BHW.

We took the girls to Cirque du Soleil yesterday and I'm happy to say it was a big success. Rigel and I had seen it years ago by ourselves, so this time it was nice to go with them to experience it and see their reaction. Besides, our attempt at cultural rehabilitation a couple of weeks ago was only half successful and we were determined to give the appearance that we are able to pull ourselves away from our computers and TV screens, if only for an afternoon.

I say 'big success' but there was a moment when I thought the entire performance would be ruined for me. We had just taken our seats when I was crushed to discover my nemesis sitting right in front of me once again. Perhaps you know her, perhaps she has sat in front of you, too. She goes by the name of Big Headed Woman.

Big Headed Woman or BHW as I like to call her, follows me everywhere. The movies? BHW is there, using her large noggin to block my view of all the action on the lower third of the screen. Daughter's violin recital? There she is again, her over-coiffed hairdo positioned just so, making it impossible for me to fully appreciate Kira's scratchy rendition of Ode To Joy. I imagine she has some sort of special GPS device for tracking my activities - as soon as she hears I'm about to attend an event, there she is snapping on her giant prosthetic head and rushing out to find me in order to position herself right between my eyes and the stage.

A BHW can be a man, too, as witnessed at one of my latest movie theater experiences. I had walked into an empty theater and taken a seat when BHW walked in, looked around at the thousands of empty seats and chose the one seat, two rows in front of me, that was directly in my line of sight. I was tempted to throw my Coke at him, but with only two of us in the theater I felt there was a good chance he would figure out who it was. This is how it always is with me and BHW - I am forced to suffer in silence and change my seat, while she sits triumphant with not a thought of remorse existing in that cavernous dome atop her shoulders.

Here at the circus BHW was out to prove how deftly skilled she was at maximum view obstructing. In a row with several other normal head sized people, hers looked like a freakishly large pumpkin, lined up on a shelf with a row of apples. (Again, let me reiterate: Sitting in front of every other person in our row: Normal head. In front of me: Not so normal head.) Her gargantuan silhouette completely obscured my view of the entire stage and most of the lighting - if I sat still I had the troubling sensation of experiencing the show as a blind person would. I tried to express the gravity of the situation to Rigel:

Me: She has a big head.
Rigel: You say everyone has a big head.

Obviously he was too busy enjoying the show to sympathize. Me, I had to keep darting my head from side to side in order to see anything on either side of her enormous noggin, which gave the appearance that I was constantly trying to dodge a fastball being thrown at me. Finally after a few minutes Rigel insisted I switch seats with him - he said it was starting to look like I had some sort of extreme nervous twitch. When he was seated behind BHW he finally conceded, "You're right this time. She's got a big one." If the shadow from her behemoth cranium wasn't casting a dark shadow on our entire row I'm sure I would have seen a look of contrition on his face.

I was able to enjoy the show fully from then on out, despite the throbbing in my neck muscles. (Although I was in constant fear that BHW would look back, realize that she wasn't in any way diminishing the circus-viewing experience of my six-foot-one husband, and immediately change seats with her neighbor in front of me.) Kira and Kiyomi had only good things to say about the show, although as soon as the lights went on for intermission Kiyomi inquired, "Were those guys naked?" We explained that they were wearing very tight body suits but she seemed unconvinced and had a look of genuine fear on her face. Kira tried to comfort her with, "I know it's kind of freaky, but some people actually like looking at naked people." I was just about to high-five her with an "Amen" when the Big Headed Woman stood up and suddenly all went dark.

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