wannabe

My brothers and I dreamed of becoming rock stars.

As kids we would put on some music (The Beatles, Queen, The Who) and pretend to rock out -- jumping up and down on my bed, singing at the top of our lungs, playing air guitar. Watching ourselves in the mirror the whole time, we would fine-tune our rock star moves. Louder and louder, we would work ourselves into a frenzy until our mom finally said, "Enough! Turn off the damn music!"

As we got older, Scott and Chris both turned their dreams into reality; as for myself, I came to realize that -- unfortunately -- some modicum of skill and talent is required to become a musician. So I turned to other pursuits, cheering my brothers on all the while and taking vicarious pleasure in their successes.

I've long suspected my husband of harboring the rock star dream too, like me (the difference being he can actually play guitar). So this year for Christmas I got him Guitar Hero. It's a long way from jumping on the bed playing tennis rackets for guitars, but it offers the same premise: for an hour or so, we can be rock stars, even if the venue is only our living room.

So, here we go: "Hello Cleveland! Are you ready for ... The Spassers?!"