#I love Maryellen. but I’m not a big fan of much of her current collection tbh. especially her meet outfit.

[mydollsaregay]

why must all of maryellen’s cutest outfits be retired and expensive secondhand??? 😭😭😭

let’s go over the state of things:

maryellen’s vacation playsuit. a totally adorable summer outfit, leaning into the 50’s trend of a playsuit - a romper with a matching detachable skirt. so darling! naturally, it was retired after only one year, and the cheapest it’s currently being sold for on mercari is ninety dollars (missing the shoes, so it’s not even complete). okay, that’s sad, but every collection has one or two poor gems like this.

maryellen’s strawberry outfit! I love this one - I think the colors are just the right combination of cute and garish, which gives it a really fun retro vibe. This one was out for three years so I’m sure the secondhand prices are more reasonable - oh wait, no. they tend to be listed for around a hundred dollars. 😞

maryellen’s rockin’ roller skating outfit is a *little* better. but the dress on its own is still being listed for about fifty five dollars so it feels weird to celebrate that as an improvement. it was out for two years, so I get it being a *bit* more pricey. but the full outfit is being listed for about a hundred dollars so like. still way too much for me.

maryellen’s flamingo swim set is super cute, but it’s only a swim suit. surely people can’t be asking that much for - oh. the swimsuit alone tends to be listed for about 70 and the whole set I seems to be listed for mostly around 150 at the low end. bro.

maryellen’s play outfit. look, at this point I’m getting a bit desperate. I don’t even really like this one all that much (I think it’s cute but it looks weirdly cheap to me?). but this was out for three years, and looks like the kind of outfit that would have good sales! surely I can find it at a decently low price. oh - no, it looks like that will be $70 without the shoes. okay then.

honestly, i get the prices a bit. clearly people are buying them occasionally at those prices, as the sold listings were in those ballparks. however, I AM annoyed at ag. they rotated her collection so quickly that they burned through a bunch of cute designs super fast.

i wish ag would bring back some of these! I feel like her playsuit especially got the short end of the stick. it’s such a cute design and a really cool bit of fashion history.

[sflisa]

The Twenties

Yikes.

I’m going to loop back a bit and pick up a few details from the first two years at DU - I decided on DU because they decided on me.  I went up there with Dad to audition in the spring of ‘76 and I met, what is in retrospect, the most odd collection of a voice faculty you could imagine - all of them stereotypes, some more genuine than others, and I think I got the most real teacher in that crew in the form of Truly Barr Nelson.  She had black hair with a skunk-white, bride-of-Frankenstein stripe down the middle.  She claimed it was natural.  She was the most normal of the bunch. There was Jack Morris, the kind of spacey Heldentenor type with whom most of the kids who were clearly opera-tracked studied.  Filling out the trio was Ron Worstell, a fairly nice guy with an almost permanent sneer who taught all the other opera-bound folks.  Education majors, those more suited to art-song, and choir nerds went to Truly.  

I lived with Karen in Centennial Towers the first year, and then we moved into a 4 bedroom on-campus apartment for sophomore year.  It was still team fun then; we strapped on our backpacks on the weekend and made the big hike to Safeway, meal plan in hand, so we could get our groceries and cook up our meals for the week.  My most memorable one was when I decided to make Dutch Baby and forgot to put the lid on the blender.  We had a good time, and our lives were mostly simple, and filled with the usual drama between adolescents; audition results, boys, studying, and trying to figure out how to grow the heck up.  It’s a bumpy ride, and we mostly enjoyed the journey.  We picked up Lisa J along the way, who became our biggest fan.

There was a lot of fog and distraction, some good, some not so good, but the bright light shining through it all was my love for singing, and the pursuit of music.  We’ll leave it there, and if I write my book, there will be more at that point.  

One of the bright lights was Lori, who I met sophomore year when she became my accompanist for voice lessons and any solo performing that I did.  She made me laugh so hard, and we became inseparable friends, and lived together for the better part of two (or more?) years.  For awhile, we lost touch, and we recently got back together at a wonderful lunch with Paul and Doug, who were also pals, drinking buddies, and fellow music school survivors.

My indecisiveness and foray into Speech Pathology and Audiology got my credits a bit goofed up, so  it took a bit longer than four years to finish.  We agreed I’d finish my Bachelor’s in voice, while starting to pursue an MA; I had a teaching assistantship, and things just kind of blew up during that time.  I felt totally misled by what little advice I received.   I met the fabulous David Gordon, who introduced himself with this line:  “You know what your problem is?  You’re competent.”  Our adventures and mis-adventures helped show me who I am; he shared his joy of singing and blindingly goofy perspectives on all things human.  During that time when he was artist in residence, he was completely fueled by PBR and chili rellenos from The Border.  Me too.  Miraculously, through a series of synchronistic circumstances he and his former wife Barbara later became deep family friends, and he and his current wife Ginna over time, have arrived in the landscape for all three of us even now.  We’ve visited with them, and they’ve been a huge part of helping me in my transition to empty-nester.  I am so grateful.  True Friends.

Before I left college I made the very wise decision to move to a place really far away from campus and get a dog.  Totally screwed that one up.  Lori eventually took Pete the dog;  he was a great dog, and she took care of him until he went over the rainbow bridge many years later.  Shown there with him is kitten Duster, who I also had to transfer to Mom and Dad.  I was looking for love in all the wrong places....

I finally graduated.

After college, I got a job at Hatch’s Bookstore in University Hills Mall, where I met Dave, who treated me this year with a great photo from that time.  He and I got married, it didn’t work out very well, and then we got unmarried, after I crashed my car over a retaining wall down onto the Platte River.  Nuff said.  Dave is a wonderful guy - we just chose the wrong relationship form for success.  He still makes me laugh, and I have happy memories that I keep.  The other ones are long-gone in the process of forgiveness, of both of us.  This photo pretty much sums it up:

(What’s interesting, as I reflect, is that Dave and I spent a lot of time hiking and biking.  It was the last time I have spent any significant time on a bike.  This bike issue keeps coming up as I have been writing this week.  Hmmmm)

After Hatch’s, I went to work for Western Federal Savings, which changed to Bank Western Federal Savings Bank.  Great naming convention!  I enjoyed my time there, working my way from Teller to a short temporary stint as Asst. Mgr. being coached by Dennis the whole way.  Dennis is another one of those gold-mine people that stay with you for life.  Another Good Friend.  I sang in the Opera Colorado Chorus, and the Denver Symphony Chorus, worked for the opera company for a short stint and quit the day the boss put her shrimp shells in her outbox for me to take to the kitchen.  I had a romance with a french horn player who sent me fan mail (that is a very good way to get a date) to introduce himself.  Way before OK Cupid.  I’m not sure where my photos from all that time are.  If I find them later, I’ll make an addendum.

There were a few trips to Wyoming.  My good friend MaryEllen lives in DuBois, and we drove up there to visit at least twice, one time was in connection with the Teton Music Festival where I got to sing Mahler 3 and listen to Mahler 4 with Zubin Mehta.  Incredible.  I think the Tetons has to be in my top 6 places in the country. Also included in that list are mom’s deck, San Francisco, Haines, and the Sonoma/Mendocino Coast, and western Oregon because that’s where my kids are.

I frequently drove back and forth to Colorado Springs to see Mom and Dad and the boys, who had a whole new lifestyle which included going on SCUBA dive trips to fabulous locations.  I went on one with them, to Grand Cayman, and will always have in my mind a picture of my brothers with outstretched hands encouraging me to snorkel with them.  The most amazing thing.  If you haven’t snorkeled, you must.  You forget you are human.  And, according to Dad, silently giggling on rum punch, you must always keep your center of gravity low.

Right around the change of decade, I got restless.  I had been out to visit Jack in San Francisco, and fell in love with the city, the beautiful surrounding environment, and the temptation of adventure and change.

So, I moved.

See you tomorrow.