Lowering the Bar(bie?)

To my reader who has stopped reading because of the picture of Fairy-Wand Barbie: I owe you an explanation.

In my entry before "barbie," I'd written out a conversation shared between my princess-niece, Alison, and our family friend, Toby. I wanted to add a picture, so I went onto flickr and got the one you saw posted.
I was getting her ready to attach to my entry when, POOF! My laptop screen went white.
"Huh?"
It was late at night. I was already irritated with how long it had taken me to find a proper picture of Barbie for my story. So, I gave up for the night to give my computer and me both a rest.
Unfortunately, the next day I found that my computer needed more than rest. It needed to be laid to rest.
In the anxious realization that I was going to have to buy a new computer, I completely forgot about the picture of Barbie I left hangin' on my blog.

My computer screen going out pushed me over the edge into a kind of, computer complacency:
"Fine then. Forget it. I don't need you, computer; I don't need you, e-mail; I don't need you, blog. I am so over you right now."
I considered deleting my blog. I settled for just not checking it or adding any new entries...probably ever.

Weeks have passed. My stubbornness has won over any anxious thoughts of, "What if there's someone out there who really actually reads your blog? Are you just going to leave them the crumbs off your table with that pitiful entry of that conversation between Ali and Toby as your last one?"
"Yup."
(My sincere apologies to you, dear reader. THANK YOU for reading!)

Anywho. I hadn't LOOKED at my blog at all over the past three weeks.
That's why it was a surprise to me when my friend, Adam, called to tell me:
"So...I went onto your blog to see what brilliant thoughts you'd had lately? I've gotta tell ya. I was dissappointed to find that all that was there was a picture of Barbie."
I had no idea what he was talking about.
"What?! A picture of Barbie? Shut up. You're not serious."
"It's some Barbie with wings on. Pretty pathetic."

I waited a few days to actually look and see for myself. Sure enough. Fairy-Wand Barbie in all her glory, right there as my life's front-page news. Wow.

I have mixed feelings about finding out that she's been the reflection of what's important to me for the past three weeks.
On one hand, she's done a job on my already shabby blogger ego.
On the other hand, she may have successfully lowered the bar on anything I write and think to add here in the future. There's really no place to go but up. She actually may have given me freedom that I hadn't had before.
For that, I say, "Thank you, Fairy-Wand Barbie."
Hm. Maybe she really is the magical beauty Saturday morning Mattell commercials always tried to make her out to be.


You think that was a cheeseball way to end this whole thing.
"In fact," you say, "it wasn't good to begin with, and the ending made it worse."
I agree. But guys, my last entry was Fairy-Wand Barbie.

See how that worked? She has successfully lowered the bar.