To California

In pursue of a Malibu Dream House.
A tribute.

Still Plastic and Perfect

It was a perfect society built out of plastic houses and hot pink convertibles you stubbed your toe on countless of times while creeping back from the bathroom late at night. I sat pleasantly alone for hours most days, manipulating their fictional world. Laying in bed every night staring at the dark shadow that was their Malibu dream house.
They were perfect.

Barbie’s long blonde hair falling gracefully on her curving back, big, blue sparkling eyes, pouty lips, perfectly constructed, ideally sculpted –a body only Pam Anderson would ever replicate in Baywatch. And no matter the similarity between each doll, they were always unique in their own way.

The ones my grandmother brought me from Europe and Asia were foreign and exotic. They spoke with an accent and had a pompous glamour. Outdoor Barbie was tough and cool in her red flannel and rubber boots. Teacher Barbie was smart and soft-spoken (but the kids that came in her set were spoiled rotten).

I walked exclusively down the doll isle at toy stores. First admiring the collectables – Lucille Ball Barbie, Marilyn Monroe Barbie. I paced back and forth obsessing over their tiny pleather jackets, frilly fabric and Velcro everything. Their mini rubber boots and plastic shoes that slid right on but never seemed to actually stay on.

Though I was mainly interested in dressing, undressing and redressing the dolls, they often interacted. Barbie with Ken, Barbie with another Barbie –whose name would clearly have to be different because there could only be one Barbie. Ken always perfectly groomed and Barbie never under-dressed, they laid in their plastic bed with a plastic hump at the head for a pillow. Fully dressed in their bed with their feet hanging off the end because somehow they never got the measurements right; laying still, plastic and perfect staring at the dark shadow that was my bed.