Hangin' Around
When I was about five years old, I was watching the circus on TV. I was quite taken with those women who are lifted into the air by some device that they put in their mouths. They got to wear pretty sequined outfits, fishnet stockings and headdresses, and strike dramatic poses as they rose into the air, and it didn’t appear to require much skill, beyond strong teeth. So I got a rope from the garage, went out to the swing set in the backyard, climbed up on one of the sidebars and tied the rope to the top of the swing set. I put the other end of the rope in my mouth and tried to ease myself off the bar, but it was immediately clear that this wasn’t going to work, there was no way I could support my weight with my teeth. (I mean, I wasn’t stupid.) So I tied the rope into a circle - I believe it’s sometimes referred to as a "noose" - and put it around my neck. Immediately, I could see this would work; I struck a dramatic circus lady pose and pushed off the bar. As I dangled there, gasping for breath, I realized I had made a gross miscalculation. Luckily, my father came running out and got me down - but in those few moments, dangling above the ground, so near yet so far away, I just got a bad taste in my mouth about my circus career, and I knew it could never be the same. So I decided to become a singer.
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