A Dose of Live George Every 20 Years Does a Girlfriend Good

I’m coming down from a George Michael high.

I loved him in the 80s, when he was a part of Wham. On a side note, thanks to my sheltered life, his sexuality never, ever crossed my mind. In those days it was pretty much assumed that every one except Billy Jean King was straight. At least by me. It was normal for men to have gorgeous, flippy hair and to wear very short and very tight shorts. I looked at Boy George and thought, oh, he just likes to dress all flashy and do fun things with makeup and hair. I had a lisping, affected male teacher who wore an ascot and was pretty much the poster man for Stereotypical Gay Man and still I was clueless. I had a mulleted female gym teacher and never really thought she might be gay, either. Richard Simmons was another straight with a very flamboyant style in my fantasy world. I lived in a fancy, label-free world. Such innocent times.

Anyway, back then I used to sing the words to Careless Whisper so emphatically, as if lyrics like “Should have know better than to cheat a friend” and “I feel so unsure as I take your hand and lead you to the dance floor” actually applied to my life. Like I lived those lines a hundred times. Oh my, the histrionics.

I loved him I the 90s, when I was in college, in a time when things on my To Do list included “learn the Hammer dance” and “buy more Fun Tac for new Monet posters” and “figure out which deli has the best muffins.” His album, Listen Without Prejudice, brings me back to those days. It is still one of my favorite start-to-finish albums. Perfect.

The concert was great. He was so energetic, the crowd was so alive, and I have never seen my girlfriend so happy. She actually danced and grabbed me (in a playful, dancing way) at some points. She loved George when she was younger, as did one of her good friends, who came with us to the show. Our seats were beyond amazing. I feel spoiled by such amazing seats because once you have them you never want to sit I the back row again. We were so close I could almost see George’s plastic surgery scars (kidding. I have no idea if he has had surgery, but let’s just say his face has held up very, very well over the years. Hmmm.)

So let’s revisit Nicole for a second. She was in Heaven. Some might say, the Edge of Heaven. Ha. While she is a content person, and has smiley moments like the rest of us, she isn’t one to display feelings of joy or happiness in an effusive way. She is not extravagant with her emotions. She isn’t the type to scream out the lyrics (like me) or dance like a fool (also, me) or add in studio-version song touches (again, me. I hate when concert songs don’t match studio versions to a Tee). But last night she was feeling joy AND showing it. Dancing, screaming, clapping and holding her cell phone in the air in demand of an encore. Anyone who knows her knows this isn’t standard behavior! She chalks it up to her adolescent crush on George. And also because it was 18 years since she last saw him in concert. I had a great time, but she had the time of her life.

We didn’t get home until midnight and, as luck would have it, Madeline woke up and decided she needed, absolutely needed to sleep with us. So she came into our bed and proceeded to try out for the Baby Olympics for at least an hour. If not more. I eventually saw her drift off to sleep, her eyes getting heavy, her breathing becoming deeper and slower, and it is a beautiful thing to see. But I was so tired that I didn’t cherish that moment quite like I should. Instead of thinking awwww so precious and cute I was thinking FINALLY. I didn’t get to sleep really till closer till two in the morning, I’m guessing, and then I was up at 6:00 with the little miss early bird. So it has been a long day.

Nicole and I have a date night on Monday. Last night counted, but not entirely since we had a friend with us. Monday my sister-in-law is coming and we are going out. I have a plan but it is a surprise for Nicole. It is so important for me to have something like that to look forward to. So there is that. And then Nicole took off Tuesday so there is that. And we are going to Florida at the end of August so there is that. And maybe a trip to Northampton in between. And this weekend we will see Leif and Skye, because they will be going (with Keith and Mina) to China and Hong Kong and Japan for the entire month of August. Can you tell my brain is in schedule mode? The more life feels like an endless treadmill and the more my brain starts shifting into overdrive, the more I try to calm myself down by thinking about these things to look forward and the simpler one too, like my coffee in the morning, that, now that I think about it, I need to set the timer.

I have been instructed to stop making Nicole milk shakes. My best effort was a cookie dough milkshake, with real cookie dough and vanilla and brown sugar. And I liked the peanut butter cup one. And the Oreo one. I need to work on consistency so if anyone knows the trick to making them more frothy, please share. On tomorrow’s menu is a Nutter Butter milk shake. And then a pudding milk shake. And then I will heed Nicole’s plea to stop.

Thanks for all of the great comments/stories/words of encouragement in the comments from my last post. It all means a lot to me. And the bathing comments were helpful Believe it r not, I never thought to bathe them one at a time. I think with twins you are just conditioned to think is pairs. And I did bathe with them till about a month ago. Literally me in the tub with the two of them. But I like to relax in the tub after the girls go to bed, so taking a bath with them first sort of sucks the pleasure out of looking forward to my own bath. Yes, I know that I am ridiculous.

I just joined Facebook and opened a NetFlix account. I am finally getting with the times.

Pictured above, us at the concert. And below that, this is how close we were. The pictures suck (we finally got with it a snuggled a small camera in like the rest of the world) but it gets our proximity across.