In the immortal words of Blink 182, “what’s my age again?”
Songpairing
*** This song sounds like a chaos kiddie parade dancing down the street. Fun, free and with loads of sugary snacks. ***
Did you ever take a moment to celebrate that adulthood is like being a kid in a candy store?
It’s such a subtle shift year-over-year that I don’t think I ever truly rejoiced that now I can eat as many pop tarts as I want!
With the TV on!
I recognize that day-to-day chores and responsibilities can hamper this youthful enthusiasm, but even if I have to get up at 6am to get my oldest on the school bus, I could still watch TV until 5:59—if I wanted to.
To a young kid this level of freedom is mind-blowing.
We forget how restrictive and disempowering it is to be a child. How little choice and freedom you actually have.
Yet ages 0-7 are the most impactful years on our subconscious. These are the years that solidify the restrictive beliefs that we will carry for the rest of our lives, unless we intentionally seek to dismantle them.
Emerging psychology has a lot to say on working with your “inner child” to over come subconscious hurdles. I’ve delved into quite a bit of it and even started this newsletter in an effort to help myself (and others) work through self-censoring behaviors that I picked up in childhood around creative expression.
As an incidental benefit of “getting to know my inner child,” I (unabashedly and often) indulge her. Lately, this has taken the form of re-consuming much of my favorite childhood media.
For instance, last night, at my incessant urging, my daughter and I watched The Chipmunk Adventure (1987).
I got giddy when the opening credits started.
For my fellow elder-millenials, I want to refresh your recollection with this end-of-Act-One house bringer-downer.
It’s a bringer-downer-banger!
This is one of the best things about parenting, by the way. I can say it’s so rewarding to see it through their eyes, but that’s bullshit. It’s rewarding to watch it through MY eyes again and having kids is the perfect excuse to do so.
My daughter’s attention was not captivated by this at all, by the way, because she’s used to devoid drivel about infant sharks.
Unfortunately for her, I’m the parent and I decide what we watch! (irony intended)
The plot of this movie is ridiculous; A pair of diamond-smuggling siblings overhear the chipmunks squabbling about whether the girls or boys are faster. Naturally, they decide to goad them into racing around the world in dueling hot-air balloons as a front to smuggle diamonds.
If that doesn’t make sense it’s not because my synopsis is bad…
I can watch these things with 41-year-old eyes and recognize the inanity (as well as the stereotypes and plot points that uphold dated colonialist, patriarchal structures) but it does not detract from my satisfaction.
Childhood is a stage, but it is also a feeling. You can recapture it anytime.
In the past I’ve had running jokes with friends about adults obsessed with Disney vacations. Yet if you voluntarily put on mouse ears in public, I promise not to judge because I am chasing that same high when I artfully arrange the furniture and figures in my daughter’s doll house.
and speaking of toys—
The other day I noticed that a finger had been chewed off of my Samantha doll.
My 1990s Samantha lives in our playroom with the other toys, but she is normally kept on a higher shelf. How she came to be missing a finger is a current conundrum.
It could have been my dog, or my six-year-old, but I got really upset and took to Ebay to purchase a new (yet old) but pristine Samantha.
I very quickly realized that there is a bustling, EXPENSIVE, market for Samanthas. That can only mean that there are many of us who have realized the therapeutic value of indulging our inner children.
In this particular instance, I decided not to indulge my inner child in $2000-worth of a pristine Samantha set, as there is also therapeutic value in being grateful for what you already have.
Thankfully, the market for vintage children’s books is not as costly.
Of import, I’m not talking about the Very Hungry Caterpillar’s and Goodnight Moon’s of the world. I am so sick of reading children’s board bored books every night until I die.
Rather, it’s the kid novels that are calling me. The ones that first gave me the sense of being embroiled in a world that was not my own. It’s through these that I learned to love reading in the first place.
Last week, I was waiting for my kid’s school bus when a name randomly popped into my head. “Winnifred!”
I had a memory blink of a book with a Winnifred. What was it?
I got Little House on the Prairie flashes. I got girl-boy drama vibes.
Was it Bridge to Terabithia? A Wrinkle in Time? No!
It was Tuck Everlasting (thank you Google)!
I loved this book!
At least I assume I did. Other than the name Winnifred, and the above flashes. I can’t remember what the hell it was about or what happens in it.
Interestingly enough though, on about that same day, a fellow musician Substacker I follow, Zach Sprowls, published a newsletter where he discussed re-reading the books that he loved in his youth.
Now he was technically writing about actual adult books for adults but to me it was a *winknod* from my inner 10-year-old.
Thus, a used paperback copy of Tuck (only $4.99) is now on its way to my house.
I’m thinking of taking it and a classic R.L. Stine to a coffee shop to read with my iced matcha latte.
I hope people notice and snicker.
I’d relish it.
This is the kind of disrupter shit I enjoyed doing in childhood before I learned that it wasn’t safe to stand out. It might be time to resuscitate this side of myself—as a therapeutic exercise, of course.
I feel giddy just thinking about it.
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This Week’s Fascinating Cultural Miscellany:
This week I discovered
—an inhale-of-fresh-air music publicist/marketing expert that does not advocate for posting TikToks seventeen times a day! I was fortunate enough to attend their subscriber zoom and it was a wealth of valuable information.I love this series from
. I recently had an insight that “a life’s purpose” is not really a singular thing you do, but more just a way of being and existing. Suzanne expounds on that expertly here.3. Looking for new artists and bands to obsess over can be overwhelming in the streaming age. If you’re ready to give a temporary rest to your copy of The Bends or Surfer Rosa, but don’t know how to find something new, let me introduce you to
! She’ll do the grunt work for you!
I’ve been debating getting an “adult” Lego set but have been feeling self-conscious about it. I feel like you just gave me permission. So, thank you!
Thanks for the shoutout! 😎
And I just discovered Cassidy Frost too! Totally agree - such a breath of fresh air to find someone offering sensible music career advice that isn’t dribbling in gimmicky, trend-following horseshit.