Dolls that Swear, Dolls that Sweat, Dolls that don't always make everybody happy.

We took these photos a few weeks back.  I was awful proud of my kid for creating this outfit, and I began to teach her some basic sewing skills that I am sort of aghast that she doesn't already know, considering my sewing/needlework filled childhood.

So...Did you hear what they said about the prez?

This gem is a Gotz doll, a brand which I've admired for years.  When my older child was about this age (nine) we fell into the dreaded "you-know-what-doll" trap.  My response, of course, was to hunt down the cutest doll that I could find, not created by the Pleasant Company.  At this time, some five to seven years ago, I quickly discovered that American Gotz, along with just about any other maker of girl-child-dolls, had folded....hmmm....wonder why?  A particularly brutal and savage competitor on the horizon, perhaps?  One which lures children (usually girls) and their parents (usually mothers) into a ginormous shopping store in Chicago in order to buy and clothe doll (usually girl) and provide all matter of accouterment at tremendous expense, with saccharine story already in place and lacking any irony or true power (as in, when exercising power, one must do the hard thing and be unpopular, sometimes).  OK, so the cat's outta the bag. I. Don't. Like. A. G..

Yeah, well, I heard that all those r-cans are a bunch of stupid idiots, and they wouldn't have their jobs without those gerrymandered districts.

In fact, the topic came up in conversation recently, and I proceeded to spend an entire weekend scanning New Yorker archives for the article that I read, quite a few years ago, about Pleasant Rowland and the Company she built.  Where has it disappeared to?  I have no idea.  I think, actually, that the Pleasant Company article has been spirited away with all the other unmentionable attacks on major business interests including but not exclusively natural gas companies and major agriculture firms.  And, for me, what's the point, really?  As a parent, here in Suburbia, my chances of making any traction with my rant on Pleasant Company will fall on deaf, even hostile ears.  It's been said, Often, that she at least, "is not Barbie".  Well, this may be true, but since Mattel bought Pleasant in the late nineties....AG sorta IS Barbie, at least, she's her younger, totally un-hip, totally un-ironic, cousin who worries all the time about being nice and everybody liking and going to the right schools and doing all the right things in life and not hurting anything...like animals or kids (hmmm....why do middle class parents live AG so much?)....

as far as I can tell, we're all going straight to hell if they get their way, so you might as well come in and we can have a chat.

But if she grows up and moves to Suburbia and has kids of her own and she needs to turn up the heat, or crank the AC, or buy all that crap at Target (or AG), then it's OK, since she's not really, like, personally, hurting the world, because, after all, her hands never got dirty.

Those f*&-ers think they can do whatever they want, but this is my planet too, and I'll die  trying.

Not like her cousin, Barbie, always going out with guys and wearing hot clothes, and making out with all the other Barbies, and Ken, and anyone else who wanted to try some stuff out.   Sheesh...everyone knows....(whisper whisper) that Barbie had it real rough and she had that weird boyfriend, and then she spent all that time with that other Barbie (you know, the brown one) and then, finally, she settled down in that resort town and she was doing something pretty cool (what was it?).  OK, so, LF, you might get my point.

 I'm proud of our Julia, of Gotz Dolls.  She's not a far cry from AG and she can wear her clothes and all that, but I've avoided that place and all it stands for in the modern family pantheon.  And look, there's still a touch of that charm, that desire to glam things up, since, of course, we've got almost three generations of Barbie in this house (if we include nieces Barbie clothes, born in 1983)....Julia has a beauty mark, installed by lovely daughter, and she's got a swag haircut and the ensemble today, thrills me to the core.  Photo-shoot enhanced by the slightly wistful look of a girl, a girl who knows she's gonna catch shit for already wearing lipstick, nails, cut her own hair and painted on eye makeup, but she's worth it, baby, and life is her oyster...