a bit weird.

As I mentioned, at my cousin's engagement party, there was a karaoke machine, and some very monotone karaoke-ing a happenin'. One of the songs that was being 'sung' was a song which in Emily land is called 'Emotia Cup', but in the real world, is actually quite a famous song by Elvis, called 'All Shook Up'. Der. In fact, I probably never would've realised my error if it weren't for the fact that karaoke machines have the titles of the songs written on the screen. I probably SHOULD've realised by now that I was wrong, if only for the fact that 'emotia' is not a word, but somehow in my brain it IS a word, nestled somewhere in the Emily dictionary between 'emotion' (real word) and 'milk emulsion' (a kind of 1950s precursor to multivitamins which my ageing rellies used to feed me). This is all funny enough, but really everybody has songs that they've misunderstood (in fact, google registers 470 000 hits on the topic, so clearly I'm not the only one).

The funny bit is that I remembered a story that goes with it. You see, I know Emotia Cup because when I was in primary school there was a nice lady that came once a week and took dance classes in the Thursday lunch hour. These were quite novel, and all you had to do was rock up and pay your $2, and you could join in the (sanitised) fun. We were learning a routine to Emotia Cup, filled with such moves as the runningman. I can still do the runningman. Actually, now I think about it, this story may well explain why I am such a terrible dancer to this day.

After a while though, my friends tired of these classes, and one by one they drifted back to the monkeybars and the handball court. I liked the dance class, but since none of my friends were going, I didn't want to go anymore either. But at 7 years old, I had observed adults enough to know that it wouldn't be right just to stop turning up, even though it was a casual class. So one day, I came into the hall a little early, and told the teacher in my best grown up voice that 'thankyou for the lessons, I really enjoy them, but unfortunatly I just won't be able to make it any more, I've just gotten too busy lately'. And then I went back to the playground and joined in an elastics game that was going on.

TOO BUSY? TOO BUSY? AT 7? Too busy picking my nose and marvelling at my friend Claire's slapband.

And so I stood there, watching this guy butcher All Shook Up, and I felt how lucky I was not to be one of those embarassing people that sing karaoke. I'm past the days of mullets and hypercolour shirts. I'm past embarassing. There I was at a karaoke party cringing at the guy singing 'Emotia Cup' on one solitary note and thanking my lucky stars that I'm not THAT big a nigel. And then a little voice inside of me reminded me that 'no of COURSE you're not that big a nigel. And you never were. NOT'.