Some day we will both look back and have to laugh

I can't believe I haven't written about this one yet, but BJ's not really been in my daily orbit for a long time. Also not considered in a long time: my junior prom, for which this was the theme (song). "This Is the Time" was the theme song because it was not the students' choice by vote, "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." Never forget: though my high school was close to the center of the horsey-preppy universe (the actual center being Sayre), we were (mostly) pretty damn cool kids. Not saying that we were Shermer High-caliber or teenage Beastie Boys- hanging-at-Danceteria cool, but this is more than I'd expect based on the high school experiences of friends who grew up in bigger, hipper places than Lexington, Kentucky.

The voting results were scuttled and the school leadership or whichever faculty worked with the prom committee provided this alternative: a mid-chart-peaking hit (that hit some five months before prom) from a guy closer to our parents' age that was destined to emanate from office desk radios tuned to lite-FM stations for years to come. 

I remember snippets of prom day/night, from the picking-up-photo-session that in the background featured my dad in a tie with his Saturday lawn-mowing clothes, dinner at the restaurant owned by my great-uncle, so everyone in my family was up in the business of this, sheer exhaustion at the end of the night (I was allowed to stay out until 1:00? Probably 1:00, surely not 2:00). The event itself, eh, proceeded like the usual dances at my high school--in fancy clothes. 

What's clearest (aside from my awesome black lace-and-taffeta, sweetheart neckline, tea-length dress custom made by my mother) is the moment worthy of the biggest screech of the needle across the jukebox record in human history: when the band playing prom, Velvet Elvis (major score to host a true indie rock band mere months before they got a label deal), stopped playing whatever song they were playing so that Billy's mellow synth chords and meditation on middle-aged love could blare over the crinolined and tux'ed crowd. 

But, damn it all, this was the right song choice. 

I know it now, because, this is, perpetually, the time.