Tag: Michelle Obama

Happy Birthday to Me, I’m 29 again!

I’m too old to be on “So You Think You Can Dance”. The auditions are taking place at this very moment just blocks away from my Brooklyn apartment, at the Mark Morris Dance Studio. According to the official rules posted on line: contestants must be between the ages of 18 and 30.

So close in distance and so far in years.

We are big fans. My Kid loves the show and her favorite dancers always make it to the finals. She looks forward to being big enough to dance in sparkles and high heels. I look back on my former flexibility when doing the splits was just a part of my regular stretching routine. Now, without having “made a mistake” high school, I am old enough to be the mother of the younger aspiring professionals waiting in line to dance for their chance to be on TV. I’m more like the wierd old people with the thick torsos who sit behind the judging table and tell the young dancers what they are doing wrong.

Should I tell My Kid that I’m too old? She think’s I’m 29. She also thinks her teacher is 20.

She doesn’t know about the audition. Neither did I, until I just found out just now, via a fellow mommy’s twitter about the crazy long line right here in our ‘hood.

Should I tell My Kid I am the same age as her school principal, that my age is about the same as Michelle and Barack Obama. PRESIDENTS ARE REQUIRED TO BE OLD!

After the election last week, one of My Kid’s classmates spent the whole school day showing everyone she came in contact with a picture of Barack Obama clipped from a newspaper.
“He’s got grey hairs! Look! See right there! He’s got grey hair!”

Last summer back in my home town, we went to the popular ice cream stand that is a real scene for young families and college students. My daughter and her cousins came running through the crowd screaming at the top of their lungs.
“How old are you Aunt Kathie? How old are you Mom?”
“I’m 29.”
“No you’re not. How old are you really?”
“I’m 29.”
“No you’re not! UNCLE MARTIN IS 44 AND YOU’RE OLDER THAN HE IS!!!!!!!”
“I’M 29!”
“Why do you say you’re 29?”
“Because that’s what grown-ups say when they don’t want to tell people how old they are.”

Michelle Obama

I suppose if my husband was running for president I would let professionals groom me.  As it is I’m ready to go to the salon of the mom of a kid who goes to my school and let her have at it, even though her six-year-old looked like she cut her own bangs.  (Her mom cuts hair for a job, what are the chances?…)

Watching the speech I kept trying to memorize phrases for later reference, but in the end, my favorite part came after the speech when Malia and Sasha came on stage and waved to the video feed of Obama and said “Hi Daddy!” into the microphone.  Tall stately Michelle Obama bent down to talk to her daughters. (Physical Theatre–stronger than words)

At the YMCA swimming pool we were getting ready to leave and I said to the other mother, “I think we’re missing Michelle Obama’s speech”  

“They work out a lot!” was her reply.

I was preoccupied with the visual.  That’s what a successful professional woman looks like.  

Once upon a time I wanted to be a successful woman like that.  I saw some of them when I interned at the DNC as a college student and returned after graduation to work for my congressman.  I thought maybe I should go to law school.  But, most women I met did not look like Michelle Obama.  Most women did not carry themselves that tall.  They wore suits to work, but their jobs were in reality sucky clerical jobs, or they had the titles but the job they got through connections (It was Washington, DC) was an uncomfortable fit.  I never found a role model like Michelle Obama was said to be in the pre-speech DNC film.  It would have been nice.  I wore suits and carried high heel pumps in my shoulder strapbriefcase while I commuted in running shoes with white socks over my nylons.  But, once I got do work, I didn’t know why I was there outside of a vague aspiration to do good work and be the kind of person who wore Anne Taylor suits to work every day.

Michelle Obama has a lot more going on.