Till February

What I have learned these past three weeks is that it is always possible to be more in love than you were before.

I didn’t trust myself to drive home after seeing Alec off. For the second time this year, I sat in bus number 36 staring blankly into the distance, speeding towards one home and away from another.

Bet you thought this was going to be a sappy weepy post about the pain of long-distance love, but no! I’m actually going to write about Monster Movie’s Last Night Something Happened, my iPod album of choice on the way home.

You know those bits of trance dance tracks which are so euphoric that even without drugs you still find yourself with your head thrown back and your hands reaching for the sweeping laser lights, and you’re so caught up in the moment you don’t even realize you look daft? Monster Movie made a whole album’s worth of music like those bits, except slow and with guitars and pulsing organic harmonies.

You know those bits in films where a song kicks in during a particular scene and suddenly you’re plunged headlong into a world so intensely beautiful you’re almost drunk on it, and you realize that there will never be another song more perfect for these images than this one? Monster Movie made a whole album’s worth of songs like that.

You know how when you’re in the grip of pretty strong emotions but are trying not to show anything on the outside, with the result that you feel as if your heart is literally swelling in your chest, and you close your eyes and mouth tight so that nothing will leak out if it bursts?

I guess that last one didn’t actually have anything to do with my listening to Last Night Something Happened, but the album is pretty perfect for moments like that too.

At least this will be the last time. And February isn’t that far away.