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Total Eclipse of the Heart

(Bonnie Tyler, “Total Eclipse of the Heart” [1982]

(Turn around)
Every now and then
I get a little bit lonely
And you're never coming round

(Turn around)
Every now and then
I get a little bit tired
Of listening to the sound of my tears

(Turn around)
Every now and then
I get a little bit nervous
That the best of all the years have gone by

(Turn around)
Every now and then I get a little bit terrified
And then I see the look in your eyes

and fade out)

Not only did he have a neat dog, but also, though Stephen came to me poor as a church mouse, he brought a fabulous dowery. Like the box of cloth napkins of varied patterns and sizes that to this day he insists on using at every meal. Like a basement full of what I call “precious tools”—the precise gadget, sometimes two or three, for the exact job. Like an endless honey-do list. And a whole lot more.

I could choose any letter of the alphabet and discourse on Stephen’s dowery in that category. So, just to prove a point, how about the letter, “D.” Daughters, dogmas, debt, drama, degrees, diets, disease, devotion.

(Bonnie Tyler, “Total Eclipse of the Heart”

Together we can take it to the end of the line
Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time
(All of the time)
I don't know what to do and I'm always in the dark
We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks
I really need you tonight
Forever's gonna start tonight

and fade out)

Stephen’s daughter, Stephanie, came to live with us in high school, and grew up to be a legally married lawyer lesbian in Massachusetts. She and Dawn have a son, Zander, who is the grandson that I thought I was never to have.

Stephen is a former Jesuit and is slowly recovering at Trinity Episcopal Church with me, where we had a Holy Union in 1993. He now confines his dogmatic pronouncements mostly to caustic snipes at conservative causes, which he hurls at the TV screen that is ALWAYS tuned to MSNBC.

He’s a doctor of education, just like me. And I don’t think he has ever been free of a debt load, which, of course, leads to monthly drama around bill-paying time, drama further magnified by his struggle with an unbelievably long string of chronic illnesses, which he mostly treats with home remedies and diets. Oh God, the diets!

(Bonnie Tyler, “Total Eclipse of the Heart”

Forever’s gonna start tonight.
Once upon a time
I was falling in love
But now I'm only falling apart
There's nothing I can do
A total eclipse of the heart

and fade out)

This is finally my real, my true love of the heart. I often tell him, and it’s true, “I haven’t been lonely since you moved into my apartment. Mad, scared, sad, jealous, irritated, but never lonely. And devoted. Devoted with a really big “D.”

(Bonnie Tyler, “Total Eclipse of the Heart”

Once upon a time there was light in my life
But now there's only love in the dark
Nothing I can say
A total eclipse of the heart

and fade out)