The Man in the Mirror and the Girl Next Door

See that kids? That's called the Moonwalk. But I don't need to explain that to anyone, do I?

I've spoken about The Moonwalk on this blog before. It is the first thing I think about when I think about Michael Jackson. And I'm happy to leave it at that, really.

I'll defer to MJ's true fans to eulogise and canonise. Fans like my ex-neighbour; a girl that lived next door for many many years who introduced me to Michael Jackson.

See, while I was heavily ensconsed in an innocent infatuation with BJ MacKay (not so much his best friend Bear), she was deeply in love with Michael Jackson. She and her sisters had a large Off the Wall poster up on the wall (ironically) of their rec-room (this was the 80s when rec-rooms were very big. Now, they're called home offices).

Yesterday, while we all had a multitude of Michael Jackson hits flowing through our heads, I also thought about the many many hours when she and I would play Barbies under the ever-attentive watch of Michael circa Off the Wall (the role of Ken being played by a rotation of heart-throbs and I'm pretty sure MJ guest-starred regularly).

Although I haven't spoken with that girl for too many years, I know she is now a wife and mother (at the least), so I'm not going too far out on a limb to guess her commitment to MJ is no longer as strong as it once was. However, I've no doubt remembering Michael Jackson has probably taken her back a few years too.