Adventure. Hope. Love :)

After months in the waiting, I had the absolute pleasure
to see "Where the Wild Things Are"… finally :)

I went alone because I didn't really know how I'd react to
the sheer awesomeness of Spike Jones' brilliance.
I mean, I knew I'd laugh.
And I knew I'd contagiously smile.
But for some reason, I knew I'd cry my eyes out
(which I totally did)

Confession: I don't cry very often so when I do, my eyes swell-up as if they're deathly allergic to tears. It's incredibly unattractive (therefore making me never want to cry, like ever)

Aaaaand I digress, per usual …

In an interview with New York magazine, Spike Jones said he had one goal in mind, "To create a movie that captured what it was like to be 9 again." And holy hell, did he ever!

Tonight I sat in the theatre and vividly remembered every single page of my Simba & Nala diary from the year I was 9 … the diary that slept soundly under my pillow (while its key was kept safe in my sock drawer).

For me, the age of 9 consisted of Miss Barnett's 4^th grade class and countless games of 4-Square at recess. For me it was coming home to my Grandma Stella after school, knowing without fail she would have chicken-rice soup ready and waiting :)

It was the year I got my first Polaroid camera.
Received my first score of "8.0" in a gymnastics meet.
Went to my first New Kids on the Block concert .
The year I had my first crush on a boy ... His name was Todd Hicks and I "loved" him even more than Fluff. Admittedly, I even faked an arm injury in order to wear a sling to school that October so Todd would feel sorry for me (and therefore ask me to be his date to the Pumpkin Festival, obvi)

Oh what it was like to be 9!

Despite the fact that I watched Drop Dead Fred religiously,
I wanted to save the world (and all the manatees within it).
I was destined to be a marine biologist.

I desperately wanted my molars to fall out (so that I'd have all my "adult" teeth)

I wanted my mom and dad to say goodnight to Stephen and Jamie before me so that one of them would stay longer and scratch my back, uninterruptedly ;)

When I was 9, my brother was 12 and my sister was 15.

I used to pay Stephen my weekly allowance to sleep under his desk when Billy, Jack & Justin would stay the night at our house.
They talked about Michael Jordan and sports stats,
never once about girls. I wanted my money back!

Jamers had her learners permit to drive a car.
There could have been nothing cooler in my mind.
I dreamed of the day she would be able to take me to Corelee Candies ... Just the two of us!

When I was nine we got Bo & Bradey :)

Stephen named the boy dog "Bo" after Bo Jackson (clearly) and I named the girl dog "Bradey" after the guy my sister had a massive crush on. His name was Brady Zerland and he was 16. He drove a yellow Slug Bug convertible and made my feelings for Todd Hicks seem pale in comparison. I loved him more than the Cosby Show. (Note: I however, spelled the dog's name as Bradey with an "e-y" because that's how my name is spelled and therefore I'm partial)

Sitting in the theatre I remembered being 9 as if it weren't even close to being 20 years ago.

I remembered what it felt like to experience anger like no other. The overwhelming feeling when I'd come home to find Jamie's friends sitting on my bed, reading my journal and laughing aloud. I thought I just might spontaneously combust. Or better yet, that they would! ("Hot face" would be a raging understatement)

I vividly remembered reading "Kid News" every Friday in Language Arts class and asking Miss Barnett if I could be excused to use the bathroom. But really, I would run down the hallway to call the Lincoln Park Zoo from the 25 cent pay phone. As the President of the "Animal Friends Association", I needed to know what new endangered species were available to adopt that week.
I was a huge dork. Repeat: a huuuge dork
(who wanted nothing more in life than a Wooly Monkey)

Sooo, yaaa ....
To say the least, Spike Jones captured what it was like to be 9 again on-screen and evoked you to feel it off-screen as well.

In my opinion,
he "let the wild rumpus start!"
and for me it never stopped :)

The film is spot on.
Even if the message is simply to remind the masses that in all of us,
there is Adventure.
There is Hope.
And there is Love :)