you all no doubt know, last week heralded two major dates in recent
history - my birthday and the one year anniversary of the Purple Shirt
of the Week!
Obviously, with these two events, not only have I been celebrating,
but going through the bags and bags of mail that I received from
around the world to mark these occasions. (Yup, apparently many of you
still use the post as a viable method of letter-sending. And for that
I thank you, because it means the postal service won't cut back on
Saturday delivery, which would cut into my Netflix deliveries.)
Well, now that I'm back, and before we resume to the fall collection
of purple shirts for this year (yes, getting back on track with the
upper body apparel...soon), I wanted to share with you the cookies
that were made for me on my birthday by my girlfriend Kim. See that
frosting? Ain't it cool? Nothing better than a good cookie - it's a
single serving, it's portable, it's everything you ever need in a
treat. And it comes in chocolate. Ren & Stimpy once performed a work
on the topic of logs, and I must say, I feel very much the same about
the humble cookie.
I've gotten some other purple-themed gifts over the past few weeks,
which is very cool; and I don't think we're headed for a problem in
that department, unlike The Great Elmo Impasse of 1995.*
So thank you. Its wonderful to have so many adoring fans.
-your purple highness (or pain in the highness)
*The Great Elmo Impasse of 1995 began with a simple event, or, in
retrospect, a poor decision on my part (isn't that how so many of my
stories begin?). I was in high school and had started dating a girl
(who's merits of intelligence are questioned for other reasons in a
song called "Chiaroscuro" on the upcoming record, for those of you
keeping track of such things). Girl and I went to the mall on one of
our first dates, and wandered around aimlessly, as high school kids
are wont to do. Well, i decided to make it a scavenger hunt - let's
spot Elmo! Now, mind you, in 1994 (yes, this begins in 1994, I'll get
there), Elmo was not the ubiquitous icon that he is today. Why was I
thinking of Elmo of all things? Well, the girl I had not-really-dated-
but-i-wasn't-stalking-let's-just-say-i'm-slow-to-get-the-point just
prior to Girl was a big Elmo fan. So somehow that was still on my
mind... You know how your Aunt that one time said in passing that she
thought frogs were cute, and for the next 5 years everyone bought her
frog-related gifts for every holiday? Yeah, that's pretty much what
happened for the next year and a half. By the end of that
relationship, I had received about 16-18 Elmos, most of which were for
Christmas 1995, just when I thought the smoke had cleared and I'd seen
the end of the fuzzy little guy. And it wasn't because I kept bringing
him up! Nope, she just took that ball and ran with it. Hard. It took
me a long time to finally tell her I never really had a thing for
Elmo; every time I thought it would be a good time**, I would be
quagmired in more red muppet. I don't remember what happened to the
three-foot tall Elmo i got, but rest assured, none of them remain!
**When I finally did tell her "hey, this elmo thing's cute, but i
think i have enough now", we were in the car on our way to a party
somewhere. And she took it to mean that all of her gifts ever given
were horrible and that I was breaking up with her before we got to the
party where all my friends were at and she knew no one. In
retrospect, I probably should have gone with the flow on that one***,
but that's hindsight for you.
***Have I mentioned I'm slow sometimes?
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