Dear Laurie Berkner, my sproingy-headed angel food cake.
I would crawl on battered knees across a desert of dirty diapers and broken glass just to collect the clippings of the hair you leave behind on your stylist's floor.
Yesterday I took my toddler to see you at Carnegie Hall. It was your debut there, you minxy troubadour. I want you to understand, this was no small feat on my part. But so devoted to your enthusiastic showmanship, catchy tunes and brightly-colored form-fitting outfits am I—and so proud I was for you in your moment of Carnegie Triumph!—that I did it anyway. It was a long hard day on daddy duty, Laurie, and I did it all for you.
OK fine, and I did it for my kid who's a rabid fan. (When she wants to watch your DVD over and over and over again, far be it from me to complain ... especially when you do your little hip-wiggle-shoulder-shake-wink move. You know the one I'm talking about.)
For reasons too tedious to explain, I was on single-parent duty yesterday. We had had these tickets for months, Laurie, burning up in our fevered little hands with the heat of a thousand suns. I dressed my child (in a
Dan Zanes t-shirt—sorry!) and walked with her in the stroller to the subway. Yesterday was the New York City marathon, Laurie, and the runners streamed by my M/R-train stop. You would think with the massive influx of riders that the marathon brings with it, the metropolitan transit authority (or, as I call it, MTA) would have run their trains on some sort of accelerated schedule. Instead, we descended into the fetid pit that is our local station only to find hundreds upon hundreds of marathon-watchers charting their marathon-watching route. The trains, so slow and infrequent, seemed to be running on a Sunday schedule. Christmas Sunday, that is. Christmas Sunday, 1913. But I toughed it out for you, Laurie.
When we changed trains I met up with a couple of friends and their daughter. We all met shortly after the birth of our kids, so these two little girls have been friends since birth. And it shows. They sat on the train, in their strollers, each girl staring at the other, with two fingers in her mouth, pulling her lips wide apart and doing this at full volume: "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAAGHHHHH!!!!!!!!," creating a seizure-inducing disonant chord in the process. They were very excited for the show. My daughter, chip off the old block, especially so. She kept announcing to her friend, H, "We going to see Laurie Burgler!" Even though I cringed slightly at the mispronunciation of your name, I have to admit it was pretty cute. "We going to Laurie Burgler concert!!" I imagine you dressed as Hamburglar, only instead of hamburgers, Laurie, you steal my heart.
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