There I am, sitting on our blue shag rug by the S-shaped chair in my powder-blue Battle Star Galactica pajamas, stoked as all hell at my Christmas present.
I love this picture.
I love it because it shows my unhindered excitement, which I carry in my body today. It’s constantly trying to come out, and I’d have it no other way.
I love it because it shows my parents knew what I liked and supported me, no matter what.
I love it because… if you look closely, you’ll see what I’m holding and what I’m so juiced up about:
Smurf Shrinky Dinks.
Just have mom or dad put them in the oven and watch them shrink!
It was the 80’s. I was deep into my Smurfs phase. I drew them, had several of those little rubber figurines, watched the cartoon every day, booed Gargamel when he showed his face, and, like the Smurfs themselves, used “Smurf” as a part of speech. “Wow! That’s the Smurfiest!”
I’m proud of this picture because it shows something about me that I treasure:
I like what I like.
In elementary school, sometime after I’d outgrown my Battle Star Galactica pajamas, I wore my mom’s clip-on earrings to school. Not because I wanted to make a statement but because I liked the way they looked.
Same reason I wore parachute pants and, later, MC hammer pants and patten leather shoes, purple suits, and a polka-dot headband fashioned out of a cumberbund.
Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven is a Place on Earth was the first single I bought. (Oooh, baby, do you know what that’s worth?) Erik B & Rakim’s Microphone Fiend was the second. I’m pretty sure they never did a duet together.
I wasn’t much into hooking up. I was more into falling in love.
A girl asked me if I was gay after I refused to go to second base with her friend, and I could tell by the way she asked me that other people wondered the same thing.
Let ’em wonder.
I never understood conformity; it seems to go against nature. Do we all really want to wear the same shoes? I mean, like, really?
As I got older, I began to converge around the truth that we all eventually believe: not being cool is really the only way to be cool.
When I look at that picture of me, languishing in joy at the sheer thought of playing with my new Smurf Shrinky Dinks on Christmas Day, I gotta say, I was ahead of my time.
I can only hope my kids are half as excited as I was.
Up late, carrying presents down from my office, arms full of tomorrow’s excitement, I’m pretty sure they will be.
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Merry Christmas, y’all!
(if you’re doing that sort of thing today)
Enjoy the excitement.