A Sad Day

That was the subject line of an email I received Friday afternoon.

This is the content:

Marin - I was thinking of you today as Dan Patrick was winding up his radio show. I am very worried that you won't have anything to fill your afternoons. If you feel yourself slipping over to the Rush Limbaugh show, call me and we can have an intervention right away!

Matt

Mr. Patrick?

Dan?

Danny?

Oh, my aching heart and my empty ears.

Ten years ago, I was visiting a long-distance boyfriend in Boston. To make a long story short, only half-playfully he asked me to name his penis. I said, "Susan."†

He got... upset... and suggested we name my breasts Dan and Keith. I gleefully suggested we should carry the theme to other parts of my body.‡

I should have known then he didn't know me nearly well enough to see me naked. He didn't realise that invoking Dan Patrick was no way to anger me into backing down on his Boy Named Sue.

[SUMMARY: Now I'm verklempt over Dan.]

Once upon a time, there was one of those quizzes on the Innernets that was Twenty Questions for your celebrity crush. You picked a celebrity crush and it asked yes or no questions until the database took it to a conclusion. At the end of the quiz, it guessed your celebrity crush, then told you how many other people taking the quiz shared your celebrity crush.

It never guessed Dan Patrick, and only 6 other people had run him through the game.§

A little over eight years ago, I was driving back from Cheyenne, Wyoming, fiddling with the radio and hoping to catch a college station to carry me through to the Denver airwaves. I ran across the Dan Patrick Show on ESPN Radio in its second day on the air.¶

Heaven, I'm in heaven...

[SUMMARY: Now I'm nostalgic for the salad days of Dan.]

Danny-Boy has entered my realm# now and started his own website/blog. That may help.

I like to think he waited to leave until football season started, just to soften the blow.††

Thanks, Danny. You always did have my best interests at heart.

Except when you had Sean Salisbury as a co-host.

[SUMMARY: Oh, now I'm mad at Dan. He made me think of Sean Salisbury.]

*************

There's a contest. Here. Tell her Marin sent you -- I need the sock yarn to cushion the Dan blow.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): It isn't as mean as it sounds. There were solid reasons. I don't remember them right now, seeing as right now I mostly think of how appropriate "Susan" was in a far nastier way.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Bob Costas. You know you wanted to ask.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Only two other people had picked Bob Costas.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): I was there when Phil became Showkiller. I was there for the advent of the round bell for weight and height announcements. I was there for the Sean Salisbury/Rob Dibble spelling bee. I was there for "Ron." I was there when Ron... er, Dan and Rob sang "Cars." I was there when Dan interviewed Jay-Z during a chronic break.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Look at me, gettin' all proprietary with the Innernets.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): He couldn't have known Ebenezer Ekuban would get broken and I'd need a lot of support right now.

P.S. -- Sorry, knittas. I warned you football season might get a little dicey for some of you. And at the time, I hadn't really absorbed the idea that my hero and lifelong best friend (is too!) Dan Patrick would be leaving ESPN to pursue... who knows what? If I had realised, I might have warned you about the impending Dan depression too.

In any case, don't be confused. Focus on the sock yarn and know there is always more knitting just around the corner.