ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

Last night the most amazing thing happened to me! We went out to River Market Brewery and I was all grumpy for some reason and then I burned my hand on an appetizer and it actually hurt very badly and I started to cry, then a totally yucky pickle fell in my lap and stunk my pants up with pickle juice. Then the people at the restaurant revealed that it was karaoke night. I have always wanted to try karaoke because I love to sing in the car and whenever I’m at home alone, but I figured I would be too afraid because I am shy about that. Anyway, after maybe an hour of watching other people sing and stuff they began trying to make the people at our table get up to sing. Then the rest of us would provide backup from the table. So my boyfriend’s roommate sang Nothin’ But A Good Time after making my boyfriend’s best friend sing Friends In Low Places. Of her own accord, my roommate sang Ghost Riders In The Sky. Then after debating for about 20 minutes whether I would die from shyness if I got up there, I let my boyfriend’s roommate pick out Magic Man by Heart for me.

His roommate went right before me and while he was singing I kept sneaking sips out of his beer glass to raise my courage. I don’t like beer but this one wasn’t too bad and it made my throat feel a little less scratchy which was good because I was worried about my voice cracking or something, because Magic Man has a lot of wailing and high notes. There was another girl there that night who was really good and everybody was super impressed with her singing, so I was worried about looking stupid compared to her because I wasn’t sure if I could just laugh off and ham it up with a song like Magic Man if I sounded all shitty. At least she’d already left by then.

So I went down to sing my song and I was so scared that I was all shaky and had to hold on really tight to the microphone to keep from dropping it. I also had to pee very badly because of my nerves, and maybe because of the Jagermeister. The whole song was a blur but I sang it just the way I always do in the car, except with my eyes closed all tight for about half of it because I was so nervous. Then I remembered the lyrics are on the screen, so I opened my eyes up again after a while just in case I needed them. I realized partway through that I wasn’t screwing it up, so then it was sort of fun, except that it took me almost the entire song to relax enough to enjoy doing the screamy part at the end.

Anyway, when I got back to the table everybody was like wow and I was so proud because they were all so surprised, and so was I. “Wow, you rocked out!” my boyfriend’s best friend said, and his roommate said, “Shit, you really wailed!”, or maybe it was the other way around, but no matter. Later my boyfriend privately told me that he’d had no idea I could sing like that. My roommate said the same thing on the drive home. I felt absurdly pleased at their unexpected intensely positive reaction, like Cinderella or something, after she’s been discovered and gets all rich but before she marries the nice boring prince.

I’ve always wanted to have something amazing about myself that other people noticed and liked even if it wasn’t useful or practical for anything just by itself. My female friends, whatever their faults, have had lots of those things, like my scary ex-roommate was good at drawing and lots of people thought she was very pretty, and my roommate is very tall and slim and beautiful with great boobs and has stage presence and an amazing performing type of personality and likes to show off her personality and isn’t shy. I have usually been sort of the utilitarian side of every duo, the one who is smart but with the common sense my roommate sometimes lacks, and who cooks good suppers and is nice to people and knows the tactful thing to say and who is good at writing and explains how to use the fabric softener ball in the washing machine and is good at a lot of things that don’t show on first impressions. All this is okay and has kept me pretty happy, because my roommate and my boyfriend always tell me nice things and take care of me and my roommate always shares her portion of the spotlight with me when I want some of it. Not a lot of friends are good at doing this without making you feel second best, like you’re getting charity attention or something, but she is, so I never had to feel left out or bad about this at all. All the same, with such a prominently outgoing person for my best friend I know that in general I’m never going to upon cursory evaluation be the pretty one or the one who’s good at acting or the artistic one. This doesn’t really bother me because overall we’re on more than even footing with each other. It’s just that my roommate’s good at a lot of things that people notice right away, and I’m good at a lot of things that almost nobody notices unless they start to know me pretty well. This was okay though, because we complement each other well and I don’t waste a lot of time fretting over being the key grip instead of an actress in the movie of our life, because key grip is just as important even if nobody notices.

But a five minute song last night completely changed the way I feel about myself. Perhaps it’s melodramatic to say that accidentally doing an unexpectedly good Ann Wilson imitation on karaoke night at some restaurant has changed my outlook on life permanently, but I feel like a better, improved version of myself, more interesting and alive with potential than I was before. Maybe nobody will even be able to tell, but I’m all different on the inside somehow. Even if I never sing another song in front of anyone again, I will know forever that I have something amazing that people would notice and like about me if I chose to show them. I know this because people who have known me for a long time but who aren’t my roommate and my boyfriend were startled and amazed and said so, and even though his roommate and best friend wouldn’t have been mean if I’d sucked badly, they probably would have just said I was brave and good job and left it at that. And because singing isn’t as practical as something like knowing how to bleach the laundry without ruining it or how to poach an egg or get mineral deposits off the tub faucet, I will know that people who notice it and like it are enjoying the me part of it and not the utility part of it. So it’s not that I had a pit of unfulfillment or that I had a case of the second-best blues. It’s just that being told you’re a good singer feels a lot different from being told you’re a good cook, and it feels 100% nice how my friends have shown me that something I’ve always secretly wanted is actually something that I’ve had all along and never knew.

I like being the key grip, and pretty much always have. But I like it even better now that I know I have the option to be the actress sometimes if I want.