Monthly Archives: October 2010

You can tell this woman is a witch, because her ankles are showing. (The brazen hussy! Only a witch would flaunt her ankles.) Even the cat is shocked… but the bat is like, “Hey now!” (Dracula, I presume?)

Ah, Victorians.

Even though I am the tiniest one I am pretty good. Dancing never seems hard to me. It is just what my body likes to do. Izzy says it’s because I am a very centered child. I think it is because Izzy and Anastasia always made me feel like I could be good at whatever I liked to do. Once we were on a bus, and there was a little girl my age with her pinch-mouthed grandmother. The little girl was happy and chattering about how when she grew up she wanted to be “an actress or a writer or a dancer or a violinist.” The grandmother said, “Oh no, you’re too old to be a dancer or a violinist. You would have had to have started years ago when you were little. You’ll never make it now. And you’re too short to be a dancer besides.” That got to me since I’m smaller than the girl was. “What about a writer or an actress?” she asked. You could tell she felt really bad. “It is almost impossible to be successful as a writer,” the grandmother said. “And you have to be very very pretty to make it as an actress these days.” I could see that the little girl had completely changed. She got quiet and smaller. You could just tell that her heart was broken. Izzy was fuming like a dragon. I knew she wanted to say something, but she didn’t want to create a scene. When they got off the bus Izzy smiled at the girl, her big, dazzling, toothy smile, and maybe it helped a little. I was lucky because whenever I mentioned anything I dreamed of doing I always got to see that smile.

- From “Dragons in Manhattan,” a short story by Francesca Lia Block

I bet somebody told the grandmother she would never achieve her dreams. Bitterness is born when individuals do not support the dreams of others.