Aladdin, (while singing under my breath to all the amazing songs written by one Alan Menken), I was thrilled to see that Cinderella was the next film to be featured. I realized as it began that despite having had the Golden Book version of the movie and having read it so much I had it memorized as a child, I had never actually seen the movie. Though the animation was aged and far inferior to that of my favorite The Little Mermaid, I appreciated the ugliness of the evil step-mother, and was inspired to in the future write the story of how she became so bitter and ugly. But nevermind about that for now.

I was of course distracted from the Scrabble game I was winning (philo IS a word, dammit!) by Cinderella when Bibbety-Bobbity Woman adorned her in a sparkling gown with look! glass slippers!  but I was even more distracted to watch the non-handsome prince immediately fall forever in love with her upon first sight. He knew he wanted to make her his queen without even knowing her name. Now I have just a little bit of a problem with that.

Yes, of course every girl (including me) dreams of being so beautiful just a glimpse of her will make a prince fall in love with her. ‘Tis true that a sparkling gown and glass slippers may aid in such a thing, but if a prince would notice such things as that, one may wonder if perhaps he should be searching for another prince. What disturbed me so about their first meeting was not that he fell in love with her, but the fact that she didn’t even say anything. There was no hint that she was a hard-working PETA member who could sing better than her ugly step-sisters, or that she was a dog-lover who could also cook a mean breakfast.

Now  I understand how a man could fall immediately in love with a beautiful woman, as this seems to happen surprisingly often to me, but I am convinced my stellar personality and DDD’s have a little something to do with that. Upon meeting me, men haven’t a chance to simply adore my supposed beauty, because they are lickety-split bombarded with questions of there origins and whether they wear boxers or briefs. My curiosity always gets the better of me.

Anyhoo, I am upset that the story of Cinderella fools little girls into thinking that all they have to do is look pretty in order to find happiness. Yes, accessorizing is a tool to help a girl cheer up when she’s feeling down, but she can’t just go around looking pretty and expect a prince to fall into her lap! She must at least be amusing, or sweet, or something! No man wants one of those bitchy pretty girls, do they?

A Perfect Christmas Story

So, I am much to tired today to write anything witty at this point, so instead, I will tell you what my Christmas would be like if I was not who I turned out to be and life was the way I used to imagine I wanted it to be.

On Christmas Eve, my five boys (their names are Gavin, Riggs, Joey, Andy, and Westley)  would get all dressed up in their dinosaur and Xmen jammies and we would get situated in front of the TV and watch It’s A Wonderful Life while eating Christmas cookies and other assorted bad-for-you Christmas foods. My boys would grumble and say, “Mom! Why can’t we watch Home Alone instead?!” and I would respond, “Because Life is wonderful, Honeys, and you need to realize that. You’ll appreciate this movie someday.”

When the movie got to the end where Jimmy Stewart rushes home to his family, my eyes would well up with tears and my very handsome husband would grab my hand and hold it discreetly, so our boys wouldn’t say, “EWWWW! Dad, gross!” After the movie ended, the boys would jump up, excited at the prospect of Santa, and we would set out some cookies (Oreos) and milk, and a cherry- flavored cigar for him.

Each child would be allowed to open just ONE present, even though they would beg to open them all. They would take many minutes shaking each one and trying to decide which to open.

I’d then herd the boys off to bed and read them How the Grinch Stole Christmas (because Dr. Seuss is awesome), and then kiss their heads and tell them to go to sleep.

My perfect husband and I would then proceed to have awesome sex- the really naughty kind.

The next morning, my boys would come bouncing on our bed, crying, “Wake up! It’s Christmas! Presentspresentspresents!!!!” My beautiful husband and I would drag ourselves out of bed and to the living room, where our upside-down tree was. I would then don my pink Santa hat and pass out the presents. Besides for toys, each son would receive one book, which he would be thrilled about because I have instilled the love of books into my children.

My hubby would hand me a gift, also a book, and just the right one, because he had taken the time to find out what I have and haven’t read, and would have bought the newest book that came out that I had refused to buy because of the new sticker price. I would give him a gift, too- a much-wanted guitar or tickets to an awesome concert, and sex coupons, of course, which we would have to hide quickly when the boys said, “Mom, what are those?”

After the present opening, there would be piles of wrapping paper EVERYWHERE, and we would sit and watch our children play with their newly begotten treasures. There would be no family Christmas to have to rush to, because both of our families have decided it was smarter to celebrate on different days, to leave this day for us.

Fairy tales are fun, aren’t they?

A Tale of the Disenchanted

Once upon a time, there was a curly-haired girl named Sparklebumps who grew up loving fairy tales. Needless to say, this was NOT in any way beneficial to her life. In fact, the opposite proved to be true. The phrases “True Love” and  “Happily Ever After” were so imbedded into her brain that she went through her beginning years actually believing these things could really happen.

The wicked stepmother in her stories was replaced in her reality by a scary ogre of a man she called “Dad”, who worked her night and day until her muscles grew and her report card had all A’s. The occassional beating was issued whenever Sparkle actually let her personality come out, because the man she called “Dad” was trying to turn her into a Stepford Wife, and he didn’t know how else to do it. Sparkle also had a ninny of a mother who was good-hearted, but depended on “Dad” to make all her decisions for her.

When Sparkle switched schools in 4th grade, she fell deeply in love at first sight with a boy who was very smart in her class. They spent the next 5 years trying to out-do each other in the classroom, and became decent friends. Sparkle was always to afraid to let the boy know of her feelings for him, and she never told him; which is something she will always regret. The boy grew up to have a very beautiful perfect family with a very tall blonde wife.

(Skipping ahead to the better part) When Sparkle was 18, she escaped from the prison “Dad” had created for her and got her own apartment. The first night there, Sparkle was terrified to realize she didn’t even know how to write a check out or balance her checkbook. A man she mistook for her knight in shining armour helped her figure all this important life stuff out, and she married the guy.

The Mistaken Knight (or so we shall call him) had parents who owned a restaurant where Sparkle got her first job. She worked there for 12 years, each year growing more and more depressed at the thought of working there for even one more day. When her evil mother-in-law gossipped one too many times, Sparkle exploded and basically said, “Fuck this shit.” She went and found her dream job at a little used bookstore the very next day.

(More skipping) After getting divorced and finding her own personal Rockstar, Sparkle settled into her new life, a little bit wiser than she was, and jaded enough to realize that life isn’t a frickin’ Disney movie. She still found joy in the little things, and in going to her bookstore job every day, until her nemesis, the Boss, started being a fuckin’ cocksucker, and tried telling her how to do stuff, EVEN THOUGH he was never there and didn’t have a clue.

The Boss poses as a Christian, so he flaunts his Biblical knowledge and looks down upon Sparkle for living in sin with her Rockstar, but he is really just so angry because his wife is successful and can’t believe she married such a loser. She  cannot stand the thought of The Boss touching her, which results in his coming to work and complaining about his horniness.

This morning, Sparkle was all ready for a brand new day, excited to actually do some work, and bought a buttload of super-fun erotic novels from a customer. Then the wicked Boss came in and bitched her out because he says “this is a family-friendly store”, even though every single smut book we’ve ever had has sold. He then proceeded to raise Sparkle’s blood pressure by bossing her around until she wanted to stab him in the head with the scissors she was using to make a beautiful sign.

Sparklebumps is trying hard to believe there is a “Happily Ever After.”

Where I came from… or at least my blog name.

Happy Friday, People that I love! I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you who took the time to view my blog, whether you thought it was a waste of time or the most profound thing you’ve ever read. (Not likely.) I also would like to point out that I am no longer completely anonymous; I  subscribed to my co-worker’s blog. (thatgirlbehindthebook) Makes sense that I would lose my anonimity after only 2 days, as I am very bad at keeping secrets, but people seem to want to tell me theirs anyway. YAY me. Today I shall lay to rest all your minds and go into detail of the origination of my blog name- just in case you want to know more about me. If you don’t- TOO BAD FOR YOU. This is MY blog and I can do what I want! XOXO

I will begin at the near beginning, since I do not recall the process of being born, and anyway- I’m not David Copperfield. Once upon a time, my dad had a very tall friend who babysat me occasionally when my parents needed a break from my spoiled self. One time, I stayed at Very Tall Man’s lovely apartment and he spent the whole night trying to entertain me. I believe I was 6. For a 6 yr old, I was very well-read, and loved to read to people. With my Reader’s Digest condensed Fairy Tales in hand, I spent the next 3 hrs regaling Very Tall Man with stories of Little Mermaids and Frog Princes. Needless to say, I believe listening to a 6 yr old read can make a 40-something man quite bored. He suggested we find something on T.V. In the 80’s, there was this lovely little station called PBS, which provided good family entertainment. Up  popped a movie about a little orphan girl called Anne of Green Gables. I was immediately enthralled. For those of you who have never seen this epic movie, it begins with a redhead walking though the woods reading Tennyson’s “Lady of Shallott.”  Now, being young, I didn’t understand a single word of what that girl was reading, but the passion with which she breathed the words made me want to be just like her. Long story short- the girl grows up being the smartest kid in school and becomes an author. I do believe “Anne with an ‘e'” is the most influential person to me who never lived. Many, many hours were spent reenacting that movie and reading so I could be a intelligent as she.

Another instance that fueled my love for books: my mom was all about family entertainment. When I was 13 or so, she bought this movie “Shadowlands”, which was a biopic of C. S. Lewis. In it, he had a student who he went to visit. When he stepped into the boy’s apartment, all there was were piles of books. Everywhere. C. S. Lewis (who was played by the lovely Sir Anthony Hopkins) asked, “Where do you get them all?” The student who was very poor, replies, “I buy what I can; I steal the rest. I read them. I read them all.” I honestly don’t remember a thing about the rest of that movie- I only remember I wanted to have just as many books as that boy. I am a book whore because I have nearly every single book I obtained as a child; I am a book whore because I work in a used bookstore and have $600 worth of books stashed away in the back room to buy someday; I am a book whore because it does not matter what kind of book it is, I’m probably going to want it. This hasn’t really become an issue except for the fact that I seem to move alot, and books are heavy.

Sparklebumps. When you read that, what do you think of? Yes, it refers to exactly what your thinking it does. This nickname was given to me fondly by a co-worker I had when I worked at the Great Shithole known as JCPenney. My job was to unload the truck and sort the women’s clothing, distributing it in the proper area. This was a relatively easy job; alas, I am easily distracted by anything that is bright, shiny, sparkley, or ruffley. This became very apparent to those coworkers lucky enough to be within earshot of me as I unloaded any such garments. Exclamations of “OOH! It’s so PRETTY!” and “I must buy this sparkley shirt!” became an everyday occurrence. My sometimes-witty coworker (who did an  creepily dead-on impersonation of David Bowie in Labrynth) said to me one day, “You know, if I were to give you a nickname, Sparklebumps would describe you best.” This comment was due to the fact that my overly-ample busooms found themselves at times the object of conversation. ( Mainly when I came upon a sparkley shirt they would never fit in.) I have since moved on to bigger and better things. (Pun intended)

And so, My Lovelys, that is the story of sparklebumpsthebookwhore. Until next time, xoxo