A Plan
Howdy, y’all!
(I don’t think I’ve mentioned this on here before, but if I have, I’m sorry.)
Back in 4th grade, I wrote a really horrible (quality horrible, not topic horrible) story in a spiral notebook. It was the longest thing I’d written by that point, and back in like 8th grade I transcribed it into a different notebook because 1) the original one was in pencil and was starting to fade and 2) my handwriting in 4th grade was terrible. I still have the 8th grade copy:
(It’s starting to fall apart now too, haha)
I was thinking of typing it up at some point, so my new plan is to type it up chapter by chapter and maybe put each chapter up here as I get them ready, sort of like a little serialization thing. It’ll be like Charles Dickens, except, you know, terrible.
That will also force me to get the damn thing typed up, at least.
Flashback (even further this time):
You know what I miss sometimes? Going down to visit my grandparents in California. Their house was huge and interesting and had all sorts of funky things in it and I always enjoyed exploring it (and the yard) every time I went down there with my dad.
My dad would sleep in his old room and I’d stay in my Aunt Vicky’s room, which was right next to his. She had the coolest little desk and windows and dresser in there and my grandma put a tiny little stereo/CD player in there for me so I could play some CDs when I slept.
Anyway, one of the CDs she had in there was this one:
I didn’t really know who Andrea Bocelli was when I was a kid, but I LOVED this CD. The first song on there always reminds me of that house.
Pretty much every song I have links to a certain memory, but this is one of the stronger ones.
I’m Facebook stalking ‘cause I HATE MY LIFE
Does anyone have that one person from your past who affected your life in some significant way but who has probably never given you a second thought after a certain point in time (like after, say, high school) but you secretly wish they thought of you every once and a while and checked up on how you were doing and was blown away by everything you’ve accomplished and how far you’d come in life since the last time they’d seen you and feel a mild twinge of regret for not giving you a second chance back when they knew you?
Yeah, me neither.
Baby Books for Babies: An Update
Current list of childhood books I’ve re-read:
- Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (Judy Blume)
- The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (Barbara Robinson)
- Holes (Louis Sachar)
- A Wrinkle in Time (Madeline L’Engle)
- An embarrassingly large number of Babysitters Club books
I actually just finished reading Holes yesterday, and that book is even better than I remember it. It’s surprisingly…intricate?…for a kid’s book. It’s not hard to read or anything like that, but everything ties together in more ways than you typically see in a lot of kid’s books. I also really like Sachar’s writing style and characters; I actually bought a physical copy of his Sixth Grade Secrets because I used to love that book as a kid. So if you haven’t read Holes, read it!
A Wrinkle in Time was a disappointment. It wasn’t nearly as good as I remember it being.
Now I need to figure out what to read next!
Clubby-Sitters Babe
So a few weeks ago I mentioned that I wanted to intersperse my classics reading with some books from my childhood. And a HUGE series for me as a kid was the Baby-Sitters Club series. My favorite character was always Claudia because a) same name! and b) she was artistic and wore funky, artsy clothing. But I remember liking all of the characters.
So I decided that some (or a good portion of) my “childhood books” list will be all the Baby-Sitters Club books I can get in Kindle version.
Which turns out to be…all of them?
Nice.
I’m not reading them in order, but that’s okay. I’ll probably start with some of the Claudia-centric ones and branch out from there.
Woo!
A Confession:
If you were to take a look at the books on Kondle (my Kindle, in case anyone forgot. Yes, he has a name. Eat it.), you would no longer find just classics.
Instead, you would also find several children’s books that were popular in the early- to mid-1990s.
Why?
Because I’ve been in major “book nostalgia” mode and have been wanting to re-read books that I remember from my childhood.
So I’ve decided to intersperse my classics with said childhood books. First up is A Wrinkle in Time, which I think was read to us by our teacher (Mrs. Lohrmann) in sixth grade.
Do you have any stand-out books from your childhood? Let me know, ‘cause maybe I read them too and am just forgetting them, haha.
Cardy…CD?
BRO so a few weeks ago – for whatever reason – I was reminded of an old game that I used to have on CD way back when I was like in third grade or something. I don’t remember the name of the CD, but it was basically just a bunch of different card games (war, crazy 8’s, hearts, etc.) that you could play against animated characters.
And today I was going through one of my old home movie tapes and there was a few seconds of me holding up a bunch of CD cases. One of them was the game I was thinking of!
It was called Wild Cards!
I REMEMBER THIS OH MY GOD
Edit: A walk-through!
The voices of those characters are etched in my head. Especially Jack saying “hit me!”
This sweater!
This thing right here (from Ragged Priest):
UGH.
There’s something about this sweater that reminds me of something…some article of clothing…from my childhood. And I hate that I can’t picture the specific article of clothing.
It’s not the shape of the sweater but rather those dangly fabric pieces. I can’t figure out why and it’s driving me crazy. There’s some memory all crumpled up in the back of my brain that’s trying its hardest to uncrumple and appear clearly, but I can’t get it to.
Mom, do you have any idea what I’m talking about? I don’t know if I had an article of clothing that looked kind of like this or if there’s something with dangly strings that I used to wear as a kid, but I can’t figure it out and I’d really like to, haha.
Ah, Hell With It
This won’t be the first time I’ve humiliated myself on this blog, and it certainly won’t be the last.
So let’s get to it!
Remember back in the summer when I was off the wall enthused by all those home movies that we finally got converted to digital form?
And remember how I posted like three of them and then you never heard about them again?
Yyyyyeahhhhhhhhhh, that’s ‘cause I got busy.
But I’m still working through them! So in the spirit of “better late than never,” here’s the next installment.
Back in the summer between fifth grade and sixth grade (I think?) I took my mom’s camcorder, a brand new blank tape, and filled said tape with a whole bunch of nonsense that I dubbed “The Fifth Grade Movie.”
It’s basically me being super hyperactive in my room and filming a bunch of shorts, improvised songs, commercials, and interviews.
A few notes:
- I am an only child. This whole video is proof of why I’m an only child.
- This is how an only child entertains themselves. A least in my case.
- I call everything “Tony” because this was during the time that I was obsessed with the “Hey Tony!” Frosted Flakes commercials. Don’t ask questions.
- This is not me acting for the camera. I was just like this. Ask my classmates.
- Yes, my room is very, very messy.
- I sure screeched a hell of a lot, didn’t I?
- My FREAKING HAIR
- I have no idea how my mom put up with me.
You are under no obligation to watch this. In fact, just skip it for sanity’s sake.
Nostalgia!
We’re getting into temperatures where I need to bring my radio on my runs because my on-ear headphones keep my ears from freezing.
The radio station I listen to, C97.7, does a “90s at Nine” every day at 9 AM. This involves the playing of three songs that have something in common. Often it’s a word in the song title or a genre or an artist.
This morning, the theme was “Disney songs” and the first song up was “A Whole New World” from Aladdin.
I cannot express the MASSIVE nostalgia hit I took when that song started. I hadn’t heard it in so long and it instantly took me back to when my mom and I would watch Aladdin back when I was in elementary school and we lived in our old house in Troy.
It just…it felt good.
Fairy
When I was a kid, my dad had several episodes of Rocky & Bullwinkle on VHS. I never watched any other episodes of the show except those on the tapes, but I remember I really enjoyed them.
One of the segments of the show was called “Fractured Fairy Tales,” which featured a humorous take on a classic fairy tale.
For some reason, the Rapunzel one always stuck with me. And now it’s on YouTube!
Rapunzel’s voice is super familiar. The cackling witch sounds is really familiar, too.
Odd
You know the strangest thing about all those old home movies that I’ve been watching/editing?
The fact that I used to have friends.
Like…that concept seems so foreign to me now. I had people who wanted to come to my birthday parties. I had people I hung out with and stood next to during all our Christmas and spring concerts in elementary school.
I mean, I guess if you go through six years of schooling with approximately the same group of 23 or so people, you’re bound to bond with some of them. But it’s just interesting to see that I used to actually be able to maintain friendships. I don’t remember when that lost priority for me, but at some point it certainly did.
Odd news.
Good lord, what is this
Welcome to the experimental film stylings of Young Claudia.
I have no idea how old I was when I made this, but that looks like the house on Borah, so maybe 5th or 6th grade?
Either way, I was freaking Spielberg.
The Grandpa Twins Redux
So I posted about The Grandpa Twins a while back, but now that we’ve got the tapes actually professionally pulled into digital format instead of me recording them with my camcorder by pointing it at the TV, here is an updated video with all of the episodes on it. Timestamps in the comments, for anyone who remotely cares.
Welcome to Hell!
In other words, welcome to several weeks of home videos and other nonsense that no one else cares about!
First up: Hamlet performed by Legos. I made this sometime in 12th grade and my 12th grade English teacher let me show it to the class near the end of the year. They freaking loved it and a bunch of people mentioned it when they signed my yearbook, haha.
It’s actually crap, but so is the taste of 12th graders, apparently.
Anyway.
*raucous excitement* THE HOME MOVIES ARE HERE
Well, they’re not really here yet…my mom is in the process of uploading them to a joint YouTube account so that I can download them, edit them (splice ‘em up and give ‘em names), and make them pretty.
So expect a lot of home movie garbage in the coming weeks. That’s all I’m going to say.
My Life Here
I was born in Moscow. I grew up in Moscow. I went to elementary school, junior high, high school, and college in Moscow.
Because of this, I obviously have a ton of memories here. And I think I’m more appreciative of those memories thanks to being away from Moscow for a few years thanks to Covid.
This evening, for example, my mom and I were doing our nightly drive around town (which is something we’ve done for YEARS) and we turned down this one street we’ve always turned down. It hit me how many different memories I associated just with that street. All the different thoughts, obsessions, worries, and phases of my life that I’ve gone through and that I’ve contemplated on car rides past as we’ve driven this street.
It’s actually pretty wild to think of how much I’ve experienced here.
I really miss the past sometimes.
Safari
So was this anyone else’s elementary school “treat” that the teacher let you play with if you were good?
We had a yellow GeoSafari in elementary school and we all LOVED it, haha.
So I’m reading War and Peace and MAN
I got NOTHING out of this when I read it the first time.
I suppose story time is in order, here.
Back in 7th grade I made a list of about 150 “classics” that I wanted to read. My current “250 Books” list is an extension of that original list. I don’t know why I made this list – I probably just wanted to look smart – but I started working through it immediately, selecting books that our junior high library had.
One of these books was War and Peace.
Now, I don’t remember if I decided to read it first and then the kid I liked (Lead) decided to read it as well or if he decided to read it and I chose to read it because of that, but somehow we both ended up reading it at the same time. I don’t know where he got his copy, but I had the junior high library’s copy, which was this massive tome of a thing where the text was in two columns on each page (like a dictionary). I took this thing everywhere and read it at every opportunity with the sole goal of just getting through it and showing Lead how smart I was (he actually never did finish it and I did, so that’s kinda cool I guess).
But I remembered NOTHING from it apart from the fact that one of the main characters was named Pierre.
Now in my defense, there ARE a lot of characters in War and Peace and they all have very Russian names. And if you’ve ever read any Russian lit, you’ll know that one dude can be referred to by like seven different names. So that was rough.
Also, I don’t know what translation I had, but I have a feeling it was one of the worse ones. I can’t blame my lack of comprehension entirely on the translation, but it’s worth noting that I was reading other books around this time that were objectively “as hard” or “harder” vocab- and grade-level-wise compared to War and Peace (e.g., Of Human Bondage, As I Lay Dying, The Bridge of San Luis Rey) and had no problems understanding those. So.
Anyway, let this be a gentle prompting to revisit books you read in your youth (especially any of those “classics” that you HAD to read for a certain class) and give them another chance. Perhaps you’ll find something you really enjoy.
Cake
This song was the audio for some random TikTok I stumbled upon today and it immediately released a weird wave of nostalgia from my mid-childhood, back when I’d spend the weekend at my dad’s condo and I’d watch all the weird shit Cartoon Network had on after 9 PM (including Adult Swim, when that became a thing).
Edit:
This show was over my head at the time, but MAN I remember that intro.
IT HAS BEEN DECIDED
Once I go back down to Moscow this summer, I’m going to take all my old home video tapes to Archer Photography and have them converted to digital format there. My mom went there a little while ago to ask if they were able to do that, and it sounds like they’re able to just convert everything to MP3 format.
So that’s cool.
I’m excited!
Twisted Christmas
This is the time of year where I want to hunker down in my room, turn the overhead lights off and the Christmas lights on, and play through this wonderfully ridiculous Quake map:
I remember playing this when we lived on Tamarack, which was…4th grade? I distinctly recall switching between this and the “Santa Tracker” website on Christmas eve, haha.
Man, I miss those days.
Flight
Y’all, this was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. It’s kind of got E.T. vibes, but is vastly superior because E.T. was horrifying and terrible. This is engaging and fun.
Anyone else remember this one?
Golden Books
Did any of you have Little Golden Books when you were a kid?
I had a TON of these at my dad’s condo. Like everything else he ever bought, he liked to collect them.
And I loved to read them.
I remember I used to pick six or seven of them at night, bring them up to my bed (I slept on the top of a bunk bed…not sure why I had a bunk bed because I was an ONLY CHILD but whatevs), and would read them while a Classic Disney CD would play gently over my CD player.
Childhood, yo.
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