Here’s a fact about me: I’ve always had a strong tendency to avoid anything that might cause people to look at me. I get very uncomfortable when I’m being looked at, especially when I’m talking. I’m also very self-conscious of how I appear to other people. It’s a super-fun combo I inherited from my sweet mother, may she rest in peace. I know all the reasons why I shouldn’t give a shit about what other people think of me, but when I get inside my head, knowing ends up being quite a bit less than half the battle.

Here’s another fact about me: even though I hate being looked at, I fucking love singing karaoke. That fact makes no sense to me, but here we are. The first two times I seriously considered singing karaoke were in 2005 – once at a wedding reception, the other at a bar in Austin. I chickened out on both occasions because the first singer of the night ended up being an extremely intimidating act to follow. When I moved back home from Texas in summer of 2006, I rented a room in a piece of shit house just south of campus with three friends who happened to be looking for a fourth housemate. One of those friends was Katie. We’ve been friends pretty much since the day we met, in the summer of 2000. We’ve been through a lot of shit together, and she’s still one of my favorite people on this doomed planet.

One of the shits we’ve been through together several times is karaoke. She became a regular at a lot of the karaoke spots in town while I was away, so when I moved into the house, she talked me into going with her. I can’t remember how many times I attended before I worked up the nerve to sing, but I do remember that my first time was a duet with Katie. We sang “Jackson” by Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash on the stage at the Bluebird, and I completely shit the bed. I mean I botched it good, brothers and sisters. I was mortified, and I vowed I’d never do it again.

I don’t remember when I next did it again, and I don’t remember what I sang that night, but the next solid memory I have is nailing “I Am, I Said” by Neil Diamond in front of an enthusiastic crowd at the Office Lounge (aka “The Orifice” by some of the classier locals, some of whom I’m proud to call my friend). I’ve given my fair share of bad performances (you’d never believe how hard it is to sing “Centerfold” by J. Geils Band unless you tried it yourself), but I have waaaaay more memories of super fun times, like “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath (several times), “Bring the Noise” by Public Enemy & Anthrax, and “Jackson” again, this time with my mom, at my brother’s wedding reception. Singing “Man in the Box” by Alice in Chains with a live band two years ago was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life.

Another fact about me: I enjoy drinking alcoholic beverages, particularly hard cider and bourbon. I like the way they make me feel, and I like the way they taste. I don’t drink to excess nearly as much as I used to, and – not coincidentally – I also don’t go out for karaoke nearly as much as I used to. The one through line in my karaoke saga, regardless of how I performed, is alcohol, drank to excess. I know there’s nothing remarkable about that – most people who sing karaoke in bars and/or at parties are under the influence of alcohol. That’s technically an assumption, but all of my anecdotal evidence over the past twenty years points to it being a fact about karaoke.

Here’s one more fact about me: back in early February I told my therapist (and myself) that I was gonna work up the nerve to sing karaoke sober before the end of this calendar year, as a way to avoid my avoidance coping tendencies. In May I learned that Katie – who quit drinking a few years ago – also has never sang karaoke 100% sober. Katie has a birthday soon, so we decided to go out for sober karaoke somewhere in the vicinity of her birthday to celebrate.

Cut to: tonight I’m gonna stand up in front of a crowd, 100% sober, and I’m gonna sing, just to prove to myself that I can do it. Just because I really like to sing. Just because I fucking can. It might be a disaster, but at this exact moment, I’m feelin pretty goddamn good about it. No matter how it goes, I’ll almost definitely write about it later. Maybe I’ll even share it here. We should be so lucky.

Thanks for reading. If you have any friends, maybe they’d like to read it too. You never know unless you try.