Went to dinner with some old friends at their place on Saturday night. Another couple joined us. A little bit of light banter to accompany the glasses of sparkly revealed this intriguing little gem of dialogue:
Male Friend: My sister is really enjoying her scrapbooking classes with you.
Me: She doing some lovely work.
MF: Her album is great. It’s a bit surprising - she is really getting into it.
Me: What’s surprising about that?
MF: I thought she would have got it out of her system when she was a kid.
Me: Got it out of her system?
MF: That creative stuff. Kids do creative stuff, not adults…
Me: Really? [There goes any credibility I may have had as an adult – teaching and practicing creative!] When are we supposed to grow out of it?
MF: Well…
Me: At age 10? Is that when we’re supposed to cut that creative stuff and suddenly become accountants? Do you really believe that?
MF: Blink
Me: Aren’t we allowed to be creative when we’re grown up? Think creatively? Experience creativity?
Lucky for him everyone gathered around to do a bit glass chinking right at that point in time. Poor guy.
We went on to enjoy three very lovely dinner courses when the conversation turned to karaoke. I had to admit that I would rather bungee jump into lava than step foot into a karaoke bar, let alone actually sing in public. [I didn’t admit though that I actually harboured a very private desire to sing karaoke in something other than the shower] And so that’s when it was revealed that we could experience that very essence of cringe-worthiness right here in this house, courtesy of Playstation Singstar. How fabulous for us.
Several shots of schnapps later, there I was, positioned in front of the T.V., microphone in hand. I made it through the first song. I have to admit, I enjoyed that first song. After the first song, it was all anyone could do to wrench the microphone out of my hand. We sang duets, and depending on the song, or on my partner, or just me, I added a dance too. I sang until my voice gave out, until I could no longer coax a squeak from my voicebox. We left about 2.30am, and that’s only because we had to pick the children up from Gary’s mum’s place [and that would be the not-very-happy-mother-in-law, who rang while Gary and partner were singing Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf)
And so, all of this leads me to believe that apparently, I may not have spent enough time as a child miming in front of the mirror with a hairbrush…
