Show Choir: No, we’re not kidding.

We are in show choir season around here.

You heard me. Show choir season. Kind of like lacrosse season or volleyball season only with lots of sparkles and jazz hands.

I used to be in show choir, before the turn of the century.

I loved it. We sang, we danced, we ratted our hair, we all used the same startling color of lipstick. It was pretty much amazing.

Now my daughter is participating in this odd social ritual, and I feel like I’m watching my life play out again. Only now I’m trying to record still photos and video at the same time and whispering furiously with my mom, who looks almost eerily happy to be back in the saddle. I’m positive she will want to order a sweatshirt and she’ll probably start making posters to hold up during the ballad.

If you are not from the Show Choir Belt (a term I just made up and want to trademark immediately), perhaps this entire idea is foreign to you. Marc, who went to high school in South Dakota and Minnesota, finds this whole show choir idea to be slightly obscene, certainly a little sketch. Marc was in jazz band in high school, which means, among other things, that he was smarter, more thoughtful and less shallow. OR SO HE THINKS.

Did he and his band nerd friends get to look like this?!

(PLEASE NOTE: This is not a self-portrait. Though I surely did own these Trump-orange tights back in the day. AND I ROCKED THEM.)

And did he get to shimmy and smile and emote and dance in weird Helen Keller-era shoes in front of hundreds of people while stage make-up made a slow slide down his face? No, no, he didn’t. He just played “A Train” and “Take Five” and “Girl From Ipanema” hour after hour and tried to look disinterested and ironic, which is WAY more work.

So here I am again, watching my daughter sing and dance and try to sound as much like the girls in “Pitch Perfect” as possible, though this is only a vague idea to her since her mother will not let her watch that movie because of all the sexual innuendo. Sing “Shut Up and Dance,” yes. Watch movies about shutting up and dancing, no. It’s a complicated system but it makes perfect sense to me.

Have a great weekend, everyone. Work on those facial expressions, perfect that jazz square, and do your best to get that jazz saxaphonist in your life to just shut up and dance with you.