"Marigold Heavenly Nostrils"

I had originally considered writing about my ongoing frustrations with how life works here and now (the most recent ones: students skipping my class because of "work opportunities" they cannot pass up because money, so I'm left to play catch-up with them in office hours. I'm not mad at the student; I'm mad at the system and how our economy is such that people have to work long hours to have gas money. And also a system that sells the idea of "You can work full time and go to college full time" because you CAN'T. I work full time and I can't imagine taking on even another part-time responsibility at this point. And I'm irritated by the guy in our Legislature who is apparently agitating for us to go to year-round Daylight Saving Time because....well, I can only assume it's because he wants to golf in the afternoons of warm winter days. What that will mean for the rest of us? I'll be driving to work in the dark from October to about April now with no midwinter respite caused by Standard Time. (And I will STILL be driving home in the dark often in winter, so there's no gain for me). And for those of us close to a border with another state? Ohhhhh maaaaannn. So let me think: On DST, 8 am is actually, what, 9 am in the other states. And 3 pm is actually 4 pm and good luck teaching labs to people who are parents with kids in the Texas school system, I'll get even more "Hey I have to leave at 2:15 I hope that's OK" requests than I do otherwise.

This semester just already has some stinky dynamics: we've been warned that Rodeo and Basketball and I think Baseball have terrible travel schedules this spring, so we need to be 'flexible' which amounts to doing lots of make-up exam times and also probably reteaching a lot of stuff in office hours. And to me, it just seems further evidence of how little my chosen profession matters to ANYONE at all....)

But anyway.

What I need is a magic unicorn. At least I can read about them. I had referred to finding "Book 2" (apparently there are 7 at this point) of the "Phoebe and her Unicorn" series. These are all-ages graphic novels. (No, they are NOT just for kids. Reading them, I am reminded of things in my childhood and I am enjoying them as a nearly-49-year-old).

I ordered Book 1, after being unable to find it in the store (and being irritated by some rude comics fans who were hanging around and who apparently had the attitude that (a) women  or (b) people over 35 or (c) both are not allowed to be interested in graphic novels).

I started reading it. I like it. I like it a lot. Book 1 has an introduction by Peter Beagle, who wrote "The Last Unicorn" (which I have heard of, but never read, and never saw the movie based on it). Book 2 has Lauren Faust - the person responsible for the most recent iteration of My Little Ponies (but sadly is no longer associated with the show - I think she left after season 1)

But anyway. One of the comments Beagle made in his introduction was that the comics reminded him of "Calvin and Hobbes," and yes, I see that: Phoebe has a little bit of Calvin's attitude to her - feisty, not over-fond of school, not in awe of the "popular" kids (her main antagonist is a pretty popular girl - or at least a girl who is pretty and popular in her own mind, I don't know).

But anyway. Phoebe starts out like many nerdy kids - sort of rejected, lonesome, wishing she had friends who were more like her (so: basically me at 8). One day, angry about something, she heads off to a pond that is her "angry place" and starts skipping stones - and hits the nose of a unicorn who is submerged in the pond.

Apparently the deal is this: Unicorns are so very vain that, like Narcissus, they get sucked into bodies of water after staring at their reflections for a long time. So Phoebe freed the unicorn (name: "Marigold Heavenly Nostrils") and now Marigold has to grant Phoebe a wish.

After the usual "No, you can't wish for infinity more wishes" clauses, Phoebe does what any reasonable child would have done - what I would have done in her position: she wishes Marigold would be her friend and hang around her forever.

(Later on, she does free Marigold from that obligation - but Marigold decides to stick around anyway).

And it does seem that this is not wishful thinking: Marigold is NOT a figment of Phoebe's imagination or an imaginary friend (though I suppose it could be being played so subtly that I'm missing it, and that I also really want to believe this is a timeline where unicorns are real)

Anyway. Marigold does have a "cloaking device" - called the Shield of Boredom or Shield of Ordinaryness - where people won't see her if she doesn't let them. As a result, she's protected from being nabbed by a zoo or some crappy billionaire type who might want her for his own children, or prevents her being photographed for tabloids and the like.

And Marigold is a good friend to Phoebe, despite her vanity and boastfulness. It's....in a weird way it's kind of soothing to see a lonesome little kid that the popular kids rejected (a lot like me) get a friend like Marigold. Even if it's in a comic book and really 40 years too late to make a difference to me...

And Phoebe is very "real." She has some of the same anxieties I did as a kid, she talks the way I remember little kids talking, she's interested in the same stuff. That's a big part of what makes the book enjoyable: Phoebe is not a little brat, nor is she a prig, nor is she perfect, nor is she SUCH a screwed-up mess it's depressing to read about her - she's more or less a normal kid with the normal anxieties and sadnesses normal kids have, and some of the same joys.

A lot of what happens is more or less "slice of life" - though with the addition of a unicorn. A lot of it is Phoebe and Marigold just playing out in a forest/grassland area that seems not unlike the one where Calvin and Hobbes played, and also is not unlike the "vacant lot" next to the house I grew up in. Some of it takes place in school, of course (and Marigold is not there, of course, though she seems to be waiting, cloaked, to carry Phoebe home - and what a joy that would have been as a kid, not to have had to ride the bus any more; the buses in my school system were even more Lord of the Flies than school itself was, because there were no teachers to intervene). We meet Phoebe's parents (who are cooler than my parents were, despite Phoebe's insistence on her dad's uncoolness). She tangles with her adversary (which winds up with hair being lost, and a promise made to the antagonist - whose name I forget right now - that she can ride Marigold in to her birthday party).

And yes, Marigold makes good on the promise - but doesn't really drop the Shield of Boringness, so the unpleasant little girl is disappointed at how little she impressed her friends - but Marigold makes it up to her by giving her a wrapped box of pure happiness.

Yes. That's what is in the box. Happiness. Not a thing that will make her happy, but happiness itself.

(And I wondered, seeing as my birthday is in another week: how long does that happiness last, and is it something one can order off of Amazon? Because really, the other things I might want for my birthday are just attempts that "hopefully this thing will bring me happiness" and that usually does not work).

Later on we meet Max, who might (or might not, I don't know) become a bit of a first crush for Phoebe....

Anyway. It feels "authentic" to what I remember my third and fourth-grade experiences being (Well, without the unicorn part, of course), which makes it enjoyable and tells me maybe I wasn't such a little freak as the other kids tried to convince me I was....I'll probably get the rest of the books in the series when I've finished these.