Clarissa Darling, please explain this to me

I’d like to stop right here and pose a horribly true fact many of us don’t want to hear: 1991 WAS 20 YEARS AGO!

That’s right; all of us 90’s kids are getting old. It’s not something I like to think about much.

I realized this yesterday when I was watching none other that Clarissa Explains it All and saw that the copyright date was 1992. I was 9 years old in 1992. Then I realized another thing: Shows like Clarissa were back in that time also; I don’t see many kids’ shows like that today.

As a result of having an unwished for amount of time off work, I spend more time than necessary watching TV, a lot of times landing on the Disney Channel. Yes, I’ll admit it, I watch the Disney Channel. I became addicted to Wizards of Waverly Place a while back due to its completely off-course views of witchcraft, and gradually found other shows I still wish I’d never encountered. Phineas and Ferb seems to keep the mind rolling with every episode and sometimes I think might have some sort of actual scientific fact in there. Plus it’s a suburban family with a freaking platypus as a pet. I see nothing wrong with that platypus being a secret agent. What I’d like to know is who lived in the suburbs with a platypus and the platypus can survive. Even more, who owns a platypus!

Back to my original question, looking at shows like this today, do they even compare to out childhood TV?

About 2 years ago I began compiling different theme songs on my iPod to play during work at my proofreading job. As we worked we were permitted to play music in order to keep the day from getting dull at times. Each day would often be granted to a different person, and so on my day, after the extreme complaints from a few coworkers finished, I would play music, interspersed with the nostalgic themes from out favorite shows. As my coworker Kristen pointed out, “I know I spent time outside with friends, but it seems like I watched a lot of TV as a kid” (This is quoted very loosely, being almost 2 years past).

With all the shows on TV in that time period however, it really felt this way. I remember watching Clarissa Darling when I was a kid, constantly watching one of my childhood crushes every episode. I believe as I grew up, even as awesome as Sabrina the Teenage Witch was, Melissa Joan Hart didn’t have the same style. There was something about watching as Clarissa explained life from her own P.O.V. (Point of View), watching as she made her own video games (usually about rid the world of Fergface), and Sam with his own personal welcome strum that still can’t be outmatched. Especially by Melissa and Joey-- HUH?

I'd like to pause for a brief addition about the great Clarissa Darling from Rosianna (@papertimelady):

Clarissa isn't the only great Nickelodeon show I've grown to relove. This week was the first week of TeenNick's "90's are All That" midnight block, showing oldschool Nick shows from from 90s. currently they have All That, Keenan & Kel, Clarissa and Doug. I never really got much into Keenan & Kel when I was a kid, except for maybe the occasional GoodBurger sketch on All That, something I see today and still question whether doctors had prescribed me the wrong medicines at the time.

All That however, brings a lot of memories back. For one many of my favorite cast members, according to imdb (which we can of course, trust about everything), were only part of for at most 14 episodes. It's hard to think that Lori Beth Denberg, the important advice guru, was only in 14 episodes? I still don't quite believe this, as this information comes from imdb, but it's quite a shocker still. Even more of a shocker that she seemed to fall of the face of the Earth after this show.

More shows are supposed to run as the time block gains viewers, as their promo keeps showing, which makes me want the other shows now. Are You Afraid of the Dark, for example, the scary kid's programming precursor to Goosebumps, had so many moments I think back to now that were influential in my mystery writing mind- even if I was too scared to watch the show until I got a bit older. The Adventures of Pete and Pete (a show I have already ordered because I don't want to wait) still makes me wonder where Michelle Trachtenberg would be had she not stood aside Big Pete, Little Pete, and Petunia.

One show that has apparently not made it to the lineup if The Secret World of Alex Mack, a show that for some reason is only on DVD in the first season. This was actually a great disappointment when I finished watching it again recently. I think by the end of the show she actually was caught, but really, how can you tell that without rewatching it. These companies just don't understand us kids of the 90s.

With all this, what if other networks brought back shows. What if Disney started playing Darkwing Duck or Talespin again. I think the world would be a better place. He's the terror that flaps in the night, and brings hope to television.

So for all of us 90s kids who still prefer The Midnight Society and Hey Dude, what are your favorite shows from the 90s?

How Harry Potter has shaped my life

When I woke up this morning, I had a mission— I was going to add a wand holder on the inside of my Hogwarts robes. As much as I still did not understand why, I had one minor problem with this plan, which was I did not own a wand.
I know, why? After all these years, how did I still not own some form of magic wand. So, as part of my mission, I sought out a wand. It did not have to be a terribly sophisticated one, especially as such an extravagant wand from Olivander’s or Alivan's would cost more than a little-paid library clerk who has recently been laid off from his second job can afford—probably more than I could afford with the second job.
Anyway, I went off on my journey for a new wand. Since the owl with my Hogwarts acceptance letter is still lost somewhere and 17 years late, I got into the car and drove around with my list for the day. Between many different shops seeking my prize, I procured other such commodities as Bertie Bott’s Every Flavored Beans (safe jelly beans from Mr. Bulky’s in which I picked out all the flavors myself), felt in which to make the pocket from, and a Gremlin.

(The Gremlin was an added perk of the day, not related to anything I had planned. It’s just adorable)

It’s hard to imagine that only just 10 years ago I became entranced by Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone after I asked my sister to come see the movie with me. Patsy had already seen the movie with her school, already a huge fan of the books. I on the other hand, knew nothing of it other than what I had been told.
Yes, you can all judge me now, as I have judged so many people. I got into the series after watching the movies. After seeing the first movie in the theater, I quickly snatched Patsy’s copy of the first book and became hooked.
It took a while to get into the books, finally jumping into the 5th book as Patsy finished it (I recall I probably sat with puppy dog eyes as I put Goblet down when I realized I had a while to wait before the next book was available).
I, like millions and millions of others in the world, had found a love of the book and movie series. Hogwarts was a far off place where anything was possible and we could go to escape the real-life muggle problems going on.
As it is now, my extreme Harry Potter love is greater than I’d ever imagine 10 years ago. For instance:
As years went on, wizard rock began to happen. I would say it formed, but it really didn’t seem that way. It felt like out of nowhere, wizard rock was abundant without knowing where it truly came from.
During a trip to MacBack’s bookstore in Cleveland Heights, my sister and I noticed a random CD featuring a lightning bolt and the words “Harry and the Potters” laid out in the display case. “Harry and the Potters”? Really? We were cracking up laughing the entire trip home.
Then the trip back to Cleveland Heights in which our group’s car got a flat tire in one of the richer areas of town. Nothing will beat the reaction of the person who’s driveway we pulled into when they saw us, all in full Hogwarts regalia, trying to change a flat tire.
(My friend Angie and I dressed up with other attendees of Remus Lupins concert, Summer 2007)

Wizard Rock is probably what kept my love alive for this series. Most people still look at my iPod playlist and ask me if I have any music that is NOT about Harry Potter. You know, because there is music like that. Even my sister, the one who got me into the series, told me I needed to stop with the Wizard rock because it was just too much. I didn’t care though. I was happy.
These types of events, gatherings of music, crafts, fun, all at the library, helped me decide what I wanted to do in life. After getting an English major, I went for my Masters in Library Science. I’d be a reference librarian. But even then, I felt there was more. Coming to these events, even helping organize one for the final book release, made me realize how much I enjoyed doing these kinds of large and small programs for Young Adults. It made the library an awesome place to go. It was a place to pick up a good book, and maybe a new friend.


After J.K. Rowling made her initial Pottermore announcement, I was ecstatic. As I posted on Facebook:

THERE'S GOING TO BE MORE HARRY POTTER!!!!! THERE'S GOING TO BE MORE HARRY POTTER!! Okay, so we don't know what exactly this is going to be yet- pottermore.com- but THERE'S...gasp....GOING...TO BE... MORE..gasp...HARRY...(can't breathe)... POTTER!!!!!!!

As a response to this, I had one childhood respond with:

wow happy for u but i would not go that crazy over harry potter now if randy orton or the rock showed up at my house yes i go that crazy

Well this is why I was so happy. Harry Potter has shaped my life so much that it even led me to my career studies.

Every song and album I downloaded, every concert I went to, I made friends. Now making friends isn’t the easiest thing for me to do. Even as an adult, I am extremely shy no matter where I am. And yet, while it could often be difficult at times to simply hang out and talk to some musicians or fans, the Internet has allowed Wizard Rock fans to keep in touch both in person and from across the world.
I’ve met so many wonderful people, including Alex Carpenter (The Remus Lupins), Matt Magiaccamo (The Whomping Willows), Nefret Salzberg, who I worked so fruitlessly with on wizardrock.org, my great friend from across the sea in Ireland, Amy Snow (Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons, WZRD: Your Wizard Rock Station), Jamie Walker (WZRD). Plus, most recently I came to start talking to the awesome Mike Lombardo, who I never would have even heard of had I never gotten late to an ALL CAPS show where I was playing.
These and so many, so many more people, I have met as a result of Harry Potter, and I hope the current immense number grows.
Next Friday the last movie in the series comes out. That Friday I will be at the theater, tie pulled up, robes assembled, wand and sonic screwdriver in their holsters (I ended up buying a pen wand until I can afford a really good one), and I will most certainly be crying my eyes out the entire time.
I’d like to thank all my friends, close are far away, all the rockers and makers of music, all the book publishers and makers of HP merchandise, and most of all, J.K. Rowling, who if not for her, I’d probably be sitting in a corner right now reading John Green—which would still be freaking awesome, but not as much as he is right now.

A good book is an even better place to live

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about books. Not necessarily just the stories, or the paper consumed to make them, the essence of an actual book when you hold one in your hands and smell the glorious odor of that moldy book that’s been sitting on the shelf for the last ten years without somehow being withdrawn from the library’s catalog because “it’s a classic and everybody loves it”—and yet it’s the only copy in the system which, as suggested or previously, has been on Death’s to-do list for ages.
What I’ve been thinking most about books are their worlds. I’ve been reading for a long time, and as a result, have read about a multitude of different worlds, some real, some even more real than those. And as I think of these mighty worlds, I thnk of my own journeys there.
I am currently about halfway through Jasper Fforde’s mystery, Lost in a Good Book—the sequel to The Eyre Affair, in which the book’s main character, Thursday Next, must go inside the story Jane Eyre, in order to catch a serial killer (I think he was serial at least. It’s been a couple months since I read it. Read it for yourself to be sure). How easy it is for Next to enter these magnificent worlds of Bronte and Crusoe, to be transmitted into a better, or worse world than we are in now. That would be the power of reading, as every way-too-into-their-job librarian would say (I am ashamed to say I fit into this category), but to do so as literally as in this book, would be such a dream.
The reason such an idea is on my mind, much more than just my own immersion into Next’s life (wow, grammar check is loving this), it the world I live in currently. The world in which I live in an apartment that is freezing cold, with neighbors who are too loud for their own good and know it, work 2 part-time jobs in order to pay for said apartment and bills for necessities, and have to come home to the news at 10:00, telling me about how not only is the temperature going to drop another 10 degrees tomorrow, but another group of people were gunned down, or held hostage, possibly a war crime happened, etc.
As long as it was after Deathly Hallows, when the government wasn’t trying to hunt people down and butcher their bodies, I would love to just hop into the wizarding world and enjoy life. But then again, I guess such things would find me again there.
I recently spent the last month inquiring about new residences, and have only this weekend given up, and my landlord has promised to be here tomorrow with new heaters for my place, and a possibly promise of ridding the building of the pesky noisemakers. This is definitely a plus, as the thought of moving furniture and boxes currently does not sound like a heaven. Especially since everywhere I look I find higher rent prices than I am paying.
That dream world of a pleasant life, with a full-time job, where I wake up with plenty of time before work to accomplish an entire list’s worth of chores, then come home from work to work on my next writing project, all the while having the time and resources to travel, rock out at wizard rock concerts and conferences, hanging out with friends, finding who I am…A dream world it is. And as much as I try like Amy Pond to choose, the dream world will always be just that. If I don’t like the dream world, I can’t just wake up to find a better reality, and vise versa. The Dream Lord can’t control reality, but he can sure make a dream world terrifying enough to realize you can make the great reality you have even better.
And so, as I have found myself digging across an endless tangent, no sensible point in sight, I stop.
As summer nears, I am in the process of saving up to go to Universal Studios to reach of my dream, being at Hogwarts. Yeah, it’s not the real Hogwarts, but to walk the crudely manufactured halls of the American reproduction, it works for my eyes. So hopefully as I work towards that goal, as people continue to tell me how insane I am for wanting to go to Florida in the summer, I will elaborate.

Life

“Life is what happens when you’re making other plans” – John Lennon

“What do you want from life
An Indian guru to show you the inner light
What do you want from life
A meaningless love affair
with a girl that you met tonight”- The Tubes

“Life! Don't talk to me about life.”- Marvin the Paranoid Android

Our life is what we choose to make and so with it. It’s working 60 hours a week or it’s sleeping those 60 hours away instead. It’s following your dream and becoming a success, finding true love, being a nerdfighter or being a fighter against nerds (hopefully VERY few of the latter are reading this).

Last week, as I contemplated the upcoming replacement of my calendar, I also thought upon what I have done over the last year, and what I probably should have done as well. Did I work to follow my dream of being a successful writer? Was I able to find that one brilliant position at the library I wanted to work for the rest of my life? While finding such a job position has been difficult, no matter how I could approach it, I came to the realization that due to such strange hours of employment, my writing has fallen to the deepest reaches of my mind possibly only tread upon during those bizarre moments in life sitcom writers make episodes about when they’re forced to produce something immediately within the hour- otherwise known as the flashback.

I had to excuse for such actions. A large number of my friends, as well as those I follow on twitter, find time weekly—if not daily—to blog about topics on their minds, and they have more responsibilities than a sketch artist has broken pencils. If they can find time to keep up their authorial presence, what reason do I have not to.

As a result, this blog has formed.

When this becomes a regular production, you may find me discussing a variety of topics—possibly what’s happening in my life, what’s happening in the world around myself and others. This may also be an outlet to discuss something that has shaped my life a great deal- pop culture and literature.

In the dark days following the Y2K scare, I was presented with the choice for my future. I felt at that point in my career that writing was was future and jumped in to studies of the field of journalism. Now, this of course did not work out as I had planned, discovering what the first year of college is really like. While it was not the same as everybody else I knew, it did provide a difficult choice, as the grades I would receive prevented me from pursuing such degree.

While this saddened me, to this day I do not regret shifting my focus to English however, as it has provided such great friends I would never have met otherwise, as well as a love for great English literature, the books that hold it, and the buildings that house those.

While this blog details such things, I hope those who begin to follow this will also leave their own insight, possibly proving ideas for blogs to come.

So hop in the TARDIS and take the ride with me. Lets spend twenty-eleven together, and see where this blog will go.