August 03, 2000
The Wedding Singer
They're trying to take my walls away! My lovely, lovely walls, the ones I showed a picture of yesterday. One of the support managers has it in his head that we should be in an open area for some reason, probably just because 'well that's the way it's always been'. When we were told they were coming to replace the full walls with half ones, there rose a great hue and cry from Services Reception! "No! You can't take our walls!" Plans were laid out. We could chain ourselves to them. We could put up a petition for everyone to sign. We could stage a protest. We got rather silly for a few moments. In any case, the manager who wants them lowered is out of the office today, and my supervisor (who's on our side on this, happily) will be out tomorrow. So it probably won't be resolved until Monday. If it's tomorrow, I'm the one who'll be pleading our case. Wish me luck.
One good thing about getting back in touch with old friends is catching up on the gossip. Who's dating who, who got married, who got divorced, etc. Two of my friends, Mark and Mary, are getting married in November. That makes me smile, as I was sort of indirectly involved in the two of them getting together.
Back in my early days with the SCA (1995 -- a banner year for me, have you noticed?), I was a notorious flirt. (Okay, I still am, but that's beside the point.) I had new crushes every week. One of my most enduring crushes, that spring, was for Mark, who I've since discovered, is a sort of template for the type of guy who always catches my eye (although definitely not the only type): tall, usually wears glasses, longish dark hair, soft through the tummy (I confess, that's my biggest weakness, I don't know why), you get the idea. Ann Arbor has no shortage of guys who fit this template. Another reason to be glad I'm back. Anyway, I digress. So I had my eye on Mark all spring. We flirted, went out once or twice. He was torn, because there was another girl he sort of liked too: Mary.
For a while there, he went out with both of us, but for various reasons, it became apparent that she was a better match for him than I was. (See? They might never have realized that if it wasn't for me! *grin*) They moved in together about a year or so later, and somewhere in there the three of us lost touch. Flash forward to last year. The Tannahill Weavers were in concert at the Ark in Ann Arbor, and I managed to drag myself there to meet another friend. I ran into Mark and Mary and found out they were engaged. After much hugging and congratulating, Mary said, "Do you remember that song you sang at Joe and Dana's [two other SCA friends, natch] wedding? I'd really like you to sing it at ours."
Did I remember? Hoo boy. Joe and Dana's wedding was one of the best weekends I've ever had in my life. The fact that I got to sing a solo and got all sorts of compliments from strangers on it was only the icing on that particular wedding cake. To be asked to sing it again? Wow. So I told her yes, and we promptly lost touch again, until a few weeks ago.
Mary called to get my address for her wedding shower this month. "Did you want still want me to sing?" I asked her. "Yes, definitely! Do you still have the recording of the song?" I did, and I told her so. I grinned for the rest of the afternoon. Last night I went searching for the tape with the song on it. The tape is a mix tape that Joe and Dana gave everyone doing the music for their wedding -- as all of us learned the music by ear. My particular song is by an artist called Kemper Crabb, but damned if I know what the name of the song is. Web searches didn't tell me anything. It's a cappella, which I always adore. It starts out with just one voice, then two more voices add, one at a time, with each verse. Then the last verse is also completely solo.
It's beautiful. The harmony is very unusual -- and very tricky. Sometime between now and November, I need to track down two more singers with very good ears, and I need to see if I can either find written music or transcribe it myself, because it'll be tough to learn the harmony solely by ear. Or, barring that, I could just do it solo, but the harmony is just amazing.
I'm very happy to be doing this. I love singing at weddings. Gary and I used to do it all the time. (Added romance: the married couple that performs together at weddings. Feh. I do miss him sometimes, just for stuff like that.) Between singing with him and singing with the SCA, I've easily sung at a dozen or so. So much for me being a cynic, I suppose.
Just... don't tell anybody, would you? I'm supposed to be the curmudgeonly one about weddings. It'd ruin my rep if it got out that I'm really a terrible romantic. ;-)
Posted by Lisa at August 3, 2000 02:32 PM
