Susie Cupcakes

I am so excited: I got an American Girl catalog in the mail today! Tell me, how did I get on this list? My subscription to Gourmet? Ordering things from Ann Taylor Loft? The Lego stuff I ordered for Alex last year? However I fell onto this most auspicious mailing list, I want to stay!

Have you ever wanted to see Susie C. in doll form? Okay!

This is the "Just Like You" version of me. I'm really quite stunning. I mean stunned. (By the way, this is what is considered "short" blond hair.)

I used to get this catalog when I was a legitimate American girl and always wanted to have all the fancy clothes and accessories, which was clearly impossible because the dolls wore clothes more expensive than I did. That was when they just had historically-based dolls with accompanying costumes. My favorite was Samantha, the rich Victorian girl. I mean seriously, do you want to be a poor Swedish immigrant when you can wear giant velvet hair bows? (Note: This may be some kind of sick instinctual affection, being that I am descended from poor Swedish immigrants.) But in any case, I was dismayed to see that Samantha is being fricking phased out! She's going into the "American Girl Archives." Question: do children no longer like giant velvet hair bows? Second question: How do I get a job at the American Girl Archives?

My friend Anastasia wrote a brilliant essay about the American Girl phenomenon that is unfortunately not online (if it is, let me know, Stas!). It is truly a bizarre phenomenon and if you can visit a store, please please do. We visited the Chicago store and it's an experience we can never forget. If you haven't seen someone pay $10 to get their doll's hair put into pigtails, you're really missing out.

Labels: creepy, dolls, nablopomo