"Positively Three-ish"

If you dig around enough in my closet, you will run across a slip of paper that reads:

Resolve: Blond haired, blue eyed four year old ought to take precedence over latin homework."

After which there is an outline for a speech. The speech had nothing to do with getting out of latin homework. That was a joke on my debate teacher who also taught the latin class. I was in debate and speech class in what (I think) would have been my sophomore year of high school if anyone had been paying attention. I didn't get very far in building a debate case but I did pretty well with the speech part.
So here I am, reminiscing about my waisted youth. Just kidding. I thought I would reconstruct my speech as a blog and add some old pictures. Here is a sample of true Splatness. I hope you enjoy it.

September 2004
~*~

My little sister, Maleny is a space alien. I have been observing her behavior for the last three years and have decided that she comes form a highly developed culture on another planet. She simple does not display normal earthling behavior.
After three years of living among us her tongue is still unused to our language but easily uses words that many adult earthlings struggle to pronounce.
She is undisturbed by the things in our culture that ought to be frightening to a three year old.
I have caught her performing what I can only describe as alien rituals that obviously have great meaning in her culture.

J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy masterpiece The Lord of the Rings is filled with strange words. Professor Tolkien was a great linguist and created several complex languages for the people in his stories to speak. It gives the book a wonderful believability. The languages are beautiful and diverse but for a person who is just learning to handle english, they do not roll easily off the tongue. It has taken my other sister and me about a year to get all the names of people and places pronounced correctly. They feel strange and awkward until you have used them for a while. Maleny has them down quite solidly. In fact she has more trouble with english words than with Tolkien's Elvish. She can't pronounce my name, and refuses even to try. I am accustomed to answering to a variety of babyish renditions of my name. Maleny refuses to use any of them. She refers to me, with superb diction, as Faramir; her "Brover Faramir" actually. All of my family members and several of my friends have been given names from Tolkien's Elvish. She introduces herself as Legolas. Obviously the language Maleny spoke at home was very similar to Tolkiens Elvish. Perhaps the professor even had contacts on other planets. Maleny won't say.

Here she is using her bow and arrow. I'm assuming that the laws of physics are a little different on her planet. As are the laws of attraction. Let me show you.

Meet Saruman and Grima, nicknamed Wormtongue (Yes, Maleny can say those names quite easily) You might want to click on the photo to make it big so you can take a close look at these fellows.
They are rather shady looking characters if you ask me. If I met them at the bus plaza I would probably make a point not to make eye contact. Not the sort of boys you want your little sister hanging out with. You don't want to think about how long it's been since Grima washed his hair. Saruman's fingernails will give you nightmares. Even in a fantasy world they are not the sort of people you want standing where you can't seem them. Anyone from our planet can see that they mean trouble. Most small girls I know would be rather shy of these guys. At Maleny's age I would have been quite terrified by them and averted my eyes whenever possible.
You may notice that these particular action figures have seen better days. The tip of Wormtongue's nose has apparently been rubbed off, or drawn on with a black sharpie, or something. Saruman's staff is a bit bent. The reason for this is that Grima and Saruman have spent a great deal of time smashed together in Maleny's back pack. She takes them everywhere. She is a bit panicked if they are not with her. She will immediately opt to leave any of the nice, respectable action figures home if there is no room for Saruman and Wormtongue. They go to church with her and at home she carries them around in her arms. She talks to them. I hope they don't talk back but you never know.
I can only conclude that the aspects of appearance which tell us that these two figures are bad guys do not imply the same evilness on Maleny's planet.

Lastly there are certain behaviors that seem to have no explanation. She acts in a manner totally devoid of sense of propriety. I have caught some of them on my camera.



For your consideration:
Why does Maleny carefully draw on herself with markers? (I will make no comment on the child's head dress in this picture.) It is a common practice with her. One theory is that she wants to be in the water. Knowing that in our culture unnatural color on the surface of the skin will necessarily end in a good scrubbing, she marks her body with bright colors to draw attention that she could only get from verbal communication in our language otherwise and, as I have pointed out, she feels a little overwhelmed by our vernacular. This theory seems overly simple to me. She is too careful with the markers. The tattooing of the face and body is a fascinating process to watch. The slow uncapping of the marker is very ceremonious. And the very deliberate placement of color and shape bring me to believe that there is a pattern, perhaps beyond earthling comprehension, in the marks she makes. I conclude that this marking and washing are part of an alien ritual.
Why does she dress in news paper and dance in the front yard? She seems to have a defiant disregard for clothing. Or our clothing at least. Dance seems to be an important art form in her culture. I have posted multiple pictures of Maleny dancing in this blog. She has spent a lot of time doing it since she was barely walking. We can assume that Maleny comes from a very far advanced society and they have obviously sent her here for a purpose. I believe Maleny is sending a message to her fellow Aliens. The look on her face is triumphant with a touch of smugness. She seems to be saying "You just wait and see what I have in store for you!"

They are planning a hostile take over.

So if you happen to see this child running around with a laser gun don't be fooled by the sweet little smile and the big innocent eyes.

She's not to be trusted.












Meanwhile, I'll keep an eye on this guy too. He looks suspicious.