Shirley Temple is a Star!

Shirley Temple is a star!

S! T! A! R!

She can do the rumble,

She can do the twist,

She can do anything just like this!

Girls do a curtsey,

Boys take a bow.

Boys go *kiss* *kiss*,

Girls go WOO!

Girl readers in particular possibly remember chanting this in primary school. There were moves too. Do you remember them? I have a vivid image in my mind of three girls standing on one of the metal benches near the oval (you had to do it out of sight of the teachers, see). I’ve forgotten how the moves at the start go, but in my memory, the girls do a curtsey, just like the song says, and then bow low. They come up to blow two quick kisses, and the jump off the bench whilst simultaneously throwing their skirts up high and flashing their knickers.

Within the rhyme scheme, I think that “woo” should probably be a “wow”, but we always said “woo!” when we jumped. I also remember performing this for our male classmates. It was a big deal, it was hilarious, it was risqué. We were literally working up to flashing our undies at unsuspecting boys. And when we did they usually ran away. This counted as playground entertainment in the early to mid 90’s you see; we didn’t have the internet or phones. Hell, tazos and tamagotchis were still years off.

It’s kind of fucked up, though and I can’t stop thinking about it at the moment. Those last two lines in particular. Boys go *kiss* *kiss*, girls go woo. Boys throw some kisses around and girls lift their skirts. Boys press the right button and girls will let them in. Is it an equation, boy kisses go in, exposed undies come out? Or just a statement of fact re gender roles? Boys make the first move, girls then put out? I know it’s a stupid kids’ song, but doesn’t that make it worse? If it’s not to be taken too seriously, why do the lyrics have such serious connotations?

I can’t pinpoint for you the moment I became a feminist, it’s been a gradual process, and I’ve only been properly aware of it for the last 18 months or so. When I was 6, I thought that song was silly, and a bit scary, and it made me slightly uneasy, I think. But I didn’t for a second think about what it meant, I just accepted it as normal, just a song we sang. I don’t know that I even knew who Shirley Temple was, I just knew it was the name of a delicious mocktail my mum bought me once.

Another thing I readily accepted as a child, but find bizarre now; almost all my teddies were male. I had one female teddy that my aunty made from a floral patterned material. Flowers obviously equalled girl, so I named her after my aunty. The other teddy she made used a red fabric, and I named him Red Bear (I’ve always been very creative). I can’t think of another soft toy that wasn’t a boy in my imagining.

I actively sort out male things; I liked them, which is fine. I liked Tonka trucks and digging in my sandpit, I liked Lego and building things with my wooden blocks. Even when I went through a Barbie phase, my favourite thing was my Barbie car. Oh yes, there was a Barbie phase, but it lasted a very short time and then… here’s the kicker, I was ashamed of it. I am *all* for kids playing with non-stereotypical toys, but why was I ashamed of my stereotypical phase? I got rid of those Barbies faster than you could rip off one of the Barbie dresses, but not before mutilating a few of those plastic beauties. If you want to look at this metaphorically, I literally pulled the head off stereotypical femininity before going back to trucks and pretending my lapse into girl-ness never happened.

I thought girl stuff was stupid, I identified as a tomboy, I didn’t want girl toys because I thought girls were crap. I had a lot of female friends but right through primary and high school I would often say things like “I much prefer the company of the boys”, “I don’t fit in with the girls”, “girls are so screechy and stupid”. Why did I hate women? How did I reconcile this within my own identity as a woman? I’m still working some of that out, and I do wonder if my own self-worth was damaged by these beliefs (it must have been, surely?). What I do know is that I don’t regret any of this. I am not ashamed. I’m not sure I could be the feminist I am today if I hadn’t had to teach myself how to not hate women first.

The other night I had a lovely conversation with two female friends about how we are all only just now discovering make up. All three of us identified as being not particularly “girly” during the phase of our lives where many girls learn how to apply make up, do their hair and dress themselves well. And now all three of us are discovering things like how to make our eyelashes curly, what lipstick colour suits us, or what kind of clothes look nicest on us. While it would have been nice to learn this sort of stuff years ago, maybe, there is a certain empowering feeling, actively seeking out this kind of lady knowledge now, as an adult. It feels like something I am doing, not something that is being forced upon me. I’m not, by any means saying that women who have had their face and hair shit together since they were teenagers are not empowered, or not feminists, just that it’s working for me. I am working it. It is a part of my feminism, and I love it.

And if I could go back in time and stop my younger self from performing the Shirley Temple song, I wouldn’t. Because my younger self enjoyed it, she got a thrill out of it, but most importantly it made her feel a bit weird. And that little niggling feeling has been burrowing inside me since the very first time I watched three girls jumping off a bench with their skirts in the air. That little feeling stayed with me through all these years, it has manifested in strange and interesting and complicated ways, and though I didn’t know it then, thinking that song was a bit weird was the first feminist feeling this lady brain ever had.

Lizzy King, Human - A Study. Box 1 Part 2

But first! News flash:

Box 1 - 1999, 2000, 2001 – Part 2

When I was 11 years old I started a box. A box to put my letters in, a box for ticket stubs and photos, diaries and broken things worth keeping. It was 1999. This is an exploration of the first of many boxes I have kept every year since, a study of my life. The first part can be found here.

Item – Five Year Diary – 2001

Each date page has a section for five different years worth of reflection. I failed in this endeavour spectacularly. Only dates in the first year are filled in, and then only between January 1^st and January 25^th and then September 10^th – October 15^th. This is incredibly spooky because I started writing again just days before planes hit the World Trade Centre. Here are some excerpts from my thoughts on this:

September 12^th – Holy Shit, today was so freaky. On the news, terrorists flew a plane into the pentagon and 2 into the Trade Center. Thousands of people were killed. It’s horrific, nothing else has been on the news. They say its like another Pearl Harbour – only worse. It was actually last night.

They showed some people _______ * dancing and laughing because of it. Palestinians I think.

* There is something scribbled out here. I think it says “Philistines” which is a word my grandma used a lot to describe bad people who did bad things to Jesus etc. This is the first time in my life that I have heard the word Muslim. I do not know what the Middle East is, really. I remember scribbling the word out later, embarrassed, having learnt a few more things about the world. I wrote the Palestinian bit in later in a different pen.

September 13^th – They haven’t found any survivors yet, I doubt they will because they (sic) 2 buildings just collapsed & people on the street had to run for their lives. There was a 4^th plane, it was headed for the Whitehouse but the people on board overpowered the terrorists and drove it into the ground – deliberately!

September 14^th – TOTAL MIRACLE! – they pulled out 5 firefighters from the rubble of the World Trade Centre today. 2 of them just walked away – after 48 hours! They say that means there could be more survivors.

September 15^th – Had a netball game and lost 5-64, which is no surprise because we’ve lost every other time!

September 16^th – We went to church this morning. Mum and I lit candles & prayed for Grampa (sic) Barry, Tim, and all the people in America & their families. Then we all went to Tom ______’s 1^st birthday and then Marcella’s 1^st birthday. I feel so full!

September 17^th – We went to the rainforest today & we’ve just about finished building our house. Making totem poles in art – that’s pretty cool. My desk was covered in glue and stuff. America has declared war on the terrorists. They’re pretty sure that the leader is Asama (sic) Bin Laden.

September 18^th – Had a maths exam today – reckon I did O.K. I’ve lost my jumper! Mum’ll kill me if I don’t find it. On the news they showed the 8 year old son of one of the pilot’s from the planes at his dad’s funeral. It was so sad! He was nearly hysterical.

There’s nothing much more about September 11. I never find the jumper. School holidays start and I am pretty much wrapped up in the sweet life of a 13 year old. And then this:

October 8^th – N. America bombed Afghanistan early this morning (3am). Bin Laden says Americans shouldn’t feel safe until Palistines (sic) feel safe! America is so stupid! It’s got nothing 2 do with Afghanistan! Bin Laden lives in Afghanistan but he’s fighting 4 Palestine. STW – Stop the War.

Well, wow, I just want to stop here and examine this reflection. It is incredibly strange that I started writing just a few days before this happened, and I have to wonder if 13 year old Lizzy engineered this. Did I start writing on the 12^th (which is actually when it happened in Australia) and decide to write in those extra few days to make it seem more natural? I don’t remember, but that is the sort of thing I might have done.

Maybe it is only with the benefit of hindsight, or because I am in fact now studying these items, but some things feel like I am writing them to be read. Remember that by September 11^th, 2001 I had been keeping the boxes for almost 3 years. That’s a long time for a child to do anything. Why was I keeping them? Did I know that one day I would read this? That someone else might? Did I, in fact, envision this blog?

No, obviously I didn’t, that is ludicrous, but I can’t help but feel that some things in this box, particularly the diary entries have a feeling of forced reflection. Interactions with friends that I kept seem much more natural than this, and I can only wonder now at how much is real and how much is my own attempt to romanticise my own life.

Heavy, I know, let’s see if there’s something more light hearted to finish off…

Item – Many Pages of Song Lyrics – 1999 and 2000

I was in a performing school called “Fame!” for a while. These must be all the songs we sung. They include Calendar Girl, I Still Call Australia Home, Christmas Where the Gum Trees Grow, S Club 7’s seminal Bring it all Back Now, and the classic, Hip to be Square. Such a delightful mix. I note also that we sung Summer Nights from “Grease” completely unedited for children. So a bunch of 12 year olds sung about how “she got friendly/down in the sand” and “she was good/you know what I mean”. Also the girls’ line which I have cheerfully labelled “Me” includes “tell me more, tell me more, how much dough did he spend?” – ah, childhood… so innocent!

Letter – from Mark – late 2000 or early 2001

A letter from my boyfriend explaining that he liked his letter from me, that he got a scooter for Christmas and that he was grounded, so he wouldn’t be able to call me. Even reading it now, 12 years later, I re-experienced the relief those last few words gave me then. I don’t know why, but this lovely boy terrified me.

Here’s the story. In grade 7 I “dated” a boy named Mark. He was funny and sweet, and as far as I can remember, really liked me. I say “dated” in those obnoxious inverted commas because we never kissed, I’m not sure if we even held hands, and we went to the movies once with some other people. But we did like each other, and we hung out. And my friend Tahnee dated his friend Wayne and the four of us hung out a lot at lunch and at tennis, which I only did because they liked it. In the holidays after school finished Mark and I wrote letters to each other, and when I went to highschool I was able to sound cool by telling people I already had a boyfriend. I don’t think we saw each other again.

I broke up with him via letter some time later.

Item – A4 page with “Mark” written on it – 2000

Mark is written lovingly in texta and bordered with what look a lot like tear drops (foreshadowing!), but were probably meant to be raindrops.

Sorry buddy

Item – Ugly Ceramic Blue Seal – 1999/ 2000

Damn this thing is ugly. I see why I put it in a box and not on a shelf.

Dog.

I have always had mad drawing skillz

When you think about it, keeping an animal in your yard is a pretty weird thing to do. We are, as far as I know, the only animals that keep other animals as pets. Except maybe monkeys, don't put anything past monkeys. Farming animals is a thing that makes sense. You can understand why ancient peoples were like, “wait, instead of running after the damn things, why don’t we get ourselves some boy ones and some girl ones and just see what happens?” It makes a lot more sense, sustenance wise, if you don’t have to chase after everything you want to eat. But at what point did people start thinking,  “Let’s not eat this one. Let’s call it Buster and treat it like one of our kids”? I’m sure someone actually knows, but to be honest, I don’t care, all I want is a damn puppy.

When I was 3, I went to see The Wizard of Oz. And not long after, my mum bought me a puppy from the pound. I rather imaginatively named him Toto. He didn’t look anything like Toto from the play or the movie, but he was small and white and I loved him. Toto was a mongrel, but I’m pretty sure he had some sheep dog in him. Because damn, did that dog love to herd things. The main things he had in his life to herd were chickens. He would gently herd our chickens into certain corners of the yard, and then watch them all day. When our neighbour’s chickens jumped the fence he would not so gently tell them to fuck off.

In both the houses we lived in during Toto’s life, we shared a fence with a horse paddock. And Toto had an unfortunate habit of running off to hang out with the horses. It was unfortunate, because horse paddocks tend to have paralysis ticks in them too. If you’re lucky enough to have never encountered one, probably don’t do a Google image search. They are awful little creatures that latch on to an animal, and then suck blood until they are so fat they fall off. The other thing they do is release a poison into their host that causes slow and horrific paralysis. Starting in the hind legs, the paralysis, if left unchecked, will spread and eventually take over the lungs and heart, causing, you know, death.

That’s not how Toto died. Toto got about 10 of these in his life, and every time, we’d see him dragging his back legs, find the tick, take him to the vet and wait. The vet would remove the tick, give Toto some anti-venom, and return him to us, sore, sad, shaved, but ok. The last time he got a tick, I was 15, and my mum told me just how much that anti-venom cost, and explained that unfortunately, this time, we just couldn’t afford it. I wasn’t mad, I completely understood. And I sat in the driveway and held my puppy and sobbed. He just lay there and let me hold him. He’d never been one for that, but I believe he understood that I was distraught, and just let me cry into his fur.

We took him to the vet, they kept him overnight, and he was bloody fine. The bastard had developed a tolerance to the poison.

Actually now that I think about it that might have been one of those lies my mum told me. She may well have bought the anti-venom anyway. It’s like that time she told me she hadn’t seen my budgie, when in fact; she’d seen him pecked apart by magpies 10 minutes earlier. Mum, remember how you told me about the pecking a few years’ later? I don’t want to know if this one was a lie. I want to live in this reality where he overcame that tick on his own. Ok? Good.

Three years’ later, I was 18, on a train in business clothes, packed in like a sardine when my mum called me. “Toto’s got a tumour, in his stomach, it’s massive. The vet said we should say our goodbyes”.

“Wait, how long does he think he’s got?”

“Two weeks? Maybe less?”

We put him down 3 days’ later. He deteriorated quickly; I think the vet had accidentally burst the tumour or something. It happens. And it wasn’t ok to keep him around for us. I will never forget the final drive to the vet. Toto in the back bit of the commodore, with me in the back seat, just patting him, looking backwards at things I knew he would never see again.

When they put a dog down, there are two injections. One that makes them go to sleep, and dream some pretty wild shit, and one that puts them “to sleep”, where there’s no more dreams at all. We sat with Toto after the first injection for a while. His eyes went crazy behind his eyelids, and I’ve always wondered what he dreamed about in those last few minutes. After the second injection, we had to leave him there to be cremated. We didn’t get his ashes back or anything. I’m pretty sure they do it in bulk. You’d probably get something that was 1 fifth Toto, 4 fifths cats.

Not long after, mum bought a new dog. He’s a nice enough animal, and he’s grown on me. But he’s not mine. I moved out not long afterwards, and he is very much my siblings’ dog. In fact my sister was a very similar age when Greg (oh yes, Greg – I much prefer Gregorius) came along to what I was when we got Toto. I hope she doesn’t have to deal with any of this ‘til she’s a lot older too. I just wasn’t ready for a new dog.

But I am now.

The puppy over the back fence and I are in love with each other. She stands there and waits for me all the time, and whimpers if I don’t pick her up and cuddle her. I want to steal her away. But I can’t because 1 – she already has people and 2 – my house can’t have dogs in it. But I’m going to get a dog sometime soon, right after I’ve gotten a new house. And it might herd chickens, or it might not, and it might get ticks, or it might not, but we will love each other and be friends, and I’ll forget to ponder why it is humans think it’s ok to keep animal friends because everything will be dog, and nothing will hurt.