I've been meaning to tell you

Oh hello! You're still here! What a surprise! I didn't think anyone would still be hanging around, but there you are. Do you need anything -- a pillow, a cold beverage, maybe a snack? You must be starving, after all that time left alone in here. But I'm glad you stuck it out, because there's a bunch of stuff I've been meaning to tell you . You comfortable? Sure you don't want that pillow?

This could be a long story because I'm easily distracted. For example, every time I hear the phrase "I've been meaning to tell you," (even in my head when I'm composing an imaginary blog entry about all the stuff I've been meaning to tell you), my brain immediately follows it up with the phrase "I've got this feeling that won't subside," which many of you (not you whipper-snappers born after 1980, but everyone else) will recognize as the first line in the 80's rock ballad "Hungry Eyes," which became wildly popular during the Dirty Dancing Craze of 1987. And I can't remember the Dirty Dancing Craze of 1987 without remembering the Dirty Dancing Scandal of 1988, wherein it was revealed that I had seen the movie Dirty Dancing (at a friends' slumber party) ! ! ! And that fact was then used by other friends to justify watching it at other slumber parties ("But Boss got to watch it!"), which led to other parents asking my parents why on earth they let me watch such filthy trash (answer: they didn't). And so a Scarlet D was appliquéd jumper and the decade (the 80's) danced awkwardly to a close.

And that entire distraction lasts less than a minute, because in the meantime I'm still humming through the rest of the lyrics to "Hungry Eyes" in my head, and before long I'm at the chorus, which goes a little something like this:

With these hungry eyes
One look at you and I can't disguise
I've got hungry eyes
I feel the magic between you and I

And then I start to get twitchy because someone needs to send that dude's hungry eyes back to 11th grade English class because the magic ain't "between you and I," it's between you and me." And maybe he knows that and just took certain liberties for the sake of rhyme and rhythm, which I'm OK with if there's a good reason. And a good rhyme. But this is the thing: It's not a good rhyme. Rhyming "I" with "eye" is lame, because rhyming is about a word's sound, not its spelling, and phonetically "I" and "eye" are the same word. And using the same word twice isn't rhyming, it's just redundant. (Unless, says wikipedia, you are French. )

Still, even though I think it's my right -- my obligation as an American! -- to ridicule pop songs that make it through the echelons of writers, performers, agents, producers, sound mixers, studio executives, and janitors without correction, none of that is what I've been meaning to tell you. What I've been meaning to tell you is that -- wait -- is it really 12:23 AM? Schniekies! I've got to go to bed! You're sticking around, right? I won't be long, I promise. Now pass me that pillow, would you?