It’s friday night and I’m getting ready to go out. Pete Yorn’s Undercover comes on and I am dancing. Arms wild, eyes closed, like I have never danced before. And I don’t care that people can probably see me through the blinds. I know I’m pulling a Grey’s Anatomy, all limbs and no rhythm but I don’t care.
And I think about the first time I can really remember getting ready. Halloween, freshman year of college. I let the girls do my hair and makeup and I don’t recognize the person in the mirror, a little unsure. But I go out into the hall and you’re there. And I ask you how I look. I want you to say ‘great’ or ‘hot’ or something, but instead you say ‘different.’ In a bad way? No, I just look different. And I can’t stop thinking about it all night. Not even when we are in the club, packed so tight we can’t really dance to the music that’s too loud to hear. I never go back to that club. But at the end of the night you make me a sandwich and we watch tv.
Pete Yorn ends and Kelly Clarkson comes on. Since You’ve Been Gone. And it is senior year sorority bid day. We’re so excited about the new girls and just to be there together that we are suddenly on the stage and jumpingjumpingjumping and singing so that my throat hurts the next day but I don’t care. We don’t need anyone but us and suddenly there is a freedom that wasn’t there before.
Rooney and I think it’s my phone ringing, but it’s the song up next. When Did Your Heart Go Missing. Every time my phone rings I want to dance. But I settle for moving my foot, imperceptibly. Only now, alone, I let loose. And the cat watches me from the bed, thinking I’m crazy but not caring as long as I feed her and rub behind her ears.
Zolof the Rock and Roll Destroyer and I’m behind the counter at the ice cream parlor. You turn it up and we dance behind the counter. But the customers don’t care, they love it. Or are too drunk to care. I’m in a tshirt, covered in ice cream, feeling pretty when people smile at me.
Sean Paul’s Temperature. Spring senior year we scream ‘hot like a sauna’ like that foreign guy you know. We usually follow this up with My Humps, and you molest the doorway. Can’t remember where that joke started but I don’t care because when this song comes on at the gym I laugh and forget that I’m on a treadmill.
Take Me Home Tonight. You requested it at a crush party. I was in pink and we were pretty sweaty. I smile when it comes on but avoid you on the walk home. And then two weeks later in the cab, avoidance again, even though I’m the one that called you. Sorry. But I love this song now and if it wouldn’t annoy the neighbors I’d sing out loud.
The Sound of Settling we are at a Death Cab concert for my birthday junior year. You came to visit, special. A bunch of hipsters alternately singing along and sucking on cloves, too cool to dance so they nod their heads. They follow with a cover of Bad Reputation. Do you want me now? Do you want me now? But you don’t and later that night you don’t come over like you said you would, you go sleep with some sophomore. I find out a year later dancing behind the ice cream counter with her.
Morningwood, remember them? The four of us, the royal we. I’ve got my family and one big bed is all we need. You drink that horrible pink wine and we fake makeout and I know that picture will end up on facebook. I get hit on by a lesbian that night. It’s that kind of night, I guess.
That ping pong song. We must have listened to it a hundred times that weekend. And now I get the urge to call you and whisper ‘Do you know?’ just for a laugh. And even though I don’t know what he feels like, I keep dancing because soon I’ll have to leave and be normal.
Hollaback girl. At first I don’t realize it annoys you, so I listen to it a lot. I like the bananas part because in middle school they called me Banana sometimes. But then I know you hate this song, and that’s why I play it. Because I’m not very nice.
Umbrella. I am maybe on a roof. Somewhere with new people and I really like them but they don’t know me like you do and we don’t have that rhythm together. But it’s not their fault. I will get used to them. The other day one of them got a Snapple and there was some fact about turtles. And I almost told them that kangaroos have springs. But they wouldn’t understand.
Counting Crows. Accidentally in Love. Things are already different between us by then, but for that afternoon when we are both home nothing has changed. We wear aviators and turn up the radio and sing along. Practically screaming that second ‘love’, know that part? And then Here I Go Again on My Own comes on and we have reached fever pitch, I think people are staring at stop lights. But you’re the one who taught me not to care about that kind of thing. So I wave and keep singing.
Mr. Blue Sky. Which I only discovered a month or so ago and it’s my song. Just mine. Because I listen in my headphones on the way to work down 5th Avenue on the park side. And it feels like the beginning of a movie, only I don’t know what the plot is.
California Love. I secretly know every word to this song. But I realize I haven’t don’t my makeup so I slow down, so as not to poke an eye out.
London Bridge. I’ll admit it. I like Fergie. Her songs are catchy. It doesn’t matter though, because you call and I have to stop by the ATM before I get a cab downtown.
