Barbie’s Dream Roster
6 April 2005I never played with Barbies growing up, as you probably could have guessed. I was very much a transformers/ my little pony/ pound puppy type of gal. I got my very first Barbie for my 18th birthday from my oldest friend, Tracey, who knew me well enough to get me Equestrian Barbie. I still have her, perched happily on top of the bookshelf in my childhood bedroom, which continues to be a shrine to my adolescence (Barbie sits next to my DECA trophies and my track medals–don’t let the pluralization fool you, there are only 3). Cousin Erin was something of a Barbie connoisseur and had many of them, along with– if I’m remembering correctly– the Dream House, which really only served as a place for the Barbies to Get It On with the Kens, which was pretty much the only thing we ever made them do. Dirty girls.
Courtney, who had one of the most traditional sounding, Norman Rockwell-esque childhoods you can get in New England, despite going to Montessori school (ooh, snap), was also heavily into Barbies, as she recently informed me. In Courtney’s hood, all of the girls would dress their respective Barbies in their respective finest and line them all up in a row. Then they would take turns choosing Barbies one by one, until they each had a gaggle of Barbies to man that each little Bostonite was pleased with. Everyone had their favorites and–I’m sure– everyone thought that their group of Barbies was the bestest.
I’m sure by now you’ve picked up on the simile I’m about to make: playing barbies is to little girls what fantasy baseball is to big girls. (and, occasionally, dudes, though they’ll never admit it). You asses your choices. You pick the ones that you want, based on what’s available to you, what that Barbie’s skill set is, and what your personal feelings towards her are. (Don’t give me shit about the skill set comment– do you need TWO doctor barbies? not unless you’re performing a particularly complicated procedure. do you need THREE equestrian barbies? Unless you want to start a bitch slapping competition a la some of the complete snots that I rode against in college, then, no). You put your Barbies in different situations and see how they react. When they frustrate you, you try to get some sucker to trade you for what, in your eyes, is a vastly superior Barbie who will contribute more greatly to your level of Barbie superiority.
Now go back and change all the Barbie-as-an-adjective words in the last paragraph to “baseball” and all of the Barbie-as-a-noun ones to, say, “Johnny Damon.” Or, say, “Barry Bonds.” Just for argument’s sake.
Two nights ago, about 48 hours after baseball started, marie and I spent about an hour playing with her fantasy team. “It’s like having pets!” I squealed. “Little tiny baseball players that are all yours!” Marie agreed “It’s like those little tamagachi things people had in high school.” “totally.”
Let it be noted that, at press time, I am not doing particularly well at Wedding Party Fantasy Baseball, ranking well in the bottom 50% of the field and being comforted solely by the facts that (a) The Kev is behind me and (b) I have a lot of Mets, and they had the day off yesterday. Not that my team is going to do better on days when they actually play, as so few of them actually know how to do that, but I digress. I’m about to start developing a complicated ranking system for how “losing” I am every day, based on who I expected to be losing to and who is dealing me particularly crushing blows. I expect to lose to some of the groomsmen, as they are dudes and have all done this before. I do not expect to lose to Marie’s 16 year old sister. I expect to lose to Dre, despite the fact that I (allegedly, the last time I was over the legal limit) told him that if I beat him and no one else, I would consider my time in the fantasy forum a success. (I don’t remember that, but it sounds like something Drunk Cristin would say and actually think to be possible). I do not expect to lose to Marie, for reasons I shouldn’t have to enumerate. I am currently losing to all of these people but, as Whitney says, it’s only like Day 3 and I need to chill.
Sunday night I made the mistake of mentioning that the wedding was still several months off and asking The Kev if he would ever stop raining shit on me for the Barry Bonds move. He quickly responded “No. As someone is walking you down the aisle, he will be giving you crap for that.” To which I asked “Walking me down the aisle at YOUR wedding (10/8/05) or my own (see you in a decade)?” He’s still pondering that one.
Any way you slice it, I can’t keep up this level of anxiety for a seven month season. By september I’ll be chain smoking, talking like Rainman and weaving dolls out of the hair I find on the floor of my apartment. In the intelligent words of Whitney, I need to calm the eff down. Luckily, I have 10 lunatics coming over on saturday to drink cosmos out of a giant bucket and scream about the relative hotness of ARod vs Pat Burrell. That should do the trick.
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