# 47 The healing effects of singing...

Yet another blogging milestone...
I've officially reached more than 3000 all-time views on my blog! Isn't that impressive? For those of you who "forgot" to send gifts and congratulations and cards and money last week when I posted my 100th blog, now is your time to make up for it. 3000 is a BIG number! I'm super proud of it, although, to be fair, I'm not exactly sure how blogger counts page views-- I mean, if I view a page, click over to view a comment and then go back to the blog page, does that count as two? I'm not really sure. Adding to my confusion is that last night, before leaving the office at like 8, I saw that I was still 12 views shy of 3000, but now this morning, I'm at 3013. Perhaps there was a run of views late last night? Or, more likely, Blogger adds each page total at midnight, so in essence, I was probably already over 3000 yesterday. Regardless, I'm sure there is a plaque or something in the mail and flowers will be delivered soon. I'm waiting.

In a effort to celebrate my latest milestone, and in keeping with my more recent "nostalgic" posts, I'm posting one of my favorite pictures of all time. I have lots of great pictures. The picture of an 8 year old Emilee, sitting on her bed in El Dorado with coke bottle-sized glasses holding her teddy bear; the picture of my mom, my Aunt Ju and my Aunt Jane at Easter sometime in the late 80s with blouson dresses and hair that reaches to the heavens; the picture of my dad at my dorm in college wearing a sweater Bill Cosby would envy; the picture of Betsy standing on my parents bed wearing a LHS t-shirt of my dads with one sleeve off the shoulder and bright colored heels singing; the picture of Nicholas, as a small, angelic blond child in my room, surrounded by my high school memorabilia, in an effort to "recreate" my Senior portrait; the picture of my college girls taken at the football game our freshman year (see previous blog); the self-portrait of Katherine and I sitting in Bath, England, with no makeup and uncombed hair looking happier than we've ever been; any picture of Parker, etc. All of these pictures make me happy.

But there is one picture that might be my most favorite picture of all time so I'm posting it here in celebration of my blogging achievement so you can enjoy it as well:

I love it for a lot of reasons. First off, it reminds me of many of the great times I had in law school with my great friends. Most of you know how much I enjoyed law school, but I mostly enjoyed it because I thought I'd hate it-- everyone had warned me how awful it would be, how much I'd hate the other people in my classes, how I'd make no friends, etc. So, it was a refreshing surprise for me to make such great friends and have such great memories since I'd resigned myself to a life of studying and watching Law and Order for 3 years.

I like this picture because you can see my karaoke machine there in the background-- that karaoke machine was the subject of many great times. I love me some karaoke. I've carried that thing around in the back of my trunk for many, many years (though its not sitting in the bottom of my Harry Potter closet), and I've had many a good party with that thing, usually at Katherine's house, but there was one time at our apartment with me, Shannon and Penny just sitting around singing for hours with no microphone needed.

Another good thing about this picture is that you can actually read the words to "Build Me Up, Buttercup" on the screen. I'm not sure how that particular song became my theme song of law school or even why I love it so much, but I do. Its my most favorite song. Its been sung dozens of times in Katherine's living room (both Oxford and Madison), in bars and restaurants across California, Memphis, Arkansas and England, in many different vehicles and, in a very moving rendition, in a large group sing-along at a camphouse on Pickwick Lake.

That song brings back so many memories and, no matter what I'm going through, how bad my day is, if I switch on the radio and hear it, I HAVE to sing at the top of my lungs and I finish the song with a smile. I love it. I'm not sure there will ever be a song that will mean more to me than that one.

Which brings me back to this picture. This is sometime during law school, probably second to third year. And we are singing Build Me Up, Buttercup. There are other pictures from this night but this is my all-time favorite. I love that we are singing our favorite song and that you can obviously see the enjoyment on our faces. Especially Katherine. I personally have no problem singing just about any song, if I know the words or not. I'm not shy and I have a REALLY loud voice. But Katherine is shy and sometimes she wouldn't want to make a fool of herself and sing like an idiot. Shocking. But, always when our song came on, she would join in!

So, in the background you see me and Katherine singing out little hearts out. We are happy, in that moment. I'm also pleased that you can see some of Katherine's house-- many, many memories were made there and many heart-to-heart talks were had on that couch, so its nice to see.

But more important that our singing is what is going on in the foreground. That's my friend Penny and Sherrod. Sherrod's favorite hobby is picking Penny up and moving her around. It really is. He was all the time swinging her around and making her dance with him and all sorts of stuff. So, I love that he has now picked her up OFF THE GROUND, turned her upside down and has a serious devilish grin on his face. And while Penny may look like she's smiling, she was actually shrieking and begging for him to let her down. All less than a foot from me and Katherine. And yet we did NOTHING, not one thing, to help our friend. It makes me happy (and a bit sad) that we were so very much into singing our song that we totally ignored the harassment that took place before us. That's why I love this picture. Penny, I'm sorry that I totally ignored your pain. But, its a really good song.

NOTE: No Penny's were hurt in the making of this picture.