Christina and me or how to bring some of the joy back

Watching my daughters these last couple of months with their feverish anticipation of birthdays and other extremely fun activities, I realised that I just don’t look forward to anything anymore. All of a sudden, I am feeling the weight of my 32 years.The awareness that I am indeed,okay, wait for it, an adult ( the italics are meant to indicate a horrified stage whisper) hit me like a stack of tax receipts or like the word amortization. I needed an event and I needed one bad. Along came my friend Kirsten who just happened to receive the ultimate birthday gift: two tickets to go see Christina Aguilera. And who should she pick to go see it with her? Me! Me! (It might have had something to do with the fact that I was jumping up and down on my chair and yelling “pick me!” over and over again.) And so this last Wednesday night, we headed to the Bell center to go see Christina and, as if we needed some icing on the cake, the Pussycat Dolls.
Now this is funny because I would have rather have voted for Mulroney, or worn stonewashed denim skirts with white lace fringe than go see a pop show of this caliber. Nope, I was a strictly punk rock, hard core, sometimes rock and roll girl. The pop bands were an incomprehensible and rather distasteful phenomenon. Not to say that they still aren’t, but at least I can appreciate the spectacle. The Pussycat Dolls were a hope to strippers everywhere. They showed you what can happen if you have a body to die for, mediocre voices and some dignity for sale. Christina Aguilera however, was, well, fabulous! What a show people. The sequins alone were dazzling enough, but add props, dancers (who actually had some booty to shake I was proud to note), costume changes, video montages and certain special effects and you have a very entertaining evening. Of course, half the fun, I realised, was doing something completely out of character. You know shaking it up a little, suppressing the momentary glimpse of my life laid out in front of me like a seemless patchwork of non descript days bleeding into each other.

Here is a video of one of Lady Marmalade from the Montreal show (you got to love youtube). Aahh, it does the body good to have a premature midlife crisis.
Of course, the adult (the italics are now supposed to indicate a slight irritation with myself) in me could not be completely repressed. The biggest trauma I received from my foray into the world of commercial pop, was the fact that mothers had brought their daughters the age of my (horrified again) daughters to the show. Barring the fact that each ticket cost almost 100$, these little girls were dressed like mini little slutwhores and were prancing around, doing lascivious dance moves to songs called “dirty” or “Don’t you wish your girlfriend was as sexy as me”. I became a very boring, slightly embarrassing date to poor Kirsten, as I sat there mouth agape, mesmerized by the sight of this warped family bonding. A prude I am, and it seems, a prude I will remain. Still, I was very happy to be there and I thank Kirsten profusely for consenting to take me. If I could have afforded the 35$ Christina Aguilera underwear, baby, they would have gone to you!