Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccce!

Yes, last night I went to see The Boss at Giants Stadium. There is a lot I want to write about it, and I may or may not ever get to it all. I fear writing about stuff that people don't find interesting, but here goes anyway. I'm going to start today with the line to get on the bus to get to the Meadowlands.

I, of course, never know when I'm going to be able to leave work. If I have an afternoon client, and I almost always do, I never know if they will be on time, if they will be in crisis, if the foster mother wants to talk to me or if I will need to talk to her, if the child will make a gigantic mess, if they will refuse to clean up that mess, if they will ask for a snack before they go, if they want me to walk them out, if I will have to call Child Protective Services because they disclosed they were abused this week (luckily, that one is rare), etc. So whenever I make plans, I have to say, "Well, I should be able to leave at 6:00, but..." and then at 6:45 I'm running out the door calling the person I have plans with to explain whatever ridiculous thing happened that is causing me to be late.

However, last night, I was fortunate enough that my client cancelled. Not good for the therapeutic relationship, but great for me going to a Bruce Springsteen concert. I always feel bad about my life getting in the way of my work. But last Friday, I was at a training and the trainer was talking about one of his clients and how the parent was trying to get her child out the door but she did something and the parent said, "You are going to have to have a time out" and he thought, "F---!" because he was leaving straight from this appointment to go to a Blues Festival upstate and who knows how long this time out will take. So, obviously, it's a problem we all face.

Anyway, last night I was out the door at 6:00 on the dot! But when I got to the Port Authority, the line for the bus was ridiculous and I started to panic. I went in to get tickets, and that line was ridiculous and I started to panic more. But when I came out, Kathy told me she had been talking to the guy in back of us, who went to the show the previous night (and turns out, many other Springsteen shows) and he told us that the bus was pretty fast and Bruce always comes out at 8:30. Since I love to chat up crazy fans, like myself, I decided I'd go ahead and continue to engage him in a conversation.

From now on, he will be called The Spitter. For obvious reasons.

He was a crazy Long Island guy. Picture a guy like George Costanza. He was wearing a concert shirt from another Springsteen show. He had clearly been eating Chinese food prior to getting into the line because he had rice on his shirt. He had a little notebook with him that he had written the set list from the previous night. I asked him if he had the set list of all the shows he's been to, but I didn't get a straight answer on that, although he did refer back to the book later while we were on the bus. He talked about his son, who was, at that moment, at home looking for tickets on craigslist for the Thursday show and also the Boston show this weekend. He asked me my favorite Springsteen song, and I said, "Thunder Road," and he said that was also his favorite, along with "Born to Run." He said that at his funeral, he wants his ashes spread in Asbury Park with those two songs playing. He told me not to worry because Bruce would probably play "Thunder Road" because he didn't play it Sunday, but he wouldn't play "10th Avenue Freeze out" because he opened with it on Sunday. I love it because I take a little flack for being a crazy fan. But then I hear this kind of stuff and realize I'm just fine in comparison.

Yes, I do keep a set list of all the JM shows I've been to and can predict some of the songs he'll play and I do travel around to see him. But remember when I met a woman at a JM concert and she told me she named her daughter Georgia after the song "Why Georgia"? Yeah... I'm just fine.