14 July 2006

Karaoke Macht Frei

I did not anticipate 13 July 2006 to go down as it did. Seven months ago, I expected to be on the way to someplace like Lake Geneva for a romantic birthday celebration. Up until yesterday, I expected to be all wallowing and depressed-like. It wound up being the most fun I’ve had outside my circle of friends since the Navy.
A co-worker in Hell invited we fellow sufferers to her birthday celebration, which was to be at Friar Tuck’s, where there would be karaoke. I had several reservations about this. First off, music is a faith, and karaoke is a cult. Secondly, Friar Tuck’s is in the heart of where M and I would hang out. And, it was going to be on her birthday. So I was going to go back to where I hung out with my ex on her birthday. Yeah, you’re getting the creeps too, right? Has this ever happened to you? If it has, you know why I was just going to back out.
But the co-worker called to see if I was going, and being totally whipped by the female population as a whole, I said “Yes’m. I’ll be there.” I probably don’t have to mention that she’s cute, do I?
So I leave, and take the Brown Line to get to Wellington instead of the Red Line to get to Belmont. The Red Line is a lot faster to Belmont than the Brown is to Wellington, for those not in the know. But Red Line-Belmont is also “How Your Hero Got to M’s Place,” so we decided to skip that little train wreck down memory lane and choose a wholly different route. But I underestimated how much walking M and I did around there, since everything triggered a memory that hurt. I round the corner of Wellington and Broadway, across the street from Bobtail, a great little sundae shop that we frequented. I decided, fuck it, this is going to happen all night. I’m going home. But I see the co-worker outside the bar, and she has a cute friend with her, K, and I decide that there is only one way to go, and that is to embarrass the shit out of myself in front of cute ladies and total strangers. You know, as per usual.
I had some drinks, a lot of great conversations, sang a Nickelback song to roaring applause, hung out with another cool co-worker D (who rocks an Otis Redding tune better than any white man has a right to), met several pretty girls who were drunk enough to find me interesting and/or attractive, and… (drum roll, please)….


I didn’t think about M once.

For the first time in seventeen months, she was not the first thing on my mind. I smiled not because of a memory that is now bittersweet, but because of the joy of the moment, of the instant it happened, with no reference to anything I have been through over the last two years.
It was a long train ride home, and the Princess had licked a hole in the rug (don’t underestimate the power of the Princess’s tongue; it has knocked down large adults), but I slept soundly, dreamed deeply, and woke up smiling.
I take back most of the bad stuff I have said about karaoke. For last night, karaoke was liberation. Karaoke made me free.

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