This Book Club post couldn’t have come at a better time! I’m not sure if I should admit it, but I am truly bummed that I cannot attend the New Kids on the Block/Backstreet Boys concert next weekend. Yes, I am a twenty-five (almost six) year old who is sad about missing the chance to see the Backstreet Boys. It’s almost like fifteen years ago when I cried because I missed the chance to score great seats to the BSB concert by one person in line. Cried. We still got to go to the concert, but Brian Littrell might have pulled my sister up on stage if we were in front row seats.
I loved reading the chapter in The Girls From Ames about The Bonds of Pop Culture. The girls’ obsession with Rod Stewart, the Osmond Brothers, and the Jackson 5 reminded me so much of the time when I’d pop the Backstreet Boys or Boys to Men cassette tape into my walkman, put on my head phones, and walk up and down my street. I thought I was so cool. I remember walking back into my house so entwined with singing the song blaring in my ears that I didn’t notice my dad sitting in the living room observing my insanity. Needless to say…embarrassing.
(Not quite as embarrassing as the fact the my little sister was obsessed with Billy Ray Cyrus…no, not Miley…Billy Ray…and she had a jumbo poster of him and his mullet in a frame!)
I remember sitting up in my best friend’s bedroom…her, my sister, and me…writing letters to each of our favorite Backstreet Boy members. Actually they wrote letters, I, being the wonderful artist at the age of ten, decided that it would catch Howie’s attention better if I drew and sent him a portrait of himself. Weird and creepy.
(I guess I had a “thing” for curly haired boys back then, too!)
Fast forward now to present day as I am mourning the fact that I never got to give Howie that picture and that I won’t get the chance to do so next Saturday. The truth is, I haven’t been to a concert since back in those days when I was a preteen, and my best friends think that is just craziness.
So, for my twenty-seventh (Wait…didn’t I just say I was twenty-five? That’s right, I’m skipping twenty-six because I don’t like even numbers.) my best friends surprised me with concert tickets to see Katy Perry!
So, while I may have dismissed pop culture for the past several years, I’m proud to say that I’m back in it, and that I cannot wait until August 17th!
Thank you so much Heather and Casey for a wonderful birthday present, and I can’t wait to sing along, or scream, or jump up and down, or whatever people do at concerts now-a-days with you girls! 
‘Cause baby, we are ALL fireworks!
(Umm…wow…way too cheesy!)
ang
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