Men in Tights

For Mle's birthday, I gave her tickets to the ballet.

I don't understand the point of view that so many guys seem to take where they're somehow "scoring points" or that they're doing some great, monumental, Herculean task by accompanying their wives or girlfriends to the ballet (or the opera, or the theatre, or what-have-you). I mean, if I was just picking an activity for myself, the ballet probably wouldn't be my first choice. But it was an enjoyable evening.

I didn't take her to the ballet because I wanted to have some sort of karmic "Get Out of Jail Free" card to whip out when I want to go to a baseball game this summer. I don't watch "Gray's Anatomy" with her as an exchange for me being "allowed" to watch football. I don't go clothes shopping with her so that she won't mind when I want to go to the comic book store. I do these things because, shockingly enough, I acutally enjoy spending time with my girlfriend. I watch football because I want to, not because I've "earned the right to" or some nonsense like that. I do things she enjoys with her, and she does things I enjoy with me. I know, weird, right?

Anyway, the ballet (Prokofiev's "Cinderella") was a lot of fun. I was quite impressed with many of the dancers, as was Mle (who knows a lot more about it than me). And the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, formerly the Municipal Auditorium, is absolutely gorgeous. They did a stunning job on the renovation. We had pretty good seats, but my suspicion from what I saw of the auditorium is that there's probably not a bad seat in the house. We were close in enough, though, to be able to have a pretty good guess at the religion of the male dancers...