She's home!

My sister's home from Ireland, woo hoo!

Of course, now she's got me doing sisterly things, like attending a Darren Hayes concert with her tomorrow. (For those of you who are NOT diehard D.H. fans, he was the former lead singer of Savage Garden.) Personally, I'm not a HUGE fan myself, but Darren and I go way back.

Back in the summer of 2000, my sister dragged my ass out of bed at the unholy hour of 3 am to see Savage Garden perform on the Today show's summer concert series. The area around the stage usually fills up quickly with out of towners and various tourists, so my sister knew to arrive super early.

We arrive around 4:30 am to see a stage set for Lara Fabian, not Savage Garden. My sister, in complete denial, thinks that they haven't finished setting up the stage yet, so we wait. And wait. And wait. Eventually at around 8:45 am, Lara Fabian gets up on the stage and starts singing, "I Will Love Again," a catchy one-hit wonder tune. At around 9:30am, my sister admits that perhaps we arrived on the wrong day.

The next day, my sister rips me from my peaceful slumber at around 3 am to see the CORRECT Savage Garden show. Again, we arrive at around 4:30 am, but this time we see the correct stage. We snag prime front row center stage standing positions and wait. And wait. Quickly, the area fills up with other diehard Savage Garden fans, toting posters and various "I love you, Savage Garden," "I want you to have my baby, Darren Hayes," and "You can bathe me in the sea, Darren Hayes" signs.

I'm not drawn in by all this mania, but something transforms within me when the concert begins. It was like an out of body experience. I started singing along (apparently, deep down inside, I knew the lyrics by heart) and then I started to move. I believe some may call this dancing, but I'm not quite sure. If I had to describe the movements, it was something like the hand flailing and gyration of a born again Christian, or maybe a cowgirl with a lasso. I don't know exactly, suffice it to say that HB's family was watching the performance in Massachusetts, the camera recorded my maniacal gesticulation, and his entire family was rolling with laughter. This very Today show performance is probably still being transmitted far out in outer space where an alien civilization is watching and mimicking my pathetic asian girl dance moves and wondering what kind of people we are.

My sister--the diehard fan that she is--taped this show for posterity. If she has a heart, she'll keep it buried in her collection forever.

For payback, maybe my sister might snag us two tickets to see Romeo & Juliet in Shakespeare in the Park this week. I've got a major girl crush on Lauren Ambrose. Though, I think this is already public knowledge.