From Up On Poppy Hill

Today I talk about a dvd that was issued on September 23rd in the UK.

Called From Up On Poppy Hill, this anime stage play by Hayao Miyazaki and lovingly directed by his son, Goro, is a coming of age romance set in Yokohama, Japan in 1963, just 18 years after the end of World War Two and the establishment of modern day Japan.

Set in the ramshackle club house of their high school , it charts the romance of Umi and Shun as they join forces to save it from demolition for a new sports facility for the (then) upcoming 1964 Tokyo Olympics. 

The musical score is jazz based and features Sukiyaki the World conquering  1963 Japanese song that had a cover version by Kenny Ball's trad jazz  band in the UK.

The animation as is usually the case from this studio, Studio Ghilbi, is unapologetically old school cell drawn and all the better for it allowing you to concentrate on the story.
Strongly recommended. 

Revisiting and getting younger

We did make a bit of a reference to whole topic of games attire as some peoples idea of gender neutrality basically amounts to taking masculine stuff and adding "for girls too" which does nothing for us.

Jane Girls like me all feel better wearing traditional  wrap around games skirts loving the air and freedom of movement a skirt gives you.

I've gotten a new Green pleated school skirt and a matching netball skirt with the pleats at the side and rear plus matching gym knickers.

Earlier this month I was away visiting a favourite seaside resort Llandudno in North Wales where apart from just relaxing I found myself very much in the mindset of that young gurl interacting with all around hur.

I decided to go over to the Punch And Judy show that I loved as a ten year old and found myself being pulled back in with the children.

"Judy!' screamed all the children and me as Mr Punch pictured on the left of the puppet show goes to attack her baby as she lives it to get Mr Punch's dinner that comprised of Sausages. Mr Punch gets his just deserts later on in the performance for assaulting Judy and PC Plod. It's enough to say he won't repeat the offence again.

We all loved the performance of this traditional and decisively non politically correct seaside children's entertainment.

It's amazing just how much of a child I really am.

Age Fluidity

 

 The subject of ones age as a little came up at one site where it appeared the notion people having just single fixed age as a little appears to be doing the rounds.

Let me say from the outset, there is nothing at all wrong with having just a single little age say 10 years if this is the age you feel when you are in a little (or Middle) Headspace but this is by no means the only situation. 

For a good number of us, we do vary a little having a 'Upper age limit' which is as old as we can feel and a lower point we may regress further back to in certain situations, getting a little 'silly' at times. This is when you think about it, is little different to that of actual children who can go back a few years especially at periods of great stress. 

I would like anyone who does find their 'age' is fluid to understand this is quite normal and certainly doesn't make you less of a little.

Although I hover around the 10 to 12 bit most of the time I go go back to around 8 or 9 or even younger sometimes and my littlest little would really like to be dressed rather like this.

Putting me in younger girls skirt uniform or print dress makes more sense when we're clearly at our youngest.

A feminine schoolgurl.

Crossed wires and a gradual realization

Although we saw on the last entry that physically I was showing signs of maturing developing a personal sense of sexuality, it was also the case in good many other ways I hadn't and indeed a childhood accident at fourteen caused significant brain damage had pretty much locked me in at the upper juniors.

After passing some examinations I left school which was where a number of these issues started to take their toll not fitting in to systems that either worked with a disabilities but having regular development for Employment nor seeming on the surface to have the needs of someone less bright to be considered for specialist prevision such as Day Centres where activities such as arts and crafts and days out would be arranged.

Between the sheets and between the gaps I started to get to what we'd call today Age Regression although in an age where the modern internet hadn't yet been born and much confusion between infantilism and age regression existed even amongst professionals who deal with human behaviour and that was more a sissy gurl form.

As time went by, the modern internet emerged that was a breakthough where bulletin boards and websites devoted to being more like a child or dressing more like one formed.

Many though did not seem to cater to my needs as not being a pure crossdresser or a transexual  and those sissy sites I saw were more into the sissification trope of a boy dressed in a uber frilly satin form seemingly enjoying being humilated in lots of ways including sexually which for me wasn't what it was about as much as I am very much a sissy gurl.

It was not that my feminine side had gone to sleep not wishing to act on them or still wear a dress or skirt, I just didn't care for such extreme effeminate behaviour and sexualized lifestyle.

Sometimes you might of found a splinter group that appeared to bypass this mixing of past childhood with sexualization and I started to spend more time with them but they were more crossdressing being obessesed with changing their little girl dresses every half hour or so and soon things would be different.

Put into dresses and gym knickers, being inspected it seemed kind of okay at first as a vehicle for just being little with others but I began to question it when it was that a distantly anti male attitude would show as those who were Tg would drone on about being the female they wanted to be, wanting to be uber frilly girlies  or wanting surgery while all I could think about was just how much I actually loved being a sissy gurl but a non sexual one.

Then there was the shift in the Tg movement from being mainly around transexuality with acceptance of transvestism - altering gender by presentation on just a temporary basis - to being more around alternate gender forms and removing women and women's spaces for these.

Much of that made no sense to me as if you did feel you were female then you'd become one and from that point on function in society as one integrating into womanhood so going around removing girls and womens own spaces and even the word girls and women really pushed me to consider if just going along for the ride with them was the thing.

I decided to experiment a bit with them taking elements of how I originally saw age regression and me just to see how there version and how that might be really sat with me.

Wings gold

The origins of this entry go back quite a number of years when pre internet you found out about new titles being issued either in magazines such as Hifi World or by visiting your local record or cd stores when we had them(!).

Generally there are two types of record companies, those who are large, issue titles to the mainstream generally with little special care about sound quality and sources and those who issue limited runs of titles where they do track down the best sounding copies of each album and carefully transfer it to record or as with these titles, cd.

Many early cds didn't sound too good through a combination of not being careful over sources and also the technology that takes analogue sound to digital didn't sound as smooth as the format was and is capable of. 

Its that that lead me to start getting these Gold cds by the now defunct company DCC classics from the early 1990's onward.

Way way back in the 1970's the albums (and 45's) by Paul McCartney first came to my attention and this album Band On The Run was a favourite of mine owning it on the awesomely clunky 8 track form and fittingly this album with it's hit 45's such as the title track, Jet and as on this  US edition only Helen Wheels was the first I bought.

Apart from having the U.S. extra track which oddly enough I do prefer as with the rest of the series it has a very smooth rich sound while not fooling me to say an lp issue, does at least sound less 'digital' to the ears.

It also has a poster.

Arriving soon to me is Red Rose Speedway, the home of My Love a song that can be considered a 'standard' which will be a bit smoother than my 1987 UK edition and also has the reggae based b side to Hi Hi Hi,  C Moon, which inexplicably was left off the mainstream UK cds bonus tracks. It's a song I rather like. 

My copy will be missing the card slip cover but as it was a lot cheaper as many of these discs usually sell for over $100 I'm not complaining about that.

At The Speed of Sound should be with me by the time this entry goes live replacing a much loathed 1989 Capitol cd that masks much detail in the quieter parts in an attempt to eliminate tape hiss. 

This album was the home of the hit singles Let 'Em In and Silly Love Songs as well as enjoyable numbers like Cook Of The House. It was this album Wings toured with on the tour captured on Wings Over America recently re-issued.

I've a sneaking feeling many of us who around back then had at least heard this album Venus And Mars before, one of the best in the Wings catalogue with it's singles Venus &Mars/Rock Show (the single edit is on Wingspan) and Listen To What The Man Said (single mix again on Wingspan). 

One issue with this album is some heavy handed compression was locked into the mixdown tapes but although it's not entirely cured what mastering engineer Steve Hoffman did was carefully balance Venus and Mars so it's quieter than the energetic Rock Show that it segue-ways into for better effect. 

Strangely on all the mainstream releases Rock Show is noticeably less loud! It too has the original poster as featured on the lp and three bonus tracks.

I also was recently able to add McCartney, his first solo album  that featured the hit 45 Maybe I'm Amazed and Teddy Boy in addition to  Ram, featuring the 45 Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey and the pro population song Too Many People  on DCC too.

The Needs Of Littles

I'll begin this entry by first of all thanking all those who have read and followed this blog.

As one unfortunate side of  being me is I have migraines frequently, this is being typed in advance as I sense one come on and I'll polish it after being out of commission for a few days.

That takes me to the start of this piece which is that many littles, me included, need a sense of routine around our lives in order to feel secure emotionally being neither lost in world that might appear to be quite random or worrying be that the worry of not knowing what'll happen next or the worry of strange situations and people.

Actually most people do have set routines that they feel the need to complete usually around say eating routines such as getting up and having a round of toast and coffee not thanking you for changing it, but can deal with re-ordering events reasonably well which if you've ever been stuck in an airline terminal for hours you'll understand. 

It's just rather more intense for a good number of us. The world is out of control and we can't stand it! 

For me such things as colouring, school work, playing and so on all help to keep me calm.

Routine does almost invariable lead us into structure and while it's generally agreed most folks need some structure -changing the day structure around as people who work night shifts do creates issues - generally speaking for most adults they can create their own structures, for a number of us we're lost without one being in place, knowing such things as who is doing what, what are we exactly to do and who is in charge that for some of us is critical because we respond better for being in situations where effectively we're told we're now going to do this now rather than being relied upon to somehow read the unspoken signs.

It's hardly surprising therefore that for a number of us we miss greatly the structure of school to the point whereby we may role play it and that's indicative of  a need I feel.

Positive reinforcement comes in to as I suspect for a whole host of reasons: a number of  us have issues around self esteem, feeling less than confident in our abilities needing that  encouragement, that we're fine, what we're doing is okay turning out fine and as people we're good. 

Fortunately I get a lot of that in the workplace that helps when I'm battling with insecurities and can see if I was in relationship I'd need 'grooming' taking you back to that "That's a good gurl stage".

To me these are among some of needs we have and are critical to be meet for our well-being  for me personally coming to terms with them has been a great help rather than just denying their existence

Diana!

 Comics have always interested me from childhood and girls comics were the "forbidden fruit" for more feminine boys such as sissies like me so whenever I had the chance to read them secretly I did even if they may of been a good few years old in with stuff for table top sales deemed surplus to requirements by a girl or her parents.

Diana was a high quality tabloid sized girls' comic published by D.C. Thomson and was very successful.

 A slick 24 page glossy comic with 16 of its pages in full colour at a time when most comics were on newsprint with black and white interiors. 

This is Diana, No.149, dated 25th December 1965, published on the 18th December of that year which has  classy high quality seasonal cover.

Unfortunately, the stories inside the comic don't have a Christmas theme, but they do feature excellent artwork. Here's the penultimate episode of sci-fi strip The Pink Peril

 

This edition featured a chapter of a serialised adaptation of Ivanhoe showing the quality of the story telling and drawing abilities this title had.

Most girls comics had a higher proportion of "makes" with arts and crafts compared with boys comics and so this edition had some festive ones. 

Like most British comics there was a 1965 Annual rather like the Beano had one that had 128 full colour pages and cost 8/6d.

Interestingly D C Thomson in an advertisement that their Dennis The Menace annual was aimed specifically at boys unlike the main Beano one.

This looks to me to be fine comic aimed at Junior Girls and those in the first few years of High School I'd of love to had read at the time.