Excuse me, but could I trouble you for a time machine or some minor forgery?

So, I have some good news and some bad news. I just popped in to Dashboard Confessional's myspace page to listen to some good music. Bad news: the song I really wanted to hear has been taken down. Herein lies the good news: it was taken down because there is a new album coming out on October 2nd, and they are using their available slots for new music. As many of you may know, one element of my birth plan is to play the entire DC collection throughout the labor and delivery process as they are, in fact, my most favoritist band ever and are also incredibly soothing to listen to. This is fabulous news for me, as it means I will have an extra 40 mintues to an hour of music to cylce through, hopefully delaying the inevitable of my darling husband getting sick and tired of hearing Chris Carrabba sing what Brendan deems "boring" songs about things that he couldn't possibly care less about.

This brings us to more good (great, even glorious!) news and bad (worse, even awful!) news.

Good news: Because they have a new album coming out, Dashboard is hitting the road.(FINALLY!!! I have been scouring the internet for upcoming tours for many, many months, to no avail. Imagine my joyous shock to stumble upon tour dates on the one day I wasn't actually looking for them. I guess it's true - a watched pot never boils.)

Great, even glorious news: My beloved Mr. Carabba is coming to Norfolk, to the Norva, the very same venue where we went last September to see Julian Casablancas and the rest of the Strokes. This is a great venue. It has a very small, close-knit, intimate feel. It doesn't hold that many people, so the concerts just feel better, more like they are just for you and your posse. Plus, the smaller the venue, the better the chance of actually seeing the stage.

Now for the bad, even, dare I say, awful news: This concert just so happens to be taking place on September 29th at 8:00 pm.

"Who cares?" you say. "What is so bad about that particular day and/or time?"

Well, I will tell you. First of all, I am supposed to be having a baby shower that day. The Norva is four hours away. There is no way I can make it in time. Now, this is just the bad news. For you see, the invitations are not completely finished, and a date and time have not officially 100% been set in stone. Theoretically, I could move the shower up or back a couple of weeks or make it Friday night or Sunday afternoon instead. This is a surmountable obstacle. Here is the worse, even awful, news: Considering my doctors' favorite hobby of banning things (no canoeing, no lifting of anything over 25 pounds, etc.), I have the distinct feeling that they are not going to think that this counts as a safe activity for a woman who will be 33 weeks and 5 days pregnant at that time.

"But Chris Carrabba is so pretty," I will say. "I have been looking forward to this for so very long, and this is not jumping-and-thrashing-around-type music. This is much more like close-your-eyes-and-feel-the-music-type music."

"I don't care," the doctor will say. "You could trip on the curb walking into the building or someone might spill their beer straight into your water bottle and then you would be endangering the baby." (Seriously, I sometimes think that some of the reasons they give me for not doing things are equally as ridiculous as this.)

This is seriously something I have been wanting to do for over a year now, so I am attempting to formulate a plan to make this happen. Dashboard is a fairly secretive, sporadic band. You never know if/when they are going on tour, but it doesn't happen all that often, and when they do, they don't usually come within 300 miles of Lynchburg. This is only the second time since 2003 that I have heard of them coming within a few hours of here. I have already started compiling a list of reasons for my doctor as to why this should not be an unsafe activity: There is a balcony with tables that we can sit at, which eliminates the danger of incredibly swollen ankles, exhaustion and/or getting bumped by overzealous fans in the standing room crowd. Also, if memory serves me correctly, no one got wasted or violent at the Strokes concert (I think they cut you off after a certain number of drinks to avoid such things), and there is no smoking allowed in the building (it would be foolishness to allow such things - this place is the size of a small chapel - we would all die of asphyxiation if there were even a handful of smokers). So, you see, I could just as easily enjoy the great music from a raised (some might even say protected) environment, in a comfortable chair, with bottled water and no smoke. As far as the noise goes, I've already checked online, and BabyCenter says it's okay to go to a few concerts during your pregnancy - you don't want to go to one every night if you'd like your kid to be born with a functioning auitory system, but a few here and there don't seem to hurt. My only concern is that I will be four hours away from my delivery hospital if anything should happen (though this is not a huge concern for me as I won't even be finished with my 8th month at that time and first babies tend to come late).

Which brings us to the begging portion of today's post: Do any of you have a time machine I can borrow if the shower proves to be immovable? How about a doctor's excuse to persuade my OB nurse that she should not tut and shake her head at me for going on this outing? Perhaps you could just talk some sense into me? Any and all advice is quite welcome as this is beginning to feel like a genuine crisis situation...