Wednesday, April 7, 2010

An Unscheduled Flashback. Deal.

Sooooo, I haven't been writing very frequently these days. STFU, it happens.

It's been absolutely crazy at work, then there was Easter in Ohio, and when I DID finally get a moment to myself, it either didn't last very long, or my brain could not scramble together coherent words worth writing down; it would have sounded something like Bill Cosby talking whilst fully submerged in Jell-O.

That said, I've been unable to keep up with my Flashback Friday (I only lasted two weeks....this is not a surprise.) Each day I attempted to begin writing one to redeem myself, cleverly naming it with the use of the current day: Monday Memories.....Time Travel Tuesdays....

But alas, shit happens. So screw alliteration. It's a fucking Wednesday and I'm gonna talk about my childhood.

As you know, I love to reminisce, especially when I'm back in NJ, sifting through my treasure trove of junk, now piled carelessly in our attic after my room was taken over (thanks little sis!). This can also be described as my tendency to hoard massive amounts of childhood paraphernalia in an effort to cling to the past. Whichever romantic notion you prefer.

I do not shy away from sharing the great colored pencil masterpieces of my imaginative youth. They are the gentle reminders of a simpler life, where diner place-mats served as canvases, and people were drawn with no necks. Every idea seemed like a good idea. Like the time I wrote the label of every room in marker next to the light switches: cause everyone needs to be reminded of what room they're standing in!

Here a few gems I was able to dig up last weekend:

"Tara's Different Kinds of Cats," My First Book
 I must have been at most 5 when I crafted this masterpiece. At least I hope so. I don't even know why I made this book about cats....I wasn't a big cat person. My guess is that I only knew about 2 kinds of dogs, but at least 5 different types of cats. They were also easier to draw.


This was followed up by "The Parrot and a Computer on a Stick," inspired by some interesting pencil tops.

"An Un-Ordinary Family," My First Script
When I was about 7-9 (the years are blurred here), I came up with what I thought to be the most groundbreaking and fantastic idea for a play/movie ever imagined: a kooky family with an uncle named Popie and an aunt who hoards cat food, and their general crazy shenanigans (gee, wonder where I got that idea...) My cousins Beck and Missy were giddy with excitement at the prospect of acting this out. We often put together our own plays to perform in front of the family.

This particular performance debuted at Missy's house alongside our other hit "Sometime's You're Gonna Get Hurt" (a musical, complete with a namesake theme song.) But "Unordinary" was different; this was gonna be big...like Hollywood big.


I started the script and tried to put together a production in 3rd grade (see my above announcement that was taped to our classroom door). This plan eventually fell through, since attention spans at that age are slim. Apparently, I assumed that all scripts were just a continuous stream of consciousness that took up three columns to a page.



"Return to Chewandswallow," One of My 1st Rip-Off Books
I say one of my first rip offs because the first one I wrote was actually based on a Full House episode where D.J. befriends a horse. I was so proud of myself, I brought it to class to show off (man, I was such an egotistical little first grader). Then one girl, who probably meant no harm at all, pointed out that she had watched that Full House episode the previous night too. Bitch.

Anywho, after my devout love of "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs," I decided that there should be a sequel. (They literally came out with one a few years later....but whatever.) The big deal here was that my mom taught me to sew the binding myself. I must have been tired after doing all that, which probably explains why the rest of the book was done so crappily. I prefer the laziness factor over the risk of being perceived as retarded.



"Personality T-Shirt," Take This As You Will
We had to make a t-shirt design that displayed our personality traits. Don't judge; it was 1996 for god sakes.

2 thoughts:

Holly Renee said...

That script looked hilarious. It was so random. You were quite the creative kid... or you just watched too much television. I think it's perhaps a mixture of both. Good stuff.

Tara Rose Stromberg said...

Hahah, you're probably right. Too many cartoons. That and 90210. Don't ask me why I was able to watch that at age 9....it was dad's fave show. Go figure.

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