I love the story of Cinderella. I loved it when I was a child, and I still love it.

I know that many feminists decry it, but if ‘feminist’ is defined as ‘a woman who does pretty much as she pleases no matter what anyone else might say about it,’ then I’ve been a feminist all my life, and I do love a good romantic story wherein the bad guys get theirs, and the good guys live happily ever after. I’ve got a right to like them, correct? Correct.

Who says that every story has to be realistic? Who says that? Not me. I get plenty of realism every day, and when I read, I like to be transported to a kingdom where things eventually work out.

When I am not at school, I wear jeans and old concert t-shirts, but that doesn’t mean that a story about beautiful gowns and sparkly shoes and fancy hairstyles isn’t going to interest me, especially if there are good illustrations.

And I am helpless and hooked when it comes to magic.

I love stories about overworked mistreated girls who win out over adversity, even if it takes magic to get them out of the kitchen fireplace and into something that is, at least, clean.

Does this mean that I am selling out? That I am substituting fairy tales for Good Literature? That I advocate plotlines that feature helpless women? Feh.

Well, I suppose that if I read fairy tales INSTEAD of Good Literature, I would be, but I read fairy tales AS WELL AS Good Literature.

Sometimes, I love the fairy tales best, and sometimes, I must have good literature in order to satisfy something in me.

The fairy tales satisfy something in my heart, and the good literature satisfies something in my head.

The best literature satisfies something in both places.

“They say. What do they say? Let them say.”

Oh, Cinderella, Aschenputtel, whatever you’re called, I love you and your story.

But, but, what IS the story?

There are many versions. If the only one you know is the Disney version, please go to the library at once (I don’t care if it IS the middle of the night!) and check out a book that contains one of the better real versions. I like Grimm, myself.

(I love the Disney animated fairy tales, but the stories are corrupted.)

Fairy godmother? There wasn’t one.

Her father was alive; he was just p-whipped.

Her dead mother talked to her from the grave, and gave her pretty ball gowns.

The stepsisters cut off parts of their feet, that they might fit into the slipper.

The Prince was so stupid, he didn’t realize he’d been fooled (twice!) until the little birds told him to look at the blood dripping down the side of his white horse.

Some historians claim that the slipper wasn’t really glass, but fur; the words for ‘glass’ and ‘fur’ are very similar, in French. I don’t know that I like that theory, though. The story is French, but the French placed a high value on pretty glass. I think I prefer to believe that the slippers were glass, however uncomfortable they would be for dancing ’till midnight.

And there is something so totally satisfying about an obviously guilty, evil person who is punished by being stripped naked, put into a barrel studded with red-hot spikes, and rolled down a hill.

Would that we could deal with all evil in that fashion. I’ve posted before about how some people think small children are frightened by such things, but I think they are wrong. Such punishments mean that we are all a little safer, that this one evil, at least, can no longer hurt us. Even a little child knows that a dead person can’t harm anyone any more. Punish evil thoroughly, and we are all a little safer for it.

Ooh, how politically incorrect. I’m soooooo sorry. Not.

Oh, Cinderella, I hope the King and Queen didn’t mind that you weren’t a Princess. I always wondered about that, even as a child. That she might not be accepted worried me more than any talk of evil, blood, ghosts, or abuse. The fact that the Prince wasn’t very smart always bothered me, too. What if Cinderella got tired of having a stupid husband? Then again, she wasn’t exactly the brightest bulb in the chandelier, herself. Oh well.

For many years, I thought the word ‘splendid’ meant ‘golden,’ because our story of Cinderella began with, “Cinderella lived in a splendid house. . . .” and in the illustration, the house was golden-brown. Heh.

And by the way, it’s “happily ever after,’ not ‘happy.’ They lived HAPPILY ever after.

Adjectives and adverbs are not interchangeable.

I’ve been a few days without updating; I’m sorry ’bout that. I’ve been brooding over my student, and it just took all the wind out of me.

Patriside, the MixMeister, says that it’s time to post our Scary Mixmania playlists! So, here’s mine. I sent my match two cd’s, but I’ve forgotten where one ends and the other begins. Again, sorry.

Scary Mixmania

1. The Wind That Shakes The Barley – Dead Can Dance (Does anyone else think that a lot of Celtic songs are a little scary? I love them, but SCARY.)

2. Let Me Fall – Josh Groban (The suicide song from Cirque du Soleil; I love it.)

3. O Death – Ralph Stanley (What could be scarier than a redneck bigot?)

4. Misery – TransSiberian Orchestra (from Beethoven’s Last Night) (I tend to find a TransSiberian Orchestra selection to fit almost any theme.)

5. Forgive Me Love – Alanis Morisette (Don’t mess with me. I’ve done this.) (Scared?)

6. When Doves Cry – Quinton Tarver (Let’s all be just like our parents. )

7. On My Own – Bernadette Peters (I cry out loud whenever I hear this song. I know what’s going to happen to her. And in a year or so, I’m going to be hearing it on stage again, I understand.)

8. La Dance Macabre (No Scary Mix is complete without it.)

9. It’s Too Late – Carole King (This expression is one of the scariest of all, by my way of thinking.)

10. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night – Clock Tower (I just think it’s frightening.)

11. Someone Else’s Story – from Chess (This song scares the scheiss out of me.)

12. The Raven – Christopher Walken (Christopher Walken? Edgar Allen Poe? ‘Nuff said.)

13. Gangster’s Paradise – Coolio (All gang stuff is scary.)

14. Creep – Damien Rice (I love this song, but it’s scary, and Damien Rice’s cover makes it even scarier.

15. Quentin’s Theme – Boston Pops (Remember “Dark Shadows?” Well, I was a little kid, and I thought it was darn scary.) (This is not, however, a very good version of the theme. )

16. The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most – Dashboard Confessionals (I dunno; I just find it scary.)

17. If You Go Away – Emiliana Torrini (No, please, don’t let it happen. I’m so scared, every time. . . .)

18. Thank You/Stan – Eminem & Dido (Too realistic. Too scary.)

19. Haunted – Evanescence (Ooooohh, dark. . . .)

20. Not Enuff Love – Faithless (There is, but we just don’t know how to utilize it. This scares me.)

21. Fingal’s Cave (Eek.)

22. Walk Like A Man – Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons (Okay, this one might raise some eyebrows, but it scares me to think of someone with that voice telling other men how to walk like a man.)

23. Exorcist Theme (I’ve never seen the movie, but I read the book by firelight, in the woods, by the edge of a lake, alone.)

24. God Help The Outcasts – from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (All of Disney ain’t appropriate for little kids.)

25. She’s Lost Control – Joy Division (I am very, very frightened of losing control.)

26. Stole (Good Kid) – Kelly Rowlands (I am very, very frightened of things like this happening again and again and again.)

27. If It Be Your Will – Leonard Cohen (I am very, very frightened of people who do things simply because someone tells them to.)

28. If I Had A Hammer – William Shatner & Leonard Nimoy (I am very, very frightened of any kind of musical collaberation between two men who belong in semi-spandex, on a spaceship. They both had the kiss of death when it came to shipboard romance, and they bring that same light touch to the recording studio.) (I think it’s supposed to be funny, but it isn’t.)

29. Close Your Eyes Forever – Lita Ford & Ozzy Osbourne (Death.)

30. When The Children Cry – Mark Oh (Please don’t let the children cry any more.)

31. Night on Bald Mountain (That scene from Fantasia still scares me today.) (The REAL Fantasia, not that insipid sequel.)

32. Phantom’s Theme (Beauty and the Beast) – from Phantom of the Paradise (This harkens back to my fear of losing control.) (I don’t mean of ‘situations,’ I mean of ‘me.’)

33. Cartman’s Scary Story – from South Park (. . . because every playlist should have a little whimsy in it.)

34. Ultraviolence Theme – from A Clockwork Orange (I saw this movie four times in one week. It scared me worse each time.) (I had dates. What can I say? It was free.)

35. Words That We Couldn’t Say – Steve Conte (Mmmm, Steve Conte. I don’t really know why this song scares me. It just does.)

36. Tooty Ta – Dr. Jean Feldman (Don’t listen to this song if you’re all alone; you might kill yourself just to make it stop. This is the most horrible song I’ve ever experienced. Please think twice before exposing your innocent child, who might have grown up to love and appreciate real music, to this travesty. Please, make it stopppppppp. . . .) (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH)

As usual, my mixes are odd. This is because she who mixed them is odd.

Thank you, dear Patriside, for putting yet another great MixMania together. I look forward to your next theme.

Now, do you want to be REALLY scared? Check out my life.

I’m all alone in the house, and I put a meatloaf in the oven.

In about an hour, I’ll be sitting at the kitchen table, alone, eating ketchup-drenched bland horrible meatloaf that nobody and nothing in the universe, even wild owls, will touch with a ten-foot pole. And which I like. A lot.

My brother liked it, too, but he moved away.

Don’t worry, though. When YOU come for dinner, we’ll have something else.

Sometimes, we don’t realize that we live in a world where magical things really are all around us if we just look for them.

Back in the middle school, I taught seven classes daily. Each class averaged 30 students or more. I had my share of students who chose not to do much, or even any, work, but for the most part, I really didn’t have all that much trouble with discipline. I found that laughter really can be a miracle worker, and a little ignorning of minor things went a long way. For major things, I came down so hard that most kids didn’t care for a repeat performance.

I was exhausted most of the time.

I found something to love in every class, but once in a while. . . . once in a while there was a class that I loved so much, I have after all these years not forgotten a single detail, or face, or name. For these wondrous groups of personalities, I can close my eyes and see each precious face, in his or her assigned seat, laughing or bent over writing, watching a video or taking notes or whispering to a neighbor (shhhh, other people are working, and it might be you next time. . . .) or even weeping in empathy when our lessons were heart-warming. For years, I thought that the students just took for granted that some classrooms were both cool and warm-hearted: a blend of temperatures that averaged into a comfort zone where each pre-teen could relax, knowing that for forty-five minutes a day, at least, everyone was ‘safe.’

There are several of these ‘special’ years in my memory.

One such year was 1996. That year, period one was the ‘memorable’ class. They got off the bus and hurried to my room; they didn’t want to miss a thing. (cue Steven Tyler. . . .) We started the very second the bell rang. We worked (even when the kids didn’t realize they were working) right up until the next bell. Period Two was quite the opposite, and this probably made me appreciate Period One even more. I cried when the year was over and they all came to say ‘goodbye.’

That next autumn, I saw one of those Period One students in WalMart. Some students are far too cool to come up to a teacher and start a conversation, but this was a Period One student, and his enthusiasm for life extended far beyond my classroom. He was just an outgoing, enthusiastic, well-mannered young man in all aspects of life. Tall, and funny, very good at writing and speaking, he had a sweetness about him that was hard to describe.

I asked him how he liked high school. His reply is something I will always remember.

“It’s okay, but there will never be another class like our Period One class last year. “

“Why is that?” I asked him.

“It was magical. We all thought so.” he replied.

I went home and cried some more.

I’ve been remembering Period One, and this student, all weekend.

His brakes failed, Friday night, and to avoid hitting someone else, he steered his car off the road. He hit a tree, and he was killed instantly. He was 22 years old.

And, as usual, I cried.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly