Betty Boop creeps me out...

It's her head...

I mean, look at it, it's slightly wider than her damn shoulders, for f***'s sake. I don't know why it should bother me, I mean, she's a f***ing CARTOON for f***'s sake. But, for some unexplained reason, it does. It only bothers me a bit when I see a picture, like a poster, or on a T-shirt, or sticker, but it's a little worse when I see a Betty Boop cartoon. Granted, I actually do enjoy the occasional cartoon of hers, but that damn head does kind of give me the creeps... It was worse when I was a kid, but now, even today it does kinda creep me out... But...

I do think if they redesigned her, gave her more realistic proportions, such as a head that was only half the width of her shoulders(aka normal human sized), I think she would be sexy. Of course, if I did redesign her, I would give her red nails, a normal sized head, and change the garter on her thigh to a tattoo of a heart... 

Siamese Twins, Skincare, Sharon, & Shirley: A (kind of) True Story...

Why these twins again?

This is actually about the dream that the title of this entry references.

This is the dream, as well as I remember it after all these years(plus some details I added for detail and/or artistic license):

I remember the first time my mom (whose name is Sharon) took me to the circus. I was 4 years old, my dad had taken my baby sister to visit his parents. The reason they were doing this was that I had been feeling a little neglected since my sister was born 6 months earlier. They decided to do this, to give me some time with my mom. 

Anyways, when we got to the circus, I saw a sign out front. It said "SPECIAL ATTRACTION! THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY, TONIGHT ONLY!" I had taught myself to read when I was 2, so my mom wasn't that surprised that I knew they were playing. I don't remember much about the circus, or the Partridge Family's performance, except I do vaguely remember Danny being one of the clowns. 

What I do remember is the sideshow. I don't remember many of the acts, although ii do remember they had a snake charmer. What I do remember is my mom and I running into Shirley Partridge there. For some reason, I only remember Keith and Danny being there. For some reason, my mom knew Shirley. I don't remember much else, except my mom and Shirley were the Siamese twins in the sideshow, for some reason.

Yeah, I know the last sentence doesn't make a lick of sense, my mom and I were in the audience, while Shirley was performing on a stage set up in one of the rings. Thing is, they weren't always Siamese twins. They had to be joined to one another. That was accomplished with several jars of Avon Perfect Balance skin cream. They spread liberal amounts of Perfect Balance on their backs, and used it to "glue" themselves together. However, when they were stuck together, the skin cream turned into human flesh. I know it doesn't make a shred if sense, but for some reason, the whole thing seemed perfectly normal. So did the fact that once the cream turned into flesh, it was as if they had been born joined like that. They were no longer my mom and Shirley Partridge, but Siamese twins. 

Rachipagus: A Love Story...

(PART 2 OF THE "THOSE DAMN TWINS AGAIN" SUB-BLOG...)

this is a work of fiction, based on the above photo

Love is a funny thing...

You never know  when it will rear its not-so-ugly head. You could be minding your own business, some sweet young thing with blonde hair, a pair of 34DD's stuffed in a tube top, and a French pedicure walks by, BAM!, next thing you know, you're looking her in the eyes and saying "I do"... Or that girl you thought was a bit too plain the first time you laid eyes on her in freshman English, becomes your date for the Senior prom. 

This is my story, how I found love in the most unlikely place, with the most unlikely of people. It began in the summer of 1997, when I first got internet access. I had quickly found a chatroom that was devoted to something I was interested in, and joined it. I had somehow attracted the attention of someone iin the room, and was invited into a private chat.

Anyways, after our initial private chat, we met up regularly in the chatroom, once both of us were in thevroom, we would quickly " loft"(chatroom slang for when 2 people go into a private chat), and eventually, we began to privately chat through instant messaging. From these private conversations, I gotbto know her. Her name was Dianne, she was a little more than as year older than I was. She lived a couple twins over from where I lived at the time. 

Dianne lived with her twin sister, Alison, in a small apartment in the town in which they had grown up, and the two of them ran the coffee shop their mother owned. She had emailed me a photograph of her, a head and shoulders shot. She appeared to be nude, as she had bare shoulders, although she told mevshe was wearing a strapless bathing suit at the time, and the photo had been cropped to make her appear to be nude. For some reason, when I saw the picture, I got the sense she was hiding something, like there was something she was afraid to tell me. I felt at the time it might not exactly be prudent to press the issue, although I did realize that whatever iit was she was hiding would be revealed at the proper time. 

After chatting for a few weeks, I felt that it was time that Dianne and I finally met in person. She wasn't as excited about meeting face to face as I was, for some reason. Again, I sensed there was something she was afraid of me finding out. She told me that she would only agree to meet in person on the condition that Alison would be tagging along, explaining that the two of them were very close, and did everything together. I had chatted with Alison azaz few times, and had talked on the phone with both sisters, and had wanted to meet Alison as well as Dianne, so I said there was no problem with Alison tagging along. We agreed to meet at the café their mother owned, and agreed to a date and time. 

I arrived at the café at the appointed time. When I saw Dianne, I recognized her immediately. Her photo didn't do her justice, especially her hair. I mean, she had the brightest red hair I had ever seen. I mean, it was almost as if she had flames for hair. She was wearing a strapless black dress, along with black pantyhose and high heels.  

When I approached Dianne, I saw that she was sitting back to back with a woman with the same flaming red hair, this woman wearing a ted strapless dress, and high heeled strappy sandals, her legs were bare. When I got closer, I saw what it was that Dianne was afraid to tell me over the internet or phone: the band of flesh that joined the sisters at the shoulder blades. "Let me guess," I said, after introducing myself to Dianne, "you were afraid the fact you and Alison were Siamese twins would scare me off."

"I'm sorry," Dianne said. "I should have been honest with you from the get-go. But you're right, I was kind of afraid the fact I'm joined to another person would scare you off."

"Obviously iit didn't," I said. "Seeing as I didn't run off the instant I saw that the two of you were joined at the back. Actually, I kind of like the idea of dating a Siamese twin."

"You do?" Dianne asked.

"Yes I do," I said.

"And if it doesn't work out with my sister," Alison said, "you can always date me behind her back."

"Of course," I said, "I could date both of you."

The twins and I talked for a while, and soon went back to their apartment. Being a gentleman, I won't go into detail, but suffice it to say, when I left the next morning, I crossed a big thing off my bucket list...

Siamese Twins, Skincare, Sharon, & Shirley...

The lovely ladies in the photo at the top of this entry are the Siamese twins mentioned in the title. The photo was taken from a scan from an Avon brochure from 1974. I originally saw this photo back then, while looking through one of my mom's Avon brochures. I would like to state that I taught myself to read at the age of 2, and often would read whatever I could get my hands on, which did occasionally iinclude my mom's Avon brochures. This photo was the first image I had ever seen of conjoined twins, and it intrigued me. I had never seen two people before who were physically joined to one another before. I don't know how they made these women appear to be joined at the back, although back in 1974, as far as I was concerned, they were born joined back to back.

As for the skincare, the product this photo was used to advertise was Perfect Balance, a skincare line Avon produced from 1974 to at least 1978, according to my research. I had never thought about why Avon would use conjoined twins, particularly twins conjoined back to back, for this particular product, or any product, for that matter. I had been told the twins represent balance, which does make sense. Another theory I had about that also involves the headscarf they're wearing. I had thought of several reasons they're wearing it. The reason that ties into the fact they use rachipagus (the medical term for a back to back conjoinment) conjoined twins to represent balance, is they wear the scarf to resemble the logo on product packaging(which is pictured below:)

I noticed when I first rediscovered the photo of the twins back in 2013 that the product logo used on packaging resembles a feminine version of Janus, the two-faced god of Roman mythology. The use of two connected faces looking in opposite directions also represents balance. However, that is not the only reason I have theorized the women wear a headscarf (I had, for some reason, imagined each woman wearing a separate headscarf, although they were still knotted together at the base of the neck, just above where their bodies were joined). One theory I had was the scarf was used to hide the fact the women were in fact not identical twins, as conjoined twins are always identical (although the women could possibily been sisters, or even fraternal twins), and/or they have different colored hair(while the fact they have different colored hair can be explained by the fact one or both twins could have dyed her hair, as real life conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton had at the time they filmed Chained for Life, to represent balance, especially perfect balance, they would have to appear identical, including having the same hair color. A third theory concerning the headscarf is, the women are supposed to be joined not only back to back, but at the backs of their heads, and the scarf is supposed to represent the cranial conjoinment. As for the theory the women were not in fact identical twins, the following picture, scanned from another Avon brochure from 1974, shows who I believe could have been the women in the photo:

Of course, I may be wrong, but it is possible these ladies could very well be the conjoined twins from the original photo.

When I first saw the picture, I was curious, having never seen two people who were joined to one another. I did what moist 4 year olds would do when they saw something that piqued their curiosity: I showed the picture to my mom(her name is Sharon, she's the Sharon mentioned iin the title) who told me the women were Siamese twins. I also remember her telling me how they would solve one particular problem, that being when one Siamese twin wants to eat dinner, while the other wants to go to bed: the hungry twin eats dinner in bed.

Anywho, now to the part that links everything in the title together: for a time after first seeing that photo, I had a recurring dream. In this dream, my mom and Shirley Jones, as Shirley Partridge were Siamese twins, joined back to back, like the twins in the photo. However, they were not born joined, but glued themselves together by slathering generous amounts of Perfect Balance on their backs. As I recall, I believe they used at least 1 or 2 jars of Perfect Balance each. I distinctly remember at least once, the whole Partridge Family was there(just Keith, Laurie, Danny, Chris and Tracy, although I don't remember if Reuben Kincaid ever appeared). I have thought about this dream, tried to figure out what it means, and the only thing I have come up with is that the dream was nothing more than a mash-up of random images(the Siamese twinsand Perfect Balance come from seeing them in an Avon brochure, my mom was the one person iin my life I had spent the most time with at that point iin my life, and Shirley Partridge came from the fact we did watch the Partridge Family).