I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign.

Everyone in my house is in bed. I'm sitting in the dark listening to "Synchronicity" by the Police. Whenever I hear any of these songs, I am instantly transported to 1984 and that old red house at 407 S. Chestnut Street, listening to Jim blast this album with that velvet picture of the devil on the toilet hanging on the wall.

At any given moment, some part of me is always in that house.

And she does.

When I was very young, my mom was single. She was in early 20s, in and out of relationships, melodramatic, and emotional. I adored her.

When we would Drive around in her baby blue Firebird, she would crank up the radio and sing--especially to Journey and to David Bowie's "Space Oddity."  I came to know the words to the songs, and wanted to sing along, too.

"Stop singing!" she would snap, sometimes with great irritation. "I can't hear the song!" 

When I got a little older, she would complain that I couldn't carry a tune and was ruining the song for her. It hurt my feelings tremendously. I remember thinking even way back then that I would let my little girl sing as much as she wanted.

32 years later I have a little girl. A mini-me. And sing she does.

She stands in the yard and sings joyfully at the top of her lungs. She sings heartfelt, original lyrics with great passion into a microphone in the middle of the living room. She sings "Skin-a-marinkey-dinky-dink" from the backseat as we are driving around town with the windows rolled down. She sings lovingly to her Blue Blankey.

Unfortunately she has my voice and can't carry a tune in a bucket, but I love complete lack of self-consciousness and pure joy when she sings.

Mugs is a funkfest; someone's talking junk.

One of my "neighbors" down over the hill is blasting "Jump Around." It's like 1992 all over again. Which was a good year, incidentally. But c'mon, WVU students, I still have a couple weeks before I have to deal with this middle of the night business. Pack it up, pack it in.

Oomp diggy diggy oomp bow bow

I posted this months ago on Facebook, but I found myself drawn back to it today.  It's footage taken from a subway ride in NYC and the video is lovely, but it is the song that really makes me incredibly, inexplicably, indescribably happy.

SubWaltz from Andrea Allen on Vimeo.

Music:  "A Bastard Waltz" by People Like Us and Ergo Phizmiz 

But I tried so hard

(A song that made me happy today.)