I Still Want to Go To Honalee
Jan. 7th, 2005 12:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sisabetWhen I was little I was convinced that Puff the Magic Dragon would like me a lot more than that annoying Jackie Paper. This was an absolute belief. I, I would appreciate Honalee so much more. I would never abandon Puff, like Jackie does in the song, just because I did something silly, like grow up.
My big downfall was that I could never shut up and isolate long enough that Puff would find me. Jackie in the cartoon has to be practically catatonic and then Puff comes to save him from himself. I would practice sitting and staring straight ahead, but I never could maintain for more than a few minutes at a time. I was a wiggley and giggley five year old. There just was no way around it and yet - it I felt it barred me from Puff's reach. This is obviously why I never went to Honalee.
I was always reaching conclusions as a child. I had intricate systems in place for where babies came from based upon observations and what I have overheard and pieced together. Babies came from sex except for monkeys - they got their babies from planes (where the monkey babies were before the plane was rather nebulous) and people could have sex or just pray really hard, but dogs had to have sex for babies. Why ask, when you could infer was my motto.
But see - the thing with Puff - it took a dark and scary turn because one day I am at my grandmother's house and watching television with my teenaged uncle and KISS was performing. And I knew all about Kevin's favorite bands: AC/DC, KISS, and Queen. He took great care in teaching the small children the lyrics to his favorite songs. So I knew this was the band where the men wore makeup and they sang a song about a rollercoaster (I have no idea what this song was - I just remember knowing there was a KISS rollarcoaster song. I can't find it now). But at that specific moment, Gene Simmons face filled the screen and all of a sudden his bloody tongue - in full closeup - made a complete revolution over his face.
I was horrified. I was terrified. I had no idea what to do with this image. Somehow, my brain decided that Gene Simmon's tongue was an evil dragon's tongue and now - I have spent all this time trying to get Puff to come and find me - what if he did??
I would wake up in the middle of the night convinced if I looked over to the window, Puff with Gene Simmon's Tongue would be there. Waiting for me. It got so bad, Mom had to switch out Dawn and my twin beds so Dawn was closer to the window. Of course this only helped for about an hour as Dawn so helpfully pointed out that night "Well, now you are closer to the closet. What are you gonna do if he's in the closet?" Girls with Night Terrors should not throw stones, Dawn, but since I didn't know she was messing with me (I really thought she was trying to protect me from PwGST) I did not respond by tweaking her own fears back at her (Dawn was convinced that there were these spots that were out to get her. She would wake up screaming and would not stop because the spots were descending or something. Considering these are my earliest memories, I am much less neurotic than I should be).
Finally, time and "The Edge of Night" taught me that sometimes people have Evil Twins. I realized that PwGST was actually Puff's evil twin (obviously) and that whenever there is an Evil Twin, the Good Twin is following closely behind rescuing the poor unfortunates the Evil Twin has ensnared.
This meant that I still had a shot at hanging with Puff. Except, by that point, Mom had enough and refused to let me watch the cartoon when it came on TV.
This is the first Story Arc I remember in my childhood. Everything before it is merely a vignette or a one-off. This is my first Arc.
My big downfall was that I could never shut up and isolate long enough that Puff would find me. Jackie in the cartoon has to be practically catatonic and then Puff comes to save him from himself. I would practice sitting and staring straight ahead, but I never could maintain for more than a few minutes at a time. I was a wiggley and giggley five year old. There just was no way around it and yet - it I felt it barred me from Puff's reach. This is obviously why I never went to Honalee.
I was always reaching conclusions as a child. I had intricate systems in place for where babies came from based upon observations and what I have overheard and pieced together. Babies came from sex except for monkeys - they got their babies from planes (where the monkey babies were before the plane was rather nebulous) and people could have sex or just pray really hard, but dogs had to have sex for babies. Why ask, when you could infer was my motto.
But see - the thing with Puff - it took a dark and scary turn because one day I am at my grandmother's house and watching television with my teenaged uncle and KISS was performing. And I knew all about Kevin's favorite bands: AC/DC, KISS, and Queen. He took great care in teaching the small children the lyrics to his favorite songs. So I knew this was the band where the men wore makeup and they sang a song about a rollercoaster (I have no idea what this song was - I just remember knowing there was a KISS rollarcoaster song. I can't find it now). But at that specific moment, Gene Simmons face filled the screen and all of a sudden his bloody tongue - in full closeup - made a complete revolution over his face.
I was horrified. I was terrified. I had no idea what to do with this image. Somehow, my brain decided that Gene Simmon's tongue was an evil dragon's tongue and now - I have spent all this time trying to get Puff to come and find me - what if he did??
I would wake up in the middle of the night convinced if I looked over to the window, Puff with Gene Simmon's Tongue would be there. Waiting for me. It got so bad, Mom had to switch out Dawn and my twin beds so Dawn was closer to the window. Of course this only helped for about an hour as Dawn so helpfully pointed out that night "Well, now you are closer to the closet. What are you gonna do if he's in the closet?" Girls with Night Terrors should not throw stones, Dawn, but since I didn't know she was messing with me (I really thought she was trying to protect me from PwGST) I did not respond by tweaking her own fears back at her (Dawn was convinced that there were these spots that were out to get her. She would wake up screaming and would not stop because the spots were descending or something. Considering these are my earliest memories, I am much less neurotic than I should be).
Finally, time and "The Edge of Night" taught me that sometimes people have Evil Twins. I realized that PwGST was actually Puff's evil twin (obviously) and that whenever there is an Evil Twin, the Good Twin is following closely behind rescuing the poor unfortunates the Evil Twin has ensnared.
This meant that I still had a shot at hanging with Puff. Except, by that point, Mom had enough and refused to let me watch the cartoon when it came on TV.
This is the first Story Arc I remember in my childhood. Everything before it is merely a vignette or a one-off. This is my first Arc.
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-07 06:24 pm (UTC)So maybe you could still go there Maybe Puff is just waiting for you to find him.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-07 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-07 06:32 pm (UTC)I love your childhood story, it always amazes how children make sence of things, it's just lovely :)
no subject
Date: 2005-01-07 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-07 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-07 06:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-07 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-07 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-07 07:12 pm (UTC)hee hee hee hee *cough*
no subject
Date: 2005-01-07 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-07 06:54 pm (UTC)Interpretation is a funny thing - I still prefer my cartoon-based childhood one- except I always made the Puff in my head, pink.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-08 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-08 05:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-07 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-08 02:21 am (UTC)I was afraid of walking on black pavement, the White Wedding video, and garbage trucks with arms. The ones that pick up dumpsters, I mean, not some kind of mutant cyborg thing.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-08 05:19 am (UTC)