Hey, hey – remember that time, that one time that we hitched up to the Bronx and danced around with the ravers under some un-named bridge, then hoofed downtown to see Star Wars on the IMAX screen with the Ukulele Princess, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and Larry Stewart Daniels? Remember how the green wizard vagrant crack-head guy smelled like tuna fish and Spock gave us all the finger? That was rad, that was the Ziegfeld, that was Paul McCartney and Bill Clinton waving hello and that was our rowboat from the great Pirate Vessel Us, aye, she’s sailed now eight years and she plunders booty like Samus slams mad metroid ass.

And yo, remember that time when we celebrated Sukkot with the hip and playfully deep Orthodox Jews, and the taking of the four kinds in the sukkah in uptown Manhattan? Or those breezy, luxurious nights with puffs of clove smoke, cider beer and hummus?

And oy, remember how in Harlem, the blackout lasted a day and a half longer because the rich neighborhoods had higher priority? And our block added a party suffix with open fire hydrants, jump rope, batteries, boom boxes, hip-hop, candles, cannabis and cigarettes?

Ya see, this is what you get when you sign on to live in a sitcom – somewhere before year ten, you get a flashback anniversary episode and this is ours. Luckily for us, it doesn’t suck and isn’t hosted by Tina Yothers – we’ve lived a lunatic asylum’s weight in awesome sauce.

The thing about you and by extension, us, is that we’re the romance version of the anti-hero. We’re anti-romantic heroes. When you boil it right down, anti-heroes do the same things as heroes, only with more style and less bullshit. The same goes for we anti-romantics: No, we don’t spew platitudinal Hallmark declarations over candle-light with eye gazing and hand-holding, but you watch plebs like that run when the zombie invasion is upon them and we’re blasting off undead heads left and right and making out in-between shots.

You’re totally my silent samurai badass bitch lollipop and I’m glad you’re on my side.

And whenever the hounds of hypothetics present me with the possibility of being without you, I cry. Big old steaming cheek streams and sobs.

Happy 8th anniversary, Baby. I love you an' stuff.

M-A