Eat Your Heart Out, Rick Springfield

That's a song, if you somehow managed to miss that hit by Jimmy "The Mouth of the South" Hart. It's pretty funny, actually. If you were ever a Rick Springfield fan and you're not familiar with the song, you should check it out.

But I digress.

Damn. I digressed before I even STARTED on my topic. Good thing I'm not trying to make my living as a writer or anything.

Here's the thing: as a teenager, I loved Rick Springfield in the way that teenage girls from the 80s often did; as an adult I love Rick Springfield in the way one might love a favorite cousin who has come through for her in some significant circumstances and been really good to her child. I still remember my first Rick Springfield concert clearly. I know what I wore. I know that I sat in row T. I remember that the concrete steps were wide and flat, not the height of a full stair. In fact, although I hate to admit this in public, I still have the ticket.

Shut up. I keep everything. You probably know that since most of my previous posts on this blog are about trying to empty out my house and my various storage units.

And, of course, my book about Rick Springfield was a big turning point for me professionally; from that moment forward, I thought of myself as a writer and didn't entertain the possibility of returning to the practice of law.

I've probably been to somewhere between 30 and 40 Rick Springfield concerts--sometimes more in one day. I flew to some of them. But it all pales in comparison to this Jonas Brothers gig I have going on tonight.

I spent my lunch hour ironing "I love Nick Jonas" onto a t-shirt in silver sparkle letters. No, don't worry--I'm not going to wear it. In fact, I'm thinking about wearing a Rick Springfield t-shirt. But my daughter realized while she was getting ready for school this morning that she really didn't have any clothing that appropriately conveyed her devotion.

So.

Um.

Now she does.

She can just barely continue to function like a normal person, and I can't imagine how school went today. She's a big fan of Lost, and if you watch the show you know that you can't really blink without missing something that could alter your understanding of several seasons. But last night during the show, she spread out all of her Jonas Brothers pictures and posters on the living room floor. The whole living room floor. Every inch of it. And decided that she didn't have enough, and that maybe we should subscribe to Bop, because it would be "a great source of more Jonas Brothers news and pictures".

We.

So forget that the Jonas Brothers only have a couple of halfway-decent-for-a-teenage-band songs and were brought to us by Walt Disney. Forget that they were just recently the opening act for Hannah Montana, who doesn't even exist. My kid is quivering all over like a dog watching a rabbit and wanting with all its heart to race after it, and that makes this the most exciting concert of my life.

Nick & Joe and My Visa Card

And some other kid--I'm probably going to get in trouble for this. Nick and Joe and...um...and...

I could look it up, but that would be cheating, right?

I just paid $353 for two tickets to the Jonas Brothers concert at the Allstate Arena on the 22nd. And as if that weren't enough, now I have to...

um...

go to the show.

I read a lot about the insanity of suburban parents who pay a thousand dollars for concert tickets for their middle-schoolers, and I usually agree with it. And while I'm inclined to point out that this ISN'T a thousand dollars, I know that's kind of a cheat, too. Just like looking up the third Jonas Brother's name. Because we all know that those parents with their matching SUVs and $750,000 houses who are buying those thousand dollar concert tickets have a heck of a lot more money than I do. Their thousand dollars is in a very real sense a lot less than my $353.

But here's the thing.

Today is my daughter's twelfth birthday. I suspect that her days of wonder are nearly over. I hope that I'm wrong, and I might be. She's a very different kind of person than I ever was, and she delights in things and people. But the world does tend to become more ordinary as we age, and it takes more and more to impress us.

I remember the first time my daughter saw a flag flapping on top of a building and recognized it from a picture. She stopped dead in the middle of the parking lot and said, "That's in my book." I remember the first time she saw a helicopter, and how long she was content to stand and watch a stick float down the creek, and her delight in suddenly finding a lone purple flower growing in the midst of a patch of hardscrabble grass. I remember the first time she tasted hot buttered toast, and the wonder in her voice as she said, "You took me to the BEACH?" when we got out of the car. I remember her first 3D movie (SpyKids 2) and how she unconsciously reached out to touch the bubbles in the movie theater.

My baby is twelve today. She likes to act casual now, and she favors ripped jeans and t-shirts. She's developing suspicious hints of alien curves ahead, and the Disney Princesses are gradually losing their place in her life. But she's not all grown up yet. She's not entirely jaded. I know exactly the look that will come over her face when she realizes that she's REALLY in the same room with Nick Jonas. And I'm willing to pay through the nose for it.

Update: Her reaction made it all worthwhile.