Karaoke Nation

"Excitable boy, they all said..." -Warren Zevon

The looks of horror on some faces blended nicely with the growing discomfort on others as I warbled my first song of the night to the dimly-lit martini lounge. The lanky karaoke master, my friend's ex-ex-ex-ex boyfriend, shook his head solemnly as the song unfolded and my smile grew. As the 12-measure break hit, I boogied with ridiculous enthusiasm and drew a reluctant "woo" from a kind spectator, even as my friend tried to bury herself in her Belgian boyfriend's arms out of shame. It was karaoke night at the Indian Pearl!

As I left the stage a single middle-aged man rushed up to shake my hand. "Great song!" He declared before being silenced by his group's discomfort. That's the way to start it off! Controversial! I could tell already that karaoke and me were going to get along. Thus started my latest hobby: yet another activity improved by alcohol unless cameras are present. What is it about me and damning evidence?! But my intro was by no means the worst affair of the night. Shortly thereafter my love-struck friend and I teamed up to butcher a song called "I want to have you babies"...I'm starting to suspect a hidden message in there...hmmm.

What I truly love about karaoke is the wheedling aspect: it contains all the fun of haggling without the need to spend money or fend off tiny aggressive Chinese women! Somehow convincing others to sing when they insist they're terrible brings me great joy. And, oh, the musical tragedies I have instigated! The damage for the night was:

"Excitable Boy" by Warren Zevon: the tale of a disturbed man who rapes and kills a girl and eventually builds a cage with her bones.

"I wanna have your babies" by Natasha Bedingfield. ...I don't get it.

"Fever" by Peggy Lee. Performed with a shy stranger who wouldn't sing any other way.

"Bitch" by Meredith Brooks. Another duet! Oh, the college memories!!! Every woman thinks this is 'her song' at some point in life.

"Something to talk about" by Bonnie Raitt. Solo-butchering this one- mmmm, tasty.

"Other Side" by RHCP. A HS flashback; people sang along this time but I couldn't decide if that was to drown me out.

"Summer Loving (dirty version)" aka 'That song from Grease'...performed with a complete stranger who blushed just about as much as I did :-)

Overall assessment of the night: good times! I now sing in public! No worries, though, they're insured.

I'm not that kind of girl!

"The first duty of everyone in life is to realize that they're a piece of shit...Once you realize you're a piece of shit it's not so hard to take, because then you don't have this feeling that you're a good person all the time." - Kenny Shopsin

Throughout the years, my father has given me several pieces of advice. They are delivered casually and without much emphasis, but never fail to swell in my mind into gigantic, philosophical statements of life. When he told me during ping pong, "You've always got more time than you think you do" he unwittingly gave me a calming mantra in times of stress and pressure. I repeat these gems often as if quoting Shakespeare, but I doubt my audience is as impacted as his. This week's topics stems from one of those quotes: "Anyone is 'that kind of person' given the right situation."

Now, to a gal who has grown up by the book, this idea immediately clashed with my brain when I heard it. I had always been the over-achiever, the stereotypically good girl, and it was something I rather prided myself on. But this new idea meant that I could be as foul as any other person given the needed factors. I didn't want to think it was true at first, but, as usual, it has become a peaceful thought to me. My dad was essentially trying to bring me a sense of tolerance of wrong-doing; not for others, but for myself and the inevitable mistakes that lay in my future. Everyone can make a mistake, and there is no grand fall from a pedestal to mark the occasion...it is a simple part of life. None of us can stand the test of a rigid morality, especially if we think ourselves to be "good".

It can be an overwhelming duty to be a good person; and when a good person does something bad they have betrayed themselves. If you approach life with the idea that you're flawed (as we all are!) then the good deeds are a bonus and the bad ones are simply something to learn by. No guilt, no self-recrimination, just life.

But, if that were the norm, I've no idea how Catholicism would work...

Home-Wreckers aka Relationship Opportunists

Continuing from last week's article we have the second type of relationship coward: the home-wrecker. The home-wreckers of tomorrow are born during the quarter-life years! Why the sudden scourge? A variety of factors conspire to make it so:

1)People are coupling up! A greater percentage of the opposite sex is married or otherwise occupied. This increases the chances of liking someone in a relationship.

2)The date-able age range has expanded in breadth to include older men & women who have been on the market longer and likely found someone to settle with. Their greater experience has also allowed them to get comfy in their situation and more susceptible to a home-wrecker's fresh influence. After all, it's still flattering to be desired.

3)Lastly, quarter-lifers haven't learned to reign in those impulses that destroy relationships. Many operate emotionally, reasoning that their prey is unhappy and would be better off leaving their significant other.

So! We've got increased opportunity without morals. Or rather, the highest moral is held to be “love”. The self-aware home-wrecker knows what they are doing and doesn't care; these people often do not think far beyond the acquisition of their prey and live more for that initial thrill of attraction. The self-deluded home-wrecker, on the other hand, truly believes they are liberating their prey; they tell themselves that if this person were truly happy they wouldn't interfere....which is utter bull. No one breaks up a relationship for selfless reasons.

Girls, I don't care if his girlfriend is a frigid, arrogant cow who communicates in blinks (which would be a tricky way to convey arrogance, by the way); you're not acting for him, you're acting for your own self-interest. If a home-wrecker truly cared about the person they pursued, they would not bring on so much pain and self-recrimination onto their mark's head by breaking up a relationship. Who are they hurting? The very person they claim to fight for.

Maybe those who “follow their hearts” need to listen a little closer....because I don't think true affection could ever warp a life the way these people do.

Monkey-Barring: the Coward's Escape Plan

I don't know why people find it so hard to act on logic sometimes. Personally, when I see a problem, be it social or practical, I try to remove the emotion from it and act towards the best solution for all parties involved. Or, if that's not possible, then the solution best for the most people. But this doesn't seem to be the case for the world at large. I hear "I'll do what my heart tells me" more than I ever thought possible; and with some of the most disastrous consequences!

Maybe it's Hollywood or faerie tales, but what makes people think that “following your heart" will lead you to the best results? Is it right because it will feel the best? That's more another organ's area of expertise. Doing the wrong thing feels good, people! Otherwise there'd be no problem in avoiding it. Applying this frustration to today's topic should be fairly easy as I have silently raged against it for ages: monkey-barring.

What is monkey-barring? About a year ago my friend, Ann, pulled off one of the most blatant monkey-bars I've ever seen. Ann had been dating Mike for 8 months and was increasingly dissatisfied. She claimed to love him, but was often uncertain of his feelings towards herself and was always craving more from him. Then she met Roger through a friend of ours. Roger liked Ann immediately, and began to pursue her. Even though Ann was committed to Mike, she encouraged these advances, claiming she “liked the attention.” After a month of Ann trying to make Mike jealous, he discovered some rather incriminating emails and stormed out. Ann called him and officially broke it off and, a year later, she and Roger claim their anniversary as the day Mike stormed out.

So what did Ann do? When someone is in a relationship and decides they want to leave but is too afraid to do so without having another guy/girl lined up, they are monkey-barring. On the playground, you don't let go of the first rung until you've got the second firmly in your grasp. Monkey-bar-ers swing from one person to the next, emotionally cheating if not yet physically, and never for a moment live their lives as a single person.

The situation is fair to no one. The little monkey gets to escape loneliness and a period of self-reflection, but immediately drowns themselves in adapting to another person; their personalities are fairly fluid and mold to any new lover's needs. The first rung loses their lover to another man/woman without much warning...which comes as a considerable blow because monkeys rarely communicate their dissatisfaction in a relationship to their partner. The second rung seemingly gets what they want: the monkey (who seems oh-so-perfect for them). Unfortunately, they also inherit the additional emotional baggage of the scared monkey and they know from the beginning how inconstant their new partner is. You can't trust someone who has cheated with you to not cheat on you in the future.

The cure to this behavior? Man up! Grow a set! Know thyself. Don't be afraid to be single! Desperation may make monkey-barring seem an attractive option but you're not doing any favors, least of all to your heart.

(See next week's follow-up article: Home-wreckers!)

The Diversified Love Life

Now, you may be afraid I'm going to launch into a rant about the benefits of sleeping around or, shall we say multitasking, with members of the opposite sex. You know me so well! But fear not, for I'm not advocating anything of the kind with this title. Let me explain what I mean by diversified love life.

By this point in life most of us have been in love once; maybe you met them in college or have dated them since high school, but there has been somebody to scale your walls and get under your skin. If you're not on the marriage train, or close to it, then you have broken up. (My condolences.) As one of the masses who has loved and lost that first person, I know something about young love: it exists in its own world.

Young love is a self-sustaining ecosystem in which the lovers don't need anyone else. Friends fade, individual hobbies die, and that hip-sewing surgery is successfully completed (Though this does complicate pants-purchases.). What this means for a break-up, though, is that you not only lose your lover, you also lose your best friend, partner-in-crime, confidant, and playmate. Which leaves you more alone than a BO-ridden teenager at a high school dance.

So how do we avoid this fate in the future? We diversify! As we enter new relationships we actively seek to set up our own life separate from our partners.

Think of people as little squares of crepe paper. Now, draw a shape in your mind that represents your emotional, social, and physical needs; any shape will do. And imagine all the people in your life as little squares of paper. The goal in life is to get your needs (represented in my mind by a porcupine on a unicycle) covered through friends, family, lovers, coworkers, etc. So as new people enter into your life their little square of paper is pasted onto your shape. No single person will fit your shape exactly, but they can contribute to covering it.

Applied to love, this idea means that no person can be your everything, despite your first relationship. So we date and love the people who are most crucial to us, and have friends and family to fill in the gaps.

I know this is how things evolve...but what would you say is the more sweet: variegated love or all-consuming?

Shades of Gray

It is said that people get softer as they age, that the fire they once burned with fades and that they, in a word: settle. But I think that this perception falls short of explaining what is actually happening to people. Over the last few years, the lessons I have learned that have made me a better person all had to do with seeing the shades of gray in life: forgiving those who've wronged you, pardoning the amoral, using sporks, etc. I don't mean losing a sense of what is "right" or "wrong," everyone will always have an opinion on that. I mean coming to acknowledge that there are more than 2 answers to any situation.

When I was younger, I either hated or loved everything. There didn't exist a middle ground. I hated smokers; I hated stupid people; I hated lies. Never mind that some stupid people are kinder and more impactful than many an arrogant smart person. It didn't matter that lies could save other's pain. Everything was so easily boxed in my mind. And I think it's part of "growing up" to lose those boxes and mellow out about things. It doesn't involve liking the things you hate, but it does require an acceptance that: 1) people have value despite their perceived negatives, and 2) the way you live your life isn't right for everyone else. How could it be with the staggering variety of people in the world?

Maybe it's an American thing, dividing the world into polarities: good/bad, light/dark, negative/positive. Even in language we operate with a mathematical form of logic. American English is the only language in the world where double negatives make positives. For example, "Can't not" means that you can. In any other language the double negative only reinforces the negativity of the phrase. Only in English can two wrongs make a right. Perhaps, it's that idea of math that causes our culture to look at things with such polarity...

So, yes, I guess you soften. But I like to think of it as recognizing the gradient in all things. Black, White, and a million shades of gray.

THE MEANING OF LIFE!

"All I can do is read a book to stay awake,
And it rips my life away but it's a great escape."
-Blind Melon, "No Rain"

Emerging from my book at the Atlanta airport, I begin a brief, but thoroughly noble, quest for the bathroom and marvel at how jarring reality can be. There I was in a seething mass of humanity with every individual as complex and wrapped up in their own lives as I am. Trying to fit the enormity of that into my head makes my mind rubbery - it's like trying to contemplate the size of the universe or the number of rogue hairs in an old man's ears. If I was a machine I'm sure I'd be spitting out an infinite loop error; and like a machine the only cure is a couple of quick slaps to the head: RESET! Ah, much better.

Back to the point, though: there are moments in every person's life where they realize how truly small they are. Most of the time we are happy to be the center of our own little world, but when faced with a view of the forest some basic questions begin to bother. How does a person make their one life meaningful when everyone else is out to do the same? And who does it have to be meaningful to? Will you be remembered as the person who lived a "full life" and spat out a bunch of babies? The inventor? The philanthropist? The villain? Or, even worse: not remembered at all? The fact we all have to resign ourselves to is that we will die and be forgotten. No one lives forever, neither in memory nor in body, and that's the truth of it. The seasons still pass and the sun will shine on - so what do we do while it happens to be shining on us?

Life in a story is a lie! It's too perfectly encapsulated and purposeful; which is very likely the appeal of them in the first place. So much of life feels like preparation for the big show. The classes and savings, in my mind, are but a groundwork for some untold adventure hidden in the murky future. The problem of life? It has no plot!

Why the Crisis?

Ah, quarter-life crisis! While it seems absolutely ridiculous for a person in their mid-20's to be obsessing about their age, we all go through it in our own fashion. Some boys and girls turn to casual sex, drugs, compensatory cars...while others turn introspective and philosophical while still honing their neuroses to a fine point. (The better to stab at other minds with!) Why does this happen? Well! It's the loss of training wheels, in my opinion.

Think about it. For the first 18-22 years of life we're set on a pretty rigid track; school and recreational activities give our lives structure while we're still shielded from reality by parents or academia. The first couple years of "real world" experience can be jarring and exhilarating. Free! Free at last! Free to stay up late, make mistakes, pay bills...all the good things. And for a couple years we roll in that freedom like happy puppies do on interesting smells. But we've still been trained to look for our track. Where is it? What's the next step? The problem is that the mid-20's is when we've reached the "under-construction" end of the line and it's our turn to drive some spikes. Now that we're looking for structure we have two options: 1) be original and set a unique life course, or 2) connect to the old rail-way with stop-overs in marriage and baby town.

So that's why my 20-something girlfriends look at babies and imagine their own uterus walking around on crutches; or why at weddings the bridesmaids smile in that wooden, should-have-been-me way. They're feeling the pressure of having a life without direction. It's time to figure things out! The quarter-life crisis mirrors the mid-life in many ways and I think the reasons are the same. While the mid-lifers have reached the end of the baby-line, the quarter-lifers are toeing it cautiously.

So that's what this blog is dedicated to: exploring the quarter-life crisis. If you've got any stories, I'd love to hear them. And remember, it's not actually a quarter-life crisis, because chances are we won't live that long!