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I write novels, eat dark chocolate, raise three children, love my husband, scrub toilets, ignore the laundry, and love a good story, but hardly ever in that order.

OPERATION BONNET

STRETCH MARKS

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ACT TWO

BOTTOM LINE

BALANCING ACT

Friday, May 6, 2016

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.

14 comments:

  1. I was not in the show choir but I did play the piano for the show choir. Ltm. (And there was this really cute drummer who played along side of me!)

    Seth was unofficially asked to play the drums for the middle school show next year. He had a look of horror on his face when he told me. It was really funny.

    It's strange and funny how our kids do some of the same stuff.

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  2. Totally. I hope Ana has fewer hair regrets than I do, however. :)

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  3. You and Marc will be glad to know that show choir is alive and well here in Bloomington, MN, and I totally hope my kids want to do it :-)

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    1. Awesome! Indoctrinate! Make those kiddos drink the Kool-Aid! ;) 5-6-7-8!

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  4. Rocky COULD NOT wrap his head around this phenomenon when he moved here to start youth ministry. Iowa show choir is like Texas HS fotball.

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    1. Only a much lower risk of spinal injury! At least one hopes...

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  5. Love it! Fond memories, I can't wait to re-live. Jeff was in concert choir... Which is also much more sophisticated. He is naturally a lot more intelligent than me as well.

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    1. Ha! Concert choir people and jazz band people are totally missing out. We might endure the derision of some peers, perhaps, but we are also more fun AND we have bigger hair. Boom.

      Also, let it be known that the woman commenting here, Rachel M., is an accomplished physician, she is a professor, she is the director of a department at a prestigious medical school, she is a mother of three, and she just finished her MBA. I THINK IT SHOULD BE CLEAR WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ONE PARTICIPATES IN SHOW CHOIR. ONE BECOMES A GENIUS.

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  6. I am with Marc...show choir was NOT a Minnesota thing. BUT we did have our season ending "Current Jam" which was sort of a concert choir goes wild and does cool music and dances with white jeans and neon shirts...club. And I did sing the lead in the small group number "Short People"...get it? Tall girl sings song about Short People? And in 1990 "Short People" was not referring to anyone that would be offended at that term...it more made fun of how tall people were? If all of that rambling make sense?

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  7. and that was from me...Susan...since there was a random blogger phone post and I cannot sign in from there so don't cut me off....

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  8. Ha! I am assuming you are now volunteering to lead us in a chorus of "Short People Need Jesus Too" at church next Sunday. I'll let Tim know. Be there early for a mic check.

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  9. That's some seriously impressive hair volume you and your group achieved back in the day! ;)

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