my inner rock star

I don't know if this is true for everyone, but there is just something about music that has such a strong influence on me.

When I'm sad, a song can pick me up. Or make me cry. Or just make me feel good inside.

I love to sing it loud in the car. And I love to belt out a tune in the shower, which has that amazing acoustic effect of actually making me sound good. And I love to grab a wooden spoon out of the drawer in the kitchen to use for my mic and put on a little lip sync act if a good song comes on the radio while I'm cooking dinner.

So, you can only imagine how happy I was this weekend when I got to release my inner rock star.

I got to go away for the weekend for a conference for Discovery Toys consultants. We were each assigned to a team, represented by a color. Our first task was to choose a name for our team, an outfit and come up with a song, slogan or cheer based on our company tagline: teach play inspire.

Our team was green, so we decided to be the green goddesses. One of our team captains had brought along a green dress, so we appointed her as our chief goddess and the rest of us, dressed in green crowns and accessories, frolicked around her, waving green streamers and making noise with a recorder, tamborine, egg shakers, etc.

It took a lot of teamwork, but we were able to come up with a chant and a dance routine that was a bit of synchronized swimming meets the Hokey Pokey.



Our next task was even more challenging.

At the end of the weekend, we had to come up with 15 tips we had learned and then present them either as a song, skit or story.

Our brains were fried after a long day of sitting in a conference room. So, I turned on a CD with a collection of dance music.

When we heard Last Dance by Donna Summer, we knew it was our song. The song has a dramatic beginning where Donna sounds pretty down and out. We composed a song about a Discovery Toys consultant who is in the dumps because her business isn't going well. As the song picks up in pace, all of the back-up singers cheer her up, singing "Let's Dance" and shouting their tips to the music.

I was so happy that the other ladies "let" me be the lead singer. This could be because I couldn't keep from bursting into song and dance as soon as I heard this song. I mean, seriously, who can resist when Donna starts singing the "ooooo-ooooo-oo-ooooooooooo, oo-oo-oo" at the beginning?

Last Dance is a favorite tune in our home. It's one of the songs on the CD that we use as our "housecleaning music". This is a collection of songs that includes my favorites, Make it Happen and All Star as well as some other great cleaning songs like Love Shack, Kung-Fu Fighter (the rap version), Car Wash and Boogie Wonderland.

When my 4-year-old daughter hears Last Dance, the housecleaning stops because she breaks into a dramatic dance and I can't help but join her. We've had enough practice that we have all of the words memorized and have perfected our Donna Summer dance moves.

It's funny, but this weekend when we did our little Last Dance, I felt like I was depriving all of the other women of getting up in front of a room full of their peers and doing a Donna Summer act. In reality, they were probably all relieved that they didn't have to make fools of themselves, and I was so willing to do it.

I can't explain or make excuses for this lip syncing diva who lives inside of me. But when she comes out, it is usually a ton of fun. I love it when everyone is laughing. I'm not sure if they are laughing at me or with me. But everyone is happy. And my inner rock star gets a moment to shine.

Does anyone else have an inner rock star? And if you do, what song makes you want to grab a mic and dance? Are you more of a car singer, a shower crooner, a kitchen dancer or would you sing and dance in public (regardless of lack of talent)?