Klowns in my Koffee

No, not Mortal Kombat the game. I mean the forced binary of the yin and yang world. Today was "Dress in a Costume Day" at the preschool. I watched all the little people parade by in their finery. There was Spiderman, a pretty princess in a poufy dress, Spiderman, Spiderman, Princess, Spiderman, Princess, Princess, Spiderman, Princess, Princess, Spiderman ... and one little girl in shorts who didn't get the memo.

I'm mystified by my five-year-old daughter who was brought to sobs this morning because she broke a heel. I'm more of a Spiderman myself. I have never relied "on the kindness of strangers" and that's been a damn tootin' good thing considering the strangers I've encountered. So this little creature wobbling down the hallway, all sparkles and feathers, both amuses and concerns me. I signed her up for both baseball and dance, hoping that at least one of them sticks. She enjoys the fact that they both have specific sets of apparel.

When my older daughter was small, we didn't have much of this situation since she was also a little more of a Spiderman. She had an impressive collection of Power Rangers action figures. [Go! Go! Power Rangers! You mighty morphin' Power Rangers!] If you escaped seeing the Power Rangers, they were stereotypical high schools students in their late twenties who, when faced with danger, turned into brightly costumed small Japanese men who used their martial arts skills to fight other Japanese people dressed as monsters. They saved the world and then went to the malt shop. My daughter staged a battle between the Power Rangers and the Barbies. The Barbies used the pink car for cover but it was to no avail, armed as they were with only hairdryers. Laser weapons trumped 500 watts of pure styling heat and a curling iron. Still, the Barbie heads were better coiffed lying on the floor. The Power Ranger dolls had a button where you could switch between the high school student face and the crime fighter helmet, at last incontrovertibly proving the adage that two heads are better than one.

Are we stuck in a world with this strict dichotomy? Princess vs. Spiderman, Power Rangers vs. Barbies, AC/DC vs. The Pet Shop Boys?

On second thought, maybe it's not so far fetched. Out of the whole world, I'm unaware of a single Spiderman and yet actual Princesses (or pretenders to the throne -- Yeah, Paris Hilton, I'm talking about you) seem to pop up with some regularity and do seem to find a way to survive in the world, if only through living off others. I guess Princess is more practical as a Plan B career than counting on being bitten by a radioactive spider.