My Natural Born Talent, Part Two

(Please read Part One, from yesterday, to find the much-needed WHAT THE HELL IS THIS background.)

At some point, while working very, very hard on my very, very important coloring book, I obviously decided that I was done with writing stand-alone stories about each of the pictures (either that or I simply didn't know how to tie the rest of them to JESUS GOD SON and/or the lovly Indians). Instead I tried to create a cast of recurring characters:

 

Translation:

Hi. we are best
friends. we play together 
all (triple underline!!!1!) the time.
(we're also brothers and
sisters!) our m names  
are; Kate, Jenny,
Sarah, Johnny, Minnie
and Flora. Sometimes
we fight, but we make up! Jenny
Let's us ride her
mule, Senny. Which we
like.

The
End

By this point in my young life, most (if not all) of my much-older half-siblings were graduating from high school and moving out of the house. So I was far too busy constructing elaborate wish-fulfillment scenarios about lots! of sisters! who would play with me! all the time! to ever notice or write any reasons why Kate, Jenny and Minnie HAD NO FUCKING EYEBALLS OR FACIAL FEATURES.

 

You see what I did there? That little "I'm Sarah" that totally ties the characters together and makes it all circular and connected and stuff? Oh, yes. And I would do it for PAGES and PAGES more. BECAUSE THAT'S HOW BOOKS ARE WRITTEN. FACT.

Translation:

Giddyup! Oh,
Hi! I'm just
playing cowboy.
I'm Johnny.
I like to pretend 
I'm a cowboy
rescuing a pretty
girl from bad
guys. I win always.
Opps, gotta go now.
Its dinner time

The
End  

Here we have a pretty good glimpse into the psyche of a little girl who knew next to nothing about little boys, thus dooming herself to give birth to an entire baseball team of 'em later in life. 

   

The year is probably 1985 or '86, and I have already developed the cursive handwriting of a serial killer. 

His horse is called "Wild Texaco. Named after Wild Tex in a movie and a gas station." You guys, I think this was me trying to be FUNNY. 

 

I honestly have NO IDEA what I was going for here, but am pretty sure that Ming Ming from the Wonder Pets owes me some money for copyright violations. 

Seriously. What the HELL. Why couldn't I have just scanned some embarrassing prom pictures like a NORMAL blogger?  

 

Translation:

Oh! I can't belive
it! US! Kate, and
Flora! get to
see the beutiful
shooting rainbow
stars! right
by us! our
brothers and
sisters will
never belive
us! if they do
they might be jealous!

The
End

Translation to the translation: 

My older brother and sister just went to see Ghostbusters without me so I'm just gonna sit here and color beutiful shooting rainbow stars and then cry about it, probably.

 

 

There are seven sets of parentheses on this page. SEVEN. 

 

Translation: 

I am rapidly losing interest in this undertaking.
Fuck this.

Yo, Kate, Jenny, Sarah, Flora here. Whaddup. We're OUT. PEACE. 

 *DROPS MIKE*

I don't remember presenting this book to my parents -- whether I wrapped it or made a big deal about it or was just like, "here, I have no money, Merry Christmas." However, if you perhaps are looking for the perfect gift for someone, I would like to point out that this exact book is STILL AVAILABLE online, for $2.50, which is probably what my parents paid for it in 1983. (Shipping will cost ya seven bucks though. Inflation!) I can certain attest to the fact it indeed did bring me years and years of enjoyment, right up until this moment right now. Give the gift of DREAM HORSES today!

My Natural Born Talent. Let Me Show You It.

Hey! Remember when my mom gave me that big stack of embarrassingly preshus mementos from my childhood? And I was all gung-ho with the scanner for a few days there, on a gleeful stretch of self-mockery, until I guess I got distracted by something shiny (or maybe my toenail polish, or wondering where I got this bruise from, or the construction of that pneumonic burrito delivery device) (I mean, have you tried applying for all the necessary patents for shit like that? It's a bureaucratic nightmare.) and...wait, what was I talking about again?

Oh right! The scanning and the bag o' relics were promptly forgotten about for awhile there. Until today! 

 

Now, I've already shown you my very, very first attempt at short-story writing, but this little book...well, this was EPIC. This was my MAGNUM OPUS. This was a coloring book my six-year-old self procured during a family trip to Arizona, but each picture faced a blank page, designed for you to write a story or poem or something about the picture. (The pictures were by artist Ettore DeGrazia, and I believe this was purchased at his gallery's gift shop, where I was suddenly struck with the realization that I WAS AN ARTIST AND MUST CREATE ART, THEREFORE SOMEBODY BETTER BUY ME THIS COLORING BOOK AND THOSE COLORED PENCILS RIGHT THIS MINUTE BUT MOM I NEEEEEEEED THEM.)

Judging by the range of handwriting abilities, I worked on this thing for YEARS. Later pictures are written in cursive, while my earliest attempts were...well. MOAR LIEK DIS:

 
Click to embiggen. You know, in case you'd like uh closer look at all those butiful frieworks. 

 

Or that graet and lovly oringe horse! Otherwise you might be forgetting this time that is not to be forgot. 
 

 
The green pencil doesn't scan very well, so here's a translation:

Angels!
Mary!

Jesus!!! (The most important!)

Colors. Beuty!

This is
Fabuluos!

I wish you
could always
see such
Beuty!

(The End)

I distinctly remember going back to put in those extra exclamation points and MOST IMPORTANT! caveat out of Protestant guilt because some of the pictures seemed possibly kind of Catholic. 

 

The Christmas story, according to a highly religious first grader. Jesus, God Son, was born this one time and he will not ever again be born, but we will still have Christmas which will be like the day Jesus was born only we will not have him born. Got it? Good. Now gimme some presents already. 

 

In my own pre-politically-correct defense here, the name of the painting ACTUALLY IS "Dream Horses and Lovely Indians." However, I cannot explain why I the consistently misspelled "lovly" all those other times and also why I was telling stories in my lame valley girl style already: They are sitting there like, "I wish something would happen, like I dunno, dream horses or some shit, like, OMG, look up, LOL!"

THE END!

(Actually, not really. There are quite a few more pages, in which I attempted to take a more literary approach to "real" story writing, with actual named characters and varied narrator voices. Also: a talking mule. I don't know either, but I am sure as hell going to inflict it on the Internet-reading public anyway.)