Thanksgiving Monday. It’s an elastic waist band kind of day. I won’t say that I regret eating that turkey sandwich at nearly midnight…it felt right at the time, but now I’m feeling somewhere between a pregnant Jessica Simpson and Marlon Brando, (the later years).
I don’t mind the food baby or the exhaustion from a rousing little mini-break, what concerns me is my throat. It’s like my vocal cords are bruised. How would I injure myself, you ask? How else does anyone damage their vocal cords, it’s a scientific formula. You take one wedding, a cold Saturday night of a long weekend at a quiet ski village, pour endless bottles of wine, mix with hilarious, jovial people and add one karaoke machine. It was the kind of fun you have when you keep saying: “This is soooo much fun, this is so much fun, I never have this much fun!!” The bride, myself, and another fabulous lady were making that microphone our bitch.
Karaoke is a dangerous thing, drink enough and you think you look like this…
When really you look like this…
Or you think the crowds are adoring you…
When really, those around you look like this…
No matter, when we sang “She’s Like the Wind“, I meant it. when we tackled “Total Eclipse of the Heart“, I owned it. And in my mind I sounded like this….
When I probably sounded a little more like this…
But it wasn’t the drinking, the cackling and the singing, and the occasional cheeky cigarette that did me in…
I blame it on Roberta. This feisty lady is a tough act to shake. She was a character I created for a Tony and Tina type-show last summer. A brusk, boozy chain-smoking mother of the bride, that’s one part Selma and Patty from “The Simpsons”, a dash of David Sedaris‘s mother Sharon, a splash of Mike Myer’s Linda Richman with two parts Mia Farrow from “Broadway Danny Rose“.
She is one mouthy, opinionated broad, and I really like her. It is addictive to talk like her, those around her can’t help but adopt the voice. I dare you to spend a night with Roberta and not wind up talking amongst yourselves in this gravely, vaguely Jewish dialect.
Talk about a recipe for disaster. Roberta does karaoke. I’m going to have to pull a Celine Dion, and stop speaking for an extended period in order to rest my voice. Although with my level of talent, I have no legal right to copy Dion in any way…but the methods of Liza Starlight…well she’s fair game.
On Sunday, we went from Sun Peaks to my parents house, about two hours from the king sized bed we were sprawled on, watching bad television, and riding out the full extent of our checkout time. All yesterday I felt mildly hung over, and perfectly strained in and around the head neck and throat area. Now it’s been two days, and I’m still on Roberta-recovery. So if you see me, unsmiling, unapproachable, hiding behind my dark sunglasses, please don’t take offense…
Don’t think that I don’t have anything to say…it’s just that I hurt myself from letting someone else speak for me.
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