Too Fond of Books

I never really played with dolls as a kid; Barbie didn't particularly interest me one way or another, and I thought that baby dolls were a pointless exercise in doing repetitive, unpleasant tasks. But I did enjoy paper dolls. They required attention to detail (cutting things out very carefully was something I took great pride in), and then you could tell stories with them. I had a whole collection of classic Dolly Dingle (and her friends of Dingle Dell) dolls*, and later on, the Victorian cat family (whose teeny, tiny paper accessories nearly killed me and my hands.) But my favorite paper dolls were in the Katy Keene comics that my grandmother had saved from when my Mom was a kid. Katy Keene had the BEST clothes. I mean, just the image above pretty much encapsulates what I loved about these pictures as a kid: they were clothes I wished I could wear. They were beautiful and completely unlike what I had in my closet. Now that I think more clearly about it, Katy Keene was probably my foray into the world of fashion, even in its watered down, rather Barbie-doll-esque form. My feminist self of the present day bemoans the fact that I can't remember a thing about Katy Keene other than the pretty pictures of clothes--she must have had a job, right? I think she was a model, and she had some sort of rival model (a blond) who was always doing something... maybe trying to sabotage her career in one way or another. (Girls fighting amongst each other for the privilege of the male gaze... argh, modern feminist me throws up her hands again.) But to the me of then, Katy Keene was glamorous and pretty. I imagined myself in those butterfly outfits, living in the forest, surrounded by friends and adorable animals. I wouldn't trade those thoughts for anything. And who cares if Katy Keene was a poor role model? Those comics had me reading and playing, and that's more important than my political sensibilities of today. Imagining things then gives me the power now to imagine even greater worlds and solve problems.

* These are still in a closet at my parents' house. On the back of each one, I wrote their name and job, including one whose name I can't read now, but whose profession is listed as, "Mysterious Stranger."