Hairdresser on Fire

Looky! Looky! It's a new year--2008. so, you know what that means? It means that, until about mid-April, I will put "2007" on each and every check I write and I will have to swear, cross it out and correct it and then write my initials above it to show that I corrected my error. Oh well, at least I'm not as confused as my mother...she decided to start writing a journal yesterday and she dated her first entry Sept. 3, 2006. I happened to see it when she and my father came to my house for dinner last night. She brought it with for "safe-keeping". Ok. Whatever. She left all her jewelry on top of her dresser, but brought her brand new journal with one lone entry in it. The entry started, "I have decided to start keeping a journal. I wanted to start it 2 days ago, but I am starting it today." I can see why she wanted to keep it out of the wrong hands.
Anyway, despite the fact that it is a new year, I am going back to 2007 for a moment. You see, my daughter, Brenna got an amazing opportunity this Christmas season. She and about 20 other girls from her fabulous choir got to go to the Auditorium Theater in Chicago and sing for the Joffrey Ballet's Nutcracker. They sang in the lobby before the show, in the orchestra pit for the Snow Queen's dance in the first act, and then in the lobby at intermission. They did this for one Friday night show and two on Saturday. I volunteered to chaperone, so I got to witness all this as well. On the Friday afternoon before Christmas we boarded a bus to the theater. I stood outside the bus while the kids got on so I could take attendance. When I finally boarded I took one look at the bus driver and thought, "Holy crap! He looks just like Nacho Libre!" Honestly. He didn't have on a cape and turquoise tights though. But, if he had looked at me and said, "Psst. Hey, don't tell anyone, but I'm really Jack Black," I wouldn't have been a bit surprised. I sat down in the seat behind Brenna and her friend and I said, "Hey Brenna. Look at the bus driver. Do you think he wears stretchy pants? In his room? It's for fun." (That's a line from the movie, by the way. I'm not some kind of freak.)
So, after two freakin' hours of rush hour traffic we finally made it to the Auditorium. (Incidentally, it only took about 45 minutes to get home. Stupid rush hour. Yet, that extra time in the bus was not wasted! We all ate Subway sandwiches and the girls rehearsed. I got car-sick and spent the last 30 minutes of the bus ride trying not to puke.) We had to go to the "Performer's Entrance" which was located in a dark alley that smelled like urine. Ahh!! The glamour of theater life! When we finally made it inside the building we had to wait for the official Joffrey choir handler to come and collect us, so we stood there watching all the dancers come in. They all dressed outlandishly and they were all really, really skinny. I am telling you, if one of the girls in the choir doesn't develop an eating disorder after looking at all those gorgeous skinny dancers, I will be surprised.
So, finally the handler came to take us to our "dressing room". Now, the Auditorium is a huge, old theater. We were led up stairs, down stairs, past crates of costumes and under the stage past hot water pipes. I didn't think we were ever going to get there. At one point I thought of the movie "This is Spinal Tap" when the band gets lost backstage on their way from the dressing room to the stage. So, I pretended to have drumsticks and beat on the pipe and yelled, "Rock and Roll!!" Well, none of the other chaperones had seen "This is Spinal Tap" so they looked at me like, "What the hell is wrong with you?" I started to laugh and so did this guy who was behind us. He was a cute, little, VERY gay dancer and he looked at me and said, "OH! MY! GOD! I loooove that movie! Did you see "Best in Show"? That was soooo funny too! How about "Waiting for Guffman"? That one wasn't my favorite, but I loooove Spinal Tap. Ha! Ha! This one goes to eleven!" The whole time he was saying this he was touching me...on the arm, on the hand, on the other arm. He reminded me of the cutest gay hairdresser I had in Arizona who used to change my hair color every time Linda Evangelista changed hers. I had about 6 different hair colors one year. Anyway, he walked away giggling. Brenna looked at me and said, "Mom, were you getting a gay-vibe from him?" Ha! I did see him again backstage while the girls were taking their curtain call. He was the fucking NUTCRACKER! How funny is that? He looked at me and whispered, "Rock and Roll!!"
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That Friday night I got to sit in the orchestra pit with the girls. That was so incredible. As a musician I played for a few shows (local productions, obviously) so this was an awesome experience. The conductor was amazing in the way he interacted with all the musicians and the way he knew the score so intimately. Wow. I was under the stage so I couldn't see a thing, but the girls could see and just watching them staring at the ballet and the looks on their faces as they enjoyed the Nutcracker from such a privileged spot made me so happy.
By the way, I actually saw Morrissey at this theater. We had the shittiest seats ever. I was telling the girls where we sat and from the orchestra pit we had to squint to see them. I am telling you, they were in the very tippy top of the theater in the section called "Gall" on the seating chart. When I was pointing them out to Brenna and her friend, the theater chick who led us down to the orchestra pit heard me and said, "You sat up there?!? Man, those seats are dangerous. It's so steep. We don't even open those seats up, except every once in a while for a rock concert..." Then she looked at me like "what were you doing up there?" since I obviously had no business going to a rock concert at my age. I wanted to tell her to fuck off, but I was at the ballet and was feeling much too classy to swear. So I gave her a look that implied that I wanted her to fuck off. Much classier.
In any case, the whole experience was very cool. On Saturday we all went to the Hard Rock Cafe to eat between performances. Plus, we got to watch an actual Joffrey ballet class. What those anorexic bodies can do!! It's shocking! the funniest part was seeing how the girls reacted to the costumes on the male dancers. I mean, they might as well have danced naked...and the choir got to see them all really, really close up. They talked about it on the bus all the way home. It was hilarious. "Oh my gosh! Why couldn't they, you know, hide, ummm...you know, IT, a little better?" Giggle, giggle.
As an interesting little aside, the Joffrey debuted their Nutcracker 20 years ago at Hancher Auditorium at the University of Iowa. I was there. That's where I went to to college and I made sure I got a ticket. Granted, it was in the very last row, but I was there! I know I made some boy buy the tickets. I can't remember who, but I hope I kissed him goodnight.