Tonight, on a very special Blossom: Six realizes she is a lesbian and is in love with Blossom's father's girlfriend. What ever happened to good 'ol family television programming like 'Blossom', 'Whose the Boss?', 'Family Matters', and my favorite 'Perfect Strangers'? So the last one wasn't as family-oriented as the others, but it still had that ABC we love happiness and pg-rated television air to it. Granted I haven't been in the States for quite some time, but I can say that the era of television where a large-noised Barbara Streisand look-a-like girl with more hats than Cher has wigs is certainly gone to an oblivion, along with the elderly whore from 'Golden Girls,' Laura Winslow from 'Family Matters', and everyone's favorite know-it-all: Clarissa. Now this is all and dandy, but really what am I talking about here? That's right, I'm talking about Starbucks releasing their Christmas blend of coffee and their Christmas-themed paper cups for take-out. But really, what I'm talking about here are memories. We all have them, whether we remember most of them or not, and we all have a variety of them ranging from good to bad to weird to sexual. Our memories are who we are, just like a childhood defined by 'Boy Meets World' and 'The Price is Right'. Just the other day I was talking to Matt about our family holidays. We discussed 'tradition' as it is known in both the House of Gitzen and the House of Wachtor. He hates Christmas and I hate canned peas, but really we both realized that tradition led us forward, albeit against our will, but its how we got to the place we are at today. Turkey is good for Thanksgiving, Italian food for Christmas Eve, and the all important Christmas Ham for that day when in a little down of Bethlehem, nothing really happened because we later found out that Jesus was actually born in July. It hit me when I walked into Starbucks today and saw that all the Christmas stuff was up. They were doing point cards for this years Starbucks planner, which made me realize that the planner I had was exactly one year old, and exactly one year has passed. When I think about my first Starbucks planner I got in Korea, my head spins just a little faster. Time seems to always slip away from us when we least expect it. We go and check Facebook and before we know it, your high school friends are married and have children. Teachers are retiring, famous anthropologists are passing away, and people just won't stop dying. We've found ourselves in a world without forgiveness, where people rape people because they can, and people watch because they have no balls to stand up and protest. "The West Wing" always had some of my most favorite quotes, some of the best words to remember I'd ever seen. But perhaps the best is simple and straightforward: "Decisions are made by those who show up."
It all seemed easier on 'Blossom' because she had a family who loved her: two older brothers (one sarcastic and one Joey Lawrence), a musical father, and a wacky numerical best friend. We were prompted when Blossom would have to face a tough situation, and growing up we all thought that was the norm. We would have people there to prompt us when a nasty turn was ahead. But here I am, nearly fifteen years later, fifteen years older, and I suspect fifteen years wiser; there is no street sign, no announcer, and no Joey Lawrence. All there is, all there will be, is me, my coffee, and my musik. Well, and about 6 billion other people as well. But, you know, they can't pull off green quite the same way I can.
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