Part 1 of Anniversary Week
There’s nothing like an anniversary to bring people together. And really, there’s nothing like an anniversary to remember the past. And, of course, there’s nothing like an anniversary to serve as an excuse to just rehash the past and get out of doing any real creative work. Well, to tell the truth, there’s nothing…. Ok, ok, to make this short: there’s nothing like an anniversary.
So, anyway, T. J. Monkey’s is proud to present our anniversary thought – bringing the past together and roaring off with confidence into the future by being rabidly self-referential and alienating anyone who has not obsessively read the thoughts on this site and committed them to memory since day one! So much irritation in one little thought!
This thought will take a witty yet thoughtful look at yarn.
It all started when I was at a concert and people kept bumping into me and giving me dirty looks. I was just trying to be cool with my flip-up sunglasses as I tried to unwind before my first day on the job as a ho. One person finally said, “Hey, you know how many times you’ve stepped on my foot?” I defused the situation by saying, “Like, 2,000,000?” and the person said, “Well…uh…no…I….” Finally, she just smacked me in anger and her fingernail caught in my sweater and ripped it. “Ow!” I yelled and my friend, Hee, turned to me and said, “No, I’m Hee, Ow didn’t come.”
So we left and headed to a neighborhood cafe after almost getting runover by a bottled water truck driven by some guy named Tom with a heart tattoo on his arm that just said “Vivian.” We sat at a table and ordered a couple baby milkshakes when it suddenly hit me that I had to use the bathroom. I jumped up and ran into the bathroom where, with one hand in my pocket and the other leaning on the wall I tried to pee into a urinal. After washing my hands, I suddenly found myself in a crowd of people trying to get out of the bathroom at the same time so I took a fat woman hostage so I could get out the door first.
When I got back to my table, Hee was talking to a couple of misdirected bears but having trouble because she was speaking in people-talk, not bear-talk. Not wanting to interrupt, I grabbed a newspaper and was just getting into an article about a killing spree by the CEO of Breyers when I felt a draft. Damn this ripped sweater! I thought about fixing it myself but I had attended the New School and not the Old School and Eminem knew nothing about basic home economics.
I left the cafe planning on going home to check out some in-your-face PBS show on knitting when I had another thought. I marched up to someone and said, “I don’t have a hole in my sweater.” He looked at me strangely and said, “Yes, you do.” So much for the Cusack Theorem! Meanwhile, the guy was going on and on about law practice and stand-up comedy or something, but I really didn’t have the patience to listen to it. All the while, the draft was getting worse and I started to see signs that I was getting the flu.
So, I was going to the gym where taking a shower would be a rigorous athletic challenge with a lot of naked people wandering around when suddenly another man approached me. “Excuse me, do you know the exact whereabouts of Satan?” I thought for a moment and, carefully piecing together the evidence, I realized he was in upstate New York. I turned to tell the man but I must have been drunk because I was suddenly molecularly transported back to my apartment.
Well, however I got here, at least I might finally find a piece of yarn to fix my sweater. I grabbed an old pair of socks and was trying to figure out if they were black or blue by holding them up to various similarly colored fabrics when I fell over three volumes of a history of warfare and hit my head on a Jessica Simpson album. God, I hate Jessica Simpson!
Feeling my swelling head, I looked down and realized that I had torn my sweater even worse. Screw the yarn, I thought, and sat down at my desk to write some songs.
Because I am Rivers Cuomo.