Avant-Garde

When I was little, I used to be obsessed with watching old movies. My favorites were Shirley Temple movies. One I always went back to was the story of 'Heidi'. Of the entire storyline, I was obsessed with the last part of the movie. For those of you who need a refresher or have never seen it, the part I was so fixated on was the little sick girl. There was a story within the story. A rich father (who means well) hires a nanny to take care of his daughter who had an accident. The nanny does minimal to nothing in helping the daughter get better. The father invites the orphan girl 'Heidi' to live with them (basically becoming a foster parent to her) because he's told her previous living conditions were horrendous. The father stays almost completely out of the picture, and the nanny is placed in control. When Heidi realizes that the nanny is using the daughters illness to maintain control of the father and also secure her position, Heidi pushes the daughter to get be...

We spent hours upon hours preparing for this day. There were the lists of things we needed to buy, shirt designs, themes, and every ounce of our creative minds were on overdrive. Somehow my cousin and I had put our minds to entering into the flotilla contest for the fourth of July celebration at our grandparents lake. Our parents (and even our grandparents) believed it was going to be an expensive waste of time, but we were determined to succeed and not only enter but win for best boat. The pontoon was old with a beautiful silver/blue and red/orange decal. We only ever used it to go out fishing and swimming. As my cousin and I threw out ideas, it was a holiday themed design we eventually both agreed was going to be our best bet at winning. After all of the planning, the day finally arrived and we listened to our burned CD full of all the USA proud songs we could find while we proudly decorated our boat in red, white, and blue. Streamers, banners, flags, and balloons adorned our ...

She pulled into the parking lot and looked at me in love and said "I'm not making any promises." This was the third store we had driven to, walked in, and caroused the swimsuit aisles of. Each store more frustrating than the other. There were hundreds of cute suits to choose from, and even though my eyes were drawn to the cute little bikinis, my mom beelined it straight to the one pieces on the back rack. There was no way to be thrilled about this. You see, this was the early 2000's and everyone of my friends were wearing two pieces, crop tops, and make-up. This teenager was not allowed to wear or even think about asking for such items. She'd learned her lesson the hard way in trying to get around it. There was that one time, I spent the night at my cousins house and didn't have clothes for the next day, so my aunt let me wear a hand me down outfit which was a crop top and shorts. I remember putting that outfit on and feeling like I was finally cool. ...