Going “freelance” this month past has afforded me a lot of time on my hands. Too much time that I, one weekday morning that should have been otherwise spent in my office if boss from hell didn’t enter the picture, find myself entering a videoke lounge in a mall with my sisters. This reluctance, which did not go unnoticed by my sisters, made them wonder if I was really part of the kin, as this recreation didn’t exactly end up in my list of 10 Things To Do if I Were To Die Happily. But it was during this little excursion that I found out it was more than lack of genetic interest—it was more of a maniacal fear. Now I know about my hopeless stage fright, and that one of the reasons I’m inclined to writing is to make up for the fact that I could never be a public speaker. But I could not exactly fault my sisters for finding it absurd when I finally told them I wouldn’t sing because I was “shy.” Yes, I was deathly scared to sing in front of people I’ve been with all my life—and that’s literal—my own flesh and blood. It’s one thing to know you’re scared, but to know how absurd the fear is? A different matter altogether. Kind of like waking up from a full-color nightmare after insisting on a marathon session of horror flicks. I somehow find comfort in the fact that this fear, no matter how senseless, is not unlike my travel channel hero’s, who has a lifelong phobia of karaoke. So the same night I took out my DVD copy of No Reservations' Korea episode, feeling less freakish because someone out there—and no less than my hero himself—understands my irrational dread.
But if you’re absolutely hell-bent on passing that mic to me, it just might help if you have enough alcohol handy.
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A bit late, but I just have to. Right on target; he is forever immortalized by his works:
"It is a very mixed blessing to be brought back from the dead."
-Kurt Vonnegut
