The Boss

This week Marc and I went to a Bruce Springsteen concert. Just writing that sentence should help my cool quotient, right? It should cancel out the fact that I wore sensible shoes because we’d be standing, right? I’m going with yes, it should. We went with our friends Laura and Warren, who are, by nature, cooler than us AND more organized. For example, Laura had prepared a tailgate dinner to eat on the way. I had planned on having to spend $46 dollars on a shriveled hot dog. Laura also provided us with Old People Survival Kits. Contents: A can of Red Bull, Dr. Scholl’s inserts (I’m Gellin’!), and Advil. Marc rounded out our supply by producing earplugs for all. (Warren politely declined but has since been unable to hear the voices of his children.)

So there we were, gellin’ and earplugged, right on the ground floor and within spitting distance of the Boss. First, let me weigh in on the wrinkle factor. Bruce is looking good, friends. He turned 60 this week and I must say, I can’t believe the upward trajectory of his rear. (Sorry, but I was close enough to see it.) Also, his face is remarkably smooth. Not in a creepy, Botoxed way, but very impressive for six decades and lots of late night screaming into a mic. And the voice! Still great! Gravelly and great. Laura and I got particularly hysterical and swoony when he was walking through a little pathway made just for him (the Boss gets his own pathways) and he stopped to stand RIGHT IN FRONT OF US. He grabbed our hands and sweated all over us! I let my hand air-dry, people. It was Bruce Sweat.

(He looks kind of sad here, but that was before he sweated on me.)

The following day, I felt just a bit smug name-dropping and retelling the sweat story. Give me a break here. I spend most of my days wiping noses and bottoms and listening to the same three children’s CDs. It is not a life of glamour and rock stars who play a different guitar for every song, unless you count Mitchell, who does a mean air-guitar. So I dropped that story everywhere I went, trying to sound super nonchalant, as if Bruce and I were meeting later for lattes and a look-sy at his newest press photos. The smugness lasted all day. In fact, it even started annoying my husband, who had been much more excited about Bruce Sweat when his wife hadn’t been talking about it for 24 hours. Just when I thought I might actually have made it through an entire experience without shaming myself, I saw this on my

I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m pretty sure cool people don’t wear baby puke on their jeans. And I’m pretty sure Bruce doesn’t want to drink his latte while looking at the white spray marks.

It’s probably just as well. I’m all out of Red Bull and it’d be hard to fit my Dr. Scholl’s into high heels. And who would be uncool enough to meet a rock star in person and be wearing sensible shoes?

P.S. Anybody in GRINNELL/NEWTON area? I’ll be in Grinnell signing books at the Stepping Stones bookstore in Grinnell, this Friday night, from 5 to 7ish. Stop by for a copy of STRETCH MARKS and tell me you heard about it on the blog and I’ll give you a free copy of ACT TWO. And I’ll throw in a high kick for good measure!