So, okay, I know I'm a child of the 80's. And of the 90's, sure, but mostly the 80's. This has never really been a point of debate for me, or anyone that knows me. To this day, even though I have lots of favorite bands that are "current", my favorite bands are still all those 80's bands I grew up with (including, yes, Duran Duran, and I refuse to apologize for that, their last CD was great). So I know what I am, but every so often something happens that really drives this point home.

Such a thing happened on Saturday. But before I get to that I must digress a little and fill you in a bit...

I'm not a neat freak. In fact, I'm quite the opposite. Mind you, I'm not a dirty person (at least in terms of actual dirt or anything unhygenic), but I do tend to be quite the "clutter fiend". If I'm not careful, every horizontal surface in my home rapidly fills up with papers and "things". I've never managed to master the very nice habit of "clean as you go" either. So things tend to build up until I can't take it any more (you see, I don't like clutter, I'm just lazy), and then I clean. Now, what's worse is that I tend to be a perfectionist, so if I can't finish something perfectly, I tend to not even bother starting it. It's a particularly cruel and insideous form of procrastination.

And it also means that there are some things around my house that I've avoided too long. For instance, there were still Christmas decorations that needed to be put away, dishes in the sink, and a bathroom that I would be embarassed for anyone I know to have seen.

Don't judge me. Stop judging me.

Now, back to the events of this past Saturday: I wake up at the crack of noon, which is my nature, and for some reason I turn on the TV in the bedroom. Now, I never watch the bedroom TV, and I'm not even a fan of having a TV in the bedroom. I just happen to have one in there, and I just happen to pay for it to have cable for some reason. I guess I thought it would be a neat idea, ... wait, I'm digressing again. Never mind. So anyway, for some reason I turned on the TV and was flipping through channels, and hit "VH1 Classic". They were playing a bunch of the best videos from the early 90's, some sort of marathon or something. Things like Right-Said-Fred and all sorts of old pop classics like that.

Another digression: I remember watching MTV a lot as a kid. All through college, and beyond. Does anyone else remember the moment they found themselves watching VH1 more than MTV? It's sort of a "change of life" milestone, like when you suddenly find yourself getting excited about home appliances. Over time, the wildness of youth quiely becomes more and more domesticated, and sometimes the realization of that comes as a shock. Never mind the moment when you suddenly find yourself watching "VH1 Classic" more than even "VH1". It's like cable is conspiring to make you feel old. Or at least make you realize you're growing older when that really isn't at the top of your list of things to do. But here we are, and VH1 Classic is about the only music video channel I can even stand to watch any more.

So there it is, cranking away, and suddenly I find myself cleaning. I'm stripping the bed and doing the laundry and and then I'm cleaning the bathroom. Not just "cleaning" either, but full bore scrubbing the grout and polising the surfaces and all the things usually associated with "spring cleaning", including vaccuming UNDER things rather than around things (hey, I'm a guy here... vaccuming under things really isn't in my DNA). Don't even get me started on the idiot that put wall-to-wall carpeting in the bathroom ... that's another ramble for another day.

So there I am, shaking my tush on the catwalk, and it suddenly hits me... I'm doing an 80's movie cleaning montage. Straight out of "Revenge of the Nerds" and a half dozen other movies. I'm putting this old house back together and creating a new frat! Lambda Lambda Lambda! I'm a walking-talking 80's stereotype! I can't help but giggling. And unfortunately it pretty much kills the cleanning buzz at that point.

It was so positively cheesy, but at the moment of my revelation, I realized that about the ONLY time I've ever been able to do any real cleaning is when I'm jamming to 80's music. Like most revelations, it became a key to something more... suddenly I have a new weapon in my arsenal! If I need to clean, I can just crank the VH1-Classic, or the "Classic Aleternative" Cable Music Channel, or kick into some old CDs on the good old CD player, and I'm good to go! Maybe my house won't spend so much time in "I'm too embarassed to have anyone over" mode now. I can only hope.

In the three hours from noon to about 3pm on that Saturday, I did more cleaning than I had in the last three weeks. Maybe even twice that. And it felt good! Now if only I didn't have at least three times that much cleaning left to do...