Feeling Wicked

Chang and I took our first overnight trip since Joey's birth. It's been almost five years since we have been able to wake up whenever we pleased.

We also watched Wicked and I loved it. The story line was clever, the songs were catchy, and the dialogue was smart. But that's not why I loved it. Elphaba, AKA The Wicked Witch of the West, is an alto so I can sing her songs and hit most of the notes with ease.

I LOVE to sing. I am one of those people who sing in the shower, sing in the car, and sing in my head when it isn't appropriate to be singing aloud. Though personally, I think life should imitate musicals and we should sing most of our conversations. I also would love to have a trio of backup singers following me around to harmonize with me--my very own "Pips" as in Gladys Knight and the...

Whenever I have just watched a musical, I listen to the soundtrack over and over again until I can sing every "oooo" and "ahhhh" from memory. I also love to sing both parts of a duet and when it is a man and a woman singing, I will sing the man's part in a deeper voice and the woman's part in a higher voice, which to me is normal behavior. However, I was singing, "A Little Fall of Rain" from Les Mis in front of friend and he started to laugh. Whatever...I know that he was in awe of such raw talent that he didn't know how to react.

I can generally sing most men's parts but often times the women's parts are too high for me and I start sounding like a backstreet boy--it's all nasal and falsetto and just plain bad. But Elphaba is an alto so I can totally rock her part. Unfortunately, I don't have a Glinda counterpart local to me. I say local to me because I do have a friend with whom I used to sing duets while we were in college. She suggested we sing together over the phone which I found to be a ridiculous suggestion. She isn't "in network" for me so a single performance would zap all my minutes and it would take several rehearsals to get it right. I don't have that kind of money...

It's a such a shame that most people don't want to sing duets with me. Luckily, though sometimes annoyingly, my girls love to sing as much as I do. Lucky because once Sam starts singing, he can be the final member of my backup singing trio; annoying because I don't think the girls care to sing backup to me. It's like Dreamgirls. I am Jennifer Hudson, the rightful lead vocalist but I am sensing anarchy. In fact, I think the reason the girls make up their own songs is so that I can't sing along with them and inevitably show them up:

"Mommy, stop singing. I want to sing my own song. I just want you to listen."

"Mommy is almost done. Just wait. La, la, la, la, you'll be popular--"

"But Mommy, I have a beautiful princess song that I want to sing."

"Shhh! --just not quite as popular as meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"