June 23, 2006
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La Vida Loca
I’ve been having quite the glamorous week.
Monday was a dream. I biked to work along the lakeshore path (a 40-minute ride, the same as taking the subway, except lovely and breezy and beautiful) and smiled at the sun shimmering over Lake Michigan. This is gonna be a good day, I thought.
Now, I’m not one for cliché’s, but the power of positive thinking is crazy real.
The work day on Monday was productive in that way that makes you think, “Hot damn I’m good at my job! And then, at 4:30 pm, I had an email exchange with my lovely boss that made me squeal like a sorority girl.
Lovely boss: Are you free tonight?
Me: Possibly. What’s up?
Lovely boss: Free tickets to Madonna, compliments of INSERT THE NAME OF GIANT COMPANY HERE.
Me: (out loud, with girly emphasis) SQUUUUEAL!!!Working in marketing has its perks. Among them: freebies.
Madonna and I go way back. As a girl, she was my basis for fashion. As a teen, my friends Bryan, Lindsey, and I had entire choreographed dances to Express Yourself, Like a Prayer, and Vogue. The new CD, Confessions on a Dance Floor is frequently buzzing in my ears as I trot along during my morning run. My favorite songs on the new album are Like it or Not (“like it or not/This is who I am/You can love me or leave me/’cuz I’m never gonna stop”) and Hung Up.
The concert was amazing. She came out of a giant disco ball. She thrust her loins into the face of some lucky little 10-year old boy in the first row. She sang from a cross wearing a crown of thorns. She rode a thrashing man like a horse. She krumped. She wore a cape that said Dancing Queen on the back and had glowing neon lights on the interior. There was roller-skating, acrobatics, and of course, the music.
It was amazing. Oh, and did I mention where I sat? Row number 6. Up close and personal.
Tuesday and Wednesday were lovely days filled with more bike rides to work and dampened only by a nasty migraine that took a while to sleep off Tuesday evening.
Thursday I conducted a model shoot for the ad campaign I am working to re-brand at work. One of our male models cancelled and I scheduled his replacement, which also cancelled mere hours before the shoot. I sweet-talked the tattooed and handsome photographer’s assistant into modeling and I took over some of his duties. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I remembered from my college photography and studio classes. It was a great day at work and reminded me that I really do love my job sometimes.
Shaun’s sister stayed with us last night, although by the time she arrived I was so pooped from the events of the day that I was asleep when she arrived. Hopefully we will hang out this morning—I get to go to work late today since I was in at 7 am to set up for yesterday’s shoot.
This weekend I’ve got to work on my most recent short story. I turn it into my writers group on Wednesday and it is in terrible shape. I’ve been so crazed lately that my writing has been rushed and frantic. I did a critical read over what I have thus far and it moves at the speed of light. I need to slow. it. down.
Also this weekend, Shaun’s parents are in town to visit. We are going on the architectural boat tour. I’ve gone on this tour before with my grandparents and LOVED it. It is really nice just to act like a tourist in your own city sometimes. And the boat tour is so relaxing—it’s nothing but soaking up the sun, basking in the cool lake breeze, and gazing up at the beautiful Wright’s, Sullivan’s, and Mies van der Rohe’s. I can’t wait!
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How has your week been?::Random Tangent::
While I will always have a place in my heart for Madonna, I feel weird writing about only the good, because there are many destructive cultural contridictions in her performances and her use of celebrity. My favorite articulations of these are found in the bell hooks essay, Madonna: Plantation Mistress or Soul Sister. if you have yet to read bell hooks, this is a great intorduction to a fantastic cultural critic.
Comments (6)
There’s a certain generation of people (including you and me) who love Madonna and just don’t care. It’s sort of like why Twinkies are good despite the fact they’re incredibly bad for you (and maybe not even really food). It’s just how it is. I, for one, am incredibly jealous that a) you got to see Madonna; b) that you got to sit in row 6; and c) that you got to do it for FREE.
oh man, you are the third person i know who got free tickets to her show!!! i wish i didn’t work government programs…
i’ve seen her in concert and she is PHEEnomenal. so glad you got to go. and for free! well, hot damn. a perk indeed. and row number 6? you’re killing me.
I’ve never been a huge fan of Madonna’s music, but she is most certainly one of the shrewdest marketers of our times. She’s always known the buttons to push to spin gold from creating controversy. And everything she does works. OK, except for the bad fake British accent she uses. I mean, Detroit? Hello?Love the idea of an architectural boat tour and being a tourist in your own town. So many people will go to far-flung places but ignore great experiences in their own backyard. I’m on the board of directors for a local museum that many people who have lived here all their lives have never visited, even though they will go to every museum in cities they visit.I’d answer your kind question about my week but, well, that is a reason I blog.
thanks for the bell hooks link. GREAT essay.
I’ll have to check that bell hooks out. I haven’t read her since college and I cannot remember her real name anymore either! Dangit! You are so lucky, free concerts! Okay, Madonna and I only got along for a little while but by all acounts what a performer she is. That is neat that you got to be creative in that way with your job. And fast thinking too. That photographer’s assistant’s mother is going to want copies of those photos I’ll bet. When life is at a fast pace it is easy to see how that can be reflected in writing and well, all creative endeavors.I spent a good amount of the week painting and I haven’t done it in a long time. I tried to pick up where I left off not realizing how you have to work back into things. Yeah, I needed to slow down too. Ah, well, I’m lucky to have a decent amount of time off to do that this summer. BTW: I bought just one pickled egg this week to try after reading your recipe. I want to see if I like it. It is slated for a late dinner tonight.