Livin' In A Powderkeg And Givin' Off Sparks

Believe it or not, last night's short and simple post on happy music took me fuckin' forever to write. I blame it on Bonnie Tyler.

Some background: The other day my pal Meaghan and I did a little CD swap and I scored, among other things, a sweet 80s compilation that includes "Total Eclipse of the Heart." Now, I have loved "Total Eclipse of the Heart" since it first came out in 1983. I even had it on 45 -- my sister gave it to me for Christmas when I was 8 and she was 6. (I gave her "Eye of the Tiger," also a good song.) Anyway, last night I threw a few CDs in the CD player, pressed random, and sat down to do my internet thing. You see where this is going.

So I was just sitting here, typing away, when "Total Eclipse of the Heart" came on. I started to sing along absentmindedly, but then I realized "Hey! 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'!" so I turned the CD player up almost as loud as it would go -- which is pretty fuckin' loud, as it turns out -- and continued with my singing and typing. I also added a wee bit of swaying. It soon became rather difficult to type, as Bonnie's 11th "turn around" had prompted me to grab the CD player's remote for use as a microphone and I was concentrating on not dropping it while flinging my abundant hair around as I sang. By the time Bonnie got around to "and I need you now tonight," I was out of my chair with microphone in hand. "Together we can take it to the end of the line" found me clear on the other side of the house, right in front of the drape-less sliding glass doors, in fact. As Bonnie screamed, "I really need you tonight," I relinquished my remote/mic to free up both hands for the lifting of hair and the always necessary above-head hand motions. And if you think when the song ended I sat right back down and commenced typing, without pressing repeat even once, you obviously don't know me very well.

It's a good thing nobody was around. Except the cat, and she's no stranger to such performances.

A detective examining my recycling bin might conclude this was all the result of a now-empty bottle of Tanqueray, but truth be told, the gin had nothing to do with it. This is just how I was brought up.

And even though I was also brought up not being allowed to watch MTV, here's the "Total Eclipse of the Heart" video. Just don't tell my parents I let you watch it.