Dearest Sinister, I had a really weird dream last night. The details of it are rather fuzzy, but I do remember that the premise was that my mother had a baby. I didn't actually see her pregnant, or having the baby. The dream started when I went to look at the baby, it was just lying there on what seemed to be a cement cube, and it was really ugly. It was a girl, but it looked rather male, really really large with slightly dislocated appendages, like a rag doll out of proportion. Then my dream sort of flashed ahead, a few months I think it was supposed to be. The baby had turned into twins. The most beautiful children you have ever seen, these two little girls with ear-length, straight brown hair and pretty, frilly little dresses on. The two of them and I were having a picnic on a feild somewhere, and the strange thing was that they were both old enough to talk. I remember thinking how odd it was that they had grown up so much so fast. They were such perfect little girls, and I loved ! them so much, but they didn't li ke me. They kind of smirked at me, as if to say "we are too beutiful and pure and perfect for you." I was sad, and for some reason all I could think to talk about was how ugly one of the littel girls had been as a baby. It wasn't a very good dream. But now I have an urge to play with my favorite doll from when I was little, who is as beautiful as those little girls, with the same features. Her name is Samantha, and she's sitting in my lap right now. This dream probably happened because I was thinking about little kids a lot yesterday. I kept playing this scene from the YMCA, where I volenteer, the day before. I teach an art class for 6, 7 and 8 year olds, and its really neat, but I ger really upset sometimes when I get there before my class starts and I hang out with the kids. They're such little impressions of commercialism it depresses me. This wednesday, one of the more annoying of the children, Johanna, had gotten this new doll from a line called The Bratz. Who would name a = doll= that? I asked the kids that, and they explained to me that the dolls each had separate names, this one happened to be Cloe, and that The Bratz was the name of the gang they were all in. Gang?! For second graders?! The doll also had a very large head, big boobs and no waist at all. The two outfits she came with were a pair of sparkly bell bottoms flaired up to the thigh with a little matching jean jacket, and a cowskin miniskirt!!! The freakiest thing was her shoes. The shoes were designed so that they were weighty enough for the doll to stand up in them, so they were these gigantic platform shoes- a pair of high boots and some of those platform mary-jane type party shoes. The platforms were about as tall as the doll's hand. The weirrdest thing was that doll didn't have any feet!! Her tiny ankles snapped into the gigantic shoes! The little girls were playing a typical game, Dollie Goes To School. Rachel (my sweet little namesake) was the mother and the teacher, and Aminah and Lakisha took turns being the doll. Both of them gave the doll this high pitched voice, made her say "like" and "whatever" a lot, and made her be really rude to her teacher. Lakisha said something like "Work?! I don't want to work, I want to, like, go to the mall with my friends and go shopping or whatever" Where did these girls learn this? Is this what they think teenagers (which the doll was supposed to be) are like? ! Is this what they're going to try to be like when they're older? ! Theres no way I can stop the brainwashing of these kids. My hour long art class doesn't change anything, its only one less hour of being fed disguisting societal standards and regurgitating it to eachother. Things weren't even this bad when I was a little kid, which was not so long ago. My little brother's grade at school tries to be way more mature than I did at his age, and these little kids are being fed so much drek- they're all really knowledgable about popular music, and can sing you some really foul rap songs, and they've got the dolls and action figures and cartoons and stuff. They've got double the crap going into their head that older people do. Its really upsetting. Wow, what a long rant. No content at all, but I really don't think this counts as "list abuse," do you? I am so very happy for Rachel Fruitloop and Ben. Isn't everyone, though? Please feel free to be as candy-coated as you want to, rachel, it cheers me up. Love, Rachel Grapenut +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. 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