Occasionally, I have to write about things at work that, given what I normally write about at work, don’t seem to, well, fit<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Take today for instance. I’ve written about My Little Pony<\/i>. I remember the first time, nearly two years ago, that I had to write about My Little Pony<\/i>, and my initial reaction was, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” Though, honestly, I’m not sure who<\/i> I thought had forsaken me. It certainly wasn’t my muse. \ud83d\ude06<\/p>\n
Seriously, though. My Little Pony<\/i> was incongruous with the normal mix of products. But between you and me, I’d rather write about My Little Pony<\/i> than The Nightmare Before Christmas<\/i>. I don’t think I can find another word in me to talk about Jack Skellington or his true love Sally or his skeletal dog Zero and the enchanting fantasy of Tim Burton’s film.<\/p>\n
Wow. Those words just pour forth like a macro! Try this at a convention, people. Say “The Nightmare Before Christmas<\/i>” to me and see what comes out.<\/p>\n
I’m actually proud of my My Little Pony<\/i> write-up of this morning. It’s not poetry, and it’s certainly not Hemingway, and maybe it’s not even a little Fitzgerald, which is what I aim for, but it does have a flow and it reads well and maybe I wouldn’t buy one but for the right person? It says what it needs to say.<\/p>\n
Then!<\/p>\n
I had to write about Strawberry Shortcake<\/i>.<\/p>\n
I confess. I had to consult Wikipedia. I couldn’t remember a sodding thing about Strawberry Shortcake<\/i>. That came in handy, as did a press release for the product. Scented mini-dolls of Strawberry Shortcake and her friends.<\/p>\n
In a roundabout way, while on Wikipedia, I thought about something else entirely.<\/p>\n
I thought about Holly Hobbie, another one of those girls’ brands of the late-70s\/early-80s.<\/p>\n
Specifically, I was thinking of a book I’d read over twenty-five years ago.<\/p>\n
My mother bought my younger sister this book, The Adventures of Holly Hobbie<\/a><\/i>, from the Green Valley Book Farm that’s held outside Harrisonburg, Virginia every couple of months.<\/p>\n It was a really interesting book, as I recall. A girl whose father has been lost in South America sees Holly Hobbie in a painting from the early 1800s, and Holly steps out of the painting, and together they have an adventure as they try to locate the girl’s father. I remember vaguely some of the book’s set pieces, and as I’m sitting here, typing this, I’m surprised that this book, which wasn’t even aimed at me, made such an impression on my young psyche.<\/p>\n I wonder if my sister still has this book somewhere.<\/p>\n It’s strange sometimes the things from childhood that fix themselves in the mind. Like a novel about Holly Hobbie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Occasionally, I have to write about things at work that, given what I normally write about at work, don’t seem to, well, fit. Take today for instance. I’ve written about My Little Pony. I remember the first time, nearly two years ago, that I had to write about My Little Pony, and my initial reactionContinue reading “On My Little Pony and Holly Hobbie”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[695,4093,4124,4102],"class_list":["post-2368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-childhood","tag-life","tag-work","tag-writing","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2368\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}