PARTY ROCKKKKKKK

Starting in 2009, I began a personal music awards ceremony in my head that takes place once a year; every summer, I chose a dance song to be named Song of the Summer--or rather, the song chooses me. It speaks to my soul and says "ME. Choose ME for this esteemed award, and I shall make you bounce dance in your car all summer long." In 2009 it was David Guetta (but really Kelly Rowland)'s "When Love Takes Over." It played at the gym Jenna and I stretched at all summer after college and followed me throughout the next 8 months. I remember driving through sleet to work one December morning when it came on the radio. "Song of the goddamn summer," I thought, shaking my head and taking a sip out of my Dunkin Donuts cup.

Summer 2010: I had returned home from a jaunt in the city and moved back in with my parents. I took a job picking up garbage at a state park-- a 19 year-old was my supervisor, and I let that be a sign that I should probably live the life of a junior in high school at that point in time. The man to soundtrack this startlingly refreshing summer? Enrique Iglesias, making his radio comeback with "I Like It." And, baby, did I like it. I liked it a lot, and I still do.

Ladies and Gentleman, you asked for it, you demanded it, you BEGGED ME TO TELL YOU who Song of the Summer 2011 goes to, so I will, even though I feel like I don't even have to answer. You already know. It's almost as if you've always known.

Song of the Summer 2011 goes toooooooooooooooo PARTYROCKERSINTHEHOUSETONIGHT officially known as "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO.

***The following is their performance on So You Think You Can Dance, which is IMPORTANT to keep in mind for later.

I just want to take a minute here and acknowledge how completely idiotically in love I am with this song. I literally mean idiotic--look at the last 50 words I just wrote (that I still really mean and am in no way undermining by calling them idiotic). It is probably a blessing in metallic leggings that I cannot physically drink this summer, as I am actually afraid to see the effect this song coming on at a bar would have on me if I were intoxicated.

I'd also like to express my special affection for the guy with the fro, who makes his grand lyrical entrance at 1:16. I'm just saying I would be proud to call him my boyfriend.

Ok so remember when I told you my reference to So You Think You Can Dance was important? All that time ago? It's because I've also been obsessively watching it throughout the summer. And since I've been watching So You Think You Can Dance...I think I can dance. I'm like, "Well if I wasn't going through chemo right now I'd so tooootally take like, a hip hop class somewhere and just release that talent I know is hiding in me and--" but that's false. I am really, tragically bad at group choreographed anything. I had to walk out of a hip hop class at the gym in Brooklyn a while back because I couldn't take the reflection of myself in the mirror, pathetically trying to get the steps. It's not that my limbs don't go the way I want them to, it's just that I can never remember the order of what they're supposed to do in time for them to do it.

I made a promise to someone that I'd never put myself through that kind of humiliation again. And do you know who that someone was? Me. And do you know who's breaking that promise? Also me, so I don't think it counts as a broken promise but more of like...I think I'll try one more time because the circumstances are so very grave! And what are they?? WELL it just so happens my favorite choreographers from SYTYCD, NappyTabs (a husband and wife duo) have made a routine to my Song of the Summer and put a how-to on youtube in honor of this National Dance Day marketing scheme thing that Fox Five and Six Flags have come up with.

There as universal forces at work compelling me to learn this routine, so there is literally no way that I can't, but I kind of also don't know if I can. I just know I must.